We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Linzy Collins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Linzy below.
Hi Linzy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I’m not actually sure what the *first* moment was, but I do remember wanting to be known for what I was passionate about from a young age. Before middle school, it was more acting related – I grew up a Disney kid and was practicing my best “I’m Linzy and you’re watching Disney channel” voice and my complimentary imaginary wand waving in the mirror several times throughout my elementary school years.
It wasn’t till I was around 11 years old that my interest in music became more and more apparent. I started writing songs, I wanted to learn as many instruments I could, and eventually even went so far as taking my language requirements outside of school so I could be in more choir and band classes.
There was no singular moment where it clicked for me that I wanted to be a professional musician, but by the time I reached high school, I’d become solidified in my innate understanding that I always *would* be a musician, regardless of if I’d be lucky enough to make an entire career out of it. It became especially clear as I approached graduation and realized I was alone amongst my peers in my assuredness of the life I wanted. I had no idea so many of my friends didn’t feel like they had a clear path.
Once I realized how rare it is to feel confident, passionate and driven about the life you want for yourself, I gave into the inevitable and applied to music school. I didn’t know what *exactly* I wanted to do, but I knew I wasn’t gonna settle for any career that wasn’t related to music because I knew how unhappy I’d be. Luckily, my parents have been unconditional in their support of me from the beginning, and have always encouraged me to take whatever I love most and do everything I can to make a career out of it.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
It’s probably most accurate to say I’ve been a lover girl since birth. I’ve always been interested in romance, adventure and creativity, and it seems whatever fates there are decided those interests might compliment the work of a budding artist. My parents say I’ve been singing since I could talk, especially very loudly in bookstore bathrooms as a kid, and my fascination with music was apparent to everyone around me years before I ever picked up an instrument or wrote a song.
I loved writing short stories and poetry as a kid, so at eleven, I took the natural leap into lyric writing. I loved it immediately and continued to write with vigor, and along with it, I taught myself guitar and piano. I couldn’t read music at the time, so my dad taught me as much as he could on piano, and what he didn’t know, we learned together through YouTube videos. Around the age of twelve, I started teaching myself how to use GarageBand and learned how to be my own recording engineer for the various covers and arrangements I made for fun. By the time I graduated high school, I was the ultimate American choir-band-theater nerd; I’d written enough songs to fill a few albums, learned clarinet and trombone and played both in my high school’s pep band, performed in several talent shows and choir concerts, eventually learned to read music and knew how to be a front-woman for a band.
Pretty much from day one, or as early as I could register what having a passion actually meant, it’s felt like music has always been the thing for me. I knew it and could feel how excited I was to learn as much as I could, and it’s honestly been a core part of my personality. I literally notice a decline in my mental health if I go too long without writing something new or even just sitting down with an instrument and just playing for fun. As a kid, I was drawn to various mediums of art, dance and photography, and still am to this day, but there was never a question in my mind that music was my first love and would be a life-long pursuit.
The choice for music school was an obvious one for me, but not so much in the ways it would challenge me. Coming out of twelve years of small private schools as one of the only people pursuing music seriously from a young age, I’d felt like a big fish in a small pond for long enough that I was starting to get cocky. So the transition to a liberal arts school where I was suddenly surrounded by so many other talented people was intimidating in a way I hadn’t yet experienced. It humbled me, and started taking the advice of my mentors to let myself be intimidated by talented people but then actually get to know them too so I can continue to grow alongside them. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing ever since.
My entrance into the music industry was not at all what I would’ve expected. I grew up listening to my dad talk about his experiences in the world of broadcast television and how the connections he made in his early twenties are what ultimately lead to the career he has today, but I didn’t realize the importance of the capital N “Network” he talked about until my first few years after completing my undergrad. In fact, I didn’t realize that my experiences in art school would put me in a prime position to make all sorts of invaluable connections, including ones that have lead to several opportunities to work with some of the best musicians in Seattle.
As much as I’d love to be able to say that the path to a successful and fulfilling career is paved by hard work and sheer talent, my experiences have only shown me that it’s about who you meet along the way, in addition to hard work and sheer talent. It’s about being in the right place, at the right time, working with people whose careers are built by the fact that they were in the right place, at the right time.
In the fall of 2019, I started working part time as a door person for the Royal Room, a cozy venue/bar that hosts live shows almost every night of the week. Most of the shows I worked weren’t my particular cup of tea, so I’d usually be on my phone, but there was one night that the Royal Room hosted local singer-songwriter, Robbie Christmas. I couldn’t look away from the magic he made on stage that night, and I knew we had to meet. Robbie and I became fast friends and collaborators – he invited me to sing on several songs for the album he was working on within weeks of us meeting, and eventually introduced me to the world of playing live music for wineries. Throughout our friendship, we’ve cowritten a handful of songs, lamented over the fickle nature of the music industry, played several live shows together, including two at Seattle’s famed Triple Door venue, and just last year, I was invited to watch him get married to the love of his life. My initial entrance to Seattle’s music scene is thanks to Robbie, and to that immediate instinct in me that knew we needed to be friends.
I met producer, bandmate and good friend, Andrew Vait, in my sophomore year of art school, through one of my professors who brought Andrew in as a guest speaker to talk to my class about songwriting, production, and artist branding. We officially connected during my senior year, when he invited me to work with him and train as a production assistant. Later that same year, he invited me to be Christine McVie in a Fleetwood Mac Tribute he and his friends were starting (now known as The Little Lies). I didn’t know much about Fleetwood Mac or its respective members at the time, but I trusted Andrew enough to try on something new. We sold out our very first show, and in the last 4 years we’ve been together, we’ve played more than a handful of festivals to over 5,000 people who love the music of Fleetwood Mac as much as I now do.
Though the cast of musicians who were considered to be resident members of The Little Lies changed quite a bit in our first year together, it was at our very first promo shoot, months before our stage debut, that I met Nik Singleton. Besides being a monster talent that I’ve had the privilege of getting to know and work with, Nik is one of the sweetest and most genuine people I know, and just like Robbie and I, we became fast friends (she literally invited me to go ice skating the first day we met haha). Due to her own budding career as a songwriter and performer, she wasn’t with The Little Lies for long, but in the fall of 2022, she invited me to join a band she and her producer, drummer and long-time partner, Luke Dumke, were starting called Midnight High. It was to be a gorgeous blend of nostalgic synth-pop reminiscent of the 80’s, while simultaneously being dark and futuristic. While I was excited for her to finally embark on a long-standing dream of hers, I initially turned her down, thinking I wouldn’t have time to spare between working with The Little Lies and continuing to further my own original projects.
It wasn’t until January of 2023 that I realized how much I loved the music Nik was making and believed in the dreams she had for Midnight High, and additionally, the opportunities I’d miss out on by turning her down. I let Nik know immediately that I’d changed my mind, and thank god I did. We’ve played several shows around the city including local festivals Freakout! Fest, Bite of Seattle and Timberfest, and I got to do my first professional music video shoot with the band this last summer (stay tuned!). Besides having some of the most fun I’ve ever had on stage with Midnight High, we, as a unit, have become so much closer than I could’ve imagined. Not only do I get to play with some of the best musicians in Seattle, but I also get to call them my best friends. I don’t think any amount of networking advice from my dad could’ve prepared me for the reality of how lucky and rare it is to have a career filled with not just music, but people I love.
It might sound strange but I have two different channels I release music through: Linzy Collins and Dream Patrol. It was never my first idea and actually, Linzy Collins was the only channel I planned to release music through. But when covid hit, I found myself spending endless amounts of time on TikTok, marveling at the women in music who were producing for themselves, which, at the time, was mind-blowing for me. I learned that women only make up less than 5% of music producers worldwide, and as a young woman with an excitement for music production that made me feel more awake than I’d felt in a long time, I leaned all the way into it. I learned as much as I could and by the time I had a handful of ideas starting to simmer, I knew I’d need a separate channel to release these new songs through.
So Dream Patrol is where I get to fully take a turn in the driver’s seat and explore my love for electronic pop production, and is targeted toward audiences that wanna have fun dancing and partying with me. Dream Patrol is also where I push myself to not hide behind my instruments, as I so often tend to do, and allow myself to take up space on stage solely as a singer and performer. Linzy Collins, on the other hand, is my acoustic singer-songwriter channel, which fits better for my audiences who find me through various winery and restaurant gigs. It’s where I get to be more vulnerable with my lyrics and where I get to explore my love for composing arrangements that fit in an acoustic setting.
Where Linzy Collins leans into more romantic storytelling, Dream Patrol leans more into the fun I wanna have with my audiences. And where Dream Patrol embodies the energy of being the unapologetic and badass woman in music that I aspire to be, Linzy Collins is where I really let people see my heart in a way that allows me to be my most vulnerable. They represent equal parts of my personality as a human, simultaneously soft and powerful, while also always aiming to be relatable.
Definitely the fact that I have two music channels, haha! I don’t know anyone else who does that, especially cuz it keeps me doubly busy, so I think that’s something that makes me stand out.
I also think being in Midnight High *and* The Little Lies on top of two solo projects also makes me unique, if not a little unhinged for keeping myself so busy. I’ve met a handful of musicians that have been pretty adamant about not wanting to work on anybody’s music but their own and seemingly believing that sheer force of will would lead to success. I believed that for a while myself and felt that working on other people’s music would only take my focus away from my own. Which, while not entirely untrue, really undermines the fact that collaboration can lead to amazing opportunities that may catapult you further towards the career you want.
My ongoing collaborations with The Little Lies and Midnight High have not only given me several chances to engage with the music community in Seattle on several occasions, to the point where I’m now a recognizable player in the scene, but its also lead people to find my Linzy Collins and Dream Patrol projects that they might not have found *without* seeing me play with one of my bands. It’s a different route than I believe a lot of aspiring solo artists are willing to take, and I see my time with The Little Lies and Midnight High as investments that, to the untrained eye, may seem like I’m going in a completely different direction than I’d intended, but ones that I wholeheartedly believe will have a significant payoff down the line (not to mention that they’re investments I’m having a blast devoting time too as well).
Although I often underestimate myself in this, one of the things I’m most proud of is how patient I’ve learned to be. I worked at Whole Foods for 5 years through college and a little bit after, and there were so many times I wanted (and planned) to quit but the timing never worked out. In January and February of 2020, I was making enough money from the amount of gigs I was playing that I was super close to being able to finally leave the service industry, but covid hit shortly after and ultimately kept me from leaving.
I started teaching voice and piano at a music school in Seattle via a friend’s recommendation in March of 2023 and gradually opened up more teaching days while also working my grocery job, until this time last year when I suddenly realized, based on how much I’d opened up my teaching schedule, I didn’t need Whole Foods at all anymore. My last shift was on January 2nd of this year and since then, I’m extremely proud to say that 100% of my income comes from music, both as a music teacher and professional performer. I’m not a patient person by nature, and there were countless times I’d come home from Whole Foods crying, both at how miserable I was there but also how discouraged I was over how I’d be able to build a career out of music.
Getting to quit a job I hated after so many years of waiting for the right opportunities to come along was massively satisfying, and it’s part of my story as as a musician that I’m most proud of: that the exercise in patience and perseverance ultimately paid off and that the waiting was more than worth it.
I mostly just want people to find my music, whether that be through Midnight High, The Little Lies, Dream Patrol or Linzy Collins, and know that it was made with love and passion. Especially in today’s age where we’re more connected online than we are in person, it can be really easy to separate the art from the artist; you don’t have to like or know anything about me to enjoy my music and you also don’t have to enjoy my music to like me as a person. But because I put so much of my heart into everything that I do, the main thing I want people to know about me is that I not only create to bring joy to myself, but to the people around me. I write about topics that are personal to me because I believe that making sure people know they’re not alone in their experiences, good or bad, is important. Plus, there’s already so much about life that’s complicated and worrisome, at the end of the day, I wanna make music that makes people feel good, even just for a moment.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I think one of the most rewarding aspects is the fact that I’m always going to be growing in my career. That idea used to scare the hell out of me because as a kid, I really romanticized being the absolute best at something. But as I’ve become an adult, and fallen in and out of love with my craft several times over, it’s the knowledge that everything I do is growth that keeps me coming back.
I’m never gonna be done learning how to write a perfect love song. I’m never gonna be done learning how to level up on the various instruments I play. I’m never gonna be done discovering my own feelings about the world and my experiences, and that’s part of what is so meaningful to me about music: you don’t have to run out of goals or dreams if you don’t want to because there’s always so many new ways to grow and expand and realize you’re not the absolute best at something.
What I didn’t know as a kid with big dreams that I know now as an adult with very similar but different big dreams, is that, at its core, creativity is not about being the absolute best anyway; it’s about finding joy in creation and collaboration, and the magic that can happen on the stage or in the studio when people come together to make something new.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
Absolutely, it’s actually one my parents encouraged me to always reach for when I first started dreaming about being a musician as a kid. They always told me that there are plenty of people in the world who choose a career that’s more financially stable and predictable over whatever they’re most passionate about, and while that can be fulfilling for some people, it can be soul-crushing for others, especially those with the heart of a creative.
Their hope for me was that I’d find whatever I love most and figure out a way to make money doing it, and luckily that hope has been at the forefront of all my goals as a musician for well over a decade. It’s the mission that I’d always hoped would pay off if I worked hard and was driven by enough passion, and thanks to the tireless work ethic my parents instilled in me, along with their unconditional support and encouragement of my dreams, I’m nothing if not hard working and entirely driven by passion :)
Now that I can officially say I make money doing what I love, that initial goal has evolved into an understanding that I have with myself; a way to check in with my heart, and make sure the projects I invest my time in, whether mine or others, are ones I genuinely enjoy and believe in.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dreampatrol
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/linzycollinsmusic
- Other: Linzy Collins instagram: https://www.instagram.com/linzycollinsmusic
Dream Patrol spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4e4O6SMWsDQCogTkm8mBdc?si=zSyRM7DVThuNTfEzKKws-w
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/linzycollinsmusic
Image Credits
Brittne Lunniss, Bella Petro