Chris Collins is an American

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...

and

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

. He is best known as the first vocalist of the

progressive metal Progressive metal (sometimes shortened to prog metal) is a broad :Fusion music genres, fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven s ...

band Majesty, which later became

Dream Theater Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of the ...

The Majesty Days

Collins grew up on Long Island with fellow future Dream Theater members John Petrucci, John Myung and Kevin Moore. While those three went off to colleges to study music, Collins decided to join The United States Marine Corps. His enlistment in the USMC never happened however, the very week that he was supposed to go to boot camp he received a phone call from John Petrucci stating that they would like to record an album and that he should audition for the band. Collins recorded vocals for six tracks that the band made into their first demo tape, ''

The Majesty Demos ''The Majesty Demos'' are the first recorded attempts of progressive band Dream Theater, under their original name, Majesty. The original 1986 tape contained six tracks that were recorded on Mike Portnoy's analog 4-track recorder, and another 4 ...

''. Collins wound up frustrating his bandmates with his poor vocal range, bad live performances and on-stage behavior. Eventually Collins left the band and that led to a mutual decision to part company, citing that he was not an appropriate choice for lead vocalist and that the band would never be a success with him in it.

Later career

Collins has worked with local tributes such as Snowblind, Never Enough, Scorched Earth, Speak of the Devil, and Live After Death. Collins also recorded vocals for the US progressive metal band Oblivion Knight whose album, ''Oblivion Knight'', was released on Steel Legacy records. Oblivion Knight was the original band formed by now OSV bass player Steve Sexton.

References

External links

Myspace page

Entry at AllMusic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Chris Dream Theater members American heavy metal singers American male singers American rock guitarists American male guitarists Living people Record producers from New York (state) Singers from New York (state) Year of birth missing (living people) Guitarists from New York (state) Roadrunner Records artists