Bassist Bootsy Collins Stages His Return

For William (Bootsy) Collins, the idea of playing a funky comic-book hero lost its appeal during the 1980s.

Now, more than a decade after his last tour as one of the key figures in Parliament-Funkadelic’s comically outrageous, larger-than-life stage extravaganzas of the 1970s, the flamboyant bassist has stars in his eyes again.

“I made up my mind I’ve been off long enough,” said Collins, 39, whose signature stage look still features star-shaped sunglasses and basses. “I’m hungry for the crowd again. I’m hungry for that touch again.”

Collins, who plays tonight at the Strand in Redondo Beach and Sunday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, was still a teen-ager when he became a member of James Brown’s backup band, the JB’s, where he served from 1969 to 1971. In 1972, Collins hooked up with George Clinton, the ringleader of Parliament-Funkadelic, the offbeat musical conglomeration that became the ‘70s’ most creative manufacturer of rock-laced funk.

Collins became a star in his own right in 1976 when Clinton promoted him to front man of Bootsy’s Rubber Band, one of the many spinoffs from the P-Funk “mothership.” But by 1982, P-Funk and Collins’ solo fortunes both had ebbed. So had his zest for performing.

“All my fun turned into work,” Collins, an easy, amiable talker with a ready chuckle, recalled in a recent phone interview from his home in Mt. Carmel, Ohio. “I was scared, ‘cause I didn’t know whether I wanted to (play live) or not again. The superstar role took me out of the reality of being with people, and it took a while to get that back again.”

Collins says some sessions he played with Malcolm McLaren, the Svengali behind the Sex Pistols, helped rekindle his enthusiasm. He also continued to back George Clinton on his solo albums. More recently, Collins has lent his bass or guitar to recordings by Keith Richards and the reggae duo of Sly & Robbie. The old comically chattering Bootsy can be heard adding laughs and vocal interjections on Deee-Lite’s hit, “Groove Is in the Heart.”

Collins’ most recent release, “Jungle Bass,” was a pure shot of dance-oriented funk, with the emphasis on simple vocal chants and sharp musicianship. On stage, he said, he isn’t about to transform his old image.

“I would say it’s way-out. I’ve got a few of the outfits I used to wear. I don’t think I ever want to just be bland,” he said.

Collins met Clinton, who was combining psychedelic guitar fireworks, R&B; grooves, ironic social commentary and hippie idealism, in 1972, and he knew immediately that they were made for each other. “Between my cartoon mind and George’s, we were both thinking the same thing. It was all a big joke. It was fun, and we just tried to get some laughs out of it. We were just having fun with these characters.” Collins thinks P-Funk’s demise after 1980 came from extending the conglomerate’s tentacles in too many directions. “We were doing so much. I think they call it burnout,” he said. But he also thinks the group’s arena-scale success had taken away some of the “hard edge of life” that’s a key to funk.

But P-Funk’s funk hasn’t really gone away. The band’s grooves and riffs, like James Brown’s and Sly & the Family Stone’s, have become common currency for rappers who build new music around parts cannibalized from funk’s classic warehouse.

Collins, who endorses the rap approach, professes no jealousy about supplying the raw material for newcomers’ hits at a time when he is trying to re-establish his own profile. He also sees the recent success of bands like Living Colour, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More, all of whom blend funk music with hard rock, as an indication of the value of P-Funk’s legacy.

“That in itself is inspiring. It lets us know that we were doing something right,” he said. “I think that (combination) is going to be around for a long time.”