If one were to describe Bill Collins’ more than twenty-five years’ musical career, the labels Roots-Rock or Punk would almost always fit.

Born in Germany and moving to the U.S. at age ten, he started out playing Roots music in Montana bars until moving to the San Francisco Bay Area where his first band of note "Wolvarines" included former Dead Kennedys drummer Bruce Schlesinger and bassist Hector Penalosa of San Diego’s Zeros (sometimes called the Mexican Ramones). Bill and Hector went on to form Roots band "Wildcat Crew", a Rockabilly-Country outfit who would go on to perform with Chris Isaak’s early band Silvertone and the Post-Punk Country stylings of Rank and File.

Bill was infected by the excitement of the Punk movement and in1982 made his first record as a member of Punk group Intensified Chaos, whose self-titled single was chosen to open America’s arguably most influential Punk compilation, Maximum Rock and Roll’s "Not So Quiet On The Western Front", a 47- band double LP that included practically every influential hardcore punk band in Northern California and Nevada at that time.

For a long time Punk became Bill’s main focus. Bands of note include Special Forces, Fang and MDC, the latter two of which Bill toured with extensively, playing in fifteen countries and forty-four U.S. states. Also, he was a guest performer with many great Punk bands including Operation Ivy, Christ on Parade, Verbal Abuse, Hell’s Kitchen and Capitol Punishment.

Moving to the East Coast in the nineties, Bill found that life sometimes imitates art when his life turned into a Country song, and quit his current Punk Band, Baltimore Foot Stompers to join Roots-Rockers "Big Bad Johns" who shared bills with the likes of Dave Alvin, Southern Culture on the Skids, Mojo Nixon, and Big Sandy and his Fly-Right Boys.

After Big Bad Johns’ demise, Bill moved into the front man position, forming "The Swaggerts". The Swaggerts play Roots Rock with a Punk edge and have two Nashville-recorded full-length CDs under their belt, both of which placed in the Roots-Rock/Americana charts top 100 (the first reaching number 43). The Swaggerts have toured from Toronto to New Orleans and performed with Dick Dale, Link Wray, Hank Williams III, Elvin Bishop, Graham Parker, The Amazing Crowns and The Manchurians. The Swaggerts having the afore-mentioned "edge" also fit well with certain harder-edged bands, having shared the stage with bands like The Reducers, The Swinging Neck Breakers and Punk bands Broken and Three-Finger Demon.

Although still a Swaggerts member, Bill has been enjoying the intimacy of solo performances for some time. Bill has performed most recently with Jason Ringenberg (of The Scorchers). Some highlights of Bill’s solo performances include playing all-Irish support sets for Irelands legendary Clancy Brothers (twice), taking the stage at the BOB Festival in ’98 to close the show after Punk greats Citizen Fish with a solo electric rendition of the Slime cover "Bullenschweine" (in German) and opening for local greats Velvetone in Bremen in 04’.