00:00Hi, I'm Ed Roland from the band Collective Soul, and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:12It's been 30 years since Georgia-born band Collective Soul stepped onto the noisy 90s
00:17rock scene. Their hard-hitting guitar riffs, introspective lyrics, and of course Ed Roland's
00:23gritty yet soulful vocals solidified their sound in the post-grunge era.
00:28To celebrate three decades of music, the guys are out on the road with old friends Hootie
00:33and the Blowfish and Edwin McCain for the Summer Camp with Trucks Tour. They've also released a
00:39double EP called Here to Eternity that they recorded at Elvis Presley's Palm Springs estate,
00:45the first band ever to do that since Elvis himself lived there. We caught up with Roland recently from
00:52his home in Atlanta to hear all about it and more. This is a Life Minute with Collective Soul's
00:58Ed Roland. Hi. Hi there. How are you? Good, thank you. Thanks so much for joining us on Life Minute.
01:11Oh no, thank you for having me. Is that a double vinyl? Let's see it. Yeah, look at there.
01:18All our pictures and all that fun stuff. Very proud of it. Well, we recorded at Elvis Presley's
01:26estate in Palm Springs. We knew the guys that owned it and Elvis had spent his last Thanksgiving,
01:32Christmas, birthday, and his last three albums were recorded in that house, but it had been
01:36dormant since he passed. They were about to redo it and I just asked. I was like, hey, can we have
01:41it for the month of January? This is 2023. And they're like, of course, go in there. There's
01:45nothing in there. I was like, we'll put stuff in there. We'll stage it. We've got furniture,
01:50rented furniture out there that made it look like the king was still there. Came in and just started
01:55with 12 songs. And the guys were old fashioned. We record. Johnny sets his drum up, our drummer.
02:02Then we horseshoe around him. I present the songs. We rehearse for an hour. Everybody gets
02:06comfortable with it. And then, you know, three, no more than five takes. It's done. So they recorded
02:12in four days, 10 or 12 songs. We didn't go in to make a double album. So I tell them to take
02:16four days off, go hang out in Joshua Tree, go play golf, ride bikes, whatever you want to do.
02:21And I sat in Elvis's party room and had my vinyls. I'm a vinyl guy. I love vinyl. I had
02:26my record player and vinyls brought out. I just listened in Elvis's party room and somehow came
02:31up with 10 more songs. And then they came back in and knocked it out again. It was fun. I'm
02:36the first man to sleep in Elvis's bedroom. Everybody's really excited. The band stayed
02:40at Burt Lancaster's house, which is how we came up with the title Here to Eternity,
02:44because that was the big movie Burt was in, From Here to Eternity. I was like, well, that's
02:47interesting. That's the title. Everything fell into place. I slept in Elvis's bedroom. Our
02:53engineer producer slept in Priscilla's bedroom. And we set up the control room in Lisa Marie's
02:57bedroom and just went to town. I heard that actually Lisa Marie passed, that you guys were
03:02there. When she passed that night, the ceiling fell in her bedroom. So it was kind of spooky.
03:08People would come up to Elvis's house every day, just sit there and take pictures. And if I'd see
03:13somebody, I'd let them in. But then they would have vigils for Lisa Marie. They'd come there
03:16and just start singing Elvis's song outside. It was really beautiful, to be honest with you. It
03:20was kind of nice. So we'd invite them in and just go, hey, we're making a record here. Just make
03:24yourself at home. Drink some food over there, make yourself at home, and walk around. It was
03:29nice to see. And we met very interesting people doing that. I had met the guys that owned it about
03:34five, six years ago. And they were talking about redoing it. And they approached me about maybe
03:38doing a YouTube channel where people come in and promote their new songs. And then they do an Elvis
03:42song, very, very similar, like Daryl's House or something in that form. They'd asked me to do it.
03:48And then the pandemic happened and all of that wackiness. They still didn't know what they were
03:52doing. And then I was like, well, just let me come in for a month. Me and the boys, they were great
03:57to us. Being from the South, being from Atlanta, it's a very cult-like. Growing up, I remember
04:03having Elvis tunes on all the time. My dad was a minister, so we had gospel, hymnal music. Elvis
04:08was allowed, but it was a lot of Elvis gospel stuff. It was like the 50s music that played
04:13around the house until I was of age and found my own little niche and what I wanted to listen to.
04:18But yes, he was a big part. Who were some of your other influences?
04:22First and foremost, my parents. My dad was a minister of music first, and my mom played piano
04:26in the church. So that just introduced me to everything. But as far as rock and roll, it'd be
04:32Elton John and Bernie Top. And that was the first record I bought with my own money, was Elton John's
04:36Greatest Hits. Had no idea who he was, just looked cool in the picture. I thought, man, that kind of
04:41looks cool. Then after that, it just started going haywire because I was of age and my dad would take
04:46me to shows. He took me to see Johnny Cash, took me to see Liberace, The Kinks, Eagles, and he took
04:52me to see Elton. And that's kind of when it just kind of, to me, it was like, I just want to be a
04:56songwriter. I'd like to be on stage, but I just want to be a songwriter, like Elton and Bernie
05:00and Johnny and Dave and Ray, The Kinks. There was no other, nothing else I wanted to do. That was it.
05:07Because my dad was operatic trained. He was supposed to go sing opera in Italy
05:11before him and God had a talk and he decided he wanted to be a minister. He had this beautiful
05:15baritone operatic voice, and then I'd come out. It took me years to get comfortable with how I
05:20sounded, but it's just how I sound. My dad was always so supportive about it and was like, well,
05:25have the full body like he goes. Not everybody does. He goes, I think it's great. Just keep
05:30doing what you're doing. Find it. He just kept going, just stay in pitch. It is a little different
05:36and that's okay. But you know, you're always self-conscious at the beginning. You're like,
05:40oh God, I don't sound like Tawny Shaw or David Bowie. I don't sound like Elton. You finally just
05:45let go and you kind of go, I am as God made me. This is all you get. I had a friend. I was, I'll
05:51never forget, I was at their lunchroom in high school and I just said, I'm going to learn to
05:54play guitar. I want to write songs. And my buddy, who is the only guitar player in the school,
05:58says I have an extra acoustic. So the next day he brought an acoustic guitar to me, let me borrow
06:02it. And he brought me an Elvis book and an Eagles book that showed you how to do chords. I learned
06:08from that. And my dad got me a Barry Manilow cheat music. And what about your brother? How did you
06:14guys realize you were going to do something together? We really did. You know, there's a
06:1710 year age difference and I didn't even know he played guitar. I came home from work one night to
06:22go see mom and dad. He was still in high school and he's playing guitar. And I was like, dude,
06:26I didn't know you play guitar. He's like, yeah, I'm trying to learn. And I was like,
06:29okay. We just started jamming a little bit. He and the rest of the guys were in a frat band when I
06:34was in a basement studio, putting all the first song on the first album, Hints. I was just trying
06:38to get a publishing deal. And then Shine just kind of had a life of its own. It just took off. And
06:43then I called my brother. I was like, hey, would y'all mind learning two or three songs that I
06:48basically interjected myself into their band. What comes first for you, the lyrics or the music?
06:56Music comes first. And a lot of times the lyric, something will spurt out and I'll go, okay,
07:00that's it. But the melody comes first for sure. It's easier for me then to fit the lyrics into
07:06the phrasing that I want or what I hear, I should say for the melody. But sometimes they come
07:11together really quick. I think I've only written two songs where I had the lyrics first. I just
07:15wrote a story and then I put the music around it. I'm not Elton and Bernie. I don't know how he does
07:21that. It's more musical for me first just to figure out that melody. And then hopefully most
07:26of the time something just blurts out. I'm like, okay, that's the thesis or that's the subject
07:30matter. Here we go. Now put the piece of puzzle together. Let's talk about the album for a bit.
07:37More. Tell me about some of the songs on there.
07:40Well, Mother's Love was the first one I wrote for the record.
07:54Boy, man, it's such a heavy riff. But like I said, just Mother's Love just kept coming up,
07:59coming up. So I wasn't going to deny it. So when I presented to the guys, I was like,
08:02it's called Mother's Love. And they're like, that's cool. So it was kind of that way.
08:07I love Bob Dylan, Where Are You Tonight. I recorded that live at the Ryman Theatre
08:11in Nashville, which was a lot of fun and kind of a big deal for me. Be The One I recorded in Elvis'
08:17bedroom. That one was the last song I wrote when the guys were on vacation. They were coming back
08:21in that morning and I'd had like nine songs prepared, but I wrote that that morning. So I
08:26went in and did it as a demo in Elvis' bedroom, just me and the piano. The first take, I forgot
08:31the lyrics. Second take, I messed the lyrics up. The third take, I got it down. So when they came
08:35in, I said, here's what I wrote. And I'll never forget, my brother goes, we're not adding anything
08:40to that. Just leave it as is. And I was like, you don't think we should put strings or anything?
08:44He goes, nope, that's it. I was like, OK. That was interesting. La Di Da is what my grandmother
08:49used to sing walking around the house. That was just her phrase, La Di Da. And I was like, OK,
08:54I'll write a song like, you know, you just pick a couple of different things in life.
08:57It's one of the records that, you know, you're always proud when you get done. We always look
09:00at each other as a band and go, OK, that's the best we could do at that point. But being at Elvis'
09:05house for a month, and we spent a week doing shows during that time. But in 29 days, we recorded
09:10the double album. And I'll never forget, we were listening. It wasn't mixed, but we, you know, all
09:13the ideas were there. A couple of vocals I had to redo. But we got done. We were just hugging each
09:18other like, man, how do we just do that? We don't even realize what we did. And it's just because
09:22we got in a flow. And I always go back to, like, we're a really strange rock and roll band. We not
09:27only like each other, we love each other. We love each other's company. There's jokes flying all
09:31over the internet between us and our little groups. We enjoy each other's company, not just
09:35musically, but just hanging around. Come see us out with Hootie and Edwin McCain. It'll be a fun
09:39show. 45 cities all over. So once again, we all kind of grew up together. We're all on the same
09:45label. All of us have known each other for 30 years. It's almost like a frat. A lot of golf,
09:50a lot of joking with each other, pranks and fun stuff like innocent stuff. But it's always good
09:55to be around people and bandmates and other bands that have no ego. They feel as blessed as we do to
10:01be on that stage and where we are in our life and our career. That's what Hootie and Edwin, both
10:07bands, bring to the table. Squeeze in three new ones and one cover. And then it's the rock and
10:13roll show. Edwin McCain called me the other day. We're going to have him join us on a song. And he
10:17goes, I don't play with clicks or anything. That messes me up. I was like, no, dude, we're real
10:22and raw. If we had clicks, it would really confuse us. We're already confused enough.
10:27We like depending on each other. That's basically it. Just, you know,
10:3015 hour minute set that's just kind of showcases the history of Collective Soul with the new.
10:36How did you come up with the name Collective Soul?
10:39I was reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. And I think the character Howard Rourke was in there
10:45talking about we're all a collection of souls. And I thought collection of souls. Kind of cool.
10:48I remember yellow pinning it. I thought collection of souls. What about collect?
10:52Collective Soul sounds like a unity, a true unity, a one unity in which a band should be.
10:57To be honest with you, it's the only one all the guys agreed on to. They're all kind of names being
11:01thrown out there. You know, you hope you live with it for the rest of your life. They're all over the
11:05place. But when I said Collective Soul, everybody was like, OK, it wasn't like we jumped up and down
11:10and thought it was the greatest name ever. But it's the one that everybody went, OK.
11:14What does music do for people?
11:16What music means to me is imagination. There's no boundaries. You know, you go back to the Beatles,
11:21they would write songs that were just beautiful, acoustic ballads sung with orchestration,
11:25and they'd be trippy. To me, first rule of rock and roll is there is no rule.
11:30And that's where the imagination comes into play.
11:37To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast,
11:39Life Minute TV on iTunes and all streaming podcast platforms.
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