A Conversation With Collective Soul Guitarist Dean Roland

Collective Soul burst onto the alt-rock scene in 1994 with a debut record made up essentially of demos. Over the next 30 years, the band evolved into one of the most consistent acts of their era. They are about to release a double album on May 17 called Here to Eternity and will celebrate the record and their 30th anniversary on tour all summer with Hootie & the Blowfish and Edwin McCain. Guitarist Dean Roland made his second trip to the site to talk about all of it!

Please press the PLAY button below for the MisplacedStraws Collective Soul interview with Dean Roland –

On deciding to make Here to Eternity a double album – We’d tossed the idea around for a long while, but never really consciously went in the studio like, “Alright, let’s go do double record”. We just, for whatever reason, we were I think part, partly we were recording this record at Elvis Presley’s estate in Palm Springs, and I think part of it was like we wanted to get as much done while we had that opportunity. We went in, started recording there. We hit our stride pretty quickly and it just kept going. We kind of didn’t want it to end, to be honest. So we got as much out of it as we could and we had tossed the idea around over the years and Ed’s wanted the challenge of it himself. Growing up a huge Elton family, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the list goes on of great double records, White Album, and Quadrophenia. It was a little bit of a little happy accident, to be honest.

On how they came to record at Elvis’ house and if they felt his vibes – Oh yeah, we did our best to take it in. We became friends really by coincidence with the guys who own the house. They bought it many years back and no one’s lived in the house in a long while. I think a couple of people had owned it after Elvis, but nothing had been changed. It’s the same as same appliances, same bathroom tile, a lot of stuff for better or for worse from when Elvis was living there. So when you go into the place, it’s a little bit of a head trip, like, okay, I mean, the dude was here, he, he recorded a couple of Gospel albums in there. So he was the only person that we know of that actually recorded in the house, except for us now. So we asked the dudes who own the house If they’d be into us just putting our studio gear in there and just taking it over for a little while. They’re like, “Yeah, sure”. So we did it.

We had been recording or filming a career-spanning documentary leading into that. Just getting archival footage and getting some stuff together over the past couple of years. So we just saw that as an opportunity. So we incorporated that into the film documentary. So it’s like the recording of this double album, along with the history of the band, and that film is in final phase mode and that should come out this year. We’ve got a lot going on, celebrating our 30th year with a double album, a tour, and a film documentary.

On if they intended the record to reflect all the musical styles in the band’s career – It’s funny. I mean, the short answer is probably. We record a record, it’s not a very decisive thing of we’re going to go write a particular type of song. It just happens. A lot of times Ed will come in with a very clear-cut idea of how he wants the song done. A lot of the individual ideas of the song are kind of mapped out in his head or whatnot. A lot of times it’s just whatever the creative spark, that little, tiny thing which could just be a guitar riff or it could be a jump groove or a bass line or something, whatever it may be and you build off that spark. Our philosophy with the band has always been to serve the song and that’s why the range of stuff like you talked about the quirkiness of a “Sister & Mary” or The riff of “Mother’s Love” or even a riff type, melodic song, like a “Bluer Than So Blue”, it’s one aspect of the band, but we don’t really consciously go in and do it. It’s just in that moment. We seek out the honesty and serve the song.

On if the band was surprised by the sudden success of “Shine” and the debut album – Oh, my gosh. Yeah, absolutely. Ed had been working. Ed and I are 10 years apart in age, and he had been working for years, rejection after rejection. We put “Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid” together as a demo to get either a record deal or a pub deal or just get any kind of traction we could. We didn’t realize it was going to be the first album that the band releases. It did take a life of its own. When we got signed, we went to Atlantic and we’re like, “Can we re-record this stuff? Because these are demos.” They were like, “No, you got to go. There’s too much momentum behind it, you got to take advantage of it”. So we knew that it was an opportunity. It didn’t fully represent the band. Part of that, like you mentioned groundbreaking or however you want to describe it, a lot of it just sounded different because it had become a mainstream hit and it was a demo, so we knew that it was an opportunity given to us that we had been working for years to get. That’s when we just kind of took it and we didn’t look back.

We recorded the blue record, which was essentially the band’s first record recording together. We recorded that as we were touring that first year. So a lot of the songs we were playing on that 94 tour, hence were songs that were in the process of being written. Ed’s up there singing the melody of the song and just kind of like making up lyrics as we went along, it wasn’t even the final stuff. So all that was pretty interesting times for us. We just didn’t want to let the moment go. So we took advantage of it as best we could.

On if they felt pressure on the second record, or if they saw it as a true debut – I tell you what though, Jeff, we felt so confident in the way we were playing as a band and the songs. We weren’t arrogant about it, but we were humbly confident that we had found our groove. We had been playing those songs and most of them anyway, some were coming along as they were being recorded. But we had the confidence and we felt great about that. Obviously, you never know how or if they connect or how people react to them. But we knew. We did have the pressure that we put on ourselves to do the best work that we could. We had that. We put what they call a “bridge track” with the song “Gel” off that record was on the “Jerkey Boys” soundtrack, which was huge at the time. That song kind of connected us from the first record to the second, and then it went into “December”, “World I Know”, and the rest has been history.

On if they feel pride in being one of only 5 bands to perform at both Woodstock 94 and 99 – I honestly didn’t even know that. But that’s cool. We’ve never really been a band to follow and for better or worse, but we don’t really follow trends. We were not good at that We feel like we’re good at what we do and in whatever range we have we have we try to experiment and push ourselves and try not to be repetitive replicate what we’ve done in the past and we just marched forward. Maybe that’s part of the testament of the longevity that we’ve had. So I don’t really know. I take pride in it. I mean, being one of I don’t even know who else was it (note – CS, Live, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sheryl Crow, Metallica).

On if they ever felt like ending the band after Blender when the label and lineup changes happened – Whenever you have members leave and we’ve only, fortunately, we haven’t had many. We lost a couple of guys, our original founding members you enter in, I think it’s inevitable that you go into like a moment of self-doubt or, “Where do we go? What are we doing? What’s this?” Then you collect yourself and you march forward. You realize we’ve always taken the opportunity that we were given to be able to make music and share our purpose for a living. We get to make a living off of creating and playing music. We’ve taken that very serious. We’ve been idiots and complete morons at times and doing stupid rock and roll stuff, but fortunately the majority of the time we’ve kept it in the road and stayed focused on the task at hand, which is us making the best music that we possibly can.

On what’s kept the band together when all of their peers have taken time off over the years – It’s probably a couple of things. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we’re so close, Ed and I are brothers, so we grew up together, obviously. Will (Turpin), I’ve known him, Ed and I both, since, as long as I’ve known anyone. His wife grew up literally, literally across the street from us, so I’ve known his family, and it’s just, that bond is just, has been there. The fact that we love music, we believe it’s our purpose, and we share that joy of making music and playing it, and I think that keeps that bond together. Like any relationship, there’s ups and downs, and there’s, peaks and valleys and there’s maybe second guessing here and there, needing a break and stepping out. But really nothing ever to a point where was like, “Let’s just call this thing”, because we just felt we still had a shared purpose and a shared need it to keep going.

On putting a set together for the upcoming summer tour – Well, we’re not going to reinvent the wheel on this thing, but we try to, we’re not a band that does a whole lot of reflection. We do like the idea of let’s keep going, let’s stay creative and keep looking for those creative sparks and see where it leads and go down that path. You’re going through 30 years of music, I guess it’s 12, or 13 now, studio albums. Different configurations, endless amounts of shows and tours. Billy (Joel)’s right, every show is someone’s first. So you got to find that balance. There’s older songs we’re going to play the hits because we love playing them too. It’s fun every night. You see it, like we’re at the place now where fans from early on are bringing their children or that kind of thing is going on. So that makes it special. There’s someone out there that’s enjoying it for the first time.

So we try to find that balance. We’re playing the hits. Then some of the older songs that we hadn’t played in a while, we try to mix it in there. We’re about to release 20 new songs, and when you’re sharing the stage on a tour like this with Hootie and Edwin, you’re not getting to play all of them. That will come later. We do our own shows, but we’ve got to find that balance and try to first and foremost, make ourselves happy and enjoy what the selection is and find the flow and sometimes it takes a little bit of time to see what works and what doesn’t work. But yeah, that’s really about it. You throw in a cover song and we have fun with that too, just to break it up. So that really is it.

On his vision of Collective Soul at its peak – I would probably do it at two stages. There’s two acts. Hopefully, there’ll be three. I believe this is probably the beginning, the past couple records, of the third act with Jesse Triplett and and Johnny Rabb with us. These have been the best years from a perspective of just band chemistry, musically and personally, and the personality connection is underrated when you’re in a band. Musical is huge, obviously, but the personal, you spend so much time with these other humans. You’re doing, call it two hours a night on stage, but you got 22 hours left to the day that you spend a majority, a lot of time with these other humans. So that has to work.

But if you’re talking about a musical high point for us, I believe it for me in the first iteration of the band, it’s Dosage. That’s the most collaborative. I feel like we were hitting a high note, metaphorically speaking, all the way around. Things came a little unraveled after that, but that happens. But that record, and to be honest, I think this record is in the second iteration and yet to be determined how commercially viable and that stuff. I don’t know, because you can’t control it. So that’s surrendered. But the short answer, sorry for being long-winded on that one, but it’s Dosage and Here to Eternity.