Over the decades, Collective Soul has managed to avoid many of the pitfalls that torpedoed their contemporaries. The Georgia-based band saw a quick rise in the early 90s, on the backs of hits like "Shine" and "December." More than 30 years on, the band remains as solid a unit as ever, have maintained an extraordinarily consistent lineup. Longtime bassist Will Turpin joins us to discuss the band's rise and what keeps the group together all these years later.
Will Turpin 0:12
Yeah, I've got a lot of weekends at home in the spring. You know, by design we get we get a decent amount of time home. Winter and Spring, we did a little bit of winter touring and Australia and New Zealand. But uh, yeah, usually it's the it's like the five months between the end of May. And the end of September, beginning of October. I've got one weekend off that entire five months, which is it's good. It's a good thing. So been doing it 30 years. You
Brian Heater 0:42
know, I go through this probably a lot of people who like gender generally like their job go through this of that of like, oh, I can't. No, I can't complain about that. It's not, it's not fair to other people for me to complain about, you know, getting to do what I do for a living.
Will Turpin 0:57
Yeah. I mean, everybody's job at some point, you know, will take on the role of a, yeah, a job at some point, right. But I can only consider myself super fortunate. And I do love my bandmates. And I love creating music. So that's what I get to do. There
Brian Heater 1:12
must be some nights. I mean, you know, it must be some time. You know, he'd been on tour for a little while and you just, it's just not quite there for some reason.
Will Turpin 1:22
Oh, yeah, there's some nights you're like, Man, this, you know, again, I I don't want to be heard complaining. But no, it just is the you know, it's just life man that, you know. There's always going to be ups and downs, man, no matter what you do in life, you know, I
Brian Heater 1:37
totally get that. But I think it's also I think it's also okay. It's also okay to like, complain, sometimes, you know, it's humanizing. People, people like that. And they're artists. Yeah,
Will Turpin 1:47
I think I think we can reserve the right to complain, I just don't like to be heard complaining. Maybe only in my mind, I'm good with that.
Brian Heater 1:54
What's sort of your relationship to the music in this period, where you're about to ramp up versus say, like, the end of a long tour,
Will Turpin 2:02
right now, especially with a new record out, you know, I'm still listening to the new songs all the time. And I'm getting super excited about what we've done and how proud I am. And then once we get out on tour, it'll get to be, you know, we, we still enjoy what we do. So we have fun on the road, when we you know, we try to have fun, we do a lot of the same things we did. 30 years ago, we were kids. So we try to have fun. We know how to have fun, we're experienced at living on the road. But it changes once you get midway it's more of a little bit more of a of a grind. Because a lot of the a lot of the same things over and over as I tell people is grueling. It's not hard. It's not tough. Don't feel sorry for me. It's just grueling. I guess that's that's the word, especially
Brian Heater 2:50
in your case with your band. It's it's a marathon and it's a marathon in a way that a lot of your fans not for a lot of your contemporaries. You know, a lot of them are still doing fine and touring, but they don't record or they you know, they dropped off and are doing some other things maybe talk from time to time, but like there's what's the longest break in this like, 30 year period that you've actually taken for the band? Yeah,
Will Turpin 3:12
I mean, I think I think there was a period from like 2012 13 and 14, we are kind of maybe playing lucky to get 25 shows in a year, but still, and not recording. So then that's still keeping yourself somewhat in the game. But in 30 years, we haven't really had a huge break. We still like creating music, as you mentioned, it's still part of us that flows out of us. Matter of fact, that's the name of the second song. Let it go. But yeah, that that creative thing is still part of us, all of us. And, and so is the live thing. We're excited to go play live right now and, and can't wait to see the crowds. I mean, how can we not be like kind of excited, or at least you know, kind of like pinching ourselves as far as going on tour with our buddies and Hootie and the Blowfish, Edwin McCain all three bands met each other and 94 You know, we're all three from the south, signed to Atlantic Records in big New York City, you know, and here we are 30 years later, and everybody's honestly everybody musically is on top of their game.
Brian Heater 4:28
What strikes me looking at you know, I know like you weren't like, in the earliest days, but you joined Ferrier fairly early on with the bands and looking looking into the history of the group it it seems like things really came together really quickly for you.
Will Turpin 4:41
Yeah, not really, but I mean it maybe it didn't
Brian Heater 4:45
feel like it at the time, but it's one of the things you look back and you're like you know that that two three year period felt like forever, but now it's like, wild that it happened I quickly you
Will Turpin 4:53
know, I mean, the the collective soul documentary is another thing we can definitely mention. We've already seen The first cut of that, and I think people know we're a small town band that that grew up together, we all the original guys all would have the same high school. I don't have a memory without knowing who Ed and Dean are. I literally was at their father's church. Their father was the music minister at that point. And he was he was directing the youth choir and I knew who Ed and Dean where they live two streets over. The Baptist Church was right there. And so it was my father studio. So yeah, it'd be it's going to be good for people to get a get an idea of what kind of small town story it was. ed ed being seven and a half years, eight years older than the rest of the guys, we watched him work in my father's studio, we watched him work on his craft on his songwriting, we were fans of his music coming up through high school. And we'd go watch him play. So, you know, Ed was while Ed's friends were getting married, and having real jobs, he was working his ass off. Trying to figure out he was head engineer, and he was working on his, like I said, he's working on his songwriting craft. I tell people, the short version is, you know, me and my friends came through high school, including Dean, his younger brother. And, you know, it was just like, we just kind of all fell into place, I was the last one to fall into place, but it all kind of just fell into place of guys who knew each other and, and knew we, we thought we knew. And now I look back, and I'm pretty sure we didn't know. But we thought we knew how to how to support Ed songs, and, and how to make that sound like a band and how to be a band. And we still love doing it. We just got back from Palm Springs, we had to all live together and all record together, we, when we go do things we like the end of the end, you know, like the definition of the word band. We'd like to hang together and record together. Yeah,
Brian Heater 6:54
you have to take breaks from each other and those like rare times when you're not either recording or touring together. Yeah,
Will Turpin 7:01
breaks are good. But I mean, even on this break, I I called up Johnny and Jesse, and ask them to come down and hang out with me for two days, you know, so
Brian Heater 7:10
get antsy a little bit. Like especially when he tours when it's what what was the How long are you actually off the road during the pandemic?
Will Turpin 7:16
Yeah, that was, you know, we were the first one of the first bands to jump right back out there. Our manager and agent knew that we were we ready to be aggressive. And we were back on the road with sticks. I think we did about 15 shows with sticks. Jute late, June of of it was that 2020 or 21? It was only 21. Yeah, 21. We were right back out there and 21. Yeah, because 2020 Nobody tour. Nobody did anything in 2020. By fact, we did play the Ryman March 10. The night the tornado came through Nashville. And then about two or three days later, the world basically shut down. And that's one of my favorite posters, because they did some original artwork at the Ryman. And it just has the date. You know, that's the night the tornado went a couple blocks away from us. We had an after party, of course, and I hear somebody behind the bar. I think there's a tornado warning. And of course, all of us at midnight are like, okay, sure, you know, but literally, that thing tore, tore through a block about three blocks away from where we were hanging out. And then like I said, two days later, everybody was in for a change. Yeah, we were so that would have been March, April, May, we were only literally not touring 15 months, 16 months. And we actually did some COVID compliance shows when everybody was doing some of those things as well. How
Brian Heater 8:48
was that period for you? You know, I mean, you've got a family. So I assume that to a certain extent, there was a positive and all that and that was, you know, the really, I don't wanna say you were forced, but like, all of a sudden, you've got all this time to spend with your kids. Yeah,
Will Turpin 9:04
man. You nailed it. I mean, that's got to always think silver linings, right. Okay, here we are in this spot. All right. I'm not going to be a sour grape and like, I wake up every day and go this sucks, you know, so. Yeah, man, we had a great time at home. I'm kind of, you know, kind of glad in certain ways that we had those that time. We were hanging out together. We started doing a lot of our ping pong skills got really good. You know, I've got like I said, Are you said I've got three boys. They're all adults. Luke would have been the youngest at 15. Jude would have been about 18. And Tristan would have been about 23. But we started listening to a lot of records beginning to end there. They listened and like, like when I show him stuff, they don't like everything I show him. But you know, it's always one of my great sphere is that my kids would have bad taste in music. So I've done my best. But during the COVID era, we did a lot of LIS listen to this record from beginning to end. So, so, you know, they knew they were fans, if you too are in excess or even back to the 70s with, yes, and it Led Zeppelin, they were big fans of the songs, but they didn't have quite the time to experience those things like I did, beginning to end on a on an album or CD. So we did a lot of that during COVID, too. And it just just a bunch of good conversations and comments from them, like wow, didn't know that was, you know, they would sound like that, or, you know, this record is great. You know, I know this one song, but this record is amazing. So between music and like I said, just having fun, sharpen up the ping pong skills, but my cornhole game got really good during that era, as well.
Brian Heater 10:51
But what a lost art form the Alchemist and just the the lack of distractions, you know, that you would have had at the time, especially when are you going back to like to vinyl that it's not there anymore. And it's been, I think, in a lot of ways between that and streaming, it's been very transformative, often for the worse, but it seems like you're still you in the band are still very album oriented, when it comes to putting together a group of songs. Yeah,
Will Turpin 11:16
I mean, to me that concept is, as a creator, that concept still make sense? I mean, you know, I'm, I'm real, real literal with words. And an album is a collection of things, you know, from a given time period. So you know, if you've got a 1012 songs that you think go together from a time period, I think, and you think people would want to hear it, I think, I think the album concept is still the best way to record if you if you have an album of music, I don't think it should be forced. If you've got six great songs, call it whatever you want to call it, but put them together as a group, and then it becomes an album,
Brian Heater 11:56
you know, especially you having that recording studio and the band thing for and when they were, it seems like it seems like a very deliberate process for you deciding when to get together deciding when you've got the songs and to really spend that time solely focusing. I mean, in this case, like, you were actually at Elvis, his house, is that right?
Will Turpin 12:15
Yeah. Well, everybody knows about Graceland, but he had a Palm Springs residence and really loved Palm Springs, especially the last few years of his life. But um, yeah, we we befriended a friend of our friend of ours had a good friend that had bought the Palm Springs residents, when real estate was really low. And he had left it, it had been left just like Elvis left, and he left it that way. And it was a bit of a time capsule really cool. The DNA is just dripping off the walls. We brought in, you know, in an era where hard drives can bring in a lot of your gear. But we bought in a couple big racks of gear and set up the engineering room and Lisa Marie's bedroom, the main living room, looking out to the pool and in the landscape of Palm Springs, which is where Elvis recorded some vocals in his day. That main room we set up as a band kind of set up and ran all the wires in there and recorded on headphones. And, again, we record like a band, we want it to sound the the beginning of the vibe has to start as a band for us. But But yeah, man, Elvis, his place it was it was left just like it was a little bit in disrepair. But you know, it served his purpose. And it really, I think it really, I think we found a vibe, I think we found a line that that took us to a better place. And I actually think the Palm Springs Elvis Palm Springs residents had something to do with that.
Brian Heater 13:48
Again, this is something I'm sure that you're really conscious of, again, spending a lot of your time in a recording studio, but you know, aside from the very obvious sort of aesthetic sound properties, how much of an impact does an environment have on the end product?
Will Turpin 14:03
Yeah, it's really hard to quantify that but I tell you what, man we were. We were living as a band in an Airbnb which was actually Burt Lancaster's, one of his two Palm Springs residents so it turned into an Airbnb we got turned on to that and it wasn't so lavish Palm Springs and that in that architecture it's not it's not these huge mansions but it's really really cool and and it certainly has it a fireball its own as well as the town. So by the time we're in Palm Springs, hanging out the smaller community and getting to know everybody I'd say within a week everybody knew Collective Soul was in town, recording a record whether you're a bar owner or clothing store, Owner, restaurant owner or whatever, everybody kind of got the word on streak the smaller town but between enjoy in Palm Springs and join our time together as a band and then go on every day to Ellis's place to record. You know, that was that's the idea. We do those things. So the end product will be better. So we hope it is it's hard to quantify
Brian Heater 15:05
how did you end up with a double record this
Will Turpin 15:07
time? Ed's super prolific with the songwriting. So we started out recording and we just were flying down the we were just hitting hitting our marks really quick. And we were hitting them with super excitement. We really were proud of what was going down like, it felt good. So we got, we got probably 10 days in and we had, we had gotten the whole month of January off, we got probably 10 days in and realize that if we just bring in a few other songs that we already know of like there's a there's a song that was recorded live, we just add in a harmonica called Bob Dylan. Then we'll have a double record. And we always wanted to do a double record. So I think maybe I think maybe 15 of those songs were actually recorded Elvis's house. And then the other other five could have been recorded in other spots are finished at Elvis, his house. But man, we just always want to do a double record going way back and then the labels are like nah, that's no good. And then we get to the streaming era, and everybody in our business world is like, Nah, that's no good mouse angles, you know, data. And then at this 30 year level, we're just like, we didn't ask anybody's opinion, to be honest with you.
Brian Heater 16:15
Do you just have like full freedom at this point, when it comes to making a decision like that? Yeah,
Will Turpin 16:20
we kind of do. I mean, we have to, we have people who consult and people who we trust. But yeah, we and we kind of started out that way at Atlantic Records, because we were on an independent label. And they didn't have anything to do with our first record. And they stamped their, their seal on it and put it through their machine, we we went platinum and a half. And they kept that going through the second record. And all through our Atlantic years, they didn't stick their nose in the studio and tell us what to do or what we needed to sound like. So I always consider that one of the fortunate things as well that we started out on the independent label. And we're allowed the freedom to do what we wanted to do. I always
Brian Heater 16:55
appreciate it when people who have had success can recognize that there's always there's a bit of luck. And there's a bit of timing, like regardless of like, how good or how talented you are that sometimes things to like, just hit just right. And it sounds like not even the first record I guess what was effectively like a collection of demos had this huge hit on it and and not gonna see you've been riding it on ever since. But but that initial propulsion from 30 years ago, like you're still on that same trajectory now. Yeah,
Will Turpin 17:24
it's wild. You think about it, this the songs that are 30 years old, the songs that are 10 years old, are all still getting more popular as every day through through all these playlists and streaming things. The songs are actually getting more popular day by day. It's, it's it's a pretty wild concept I imagined in about 10 years, they might start getting less popular when some of the fans start going away, so to speak, but
Brian Heater 17:50
it's a bleak thought. Manda. Yeah, no, that's life. I mean, it's interesting. And I don't know that you've ever even really experienced this because I think your band is fairly unique in this respect. But I talked to a lot of talking a lot of like, indie bands, right? And they'll achieve a certain amount of success. And then a certain point, it's like, well, you know, our fan base is getting older, they're having kids, they're not really coming out to the shows. It's, there's diminishing returns, obviously. There's always some generations and they have kids, they bring them out to the show, but I don't from my vantage point, it doesn't seem like there's ever really been a major dip for you guys. There
Will Turpin 18:26
has not been it's been a it's been a clot we took a little time off in certain areas. But no, it's been a constant climb based on just the the strength of the songs if you asked me it's the strength of the songs, we started out kind of as a studio band. And we had a studio acumen and we were taught again, you know, growing up and my father's studio we were taught to serve the song and I remember being young and in us thinking about what we wanted to be known for what we wanted to do and it was never like hey, we're cool. Let's do this do this. It was always about let's work hard. And let's support the song and let's be known for our music. And that's when we were super young and I'm glad we had that mentality because I think that I think that shows now
Brian Heater 19:11
Yeah, I wonder if Ed being a little bit older helped to you know, him having been through it a little bit
Will Turpin 19:17
I think with the songwriting for sure with the songwriting in the studio acumen again he was head engineer there my father studio and allowed to create money you know, my dad gave us a fertile ground to to grow that's that's one of the quotes he had liked to use. He He gave us the fertile ground to do whatever we wanted to and he supported the heck out of us all of our parents did. And envy and seven half years old or you know, again shine happened quick and the rise of collective so happened quick as far as other people knowing it, but man Ed was he was working his butt off and all the rest of us that's all we were going to be was professional musician. So even when we started 23 years old If I had been focusing on music in a professional way, whether it was majoring in music in college or going to all state bands and high school, even the battle of the bands that we would play, you know, the rock shows, in high school, that's all I've done since I was probably 1213 years old.
Brian Heater 20:17
Something probably we're skipping over here that though that's really important. I mean, I'm, I'm imagining where I'm remembering where I was when I was 23. And if I was suddenly in this position, where I was, you know, swept up in swept up into this machine, and, you know, achieving a certain level of fame, I, I completely why I completely understand why so many young musicians fall prey to whether it's drugs or anything else, there's a certain amount of like, oh,
Will Turpin 20:45
and you've made it, and you really have made anything, we always wanted to keep the nose to the grind until we felt like we made it. And, and honestly, there's part of us, that still feels like what's next. Wait to do the next thing. It's still part of us.
Brian Heater 21:02
It's an interesting perspective of a feeling or getting the sense that maybe haven't quite made it. Was there a point when it felt like okay, well, this is, this is add, like, we're on the right path.
Will Turpin 21:16
I feel like maybe, you know, I feel like dosage. The fourth record, I feel like once we recorded dosage. I felt like that was that was finally that was the fourth record. I felt like that was a flag in the in the, in the ground, so to speak. You can you can not think collective souls, one of your favorite bands, you might not even might not even prefer to listen to our music. But you can't really say that. We haven't made it or haven't made our mark.
Brian Heater 21:47
How was that record different? I
Will Turpin 21:50
just felt like it wasn't just that record, it was the culmination of all four of those records. And by the time we finished dosage. Yeah, I just feel like okay, now there's a body of work that you can't really can't really can't really disregard.
Brian Heater 22:05
I guess at a certain point, you know, again, you've got this huge hit right out of the gate, you've got another big hit. And that's where a lot of people really start stumbling. I mean, obviously not, not everybody gets that break at all. But having again, a lot of success early on. It can be really difficult to, to follow that up. And it can be really easy to tie kind of to chase that and to try to recreate that exact success.
Will Turpin 22:33
Yeah, I mean, it's common, right. But I guess with us, it just felt really different. We were we were eager matter of fact, that's why the second record is called collective soul. We were so eager to get back in there and do a record that we we felt like was a band, a comprehensive band record. May hack those first four records all the way to dosage were 1994 to the end of 98. So yeah, so four and a half years, we had four records out.
Brian Heater 23:03
Again, it's I think it's one of those things were when you're like 25, you know that that feels like a long amount of time. But you look back on it now. And it's it's wild, right? It's wild that you had that energy. And it's wild that again, in the face of those successes during that period, that you're able to maintain that level of discipline. Yeah,
Will Turpin 23:23
and even even through a lawsuit. And that's, that's why that third record is labeled discipline breakdown. We couldn't get a budget from the record label, everything was tied up in the courts. And we decided to scrap the money, I'd had some publishing money, we scrapped the money together, we rented a cabin. And we were all the sudden in the, in the woods in a cabin near where we all grew up. And we stayed disciplined with what we wanted to do. And we started recording stuff on our own with you know, there we are, we had sold, you know, three or 4 million records, and we were getting a stipend of $150 a week. That's what the courts allowed. And we were still staying positive and creating music together. And that's another record that when I listen to it, it's super special to me, because of what we're going through and, and kind of the audio and everything else is a little different on that record. And it reflects the fact that we were in a cabin, we pulled out carpet and you know, made the made the little breakfast area of the place for the drumset there was nothing, nothing technical or, or super studio about that record. We did finish it up in Memphis, we're at a at a real studio, but most of that record was done in a cabin in the woods.
Brian Heater 24:44
There's this thing that happens when people get older I've experienced this myself too, but you know you you make a certain amount of money, you get comfortable and then at a certain point, I think a lot of people end up romanticizing the struggles early on and you know and in a strain way long enough to get back to that. I mean, certainly there's, there's something to be said in that specific case for having these very clear parameters for making a record. And they in a sense, they almost force you to be more creative.
Will Turpin 25:15
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, because look, we were also using rods on the drumset a lot. So we were trying to use some different things to that would help the Sonics of being in a log cabin with minimal amount of gear. So we were I don't know, if it ended up being much more creative. But there was definitely those those circumstances did yield themselves. For us to have to think outside of the box a little bit. Is
Brian Heater 25:42
there a way to sort of maintain that level of, I guess, you know, kind of an obvious question, but like, again, 30 years in looking back on it, and not really having ever had that break? How do you keep things feeling fresh
Will Turpin 25:57
through the creative process, man, and then when we play live to same thing, it's like, yeah, that song, same song might be on the setlist. But we're, we're musicians in the way that we're not. I mean, you know, a lot of people literally go up there and have to play the exact same nose the exact same way every night. And we we play around with it, but we're freestyle and a little bit even though it's the same song. So that's, that's how we get creative and stay fresh with it. Have fun. But
Brian Heater 26:26
that applies in the studio as well, certainly in the studio,
Will Turpin 26:29
because we're we're thinking of stuff out of thin air, man. And it's all created by fuel as far as you know, it's going to come in with its smoking idea, and a hook. And then we just start getting around it with a rock band sound and when it feels right, we kind of know how
Brian Heater 26:44
did the solo work come together for you.
Will Turpin 26:48
You know, piano and drums are my first instruments. And yeah, when I sit down behind piano, melodies and things come to my head, it's kind of like and then you have to then you have to decide whether or not it's worth the time and people give a crap about here and your songs but but I love I love creating and producing I've got another one on the horizon now working on trying to get a lot of stuff done before I start recording. So it won't take long. I'm trying to finish my lyrics up and stuff like that. While I'm currently really busy producing a lot of other bands here at the studio.
Brian Heater 27:21
Every time a tour ends every time every time a new album is released do is it always just kind of taken for granted that there's going to be another one of these that you're going to keep doing this.
Will Turpin 27:35
I don't think you can take anything for granted like that. I think you got to appreciate where you are. Again, we are looking forward. But I wouldn't take it for granted that there's going to be another one. I can't imagine a day when we're not doing that or when I'm not doing that. But also don't take it for granted that it's going to definitely happen.