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BONUS WEB ONLY FEATURE INTERVIEW
COLLECTIVE SOULTakes A Leap Of Faith
Interview & Photos by Cathy Mein
It’s 1:27 PM on Wednesday and there's a message on my voicemail. A thick southern accent drawls into the recorder, "Hey Cathy, this is Will Turpin with Collective Soul. I was remiss with my schedule today and forgot to call you. PLEASE forgive me."
Our phone interview was supposed to take place at 11:00 AM CST following problems with security at the Chicago show the previous week, which prevented me from sitting down in-person with Collective Soul's bass player. I’m not sure if it’s Will’s sincerity and emphasis on the word “please” or the fact that I’m easily swayed by Southern charm, but after listening to the message I forget that I’ve been waiting two and a half hours to hear from the Georgia native and I call him back.
Interviews are important to the members of Collective Soul these days.
They have a lot to gain by getting the word out about their latest projects -- the November 2004 CD release "Youth," 2005’s "From the Ground Up," and their new live DVD "Home;" a lot to gain because this former major-label band decided in 2004 to launch their own record label, El Music Group, and release all their projects independent of the security a major label can provide.
When asked about the decision to form their own company, Turpin spoke candidly, “We sat down with many labels and explored our options, but with today’s technology and with the fan base that Collective Soul has garnished over the years, we just thought we'd be best suited to try to release our own record on our own independent label.”
“It was kind of a leap of faith for us,” he
continued. “You know, it’s scary not to have that security
Pointing out the reasons Collective Soul would prefer not to become part of a major label in the future, Turpin reflected on the band’s past relationship with Atlantic Records where they were signed from 1994-2001.
“As much as the record labels are a kind of necessary evil so to speak, they do serve a purpose in the music industry and we could never be where we are without our first record label, Atlantic,” said Turpin. “It’s one of those things where a corporate label says to a band, ‘We’ll pay for your recording, we’ll pay for your video, we’ll pay for your radio promotions, and as you work and sell CDs you pay it back and then when you pay it back we’re still going to have ownership’.”
“As a business plan it just doesn’t make any sense to me,” he added. “When a bank loans you money and you pay something off then you should own it. We’ve paid Atlantic back and they still own the licensing to our songs and our videos and everything else and we basically paid them back for it.”
Today the band members are in charge of their own success or failure and the projects they pursue, including their latest endeavor, a live recording with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra that was released on DVD in February 2006 called “Home”
“Collective Soul had been working as a band for about 11 years and we didn’t even have a live CD out, so it was time to do something,” noted Turpin.
“So we thought, ‘Let’s just do the big jam with the symphony’. Obviously there is a reference there to the record [the 2004 release “Youth”], and once that idea came around we just thought – ‘Wow, this is it, we’re going to do it now, we’re going to take on this big production.’ And it was a huge production, it was the biggest thing we’ve ever done financially and responsibility-wise.”
A full week of dress rehearsals with the youth orchestra and recording over 2 nights in April 2005 resulted in the "Home" DVD.
Will said of working with the teenage musicians – “For me the energy is just different with kids. I think it shows a different side of things as opposed to playing with the pros. One of our jobs was to make those kids feel comfortable and make them understand that it’s a rock show and not a symphony show where everybody is sitting on their hands and clapping very politely in between songs. Part of our job was to make the kids feel comfortable about being with Collective Soul and to be comfortable with letting loose and letting their energy flow. You’ll notice on the DVD we have them standing up and they’re pumping their fists in the air, so we succeeded. I think they all felt comfortable and in their element finally by the second night.”
Although seeing classically trained teenagers playing instruments with an established rock band may be uncommon, seeing teenagers at a Collective Soul concert is not.
Commenting on the diversity of the band’s audience, where teens stand side by side with 40-somethings, Turpin adds, “People bring their kids, it’s very common at a Collective Soul show, which is what you want [as a band]. You don’t want to play in front of one section of people because that’s a sign that it’s going to fade away at some point. Seeing all ages at our shows is very common and very cool!”
As far as maintaining that diverse fan base, Collective Soul is counting on today’s technology to get their music out to the masses.
“There is a shift in how the music industry is going to run. It’s not going to run on the old model where you put 12 songs on a CD, you release a CD for 2 years and try to get your song played on the radio. It's not going to work on that model,” says Turpin.
“We're going to be releasing all kinds of material in different formats in the future using today's technology -- the internet, our website, MySpace, I-tunes, email, who knows what the model is going to be, but we’re going to keep working here for the next number of years and do all kinds of interesting things releasing new songs whenever we finish them, not even putting out an official record,” he continued.
“We're going to try to come up with some fresh ideas and the fact that we’re on our own label, we can afford to do whatever the hell we want whenever we decide to do it,” he chided.
After 12 years in the music industry, it appears that the future for these seasoned musicians is as bright as the day they released their first single, the 1994 hit, “Shine.”
Closing our interview, Turpin looks to the future with enthusiasm. “I feel like it’s all wide open right now, I mean we can do anything we want, we can have any idea, we can have no idea, we have nobody to answer to but ourselves.”
Look for Collective Soul’s El Music Group CD releases, “Youth” and “From the Ground Up,” and their new DVD “Home,” in stores now.
For more information, tour dates and appearances visit Collective Soul’s official websites at www.CollectiveSoul.com |
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Less
than 2 years after launching their own label the Atlanta-based band goes
"Home" for their biggest project to date.
blanket of a label that we had our whole career, but we were free agents
at that point. We could have signed with anybody, but we just chose to
do our own thing and there was a little bit of security knowing that we
could have if we wanted to, being as we owned it, we could have still
signed at any moment with anybody. Even after the release of the record
we could say, ‘Ok, put it on your label and then we’ll make El Music
a subsidiary of your label and then we'll work with you guys’.”