Hey what's up this is Will with Collective Soul.
You're listening to my weekly mixtape with Brian
Colburn. Yes you record it, you mix it, you listen
to it, and then you rock my friends. Welcome
to My Weekly Mixtape, a podcast that takes the
classic mixtape approach to building a modern
playlist. I'm your host, Brian Colbert. One of
the things I'm excited to do each week is speak
with some of the incredible artists whose music
has been featured on countless mixtapes and playlists
of mine. And one of those artists just so happens
to be my guest this evening. And that would be
the amazing bass player for Collective Soul,
Will Turpin. Will, thank you so much for joining
me on My Weekly Mixtape. Be amazing, huh? Oh,
hell yeah, man. Well, thanks, man. Appreciate
it, man, as always. Glad to talk to you again.
Yeah, we had a chance several years ago to talk
on my old TuneStyles podcast. I'm so glad to
have you back. I'd like to start this show with
the question I ask every single guest of mine,
and that is, Will, what does the word mixtape
mean to you personally? Yeah, I mean, heck, I
grew up in the 80s, man. Yeah. So mixtape is,
you know, you lost a little fidelity. But you
were able to listen to the radio and go over
to the cassette and hit record and play at the
same time. And you could record a song from the
radio. And then I would kind of wait and try
to just, you know, you couldn't mix and match.
You couldn't drop, you know, change your order
like you can now with all the digital files.
But you would just make a mixtape while you're
listening to the radio in your house. That's
what we would do. And then I'd write, I'd call
the mixtape a name. And we'd listen to them in
our car. You'd lose just a little bit of fidelity,
but nobody was really, you know, I was collecting
cassettes, obviously, and albums. And then right
there, you know, guess it would have been like
right around 87. We started buying CDs, right?
Maybe 86, 87. We started buying CDs. But before
CDs, yeah, man, you would sit there and listen
on the radio. Just be like, especially if it
was that song that wasn't quite the popular song,
which you wanted, you know, you'd have to sit
around and run over to the. It record a lot of
times you'd miss the first four or five seconds,
you know, but that's what a mixtape was to me.
And that's the beauty of it. And the time and
effort being put into mixtapes is what I'm trying
to bring back with this show, because when people
make a playlist, they just drag songs into a
playlist in no shape or order and hit shuffle.
And you kind of lose that. moment in time and
that effort that goes into actually crafting
something that you want to share with somebody
else. Yeah, there was an order that you had to
be aware of. There was no shuffle and there was
no way to change the order. Once it was done,
it was done. Yeah, you locked it in. So since
this show is centered around the art of curating
mixtapes, I've spent the last week putting together
a Songs of Collective Soul playlist to tie into
our discussion this evening. Now, these are songs
that I both resonate with as a fan, as well as
feel are important in telling the story of Collective
Soul to someone who may have not heard it before,
even though everybody has heard Collective Soul
before. The first song I'd like to talk about
is one that I've already spoken about on this
show several weeks back, and it would be from
our Songs of 1993 episode. As this track is celebrating
its... I can't even believe I'm saying this,
30th anniversary in 2023. And that would be the
song Shine from 1993's Hints, Allegations, and
Things Left Unsaid. Now, I am using the original
Rising Storm Records release of the album, not
the 94 Atlantic Records re -release that most
will be familiar with. Yeah, it was on the independent
label in 93, but everybody associates really
that song with 94. But yeah, but you're correct.
Keep going. Keep going. All right. Now, this
is a song that everybody knows from Collective
Soul was essentially your demo that just happened
to take off. Can you talk about how that all
unfolded? Yeah, you can. And we've had to go
back and listen to a decent amount recently.
But Collective Soul was a band and Ed. But I
tell everybody that, you know, Ed was he was
twenty eight, twenty nine. And he was like, man,
maybe maybe being least here with the band, is
it? necessarily where i need to put all of my
eggs so he was going to focus on songwriting
and seeing if somebody would record one of his
songs um so shine is an example off of hints
and allegations where you can tell there's programmed
drums there's real guitars but it's not necessarily
a band effort you know it's obviously the guitar
solo's epic in there but Ed was putting those
songs together for a songwriter demo to show
to other people to say, Hey, I'm a songwriter.
Can I get a publishing deal? Or would somebody
else like to maybe rerecord some of my songs?
Well, we put a lot of those songs on a record
for release also. And it was kind of, I mean,
now that I think about it, I wouldn't say last
ditch effort. but it was like okay well let's
also make a band make it a band record and see
what happens and and shine just kind of started
with the independent release it started on college
radio in atlanta and next thing you know a commercial
station in orlando is picking it up steve robertson
at wjrr and by february late february of 94 atlantic
records is flying me and ed to new york and We're
talking to Atlantic Records and doing interviews,
and they stamped Atlantic Records on hints and
allegations. In 94, you couldn't get Sean off
the radio, and we came away with Rock Song of
the Year. Well -deserved, and a song that is
beloved by generations because Dolly Parton,
who's now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
did a cover version of it. Yeah, I mean, what
an honor, and what a great version. It was a
super honor. She played it. She performed a lot
of it. on jay leno and you know we try to do
our best to let her know how appreciative we
were uh we sent her flowers and everything but
uh yeah we can't we we can't you know things
like that that have happened in our career we
can't uh you can't really under emphasize how
important those those moments are and and um
and how you know how honored we are that somebody
like dolly parton would grace you know her her
vocals with with on a song like sean It's an
amazing track. Well, for the second track, it's
time for me to talk to you bass player to bass
player here, because this one is a selfish pick
of mine. But the bass line in this song is such
an absolute monster, in my opinion. It's a perfect
second track of the night song, and that is the
title track from 1997's Disciplined Breakdown.
Can you talk about how this song came together?
Because I know there was some turmoil happening
with management at the time. And then more importantly,
how did... that baseline drum sequence come together
where it just kind of strips it all down to you
and drums and vocals because that is so powerful
in that song in my opinion thanks buddy and i'm
glad you chose that one because it that was definitely
a moment where i thought okay you know we were
super proud of the second record but i was like
we had backed down to a log cabin in the middle
of the woods near where we grew up in mcdonough
georgia we were locked into a lawsuit with our
first manager. Atlantic Records couldn't give
us any money. They couldn't. Everything was locked.
They couldn't. I think even in theory, we couldn't
even start planning to release a record. So we
did it on our own. There was no way you were
going to stop the creative flow that we were
going to keep coming at. So we rented a log cabin.
We stripped out carpet. There's drums in the
kitchen. And it's me and Ed and Shane in the
kitchen. We're developing that groove. And I
remember being super proud of it. I remember
being, okay, Shane's playing on rods. And it
was a moment where, you know, I don't know how
much people know about the story also about how
often I played bass at that point. You know,
I joined Collective Soul because they were my
best friends and I felt the music. I felt Ed's
music. We all grew up together and I told him
I would play bass. And that was right before
we got signed. So by the time 97 rolled around,
we're in a lawsuit. We don't really have a lot
of money. I'm driving my grandfather's Cadillac
Coupe de Ville two -door, but we're confident.
When I look back, we were still confident. We're
like, okay, bumping the road. It's not over.
We're still stuck in this cabin, but we're going
to make music. And Discipline Breakdown, now
you're understanding what exactly it was. It
was a Discipline Breakdown. We were broke down,
but as a band, we weren't broke down. As creators,
we weren't broke down. We figured out a way to
get into there. and make some stuff. So the moment
that I felt like that song and that groove, the
baseline, uh, I remember thinking, okay, I think
I'm kind of getting close to being a decent bass
player now. And, and you mentioned the groove
with me and Shane, uh, you know, there's something
special in the sauce. Me and Shane were as tight
as rope and we, we found a groove. We found a
pocket on that song and, uh, became the title
track. And like I said, there's a story behind
the title track. It was, we were broke down,
but we were staying on track, you know, got to
stay on track. Well, as a massive fan of this
track, it's only sporadically been a part of
the band's live shows. I'm wondering that considering
there's an expanded edition of Discipline Breakdown
that came out in 2022, is there any chance that
this song might make its way back into the live
rotation? You know, I don't know. Let's keep
talking about it. Keep throwing that out there
in the universe. Me and Johnny, our drummer.
Me and Johnny, Johnny's been with us barely over
10 years now, and he's he's me and him are tied
his rope as well. But we did our due diligence
for you during the rehearsals and we brought
out Discipline Breakdown and we jammed in a number
of times. It just just didn't catch fire with
the rest of the band. So maybe next time. All
right. All right. Well, the next song I'd like
to jump ahead to is Them Blues from 2019's Blood.
This song has such a unique vibe going on. Again,
another bass player moment here. The call and
response that you and Ed are doing between the
piano and your bass line. To me, it has this,
I don't even want to say three dog night, but
it has this 70s vibe going on to it. But it still
is a distinctly. modern collective soul track
yeah and i'd love to know how the band could
so effortlessly shift vibes from song to song
when writing and recording but still manage to
keep that collective soul sound locked in you
know it's uh it's a good question i'll start
with recognizing that song them blues i knew
okay ed came in with the piano and the the original
idea of the song and i was I was blown away personally
from a creative standpoint. I was like, okay,
I love it. Turned out to be, to me, it stands
out. It's really hard to rank songs. It's really
hard to rank albums, you know. But to me, that
one stands out. Them Blues is just one of the
most, it's just one of the moments in our creative
past. And I would say Discipline Breakdown the
same way, but that one really stands out creatively.
Our influences, we just open our... We open our
hearts and our mind and we just use all of our
influences that are around us and we create by
feel. I think if we had to write down in a book
how to bring in so many different influences
and still sound like yourself, I don't know if
there's a technical way to do that, but it's
something we've always been able to do. You know,
Collective Soul, every record, there's no record
that has one type of songs. And that's just one
of our MOs, man. That's how we operate. We bring
all our influences to the, to the table. We throw
it in a pot and it's like a, you know, we try
to make a really good vegetable soup out of it,
you know, we'll see which parts you like better,
but, uh, I'm super proud of them blues. I'm glad
you picked that song. I am really proud of that.
I'm proud of the vibe and it's us. I mean, it
is us. So yeah. Appreciate it, man. And then
another song I would just. bounce off of that
one with is Better Now from Youth because in
that song you incorporated a horn section and
then took it a step farther on the home DVD when
you did an entire performance with the Atlanta
Symphony Youth Orchestra that that is incorporating
a style that you normally wouldn't think about
with Collective Soul but it works seamlessly
it feels like any collective soul song, but sometimes
when you add horns into a rock band, sometimes
it'll do a disservice. But with this, it elevated
the song. Yeah. I mean, again, influences, you
know, I mean, David Bowie, you know, he wouldn't,
again, like how many different songs and styles
would a guy like David Bowie have, you know?
I mean, those, those are our heroes. The Beatles,
you know, how many different styles did Paul
McCartney have? Oh my God. He had four different
vocal styles he'd sing. Much less the song, you
know? So it's just a culmination of our influences.
And Better Now specifically, that one's right
off the top of Ed's noggin. I mean, he's like,
I want a sax solo. And I'm like, that sounds
weird. But sure enough, man, by the time he got
it all done, him and Dexter Green and Nashville,
I listened to the song. And first time through,
I was like, I think that's the first single.
And sure enough, it was. Hell yeah. Well, being
you're talking about influences now, let's stick
with that for a second. Something I've talked
about for years as a podcaster is the fact that
the Cars self -titled album is my favorite album
of all time. And in the band's catalog, Candio
and Heartbeat City are tied for the number two
spot, depending on my mood for that day. So I
guess it'll be no surprise that my next choice
is Collective Souls seemingly. nod to the band
the cars yep 2008s afterwards in the track hollywood
can you maybe talk about one if i'm hitting that
cars reference on the head there and if so where
the cars sit in collective souls history or fandom
and kind of why that influence kind of came out
in that song yeah i mean they were definitely
a big influence um they were a massive influence
on ed ed went to berkeley First year out of high
school, he just loved Boston. He loved Rico Kasich
and the Cars. And yeah, I mean, I think we might
have even mentioned it to people in the day.
I mean, Hollywood, sonically, and a little bit
of what we use sound -wise was definitely a direct
tip of the hat to the Cars. So that's that. I
love the song. American Idol picked it up. Who
would have thought? It's one of my favorites
from the band, as well as another song off of
Blood, which is Right As Rain, because Ed said
the song is a nod to one of my favorite artists
of all time, Tom Petty. Right. When you guys
are working on new material. Because obviously
Hollywood and Right As Rain are distinctly collective
soul songs, but you're bringing in what you grew
up with and the songs that you like. It's really
nice to hear those nods in an album. Is that
something that you guys set out to do? Or is
it something that when you're in the room working
on a song, you're going, man, I'm catching this
vibe here. Let's keep running with this. Yeah,
both. And I think the bulk of the song, you know,
look, I mean. it's western harmony you got 12
notes you got a melody you got words we got the
english dictionary everything in some form of
fashion has slightly been done before so it's
not um you know we're kind of like putting uh
what's the what's the quote about uh you know
we're not we're not making a new tire we're just
retreading the tire so it's okay to like have
a song and go oh this song the acoustic sound
Let's make this acoustic sound as close as we
can to Mr. Tom Petty and stick it out. And let's
listen to some of those Petty productions and
maybe pull a few of those production tricks,
or not necessarily tricks, but production aspects
of some Petty songs and pull them right into
our song. So that's kind of the thought process.
We're not sitting here. We want to be original.
We want to be true to ourselves, and we want
to sound like us. When you look at an influence
like the Cars or Tom Petty, it's totally just
pretty easy for us to go, let's do some keyboard
sounds like the Cars in Hollywood. And let's
make that acoustic sound as much. We can't make
it sound like Tom's right hand and Jeff Lynn
producing or whoever else is going on, but we
can try. And that's our tip of the cap to the
people who are our heroes. Excellent. Excellent.
Well, with the tip of the cap. I am a big cover
song nerd. I've been playing covers for years.
I love when I hear a new song, kind of learning
how to play it. And there's not a ton of covers
in collective souls discography. However, for
the half and half EP, you recorded a cover of
one of my personal favorite REM songs being the
one I love being a big REM fan as well. There's
a ton of songs you guys could have chose from
what made you settle on that one? I don't know.
We're big fans too. You know what? think and
we didn't really talk about it we just thought
you know we'll honestly step one on deciding
what cover tunes is what fits best with us like
we we'll run through a song really more than
likely we probably only run through a song one
time and we kind of know if it's going to capture
the best elements of us or not or maybe it's
not quite in our in our wheelhouse but um outside
of us knowing that we could capture a great vibe
on that song i think that record rem number five
is that right document rem document that was
the name yes yes um being from georgia we were
already fans of radio free europe we were already
fans of record called life's rich pageant but
they were it was still independent independency
uh college college radio and we were fans when
that record broke and it broke national we were
really proud and we were in high school Ed was
out of high school, but we were in high school
and we were proud of a band from Athens, Georgia
that broke nationally without being a Southern
rock band or a soul band. And we knew Georgia
had, we knew the history with Otis Redding, James
Brown, Ray Charles, Allman Brothers, the country,
all the country acts, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt.
We knew all that history. Atlanta rhythm section
going back to the seventies, but nobody that
was alternative, which is what we were listening
to. Nobody was looking down at Georgia. And when
REM did that, I remember an extreme feeling of
pride for my Georgia musician mates. And I think
that's probably one of the reasons we liked that
era of REM. Awesome. Awesome. Well, the next
collective soul track I want to talk about is
Heavy from 1999's Dosage. Just a killer riff
and a classic track that remains in the band's
live repertoire to this day. I asked listeners
to chime in with some of their favorite collective
soul songs, and this one was near the top. So
where does this song sit with the band in terms
of its longevity and inclusions in most live
shows since the song was released? Yeah, I guess
that's what you call a banger these days. Is
that the new term I've been using for the last
four or five years? Yes, it is. With that and
a bop, yes. I like banger. It's a banger, man.
I remember that one, too. Dosage. Dosage was
that record that really was our fourth record
and it really solidified, for me, that era of
Collective Soul, solidified the Atlantic years.
But that song, I felt it from the very beginning.
It started off with drums and bass and Ed came
running in the room and started a guitar riff
and next thing you know, we're going into a chorus
and that's how that song happened and it was
a big single for us. And it's hard to imagine
a live show that we're not going to play that
song. Agreed. Along with this next one, because
again, I did reach out to listeners and they
chimed in with their favorites. And this one
was the most chimed in song. So I wanted to add
it into our discussion today. And that would
be The World I Know from the 1995 self -titled
collective soul album, The Love Song to New York
City. Can you talk about why you feel that this
song has such longevity with fans some nearly
30 years later? Yeah, there's a sentiment in
that song that just rings true with a lot of
people. You know, it's just one of those songs
that presents a lot of questions, right? And
those questions are, it's great at writing lyrics
that can be used for anybody's perspective. So
yeah, it presents a lot of questions that all
of us have at certain point in times in our lives.
And it doesn't present answers, but it's, you
know. The culmination is just, you know, it's
just the world. You know, it's just the world
we know. So I think it's just one that resonates
because it's real simple for anybody to hear
those lyrics and go, I get that. From my perspective,
I get that. I've got some of those same questions.
And then, of course, yeah, the vibe of the tune.
We captured the vibe of the tune, and it still
lives on. That one will go on for a while, I'm
sure. As will my pick from the 1995 self -titled
album, and that will be the song Gel. That song
was featured on the soundtrack to the 1995 film
The Jerky Boys. And while the movie wasn't a
massive hit, the song certainly was. And I have
the soundtrack as well. And I love hearing the
collective soul track amongst that mix of songs.
Can you talk about how you guys became involved?
Because again, you guys are based out of Atlanta,
Georgia. This is the jerky boys, which are a
New York, New Jersey prank phone call duo that
are somehow catapulting into cult stardom enough
to make a movie. It's that whole story is in
and of itself amazing, but I'd love to hear how
you guys got involved with them for the Saturday.
And they're getting a little bit of the jerky
boys are, I felt a little bit of a resurgence
and people talking about them recently, but.
Yeah, that was probably almost all through Atlantic
Records out of New York. And we had the opportunity
to get on, you know, a cool little soundtrack
to bridge the gap between the first record and
the second record. So that that soundtrack came
out right before the second record. But we knew
Jail was going to be included into the second
record. Man, you know, I remember recording that
song in Chicago. We were on the road on that
first record. And we would if we had a day off,
we would stop and record. And we had to record
Jell a little earlier than the rest of the second
record, the self -titled record, because we had
to make a deadline for a soundtrack. So it was
I am not I am not stretching the truth. And I
tell you, we were in the studio. I don't think
we were there two days. We recorded that song
in one day. Wow. Might have been a day and a
half. We might have spent we might have had a
second day where we got like a half day in there.
But, you know, we had one record and we had just
been touring on that in 94. So. If you do get
a chance to listen to any bootlegs from 94, you'll
hear us play about seven or eight tunes that
weren't recorded. And a couple of those would
have been songs that you'll hear on the second
record. A song called Untitled we played on tour
in 94. Love that one. We played Jell on tour
in 94. We played Simple, a version of Simple,
I believe, on tour in 94. So it made it, since
we've been playing it live a lot, it made it.
easy enough to go right in studio and knock it
out but yeah it's funny it's it's it gets associated
with jerky boys who are pranksters and uh ed's
writing lyrics about uh all humanity coming together
yeah it's definitely a yin and yang moment happening
there now The band is no stranger to soundtracks
because besides Jell being on the Jerky Boy soundtrack,
Run was featured on Varsity Blues, She Said was
featured on the Scream 2 soundtrack, and then
Tremble for My Beloved was featured on the Twilight
soundtrack nine years after the song's initial
release. While it's safe to say that soundtracks
open up the band's music to new audiences, in
the case of Tremble, Is it safe to say that it
introduced the band's music to a new generation
of music fans as well for you guys? Yeah, absolutely.
And Twilight was barely in the era where people
were actually buying CDs still and listening
to the CDs beginning to end. We were number three
or number four track on, when you look at sales,
I think that in this day still sold over 2 million,
the soundtrack. So 10 years later, that song
was... part of the soundtrack of a generation
it was uh the early 2000s it was their footloose
to the 80s it was their singles to the 90s you
know the soundtrack of a generation i would say
the single soundtrack is kind of my generation's
kind of yeah soundtrack agree unless you go back
to the 80s and then you got some other ones like
i said there's there's footloose and uh there's
a few other ones that were just big big soundtracks
beginning to end but um Yeah, it became a soundtrack
to a generation, and it was a song we recorded
10 years prior, and it's in the movie. Yeah,
for us, Twilight, I was having this discussion
with some music podcaster friends, and we were
talking about the fact, when was the last soundtrack
that became an event as a group of songs? Because
around that time was the pivot to streaming,
where people would just go find... I feel like
Twilight was kind of the last big soundtrack.
That's the question I've kind of thought about.
As well. And if my answer is Twilight, that's
the last one. Well, unfortunately, we need to
make that a thing again, because I feel like
when you have a movie like Top Gun Maverick,
you have one Lady Gaga song on there. You think
about the original soundtrack's impact. Yeah.
They could have certainly gone a lot more than
just the score and the one song. And that brings
up another, I mean, the Stars Born soundtrack
was good as well, but still not quite like a
collection of different artists type soundtrack.
Yeah, The Greatest Showman was a fantastic soundtrack,
but that was a musical. So that's a little bit
of a different vibe. Yeah, exactly. All right.
So the last collective soul song that I have
on my mix for tonight is the track Perfect Day
from 2000's Blender. This song is an infectious
pop rock delight with a feature from an artist
listeners on the show may be familiar with. Some
guy named Elton John or something. Maybe you
heard of him. Joking aside, what was it like
working with him on this song? And what do you
feel his inclusion brought to the track on a
musical level? Because this is somebody who is
a musical icon for decades, generations. He's
a master. He's an absolute master. What I feel
like he bought, he bought Elton John. I mean,
what else needs to be said? Just great ideas
and vision by Ed. He's like, because Elton John
had befriended us. for the longest time, spent
a lot of time in Atlanta. So he befriended us.
He was a fan of Collective Soul. So we had been,
you know, one degree away from him, seeing him
here and there for a couple years. And then,
you know, Ed's always thinking, he's like, okay,
friends with Elton, I'm going to game to record
on a Collective Soul song. So Perfect Day was
the one. And we had him in the studio with us.
What a treat. What a great guy. I can't tell
you what it means to be able to watch Elton John.
in the studio we were actually in a big warehouse
we had set up our own gear so it wasn't like
iso rooms i remember standing behind him watching
him play you know and he's got these really small
fingers and stuff but he dances on the piano
it's really it's kind of amazing i mean his vocal
in the second verse it just pops the piano part
pops uh i love the songs you chose man that's
that's that belongs again that's that's an asterisk
to me in our career Not necessarily all because
of Elton, but the song, the way the song pops.
You serve the song, and Elton served the song
that day. Collective Soul served the song that
day, and it was, dare I say, it was a perfect
day. There you go. Well, talking about serving
the song, I also want to bring up your 2018 solo
album, Serengeti Drivers, because I am a big
fan of that album as well. And I want to talk
about two of the songs from that album, if you
don't mind, because I feel like they're the songs
that stick out to me the most. And they're the
ones that resonate with me. And I've always been
curious about them. The opening track, Demons,
is an absolute jam. And then halfway through
the album, you have a song like Belong that,
and I promise you, I mean this as a compliment.
I'm a huge jam band fan outside of rock music.
It has this. fish slash umphreys mcgee funky
rock vibe the entire album to me is a convertible
top -down road trip drive album but can you talk
about how this came together for you and more
importantly how you decide what songs you want
to explore as will turpin the artist versus which
songs you'd like to bring to the collective soul
camp yeah i think uh well yeah thanks man so
i appreciate all that uh And that was my first
full -length CD. Hopefully I get to work on another
one. I've been busy in the studio a lot here,
reel -to -reel in Atlanta, Georgia. Come see
me. But yeah, Demons is kind of, it's that simple,
it's a simple story where everybody, you know,
supposedly you got like these two, you know,
you got the yin and yang in life, right? You
got an angel on one shoulder and a little devil
on the other shoulder. And you hear these, you
get to play between them. And I was kind of just
playing on the term, I got to get rid of my demons.
And I was trying to be opposite. I was like,
huh, as long as I can learn when to go out with
my demons and when to leave them at home, I kind
of like my demons. And that's kind of what that
song's about. When my demons all have gone, I
don't want to be here to go it alone. If I can't
hear the angel song. I don't want to go there.
So just to leave it alone. I kind of, I was just
trying to say that, uh, I like the dichotomy.
I like it both. And, um, you know, a little bit
of a little bit of a love affair with my, uh,
my association with, with certain recreational
drug. It's legal in half States now to a little
double entendre there too. So that's what demons
is about. Yeah. And belong just a really funky
baseline that, uh, Mark Wilson started. So Mark
Wilson played probably a little over half of
the bass lines on my record. Uh, and we just
got funky on it, man. And I let it go, man. I
was like, you know, I'm not going to try to over
edit this song. I'm gonna let it go, man. It
ends up being almost a six minute tune. Yeah.
Appreciate it, man. Six awesome minutes. Now
on a little bit of a sadder topic, something
that you and I talked about a couple of years
ago on tune styles, when you were on with Jay
and I. We talked a lot about your tour with Van
Halen in the 90s. Now, obviously, Eddie passed
back in October of 2020. We have not talked since
then. I'm very curious, because you had such
a personal connection with them over the life
of that tour, how that whole situation impacted
you. Because just as a fan from the outside,
I'm still devastated. And I'm not trying to bring
the interview down. I'm trying to think of a
way to... to celebrate this man's life because
he did so much for the music world. I'd love
to kind of hear your thoughts on that because
you got to spend some real quality time with
him for a long period, which is different for
me just spending time with him at the record
level or at the CD level. Yeah, he was special.
Everybody knows how special and innovative he
was as a musician. Not even just a guitarist.
Everybody knows also how innovative he was as
a guitar maker. He could build guitars that were
amongst the best. He could design and build guitars.
Yeah, a lot of people don't get the chance to
know how special of a human he was on a person
-to -person level. 95, I'd have been 24 years
old, and we did over three months and covered
every arena in North America with those guys.
And I tell you, man, it wasn't a weekend to the
tour. Eddie Van Halen's walking around with you
with his arm around you, talking to you about
music. And yeah, he elevated us as a band. Sammy
as well. Michael Anthony as well. Alex is always
off doing his own thing. But those guys couldn't
have meant more to us. And Eddie was always thinking
about how I can help those guys. What can I do?
If he wasn't trying to help us, he really just
wanted to talk to us about music. He loved talking
all the time. He knows always about music or
instruments, which is why he gave me the five
-string all -black Music Man bass. He gave that
to me because we were talking about basses. And
I told him the next one I want is going to be
all black. And, of course, he went. About three
weeks later, I had an all -black Music Man five
-string bass in my dressing room. But man, they
touched our lives in ways we can't even describe.
Awesome. Amazing. Amazing. So now I've talked
about a ton of collective soul songs tonight
and picked all the ones that I liked and talked
about ones that listeners of the show liked.
But this would not be a collective soul mixtape
without getting somebody from the band to put
their stamp on it. So, Will, I'm going to propose
this question to you. If you had to pick three
songs from the band's catalog. that best tell
the story of your musical legacy across all these
decades, what three songs would you choose and
why? Well, you named some good ones. Wow. That's
a tough one. Well, you know, if you're telling
the story of the legacy, you might've already
mentioned three of them that I would use. You
know, Sean has to be in the legacy. It's what
got us on the map and it's. It sounds so different
and it sounded so different than anything that
was around at the same time. And it, it made
a mark that was, you know, that was, it was not
going to be, it was not going to be overlooked.
Um, so Sean is definitely there. Um, I'm trying
not to use your songs, but the song discipline
breakdown, we were in a, we don't, again, I don't
know how we were, we were a team. I don't know
how we were so confident, but we were making,
I mean, Atlantic records had to keep giving us
a minimum of 150 bucks a week. And we were in
a lawsuit and we weren't scared. We wanted to
go create music and, and we kept doing it on
a shoestring budget. And the record is, is, is,
uh, to me, to me, it stands out when I listened
to it, I can tell what we were going through.
Um, and it's just all in there. All the, all
the things that we were going through, it's all
in that record. and that's the title cut from
the from the record and and as ends growth as
a musician i mentioned that as well by the time
i'm playing that bass riff and i've been playing
bass now for about three years or so at that
point i'm like okay i'm i can almost call myself
a bass player now so so discipline breakdown
and then uh you know the last one uh man i don't
know i mean perfect days got elton john on it
what a mark that was But to me, I mean, maybe
something off of the record we just recorded,
but nobody's heard it. But to me, artistically,
the high watermark for me as an individual was
Them Blues. So you picked that one right out
of my head. Something about that song raised
the watermark for me, and it was something I
felt like I got to explore with my buddies, another
space that we hadn't really been to yet. I guess
that's my three for those reasons. It's the bass
player ESP we've got going here, I guess. You
were definitely choosing some strong bass songs.
Yeah, that's unfortunately where my mind automatically
goes, which is why I love having bass players
on because I really resonate with the instrument.
So now I'm going to be news Brian here because
you said something and I have to jump on this.
The band released Vibrating back in 2022, and
it has been known that the band has released
albums in subsequent years back to back. You
said something about a new album that no one's
heard yet. Do you care to spill any details of
what we might expect coming this year? Yeah,
there will be a record out at the end of the
summer. And I think it's the one we're currently
working on, what we're going to release and when.
But we did a record during the pandemic. It's
kind of been just side shelf because we're sure
what to do with it. And I think that's coming
out this summer. And we also just got back from
Palm Springs. We were in Palm Springs for an
entire month, recorded at Elvis's old house,
old Palm Springs house. We had an opportunity
through a friend of a friend to bring in all
the recording gear, and we lived in Palm Springs
for a month. Found another plateau of creativity
and knocked out another great record. We know
for sure that record will be out spring next
year. Within the next 15, 18 months, you might
see two collective soul records. You probably
will see two collective soul records. Oh, hell
yeah. I can't wait. And the quintessential documentary.
Keep your ear out. We are midway through production
right now. I think next year you'll see it on
one of your well -known streaming services. So
keep an eye out for that, man. We certainly will.
And when those albums come out, I hope to be
able to have you back on, Will, to talk about
them. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you
so much for joining me today on My Weekly Mixtape.
You got it, Brian. Cheers. Thank you, buddy.
Remember, if you'd like to listen to all the
songs we've been discussing on this episode,
head over to myweeklymixtape .com, visit the
Ultimate Songs of Collective Soul page, and give
the tracks a listen via the embedded playlist.
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enjoy the tunes.