COLLECTIVE SOUL - Dean Roland

By: Lori Smerilson Carson  |  Photo: Jennifer Troche Walsh

Another Summer is in full swing and that means another COLLECTIVE SOUL tour. This year, these triple-platinum artists are taking their thirty plus years of hit songs on the road with LIVE, co-headlining the ‘Summer Unity Tour.’ Floridians have the opportunity to see this amazing show on August 8th in Jacksonville at Daily’s Place. In addition to the tour, COLLECTIVE SOUL have also just released their documentary GIVE ME A WORD which displays many aspects of their incredible career during the past thirty years.

Catching up with Rhythm Guitarist Dean Roland, he revealed some details about the show that he and fellow bandmates, brother and Lead Vocalist Ed Roland, Lead Guitarist Jesse Triplett, Bassist Will Turpin and Drummer Johnny Rabb will be playing, as well as insight into their documentary, their last released album, and what fans can look forward to.

SFL Music Magazine: How did the ‘Summer Unity Tour’ come about with COLLECTIVE SOUL co-headlining with LIVE?
Dean Roland: We’ve been buddies with those fellows for a long, long time, Ed K (Kowalczyk). I remember we played Wood stock ’94 the first time we met him. We had just pulled into like behind the stage. He was the first person that my brother Ed and I met. We kind of pulled up at the same time and just had a whole fun interaction. Had been fans of them. They had already put out a couple of records. We’ve toured with them before, played with them. You want to tour with people that you like because you’re in a touring situation where you can’t escape one another. So, hopefully it’s a good chemistry, and like I said, people that you enjoy being around.

SFL Music Magazine: What can fans look forward to with the new show?
Roland: We sort of put a setlist together and it’s like a little bit of a puzzle. We have thirty years of music, so definitely we’ll play the songs that people know. The radio hits or whatever. We released a record this past year, so we play some new music and just kind of mix it up, like try to figure out a healthy little mix up that we all feel good about. We go up there and have fun. We see our life as kind of a privilege to be able to create and play music for a living. So, we enjoy that and try to share that passion with people when we’re onstage, and hopefully it conveys, translates.

SFL Music Magazine: The last time we spoke was when HERE TO ETERNITY came out. You explained that when COLLECTIVE SOUL are in the studio, you approach your songwriting to serve the song. Do you keep that same concept with your shows?
Roland: It’s like when you’re in the studio you serve the song. When you’re playing live, you’re serving the experience. It’s not just for the fans; it’s for the band too. We have fun with each other on stage. We’ll play a song like “Shine” that we’ve played thousands of times before, but every night is different and somebody’s out there that has never heard the song live before. So, we just kind of take a very simple form, and we serve the experience and try to have some fun with it.

SFL Music Magazine: The last time you mentioned the documentary, which is out now, GIVE ME A WORD. You recorded it when you made the record at Elvis Presley’s house in California. Tell me again how that all came about.
Roland: We had been working on putting together like a career spanning documentary. We’d never been a band that really looked in the past too much. We kind of want to take advantage of the opportunity given to be able make these. It was our thirtieth-year anniversary kind of thing, so we started considering all those things. We were approached by the production company that wanted to help out and put together a documentary. So, we put the archival footage that we had been working on, and then we merged it with recording HERE TO ETERNITY at the Elvis estate. So, it’s a blend of from where we came from, to where we are now. It’s a fun one, I think anyway. If you’re a COLLECTIVE SOUL fan, you get some insight into where we came from and the ups and downs. With any kind of career or relationship there’s going to be successes and failures. For us to go back and see those things, it was emotional, but it was also to visit the degree of triumph in it as well knowing that we’ve been able to persevere and have in any relative term longevity and still be relevant in some degree in the music world.

SFL Music Magazine: In the Documentary, Dolly Parton said that she “loves COLLECTIVE SOUL and has for a long time.” I immediately thought, I knew she was cool!
Roland: Yeah, that’s awesome!

SFL Music Magazine: Did you guys ever meet and work with her?
Roland: So, she recorded “Shine”, and she did it for her husband because he was a fan of our band. He loved that song. That was like her little dedication for him. She went on to win a Grammy for it. And my dad says Ed wrote the song and it is such a compliment having someone like Dolly who is in her own right one of the best songwriters of our time. She’s amazing, and for her to do that, it’s a high-level compliment to stand as a songwriter and to the band, in general.

SFL Music Magazine: There were very personal things. Ed talked about losing his friend Chris. He was saying he was his mentor. How difficult was it to dig into those past experiences and details?
Roland: It’s a little tricky because like I said, we never really spent that type of painful to really sit back and go, yeah that was awesome, we played Woodstock ’94. We’ll talk about it here and there, but in the same breath, we have to acknowledge the losses or even bad decisions we’ve made as a band or whatever it may be. It’s emotional. It’s tricky to have to dig back through that stuff, but I think it was healthy and hopefully it helps out some younger musicians that want to take the path and have a career in music. Like, learn from our mistakes and celebrate the successes.

SFL Music Magazine: You and Ed came from musical parents and grew up with church music and felt like you had that ability. What would you pass along to a new band from the experiences that you’ve had?
Roland: For me, I think the most important part is to generally find your authentic voice. I don’t mean like literal voice, but your authentic expression of what you want to say and do and then persevere. Endure the ride because there’ll be ups and downs. Surround yourself with people that you can trust, and learn as much about the business as you possibly can. Prepare to go and do it. You’ve got to put it into motion. It’s one thing to dream and to have ideas, and then it’s a whole other thing to have those ideas and put them into motion. You got to act.

SFL Music Magazine: That is great advice. Speaking of putting things into motion, you all are great with putting out videos as well. Is there anything new coming out? I know “Mother’s Love” is out there. Is there anything else new off of HERE TO ETERNITY?
Roland: I think we’re about to start working on a video for the song called “Keep It On Track”. That’s one of the ones that we’ve been playing live and just really enjoy playing. A lot of times we have a handful of songs that are just like a good census within the band that we all just really enjoy, and that happens to be one of them.

SFL Music Magazine: What inspired that song?
Roland: Um, getting off the track (he laughed). Getting back on the track. Keep it on track once you’re on it (he laughed again).

SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything else new for fans to know?
Roland: Yeah, at the end of last year we recorded some new music. So, that’s going to be coming out at some point later this year. I’m not exactly sure because we’re going to be busy with the touring, and the documentary is coming out. So, both of those things will be happening. We just keep moving forward. Excited about the tour. Excited about new music. Appreciate the feedback that we’re getting from the documentary. So, just keep rockin’.