Culture
Collective Soul: Will Turpin reflects on 30 years since ‘Shine’ college radio rise, being 1 of 5 acts at Woodstock ’94 & ’99
By: Ian Saint
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ASHLAND, Kentucky (WOUB) — Never underestimate the ingenuity and impact of independent artists and independent radio.
Collective Soul’s debut full-length Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid was a collection of demos initially issued by the Atlanta-based Rising Storm independent label. Humble origins to be sure, but soon spins on a university NPR affiliate caught the attention of Atlantic Records, who would sign the band and reissue the debut internationally only months later. The success of the record and especially its single, Shine, quickly led to the group performing for hundreds of thousands at Woodstock ’94.
Thirty years later, Collective Soul bassist and harmony singer Will Turpin reminds WOUB that Shine’s meteoric success belied years of study and toil in the studio. Turpin’s father founded Real 2 Reel Studios in 1976; and Collective Soul singer Ed Roland worked there as a recording engineer for years before Shine premiered on college radio near his 30th birthday.
Collective Soul’s passion for recording hasn’t waned. Today, they are independent artists once more; and last year’s Vibrating marked the group’s seventh album since their 2001 departure from Atlantic Records. Turpin’s zeal for the studio resulted in taking over his father’s business, where he produces other bands in between Collective Soul commitments.
In advance of Collective Soul’s concert at Paramount Arts Center (1300 Winchester Ave.) Friday, Turpin reflected on Collective Soul’s history from Real 2 Reel Studios in metropolitan Atlanta.
Welcome, Will Turpin! Original member, bassist, harmony singer of Collective Soul — one of only five acts to play both Woodstock ‘94 and ‘99. Thank you for speaking with WOUB! We are the PBS and NPR affiliate at Ohio University; and we’re especially excited, because I know college radio was critical to the launch of Collective Soul — and here we are, with the 30th anniversary of [debut single] Shine, the single that took off partly due to the kindling of college radio. Is that right?
Will Turpin:
Oh, yeah, very true! It was [NPR affiliate] WRAS, “Album 88,” in Atlanta, Georgia. That is [owned by] Georgia State University. [Collective Soul rhythm guitarist] Dean [Roland] delivered the single to the radio station. Dean was going to school there; and a guy named Sandy Fine answered the door, and he just always had a great ear for music. He became our tour manager, and a great friend of ours; but he immediately started playing the song. [Shine] is the one he picked out; [Fine] actually got the whole record — the CD, as it would’ve been — and he picked out Shine. We were on an independent label; and next thing you know, a commercial station picked it up in Florida — and the rest is kind of history.
Ian Saint:
I really love that, because it speaks to [the value of] regionality. Another reason why we love that story, as an affiliate of NPR in the Heartland, is you guys sprang out of Georgia. A lot of bands think they have to go to Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville [in order to break mainstream success]. But you guys stayed in the Georgia area; and that’s where you took off from.
Will Turpin:
Absolutely! You know what, Georgia’s got a rich history; so people were paying attention, a little bit, to Georgia. Started in the older days: Otis Redding, Ray Charles, James Brown… and then the Macon scene and Capricorn Records, Allman Brothers, Atlanta Rhythm Section.
And I’d say the band that really started to allow bands such as Collective Soul, John Mayer, the Black Crowes — all these bands that came out of Atlanta — I think R.E.M. was kind of the instigator for that! They’re out of Athens; but an hour east of Atlanta, and R.E.M. didn’t sound like a southern band. I think that’s what really helped a band like Collective Soul. While we were influenced by the Southern rock sound — and you can hear some of our double solos, and things like that — I don’t think anybody hearing Collective Soul goes, ‘that’s a southern rock band!’ And same thing with R.E.M.; they didn’t sound like a Southern rock band. So I think a little bit of that music history had a lot to do with it… no, we never thought we had to go to New York or LA, no.
Ian Saint:
And it’s astonishing, the pace of which you guys took off all of a sudden! After you guys were delivered to college radio, and then that commercial station picked [Shine] up… I was reading about how the label [Atlantic Records] didn’t even allow you guys to [formally] record the album [Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid] in the studio that you’d wanted to do. They just put out the demo [as the album], because they said there’s not enough time — ‘you’ve got to seize the momentum,’ I guess.
And then before you guys know it, you’re at Woodstock ’94; you open for Aerosmith, who are [currently] on their farewell tour. Do you recall how much time had passed between when [Shine] would’ve been picked up by college radio, and then you guys were doing Woodstock ’94 and opening for Aerosmith?
Will Turpin:
Barely less than a year later, I think, since WRAS [began] playing it. There was a Toys for Tots Drive, and we always played the Toys for Tots Show; I remember we played that show, and some people knew Shine from the college radio station — so that would’ve been Christmas… and [on August 12] we’re playing Woodstock ’94, and about to do all the [amphitheaters] across America with Aerosmith [on their Get A Grip Tour].
Ian Saint:
Oh, my goodness! And I was laughing with Woodstock ’94, because I saw the crowd doing the ‘yeah!’ [interjections of the bridge] in Shine — and it’s just this massive sea of people!
Will Turpin:
<laugh> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tell everybody, it was a sea of humanity… and everybody said [our performance of Shine] was the loudest the [Woodstock] crowd was in ’94 — partly because the numbers did diminish just a little bit when the rain came in, and the mud came in. But that Friday night that we performed? Gorgeous evening, no rain yet; a lot of bands that were new played that night, and we are still friends with some of those guys. Candlebox played that night, Sheryl Crow played that night; we’re still friends with [Candlebox], and [with Sheryl Crow] and her band. [The band named] Live played that night; those became great friends of ours, who we toured with over the years. Who else played on Friday night? It was just a really good rundown; Blues Traveler, another band that we toured with extensively, and really admire and are great friends of. So that Friday night of Woodstock ‘94 was super special.
Ian Saint:
[Collective Soul], like I said, were one of only five acts — you mentioned a couple others, Live and Sheryl Crow being among the other five — that played at both ‘94 and ‘99 Woodstock…
Will Turpin:
I didn’t know about the official five that played [both festivals], but I’m liking this…
Ian Saint:
…Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers!
Will Turpin:
Okay! Alright, alright!
Ian Saint:
Red Hot Chili Peppers did not have the best experience with Woodstock ‘99. There’s this new documentary [Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage] about Woodstock ‘99 and all the problems there. How did you guys fare at Woodstock ‘99?
Will Turpin:
Well, I mean, the bands get on stage and do our thing; and we’re backstage, where we’ve got buses, and there’s helicopters taking us places if your bus is off site or whatever… but it was tangible — the difference between ‘94 and ‘99 was absolutely tangible.
The moment we got on site in Woodstock ‘99, it was tangible [to see] that it had been commercialized, and it wasn’t as cool. They had people on top of a — if you’ve seen the documentary, you know what I’m about to say — but they had people on top of an old tarmac.
They had people on top of cement. You couldn’t even bring in your own water! They’re charging ’em four bucks, in a day when four bucks for a bottle of water was stupid; and even today, I think that’s too much. So it was super tangible [to see] that there was an undertone of people being pissed off. I’ll go ahead and say it like that. But on stage, it was fine for us; it hadn’t really gotten bad yet.
Ian Saint:
I saw with ’99, you guys even did the [Ozzy Osbourne] Crazy Train cover, and it still seemed pretty ebullient then. So I was like, ‘alright, well, maybe they got the brighter end of the festival.’
Will Turpin:
I remember playing with our buddies from Atlanta. Sevendust had played right before us; so we got to hang out with them, we had fun. So we were with our buddies, and we played our show, and the set was great! The crowd was great for us. The anger had not boiled over yet, but it was tangible. The difference between ‘94 and ‘99 was absolutely tangible, the moment we got there. [But] we weren’t there when they were burning stuff down; we weren’t running for our lives or anything.
Ian Saint:
Going back to the regionality of Georgia… are you speaking with us from Real 2 Reel Studio?
Will Turpin:
Yes, I am.
Ian Saint:
Okay! Yeah, I was going to talk about that — because that is the longest continually-running studio in metropolitan Atlanta, I believe, since 1976. And that year always makes me think of [rock band] Boston and [their frontman] Tom Scholz being very diligent in his studio. <laugh> So [1976] was an interesting year for music, and being in the studio; but Real-2-Reel, I know, was real integral to Collective Soul’s history as well. Your dad owned the studio; and Ed [Roland], the singer for Collective Soul, was an engineer there. So this is the studio, effectively, that Collective Soul sprang from?
Will Turpin:
It is. The original studio was built in the basement of a home, that was actually my grandfather’s [home]. The original studio was in a small town: Stockbridge, Georgia. The original Collective Soul, we all went to the same high school — [singer] Ed and [rhythm guitarist] Dean [Roland]’s father was the minister at the church. My dad’s studio, where I lived, where Ed and Dean lived, where [Collective Soul’s original lead guitarist] Ross [Childress] lived… you’re not talking about a third of a mile radius; it was a very small, serendipitous little situation. And yeah, man, the documentary [about the studio] comes out next year. There’ll be a lot more of those stories; but the detail of those stories is still pretty awesome, how special the circumstances were. But yeah, man, we came out of the studio; we were a studio band.
Ian Saint:
Do you remember what year Ed began working there?
Will Turpin:
Ed went to Berklee [College of Music] for about one year, maybe less. He came back home, started working on his craft, [then] went to my father and said he wanted to be an engineer. My dad said, ‘well, I’ll teach you how to be an engineer’; and Ed certainly learned it all, and was there [at Real 2 Reel] all the time. Ed describes it this way: he said, my father gave us all the fertile ground, water, the sun, and everything. We needed to be ourselves in the studio, and learn about how to be musicians.
And [my father] taught us a lot about, the main thing that you do as musicians, is create songs. You’re not trying to be the cool guy on the street.
You’re not trying to get as many girlfriends as you can, or whatever. It’s about creating songs! Although there was a time when there was only girlfriends in the audience — girlfriends and moms, basically <laugh> — he taught us a lot about the song. [About] how you service the song, and you raise the song up; you’re not raising up your own ego. You’re not raising up showing somebody what you can do. You’re trying to service the song, and make a song something special. So we all had that acumen, and I think you hear it in our records. When I listen back [to the early records], you hear a young band; but you don’t hear a very unexperienced band — it sounds clean and polished, and we were focused on servicing the song.
Ian Saint:
Yeah, well, there’s something to be said about how that first album was a demo, essentially — and the record company [Atlantic Records] thought it was sophisticated enough to launch… and it sort of shaped the direction that rock radio was going to go in, as it was going through that post-grunge era, I suppose. So that was fateful!
Will Turpin:
Yeah. It’s interesting, because we always thought, ‘okay, yeah, if we get signed, we’ll be able to re-record and re-visualize some of the songs; and record some new songs as a band.’ And Atlantic had better ideas; because I think if we would’ve re-recorded [our debut record], nothing would’ve been the same. I can guarantee that nothing would’ve been the same. It was beautiful as it was.
Ian Saint:
So on that regionality angle: we’re speaking with you because you’ll be coming to Ashland, Kentucky at the Paramount Arts Center on Friday, October 20… AND the night before that, you’ll be in Paducah, Kentucky [at the Carson Center]. And I was struck by that, because I know in the summer, you guys played in Marion, southern Illinois — and they’re [Paducah, KY and Marion, IL] not even an hour apart.
One of my good friends is in that area; so I’ve spent a lot of time there. And there’s this really interesting music scene there, that’s pretty cool, but you just don’t really hear about it in the mainstream [media]. [See my 2022 Music Highlights list, which includes Buzzman by Southern Illinois rock band Soopa Squad]
So for you guys to be playing two shows on this tour in that area, is there something that you’ve noticed in that part of the country? A lot of big rock bands don’t get to have multiple shows in an area like that; and I presume they wouldn’t get booked unless you guys really had a good draw.
Will Turpin:
Yeah. I mean, it’s more of a marketing and promotions game plan that agents and managers came up with. We wanted to play a lot of secondary markets this summer. Next summer’s going to be a lot of major markets with a multi-band bill. So if you get out [on tour], you get to play some of these secondary markets — you get to play in front of some people who might have thought, ‘well, I’m not going to travel two hours away to the major city show; but this band’s coming in town to the Paramount theater, and I live 10 minutes away or 20 minutes away.’ So you cultivate a little bit of the stuff outside of the major markets, and that’s kind of the idea of this summer: a lot of festivals, and a lot of secondary markets.
Ian Saint:
In Paducah, actually — where you guys play [the Carson Center] on Thursday — Alice Cooper’s playing it on Friday the 13th.
Will Turpin:
Right on! He’s a friend of ours. He’s a really good guy. He’s great.
Ian Saint:
Yeah! I interviewed [Alice Cooper] last year. He’s just amazing at how pioneering he is; and yet humble and responsible, all that balance is well done.
I wanted to ask you about a show that struck me, recently, because it was very much on a whim. You guys were playing Vegas; and a 13 year-old fan had a sign saying, ‘Ed, I can shred December.’ And you guys brought him up, and he played December [with you], and it rocked! Is that something that you guys do semi-frequently, take a chance on an audience member who says they can keep up?
Will Turpin:
Yeah, we’ve done that a number of times. We definitely trust people. And if they can’t keep up, it’s not going to slow us down; but for the most part, when somebody says they can do it, it’s probably going to be really fun — and really magical for everybody to see somebody just come up on stage, [and] play with some professionals that they’ve been listening to their whole lives. It’s special even for us, and fun. If you saw a video of that, we would’ve been smiling the whole time; it’d been fun.
Ian Saint:
Oh, you were! I mean, it was great. And I was almost like, ‘was he a plant?’ <laugh> And I know he wasn’t, but it just went off without a hitch. When you’re looking to book up and coming musicians at Real 2 Reel, has that ever manifested from an encounter like that at one of your shows?
Will Turpin:
I *have* met some people, who have come down here to [work at the studio], at Collective Soul shows; but not particularly when they got on stage with us. No, not that situation. It’s a possibility!
Ian Saint:
I did want to ask about the new record, of course, Vibrating — that came out last year. My understanding is it was recorded at the same time as [preceding album, 2019’s] Blood…
Will Turpin:
Right, in that same era; a little bit of right before COVID, and during COVID — we were finishing up stuff during COVID, and we stayed busy during that whole thing. We kept recording and making music; that’s kind of always been our deal, anyway. We’re always looking at the next thing, even 30 years [after Shine]. So yeah, Vibrating and Blood, we’re super proud of those [new] records that we’re making. It’s still that same thing that happened to us. Every record we’ve made, our whole career, still happens. I can feel the magic when we know it’s right; I can feel the magic in the moment. A lot of our contemporaries don’t crave the studio anymore like we do; and we still crave the studio as if it was 1997 — we’re constantly looking at the next thing. And I’m producing now, with the production company; I’m still working with artists, and creating new stuff, all the time. It’s just something that it’s in our DNA.
Ian Saint:
So you’ve had experience with both… <pause> What struck me is that [Collective Soul’s] first record, like I said, was indie initially; and then a major record label picked it up, and then you guys pretty much dominated radio — I know you were just recently recognized by BMI [with Million-Air Awards] for all those huge rock singles — and then you went indie again. And I know you’ve worked with distributors; I think with Vibrating, you did it on your own label…
Will Turpin:
Yeah, and it’s all just partnerships in this world. It’s not like we have a label and people answering, working as a label; it’s all outsourced. Fred Croshal at Croshal Entertainment Group is able to quarterback anything, and all things, Collective Soul. Since the record industry has evolved, there [are] a lot of those secondary outlets for people to release stuff. And it doesn’t matter if you’re independent on a level that Collective Soul is independent — which is not necessarily a small level — or if you’re just literally independent, and starting out new. A lot of these same people are doing the same things for everybody that’s out there [at all levels of prominence] right now.
Ian Saint:
So on that note: you were an indie artist in the mid ‘90s, and then also now — so much has changed, as far as distribution, and of course we talked about [changes to] radio regulations [such as the 1996 Telecommunications Act]. What’s your, I guess, barometer right now? Do you feel pretty good about it now, how it compares to [when Collective Soul independently released their 1993 debut record]?
Will Turpin:
Yeah. Comparisons, to me, are sometimes futile because everything’s always evolving — so comparison is fun to talk about, but I don’t compare things thinking, ‘I wish it was still that way, and why did it change?’ You have to accept change, and figure out where is that stream that I got to flow in; and it took a second. There was definitely a hiccup there when Napster was happening; and we can’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars creating art, and then give it away for free — just that model doesn’t work.
But now the streaming platforms are paying royalties; and everything’s kind of evolved to where I think I’m in a good spot, as far as where the record is today, as far as how it’s operating, and how a band like Collective Soul can thrive. And same [feeling] with a band that’s brand new; I recorded a band from California, [named] Odd Army — I recorded and produced them, check it out. [Editor’s note: you can stream Odd Army’s new album, Chrysalis, Become, in the Spotify widget below.]
So it doesn’t matter if you’re new, or been around for a while; the outlets and the availability to get your music heard, it’s there! It’s all there, and I’m happy with it. That being said, I mean, I think some of the streaming royalties need to come up a little bit — but it’s all documented, and it’s all really transparent right now, so it just is what it is. That being said, we did see the craziest evolution in the record industry that we’ve ever seen, because they were still making cassettes of our third record. Now vinyl’s back — and I understand why vinyl’s back, but you’re not going to see cassettes again! <laugh> You know what I mean? They were making cassettes of Collective Soul records, and it doesn’t seem like that long ago to me, but it was a long time ago as far as the record industry’s concerned.
Ian Saint:
Well, I know Gen Z have kind of taken a liking to cassettes. There weren’t that many manufacturers of the cassette players anymore; and then now they’re kind of bringing it back in, like so many things from the ‘90s. Have you guys noticed an uptick in young people coming to your shows, the last couple of years?
Will Turpin:
Yeah. The kids still want to see, ‘Hey man, I know these rock songs. I know some of these rock bands.’ They still want to see that band from the — they’ll categorize us as from the ‘90s, and I guess we are from the ‘90s — but they still want to see that band. If you’re a music fan and you’re a music lover, people want to come check it out — because, like I figured out about 15 years ago, they’re not going to stop playing a large number of our songs. I think I’ll be gone, and you’ll still be able to hear Collective Soul songs.
Ian Saint:
Yeah, I was talking to my parents about that! As soon as I hear that beginning of [1995’s] December, I’m like, ‘man, that puts me back in the backseat of the purple ‘96 Dodge Intrepid on our way to the rec center.’ <laugh> My last question would be The World I Know. I was listening to the hits and the deep cuts; and I noticed in that song in particular, I think your bassline in the verses were very interesting. Do you have any thoughts about that bassline? The way that it’s formulated was not exactly [the arrangement] I had expected; but I think that’s part of what made people perk their ears up at that song, and it became a huge hit.
Will Turpin:
I was a refugee on bass; that’s the way I describe it, anyway. I told my best friend that — we were in a band, and I was a fan of Ed’s songwriting — I told him I’d play bass. The [previous] bass player wasn’t really working out, and wasn’t necessarily in our tight circle. Up to that point, I’d been playing percussion and singing all the background harmonies with Ed, and I hadn’t committed. I was a music major; and my mom had told me my whole life not to try to be in a rock band, ‘it’ll never work!’ <laugh>
But I committed to bass, and I struggled technically a little bit on that [1995 Collective Soul self-titled] record. But I always create from what comes into me; and I don’t necessarily just play bass, like ‘What’s the root? And let me find the kick drum pattern.’ I try to incorporate a melody; and sure enough, that little line and some of the nuance that I did on that bass line, [producer] Matt Serletic immediately said, ‘I like that bass line you’re doing in the verse’ — and that became the spearhead for what the strings were doing in the song.
Ian Saint:
Yeah, and it’s beautiful! And of course, it’s played all the time, to this day.
Will Turpin:
I listen to it, and I feel like, ‘okay, I wasn’t really a great bass player; but I was creating the way I still create today.’ I hear melodies, and I hear things come in; I’m not just trying to lay down a root and hit the kick pattern. I grew up listening to Sting, Paul McCartney, and John Paul Jones — those would’ve been my heroes, as far as bass goes. Those were the type of basslines I liked. You can hear it in John Paul Jones, playing a melody on Ramble On. You don’t have to even think about how many melodies are on the basslines of Paul McCartney and Beatles tunes, and that’s the way I feel. And my fourth biggest, or as far as big influences on how I approach creating bass parts for a band, is [U2 bassist] Adam Clayton; I’m always attracted to his style, and what he did with the bass in a band.
Ian Saint:
That’s awesome! Well, thank you, Will Turpin — very much — for speaking with us at WOUB, your PBS and NPR affiliate at Ohio University. We look forward to welcoming Collective Soul to the Paramount Arts Center on Friday, October 20. And in the meantime, safe travels.
Will Turpin:
Cheers! Thanks; I appreciate your time. Come celebrate with us!
Collective Soul plays the Paramount Arts Center (1300 Winchester Ave.) Friday. For tickets, and a full Collective Soul tour itinerary, visit their official website: https://www.collectivesoul.com.