• 1992-

  Ed RolandLead vocals, guitar

  Ross ChildressGuitar1992-2001

  Will TurpinBass

  Shane EvansDrums1992-2003

  Dean RolandGuitar1993-

  Joel KoscheGuitar2001-2014

  Ryan HoyleDrums2003-2008

  Cheney BrannonDrums2008-2012

  Johnny RabbDrums2012-
• Ed Roland is about eight years older than the guys he formed the band with. His previous bands fell apart when their members left to get sensible jobs, but Roland kept on going. Shane Evans played with him in his band Marching Two-Step; Will Turpin's dad owned Real 2 Reel Studios in their hometown of Stockbridge, Georgia, which is where he connected with Roland. Ross Childress, who also spent time at Real 2 Reel, had a band called Stonegarden, not to be confused with Soundgarden.
• The band name comes from a quote in the Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead, where the character Ellsworth Toohey says: "I wanted power over a collective soul and I got it A collective soul. It's a messy kind of concept, but if anyone wishes to visualize it concretely, let him pick up a copy of the New York Banner."
  
  At this point Ed Roland was in the band Marching Two-Step, which made them sound like a country band. He is the one who suggested Collective Soul, as he was reading the book.
• Dean Roland is Ed's brother, younger by nine years. Ed didn't know he played guitar until he returned to spend a night at his parents' house in 1989. When Dean pulled out his guitar, Ed showed him a riff he was working on, which became the song "Shine." Dean joined Collective Soul as a guitarist in 1993.
• Ed Roland does most of their songwriting, and is the only writer credited on their first album. That album, Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, was conceived as a demo to pitch his songwriting skills, but "Shine" got the attention of Atlantic Records, which signed the band.
• The Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid album contains contributions from all the band members, but not at the same time. Since it was a showcase for Roland's songwriting, it was recorded at two different studios with different members present.
• After the release of their second album in 1995, the band got in a nasty legal entanglement with their manager, Bill Richardson, which froze their assets. Ed and Dean Roland moved back in with their parents, and the band worked on their third album in a cabin. Many of the resulting songs - "December" and "Heavy" among them - were inspired by this conflict.
  
  To Ed Roland, Richardson is like Voldemort - he won't speak his name in interviews.
• The band did well on MTV and VH1, but never put much creative energy into their videos. In a Songfacts interview with Ed Roland, he said: "Videos to me never were a big part of what we wanted as a band. You did them because MTV still played videos then, and the record label wanted them. But they were something we didn't find necessary. We wanted them, but we were not making half-a-million-dollar videos like a lot of bands were at that time."
• The band didn't release a live album until 2006, when they issued Home: A Live Concert Recording with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra. The album was comprised of two performances the band did with the orchestra in 2005 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta. Ed Roland considers these shows, which raised money for local music programs, one of the highlights of his career.
• They played both the second (1994) and third (1999) Woodstock festivals.

Comments: 2

• Mike from NjI'm late to know about them. Just a week ago NYC classic rock station played "December". Now I've been catching up on all their catalogue. Watch "December" from their Woodstock performance. Amazing! My new favorite group.
• Bad Bob from OhioTHE MOST under-rated band EVER. Love this band, lack of comments proves what i am saying.

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