Collective Soul is an American rock band from Stockbridge, Georgia. They have enjoyed popularity on alternative rock, mainstream rock and pop music radio throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, recording seven #1 mainstream rock hits.[1] They broke into mainstream popularity with their hit single "Shine" from their debut album Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid, released in 1993.Prior to forming Collective Soul, Ed Roland studied composition and guitar at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Since the mid-80s Roland had been involved in underground music, either making unpublished demos or performing. He also worked at "Real 2 Reel Studios" in Stockbridge during the 1980s and early 1990s, which was owned by Will Turpin's father. Ed's main duties were producing, mixing and engineering work for local Atlanta artists. He also recorded his own demos and released his independent solo album "Ed-E Roland" in 1991. He had a pre-Collective Soul band in the late 80s and early 90s called Marching Two-Step which included Shane Evans, Michele Rhea Caplinger, and Grammy Award winning record producer/industry executive Matt Serletic.
Caplinger would go on to be a music industry publicist and she was appointed executive director of the Atlanta Chapter of the Recording Academy in 2000. Serletic would go on to produce albums for Collective Soul, Matchbox Twenty, Blessed Union of Souls, Edwin McCain and many others.
Marching Two-Step were a legitimate band for a few years. They never managed to grow beyond the club scene. Attempts to get signed by a record label produced no results. However, the core members have all stayed active in the music industry for many years.
Around 1992, Ed decided to shift focus as he was trying to secure contracts so he could publish his songs and compose for other artists. Marching Two-Step was no longer together, and Ed continued to jam and perform with other local musicians and friends. These early attempts to be signed and published ended in rejection.
That would change in 1993 when his song "Shine" from the Rising Storm label release of "Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid" became an underground hit on a influential College radio station in Orlando. It was around this time that Ed brought along Shane Evans, his brother Dean Roland, Will Turpin and Ross Childress. This would become the official line-up, and is really when Collective Soul began as a serious band.
Ed Roland was reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and came across the phrase "collection of souls"[2]. Although author Ayn Rand actually uses the phrase in a negative connotation, using the "collective soul" as a threat to the main character's sense of individualism, Ed is quick to point out, "...we're not preaching Ayn Rand, objectivism, egoism, or anything...we just dug the name..." and "it [the band's
Discography
*Studio albums
*1993 Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid
*1995 Collective Soul
*1997 Disciplined Breakdown
*1999 Dosage
*2000 Blender
*2004 Youth
*2007 Afterwords
*2009 Rabbit
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Subject: Collective Soul 
Wed Aug 05, 2009 3:42 pm
