Will Turpin (Collective Soul)

Will Turpin is a musician, songwriter and music producer.  He is best known as the bass player and founding member of the band Collective Soul. He also has his own solo career and is currently producing some bands. In this interview we discuss the backstory of Collective Soul, touring with Aerosmith & Van Halen, how Elton John played on a song, Woodstock 94 versus 99 and more!

00:00 - Intro
00:40 - New Album
01:27 - Band Contribution To Songs
03:30 - Collective Soul Sound & Singles
05:40 - Elton John
07:03 - Figuring Out Popular Songs
08:03 - Backstory of Collective Soul
16:45 - Tours with Aerosmith & Van Halen
18:30 - Bret Michaels
20:20 - Woodstock 94 vs 99
21:45 - Will's Solo Music & Producing
24:03 - Future of Collective Soul
25:03 - Creative Vets
26:22 - Outro

Collective Soul website
https://collectivesoul.com/

Creative Vets website:
https://creativets.org/

Chuck Shute website:
http://chuckshute.com/

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

We'll Turpin is the bass player and founding member of the band collective soul. And he's here today to tell us all about the latest album The band house has out called vibrating. It's got that classic Collective Soul catchy sing along choruses and melodic rock that I personally love. Plus, he's got some good stories from the old days like singer Ed rollin sleeping in the studio, hanging with Van Halen, and Bret Michaels. And plus he tells us all about some other projects that he's working on. All this and more coming right up all right. Well, welcome to the show. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Big fan love Collective Soul. Just now discovering your soul stuff, too. So a lot of great stuff to talk about.

Will Turpin: 0:49

Yeah, cool. Thanks, man. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 0:50

yeah. So tell me about the new album. It's called vibrating. That's the title. It's based on sound vibrations, right? Or is it something more?

Will Turpin: 0:58

Yeah. You know, all frequencies, everything breaks down to a frequency and it's always, you know, vibrating. So that's what it is, you know, what, you know, what are these frequencies that hit our ears and make us feel a certain way and remember certain things, you know, so it all breaks down to this little scientific thing. But we all know that it's actually turns into something magical that we really can't describe how it you know, how it makes us feel this way as humans? Absolutely.

Chuck Shute: 1:26

Well, and, uh, you guys know, Ed does all the or II is he likes to be called now he does all the songwriting. But what do you guys must do something with the arrangements and things? I mean, what do you guys add the band add to the songwriting and making the songs.

Will Turpin: 1:40

I mean, he definitely comes to us with a depending on the song, sometimes it will be developed out of a jam session, but he comes with a strong, especially later in the years, you know, in the earlier days, it was more out of jam session and, and literally just, he called him vowel movements. So it wasn't even real words. And we would create a little more from scratch like that. That being said, as lyrics no matter what, how we're creating music as a band. His lyrics are have always been, you know, one of the strongest things about this band. But yeah, man, we all kind of grew up in the studio even now, today with Jesse Triplett, you know, he's been with us nine years. This is the guy that grew up in the studio. So it's, it's a band that kind of produces themselves and arranges themselves we always have so there's a lot of stuff that goes on in the studio, that, that that are different roles that everybody takes on. But yeah, man, we're all over that record.

Chuck Shute: 2:43

I was gonna say, because I just had the drummer from Creedence Clearwater on and we were talking about that how, you know, like they had so many hits with Creedence. And then John Fogerty went solo. And for some reason, he only had two hits or a couple hits, even though he was the main songwriter, but there must have been something about the band together that pushed him to make better music. I don't know, it always makes me wonder about that.

Will Turpin: 3:06

Yeah, well, I mean, I've always said chemistry is like, the most important thing with a band. So if you've got chemistry, then you can build on that. And that becomes something that's kind of bigger than the sum of the parts. Is that the right way to say that? You know, one in one equals three kind of thing? You know, for sure. So the chemistry is right with the musical artistic thing like that, then it can. It makes it bigger than it really is.

Chuck Shute: 3:30

Yeah, no, I love it. That sounds like classic collective soul. I mean, that's one thing I love about collective souls. That's never really you haven't really had a lot of like experimental albums. It's always been that kind of collective soul sound and like the from the first tune on this one, cut the cord. That sounds really good. I'm surprised that wasn't the first single, although all our pieces is also I guess that's also they're both really catchy. Really good sing along choruses.

Will Turpin: 3:55

Yeah, I mean, we used to like spread over what was a single so much back in the day, and it's not really like that anymore. We want certain songs to be heard. We've got to pick singles. But yeah, man, I mean, collective soul. It's, it's one of those sounds that, you know, first record, people couldn't pigeonhole us. We sound like nobody else only we only found like, collective soul. But yeah, we were very eclectic band, we've got a lot of different sounds and you can't really it's really hard to say exactly what sub genre Collective Soul is, because I think we cover a lot of those sub genres. And then in the end, you know, it's just a rock band in the end. Yeah, the Beatles can do long and winding road and, and do helter skelter on, you know, then it's all in rock and roll. But yeah, man. It's just, it's just part of our Mo we only do what we do well, and we stick to that, that and again, that being said, we are a very eclectic band. There's a lot of different sounds you'll hear on every one of our records.

Charles Shute: 4:57

Yeah, there's piano on a I don't know if there was as much on this one, but on the other on, what's the one before blood? Yeah, yeah. Who that was was this ad do the piano.

Will Turpin: 5:09

And there's piano parts. If it's like a feature like piano part, you can tell what's going on with the vocal. It's more than likely Ed almost always had if it's just like a little keyboard part that might be in the background of course or something a lot of times that's me most time that's me. But yeah, man, if you hear a part that's gonna work in with the vocal Yeah, can sit behind a piano and write a song just as good as he can on an acoustic guitar. Or an electric guitar.

Charles Shute: 5:35

That's interesting. Yeah, I was I was trying to look for interesting facts about trivia about collective soul. I didn't realize that on the 2000 album, you guys had Elton John play. How did you get Elton John on a song? That's crazy. I never knew that.

Will Turpin: 5:50

Well, being from Atlanta. You know, he used to live here a lot. Not here as much anymore. Still think he's got a place but I think the Georgia politics finally got to him. But anyway, yeah, so he befriended us, Elton John befriended us because he was in town and he became a fan of the music because he heard the music while he's living in Atlanta, and he knew we lived in Atlanta, and one thing led to another and of course, it was going to try to find an opportunity to get him on a record and yeah, man, I thought that song Perfect Day. I don't, I'll hear it every now and then, like, background type music in Home Depot or something like that, you know, but I thought that song would get a little garnish a little more attention. I thought it was extremely well done. Elton's part just fits like a glove. And I'm really happy with everything we did as a band as well. But yeah, man, that's a cool song.

Chuck Shute: 6:46

That's got to be frustrating when you write these, you know, or you record or whatever, these brilliant songs and you finish the product and you go, Okay, this, this is a masterpiece, and then it doesn't get the reception you want. I mean, what's interesting about your new album, too, I noticed when I was looking on Spotify, back again, is the most popular song. And that's not even one that you put out as a single Why do you think that one rose to the top of the most popular?

Will Turpin: 7:10

Um, probably because of the baseline? That's one of my favorite. I liked that vibey thing that we do we that's another kind of sound that collective soul can get into. It's the vibey kind of mid tempo song. I love that song. So yeah, I mean, that's great. When you, you see what people gravitate towards that. It's one of those things that like I said, and especially in the 90s, we would, we would really deliberate over what's going to be the singles and and now we get to, we definitely want to put singles out but we get to sit there and watch on the streaming platforms and see what people are gravitating towards naturally. That's interesting,

Chuck Shute: 7:48

too, because it's like a deeper trade. Some are nine of 10. So it's like people must have listened to the full album and then gravitated towards that one for whatever reason.

Will Turpin: 7:56

Yeah, yeah. Another good perspective. Yeah. I think that's awesome that people are listening to the entire record.

Chuck Shute: 8:01

Yeah, yeah. So you're the band collective soul. It's such a fascinating story to me. I didn't know some of the backstory. Can you clear some of this up though, because I'm trying to figure out

Will Turpin: 8:11

who was not in five minutes, and just

Chuck Shute: 8:15

just some of the basic stuff. So it's just, I love these kind of like, you know, when the band is nothing, and then they make it I love those kinds of stories. And it sounds like now, was it? Ed was working at what was it like the church? Ed was doing landscaping, he was a janitor at your dad's church to pay the bills and know, my clothes.

Will Turpin: 8:38

My father, I'm at my studio right now took ownership of my father's studio, about three years ago. reel to reel, reel to reel studios. We opened the studio in 76 in Stockbridge, Georgia. So Ed went to Berkeley for one year came back home. I think he was doing some odd jobs for cash every now and then around the church because you know, preacher son, he got the easy jobs. But no, he was head engineer. It was head engineer at my father studio. Oh, last, you know, the last route all during the 80s and early 90s. He was he was busy band, producing an engineering all kinds of cool bands. I think one of the first ones he did, ironically enough is roop Hall. In Atlanta. We do straight up pop records and an engineer that that was one of the his first ones probably in I think he started working at the studio, maybe 82 or 83. We were talking about that the other day. Maybe 83. But me Shane Ross Dean, we were a really tight knit core and we were hanging around the studio as well. All the same high school. We were watching Ed work on his craft. Edie was six and a half years older seven and a half years older than me, Shane and Ross. And we were fans of Ed's music. And the short version is you know, we were hanging around studio we were We're all buddies we knew Shane Shane immediately right out of high school was in Ed's band. Ross was soon after that, then me and Dean were were kind of the last two to join the band. But we knew that those five guys chemistry was, we knew that that would be the strongest chemistry we could have. And when I committed to bass, I'd never played bass, it was more about a being in a band of brothers and understanding, understanding the direction of Ed songs, we really understood the direction of where we're going to go with them. And honestly, we just wanted to record as much music as possible, we really wanted to develop and show people what we had. And that's kind of the short version of how collective soul came to be. It's also it's also why that second record is significant as the self titled record, we went into that recording process as a band, and the first record wasn't recorded as a band.

Chuck Shute: 10:56

Or you guys on the original right that's the other thing I wanted to clear up because I thought he said something like it was different musicians on the first record.

Will Turpin: 11:03

It's playing bass a lot. Shane's on you can tell Ross is on the record. Shane's on the record, you can tell the records that have acoustic drums, Shane was there helping him out with everything that I think the point there is, it wasn't recorded as a band some of those songs recorded for more of a songwriter demo where Ed wanted to maybe shop some of his songs. So even a song like Shawn, the only real performer on that song, other than Edie is Ross playing solo. There's programmed drums that I think, I don't know who if Shane was around to help that or Ed just totally programmed himself because he did it either way. They did those things both ways. But, you know, shine. You hear that if you go back and list that first record, you'll be able to tell the ones that were maybe intended for a songwriter demo. But the first record hits allegations things left unsaid, it became a collection of the best rock and roll stuff that collective souls a band was doing. So we did release a record that wasn't really a band record on an independent label, and it later got stamped by Atlantic Records and the way Sean started rolling downhill. There was no time to go in and rerecord that's what we always thought hey, let's get signed off this collection of songs. Let them see us play live and then we'll record a record and fate had other ideas for us so the first record stayed as it is and we went in recorded a brand new record and called it collective soul.

Chuck Shute: 12:33

But they were it was pushing Good night Good guy as the single right and shine was the beside and then the some DJ that

Will Turpin: 12:42

that's the that's the I don't know how those are. I mean, folklore, folklore, I mean, we would have maybe thought in our minds that Good night Good guy was our best rock straight ahead rock single, we weren't pushing the thing we were. I was 23 years old Ed was 29. And we just signed to Atlantic Records, we knew that they had you know, promoted and, and can you know, and were part of AC DC and Led Zeppelin and all these legends we we did we they go in there with any kind of business plan on what we thought was going to be the way things were. But again, Shawn started on its own, there was no decision was shot. It was a it was a snowball at the top of a mountain and it got kicked off the mountain rolling downhill because Jay AR are in Orlando, Florida, Steve Robertson, a DJ on a radio commercial radio station, added it in full and it wasn't full rotation, he added it in a Sunday night, shoot out and we kept beating everybody next thing you know, we're in rotation where the highest highest call in highest recommended or requested song. Before that we were just on college radio with the independent record and nobody was watching. Nobody was listening. So as soon as that happened at a huge commercial station in Orlando, we actually had options for which label we wanted to sign to. And again, our the, the forte of our business acumen was that Atlantic Records had Led Zeppelin and AC DC and forerunner. So we were like that. That's our label. So that's how you're not businessmen when you're when you're young artists. Sure,

Chuck Shute: 14:20

no, and I just love but it's such a it's such an inspiring thing that add I mean, he was 29 which I remember at the time hearing that he was going to give up. He just wanted to be a songwriter. This was he wasn't even really

Will Turpin: 14:32

that's exactly what we were. He was promoted some songs for songwriter Dima Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 14:37

but he was this true part true where he was before you guys made it. He was working on that studio. He was sleeping in the studio and he wanted to be producer and then he didn't every three or four days he'd go to a friend's house to shower. He was like living in the studio. Right.

Will Turpin: 14:51

His parents home would have been the the drone footage of Stockbridge, Georgia is pretty, pretty small town. It gives The small town vibe the church, the Rowlands house, my house, Ross's house, the studio, we're literally not talking half a mile radius. And it's in that little main street of Stockbridge, Edie would have just went wherever he'd had a place to crash. And he would have had a bunch of good options. Again, it gets blown out of proportion, like he's a vagabond, but he had, he had plenty of warm beds and homes that were willing. I think the a true enough he did spend the night underneath the mixer because it would keep you warm in the winter. It was the original studio was a basement studio, and it could get kind of chilly down there in the winter. So my father was super supportive of Ed. Definitely, you know, one of one of my father's favorite relationships and most successful thing that he was ever a part of. But ed ed had carte blanche any free time in the studio, Ed was able to go there and record and work in the studio for free. And so he would be there a lot in the middle of the night. So at 4am when you're done and you're cold, you just curl up underneath the mixing board. It wasn't a it wasn't some it wasn't some means because he didn't have a way a place to sleep

Chuck Shute: 16:16

it No, but it was just it was so driven that he wasn't like he wasn't like, oh, I'll just work a nine to five and go home and hang out and watch TV like he was working his ass off is what it sounds like.

Will Turpin: 16:25

You know, that's the storyline. Yeah, yeah, he was driven and working his ass off in every free free minute he could get at Studio. And like I said, meanwhile, me and my buddies are hanging out studio and, and appreciate and everything he's doing. And yeah, the short version is his friends started getting real jobs and get married. And me Shane Ross and Dean came up.

Chuck Shute: 16:44

Yeah. So then this record blows up. And then you guys go on tour with Aerosmith. I mean, that must have been surreal. Did you? Did they they must have given you some sort of advice or, or something? Because this is kind of one of your big first big tours. Right. So they must have had to help you out a little bit taking you under their wing.

Will Turpin: 16:59

Yeah, a little bit. They weren't. They weren't to to go out of their way to to put their arms around us. And the only reason I have that reference is because the very next year we did three months in every arena with Van Halen and, and those that really Aerosmith guys are great to us, Steve and told me to stay away from his daughter. That was about the best. But yeah, yeah, Sammy and Eddie Van Halen. And Michael Anthony. Man, they, you talk about somebody who put their arm around you. And really, we wouldn't be the same individuals or the same band without that tour, and without the friendships and the way they treated us and what they taught us. What did they teach you a lot about the music industry. And they also taught us how to just perform focus on your performance, have fun. And then they gave us a sense, it gave us a sense of, of accepting person. And hey, you guys are the next generation. Y'all are freaking good rock band, y'all. We're gonna be next, we're gonna do what we're doing. And they gave us that feeling. They gave us some confidence. And literally helped us during a rough time in art in our history. With our lawsuit in our first manager that we went through date without them, we've heard from them with how to deal with that and what steps to take.

Chuck Shute: 18:26

Yeah, I know you can't talk about that. Tell me about this story, though. This, I heard you talking just briefly about this. I want to hear more about this. I know you're not a fan of hair metal. I love hair metal. So Bret Michaels comes to hang out with you guys at the vet one of the Van Halen shows. And he's talking about like, what do I do? Because this was 1995. And nobody gives a shit about poison. That Tell me about that story that just sounded so fascinating to hear Bret Michaels saying, Yeah, what do I do?

Will Turpin: 18:51

And you dug that story up? That's true, he stopped in one day, literally. You know, for some of those hair bands it went from selling out arenas to within a year or two years, they really couldn't hardly sell a ticket. Where Van Halen this year from the 70s or 80s knew a real rock and you weren't just blowing up your hair and singing about getting laid and party in which was a very small amount of lyrical content that they used in the hair band days but it was it's obviously a good topic to write rock songs about but you just want to hang out man he just wanted to hang out and see what was going on. I guess I don't know man. He was for us being young. We're just like, man, we know what's going on with collective soul. We know what's next for us. I listened to Brett but I didn't have time to even think about what was next for poison but you know, things come around now they're selling out or stadiums again with the band so it's uh, it turned out fine for him. But sure enough, man he did. He did show up one day and hang out with this. And then he hung out with us on the day off and played golf and stuff and you Yeah, he didn't know what to do.

Unknown: 20:01

That's he seems like a pretty cool guy though. He's like, seems like a

Will Turpin: 20:05

real cool guy. And he was dating Pamela Anderson then too. So they came to the LA show and gotten to meet her.

Chuck Shute: 20:11

Wow, that's pretty exciting. All this stuff must have been really crazy. Just to have it kind of was like almost overnight for you in a way, right?

Will Turpin: 20:21

Super overnight. I mean, within a year were unsigned and playing for opening up for Aerosmith and playing Woodstock. 94.

Chuck Shute: 20:30

Crate Yeah, that was I just thought did you see that documentary? You because You played 94 and 99? I guess it was the documentary was 99 I believe, right?

Will Turpin: 20:37

Correct. Yeah. Um, yeah, man, that was tangible. The difference between 94 and 99. The moment we got on site, it is totally tangible. You heard people like squawking about $4 waters and, and even my vibe, my own personal vibe. I was like, Ooh, we're on top of a summit. landing strip. It's a tarmac. This is nothing like 9494 was so grassy hills, huge crowds. It was fun. 94 was great, had a perfect vibe. And then 99 like I said, the moment we were on the on the ground at Woodstock, 99. Something was tangible. Something was different. And it was the the injection of corporate greed. So that's an accurate portrayal the miniseries The accurate portrayals from when I saw you, I mean, they might have had some video footage that you didn't see a lot of they might have had some extreme video footage, but the overall take, it was tangible to me. The day I stepped on the site in 1999.

Chuck Shute: 21:38

Crazy. Well, I know you gotta get going here. I did want to give your solo stuff a shout out. So you have this band. It's called I love that you call it will and the way Yeah, right. What's that?

Will Turpin: 21:51

I had to go with it. As soon as I came up with it. I had to stick with that. Yeah,

Chuck Shute: 21:55

so and this is this is this is your soul. So you can write all that you write all the songs. You're the frontman, it's totally different than just playing the bass and collective soul. Right? I mean, you this is your project your baby?

Will Turpin: 22:06

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my first instrument was piano. And I was a percussionist for a long time. So yeah, sit behind piano a lot of times the roads are the Wurlitzer and I come up with some little more funky, maybe a little, little pop funk, that it's a different side of me and I get to explore that outside of collective soul. So it's, we've always thought, add me, Edie and Dean, working on some music outside of collective souls a good thing for us, we always thought that'd be good for the whole, we never looked at it, like doing something outside of the band would be bad for us. And when all of us were doing our side projects, everybody's like, Oh, no, they're breaking up. And we really had to totally, we had a totally different mindset. We weren't breaking up. We were spreading out a little bit and recharging our batteries for when we got back together. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, man, my my solo stuffs out there and I'm gonna do some more. I'm here real real studios a lot right now. I'm here right now spent the night here last night. My my disheveled headband look, you might be able to tell that I spent the night in studio. I didn't. I didn't sleep underneath the mixing board like Ed would have.

Charles Shute: 23:19

But you're producing some bands. So you're producing Hey, dreamer, and then it was was it your son nephews band too?

Will Turpin: 23:24

Yeah, Tristan, my son Tristan is here working on his stuff. A band called the corduroy blue out of Woodstock, Georgia, barely north of Atlanta. Really talented young guys. Mary Martin out of Newnan, Georgia, and a really cool, fun mobiel slash New Orleans kind of kind of swamp rock vibe read and the revelers having real fun producing them too. So all three of those acts. The Summit also at a Cincinnati, Ohio good rock band out of Cincinnati. All for those acts we'll have a wind turbine produced single out in the next six weeks. So

Charles Shute: 24:03

okay, very cool. Look for that. And then are you guys going to add some shows as for collective soul because I think all I see right now is like a tacos and tequila Fest and a hoody Fest in Cancun.

Will Turpin: 24:14

There's some big festivals that we've already committed to an ethic. There'll be a few other weekends, maybe one weekend in November that's not announced yet. It'll be like a casino kind of thing. Maybe. Stay tuned, man. Stay tuned, you know, Hoody fest is going to be fun. Check that out if you want to go. It's a bunch of old friends between hoody. Gin Blossoms us. We're gonna have fun, so

Chuck Shute: 24:39

Oh, very cool. Yeah, I saw you guys live a few years ago and it was great. I want to definitely want to see it again. I love that you still do the song better now too. That's one of my favorites. And that's still on the setlist right? Yes, it is. We

Will Turpin: 24:50

turned it into like a seven minute. We turned into a seven minute journey. So it's kind of one of the things that we're we've been doing every every show for about a decade now. So

Chuck Shute: 24:59

awesome. I look forward to more shows. And then I always end each episode promoting a charity. I know you've mentioned music cares, or is there another charity you want to promote here?

Will Turpin: 25:06

Great to do a lot of stuff in Atlanta right now. Yeah, I mean, the veterans group, I like working with creative vets. They're based out of Nashville, but helps veterans that are artistic. But whether they're writers or even players, music, they can play guitar. And we get together, we try to create music with these guys in a therapeutic kind of setting. But the songs that come out are actually absolutely inspiring and super good. So I'm gonna keep working with them. And hopefully, hopefully, we can do some studio stuff here with some of the Create Event songs that we create. And get those out of here. But yeah, that's a that's a fun charity that I enjoy working with, too.

Charles Shute: 25:53

Okay, I'll put that link in the show notes along with the collective soul website. Do you have your own website, too?

Will Turpin: 25:57

I think there's reel to reel studios. website, and I do have a website, but for Wilter but I'd rather just just push the Facebook and the Instagram.

Chuck Shute: 26:06

Okay, yeah, go check it out on social media follow you for the most up to date stuff. Perfect.

Will Turpin: 26:10

Yeah, and same thing with real real Studios. We're on Facebook, and we do a little bit Instagram, but it's mainly Facebook.

Chuck Shute: 26:16

Okay, cool. Thanks so much. Well, thanks, buddy. All right, bye bye. My thanks again to will Turpin from Collective Soul. Big fan of the band and they are great live. I recommend seeing them if you haven't already. And check out their new album or check out their old stuff. It's all our albums are great, in my opinion, very underrated band, so many good songs. And you heard we'll follow him on social media for the latest updates with him in the band. And you can also follow me in the show on social media to keep up we post links to new episodes, short clips, news stories, and more. So of course your likes, comments and shares are appreciated as always, and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already done that. Thank you for listening and have a great rest of your day and shoot for the moon.