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They recorded their new album in Elvis's old house, and got spooky signs that his late daughter disapproved.
Although they emerged during the grunge era, Atlanta’s Collective Soul have always been a hard band to pin down style-wise. Mixing big riffs and heart-on-sleeve vocals with sweet pop melodies, they’re probably the only band to have supported both Van Halen and The Cranberries. Huge in the States but still virtually unknown in Europe, they celebrate their 30th anniversary this year with a new album, Here To Eternity, that, as frontman Ed Roland explains, was touched by a ghostly (and regal) presence.
What has enabled the band to stay together for more than thirty tears?
We all grew up together in the same town, same street even. We know when to hug each other and when to pop each other in the face and nobody takes offence.
Why did the band never really break big in the UK?
I wish I knew. It’s not for lack of trying or for not wanting itI’d like everybody to love us. Isn’t that why you get on stage in the first place? It’s bad luck, I think.
The new album was recorded in Elvis’s former house. How did you wangle that?
Everybody knows about Graceland, but Elvis also owned a home in Palm Springs, and about ten years ago I met the guys who’d bought it. Nothing much had changed other than they took the furniture out. RCA [Records] had acoustically treated it and he’d recorded his last few records there. So I asked them: “Can we spend a month recording there?”’ Luckily they said yes. I came prepared with ten songs, we set the studio up, and in four days we had the record.
Did you feel his presence?
I slept in Elvis’s room, our engineer had Priscilla’s, and Lisa Marie’s was where we set the control room up. And while we were out there she died. The night she passed, the ceiling fell in her bedroom. There
