Ed Roland of Collective Soul - "Be The One"
Cris Cohen: On the new album, Here to Eternity, the song “No Man's Land” starts very sparse, but there's something about it that just grabs you. Did you try and put more to it at the beginning, or…?
Ed Roland: No, that one was (where) the guys came in (later). The one that we did was “Be The One.” It was the last morning. I wrote that song, and the guys were coming back in. We were going to do more recording. It just happened to be up, because I did it at 10 o'clock in the morning in Elvis's bedroom.* It was just me, piano, live vocal, live everything. The guys came in… and I'll never forget, my brother goes, “I'm not touching that.”
And the other guys were like, “That's it.”
I was like, “You don't want to put strings on it?”
They're like, “That's it.”
And that's a beautiful statement. It's one of the most crazy statements ever.
I was like, “Okay, cool. That song's done.”
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* The band recorded this album in Elvis Presley’s Palm Springs, CA house.
Collective Soul website: https://collectivesoul.com/
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