Collective Soul, Elton John Collaborate

ByABC News
October 16, 2000, 8:05 PM

October 12 -- After preparing to the hilt for its last album, 1999's Dosage, Collective Soul decided to take a looser approach on its latest release, Blender. "I think I had two songs written," says Ed Roland, the Atlanta group's frontman and chief songwriter. "We had the brilliant idea of doing no pre-production, just come in and write something and record it that day, then move on.

"'Skin,' the first song on the CD, was written and recorded in it couldn't have been more than four hours," he continues. "This was by far the most enjoyable [album] ever."

Blender had a spontaneous guest star moment as well, when Collective Soul recruited Elton John who spends part of his time living in Atlanta and had met the band before to sing on one of the tracks, "Perfect Day."

"We've gotten to know Elton over the last five years," Roland says, "and we had always asked him, 'Would you play on a track with us?' And he'd say, 'Yeah, let me know when.' After we laid down the tracks for this one, we all looked at each other and said, 'Wow, that's one he could sing on.'"

"So I finished the lyrics on a Sunday night at midnight, sang my part, and Elton came in the next morning and did his part in two takes listened to the song once, played the piano part twice, sang it twice, and was done.

"He was amazing but that was the attitude of the whole record," Roland concludes. "I don't think anyone did more than three takes of anything. If you didn't get it in three takes, it was time to move on to something else."