Collective Soul will be joined by Live and Our Lady Peace at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre on August 19th.

Collective Soul frontman and chief songwriter Ed Roland is unwaveringly driven in his desire to double down on doing more of what he does best — making music, sweet music, both in the studio and onstage.

“People ask me if I have a hobby, but for me, it’s just music,” Roland confirms. “I mean, I don’t know what else to do, because that’s what I love to do. I live in the studio — but then the time comes when I go, ‘Well, now I wanna go play live.’ I just love the creation of music, and the process of finding out what’s gonna happen with it next. That kinda defines it all for me.”

The next logical acceleratory step, of course, resides in taking it back out on the road where the band belongs, and test-driving how this electrifying new material meshes with indelible Collective Soul setlist classics like “Shine,” “December,” “The World I Know,” “Gel,” “AYTA,” “Why, Pt. 2,” “Precious Declaration,” and “Heavy” — in addition to more recent, Blood-spawned tracks like “Right as Rain,” “Observation of Thoughts,” and “Over Me.”

“We’re ready to go,” declares Roland. “Most of us grew up together and knew each other as kids, so that helps with the live chemistry. I’ve always said this about this band — we know when to knock each other out, and we know when to hug each other. We won’t put up with any crap, but if you’re feeling down and need help, we’ll pick you up. We’re coming up on 30 years as a band, so we have to be friends first and foremost to keep it all going. If we aren’t friends like that, then we’re not going to have longevity in our career in order to continue doing what we love to do. That’s just the bottom line.”