Dave Matthews on Summer Tour: ‘We’re Trying Not to Suck’
For 24 summers in a row, since 1992, Dave Matthews Band have hit the road without fail. They could be the biggest worldwide ticket sellers of the past decade and a half, with a record 19 million sold throughout their career. And this summer, they’re doing it all over again. Matthews, 48, called to talk about the band’s latest amphitheater run, which stretches on through September, and the reasons for the band’s enduring popularity.
You’re nearing 50. How has your life changed?
It’s always hard to leave home. My kids are getting older and smarter than me, so I toss and turn at night and need lots of coffee. It was much easier to get used to being on the road when we were always on the road. For a while there, I said, “Wait a second, I am making a reasonable living, I wouldn’t mind a weekend of idle.” Now I couldn’t be more idle. I’m like the idlest part of a lazy fat man in a chair.
How do you spend your free time when you’re home in Seattle?
We’ve been in the studio, trying to make a record. I have been trying to get home for dinner and wake up to take my kids to school. During the day, I try and write something that is not too pretentious and not like an old man trying to put on a pair of tight jeans – something that could have an appeal beyond my own doorstep – but it’s a challenge. I have been filling endless pages with scribble and occasionally coming up with one or two things that I don’t find enormously embarrassing and then I stick those to the wall. We will probably try a few new tunes over the summer and if they go well, then maybe we will try a few more and we’ll discover things playing them live that we should have done on the recordings and maybe go back to the drawing board.
You’re probably used to the process by now.
Maybe with cell phones, people are more accustomed to hearing their voices, but I remember the horror of listening to a recording of my voice when I was probably eight or nine, when I first recorded a cassette of my voice and I couldn’t believe it. I very rarely listen to recordings of us unless I have to, and then we will play a song for ten years and I’ll go back to the original and go, “Oh wow that was really different, I prefer what it sounded like when we first recorded it” and other times I’ll go back to the original and go, “Ugh, what an awful song, now it is better.” And sometimes I’ll go back and say, “This is as awful now as it was when we started.”
What’s going through your head as you start yet another big summer tour?
It’s a healthy combination of fear and excitement. I hope it doesn’t bleed onto the stage. I am excited about the idea of the smaller acoustic set and then an electric set because I think it gives the band a chance to put some variety into the songs. It kind of doubles the amount of songs you have, because the personality changes quite a bit if you play them with a full blown band or if I play them by myself.