Dave Matthews Band
Dave Matthews Band is an American rock band from Charlottesville, Virginia. The band's lineup consists of Dave Matthews, Stefan Lessard, Carter Beauford, Tim Reynolds, Rashawn Ross, Jeff Coffin, and Buddy Strong. Matthews, Lessard, and Beauford formed the band in 1991 with LeRoi Moore, Peter Griesar, and Boyd Tinsley. After one independent live album, the band was signed by RCA Records and Griesar left the band to pursue a solo career.
The band's 1994 debut studio album, Under the Table and Dreaming, was certified six times platinum., the band had sold more than 25 million concert tickets and a combined total of 38 million CDs and DVDs. Their 2018 album, Come Tomorrow, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making DMB the first band to have seven consecutive studio albums debut at the peak. The band won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "So Much to Say". Dave Matthews Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024.
A jam band, Dave Matthews Band is renowned for its live shows. The band is known for playing songs differently each performance; this practice has become a staple of their live shows.
History
Formation (1991–1993)
In November 1990, lead vocalist and guitarist Dave Matthews, who was working as a bartender at Miller's Bar in Charlottesville, Virginia, befriended a lawyer named Ross Hoffman. Hoffman convinced Matthews to record a demo of the few songs Matthews had written and encouraged him to approach Carter Beauford, a local drummer on the Charlottesville music scene. Beauford had been in several bands and was then playing on a jazz show on BET.After hearing Matthews's demo, Beauford agreed to spend some time playing the drums, both inside and outside the studio. Matthews also approached LeRoi Moore, another local jazz musician who often performed with the John D'earth Quintet, to join them. The trio began working on Matthews's songs in 1991. Matthews recollects that, "...the reason I went to Carter was not because I needed a drummer, but because I thought he was the baddest thing I'd ever seen and LeRoi, it wasn't because I desperately wanted a saxophone, it was because this guy just blew my mind. At this jazz place I used to bartend at Miller's, I would just sit back and watch him. I would be serving the musicians fat whiskeys and they'd be getting more and more hosed, but no matter how much, he used to still blow my mind. And it was the sense that everyone played from their heart. And when we got together and they asked, 'What do you want the music to sound like?' I said, 'I know this is a song I wrote and I like what you guys play, so I want you to play the way you react to my song.' There was a lot of breaking of our inhibitions."
Matthews later said in an interview with Michael Krugman, "In a way, initially it was just the three of us and I approached them with this tape and they said 'Sure,' cause they had time on their hands. They were both working on other things, but they had some afternoon time."
The beginning stages of this new band proved to be, in the words of Morgan Delancey, "a time of trial and incubation." Beauford would later recall that, "It started out as a three-piece thing with Dave and Leroi...working on some of Dave's songs. He only had four songs at the time...And it didn't work out with the three of us." Matthews said, "The first time we played together...we were awful. Not just kind of bad, I mean heinously bad. We tried a couple of different songs and they were all terrible...Sometimes it amazes me that we ever had a second rehearsal."
File:Miller Cville.JPG|thumb|left|250px|Miller's Bar on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville
Their limited instrumentals did not provide the full sound they desired, however, and more musicians were needed. Upon the recommendation of John D'earth, Director of Jazz Performance at the University of Virginia and another local musician, Stefan Lessard, a junior bassist at the time, joined the band. In 1991, Miller's waiter Peter Griesar became the band's first keyboardist. Because of other commitments, violinist Boyd Tinsley did not become a full-time member until 1992. Matthews later admitted, "We had no plans of adding a violinist. We just wanted some fiddle tracked on this one song "Tripping Billies", and Boyd was a friend of LeRoi. He came in and it just clicked. That completely solidified the band, gave it a lot more power."
The band's first in-studio demo was recorded in February or March 1991, before Tinsley joined as a full-time member, and consisted of "Song That Jane Likes", "Recently", "Best of What's Around", and "I'll Back You Up."
For years, it was believed that the band's first public show was April 21, 1991, at Charlottesville's Earth Day Festival. On October 9, 2010, Stefan Lessard reported via Twitter the discovery of an earlier show, taped March 14, 1991, at TRAX, a local music venue. The show was a benefit for the Middle East Children's Alliance and, according to Lessard, included the following songs: "Typical Situation", "Best of What's Around", "I'll Back You Up", "Song That Jane Likes", "Warehouse", "Cry Freedom", and "Recently". The show included only Matthews, Lessard, Beauford, and Moore. Local weekly appearances soon followed, and word of the band's sound spread within a short time.
The band considered calling itself "Dumwelah", which is the Tswana word for "hello", but there was little enthusiasm for the name and they decided against it. One story is that Moore reportedly telephoned a place they were booked and said to write "Dave Matthews." The person receiving the call wrote "band" after the name, and the name stayed Dave Matthews Band from that point on. Matthews told Robert Trott of AP, "Boyd , if memory serves, wrote 'Dave Matthews Band' . There was no time when we said, 'Let's call this band the Dave Matthews Band.' It just became that, and it sort of was too late to change when we started thinking that this could focus unfairly on me. People sort of made that association, but it's really not like that."
Beauford seemed to agree with Matthews's analysis of the band name when he said to Modern Drummer magazine that, "As a matter of fact, that's one of the things about this band that everybody likes: There isn't a leader. Each one of us can express ourselves musically without being choked by a leader. Everybody can offer what they feel is gonna enhance the music. So, yeah, that's the main thing that all the guys — especially me — feel make this band happen. It's the freedom that we have to speak with our instruments."
By the summer of 1991, they were playing at Eastern Standard with Charles Newman as their manager for a brief time. They also continued to play at fraternity functions; the last such show was at UVa at the DKE house on September 11, 1992. Thereafter the band began playing a regular Tuesday night show at the popular Charlottesville club Trax. Tapings of shows at Trax are some of the most widely shared among DMB fans. After Newman, Coran Capshaw, owner of the Flood Zone where the band often played, took the helm of the Dave Matthews Band.
For a variety of reasons, like sensing that the band was on the verge of making it big and not wanting to have his life ruled by the grueling schedule that touring musicians often face, difficulties communicating with Matthews, and maintaining the mortgage on his new home, Peter Griesar decided to leave the band after a show at Trax nightclub on March 23, 1993, a night known as "Big League Chew".
On November 9, 1993, DMB offered its first official release, Remember Two Things, on its Bama Rags label. It was re-released by RCA in 1997. Live songs on the album were recorded at Trax in Charlottesville, Virginia The Flood Zone in Richmond, Virginia, and The Muse Music Club on Nantucket Island. The album debuted on college charts as the highest independent entry, and went on to be certified platinum by the RIAA in 2002.
Breakthrough to stardom (1994–1999)
The band released their first live EP, Recently, in 1994. The album's five tracks were taken from shows performed at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, and from Trax in Charlottesville. Recently was re-released by RCA Records in 1997.On September 27, 1994, DMB released their debut studio album, Under the Table and Dreaming, featuring their first commercial hits "What Would You Say", "Satellite", and "Ants Marching". The album was dedicated "In memory of Anne" for Matthews's older sister Anne, who was killed by her husband in 1994 in a murder–suicide. Under the Table and Dreaming brought the band worldwide fame and was certified six times platinum.
Under the Table and Dreaming and its follow-up album, Crash, brought the band a Grammy Award and four additional Grammy nominations. The band won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group for "So Much to Say", and was nominated for Best Rock Album for Crash and the Best Rock Song for "Too Much". The band had also been nominated in 1995 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group and Best Music Video, Short Form, for "What Would You Say". The band achieved hits with "Crash into Me", "Too Much", and "Tripping Billies".
By 1997, DMB reached unparalleled levels of popularity across the United States and, to some degree, the world. On October 28, 1997, the band released their first full-length live album, Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95. The album was recorded at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, and featured popular songs from the band's first three albums and longtime collaborator Tim Reynolds on electric guitar.
In late 1997, the band returned to the studio with producer Steve Lillywhite and an array of guest collaborators, including Reynolds, banjoist Béla Fleck, vocalist Alanis Morissette, future touring band member Butch Taylor, Chapman Stick player Greg Howard, and the Kronos Quartet. They composed and recorded Before These Crowded Streets, their third album with RCA, released on April 28, 1998. The album represented a great change in direction for the band as they did not rely on upbeat hit singles to carry the album. "Stay ", an uplifting gospel number, and "Crush", a love ballad, became popular along with the lead single, "Don't Drink the Water". Before These Crowded Streets was an instant commercial success, with over 900,000 albums sold worldwide in the first week.
The band took part in the Woodstock '99 concert during the summer. In the fall, it then released a third live album, Listener Supported. The album, a live recording, used a show performed at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey on September 11, 1999, for a PBS television special. The album was also released as the band's first DVD. The year also provided two more Grammy nominations. From their recent album, they earned another Best Rock Album nomination for Before These Crowded Streets, and a Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals nomination for the song "Crush".