The Tapes Archive

Marc Allan:  I’m glad to hear from ya. Where are you today?

Dave Matthews: I’m in Virginia Beach. I’m in my hotel room staring outta, over, let me pull, pull my sock on. Over the Atlantic thinking wow.

Marc Allan:  Are you, is Virginia Beach anywhere close to home?

Dave Matthews: Yeah, it’s about three and a half hours.

Marc Allan:  Oh.

Dave Matthews: So came over here yesterday, spent the night in a hotel. Went down and saw some friends of mine play in a band called “Agents of Good Roots“, and then today we’re gonna do an amphitheater here.

Marc Allan:  Well, let me start out by asking you, in the bio you described the new record as more aggressive, more sexy, more loud, more soft. To me, I thought more focused and maybe makes more sense. At least that’s sorta the way I heard it. Do you think that’s a–

Dave Matthews: Yeah, I think so. It’s always difficult to hear yourself quoted ’cause I always think it’s partly true and then partly not true. You know, or it’s what you said, but it’s sort of tied around. I think I wouldn’t agree with you. It’s hard for me to know ’cause I’m inside looking out exactly what it looks like to be on the outside looking in. But, I know this album had a lot more ease about it, and there was a lot more spontaneity in the creation on it. And we were in a circle. The first album we sorta did, like, in a conventional way. We did a click track, and guitar, drums, bass, and then overdubbing things, and so we sorta made a, I really like the first record, I really do, I was really proud of it. But, I feel like this one had more of us. We didn’t use a click track, we just got in a circle, and we all played, boom! And, then that was the foundation of the album was live. And in between the lines, which aren’t there anymore, you can’t hear them, but we just jammed. We did a lotta jamming and a lot of playing, and improvising, and inventing new parts for songs, and inventing new sections for songs. So, yeah, I think, you know, being in a circle, and laying this thing down, put having vocals on it, you know, from the beginning, and having violin and saxophone. And what you hear on the album, a lot of that is even what we did in the first tape. So, I think in that sense, there’s an immediacy about it. And then, also because we were in a circle together, and because we were playing in that environment, that there’s some sort of a continuity about the album. There’s something, there’s a beginning, and there’s an end.

Marc Allan:  When I listened to “Under the Table and Dreaming” the first time, I just thought to myself, I had a real hard time understanding and understanding what you were doing, and I guess, when I saw you play at Farm Aid, it started to make some sense, and now that I, you know, now this record just makes much more sense to me so–

Dave Matthews: I know what you mean and I know, shall I carry on?

Marc Allan:  Oh, please, no go ahead, ’cause I’m wondering even if I’m even remotely close to that if that’s the way that you think of it, or it’s ’cause just–

Dave Matthews: Yeah. Well, I think of when I, “Under the Table and Dreaming” sort of like, I don’t know, a picture of me in a silver jacket, but I don’t wear silver jackets. But it’s sort of, that’s the way it looks to me. It’s shiny and it’s, you know, I don’t, whereas this album, I feel like I could sit with this album more. When we were done with “Under the Table and Dreaming”, I never listened to it from beginning to end, I don’t think, ever. I think we finished it, mixing it, and then it was like, goodbye. And, not because I hated it, because I was done, and I guess when we got to the end, I know I was psyched about it, but maybe not as psyched as I am about this one. Because I haven’t listened to it recently, but once we were finished it, I really listened to it a lot. And I scrutinized it, and I feel like, it seems like to me I can look at it almost more clearly than the other ones. So, I guess in a way that’s in agreement with what you’re saying about there being more of a sense in it, you know?

Marc Allan:  Yeah, and so it’s interesting to me that even though you were playing in a circle, you said it seems like parts would be rewritten, that the song writing process is very fluid for you. Am I correct about that?

Dave Matthews: Yeah, much more on this album. There was a lot of lyrics that weren’t finished, and you know, in the last moment, we might flip sections around. And I think maybe that was one of the reasons that it became clear, it became more tied together. It was because I would be working on the lyrics for “Crash” and the lyrics for “Let You Down”, and the lyrics for “Say Goodbye”, and I know what each one is about, but then the fact that maybe that they were all being done, or “Too Much” as well, you know, it’s that they were all being done simultaneously, maybe that’s, maybe the reflection is a little clearer,

Marc Allan:  That seems to be in line with the way I was thinking about it, so I’m glad about that. I feel more comfortable about that. I hear a lot of, excuse me just one second. Hey, hey, excuse me, could you keep it down just a little bit, thanks. I hear, this is maybe an odd question. I hear a lot of car sounds on your records, or the feeling of cars driving around, and do you hear that at all? Is that intentional at all, or is that just something I–

Dave Matthews: Well, there’s people. That’s a cool, there’s something that drives in it, I guess. I don’t know if we put any in, there’s just this kind of occasional confusion, occasional crowded highways or traffic jam kinda feeling, just how the music’s moving. I don’t know, it’s like I almost feel like, it’s sort of like a crowded hall as well recorded from a chandelier above everything else. I don’t know where that might come up. It’s an interesting idea. I don’t know.

Marc Allan:  Well, “Drive in, Drive Out” is an obvious one.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, that’s an obvious one.

Marc Allan:  But, there are times, and I don’t know what the song is, one of the songs you played in Farm Aid had a very, almost sounding like cars honking at each other, and I get this very stop and go, very motion conscious sound when I listen to your music, and that’s–

Dave Matthews: There’s definitely something that, I think it’s just the combination of all of us, there’s sort of a circular feel around the music, some sort of change, something some unexpected ways of dealing with rhythm which keeps it more like a tide, than like a house, something like that. Or more like the movement of, maybe as you say, of cars or crowds rather than, or like a river, there is movement. I think in the song like “Crash”, and it was funny because I’d written the song “Crash” and then we recorded, and then we’re finishing the lyrics, and then realized, wow, it sounds like waves almost. You know, and then I think Steve even threw some waves in at the end that we recorded down off the coast of New York. But it’s, that was sorta surprising to me that the song came out and used the words, and the references to water with, and I’d never really thought about it that much so, that the movement and the, I don’t know why it is. I think I just have to give credit to the players, and to the way the songs unfold.

Marc Allan:  Well, it’s interesting because I mean, one of the things that I’ve come to enjoy about your music is that it’s so, I mean it’s so, maybe it is two four, and four four, I don’t know, but it’s so not that way. It doesn’t feel that way, you know? It’s very, the times seem odd, or they can shift very quickly and without warning. And I guess that’s, maybe that’s partially what I’m hearing, but I just find that kinda fascinating. It’s so different from what everybody else does, and from standard pop songs.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, you know those, thank you very much first, but you know when you go to one of those perspective, I think I saw it in the Richmond Science Museum, they play with perspective. So, you look through this, I think I saw it in a video once, I think I saw one idea, someone used one of these things, but you look into a hole in the wall, and you see this room on the other side. But then, you have a friend walk into the room, and actually it’s, you know the whole perspective of it is an illusion. It actually isn’t a square but in fact, or a box room. It’s actually like this, you know, small and shorter and there’s the illusion of a big room, but it’s actually a tiny little sort of, cone shaped thing. And so, I’ve think the honor of playing with Carter and all of us and then playing together is that how easily, you know, we can deal with a song in 6/8, or deal with a song in you know a waltz. Or deal with or jump back and forth from 6/8 to 4/4, or make a song that sort of sounds like or a lot a songs that are just 4/4, but just the way that we deal with them makes them seem odd, you know, when they’re actually just as straightforward time signatures as any. But just maybe the way that we can emphasize them makes them sound less that way. So much of it is having people, working with people that are playful with music ’cause otherwise they get bored and we’d kill each other.

Marc Allan:  So, that people stretch those things if for no other reason than to challenge themselves.

Dave Matthews: I gotta think that at some point in your career that you’ve had some record company guy come up to you and go, “Listen, you know, “if you played it a little straighter you know. “If you just did it a little bit more straightforward, “you’d sell millions of records.” You’ve had that, haven’t you?

Marc Allan:  I think there’s been that, I think that was mostly at the beginning before we were signed, that was sorta the reaction that we got.

Dave Matthews: Right.

Marc Allan:  You know, like what are you, you know, there’s just no place for this music. It’s too clever, it’s too this, and I was like it’s not clever, it’s just a little quirky. A little eccentric, but it’s not tryin’ to outdo anyone. Just tryin’ to hit people in the heart, so we got some of that reaction. But a lot of people, the most the industry arrived when we had a really solid following. So they arrived and there was this following in Virginia. And then when we moved up you know, we started playing up in New York, they’d come and see us there and then we’d have this following there, people who were just rockin’. So, I guess a lotta the industry people sorta got caught in that too, like whoa, that’s weird.

Dave Matthews: Mm-hm

Dave Matthews: Look we, they like it, even though it’s in that weird time signature. And the industry is, it’s a very strange thing. I’m fascinated by it. I know that a lotta friends that I have in it might not find me quite as fascinating and attractive, we’re on the down slide. You know, I certainly think it’s a fickle industry that friendships that have been forged in this industry are very easily thrown back into the furnace.

Marc Allan:  That’s a good thing to always remember, because it is a business that can be pretty cruel to ya’ especially you know.

Dave Matthews: Yeah I think, and I’m always expecting it.

Marc Allan:  I mean, you sell three million plus records of a record that I’m presuming did not cost a great deal to make, “Everybody’s Gonna Love You”. I guess you don’t have to look any further than like, “The Spin Doctors” to see how quickly things can fall apart. Let me ask you about some of the songs. Can you tell me about “Cry Freedom”? I think that’s a really beautiful song.

Dave Matthews: It started, there’s an obvious title reference to the film Attenborough did, which I wasn’t completely crazy about the film, nor was I wild about the book. I think Peter Woods was the author. You know, certain, from that book learned a lot about Biko and from my family and my mother. Just a very, very terrible story. But the song started sort of, not singing about Biko, but just about some sort of struggle. And the obvious of image of some sort of nation with the ideas of flags and resistance. But then I felt like that just a little address to that was good if I wasn’t being direct, I’m always ambiguous. So, I made the song be more about that phrase that I like a lot, “Cry Freedom” so that there are many different places that that comes from. The internal struggle too, to somehow bring what’s inside of a person, and what’s outside of a person together, or somehow make ’em similar. You know, it’s just something I think we all try and do. I try and make what’s inside of me, what’s me on the inside and what’s me on the outside, as similar as possible so that I don’t go bananas. And sort of have to compromise that a lot, so I think that’s sort of the thing that was going on in that song. And the idea that, and that even when things are improved, to protect yourself you know. The image of the girl being taken from a place, but then really put into another place, a place that’s, I guess, that’s closed in and it’s ignorant, that’s gonna, just a dark place, a place, the situation’s not really improved. So, this, I don’t know, it was a song I guess just about freedom which is a word that I don’t think has the respect it deserves, even certainly specifically in this country. We use it loosely and easily like we use love. I wanna love you tonight baby, you know? It’s a loose interpretation of the word. And I think when we say, this country, one of the only free countries, or countries with freedom, or countries that have achieved freedom, a country founded on freedom and justice, is sort of a loose interpretation of the word ’cause freedom certainly implies a little more lenience than we experience in this country. And I’ve always thought that and it’s a mood that I set in South Africa, that freedom is something right now at least, freedom is something you aim at. But something’s that always on the horizon. And that’s no way that you can get there. So that’s the fight, the fight is there’s the goal. That’s what we want, we want freedom. So people are free to create and people are free to think. And people are free to drink and people are free to smoke. And people are free to alter their minds or people are free to love who the like. Or people are free to live where they like or to do what they like and, or talk the way that they like. And so you aim at that and then you just keep chipping away adding more bricks on to that. You just add more stones to that pile of things that can give you freedom, but you can never get there ’cause it’s impossible ’cause once you sort of resign yourself to saying that’s the goal, but it’s an unreachable goal, then it becomes sort of almost a religion without a god where the god becomes, in a way a righteous goal.

Marc Allan:  Well, I think the freedom you talk about, I mean in this country, I think it exists, but I think it’s also a matter of, you have that freedom but you also have the freedom, that other people have the freedom to make your life a living hell if you practice your freedoms.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, exactly. I mean, but I think in many senses, this country is discouraged and it’s something that happens certainly with governments all over the world the ideas that perpetuate themselves. So rather than perpetuate themselves by being, by saying, well okay let’s just give every bit of every information to everyone as aggressively as we can. Let’s educate our children on every level so they know Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. They know Nelson Mandela, they know Fidel Castro. They know Karl Marx, they know Jesus Christ. They’ve got to, we’ve got to educate our children on every philosophy that we can so that when they leave, they’ve got open minds. And in a way that would perpetuate a very creative, a very and that’s you know it’s almost a sense there, but I feel much more often there’s the urge to say, “Don’t give them that.” But the thing I love the most about this country is that I am free to say whatever I like about it and I don’t necessarily jump on metaphors as much as I should, but I have complaints and I think it’s good to complain. You know I think it’s good to complain, but I feel it would be good for us to listen to someone like Nelson Mandela more.

Marc Allan:  When did you come to this country?

Dave Matthews: I’ve been back and forth all my life. Grown up here and grown up in South Africa. My father was a physicist so we came here and we lived in England for the same reason. Back here and then he passed away and went back to South Africa and back to the states. So sort of back and forth all my life.

Marc Allan:  Were you born here?

Dave Matthews: Born in South Africa.

Marc Allan:  Tell me about “Proudest Monkey”. Is that about you?

Dave Matthews: I didn’t think it was, I thought it was just initially I thought it was evolution, the idea of or at least some sort of evolution from simple rural people to horn-honking, red light, green light, cigarette butts and urban debris dwellers. And so from cave dwellers to crowded dwellers. That’s what I thought initially, but then when we got to the albums with Steve Lillywhite said we should put this at the end of the album, ’cause it’s a song about you guys. And I thought, wow now I know in a lot of ways it does mean that more to me. ‘Cause I guess basically was coming from my heart was kind of like that. This idea of being quiet and having lots of time to stare like Neanderthals at the stars and at the moons. And then, but then now sort of not having as much time like that as I did and being sort of in the middle of something much more tumultuous than I would have expected it to be when I was sitting back dreaming.

Marc Allan:  It sort of does have that ring of what happened here? Success and everything that’s happened to you in the last couple of years just seemed, you know I thought maybe it was just kind of overwhelming.

Dave Matthews: It is, but I think if I had ever been to an analyst, they’d probably say that was a good way to deal with it.

Marc Allan:  Yeah, you’re right about it, that’s your feelings.

Dave Matthews: So I guess that’s how I did and I do miss that, but I do think I do miss what I don’t have, but everybody does. And I have a damn good job, so.

Marc Allan:  Absolutely, yeah.

Dave Matthews: So as far as jobs go, this is a good one and I should try and keep it for as long as I can.

Marc Allan:  Can you tell me how your singing style and your footwork style came about?

Dave Matthews: I don’t know about the footwork. That’s more like an infliction. I don’t know what happened there. Because if I see myself and I get kind of embarrassed, ’cause it looks like I’m doing a “Charleston”. So probably my mom or my grandmother, she probably did the “Charleston”, it’s in my gene pool. And it doesn’t always happen, see if it was consistent, then it’d be cool, but instead it’s like they stay still and they just bop up and down like anybody’s feet and then all of a sudden there’s this complete spaz that takes place. And my knees start bending in strange directions and I’m like, “What’s happening to me there?” It doesn’t feel like that from where I’m looking, you know.

Marc Allan:  Are you conscious of it, when you’re doin’ it?

Dave Matthews: Not really, no. ‘Cause it’s usually happening when I’m lost, you know in the throws of passion or whatever.

Marc Allan:  I just thought shadow boxing, I wondered if you had boxed at some point.

Dave Matthews: No, I haven’t, that’s a good idea though.

Marc Allan:  Yeah.

Dave Matthews: So if I got biffed in the nose, I’d immediately quit.

Marc Allan:  That’s right.

Dave Matthews: You know, right now, I have the first girlfriend that I’ve ever had that I’ve allowed to touch my nose. Which is difficult you know when you’re kissing. And so because I have, I’m very sensitive about my nose. Very obsessed by–

Marc Allan:  Wow.

Dave Matthews: Because it’s I don’t know, I sneeze too damn easily. But I think that it’s something from my hay fever ridden childhood. My new girlfriend has been simultaneously outgrowing hay fever, so maybe, but she’s free to squeeze and nibble my nose if she likes. So much for boxing. But the singing style, I think, I don’t know where it comes from, but I know I love melodies and I know that I like the feeling of the resonance of a voice in my head. So really cool things that imitate sound. To imitate to try and use when someone goes, “What?” to use that sound or somebody’s angry and people grind their teeth and to try to sound like somebody’s who’s angry. But not only sound like somebody’s who’s angry, but also sound like somebody who’s hysterical when they’re angry you know. Not only being mean, but also be yodeling ’cause you’re so obsessed by you know when people get mad, they start shivering and those kind of things. And also like laughter and the musical sound of laughter then trying to bring, and trying to turn that into melody and the sound of girls laughing in the toilets or the inspiration of the windscreen wipers. It’s just it’s all things. I think, oh I don’t know what the hell I’m talkin’ about. But basically what I think is I don’t know where the hell my singing style comes from. Because for me I always feel that it seems derivative. It seems like, well maybe not derivative, but it seems like the obvious melodies, they come out, they seem like the obvious things to do. You know I hum and hum and hum and ha and ha and ha as I’m writing a song, and then I fire ’em and like, “Oh, that’s good, that’s good.” And then I sing along with it for a while and it changes and then I listen back to a tape and like, “Oh that one over there was good, “I forgot about that one.” then we go back there and we resurrect them so so I don’t know where it comes from. I know I listen to a lot of the Beatles and I listen to a lot of Bob Marley and a lot of Marvin Gaye when I was growing up and XTC, but I also listened to a lot of classical music ’cause my parents always had it on.

Marc Allan:  Well XTC, I could see that, I mean none of the others I really hear, but XTC, okay I could–

Dave Matthews: Joe Cocker.

Marc Allan:  Ah.

Dave Matthews: No, I wouldn’t be, now I meant say Joe Jackson. I love Joe Jackson.

Marc Allan:  Yeah.

Dave Matthews: Got that wow, kind of crazy, I don’t know it’s a very, it’s almost obnoxious, his voice. But in a most beautiful way.

Marc Allan:  How about Adrian Belew?

Dave Matthews: Yeah, I love Adrian Belew.

Marc Allan:  Yeah, okay ’cause that’s probably the closest comparison I can try to–

Dave Matthews: Oh, that’s the nicest thing to say. No one’s ever said that, I love that you said that to me.

Marc Allan:  ‘Cause you use your voice as an instrument and he does too, I think.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, and he’s really good at that sort of putting the character behind the voice that he sings.

Marc Allan:  Right.

Dave Matthews: Behind the words he sings, “Lone Rhinoceros”, that whole album, the funny stuff is hysterical ’cause it’s right there. It’s great.

Marc Allan:  I hear, you know ’cause I hear the occasional thing in your music that reminds me of King Crimson and so I guess it’s the Belew influence that.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, I do love King Crimson.

Marc Allan:  You know you’ve probably just had the most amazing last couple of years. I mean it’s probably like a head spinning couple of years and I always think that the people who have an incredible life changing type of things happen to them that they’re, but over a broad period of time, there’s always like once instance that happens where it lets you know that something, that your life has changed irrevocably. Was there one thing that happened to you the past couple of years where you realized, oh man I am famous, I am a star, I am whatever?

Dave Matthews: You know I run through some like really I don’t know if it’s foolhardy or if I’m in denial or what it in, I’m. It’s almost like a dream you know in a weird way. Like not a dream come true, but like sort of continual dream. There are so many moments, the first gig we had, it was that we ever played it was on Earth Day. And our band had been, it was a warmish day, but as the afternoon all these people were listening all these people and then the evening. We kept getting pushed forward, ’cause nobody knew who we were, and they kept pushing us. We gotta go to play another gig, we gotta go do the benefits we were just trying to get out of there. And we ended up being the last band and there was only 200 people there, compared to at the beginning of the day when there was a thousand you know, which is a hell of a lot to have on the downtown mall of Shawsville Virginia. And but when we played, everybody danced. Of the 200 people that were left, every single one of them was dancing and they’d never heard us before. By the end of it, they were all dancing. That’s sort of the, that’s one of the biggest moments, even though it was so early on. It was like, that we had all got in the months prior to that when we had been playing in the basement, my basement and Carter’s basement, gave us this chemistry and this click between us and being really excited about it. But I think that was like, that was really surprising to all of us, ’cause none of us expected that to happen. None of us expected people to get up and start dancing and start celebrating around what we were doing.

Marc Allan:  And what year was that?

Dave Matthews: That’d be 1990.

Marc Allan:  Wow.

Dave Matthews: And it was only 200 people, but I think that’s like, that was the sort of thing that set us rolling and the thing that made us survive two and a half years in a van or three years in a van, knee deep in vegetarian Big Macs and drumsticks, you know. And rotting broccoli, “I was sure there was something “that walked past me there.” “What the hell came out of the back there?” “Was that a rat?” “Or was that a piece of, I don’t know.” “It smells in here.” “It’s too hot, shut up, don’t talk to me. “Don’t make me stop this van.”

Marc Allan:  Ah, just two other things and I’ll let you go. People you know, I guess since they cannot figure out a label for your music, I guess you get lumped in that kind of neo-hippie Grateful Dead sound. Do you think that comparison is justified at all?

Dave Matthews: I get what people are saying, you know, I can understand. They’re saying we jam, we improvise, we move, the Dead didn’t have a violin, did they no?

Marc Allan:  And they didn’t move either.

Dave Matthews: And they didn’t move that much either. But I know it doesn’t upset, the comparison doesn’t upset me at all and we do, we tour so I can see that. But the reason I think mostly the comparison doesn’t upset me is because the first time that I ever saw the Dead, and I think the first time all of us except for Boyd has seen them once. The first time we saw them is when we opened up for them in Las Vegas, this last summer. So it doesn’t insult me. And I never really listened to them. Not because I didn’t like them, but because I just never exposed myself to them. Well, I guess pulling my pants down in front of them doesn’t involve a listen to them. I never listened to them growing up, so it was just that’s ah, so it doesn’t bother me that reason, like cool. I guess there’s something that we do that they do. I am really happy that we got to play with them before Jerry died, you know. It was not that we’re on a first name basis, but everyone seems to refer to him as Jerry. So I’ll go ahead and do it too. I just, there was such an incredible culture, sub-culture that they had created that was uniquely American, but at the same time very much not the mainstream. Although amazingly mainstream, at the same time it wasn’t in the mainstream, you’d meet some lawyer or an accountant. The last people you’d ever expect and they’re like, “Well I’ve seem 18 million Dead shows.” “Where do you find the time?”

Marc Allan:  And they have a tape of every one of them.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, exactly. I guess there’s that thing too you know the taping because we never got initially any reaction from the industry. And they just sort of looked at us like “What?” The way the word spread about us was not because of us I guess it partially was but also people taping the shows. And so we’d arrive, we’d never been to Boston. We don’t have an album out, but we get to you know some Boston show and play a little club and everyone in the place is singing along with us. Or play you know, go and do some, do a university show in Burlington and be playing and then everyone’s singing back at us. We’ve never been to Burlington. How do you, well I got this tape and that tape. So I guess there’s that similarity too.

Marc Allan:  Do you have taper sections of–

Dave Matthews: We only have, I think we might have certain ones of this, if the mics get too much in the way, but we don’t have a board feed, but we do have we do let people come in and bring microphones.

Marc Allan:  Well that’s good, okay.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, it’s a good thing.

Marc Allan:  I mean everybody had thought, well and maybe that’s what contributed to the Dead not being a great selling band, record wise, but you know on the other hand they certainly sold out every concert for what, 20 years or something like that.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, 30 or whatever. But you I guess the thing, the thing is that they with them, maybe there was a, I don’t know they just didn’t like the studio or maybe the fans didn’t like studio records. The thing that us, is that, we love going to the studio and especially this last time, even though we sort of weren’t there. But what comes out of it is very different from what we do live. It’s very similar but also very different you know. And so that I haven’t felt that there’s gonna be much, I think the people that have the tapes and the people that buy the bootleg CDs are gonna buy our CDs too. I really feel like that. I feel like it does more good than it does bad.

Marc Allan:  And finally for another story, I’m working on, I’ve been asking everybody I interview. Have you seen the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and what do you think of the idea?

Dave Matthews: I haven’t seen the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I think it’s interesting, ’cause the main reason, it was funny seeing all these rebels, these allowed the people that in their youth were rebels, crazy, nuts you know screamin’ throwin’ their finger up saying, “Fuck you”. And now they’re all standing up there, going it’s about time that we are honored or that we had a place you know to call our own. And like, it went from being rebels to being like a happy rock and roll family. Um which is fine, I mean it’s cool. I don’t really think about it either way. It’s just I have no opinion. I haven’t, I have no urge to go there. But that may be my own ignorance that’s led me to say that. With no doubt it is my own ignorance that’s led me to say that. But I have no burning desire to go there.

Marc Allan:  Okay.

Dave Matthews: I won’t travel across fields and mountains to get there. I will however travel a long way to go to a small village in Italy just to have a good damn pesto.

Marc Allan:  All right. Care to hazard a guess on 23 years down the road whether you’re gonna be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Dave Matthews: 23 years down the road.

Marc Allan:  Right it’s a–

Dave Matthews: Will the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exist anymore or will it be an empty building with rats and a growing homeless problem? One wonders, so I wonder what will be. I don’t know, I hadn’t really considered that being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Marc Allan:  Well you got a ways to go I mean, year wise so.

Dave Matthews: You got a year-

Marc Allan:  Right you have to wait 25 years from your first album and so that’s why I ask, just wondering. Anyway, this has been really enjoyable. Do you have anything else you want me to tell people that we haven’t talked about?

Dave Matthews:  No, but thank you very much. I enjoyed talking to you too.

Marc Allan: Okay and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

Dave Matthews: Great, well.

Marc Allan: Take care.

Dave Matthews: All the best.

Marc Allan Same to you, bye bye

Dave Matthews:  Bye bye.