0:02

I Heart Radio Presents Inside

0:04

the Studio, I'm your host, Joe

0:06

Leeve. This

0:09

time around, I got a chance to go along with Dave

0:12

Matthews, which, if you've ever spoken

0:14

with Dave, would be a single sentence.

0:17

What I love about Dave Matthews is this is a guy

0:19

who's passionate about what he does. He takes

0:22

it very, very seriously, but

0:24

that doesn't stop him from having a wicked

0:26

sense of humor about everything, including

0:29

himself. We talked

0:31

about why it took six years between albums,

0:34

why it took a year off from the road with the Dave

0:36

Matthews Band, the secret

0:38

connection between his band and Black Sabbath,

0:40

then what it was like to turn

0:42

fifty and keep on going.

0:52

The Dave Matthews Band played their very first

0:54

shows in Charlottesville, Virginia, had

0:56

a benefit for Middle Eastern children, and

0:58

also at an Earth Day fest of all. Matthews

1:02

was born in South Africa and grew up in America

1:04

and England, but he was back in South

1:06

Africa for high school and after graduating

1:09

in ninety five, five

1:11

years before the apartheid regime began to crumble,

1:14

he moved to Charlottesville rather than serve in

1:16

the Military. He

1:19

was tending bar there at a place called Miller's,

1:21

and he had to be coaxed by friends in performing

1:24

his own work in public. But

1:26

once the Dave Matthews Band came together, things

1:29

happened fairly quickly. The

1:31

band released its first album, Remember

1:34

Two Things, mostly live collection,

1:36

in two

1:38

years. After those first gigs, they

1:41

built a passionately devoted audience,

1:43

in part by using the model of the Grateful Dead,

1:46

meaning they encouraged the crowd to

1:48

tape and trade live shows. Two

1:51

years after that debut album,

1:53

they opened three shows for The Dead on

1:55

that band's final tour. In

1:58

the next year, they were open shows for Bob Dylan

2:01

in the year after that, The

2:04

Rolling Stones. Of

2:06

course, they were growing their own audience that whole

2:08

time, and by they

2:10

were headlining stadiums. That's

2:13

the year their third studio album, Before These

2:15

Crowded Streets, debuted at number one,

2:18

starting a streak that's continued across seven

2:20

albums right up to the recently released

2:22

Come Tomorrow. First Dave Matthews

2:24

Band album in six years. Though

2:29

they were almost always described as

2:31

a jam band and still are, the

2:34

Dave Matthews Band became one of America's

2:36

biggest rock bands in the nineties, a

2:39

position they've never really given up. They

2:42

wrapped a bunch of different audiences into

2:44

one thing, sort of the same way they

2:46

wrapped a bunch of different music, the

2:48

jazzy saxophone of Leroy Moore, the

2:51

blue, grassy violin of Boyd Tinsley,

2:54

the solid funk bottom of drummer Carter

2:56

Beauford and bassist Stefan Lazard

2:58

into one thing. It's

3:01

easy to understand the significance that Dave Matthews

3:04

Band took on for the Grateful Dad's audience after

3:06

the death of Jerry garcia In, but

3:10

what's less obvious is the role

3:12

they played for nineties rock kids around

3:14

the same time, since n was

3:17

also the year that Pearl Jams stopped playing

3:19

the United States for three years while

3:21

they waged a battle with Ticketmaster. In

3:25

the post grunge moment, music

3:27

that sounded both happy and sad,

3:29

that mixed the intimate with the epic was

3:32

a style looking for a hero. Some

3:36

bands could latch onto it for a few minutes

3:38

the way that remember Them Marcy

3:40

Playground or The Spin Doctors

3:43

did, and some could manage it

3:45

for a few albums. The White Stone Temple Pilots

3:47

did, But aside from

3:49

Dave Grohl, I'm

3:51

hard pressed to think of anyone who's managed

3:53

to make it last for a career that spanned

3:56

decades the way Matthews has.

4:00

Dave Matthews had experienced loss early

4:03

on. His father died from cancer when

4:05

he was just ten years old, and songs

4:07

like Satellite or Lie in Our Graves

4:09

talked about the fragility of life. Look

4:12

so did Tripping Billy's in its own way.

4:15

Other songs like Crash Into Me were about

4:17

chasing down pleasure. A

4:20

big audience trying to figure out how to make

4:22

sense of bad times and make the good

4:24

times last found something in the Dave

4:26

Matthews Band look.

4:28

It didn't always translate from performance into the

4:30

recording studio, and that may be the one thing

4:32

that Dave Matthews Band truly shares with

4:35

the Grateful Dead, but the live

4:37

show became a defining experience,

4:40

documented on more than forty

4:42

live albums. The

4:44

Dave Matthews Band audience is loyal

4:46

for them. Eadie is not summer without

4:49

sitting on the lawn at a Dave Matthews

4:52

amphitheater show in North

4:54

America. They were the biggest grossing

4:56

band of the two thousands, selling more

4:58

than I've entred and twenty

5:01

million dollars of tickets, and

5:03

that slowed down only slightly.

5:06

According to Billboard. In

5:08

the band played fifty shows, selling

5:11

seven tickets and

5:14

earning forty two million dollars.

5:17

But last year a couple of unusual

5:19

things happened to the Dave Matthews Band. The

5:22

first is that they took the summer off, and I think

5:24

that might be the first summer in twenty five

5:26

years without Dave Matthews Band shows

5:29

as Matthews. It's plained to me turning

5:32

fifty had something to do with it, my

5:39

fiftieth roth. They did fall right

5:41

around the same time as the Seven Deadly

5:44

Sins or the Cardinal Sins took over the

5:46

highest office in the nature of your birthdays

5:48

in January. So you're saying it was around

5:50

the time of the Trump inauguration exactly.

5:53

You turn fifty, you have this moment

5:55

of what thinking,

5:58

Do I keep doing this? Do I

6:00

change what I'm doing? Like what's going

6:02

on? I think there was a lot of different

6:04

thoughts. I think for me, I've never

6:06

been ungrateful. I don't think I

6:09

may have been tired. I've never been ungrateful for what

6:12

I've managed with the band and

6:14

what all the guys in the band have taught me. But

6:17

I do think when I turned fifty, I was like,

6:19

but I really have to

6:21

have a selfish year. So

6:26

in Matthews took time

6:28

for himself with his family and thought

6:30

hard about the future of his band. While

6:33

he was thinking about the future, a

6:35

reconsideration of the past was underway,

6:38

thanks in part to Greta Gerwig's

6:40

use of Crash into Me in her coming

6:42

of age movie Ladybird. The

6:50

song turns up twice, first

6:53

when Ladybird, played by

6:55

Sir Sha Ronan, plays it over

6:57

and over again with her best friend while

6:59

she's trying her way out of high school heartbreak.

7:02

And then later she's riding

7:05

in a car with her new boyfriend who's one of the cool

7:07

kids, and Crash into Me comes

7:09

on the radio while he's talking trash

7:11

about not going to Brahm.

7:18

I fucking hate this song. I

7:23

love it. I

7:26

actually want to go to prom.

7:29

Here's a lot going on here. A young

7:31

woman is standing up for herself, not letting

7:33

other people define her. But also it's

7:36

someone in high school saying fuck it.

7:39

To being too cool to admit that she loves

7:41

the music that she actually loves.

7:43

It's a poignant moment in the movie. I'd say what

7:46

She asked if she could use the song. I

7:48

was like, yeah, I didn't, really, I didn't. You didn't see the script.

7:50

I didn't. I could have, but she's

7:53

a talented actress and it was a few years ago, and

7:55

I was like at the beginning, but she asked

7:57

because I think for her it was a point

8:00

it song for the you know, I'm

8:02

grateful. But then when I watched, I was like,

8:04

what, that's a super generous

8:06

place to put it. And it also shows sort of exactly

8:09

what I was saying. But it was a beautiful place

8:11

that she put it. So I had to center a note and

8:13

say thank you so much. Well,

8:15

nice of you. What happens in the

8:17

movie is a little like what happened

8:20

to Black Sabbath or Kiss in the eighties and

8:22

nineties. Those bands were pretty

8:24

much hated by rock critics in their day,

8:26

but they became celebrated when kids

8:28

who had grown up loving their music began to

8:31

make records or write rock criticism of

8:33

their own. Looking back

8:35

now, you can see how Sabbath's

8:37

gloom and emotional chaos told

8:39

a certain kind of truth for seventies

8:42

kids let down by the implosion

8:44

of the sixties, and just

8:46

maybe the Dave Matthews Band represented

8:49

something of a flip side, a sort of

8:51

hope for its audience. An

8:54

interracial band led

8:56

by a guitarist who had grown up in South

8:58

Africa, the Dave Matthews

9:01

Band came to prominence around the time Bill

9:03

Clinton was elected. They

9:05

were about the world as you wanted to see

9:07

it, rather than the world as it was. And

9:11

if that sounds like an exaggeration, you

9:13

haven't talked politics with Dave Matthews.

9:16

A committed progressive, I

9:18

think the best political position for

9:20

me is as far left as you can go

9:23

before you start going towards somebody else's

9:25

right. So I think we make the mistake

9:27

here often of saying, you know you have the right

9:29

and you have the left. We barely scrape the left

9:32

in this country. But if you can go further left

9:35

and then stop, which would be the real

9:37

center, before you appear

9:39

to be going towards somebody else's

9:41

right, that's a good left because then everybody on the left

9:44

then But then the truth is that We really would

9:47

be best off if we were all in

9:49

our communal left rather than everybody's

9:52

absurd radical right. The radical right

9:54

is the problem. I don't know if about the radical

9:56

left. I think they're all just reasonable. Come

10:02

Tomorrow has some songs that date

10:04

back more than a decade to two thousand

10:06

and six. Matthews

10:08

worked with four producers and pulled out tracks

10:11

from sessions that have been left on the shelf. That

10:14

sounds like it could be a mess, but it isn't. It's

10:17

a more focused album than he's made in a long while,

10:19

with a bigger, heavier rock sound.

10:22

Compare the version of Can't Stop from

10:24

Live Tracks Volume six, recorded twelve

10:27

years ago

10:39

with the studio version from Come Tomorrow.

10:47

That's the sound I heard when I went to see the band on the

10:49

road this summer. A slightly

10:51

different band, as

10:53

Matthews told me in this interview, there

10:55

were some long simmering tensions with violinist

10:58

Boyd Tinsley, tensions

11:00

that made him think hard about the

11:02

future of the band. Tensely

11:05

announced in February he was taking

11:07

a break to focus on his health and family.

11:11

In May, around the time the tour started, sexual

11:13

harassment charges surface against Boyd, which

11:16

he has denied, but the Dave Matthews

11:18

Band management has released a statement saying

11:20

he's no longer a member of the group. On

11:23

this summer's tour, Matthew was touring with

11:25

a strong seven piece band that includes

11:28

Rashaun Ross on trumpet, Jeff Coffin

11:30

on saxophone, and Buddy Strong on

11:32

keyboards. Matthew says

11:34

he's never felt better about the music

11:37

he's playing. Mind you, he

11:39

said stuff like this before,

11:43

but look at it this way.

11:46

Come Tomorrow is an album

11:48

about family, about

11:51

love, and about the future.

11:55

It starts with a song about giving

11:57

birth, So think

12:00

of this as a rebirth

12:02

moment for the Dave Matthews Band. When

12:06

he says he's never felt better

12:08

about the music he's playing, about the

12:10

work he's doing, he's saying

12:13

it after a lot of time

12:15

and reflection. Here's

12:18

what else he had to say, Speed

12:22

get the kind of major in years.

12:26

Welcome to my guest, Dave Matthews. Thank

12:28

you very much, very nice to be here. So I

12:30

saw you play in Hartford

12:32

on Saturday night. I just want

12:34

to ask, when you're doing

12:37

a sixteen minute

12:39

version of Crush, do you know

12:41

at the start it's gonna be sixteen minutes

12:43

or do you get five minutes in and like, let's

12:45

go along on this one? Boy? I think it was.

12:48

I mean, that's one of the songs that we have grown

12:50

accustomed to expanding.

12:52

But there are times

12:55

when we get out of hand.

12:57

But I don't mean that in a bad way. That one.

12:59

I do remember thinking, wow, this one keeps

13:02

going and it really and the way I think about

13:04

it is is not that we've left a song

13:06

a long time ago and now everything

13:09

that's happening since then we're in a completely

13:11

different place. But it's nice to have a launching pad.

13:14

Or sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes you

13:16

come in from some sort of improvisation

13:20

and then land in this song, which is another

13:22

way to do it, and occasionally, which I

13:24

suppose would seem like a more obvious

13:26

way to do it, in the middle of a song,

13:28

will go off on some tangent

13:31

and then hopefully find our way back to it.

13:33

But there's a variation. I don't know that we know

13:35

exactly how long. There have been times. I

13:37

think it was with a Bella Fleck and the Flectones,

13:40

we did a version of a song

13:43

H forty one with them that lasted

13:47

close to three quarters of an hour. You're

13:49

in some major league dark star territory

13:51

there. But I think it's fair to say that

13:54

by the time that song ended,

13:57

there's no way anyone would have known what

14:00

the hell of the song was. If they came

14:02

in the middle of that, they would have been like, what is happening?

14:04

But that really wasn't the effect. When I saw you guys on

14:06

Saturday, like, I knew where the songs were,

14:08

and the band sounds very, very

14:10

tight right now. God, it's so

14:13

much fun right now. It feels

14:15

like every moment there's

14:18

such a connection inside the

14:20

seven of us. There's just this sort of don't

14:23

jump off the train because it's

14:25

going fast kind of feeling right now that

14:27

there's moments where it locks in

14:30

so tight that you really just have to do

14:32

your part. You have to have faith in in

14:35

what you're doing, because if

14:37

you lose faith, that's the only thing that could stop.

14:40

We're in such a mean groove that

14:44

I don't remember feeling this kind

14:46

of power. You've always been a

14:48

band with great flexibility,

14:51

but there did seem to be like a new kind

14:53

of power to things, especially

14:55

the new material, which seems more

14:58

rock band focused. And that's

15:00

interesting that you say, because you know, we've been working

15:03

on a lot of that stuff for you

15:05

know, some of the tunes actually more

15:07

than twelve years old. The new songs,

15:09

some of them have a

15:12

real muscily groove

15:14

driven thing to them.

15:16

It kind of has an effect of

15:18

doing that to the rest of the repertoire. I

15:21

think from the beginning we've been open to

15:24

improvisation, to let any things

15:26

go. But everything changes.

15:29

I've been struggling a bit with

15:32

the band, with the sound of the band or where

15:35

we've been going, and I think, you know, that's

15:37

what led to Boyd stepping away.

15:40

I think that bringing in Buddy

15:42

Strong. It was realizing

15:44

now just this ingredient

15:47

of energy and of focus

15:49

that is changed. It's

15:52

like finding the

15:55

last part of some Not

15:57

to say there wasn't a magic I'm not

15:59

saying that, but I'm saying there's this new ingredient

16:03

that changed the recipe. Everything tastes

16:05

a little different, Everything changes, and everyone

16:07

changes. It's like we're all looking

16:10

at each other like in a whole different

16:12

way. Dave Matthews Pan took last summer

16:14

off, took a summer vacation.

16:16

This is that you mentioned Boyd stepping away. This is the first

16:19

tour without boy

16:22

Was there any apprehension, Well,

16:25

I think you're part like, yeah, there's been apprehensive for a

16:27

long time. I you know, for

16:30

me, well, there's been I

16:32

feel, and I

16:34

think the guys all, I know, the guys agree that

16:38

Boyd certainly was a big

16:40

part of the

16:42

early part of the band and just remained

16:44

because he's been there from the beginning. It's

16:47

powerful personality.

16:49

But it's been a while that

16:52

I think all of us have felt that

16:56

his focus. I

16:58

mean, he was there on stage, but

17:01

you know, in rehearsals or in the studio,

17:03

his focus was really, it felt

17:05

like to us, not in the room,

17:08

and so he was his own whirling dervish or

17:10

his own storm. But that really worked

17:12

beautifully sometimes. Other times it was very

17:15

disoriented or seemed disconnected,

17:17

and it was a frustration, and we came

17:20

There was a lot of confrontation, but I'm a

17:22

fiercely loyal person, and

17:24

it took a long time for me to say, look, we

17:27

need more from you, we need more focus on

17:29

us. It just felt like it's

17:32

been a while that in that time when

17:34

we were meant to be focusing on what we're doing. I've

17:37

been having a really frustrating time

17:40

getting to feel like he was putting

17:43

in anything more than the bare minimum,

17:45

and to get him to cop to that. That

17:48

frustration, in combination with

17:50

his own personal things, led him, you know two

17:53

follow my advice and go to look after

17:55

himself. The result of that

17:57

for me is

18:00

that we suddenly have

18:02

this We're not having to pull anyone

18:05

along. Suddenly everybody's

18:07

like at the front line, you

18:09

know, pushing to get ahead. You know, we don't

18:11

know where we're going into. You know, we got Buddy

18:13

Strong just outrage. I think he's dragging

18:16

us all along, but we're all dragged. Everyone's

18:18

pulling forward. It's like Strong,

18:24

newest addition to the family. And we

18:26

met years ago, but we started

18:28

talking about working

18:31

with Rashan actually called me up and say,

18:33

man, there's this guy. Body's wrong. I

18:35

listened to some of his

18:38

gospel work online and I had known

18:41

he worked with a lot of different people. This

18:43

band is an interesting band, and we want

18:45

not only you to play the notes, but we

18:47

also want you to play your notes. What do you

18:49

got? And he has got a lot

18:52

with him. It's it's like this open

18:54

it's opened all these doors to our

18:56

own music and to each

18:58

other. They're playing the carters killing

19:01

me. He really is. And he keeps saying, and

19:03

he keeps saying looking at buddy, and he's being like, man,

19:06

you know what, that's what it is. You

19:08

know, he was a joyful presence, good

19:10

lord. Every time I turn around and see him,

19:12

it's like the presence. You can hear

19:14

that it one was present, but you can see it in

19:17

his eyes and you can see everyone else

19:19

because we're all looking at each other, like everybody's

19:21

looking at each other as if quite a lot of

19:23

the time, if it's not over joy

19:26

or getting lost its with this sort of like this

19:28

shoot is bad. What is happening.

19:31

It's like getting something that you deserve,

19:34

but you sort of can't believe that you're getting it.

19:36

I gotta say. When things started, I was like, she's I don't

19:38

know, I don't know, I do I want another trumpet solo.

19:41

And then like twenty minutes in, I was like, there better be a

19:43

fucking trumpets solo coming. Yeah, he's Rashan

19:45

is blowing, Like I see him

19:47

over there. It looks like, you know, he's

19:49

gonna come out of the front of his horn if

19:52

you know, it's like, I'm like, what is happening everybody?

19:55

Jeff? Actually all it looked as though Jeff

19:57

up in Hartford. There was one point that

20:00

I thought he was gonna this is the last show that we played.

20:03

I thought he's gonna go to his knees. At

20:05

one point he was bad. He was used blow and I was like, look

20:07

at this fool, He's about to go down

20:09

and it would have been appropriate. He didn't.

20:11

He didn't, but it was close. I was so

20:14

tired by the end of the show that

20:16

I almost couldn't physically

20:19

play the last song

20:22

in the set, but I was so happy

20:24

about it, like my hands and my body

20:26

and my voice. I was so out of

20:28

breath. I felt as though like

20:30

I might not be able to make it, but it was such a

20:32

joyful feeling. I don't know,

20:34

I don't know. Over it's not joy. It's

20:37

not like happy happy,

20:39

smile smile. It's some mean groove that

20:41

is going on up there. So let's talk

20:43

about the new record. Come Tomorrow. Ninth

20:46

studio album, seventh

20:48

consecutive number one album debut

20:50

on the Billboard Album Charts. If you're keeping score

20:52

at home Mark, this one is number one whatever

20:55

statistician came up with that. I

20:57

feel like someone's been fixing the books. But I

20:59

like to think that looks good. You know, it looks

21:02

good. Band putting out seven consecutive

21:04

albums that enter the charts

21:06

at number one is a record

21:08

that a new

21:11

record up for records, Yes, new record

21:13

for records. You mentioned some

21:16

of these songs date back to two

21:18

thousand and six. There are four different producers,

21:22

three studios. There was a one

21:24

session that was started for an album and scrapped.

21:27

This doesn't sound like

21:30

it's gonna be a successful record,

21:32

and yet it's a really good fucking

21:34

record. This is a focused album. I

21:37

think it's interesting, and I'm glad that

21:39

you feel like that, because I feel like almost

21:41

more about

21:43

this album than I've felt it about any

21:46

of them. But I think it was you

21:49

know, I made We've recorded some

21:51

of the recordings that date back a while. I mean,

21:53

I love those records,

21:56

but I had sort of said, well, that's

21:58

not finished. I don't have a place for that

22:00

yet because we didn't finish that project. Then

22:02

we did grow Roux and we finished

22:04

that record and I love that record. And then I

22:07

did some more recording, you know, so we

22:09

did grow Roux with Cavallo,

22:11

and then I did more recording with

22:13

Alasia, who I always right with John Alasiah,

22:15

who was one of the producer, always right with him. The

22:17

record that we had sort of show before that we were doing

22:19

with Bats and and then I made another

22:21

album. I went back. We did an album with Lily

22:24

White that I'm happy with. Some of the the songs.

22:26

I don't think in the end, I don't think it was the best

22:28

of the album could have been, but I still there's

22:31

some good things in there. And

22:33

then I went in the studio again with Rob Cavallo

22:35

and we had the beginnings of it. Worked

22:38

for a while on an album and we had

22:40

more than the beginnings of a great record

22:42

there. But again, for whatever reason, I think

22:45

disappointed my own stop my own head getting you

22:47

know, a lot of things on my mind about the

22:49

band. My I desperately wanted

22:51

to make a not feel disappointed

22:54

in some ways, like a little bit the way I felt about Away

22:57

from the World. Although again I don't

22:59

want to a baby out all

23:01

these albums or good children,

23:04

none of them are. We're not gonna but but you have

23:06

said that Away from the World you feel you

23:08

went back to almost overwork. Yeah,

23:10

I feel like that, and I feel like it lost

23:13

some of the teeth. Then I went

23:15

back in the studio and I was

23:17

working with John Alasia and uh

23:20

Rob Evans, two of the other producers. We

23:23

just started listening to some of the songs. I

23:25

was really just saying, you know, that

23:28

is as good as anything I've ever

23:30

done. That's just how I started

23:32

thinking of everything. At the same time,

23:34

I'm also writing more music, and what they

23:36

were all also telling me was

23:39

like, the stuff that we were doing right now was

23:43

as good as anything that we have in

23:45

the back. So we've got this super creative

23:47

process going. It was like a

23:49

monument. That's not the right word. It

23:51

was almost like something to hang The

23:54

whole process on. Was really when

23:56

I went back and listened to the track Can't Stop,

23:59

which has Leroy More on it,

24:01

and it was sort of a live performance,

24:04

and bats And was in the room, and

24:06

this is one of the two tracks that go all the way back to two thousand

24:09

and six. Yeah, Elaysia and Rob

24:11

Evans went in and took the track which was

24:13

recorded with bats And, and they mixed

24:16

it and then they said, this is what we

24:18

came up with, And I sat and I was like, this

24:20

is a monster. And the way they had Rob

24:23

Evans like he likes to get to Carter's drums

24:25

like right out, you know, and so it's a beast.

24:27

So then everything the way

24:29

that I was thinking about it

24:32

was everything has to be as strong

24:34

as that. You haven't made an album in

24:37

six years. But it's almost like this

24:39

is the greatest hits of the last twelve

24:41

years or something. It feels like that in a

24:43

weird way. It feels like this is the best stuff I've done.

24:45

And I think grew Rux was

24:48

the most focused album

24:51

because in the middle of it we lost Leroy.

24:54

So it had this real purpose that

24:56

was behind it too, which was to

24:59

pay homage, your homage depending

25:01

on how you want to be to le Roy.

25:03

And so even from the cover, everything about

25:05

it was Roy,

25:08

and I think that's what sort of gave me and

25:10

Carter and everybody the motivation

25:12

to get that record right. And Rob Cavalla

25:14

who had met and Doug who met Roy,

25:17

and we'd all lost him, so that sort of

25:19

focus was like we had to finish this, We're

25:21

gonna have to make it great for Roy.

25:24

In this instance, I

25:26

do feel like I

25:28

someone said you need to step back, you need

25:30

to look at what you've made and

25:32

not discount the heart

25:34

that you put into some things. And

25:37

so I started digging through and

25:39

there's a lot of music I couldn't get on the album.

25:41

I want to ask you this is this

25:44

is a very focused record in

25:46

a different kind of way for you, in that

25:48

I don't think there's been a record

25:51

that is quite this inward looking

25:54

from you before. A lot of songs about

25:56

love, a lot of songs they seem to

25:58

be about marriage, or they're about lasting relationships.

26:00

I'm often used to your songs addressing

26:03

the outside world a little bit more,

26:05

whereas this felt like a very personal, my

26:09

family kind of record. I

26:11

think maybe there's sort of allowing myself

26:14

a little bit of that was feeling

26:16

comfortable to talk about it. Maybe that says

26:18

something about where I am with my family

26:20

and also where I am with the band. Maybe

26:23

it's turning fifty whatever or

26:25

past that, whatever it is. I do

26:28

feel like a lot of this is looking inward.

26:30

And even that song Black and Bluebird

26:33

is a little bit of a part of conversations

26:36

that I have with my son and with like daughters.

26:39

It sort of is like the words the things

26:42

I've learned to think about in

26:44

some ways, or wanted them to think about.

26:46

When we're having conversations either about the

26:49

world, about selfishness, or about what's

26:52

happening or the wonder, you know, always

26:54

try and remember that the universe is much

26:56

bigger than we are. And just

26:59

that kind of idea

27:01

from my kids is I

27:03

want them to feel stunning

27:05

lee small, and therefore inspired,

27:08

as opposed to I can't stand

27:10

my old phone. I need a new phone. Oh my god,

27:12

it's the worst, you know. I mean, that's fine to have

27:14

some emotions like that, but I'm grateful that my

27:16

kids aren't overly obsessed

27:19

by that kind of stuff.

27:21

I think that song is a wordy way of saying

27:23

that we are so tiny

27:26

in the universe that if

27:29

all of us and everything on the planet

27:32

vanished tomorrow,

27:35

nothing, not even

27:37

the moon, would notice

27:39

our absence. That's really interesting because

27:42

particularly at this

27:44

moment in time, and this is a difficult

27:47

period in American history, let's put

27:50

it mildly, Yeah, in the world. I mean,

27:52

you watch everywhere these waves

27:54

of self absorbed

27:56

self righteousness and sort of ignorant

28:00

and arrogance, scary combinations

28:02

of personality and also to connect what's

28:04

happening in America to world politics waves

28:06

of nationalism, which

28:08

which are a very different kind of thing

28:11

here in this country. I think nationalism

28:13

yet that very often allows the

28:15

most disturbing things to

28:17

happen in cultures.

28:20

When a culture starts to think that

28:23

it has somehow reached

28:25

further or is the example of

28:27

excellence or should be acknowledged as the most

28:30

excellent. When that happens,

28:33

very dangerous, dangerous things

28:35

happened. I think nationalism is what allows

28:37

a Partei. Nationalism is what allows Hitler.

28:40

Not it's all fine to be you know, I'm

28:42

American. I'm proud to be an American. That's fine,

28:46

But you have to be able to say that

28:49

feeling and that belief is

28:51

no more reasonable or

28:55

more true than if a Canadian says I'm

28:57

a Canadian and I'm proud to be a Canadian

28:59

and I'm great. It's no more true. Well,

29:02

I also grew up being taught

29:04

that saying I'm proud to be an American meant

29:07

that you were setting an example that you wanted to

29:09

share with the world, and not I'm proud

29:11

to be an American. Stay out, keep to

29:13

yourself. That is will be on our side of the

29:15

world, you be on your side. But

29:17

it is a scary time. And I do think that

29:20

the sort of sense of

29:23

entitlement or the idea

29:25

of being if you're born

29:27

in America for whatever

29:29

reason, that for no reason

29:32

other than that you are worth

29:34

more than someone who is

29:36

born in Panama.

29:39

That to me is an obscene

29:42

concept that the value

29:44

of a human being could in any

29:46

way come from where

29:48

they're born or who

29:51

helped them. And you did mention apartheid

29:54

earlier when we were talking, and of course that is

29:56

the idea of something you grew up with and

29:58

a system that said you you can be

30:00

born here in South Africa

30:02

and still be worth less. And

30:05

that my concern in this country is that

30:08

nationalism, that we have to keep out all

30:10

these people because this is ours, because

30:12

we were born here or we arrived

30:14

here, right. That is truly

30:17

strange coming from a country that's so young

30:20

and is so recently created

30:23

by immigrants. This country is half

30:25

the soldiers that fought on the side

30:28

of the Union and a civil war word immigrants.

30:30

So it was a civil war sorts,

30:33

but it was fought by people that were

30:35

coming here that we're from somewhere

30:37

else. We always have to acknowledge

30:39

that, because if we don't, then I feel less

30:42

America. Was like, Oh, because I wasn't born here, I'm less

30:44

American by some people's standards

30:46

than someone who was born

30:48

here, which doesn't fit in my opinion

30:51

the America that I think, in my ideal

30:53

view of it, it could be to

30:55

look at the state of the population

30:58

of this country and all our differences, and

31:00

to acknowledge some things but

31:03

not acknowledge others talk about America as

31:05

if it's this land of justice

31:07

and freedom, and then not acknowledge

31:10

that it's a land of immigrants, and not acknowledge

31:12

that much of it was built by the hands

31:14

of slaves, and that certainly it couldn't

31:17

be what it is now had it not been for the hundreds

31:19

and hundreds of years of enslaved

31:21

people doing a lot of the work.

31:23

The album is named Come Tomorrow. The title

31:26

track is about this change

31:28

we want to see, right, it would be great. There

31:30

was talk at first when I

31:33

had an album together. There's some murmurings.

31:35

People are saying we should put Come Tomorrow

31:37

out as a single, and I just said, even

31:39

though it was written before the most recent

31:42

park Lands horrifying shooting. I wrote

31:44

it and we recorded it before that. But

31:46

that said, regardless of the timing of it,

31:49

would make it seem pretty on

31:51

the button, and I felt like that also

31:54

would be I felt like it might be perceived

31:56

a sort of stepping in to something

31:59

that really isn't my place. I'd

32:01

rather be supportive of

32:03

the efforts to get some sort of sane situation

32:07

with guns and automatic weapons in

32:09

this country, rather than I would try and jump in the middle

32:11

of somebody else's terrible situation

32:13

pretend I'm part of it. That song

32:16

is, at the same time as it's in

32:18

some ways for me, quite cynical, it

32:20

is also you know, when I talked to my

32:22

children about how they see the world, I

32:26

mean, their view is

32:29

so much more open and tolerant,

32:32

even though I feel like I grew up a

32:34

very tolerant person, and the seventies

32:36

was, as far as the authorities were concerned,

32:39

the late seventies was a very tolerant

32:41

time. It was like, suddenly, we're all like laughing

32:44

at the stupidity of our Your

32:46

girls are teenagers, yeah,

32:49

and and and if you have a teenager now, then

32:52

you are likely involved in a conversation

32:55

about gender and fluidity.

32:57

That is not the one that you and I grew up with.

33:00

No, it was almost unthinkable, exactly.

33:02

But my kids they're also connected to

33:04

each other now as well through technology.

33:06

Not always great, but I think a lot of times it is actually

33:09

not a bad thing because they're always in touch with each

33:11

other a lot of time. Maybe it's not

33:14

the deepest of conversations, but sometimes it is

33:16

deep conversation. I learn to

33:20

be more tolerant and

33:23

watch myself around

33:26

from them more than they they learned

33:28

from me. I'm glad maybe I made them lean towards

33:30

a kindness. But you know, sometimes I'm

33:32

a found mouth pig and sometimes I'll say something in

33:34

the car and you can't say that, Dad. I say,

33:36

actually, I can say it, and

33:39

I will say it in the safety of

33:41

my family, knowing that you better

33:43

know that if I say some crazy shit,

33:46

that you know where my heart is because you

33:48

sit around in my house and smell my hearts. You know.

33:51

Not only that. So

33:53

I was talking last week with someone you've worked

33:56

with for a long time who was full

33:58

of praise for the way you

34:00

keep it normal. She was like, you know, here's

34:02

a guy who drives his kids to school

34:05

every morning, doesn't make a big deal about

34:07

where he lives. It's not super

34:09

secret. Dave Matthews lives in seatt

34:12

All, and it drives a priest.

34:14

I try not to stick out. I'll

34:16

try to make my strange stay on the inside

34:19

as much as possible. I do think it's better for

34:21

my kids. I do feel like if

34:23

I walk through an airport by myself,

34:25

there's a much better chance that

34:28

no one is gonna notice me. Then if

34:30

I walk through the airport with a posse,

34:33

if I really don't want anyone to see

34:35

me, well then I just

34:38

won't go outside. And

34:40

and and I do think I don't want people knocking on

34:42

my door and saying I made you this jam,

34:44

or whyon't you come to my wedding. I don't want strangers

34:47

coming out of my house. But I feel like if you're sort of

34:49

accessible, it makes the curiosity

34:51

as to what's they're less it's less

34:53

interesting. You can treat yourself like a normal person.

34:56

People will treat you like a normal person. We

34:58

mentioned that you took a a summer vacation

35:01

last summer. Did turning fifty have anything

35:03

to do with not going out for a summer tour

35:05

for the first time in a long while. I still worked.

35:07

I did go on tour with Tim Reynolds. It's light,

35:10

it's easy, you know, it's just two guitarsome. Turning

35:12

fifty also my view of things

35:15

changed a little bit then too, because how

35:18

well I was not totally unexpected, but

35:20

it was my fiftieth birthday

35:22

did fall right around the same time

35:25

as the Seven Deadly Sins or the Cardinal

35:27

Sins took over the highest office in

35:29

the nature. Your birthdays in January, so

35:31

you're saying it was around the time of the Trump inauguration

35:34

exactly, you turned fifty. You

35:36

have this moment of what

35:39

thinking, do I keep doing

35:41

this? Do I change what I'm doing? Like

35:43

what's going on? I think there was a

35:45

lot of different thoughts. I think for me, I've

35:48

never been ungrateful for what

35:51

I've managed with the band and

35:53

what all the guys in the band have taught me. But

35:55

I do think when I turned fifty,

35:58

I was like, but I really have to have

36:01

a selfish year. You know, it's all relative,

36:03

not regardless of everybody else, but just

36:05

because of me. And so I

36:08

told my kids, said, what do you want to do with what

36:10

kind of party. My wife had what kind of party want? I

36:13

don't want a party. Had to give me a surprise party.

36:15

But I do want to go

36:18

have a trip, and I haven't figured out yet, but I want

36:20

to take you all on a trip, and I want to

36:22

go somewhere where, and then

36:24

I want to take all our cell phones away and

36:26

take all our things, and I want to hide everything,

36:29

and I want to do something where. We ended

36:31

up going to Kenya to reteddy this

36:33

incredible elephants sanctuary. I had

36:35

some other places and had I think all

36:37

my family would agree. You know, I'm

36:40

not saying that everybody can hop in and plan and

36:42

go to the middle of Kenya where there's nothing, but

36:44

it was everything that I could be.

36:46

And although I felt selfish um

36:49

in some ways, if I looked at it, it

36:51

was just unbelievable

36:54

time for me and my family to indulge

36:57

each other and to uh enjoy

36:59

each other, the company and too. It was really

37:02

nice. It was also beautiful because it wasn't

37:04

a battle, even in the remotest

37:06

way. Please canna have my iPad? Oh

37:08

can I just check my bad It was like there was none

37:10

of it. It was crazy, but it was

37:12

because we were around all. I think it's easier

37:15

to be without your iPad when there are elephants, that

37:17

they make it easier to to forego

37:20

social media is wild. That alone

37:22

is a good argument for an outride.

37:25

Band of ivory in this country will

37:28

help you stay in the room, as

37:31

will rhinoceros is. Although

37:33

they are not as smart as elephants, not

37:36

an elephant is hauntingly

37:39

smart animal. If I was gonna tell

37:42

anyone to read a very simple, very

37:44

quick read about elephants, that's a beautiful

37:46

book that anyone would enjoy

37:49

by Lawrence Anthony called

37:51

The Elephant Whisper, and it's just his experience

37:54

with a herd of wild elephant. It

37:57

is mind boggling the

38:00

respect you will gain from a very unassuming

38:03

book. But it will make

38:05

you wonder at the universe.

38:08

See turn fifty. You took your family

38:10

to Kenya? But did

38:13

you have that moment? I always think of

38:15

that, Neil Young song, I am the ocean. Yeah.

38:18

People my age don't do the things I do.

38:20

It's funny because I do. Sometimes hear my own

38:22

voice saying There's no way I'm gonna

38:24

be doing this when I'm forty. I mean, I can

38:27

hear my I know my own voice, and

38:29

it was going, well, there's no way I'm gonna do this when I'm

38:31

forty. Now I feel like I

38:34

was wrong, and there aren't a lot of people who get to

38:36

keep doing this, Like it is a crazy

38:38

thing, and unless you're working as a musician

38:40

and you've had to work all long

38:42

to be lucky enough to get where we are

38:45

and keep being able to do it at that really

38:48

very lucky. I don't take it for

38:50

granted. For the most part, everyone's in a while, I take

38:52

it for granted. I do feel like I don't

38:54

care as much about

38:57

what people think as I did twenty years ago.

38:59

I I think I deeply cared. Now I'm

39:02

kind of like, if you don't think

39:04

that what I did was good, I

39:06

don't care. I'm not saying you're wrong, although

39:08

I think you're wrong. I

39:11

I'm just saying that I

39:13

don't care because it's good.

39:15

It's funny too. It's a different thing when like the people

39:18

who grew up on your music start

39:20

telling their stories or they start writing

39:23

their rock history because they don't

39:25

do it. It's the same thing. I was thinking about this the other day.

39:28

Black Sabbath, we think of black

39:30

Sabbath is fucking Sabbath. But

39:33

in the seventies, if you're reading rock

39:35

criticism, it's like they're

39:38

no good and they're not really Satanists. That's

39:40

not real and it's not good. It's not good

39:43

music, and it's fundamental

39:45

to us. Yeah, I just I just know

39:47

that it's at the core

39:49

of me. You know. I do remember

39:52

being almost frozen

39:55

with joy fear when

39:59

I was in the gym here

40:01

in the city and Ozzie was

40:03

on a treadmill near me. Now

40:09

he was running, but he was the whole he

40:11

was shaking, the whole ban He runs

40:14

like Frankenstein, which is not surprising,

40:16

but he's like, I mean, his

40:18

feet are hitting the ground. Use I was like, how do his bones

40:20

hold up? He was running and

40:22

it was not long, it was maybe a decade

40:25

ago. I was impressed that he was running,

40:27

but I was also just like you know, and eventually

40:29

got the courage to go, you know.

40:32

But I didn't bug him too much. And

40:34

he's, of course, as we all know now having

40:36

watched Our Charming, he wasn't, as you

40:38

know, the first and only show

40:41

of its sort that was actually worth something. But

40:43

in my strange opinion, you mean the only reality

40:45

show, the only family reality show. Great,

40:48

why do it again? That one was perfect? Just watch

40:51

reruns. It was perfect and he could see

40:53

he was a loving, amazing person. But what

40:55

great music to hate? You

40:57

know, you might hate to admit it, but it's great.

41:00

It's in my bones. We're now at a stage

41:02

where the Stones are on tour and they're

41:04

in their seventies. You can probably do

41:06

that too. I'll let that happen when it does well.

41:09

The way I feel right now

41:11

is that I cannot

41:14

believe how knew

41:16

this, how good I feel

41:19

about this record. Like I think

41:21

that if someone listens to this album

41:24

and says I don't get

41:26

it, they should either listen again or

41:29

I don't know, go eat a cupcakes. It's they're loss

41:32

to me. It's such a good record. I feel so good

41:34

about it. And you're back out on tour this summer. I

41:36

cannot remember feeling

41:39

this elated about playing

41:41

music with anybody and feeling

41:44

so lifted by the

41:46

experience as I do with you

41:48

know, the same people and some new people then

41:51

I've ever felt in my life. And it's just

41:53

what the hell did I do? Right? But I just feel

41:56

like when I look at Carter, and I know that we were

41:58

in his basement practicing, and

42:00

I know Stefan was a fifteen year old kid

42:03

when I first approached him.

42:05

When I look at them now and I see those

42:07

same people and you don't really see how much you hate

42:09

you know, that makes me think, well, we

42:11

did something right. Even though we've lost some friends

42:14

along the way, we did something. We

42:17

found something in each other that is

42:20

remarkable, and I don't take it for granted.

42:23

Day We're gonna leave it there. Thank you so much right

42:26

on, and it was really nice talking to ye. This was fantastic.

42:28

Thank you did make you. Inside

42:32

the Studio is an I Heeart Radio original

42:35

podcast created by Chris Peterson.

42:38

This episode was written and hosted by

42:40

me Joe Levy. Our executive

42:42

producer is Sandy Smallens for audiation,

42:44

and our mixer is Matt Noble. Would

42:47

like to give a big thank you to Dave Matthews and our

42:49

CIA Records. Follow Inside

42:51

the Studio on iHeart Radio or subscribe

42:54

wherever you listen to podcasts.