The Raging Optimism and Multiple Personalities of Dave Matthews

By JOHN COLAPINTO

I. Mr. A Psychs Up

In a dusty parking lot 100 yards behind the stage of DeVore Stadium, where 10,000 fans await his appearance, Dave Matthews begins his pre-performance ritual. The location is Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif., another stop of the 1996 H.O.R.D.E. Festival, and the leader of the Dave Matthews Band is cranked. Beloved by fans for his achingly lyrical songs (and dismissed by some critics as a bland, Hootie Nation jammer), Matthews offstage is a guy neither his defenders, nor his detractors, would recognize.

"I feel good!" Matthews yelps in a full-throated James Brown. He leaps and shimmies, tossing his gangly, goofy, loose-jointed frame down the narrow aisle of his tour bus. From here, Matthews glides into an imitation of fellow H.O.R.D.E. act Lenny Kravitz, thrashing at a low-slung air guitar and tossing imaginary dreadlocks. For a moment, he's a gyrating stripper, then he's the ninja master from his favorite martial-arts movie, chopping the air, bellowing: "You have hurt my students. I will kick you hard in the intestines!"

1996, articles, magazinesdbtpDecember 12, 1996

How Dave Matthews Found His Groove

April 26, 1996

The Boston Globe - By Steve Morse

When Dave Matthews was 9 years old, he took lessons from a guitar teacher who made a lasting impression. "I was a horrible student," says Matthews. "But he told me, 'Keep your foot tapping whatever you do.' That has always stuck in my mind. If you miss a note or you miss a chord, as long as you keep the rhythm going, it really doesn't matter. Maybe I already knew it, but he verbalized the necessity to stay in the groove."

Matthews, now 29, has stayed in the groove ever since with his unique funk-rock-jazz-fusion - and it's paid dividends. His Dave Matthews Band sold 3 million copies of its last album, "Under the Table and Dreaming." And now he's back with an even better disc, "Crash," which comes out Tuesday and vindicates last year's surprise accent to arena-headlining status.

Simply put, Matthews playes the hardest-driving acoustic guitar this side of Pete Townshend. "I think it really came out of playing acoustic and wanting to be louder, but not wanting to be electric," Matthews says froma a Manhattan hotel. "I think it's a love of drum and a love of percussion that led me there. I really almost try to think of the guitar and each string on the guitar as a percussion instrument."

1996, articlesdbtpApril 26, 1996

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