WEBVTT - Dave Matthews 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:06.280 I Heart Radio Presents Inside the Studio, I'm your host, 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:11.080 Joe Leeve. This time around, I got a chance to 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.560 go along with Dave Matthews, which, if you've ever spoken 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.960 with Dave, would be a single sentence. What I love 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.680 about Dave Matthews is this is a guy who's passionate 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:23.920 about what he does. He takes it very, very seriously, 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.880 but that doesn't stop him from having a wicked sense 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:32.000 of humor about everything, including himself. We talked about why 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.800 it took six years between albums, why it took a 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.040 year off from the road with the Dave Matthews Band, 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.800 the secret connection between his band and Black Sabbath, then 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.960 what it was like to turn fifty and keep on going. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.120 The Dave Matthews Band played their very first shows in Charlottesville, Virginia, 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.360 had a benefit for Middle Eastern children, and also at 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.560 an Earth Day fest of all. Matthews was born in 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.440 South Africa and grew up in America and England, but 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.039 he was back in South Africa for high school and 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:12.840 after graduating in ninety five, five years before the apartheid 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.880 regime began to crumble, he moved to Charlottesville rather than 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:20.440 serve in the Military. He was tending bar there at 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:22.800 a place called Miller's, and he had to be coaxed 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.360 by friends in performing his own work in public. But 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.319 once the Dave Matthews Band came together, things happened fairly quickly. 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.600 The band released its first album, Remember Two Things, mostly 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:41.240 live collection, in two years. After those first gigs, they 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.880 built a passionately devoted audience, in part by using the 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.000 model of the Grateful Dead, meaning they encouraged the crowd 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.880 to tape and trade live shows. Two years after that 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.320 debut album, they opened three shows for The Dead on 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.760 that band's final tour. In the next year, they were 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:02.200 open shows for Bob Dylan in the year after that, 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.640 The Rolling Stones. Of course, they were growing their own 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.919 audience that whole time, and by they were headlining stadiums. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.160 That's the year their third studio album, Before These Crowded Streets, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.760 debuted at number one, starting a streak that's continued across 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:23.040 seven albums right up to the recently released Come Tomorrow. 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:29.440 First Dave Matthews Band album in six years. Though they 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.240 were almost always described as a jam band and still are, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.399 the Dave Matthews Band became one of America's biggest rock 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.880 bands in the nineties, a position they've never really given up. 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.720 They wrapped a bunch of different audiences into one thing, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:46.960 sort of the same way they wrapped a bunch of 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:51.560 different music, the jazzy saxophone of Leroy Moore, the blue, 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.320 grassy violin of Boyd Tinsley, the solid funk bottom of 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.880 drummer Carter Beauford and bassist Stefan Lazard into one thing. 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.200 It's easy to understand the significance that Dave Matthews Band 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.720 took on for the Grateful Dad's audience after the death 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:12.280 of Jerry garcia In, but what's less obvious is the 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.280 role they played for nineties rock kids around the same time, 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.920 since n was also the year that Pearl Jams stopped 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.840 playing the United States for three years while they waged 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:27.680 a battle with Ticketmaster. In the post grunge moment, music 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.160 that sounded both happy and sad, that mixed the intimate 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.440 with the epic was a style looking for a hero. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.200 Some bands could latch onto it for a few minutes 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:42.760 the way that remember Them Marcy Playground or The Spin 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.240 Doctors did, and some could manage it for a few albums. 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.320 The White Stone Temple Pilots did, But aside from Dave Grohl, 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.000 I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who's managed to 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.680 make it last for a career that spanned decades the 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:03.200 way Matthews has. Dave Matthews had experienced loss early on. 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.680 His father died from cancer when he was just ten 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.920 years old, and songs like Satellite or Lie in Our 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.760 Graves talked about the fragility of life. Look so did 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.160 Tripping Billy's in its own way. Other songs like Crash 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.880 Into Me were about chasing down pleasure. A big audience 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.160 trying to figure out how to make sense of bad 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.279 times and make the good times last found something in 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:29.880 the Dave Matthews Band look. It didn't always translate from 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.240 performance into the recording studio, and that may be the 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.120 one thing that Dave Matthews Band truly shares with the 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.520 Grateful Dead, but the live show became a defining experience, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:45.159 documented on more than forty live albums. The Dave Matthews 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.919 Band audience is loyal for them. Eadie is not summer 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.560 without sitting on the lawn at a Dave Matthews amphitheater 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.720 show in North America. They were the biggest grossing band 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.520 of the two thousands, selling more than I've entred and 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:06.000 twenty million dollars of tickets, and that slowed down only slightly. 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:11.360 According to Billboard. In the band played fifty shows, selling 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:18.000 seven tickets and earning forty two million dollars. But last 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.680 year a couple of unusual things happened to the Dave 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.080 Matthews Band. The first is that they took the summer off, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:25.839 and I think that might be the first summer in 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:30.480 twenty five years without Dave Matthews Band shows as Matthews. 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.800 It's plained to me turning fifty had something to do 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:42.120 with it, my fiftieth roth. They did fall right around 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:44.640 the same time as the Seven Deadly Sins or the 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.799 Cardinal Sins took over the highest office in the nature 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:49.919 of your birthdays in January. So you're saying it was 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.840 around the time of the Trump inauguration exactly. You turn fifty, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:59.200 you have this moment of what thinking, Do I keep 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.240 doing this? Do I change what I'm doing? Like what's 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.880 going on? I think there was a lot of different thoughts. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.280 I think for me, I've never been ungrateful. I don't 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.719 think I may have been tired. I've never been ungrateful 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:15.400 for what I've managed with the band and what all 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.320 the guys in the band have taught me. But I 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.760 do think when I turned fifty, I was like, but 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:26.680 I really have to have a selfish year. So in 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.760 Matthews took time for himself with his family and thought 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.640 hard about the future of his band. While he was 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.880 thinking about the future, a reconsideration of the past was underway, 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.719 thanks in part to Greta Gerwig's use of Crash into 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:50.440 Me in her coming of age movie Ladybird. The song 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:55.960 turns up twice, first when Ladybird, played by Sir Sha Ronan, 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.359 plays it over and over again with her best friend 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:01.960 while she's trying her way out of high school heartbreak. 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.600 And then later she's riding in a car with her 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.719 new boyfriend who's one of the cool kids, and Crash 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.600 into Me comes on the radio while he's talking trash 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:19.640 about not going to Brahm. I fucking hate this song. 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:29.600 I love it. I actually want to go to prom. 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:32.200 Here's a lot going on here. A young woman is 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.120 standing up for herself, not letting other people define her. 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.920 But also it's someone in high school saying fuck it. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:41.440 To being too cool to admit that she loves the 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.880 music that she actually loves. It's a poignant moment in 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:46.920 the movie. I'd say what She asked if she could 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.200 use the song. I was like, yeah, I didn't, really, 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.520 I didn't. You didn't see the script. I didn't. I 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.360 could have, but she's a talented actress and it was 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.000 a few years ago, and I was like at the beginning, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.520 but she asked because I think for her it was 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.760 a point it song for the you know, I'm grateful. 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.280 But then when I watched, I was like, what, that's 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.840 a super generous place to put it. And it also 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.240 shows sort of exactly what I was saying. But it 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.520 was a beautiful place that she put it. So I 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.560 had to center a note and say thank you so much. Well, 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.000 nice of you. What happens in the movie is a 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.480 little like what happened to Black Sabbath or Kiss in 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.880 the eighties and nineties. Those bands were pretty much hated 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.200 by rock critics in their day, but they became celebrated 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.840 when kids who had grown up loving their music began 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.440 to make records or write rock criticism of their own. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:38.079 Looking back now, you can see how Sabbath's gloom and 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.080 emotional chaos told a certain kind of truth for seventies 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.160 kids let down by the implosion of the sixties, and 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.760 just maybe the Dave Matthews Band represented something of a 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:54.280 flip side, a sort of hope for its audience. An 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.360 interracial band led by a guitarist who had grown up 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.600 in South Africa, the Dave Matthews Band came to prominence 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.880 around the time Bill Clinton was elected. They were about 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.559 the world as you wanted to see it, rather than 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.760 the world as it was. And if that sounds like 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:16.240 an exaggeration, you haven't talked politics with Dave Matthews. A 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.800 committed progressive, I think the best political position for me 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.880 is as far left as you can go before you 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.000 start going towards somebody else's right. So I think we 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.440 make the mistake here often of saying, you know you 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.280 have the right and you have the left. We barely 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.560 scrape the left in this country. But if you can 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:37.080 go further left and then stop, which would be the 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:41.520 real center, before you appear to be going towards somebody 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:43.720 else's right, that's a good left because then everybody on 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.000 the left then But then the truth is that We 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.040 really would be best off if we were all in 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:53.520 our communal left rather than everybody's absurd radical right. The 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.160 radical right is the problem. I don't know if about 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:01.960 the radical left. I think they're all just reasonable. Come 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.000 Tomorrow has some songs that date back more than a 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:09.200 decade to two thousand and six. Matthews worked with four 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.040 producers and pulled out tracks from sessions that have been 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.800 left on the shelf. That sounds like it could be 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.040 a mess, but it isn't. It's a more focused album 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.040 than he's made in a long while, with a bigger, 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.840 heavier rock sound. Compare the version of Can't Stop from 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:39.280 Live Tracks Volume six, recorded twelve years ago with the 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:47.880 studio version from Come Tomorrow. That's the sound I heard 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:49.280 when I went to see the band on the road 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:54.600 this summer. A slightly different band, as Matthews told me 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.880 in this interview, there were some long simmering tensions with 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.680 violinist Boyd Tinsley, tensions that made him think hard about 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:07.280 the future of the band. Tensely announced in February he 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.959 was taking a break to focus on his health and family. 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.320 In May, around the time the tour started, sexual harassment 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.679 charges surface against Boyd, which he has denied, but the 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.080 Dave Matthews Band management has released a statement saying he's 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.640 no longer a member of the group. On this summer's tour, 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.640 Matthew was touring with a strong seven piece band that 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.520 includes Rashaun Ross on trumpet, Jeff Coffin on saxophone, and 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:36.280 Buddy Strong on keyboards. Matthew says he's never felt better 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.400 about the music he's playing. Mind you, he said stuff 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:46.400 like this before, but look at it this way. Come 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:53.120 Tomorrow is an album about family, about love, and about 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:58.120 the future. It starts with a song about giving birth, 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.400 So think of this as a rebirth moment for the 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:08.160 Dave Matthews Band. When he says he's never felt better 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.760 about the music he's playing, about the work he's doing, 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.400 he's saying it after a lot of time and reflection. 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:22.800 Here's what else he had to say, Speed get the 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:27.480 kind of major in years. Welcome to my guest, Dave Matthews. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.000 Thank you very much, very nice to be here. So 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:34.080 I saw you play in Hartford on Saturday night. I 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:39.040 just want to ask, when you're doing a sixteen minute 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.400 version of Crush, do you know at the start it's 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.000 gonna be sixteen minutes or do you get five minutes 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.000 in and like, let's go along on this one? Boy? 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.000 I think it was. I mean, that's one of the 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:54.160 songs that we have grown accustomed to expanding. But there 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.640 are times when we get out of hand. But I 0:12:57.679 --> 0:12:59.720 don't mean that in a bad way. That one. I 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.960 do remember thinking, wow, this one keeps going and it 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.000 really and the way I think about it is is 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.720 not that we've left a song a long time ago 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.160 and now everything that's happening since then we're in a 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.720 completely different place. But it's nice to have a launching pad. 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.319 Or sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes you come in from 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.600 some sort of improvisation and then land in this song, 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.280 which is another way to do it, and occasionally, which 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.000 I suppose would seem like a more obvious way to 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.319 do it, in the middle of a song, will go 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.719 off on some tangent and then hopefully find our way 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.000 back to it. But there's a variation. I don't know 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.480 that we know exactly how long. There have been times. 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.040 I think it was with a Bella Fleck and the Flectones, 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:44.080 we did a version of a song H forty one 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:49.000 with them that lasted close to three quarters of an hour. 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.040 You're in some major league dark star territory there. But 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.720 I think it's fair to say that by the time 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.560 that song ended, there's no way anyone would have known 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.360 what the hell of the song was. If they came 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:03.600 in the middle of that, they would have been like, 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:05.880 what is happening? But that really wasn't the effect. When 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.000 I saw you guys on Saturday, like, I knew where 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.120 the songs were, and the band sounds very, very tight 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.160 right now. God, it's so much fun right now. It 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:20.360 feels like every moment there's such a connection inside the 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.280 seven of us. There's just this sort of don't jump 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.320 off the train because it's going fast kind of feeling 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.440 right now that there's moments where it locks in so 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:33.160 tight that you really just have to do your part. 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.960 You have to have faith in in what you're doing, 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.000 because if you lose faith, that's the only thing that 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:44.240 could stop. We're in such a mean groove that I 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:48.520 don't remember feeling this kind of power. You've always been 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.080 a band with great flexibility, but there did seem to 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.760 be like a new kind of power to things, especially 0:14:55.760 --> 0:15:00.520 the new material, which seems more rock band focused. And 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:02.680 that's interesting that you say, because you know, we've been 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:05.200 working on a lot of that stuff for you know, 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.240 some of the tunes actually more than twelve years old. 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:13.520 The new songs, some of them have a real muscily 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.600 groove driven thing to them. It kind of has an 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.800 effect of doing that to the rest of the repertoire. 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.400 I think from the beginning we've been open to improvisation, 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:30.280 to let any things go. But everything changes. I've been 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.880 struggling a bit with the band, with the sound of 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.040 the band or where we've been going, and I think, 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:40.280 you know, that's what led to Boyd stepping away. I 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:45.000 think that bringing in Buddy Strong. It was realizing now 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:51.640 just this ingredient of energy and of focus that is changed. 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:57.800 It's like finding the last part of some Not to 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.280 say there wasn't a magic I'm not saying that, but 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.480 I'm saying there's this new ingredient that changed the recipe. 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.320 Everything tastes a little different, Everything changes, and everyone changes. 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.320 It's like we're all looking at each other like in 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.560 a whole different way. Dave Matthews Pan took last summer off, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.040 took a summer vacation. This is that you mentioned Boyd 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:22.600 stepping away. This is the first tour without boy Was 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.120 there any apprehension, Well, I think you're part like, yeah, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.680 there's been apprehensive for a long time. I you know, 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:35.080 for me, well, there's been I feel, and I think 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.480 the guys all, I know, the guys agree that Boyd 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:43.200 certainly was a big part of the early part of 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.760 the band and just remained because he's been there from 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:51.640 the beginning. It's powerful personality. But it's been a while 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:57.160 that I think all of us have felt that his focus. 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:01.440 I mean, he was there on stage, but you know, 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.080 in rehearsals or in the studio, his focus was really, 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.439 it felt like to us, not in the room, and 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.000 so he was his own whirling dervish or his own storm. 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.080 But that really worked beautifully sometimes. Other times it was 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:19.119 very disoriented or seemed disconnected, and it was a frustration, 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.000 and we came There was a lot of confrontation, but 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:25.480 I'm a fiercely loyal person, and it took a long 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.080 time for me to say, look, we need more from you, 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.880 we need more focus on us. It just felt like 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.280 it's been a while that in that time when we 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.080 were meant to be focusing on what we're doing. I've 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:41.439 been having a really frustrating time getting to feel like 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.840 he was putting in anything more than the bare minimum, 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.720 and to get him to cop to that. That frustration, 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.800 in combination with his own personal things, led him, you 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:56.080 know two follow my advice and go to look after himself. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:18:01.280 The result of that for me is that we suddenly 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.360 have this We're not having to pull anyone along. Suddenly 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.000 everybody's like at the front line, you know, pushing to 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.520 get ahead. You know, we don't know where we're going into. 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.520 You know, we got Buddy Strong just outrage. I think 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.680 he's dragging us all along, but we're all dragged. Everyone's 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:25.800 pulling forward. It's like Strong, newest addition to the family. 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:30.280 And we met years ago, but we started talking about 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.680 working with Rashan actually called me up and say, man, 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.240 there's this guy. Body's wrong. I listened to some of 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.480 his gospel work online and I had known he worked 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.919 with a lot of different people. This band is an 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.840 interesting band, and we want not only you to play 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.440 the notes, but we also want you to play your notes. 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.959 What do you got? And he has got a lot 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.640 with him. It's it's like this open it's opened all 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.120 these doors to our own music and to each other. 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.600 They're playing the carters killing me. He really is. And 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:04.680 he keeps saying, and he keeps saying looking at buddy, 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.560 and he's being like, man, you know what, that's what 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.879 it is. You know, he was a joyful presence, good lord. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.159 Every time I turn around and see him, it's like 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.840 the presence. You can hear that it one was present, 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.159 but you can see it in his eyes and you 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.840 can see everyone else because we're all looking at each other, 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.520 like everybody's looking at each other as if quite a 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.199 lot of the time, if it's not over joy or 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.240 getting lost its with this sort of like this shoot 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.080 is bad. What is happening. It's like getting something that 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.800 you deserve, but you sort of can't believe that you're 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.080 getting it. I gotta say. When things started, I was like, 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:39.720 she's I don't know, I don't know, I do I 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.119 want another trumpet solo. And then like twenty minutes in, 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.480 I was like, there better be a fucking trumpets solo coming. Yeah, 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.920 he's Rashan is blowing, Like I see him over there. 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:50.600 It looks like, you know, he's gonna come out of 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.280 the front of his horn if you know, it's like, 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.480 I'm like, what is happening everybody? Jeff? Actually all it 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:58.880 looked as though Jeff up in Hartford. There was one 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.720 point that I thought he was gonna this is the 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.240 last show that we played. I thought he's gonna go 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.439 to his knees. At one point he was bad. He 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.240 was used blow and I was like, look at this fool, 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.880 He's about to go down and it would have been appropriate. 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.800 He didn't. He didn't, but it was close. I was 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.840 so tired by the end of the show that I 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:22.560 almost couldn't physically play the last song in the set, 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.240 but I was so happy about it, like my hands 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:28.320 and my body and my voice. I was so out 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.159 of breath. I felt as though like I might not 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:32.760 be able to make it, but it was such a 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.840 joyful feeling. I don't know, I don't know. Over it's 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:40.000 not joy. It's not like happy happy, smile smile. It's 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.240 some mean groove that is going on up there. So 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:47.040 let's talk about the new record. Come Tomorrow. Ninth studio album, 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:51.800 seventh consecutive number one album debut on the Billboard Album Charts. 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:53.800 If you're keeping score at home Mark, this one is 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.720 number one whatever statistician came up with that. I feel 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.080 like someone's been fixing the books. But I like to 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.680 think that looks good. You know, it looks good. Band 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.520 putting out seven consecutive albums that enter the charts at 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:12.119 number one is a record that a new record up 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:16.000 for records, Yes, new record for records. You mentioned some 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.400 of these songs date back to two thousand and six. 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:24.120 There are four different producers, three studios. There was a 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.960 one session that was started for an album and scrapped. 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:32.280 This doesn't sound like it's gonna be a successful record, 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:35.639 and yet it's a really good fucking record. This is 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:39.000 a focused album. I think it's interesting, and I'm glad 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.520 that you feel like that, because I feel like almost 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:46.440 more about this album than I've felt it about any 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.480 of them. But I think it was you know, I 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.880 made We've recorded some of the recordings that date back 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:57.000 a while. I mean, I love those records, but I 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.360 had sort of said, well, that's not finished. I don't 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:01.679 have a place for that yet because we didn't finish 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.719 that project. Then we did grow Roux and we finished 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.320 that record and I love that record. And then I 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.680 did some more recording, you know, so we did grow 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:14.040 Roux with Cavallo, and then I did more recording with Alasia, 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:15.919 who I always right with John Alasiah, who was one 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:18.080 of the producer, always right with him. The record that 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:19.800 we had sort of show before that we were doing 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:22.320 with Bats and and then I made another album. I 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:24.760 went back. We did an album with Lily White that 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:27.280 I'm happy with. Some of the the songs. I don't think 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:28.919 in the end, I don't think it was the best 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.040 of the album could have been, but I still there's 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.879 some good things in there. And then I went in 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.480 the studio again with Rob Cavallo and we had the 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.639 beginnings of it. Worked for a while on an album 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.359 and we had more than the beginnings of a great 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:46.000 record there. But again, for whatever reason, I think disappointed 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:48.040 my own stop my own head getting you know, a 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:50.159 lot of things on my mind about the band. My 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:55.000 I desperately wanted to make a not feel disappointed in 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:56.680 some ways, like a little bit the way I felt 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.440 about Away from the World. Although again I don't want 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:04.080 to a baby out all these albums or good children, 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.119 none of them are. We're not gonna but but you 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:08.679 have said that Away from the World you feel you 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.680 went back to almost overwork. Yeah, I feel like that, 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.159 and I feel like it lost some of the teeth. 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:17.199 Then I went back in the studio and I was 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.879 working with John Alasia and uh Rob Evans, two of 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:24.240 the other producers. We just started listening to some of 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.720 the songs. I was really just saying, you know, that 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:31.119 is as good as anything I've ever done. That's just 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.639 how I started thinking of everything. At the same time, 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:37.480 I'm also writing more music, and what they were all 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.280 also telling me was like, the stuff that we were 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:44.920 doing right now was as good as anything that we 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:47.480 have in the back. So we've got this super creative 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:51.280 process going. It was like a monument. That's not the 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:54.480 right word. It was almost like something to hang The 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.280