AT: How do you view your side projects compared to Panic? Not so much musically, but is it kind of a vacation, or is it something that replenishes you?
DS: Well, it’s all kinds of things. As far as some of the records I’ve produced, that helps me to get my manipulative tendencies out, so I don’t have to practice those on Panic…
AT: Like the Drive-by Truckers?
DS: That was an executive production, so I just kind of helped pay for it. I helped them with some early demos for the Southern rock opera they’re going to do, but I got busy and haven’t been able to hang around those guys too much since then.
I’ve worked with a band called Thumb and all-girl band from Athens called Jackpot City. That helps to get my manipulative, control-freak tendencies out of the way, so I don’t have to practice them on Panic.
Things like Slang are just the kind of thing I did at home in my basement late at night, using SoundForge and Cakewalk and other acid pro tools things. Computer-based composition tools to paint abstract musical paintings and create feels. There’s a piece on ‘Til the Medicine Takes, between “Party at Your Mama’s House” and “Dyin’ Man,” that was like the first piece of electronic music I ever did. I did it all by myself. It came on as a segue and we thought it would be cool, because “Dyin’ Man” has got of a modern sound going on.
And then there are side projects like this, which are things that I musically need to challenge myself and also to help heal the loss of a friend. Every night that I’m up here on stage, I know that Woody’s going, “You’re doing the right thing. If this band had stopped, I would have been pissed. I love this music and I love Warren and Matt and I’m glad you’re there….” I hope that’s what he’s saying, instead of “I’m going to get you, Schools…” [laughs]
AT: One other thing that’s come up in recent months is the Dave Schools Scholarship at Collegiate, your old high school in Richmond. Talk to me about it.
DS: It freaked me out, because the guy who had the idea came up to me on our fall tour in ’99 at the Charlottesville show. I was sort of like, isn’t that the kind of thing that’s supposed to happen after you die? Don’t you name scholarships after somebody’s dead uncle? My mom was there at the show and she said that it was a good idea and quite an honor, so she convinced me to read the guy’s proposal. After I read it, I talked to the head of alumni giving at Collegiate. He was there while I was a student and I was there for thirteen years. He’s a great guy and gave me a tour of the school. They have a really great music department. So, when I found out what the intent of it really was, which is to help someone who is musically or artistically talented who’s in school there and, due to a tragedy or personal loss, can’t afford to continuing going there, I felt it was a good thing. It also provides a chance for someone who displays music talent at an early age, who might not be able to afford to go there, to have that chance. It’s really expensive, but it’s terrific academically.
The basic core of it is to encourage the arts, music. I think that when you start kids on that, and encourage their imagination and their creativity, they learn to deal with things in a lot better way and have a real positive output for emotions, whether they’re good or bad. Whether they’re in to painting or dance or music, that’s better than going out and creating random acts of senseless violence, or just becoming so introverted that they have no way to express themselves. You got to get it out and so I saw that it was a good thing and I got behind it. It’s been very successful. There’s a certain amount of money that needs to be raised to create a mutual fund, and the interest made on the fund is used for the scholarship. I think we’ve reached almost the halfway point in just the first year of giving, so a lot of people are behind it and that’s encouraging. I would never want to lend my name to anything for profit or someone else’s gain, materialistically. This is something that invests in the future and that’s the kids. I know the opportunities I was given made me a much better person.
AT: How was your high school experience at Collegiate? I imagine you played in a few bands….
DS: I played in a few bands. You know, I was at a prep school for thirteen years and I was kind of in the smart kids’ class. I sort of became an underachiever when I hit puberty. English was really like rolling off the log, but math, I just got lazy. I was your basic underachiever who did just enough to get by. I was really interested in music and books were kind of my best friends, besides my three buddies. Our main goal was to see as many Grateful Dead concerts as we could, without missing the maximum number of days in school you were allowed to miss. We’d go off to get tickets when they went on sale, so we had to sneak off school grounds. I remember rushing back one time to try and make my Ethics class of all things. I got pulled over by a cop right in front of the girl’s portion of the school and I was taking an advanced world literature class, I think, with the girls that year. [laughs] You can imagine. Driving a 1969 Mustang with the license plate “DEAD 2” on it. So, I was your stereotypical late 70s, early 80s hippie kid. The Grateful Dead was the only thing that seemed to have the ideals, musically, that I was into, which was a lot of psychedelic music. Also, a lot of heavy, early heavy stuff, not what heavy metal became…
AT: Black Sabbath?
DS: Oh yeah, Sabbath. Zeppelin. Some Judas Priest…[laughs] Motorhead to a certain degree. A lot of the new wave bands really tickled my fancy too, in the late seventies: Talking Heads, Television, the Dead Boys. Even the Sex Pistols and Devo, stuff like that. I liked it all, because it was the intent that mattered. I can always tell intent.
I didn’t ever have a date in high school. But I was in a band and it was great. We played covers and had a great time. We’d make a couple of hundred dollars in cash every so often. Played parties and got free beer, because the drinking age was eighteen back then. It was pretty fun.
AT: You talked about some of the bands you listened to as a kid. Who are some of the bass players that most influenced you?
DS: This is always surprising, but the biggest influences on bass were John Paul Jones and John Entwistle. Definitely John Entwistle. He made me want to play. Going to see “The Song Remains the Same” made me want to be in a band, but listening to John Entwistle play the bass, made me want to play the bass. Seeing Zeppelin was like, I’ll play anything if I can be in a band that cool. But hearing John Entwistle, because I never got to see the Who until just last fall, made me want to play the bass. It made me realize that, God, the bass is an evocative, emotional and moving instrument.
Then later, obviously Phil Lesh and Berry Oakley were big. I remember my bass teacher in the seventh grade telling me not to listen to Phil Lesh, that he’d ruin me. [laughs]
AT: I guess he’s just the opposite of what normal bass players do.
DS: Exactly. If you’re a teacher, you know you have to start with fundamentals. And there’s nothing fundamental about Phil Lesh. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I do understand why my teacher was doing it. He wanted me to start with “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and some other simple Beatles tunes to show me the foundations of it all. Really, he just wanted me to play the piano.
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