How did your relationship with Dave Matthews first come about?

He was a bartender at Miller’s in Virginia where I played every Monday for about 10 years. That’s where I met him. He was more focused on acting at the time, doing theatre and really good at it too. Then we got together a few times after hours and just kind of messed around in his basement with a 4-track. I could tell he was very good at the time. He sat in a few times and sang with me in the earlier incarnations of the TR3. And then not long after that, he started his band.

I notice throughout your album you incorporate a lot of guitar effects to add different colors to your work. As you previously stated, you prefer to cut everything live in studio, does this go for effects as well or are those added later on during production?

Mostly the effects go down live because, as you said, I’m always going for that approach. Very few times have I gone back later to add effects. In the past, once in a while, I did it. I am one of those guys that always like to manipulate the sound of the guitar from the get go. I’m actually getting ready to order some new shit because I’ve been using the same effects for many years. You just figure out different ways to use them. But I realize now that I’m ready to get some more crazy shit and see what I could do with that. Usually it takes a while to get familiar with the different effects. I’ve been using the Ring Modulator for about ten years now, and for a while it was just a mystery. I would turn it on and be like, “Okay, let’s figure it out” and I finally learned how to manipulate the buttons, though it still sounds pretty chaotic when it goes on. It’s fun to have a way to completely take the guitar out of the guitar. You know what I mean, just get some crazy sounds.

Radiance is your 5th studio album as the TR3. When you record with this group, are you thinking about what the audience would like to hear, or do you focus on your own interests and inclinations?

That’s a fine line issue. When you get on a label and start to have big numbers, that’s when people start thinking about the audience. Even working with Dave and those projects where there’s a producer and an engineer, it gets to be more of a team thing. I don’t really know about trying to think what’s going to make the audience happy because I’m not really into the space where they decide that. For me personally, it’s really about expressing what sounds good to myself, because when you’ve been playing gigs for a long time you assume that you have a certain amount of rapport; your taste isn’t completely obscure. If something sounds good to me, I assume that there will be a certain amount of people that like it because they like music. I love to listen to classic music all the time and I like to listen to stuff that’s current too. And maybe it’s wrong to assume that but I just go with my gut.

I would imagine that guess over the years performing, you can test the climate of what people like and dislike…

Definitely; George Harrison once spoke about when the Beatles would write new songs and play them live, he would take note the ones that the audience liked more. Of course they would gravitate towards that. We do that at gigs too, we play some covers, some Zeppelin covers, and obviously people are going to like those. Over the years, when I was learning acoustic, I started realizing what I like that I can play that everyone else likes. You kind of find a center of what you like and what you assume people like. Pleasing people is a Buddha thing, for me you kind of set a common ground to satisfy both parts; share the joy. There’s a way to do it without compromising your principles.

Is this current TR3 group with Mick and Dan one that you think will continue to create albums and tour together in the future? Or is this more of a side project for you?

Without a doubt I think this is a group I will continue to record and tour with. We just recently recorded some live shows and will be using some of that for a new live CD. I’m excited about getting that released sometime this year. This is definitely not a side project, more of a front project. We have a lot of fun playing together; maybe even call it a fun project [laughs].

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