Photo by Bill Kelly
When you’ve been in the same group for upwards of 25 years, finding something new and fresh can be one of the most daunting tasks. Enter Dave Matthews Band. This year the road warriors found something new in something old, as DMB will return to their two-set format this summer during their annual tour, mixing in acoustic and electric material.
For violinist Boyd Tinsley, this is just another chapter for the guys, who have embraced the ability to change their live approach when necessary to keep things fresh for their wildly devoted fan base. Tinsley explains that the late saxophonist LeRoi Moore, is responsible for instilling that mindset. “He said, ‘What you did yesterday was yesterday. This is what we’re gonna do today.’ Those words got ingrained into our heads and it’s still like that.” We caught up with Boyd following the band’s trip to South Africa and South America earlier this year to discuss all things DMB Tour as well as his love of Twitter, fans, and the band’s bizarre video for “What Would You Say.”
To start, you guys just returned from your first run of shows in South Africa. How’d you like performing there?
It was really great to get down there, man. We had a great time. Honestly, the sad part was that LeRoi wasn’t there with us. It’s almost like we were doing it for him. He was with us when we were there. It was also cool to visit where Dave is from [Johannesburg] and see the love we got from the people there. It’s just a really cool neighborhood; really chill. There’s coffee shops and great restaurants; it’s really hip. It’s just one of those places you can walk around. And there’s this huge rock mountain called Table Top Mountain, that was cool. I went up there with our photographer and we walked around the base of it and took some pictures and filmed some video and it was really beautiful.
Transitioning to the shows, what was the band’s approach in South Africa given that you were playing in front of a group of people who may not have seen the band before?
They were so appreciative that we came and they just gave us so much love. It was really beautiful, man, how excited they were. I think that we wanted to give them some of the familiar DMB songs because here in the States people can travel around and they hear some stuff that other people may not be able to hear, except on recordings and so forth. As far as that whole tradition of us breaking out all these older songs and songs we haven’t even recorded – and playing very few radio hits during the concert – that’s something you get used to here in the States. But there, there’s a lot of people who know who we are but maybe don’t know who we are to the degree that people here in the States do. So we wanted to give them “Crash” and “Ants” and all the radio tunes that they would be more familiar with. But I think the crowd was very DMB-hip, because there were people singing the lyrics and singing them very well. That’s a telltale sign of how much your fans are into the music, when everybody starts singing the words. And they sing very well in South Africa and in South America.
I got to meet some and they were just very nice people; “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” and “We hope you come back soon.” And I hope we go back soon. It was just a great place to be.
When you play cities and countries for the first time, is it still cool to hear thousands of people singing the words despite not having seen the band before?
It’s really cool, man. It’s really, really cool. Playing in the band, you can get this one sided perspective which is just playing the music, but not necessarily being the fan listening to the music. I think over the last few years, because I’ve had a lot of contact with fans, I’m beginning to understand what the music means to them. I play the music, but now I get to understand how it affects them and what it means to them. This music is special to people; people say it gets them through things; people listen to this music every day and people meet at our shows and get married. There’s all these beautiful things; there’s entire families that come to our shows. We see that a lot: Grandmothers, the kids, the grandkids. And nobody was forced to come; they all wanted to come! It might’ve been Grandma who said “Let’s go!”
The music is cross-generational, and it brings people together. A lot of that I really just sort of discovered – and my eyes were opened up to it – over the last few years, meeting a lot of fans and talking to people. And people tell me what the music means to them and it’s good to know. I can only speak for myself, but you sort of get lost in your world and my world is going to shows and playing the music. And from all of that – giving 150 percent of my heart as we all do every night – the music is affecting us, too. There’s an emotional explosion from all of us every night. It is so much fun to play that music and there’s this energy that comes over you. But to think of it how the fans think of it is something that’s taken me a long time to think about. This music is so special to them and that’s really cool.
I can still remember playing at Trax in Charlottesville in the early 90s and playing at Eastern Standard or playing at the Flood Zone in Richmond; playing at the Wetlands and playing at smaller venues; the rehearsals we did in garages and Dave’s mom’s basement and the attic above Trax. There was nothing but dreams and the willingness to just follow this music and to believe in what we were doing. And at the same time we were in disbelief that this music actually works. It was like, “Wow, what happened here?” It was like the perfect people came together and played the perfect music. It was always, for us, we had to create this; we had to create how you put together a violin and a tenor sax – and sometimes a soprano – and an acoustic guitar and a killer drummer and a sixteen or seventeen year old jazz bassist. (Laughs) But it just came together! It just happened. It wasn’t like we were sitting down and trying to figure stuff out; we’d figure stuff out by playing. We would just play and everyone knew where their place was and when to come in and when to come out.
That’s pretty much the way that it still is; we write in the studio but a lot of the songs that we play live we haven’t recorded yet. You know how a lot of our songs come about? Basically Dave or somebody just starts playing, and then Carter jumps in and then me and then LeRoi. And all of a sudden there’s a song that came out of nowhere. I can think of at least one – I know there’s a few others – that we’ve played live and just spontaneously appear from playing. But it’s like that. What are we? Who are we as a band? What do we call this? We never defined ourselves; we just wanted to make the music as best we could and we also wanted to take the music to always grow and explore and never get to the place where it’s like, “This is where we are, let’s just keep going with this thing.”
I think that if there was one person in particular that ingrained that philosophy into the band in the beginning it was LeRoi. He said, “Let’s take it to the next level.” He said, “What you did yesterday was yesterday. This is what we’re gonna do today.” Those words got ingrained into our heads and it’s still like that. We’re always about exploring and not accepting that we’ve arrived somewhere. It’s like that with anything; music or anything else. You can arrive. But there are limitless possibilities; it’s just whether or not you keep going for them. It’s still like that, you know? The last couple of albums – GrooGrux King and Stand Up particularly – a lot of that came from just playing. We’d get into the room and an individual musician just started playing something. It’s just the stuff that happens in the moment and that stuff is from the heart. When it’s not contrived and you’re not sitting there trying to figure out to play this or play that. It’s just from the heart, and that’s where our music come from; it does come from the heart. We just listen and we feel it and it’s really fun. We still have no definition for this band and what kind of music this is because it doesn’t matter. We dig it and we’re having fun and the crowd digs it so whatever. It’s music. I don’t think that will ever die; that attitude of exploring and taking it to the next level.
This summer we’re gonna be doing a slightly different format to the shows. But in some respect, some of the stuff that we’re gonna be doing this summer is actually stuff that we had done at one point or another in the career of the band. In the very beginning we used to do two sets, and they were two long sets, too. (Laughter) We were working hard back in the days, because we were doing sometimes five gigs a week; six gigs a week. But we always delivered two sets; we worked, man. So we’ve done that before. And sometimes – if not all the times – Dave would start off the show acoustically. He’d come out there with just an acoustic guitar and just sing. I remember “Redemption Song” was one that he did a lot; there were quite a few. That aspect of starting off in an acoustic way has been there before.
The idea of different groups of us – subsets of us – doing acoustic things together, that idea has been around for a while. It was something that was definitely talked about. It was like going to South Africa. It was something we always talked about and this is one of those times that we’re actually doing it. And I think people are gonna see a lot of variety – a lot of different sides of the band – in one night. People are gonna see the band in an acoustic setting and then a full band setting and then a smaller acoustic setting with one or two other people. And all that music comes from different places. How I approach something acoustically is different than how I approach something with a full band. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun. It’s something that’s different for us and I think it’s something that will just sort of allow us to expand. I think playing in so many different formats in one night is gonna make it even more fun; I’m looking forward to it. Some of these things we’ve talked about before and then we’ve done them, but we’ve never done this before and it’ll be fun. We are explorers, DMB, and fearless ones. Wherever we go we have fun, and I can honestly say that.
I’ll admit, when the two-set format was announced, my imagination ran wild as to what you guys were going to do. It seems as if the possibilities are endless.
There used to be a time back in the early days when me and Carter [Beauford] would do some stuff together – maybe we’d just start a song – where it was just drums and violin. You have no idea how much fun that was. I had so much fun and I remember that we did it maybe once over the last couple of tours. That is so much fun and I hope that Carter and I get to come out and do that. Someone played this tape for me from a show back in the 90s which I kind of vaguely remember, and I think it was just going to be me and Carter and we were gonna do an intro to “Ants,” maybe. And I don’t think I ever had so much playing. And I listened to it and I was like, “Oh my God! This is cool as shit!” So I’m really excited about that. It brings our different parts of you. I’ve played with Fonzie [Stefan Lessard]; we’ve recorded together. And I’ve played with just Dave, back in the day when we would write songs. A couple of gigs together, Dave and I did, way back in the early 90s. So different forms of us have already played together one-on-one. So we have that experience but I think that this is really gonna be a lot of fun.
And then adding Jeff, Tim and Rashawn surely increases the various lineup possibilities.
Absolutely. I look forward to doing something with Tim. He is brilliant; he’s like this musical genius; I really respect Tim. He used to do this show every Monday night in Charlottesville at Miller’s. He’d play his electric guitar or he’d bring out tablas or a sitar and it was great. I would just watch him for hours, amazed by this man and the music that was coming out of his guitar. He’s a true inspiration for me and some of the other musicians that got to play with him and see him play in Charlottesville back in the 90s. Tim just looms large in my life and is a true inspiration. So I really look forward to doing some stuff with Tim. I’d just love to explore more, particularly in an acoustic way.
I noticed over the last few years you guys messed with some arrangements of tunes, so it feels like this was brewing for a while.
Yeah it just brings different stuff out of you; it makes you go to different places. You have to look at the music in a different way so you’re gonna play it in a different way. And for us, that’s what it’s about; exploring and growing as a band but also growing as individual musicians. And the way to do that is to keep challenging yourself and to keep trying different things. All of that makes the band stronger so I am absolutely excited about it. I think it’s gonna be a fun summer. I know on paper how it goes, but the reality of it won’t come until the summer. We’re gonna rock it; that’s just the way we look at it. I think the fans are gonna like it, too. There’s gonna be a lot of variety in the show.
Do you think some bands nowadays are reluctant to challenge themselves like that? They’ll have one good album and then fade away. Do you pay attention to stuff like that?
Honestly, I haven’t really paid a lot of attention to what’s current on Top 40. For a while, I mostly listen to XM radio and real jazz. Sometimes my kids will make me listen to the current tunes because they want to make sure dad is at least partially informed on what’s going on. But I have now started to listen to some of the new music that’s coming up. There’s some great music out there. For a period of time, expanding beyond a certain realm was not the stuff that was being put on the radio, so I’m really digging the stuff I’m hearing now and I’m starting to listen more to the current artists that are coming up. It’s a different world, man. When we started it was a completely different world; bands were making it through MTV; through videos and stuff.
Or through big record deals. That doesn’t happen anymore.
No, that isn’t how it works anymore; it’s not like that. But we had a dream beginning to this; a fairytale. People saw our music when we taped it onto cassettes and they started passing it around to their friends around the country. That’s how it got started; it was through our fans like that. From there we got noticed by record companies; RCA stepped in and said, “I really like you guys.” And then we got going and we got [Steve] Lillywhite to produce Under the Table and then we had this string of really cool videos. You know, “What Would You Say.” That’s a weird video.
That video still creeps me out.
(Laughs) It was just perfect for that time; people dug it. It really did sort of set the tone for, “Here we are. This is a different kind of band right here.” We were able to do that. We were able to be put out there through traditional forms back then; through radio, MTV, late-night TV and those kind of things. I don’t think it’s like that anymore. Getting a record deal just in itself doesn’t mean anything until it does. I honestly don’t really completely get it myself, exactly how it works. But, as always, there’s amazing music that’s out there that no one has heard yet. But I just don’t know if bands come out with slamming albums and are up in the charts and so forth. And maybe it’s not that their next album wasn’t as good, but maybe it’s just the way of the land and they aren’t given the exposure again.
I don’t really completely get it myself. It’s so different now. There’s so many different ways to listen to music now: Spotify; downloads; some people still buy CDs, I hear. It’s amazing. One thing that’s cool is it’s awesome how excited people are over vinyl these days. There’s nothing to me like the sound of a record so I think that’s a really good thing. The music business has never really quite settled in. There is no particular formula out there, so bands have just got to work it. Stay out there and play and wait for the opportunities. But I have to say, for a while I wasn’t into a lot of the music I heard on the radio, so I stopped listening to commercial radio for a while and just listened to XM. Now I’m starting to listen a little bit more to commercial radio and I am digging the music and that’s a really good sign. I think young people are starting to take music into a whole other direction and they’re starting to evolve music now and I think that’s great.
I wanted to ask you about your experience with social media. You’ve gained quite the following on Twitter. How did that come about initially?
I had never done anything on social media – Facebook or anything – until we released Faces in the Mirror. Someone suggested that Twitter would be a good way to get the word out about the movie. So originally that was what I was aiming for but then when I got on there, there was this outpouring of love from people saying how glad they were that I was on there and just saying some really nice things. It just absolutely blew me away. Their expressions of love to me and the music and the return of my love to them has been a beautiful thing. These fans have come out to the screenings of the film; a lot of them actually organize the screenings; they were a really big part of putting Faces of the Mirror out there before the public.
We had these gatherings and they just sort of happened as well. A lot of this stuff just sort of happens. We did these screenings and then eventually people would hang out maybe after the shows and we’d spend some time and talk and hug. So they were sort of tied to the film initially, but then they became gatherings just to get together. Even minus any relation to the film. The first one we did had maybe like 17 people. But as the word got out they became what they became. Some of them would go up to, like, 350 people, and we’d get there like an hour after the show and it would be like three or four hours of just expressions of love, and people coming to receive love.
I appreciate these followers and I appreciate the love that they share with me and also with each other, and also the encouragement. Just a kind, loving word can make somebody’s day and make them weak. I’ve seen it happen in things that I’ve maybe said to other people, but also in things that people have said to me. And they don’t know that it just absolutely floors my heart. It’s like, “Holy shit, that is so beautiful.” It really touches my heart, the stuff that they say. It’s beautiful and it just sort of happened. I had no idea that the gatherings would become what they have become. But we all need love and we all want love, but also we all need to share love and give love. My followers have definitely grown my heart. I’m grateful for that; it’s meant a lot to me.
And it’s fun, too. Sometimes people bring their guitars and play. We had somebody come and breathe fire; we’ve had hula-hoops; it’s really cool. I have to tell you it was one of the coolest experiences at a gathering. There was one series of gatherings we did, in the wintertime, and every single gathering was rain and freezing temperatures. But we all stayed out there anyway for hours. My thing was to always try to get in the middle so I stayed warm (Laughter). There was one time, maybe outside of Boston, and it was sort of light rain – and I’m so used to getting rained on that I didn’t even think about it – but about halfway through it just started pouring. I mean absolutely pouring out of nowhere. So all this rain is just dropping down on me and I’m getting soaking wet and I was just like, “Wow.” That happened for about 15 or 20 seconds, and then I still heard the rain just coming down pouring, but I realized I wasn’t feeling anything. And I realized that everybody had their umbrella over me.
Wow.
They were shielding me from the rain; they basically made a canopy of all their umbrellas. That was one of the most touching things I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was beautiful and that’s the way it has been; purely from the heart. It’s beautiful that it’s a time and a place that we can do that; that we can get that love; that we can share love with each other. It’s a cold world. Love is something we almost have to practice; we have to make a conscious effort towards it. It’s so much easier to be bad or evil; it doesn’t take that much effort. But love just takes a little extra effort, and it’s as real to me as it is to any of my followers.
I think a lot of that comes from the music you play, too. Honesty and authenticity are two things I’ve heard Dave talk about quite often. That resonates with fans, as you’ve said.
You know one thing that’s really cool? My nickname is BT. But for years, it wasn’t something that was known in the fan base, but then it started to get out there a little bit. Now people might just look out the window and say casually, “Hey BT.” But they wouldn’t say it like a fan calling out to a musician, they were saying it to a friend. They were saying it in a familiar way like they knew me, and that always blew me away, man. It was from the heart. It was like, “I know you from your heart and from your music. That’s the part of you I know.” Because we’re musicians and we open our hearts – and this is all of us – people know who we are already, which has always blown my mind.
Those early albums had a ton of heart in them.
One of the fortunate things that happened in the early days was that we had Steve Lillywhite as our producer. He wasn’t trying to create something out of us; he liked our sound and he liked what we played and he wanted us to give that same kind of thing on the albums that we gave live. So Steve’s thing was really capturing the best of us but still capturing the true parts of us from the heart, and finding ways to bring the best out of us. And he still does when he works with us; we find things that we didn’t even know we could do. Because of that, he started us off; three albums with a license to be who we were; to not try to contrive into being something different. We were thankful in that respect.
He’s an amazing producer, but also a producer that realizes that the sound that these guys have here live is it, and we just need to bring that sound and energy onto an album. That was a fortunate thing for us; the record company never tried to make us sound a particular way or do anything in particular with the music. Even as personnel have changed over the years, we play what we want to play and we play what we feel like playing. It makes it more fun. It’s good like that and thank God, because it makes it fun. It’s freedom and it’s fun.
Did get that same feeling being back with Steve for Away From the World?
Absolutely, it was the same. He got us to play just really cool stuff, in a way that, afterwards, you go, “Shit, did I just play that?” I don’t know how he does that but he has a way of bringing out the very best in us. It definitely felt the same doing Away From the World. In one sense it was like it had been forever since we’d seen Steve, and it had been. But in another sense it’s like an old-hat, you know? If you count The Lillywhite Sessions, he’s been the producer that we’ve worked with the most. It was really cool to be back in the studio with him.
Within the freedom that Steve allows in the studio, you’re able to go to different places. You want to please Steve; you want to give him the very best. That pushes you as well. I’m so glad we got the chance to work with him again and I would love to work with him even another time. But that same sense of freedom in the studio is there. And Rob Cavallo, too. Rob allows for a lot of freedom. We’ve been lucky in the producers that we’ve had over the years.
Were you guys surprised by the response to that album? It’s a demo tape, essentially, but those versions of those songs are still beloved.
At first I was like, “Holy shit, they leaked the album!” I couldn’t believe that. It seemed like they were so careful about marking the CDs – whose is whose – and it still got out. It’s really cool though. At that time, and I guess still now, people really dug that album. I guess in a sense it was more like rehearsals. Some of those songs may have been the very first time that we all played them as a band. Or at least we might’ve only learned it just before we played it. So it was new and fresh and it was really just like the first things we played. I think sometimes the best and the most honest is the first time you all play something. I think that might be part of it; maybe it’s not perfect but it’s honest and it’s straight from the heart. There’s a few examples of things that we recorded in the studio right off the bat that actually was what we used on the record.
When you do something in a very special way the first time – or whatever point it comes, but it’s that point where you can feel it and it’s really special – you can’t just go back and do it again. It’s just done; you’ve done that. You can never recreate a special moment or a particular piece of music and what it does to you. You can practice every note and make it as perfect as possible and it doesn’t matter. Once a magical moment happens, it happens and that’s it. So maybe that’s what was part of that; that from-the-heart magic. The heart makes magical stuff happen. And hopefully that’s what that was. It really blew me away and made me happy to see.
One of the magazines – I can’t remember which; maybe it was People or something – had a poll of the top albums of that year that The Lillywhite Sessions came out, and The Lillywhite Sessions was on that list! And it was a leaked rehearsal from an album! I just thought that was really cool. I listened to it this summer a little bit because we started to play a few songs from it, so I wanted to go back and listen to some stuff. But I really dug that.
I can’t help but notice “Monkey Man” still hasn’t been played…
We still have not broken it out, man.
This summer sounds like a great time for it.
(Laughs) This summer is wide open, I think, so you never know. Anything might happen.
Your song “True Reflections” also made a surprise appearance last summer, possibly thanks to some fan encouragement on social media. Any chance we see it again this year?
Quite possibly. I would definitely like to play it again. I couldn’t believe how long it had been since the last time we’d played it. The whole spirit of last summer was we would just pick a song and play it. One day I came in and said, “True Reflections,” so they said, “Alright, we’ll rehearse it tomorrow and play it tomorrow night.” And that’s how it happened. Carter said, “Let’s cover ‘Kashmir,” and we said, “Okay, we’ll rehearse it tomorrow and we’ll play it tomorrow night.” That was the whole vibe and it was so much fun. It was just whatever people were feeling. That’s fun.
The band also played “#34” last year for the first time in nearly six years, a song I always associate with LeRoi. Was there a talk amongst yourselves about playing that song and really rehearsing it to make sure it was ready?
No, not really, we just got into it and started rehearsing and got into it. That’s like all of us, though. LeRoi’s heart is in that song, so whenever we hear it he is always with us. Once again, we can rehearse it to the point of getting the parts, but you can’t rehearse it to the point of trying to create a feeling. That just has to come from your heart at the time that you play it. But it is special.
There’s a couple of songs like that. For me, “Lover Lay Down” is a song that reminds me of LeRoi. I remember it was the day after he died and we were playing a gig [August 20, 2008 at Staples Center in Los Angeles] and it was a tough gig. But then we got to “Lover Lay Down” and I just lost it; I had to leave the stage. I went backstage and I just broke down. That was a song that I always thought LeRoi’s heart was completely in. There’s a lot of songs, but I think in that song in particular LeRoi’s heart was there.
That’s a beautiful song. The venue selection for this summer has stirred up some discussion within the fanbase. Most notably the absence of the traditional Alpine Valley run.
Yeah, the thing you have to realize is that when I and the band hear about the schedule is the same time the fans do. And honestly, in my case the fans usually know before I do (Laughs). I love Alpine; that’s one of my favorite venues to play, period. I don’t know the rationale; that’s agencies and management. I love Alpine and wish that we were playing there this summer. We’ll be back.
The two nights in Chicago should keep them happy. Also, the three night run in Berkeley looks like it’ll be a lot of fun.
Yeah, it’s gonna be a fun summer. One of the cool things is that – in this tour and the last few tours – is we put in more breaks in between the shows. When we do that it’s cool because it gives the band a chance to relax and then, when we come back, we get to really jam and it makes the show much more fun and much more energetic for us when we’ve had two or three days, as opposed to one day in between gigs. That has actually been a really good thing for the band and I’m glad it’s gonna be like that. We just add more time; we start like a month earlier. I’m looking forward to it. We’re just gonna have fun.
