A Conversation with Dave Matthews – HuffPost 12.2.10

Mike Ragogna: Hello Dave.

Dave Matthews: Hey, how are you doing, Mike.

MR: So you’re on tour with your buddy Tim Reynolds playing December 6th and 7th in Seattle.

DM: Yeah. We have a couple of shows here in Seattle. That’s where I am now and then we go on from there and do a few more shows. Just got off the tour with the band and Tim was there with me as well. We are doing a couple of shows here in Seattle with an interesting twist that I hope will turn into somewhat of a fashion or style of giving you know.

MR: Right, and your association is with JustGive.org. Can you go into that a little bit?

DM: Well, JustGive.org is a venue online that you can go and see (about) 1.8 million different non-profits, which is quite a number. But that’s a lot of charity, I think it’s the biggest collection available of non-profits gathered in one place, and with them, we are doing this concert where people pay for their ticket, and then they get a number and that number will allow them to contribute, in this instance, a little more than the price of their ticket to whatever non-profit they choose. So, when they buy two tickets to the shows next week, then you take that number you’ve been given, and you can donate $150 for each ticket to whatever non-profit that you want, the idea being it will inspire giving. In the longer view, we hope that it will turn into something more–maybe we can do tours or festivals or different artists can join us in this venture where the price of the ticket and maybe a little more goes to this unique form of giving. It is where you can create an environment where people are giving, but they are giving to their charity, to what they care about. Obviously, I am not alone. There are a lot of different artists that do work for their specific charity whether it’s veterans, homeless shelters, animals, the environment, farmers…it could be anything.

But the idea is we can do a show where the only point of it is the act of giving, and that act is in the hands of the audience. So, everybody involved is foregoing our payment; some of the crew are going to get a minimal payment, but pretty much everyone involved is giving away what we would otherwise take home. So, it’s not what I am doing a show for or what I care about. It’s about what we all care about, and I think it could hopefully create an interesting trend.

MR: Dave, it’s a great prototype. Let’s remind readers and listeners about what this is. On December 6th and 7th, the Seattle shows will benefit the various charities that Dave just talked about and even more–whatever is available through this website and whatever you want to give to, basically. And these concerts are going to be in Seattle’s McCaw Hall right?

DM: Yes, that’s right.

MR: There is also a website here, www.JustGive.org, in case people want to go there. Again, the concept is you pay for your concert ticket and you then decide what charitable organizations you would like your portion of the benefits go to. What a unique idea.

DM: Yeah, I just think that the act of giving feels psychological. When you see someone in need and you are moved to help them and you act to help, there is a feeling you get, and it’s not a selfish feeling. There is a good feeling you have that not only is from the act of giving, but also from the act of receiving. This is not to suggest for a moment that people in the audience don’t donate generously to the things that they believe in–but it’s like you said, it’s a unique idea.

My manager and I have been thinking about it for a long time. When we first started, we were thinking about how we might inspire giving and that was sort of the beginning of it. It was maybe that we would have a handful of charities that we would focus on and then maybe make it ten and then the ticket buyer could say well this is what I want out of my choice of ten. But now, you have almost two million non-profits to choose from and then it’s all up to the audience. I just think it’s unique because the only thing that brings us all together there, other than the music, is also this fun sort of promise of being able to direct where the money goes.

MR: Hey Dave, let’s catch-up our readers with your history with Tim Reynolds. You’re currently touring with him, recorded a few projects with him, and you have a long personal history together. As a duo, you’ve released the double CDs Live at Luther College in 1999, Live at Radio City in 2007 which included a DVD, plus a Live in Las Vegas project from this year.

DM: Yeah, we have done a few things together and Tim has also been on more than half of the band records including the most recent one. Tim and I have been playing music together for longer than my band has been together, but he was on the first three records. He also did a lot of stuff on my solo record I did a few years ago. Yeah, Tim and I have had a long friendship, and we have been making music together for a long time. We just enjoy that and I am grateful that our fans seem to enjoy the live shows. So, even though he and I haven’t actually gone into a studio together, actually facing each other and making a record, we have had some good shows together.

MR: And you guys go back to your early days in Charlottesville, right?

DM: Yeah. I think I probably first saw Tim playing in the mid-’80s. He had a band then with a different lineup called TR3. I started playing with them and I fell in love with his guitar playing and I used to see him play solo. He is a pretty amazing solo musician, and the sounds he can make come out of a guitar are astounding. But he is a really unique and unusual musician, so whatever the situation, I am more than happy to play with him. And this is something that is a perfect idea to try out with him. We have a lot of fun together, and we have this really cool band that is opening the show called The Head and The Heart. They are going to be opening five shows with Tim and me, and I am excited about them too. They’re a Seattle band that I think, not too far in the future, many people will hear about.

MR: I guess it’s always about Seattle.

DM: At least for now. (laughs)

MR: Dave, you are no stranger to charitable causes and putting in your time with organizations, etc., that have needs. Is there anything in the news right now that has your eye?

DM: The news tends to concentrate on the big stories, but there is heartbreak in all of those. What I am grateful for is the fact that there are a lot of people who care deeply about the wellness of everyone around them. So, usually what happens, the way things work for me, is someone will tap me on the shoulder and say, “Did you know that there is this happening in the world?” Somehow, I will hear about something through a news article, but as often as that, I will hear about something from a friend or an acquaintance that will make me take another look. There are obvious things, like what has happened in Haiti. There is endless work to be done there, whether it’s orphans or building schools down there…whatever we can do is important. Then you look at what happened with Katrina and the recovery. These are bigger stories that people need to know about that I am mentioning. The recovery is still ongoing, it is still a damaged city, although, certainly, a long way back to its recovery. So, certainly, with situations like that, it’s obvious we can all direct our energy and our money towards those things. The things that are more unique are what I am connected to, like the struggle of Pine Ridge Reservation and the poverty and the repression of people by others.

MR: There are so many issues to deal with in the world right now that it’s almost staggering to pick those that you can concentrate on, you know, being only one human.

DM: I think the thing is that wherever you see a problem, there are going to be people that are working on trying to relieve some of the suffering. So, that is often how it works for me. In the case of Haiti, it’s a terrible, natural disaster, but it really highlighted an incredible, mind-boggling poverty that is so close to us. In many ways, where the richest country in the world is just across an almost swimmable amount of water, there is this incredible poverty. And this natural disaster brings about and heightens its visibility. So, there is some obvious place where building schools or orphanages is where we can get involved. Then there’s the long recovery, in another prominent news story where we can all help and where I’ve been drawn in, is what happened in New Orleans and the Gulf more recently with the oil spill and, before that, with Katrina.

But then there are things that I learn about that are really through word of mouth. Someone makes me aware of it. Whether it’s the incredible poverty and crime in some of the poorer parts of the United States with a lack of education and resources that are spent more on trying to prevent the unthinkable rather than on books, on teachers and extracurricular activities. That, for me, is where I often find I focus my energy–just from people who care about their fellow human and who find their way to me or they are a friend of mine or an associate of mine who says, “Hey, did you know this is happening?”

MR: Terrific.

DM: In some ways, I spread myself kind of thinly–and it might seem to somebody that I don’t have a focus. But really, for me, I have been so lucky, almost insanely fortunate as a musician to be where I am. Almost 99.9% of musicians have to have another job just to be able to play music. Now, I am lucky in that my hobby and my profession are the same thing, and to an exorbitant level. So, for me, I appreciate it, but it almost makes me feel a little less ashamed of my good fortune, to be able to help people help people. That has been one of the great luxuries and gifts for me, my good fortune. It takes a responsibility, in a strange way, away from me, and in some way, the act of being good if it’s just me playing a show or me giving somebody a bit of money to help them do something wonderful. But it’s a gift to be able to do it.

That, in some way, is what inspired this whole idea about the concerts–the idea that I can have a concert and raise a lot of money about something that I care about. I can do something like Farm Aid with Willie (Nelson), Neil (Young), and John (Mellencamp), and we can raise a lot of money to highlight a problem in this country–like the small farmer–and then also financially help the struggling farmers. Then the idea came what if the audience are the people that are deciding. Maybe the focus is not as great on the amount, and obviously, if you give a greater amount of money to one specific thing, it will have a greater effect. But there is another quality in this–the act of giving, and the responsibility that it is in the hands of the people who spent the money. I just feel really good about it. It’s a quick line and jokingly avoids the taxman. So, the concert is just the telegraph between the giver and the receiver.

MR: Dave, let me also ask you some casual questions like what is your favorite guitar?

DM: Well, that’s difficult. I have one guitar that I think I would call my favorite because I have had it for a long time. It’s a Taylor guitar and it’s kind of beat up. I have had it for a while and I love it. But now, I have a couple of Taylors in case I break a string and we are in the middle of a song or something. Really, it’s that guitar–a 914–and it’s a beautiful guitar. But there are a lot of great guitars. I have a guitar that Gibson just gave me that is a neat little Sunburst guitar, and I have a great Martin.

There are a lot of great guitars out there and if it was really up to me, I would be choosing small makers as well because there are so many great guitar manufacturers that, in a way, go unnoticed. There is a guitar maker from Virginia, and I am just starting to play his guitar. It’s called a “Rockbridge” guitar, and these couple of guys out of Lexington, Virginia, make them. Man, they make an incredible guitar, and for the last few days, I have been playing this little Rockbridge. I haven’t even told them yet if I am going to keep it, but it is an astounding instrument. So, maybe just for the sake of it, I would say that the guitar I have played the most in the last ten years is probably that Taylor 914, but the guitar I have played the most in the last week is a small-bodied little guitar called a Rockbridge.

MR: Nice. Who is your favorite artist right now?

DM: The band called The Head and The Heart.

MR: The band you mentioned earlier.

DM: I think they are the ones that I have been listening to a lot.

MR: What is your favorite song of all time?

DM: I think “The Needle and the Damage Done.”

MR: Beautiful, beautiful. What do you think is most significant about Dave Matthews or the Dave Matthews Band considering your musical history?

DM: Probably that we are still playing together. That my band is still together and that we still have an audience. That is the thing that I think is sort of amazing. We work hard but I feel very lucky, and I hope that I can be playing music regardless. I am pretty amazed that I have been able to play and be compensated in such an unbalanced way in my favor.

MR: As a veteran, what advice do you have for new artists?

DM: I think now, more than any other time, is play what you love to play. Find out what you love to play. Play all the time because that is the core of what has kept us playing music together. The band playing music together kept me playing, I just love it. And my search is always to find something that I love and that I think is a beautiful sound–doesn’t have to be beautiful to anyone else. So, my advice would be do what you love, don’t follow a fashion unless it just happens to be in line with what you love. Play your heart. Otherwise there is too much heartbreak, to be honest. I think that is the most important thing, and I don’t know if I would know what the hell that means if someone told me (that) when I was 23. But I think I turned out to have–whether for good or bad–ended up following my own path.

MR: You really have and it’s been an amazing career and you’re an amazing person, especially for doing these wonderful benefit concerts on December 6th and 7th in Seattle at McCaw Hall.

DM: Well, thanks very much for talking to me Mike, and it was nice talking to you.

MR: Thanks again for visiting us at Solar-Powered KRUU-FM, which, by the way, is, well, solar-powered. We’re trying hard, in our own way, to make a difference.

DM: That’s very cool. Oddly, I think, at least publicly, you are the only solar-powered radio station I have ever spoken to, so doesn’t that say a lot.

MR: Wow. Dave, thanks so much.

DM: Cheers, Mike.

Transcribed by Erika Richards