Dave Matthews – HuffPost 12.2.10

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Dave Matthews: 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.