For the past five months, the Dave Matthews Band has been riding a wave of success that has catapulted the band members' career from a college band to a group on the verge of stardom. With stops on "Late Show with David Letterman," "Saturday Night Live" and MTV's Spring Break and Alternative Nation along with a co-headlining North American tour with Big Head Todd and the Monsters and opening for the Greatful Dead in Las Vegas, the Dave Matthews Band has poised itself as one of the brightest newcomers around.
It's been just three short years since then-bartender Dave Matthews went looking for a group of musicians to accompany him on a demo tape of his original songs. But Matthews didn't sign on just anyone; he looked for the best new talent available. From his home base in Charlottesville, Va., Matthews approached seasoned jazz players Leroi Moore and Carter Beuford to play the sax and drums. Those three roped in Stefan Lessard, who at age 16 already had made a mark as a top-notch bass player. Finally, when it became clear one of the tunes needed a violin, Boyd Tinseley was the perfect match for the band whose goal was to make music that would bring people together. "It's a good focus to try to bring people together rather than separate them," Matthews said.
Tinseley added another angle to the already multifaceted quintet that mixed folk, jazz, rock, world beat and reggae influences into a unique sound that has given the Dave Matthews Band its foot in the musical door of success.
Tinseley, whose background is in classical music, prefers the spontaneity and the passion the Dave Matthews Band brings to every show. For him, it's all about the music and everything else is just there. Tinseley spoke to Weekend Reality about the success of the band and his love of music.
Weekend Reality: I saw you a month or so ago in Detroit at the State Theater with Big Head Todd. It was obvious you put a lot of work into your live shows. Every time I've heard you play live, you're mixing things up a little. Do you like to improvise a lot?

Boyd Tinsley:"Leroi and Carter were mostly jazz players and that's what jazz is all about; it's all improv. I came from like a rap band and we were a jam band and it was just sorta improv. So from the very beginning the course was set that was just the way we played. It's remained that way. A lot of our songs back when we first started used to be a lot longer. We didn't have very many songs when we first began. When we first started we had like six songs. We used to play the hell out of them. On top we used to play a few cover songs as well, but we played these songs for a long time. We'd just jam and improv. But I think we've got real good at improving and jamming together. And a good number of our songs sorta have that element to it. Obviously some of our songs have shortened up and tightened up from the 20 or 30 minute anthems they used to be."

WR:With the way you improvise in shows, it makes fans want to tape them. How do you feel about bootleg taping of shows?

BT: "I guess I don't have any problem with it. We as a band really don't have too much of a problem with it because it's been there from day one. People have always taped our shows and we never really discouraged people or disallowed it. I think now, the only difference is we're trying to play bigger places and things that we used to let people come up and plug into our boards, but now it's obviously a little bit too much of a nightmare to let a 100 people come and plug into your board. So I guess the only thing now is you have to bring microphones, but taping shows has been there from day one and I don't think that will change." One of the things I like about the band when I saw them live was there are so many things to watch. Sometimes you want to watch Dave, then the focus shifts to LeRoi or to you. This isn't a one man band.
"That's pretty much the way we've sorta operated from the beginning and that's sorta the vision Dave outlined when at least he asked me to join this band. That is the way he described how he wanted this band to be, that we all sorta shared the spotlight which is fine since that's really what a band is supposed to be. If that's the way you see it, then that's from design."

WR: When the focus shifts to you and it looks like you're really enjoying playing. Is that something you try to get across?

BT: "I don't try to get that across, it's just real. If it comes across then you have entered my soul, my heart."

WR: With a focus on diversity among the band members, it's kind of ironic that the band is named after just one of the members. How did you come up with the name?

BT:"Primarily because we never really came up with a name for the band. When we first got together, it was really to just do a recording. We were going to do a demo tape. But in the mean time there were a few gigs we did, benefits and things like that. So we needed a name and I think someone said, "Let's just call it the Dave Matthews Band" just because we needed to put a name on there and we never changed it. And that's pretty much the way it's been."

WR: How did the band get started?

BT: "Dave was working with a guy named Ross Hoffman, who was his personal manager at the time. Together those two got together LeRoi, Carter and Stefan to do this recording. Once they got together, they got me to specifically play on Tripping Billies. So that's sort of my introduction into the band. And then after that we all stayed together as a band."

WR: What did you do before you started playing with the Dave Matthews Band?

BT: "I was in another band called the Boyd Tinseley Band, also an acoustic duo called Down Boy Down. We did fraternities and college shows around the Southeast. I was actually in the Boyd Tinseley Band and the Dave Matthews Band at the same time during the first year. So it was kind of crazy."

WR: What would you say is the band's strongest influence?

BT: "My background in playing is in classical music and rock. LeRoi and Carter's background is in jazz. Dave's is in classical and rock as well as folk music. Stefan is in jazz and rock. So there is some overlapping but we all bring our own thing to the mix."

WR: How would you describe Dave Matthews Band sound?

BT: "I can't describe sounds in like a word or term. I'm sure maybe I can put together a couple of bands that collectively sound like us. I don't know. I don't have one."

WR: Who would you say was your strongest musical influence?

BT: "In this band, LeRoi, for who I had seen for a long time play music and one of the most passionate players. He really plays from hi shear who is really inspiring. That's somebody I really looked up to."

WR: It must have been a great thrill to be able to play with LeRoi?

BT:"Yeah, it definitely was. It's a big honor to be in a band with him and Carter. Those are just two of the local Charlottesville musicians I'd known and looked up to for a long time."

WR: On your current album, Under the Table and Dreaming, what is your favorite song?

BT: "Lover Lay Down is my favorite song on the album. Another one of my favorites is Dancing Nancies and #34."

WR: Why those?

BT: "I don't know. Lover Lay Down I think is a beautiful song -- the way it comes across on the album, I think is just beautiful. The mix of it. The performance is great. #34 is so different than everything else. It's an instrumental that has all these different kinds of music. Dancing Nancies, that song is really fun because the way we did it on the album was never really how we'd done that way before. We've never really don't it that way since. I just loved it because it just sort of happened like that and it just sort of happened like that and it wasn't planned. That's just the way it came out. It's just music. It happens and it's over."

WR: Recently, the band ventured into cyberspace with a talk on America OnLine. How was that experience?

BT: "That was fun. I did some the other day. I guess that was an MTV thing. There's a whole Internet thing for the Dave Matthews Band called minaret.net. I got to send a message out the other day. Someone had a computer in the car and said write a message. It's fun knowing you can communicate with a lot of fans instantly. I don't have a computer and I don't get to do that very often."

WR: As far as merchandising, the band has a screen saver for the computer and a mouse pad. Is somebody into computers over there?

BT: "Somebody's into something over there. [Laugh]. I think the screen saver came about because we have a lot of fans that are into the minaret.net. There's obviously a lot of Dave Matthews Band fans that have computers, so I guess they figured they are interested in that. We have a very big merchandise company that we own ourselves. Most bands don't own their own merchandising. Most bands don't have extensive selection of merchandise. We do and that's sorta the brainchild of our manager."

WR: Everything the band does really has that element of self motivation and self sufficiency.

BT: "That's one reason why I'm very happy and very proud because we are self-sufficient. We don't really have to depend on the record company or other sources of income. We pretty much make our own money. That's the feeling because I guess the more independent you are the more freedom you have too."

WR:Things have been moving fast for the band in 1995. You went on Spring Break with MTV, played Letterman and Saturday Night Live. How is the band handling this little bit of success?

BT: "We're grateful that we're getting a lot of opportunities and we're selling a lot of albums and are getting to do a lot of things. But at the same time we're just still very hard at working and touring that I think our main focus is to play well and to keep on playing. It's hard to get a perspective on that because I don't feel like I've been home. To go home and to say, "Wow! Look at all these things we've done." We're still doing it. I think we're dealing with what we've got well, and I think that everyone is happy for it. We're just going to keep on playing good music."

WR: What surprises are in store for Dave Matthews Band fans?

BT: "We have a few new songs we've been breaking out in the last couple of weeks. If you haven't seen us in a while, we've got some new music. We're going to have a new album out that we're recording at the end of this year."