Dave Matthews Band- Crash 30th Anniversary

After meeting and interviewing Dave Matthews during the 1996 Horde Festival tour just as their second studio album, Crash, was being released, none of the subsequent successes of the Dave Matthews Band since then has surprised me. Impressed? Absolutely, but not surprised. Sure, the fun-loving good time swing in their first big hit “What Would You Say”, with the Olympian harmonica solo from Blues Traveler’s John Popper on the Dave Matthews Band’s second album Under the Table and Dreaming, got my immediate attention in 1994.

But it was the musical sophistication of “Rhyme and Reason”, the sublime “Satellite”, and the inventive arrangement featuring woodwinds and violin on “Ants Marching” that announced that this crack musical collective had already passed “Go”, collected the $200, and never missed a beat. Then Crash sold a headspinning 7,000,000 copies of the Spring 1996 release containing the lazy sunny day chestnut “So Much to Say”, the furious funk groove of “Too Much”, Crash Into Me”, and the “look Ma, no hands” band serious chops workout of “Drive In Drive Out”. Dave Matthews was already a wise resident of the world with a maturity that belied his tender age when we had the chance to talk  backstage. But even Dave himself could not have predicted that the DMB would become the first band in music history to debut six consecutive studio albums at #1 sales on Billboard!!!

With the 30th anniversary of Crash, we dedicate this edition of In the Studio to band co-founder/saxophonist LeRoi Moore who passed away in 2008 from complications from an off-road ATV accident. An incalculable loss for music; heartbreaking for the band, family, and friends. – Redbeard