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If you’ve gone through high school in the past couple of decades, there’s a very good chance you’ve gotten way too into the Dave Matthews Band at some point. I’d argue that you never really had the true teenage experience unless you chugged as many beers as possible in order to get drunk enough to tell yourself you nailed the high notes while singing along to “Crash Into Me.” You probably also cried a little when you saw Lady Bird.
It’s the fans that have made it possible for the band to still sell out shows decades after they were playing small rooms in Charlottesville, but it’s the very same fans that have resulted in the band developing a reputation for catering to bros who lack the musical enlightenment you need before getting into Phish. As a result, DMB is basically the Rick and Morty of the world of music: a good thing ruined by a very vocal minority of walking stereotypes.
DMB is set to release their first album in six years next month, and the man fans affectionately refer to as “Daaaaaaave” sat down with Vulture for a fascinatingly in-depth interview that touches on an incredible number of topics— including Matthews’ views on fandom. He dances carefully around the subject, but it’s clear he’s very aware of how the world looks at his target demographic.
When asked about that topic, he admitted he knows some people are just there to get plastered, but that his primary goal is to “give people a party.” He also admits the full DMB experience can be a bit intimidating for a casual outsider, which he says can overshadow the music:
I could imagine that someone who had heard a recording of ours and liked it and was faced with our big, raucous audience might think, What is happening here?
Matthews also discussed the DMB haters and revealed his theory for why the band has developed the reputation it has:
“[T]here are people who truly don’t like my band. I think a lot of them just go, “I hate the Dave Matthews band” because they saw someone they didn’t like in one of our T-shirts.”
I’m just going to tell myself I wasn’t one of those guys.