MTV: Let's say some of your fans bought Before These Crowded Streets in 1998 and then got launched into a rocket ship. They come back down today and pick up Everyday. How do you think they'd respond to it?
Dave Matthews: So they're in a time warp, where all they can do is indulge in Before These Crowded Streets, and then they run into this new album? If they had half a brain, and half a heart, they'd think, "Wow, they're even better than they were."
MTV: How so?
Matthews: It sounds like us, but different from any album we've done. The rhythm section sounds really clear. I've never been able to hear Stefan on any of the other albums as much as I hear him on this album. The side of Boyd that was trained classically comes out more on this album than any of our other albums. I've never played electric guitar before, but it's still our characters and it's still the same personality of the band. It's just more precise and a little bit clearer than we've been before, in some ways.
MTV: What brought about all these changes?
Matthews: We were recording some earlier songs with Steve Lillywhite. It wasn't any one person or any one thing, but the process became somewhat laborious. Our creative avenue was somewhat strangled. We were in a familiar environment, and the pressure of making an album in that environment just made the whole thing feel sort of gray. Lyrically, I was in a pretty dark space reflecting on that.
When we went on tour, we took the songs out and we were all feeling it. [Drummer] Carter [Beauford] said, "We need to address the way this album is being made and the spirit that we're putting into this album." We all agreed, so we decided to make a turn. Of course, we're not going to be able to change the lineup of the band, but we could change where we recorded it and the other people involved. We met with [Producer] Glen Ballard and that clicked. It clicked very quickly that he's a musician, and he worked with a hero of ours —Quincy Jones — for years. And he's also, by himself, done so much great stuff. So we went to work with him and the whole thing changed, the doors opened, the rivers began flowing. It was great.
MTV: Glen Ballard told us that it was the most amazing creative interaction that he's had as a producer with a singer/songwriter. What was it about Glen that spurred you to write?
MTV: Did the change of producers and the change of scene between Virginia and the West Coast feel dangerous, or was it a thrill?
Stefan Lessard: It was a thrill, at least for me. After a while being at home, you just felt too much like being at home and you weren't really working on the album. Going out to L.A. threw us into being a rock band, working on an album. We weren't running errands during the day. At home, you play softball, you ride ATVs, and then at some point you get together and work maybe two or three hours. Going out to L.A. was great fun, and this new producer had such a great vibe around him. It was a pretty joyous occasion.
MTV: How did the rest of the band figure into the new songwriting process with Glen as the producer?
Boyd Tinsley: The songs were basically written by the time we got there, but we contributed. It was a rough sketch Dave and Glen had done, like a demo tape. We studied the songs and came in and added to what we heard, as a band. They had the skeleton and we made the body.
MTV: Wasn't it more of an organic songwriting process on the last couple of albums?
Tinsley: Yeah, it was. Even the tunes we were working on in our studio in Charlottesville were done like that. But these were different circumstances, so we did it differently. We may go back to the other way at some point, or we may make another album like this. We don't have any limits on what we will do; we'll just do what we feel. This time, we all had the sense that Glen Ballard was the person to work with, and we were right on that.
