Dave Matthews
Dave Matthews
David John "Dave" Matthews (born January 9, 1967 is a South African-American singer-songwriter, musician and actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band. Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and lived in both South Africa and the United States while growing up. Matthews mainly plays acoustic guitar, which he started playing at the age of nine...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth9 January 1967
CityJohannesburg, South Africa
Well, I've been in a few car wrecks.
I'm from a very politically and socially conscious family. My mother always made a point of making us look at what was going on around us and take stock of our part in it.
I can't believe that we would lie in our graves wondering if we had spent our living days well. I can't believe that we would lie in our graves dreaming of things that we might have been.
I've always been obsessed by visual art as I have been by music personally, but that doesn't mean anything professionally.
We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten.
A lot of the time, I write a lot of angry stuff, but then I don't want to be a finger-pointer - I'd rather be a cheerleader than a judge. I don't want to preach as if I'm in some position of righteousness, but I do want to speak my mind and scream at the clouds and shout out of the pit of hopelessness that I sometimes think the human race is in.
In many instances, we are much better at fixing our mistakes after we've made them. In some situations, it is easier to sweep things under the rug and forget about them.
Tomorrow is no place to place your better days.
I definitely like the oddballs. There's a song called 'Little Thing,' which is the only song that I have recorded that has no words. And it's the one that I get past my critic inside me.
I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here - I just see it everywhere.
I always like to have an atlas just so that I can find things out. It's always good to have an almanac; those sort of things.
I think I'm probably a very sad man wrapped in a very joyful package, and I think I'm very resilient, and I think I'm quite generous, sometimes to a fault. And I'm very bad with money, but I don't see that too much of a flaw.
I've never been much of a craftsman, in an educated way. But I think just the experience of writing makes the avenues I follow a little more efficient in some ways. At the same time, when you're young, you're a little more fearless, and there's less of an internal critic.
It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.