My Summer with the Dave Matthews Band: Part One
Deep from the Archives: An Interview with Stefan Lessard
A few weekends ago, I was mingling with new friends when I was asked how I got into photography and writing.
“In lieu of graduating college and becoming a corporate drone, I took a low-paying museum job and spent the summer pseudo-touring with the Dave Matthews Band. The violinist had a movie, I had a blog with my ex-boyfriend, and somehow I had an Almost Famous Summer.”
“Omg, why don’t you write about that?”
“I don’t know, I guess because it’s not only my story.”
“So, tell the parts that are yours. All of our stories are connected to others- it doesn’t make it less yours.”
A profound moment in the midst of a first birthday. Isn’t that how life goes, though?
When I got home that day, I started going through my Dropbox folder titled “2012”. I detailed this time in my life with vigor: I actually wrote most of it as a draft of a book titled “To My Future Child: I Was Cool Before You”. I have journals of press passes, details of nights spent driving around trying to find Boyd, and so much more.
It’s such an important part of my story, and yet- it’s one I seldom relive. This is where I fell in love with writing, realized my potential, and chased dreams that seemed too big to even concoct.
This is also where I experience my first heartbreak, move back to Long Island, and start a long journey to now. The latter always being the part I was ashamed of.
What I appreciate (now) is how I can look back at my twenties and clearly see my patterns, where I delineate from my dreams, and identify what held me back. I love that version of Leanne so much- she fought so hard to be herself, and her tenacity is why I’m confident(ish) now. Time is our friend, and this time in my life is so fun to relive.
I hope you’re comfortable because this is a long article, but I think it’s worth it.
Welcome to Part One of my Almost Famous Summer.
It’s 2012: I’m twenty-two years old and I don’t want to graduate college or enter the real world. While everyone around me has a plan and their future outlined, I’m still oscillating between what I should do- get a job in New York City like everyone else- and what I want to be- a writer.
Unfortunately, my small nest egg from my grandfather was spent (allegedly toward my college education, but I have doubts on that, still.) My original plan was to use that summer to build up a writing portfolio and apply for jobs in the fall, but with no money, and no home base, I begin applying for entry level Marketing/Management jobs. In Connecticut. Where my boyfriend of two years will be getting his Master’s in the fall.
This is not ideal, and I begin to disassociate by using Twitter- before it was X, it was a cool place to be. Through my love of the Dave Matthews Band, I find a little community of fans. It’s a sweet place on the internet where we all follow the tour religiously: staying up late to share our thoughts on set lists, or how Dave sounds that night- using his moniker like he’s an old friend and not an International star. To this day, I still have connections from this time in my life, including the lovely Nicole Mathew over at Vibe with Me.
One day, in the back of Astrology class my phone lit up with a response from Stefan Lessard, the bass player, himself. I show my boyfriend, and in that moment an idea dawns on me: “let’s make a Dave Matthews Band Fanpage twitter/website.” With that, DMBFanpage was born. A very original name, I know.
We start a twitter, and a Wordpress site. I design a Monkey logo (an ode to my favorite song at the time, Proudest Monkey), and build the site to be grunge- cool. It gains momentum at a rapid rate, and I refuse to slow down. I’m enthralled to be writing. Maybe, just maybe, I can circumvent an entry level job after all. I stay up late editing the posts and occasionally find myself randomly messaging Stefan Lessard about books or setlists. He’s kind, and we have a shared appreciation of Peter Matthiessen: it’s surreal to remember how often we spoke.
After a few months, I decide to try and take DMBfanpage to the next level. On a whim, I write an open letter campaign to Stefan to let us interview him.
After some persistence, he agrees. One Month Later, we meet at Tacombi Taco in Soho for our interview. In the bustling atmosphere of a storefront with a food truck inside, the interview lasts for 67 minutes. I recorded it on my iPhone using Audionote, and if you’re wondering, yes, I still have it.
After a quick drive back to Connecticut, I hole up in the second bedroom to dissect each word from the interview. I e-mail it Stefan, he makes a few edits, and in an instant, DMBfanpage is the host of a very exclusive interview with Fonz himself.
Below, is what I wrote.
It was a casual Sunday morning in New York City. The few residents who did not migrate to a vacation spot for the holiday weekend were bustling around, in and out of various shops while we waited to meet our childhood idol in front of one of his favorite New York eateries. The idea behind this interview was simple; Give Stefan the arena to share his perspective of how it all came together, and how it continues to grow. At exactly three o’clock, we spot him coolly walking down the street wearing his Ray Bans, “FUNYC” t-shirt, while toting his new camera in a brown leather case. “Hey! Leanne? Were you guys waiting long?” he greets, and after a minor exclaim of excitement, and introduction we head towards the door.
We walk into the taco shop, which brings a “California street vendor” vibe to the middle of Soho. “I love this place, but when I first started coming here they didn’t have table service”. We sit down, order our drinks and food and start having conversation. After butchering the Spanish menu, we start talking about our lack of language skills. “My little girls, they both speak like Spanish, German, and Japanese… like they’re really multilingual, and so myself, I just started to pick up more and more. Living in southern California I see Spanish everywhere. When I was growing up though, the only foreign language I cared about was music.”
Stefan is casual, making conversation while animatedly telling his stories. We ask about Saturdays set list and he explains “Well, the band is very open to the idea of playing tunes typically played at the end of a set, we wanted to see how the energy would feel if we played Two Step mid set. I would not mind trying Watchtower earlier on in the set as well, I might have more energy during my solo!” His enthusiasm about is music is obvious, and you can see the genuine compassion that he has through his eyes. Incredibly, Stefan goes throughout the lunch unrecognized, making it clear that even after 21 years of being a rock star and touring around the world, his life still remains mellow, and he remains humble.
DMBFP: What made you start playing at 16?
SL: Well, I actually started playing music when I was six. I started playing piano and violin. Then I started to write music on the piano, and my first music teacher, Mary Carol was this great lady who lived out in the country and she used to have blue grass players come over, so I would do my little lesson go out in the garden, and I’d be eating fresh tomatoes while the musicians played on the porch and then my mom would pick me up and they usually started jamming, and it was a really cool introduction to what music was about. And, she was really cool too. Instead of trying to teach me what was in the book, she basically was like, “Okay, you’re in a dark dungeon, now play scary dark dungeon music and I would just start experimenting on the piano and it would lead me to this place where I was like “oh my god, I’m in a dungeon. So, I think when music is connected to an emotional situation isn’t really taught that much in school. You know, you’re taught notes, you’re taught theory, you’re taught how to fuse things correctly, but you’re not really taught emotional aspects. So, I think as a young person I think that was amazing for me. Then, I was just always doing something with a guitar, piano, mostly on a writing thing. My dad when I was fourteen bought me my first 4 track, and I started writing on my 4 track immediately. I put together music, and by that time I really wanted to do keyboards and play piano and sing and it was one of those things where I just couldn’t find a good teacher. I couldn’t find a good piano teacher anywhere. I found one teacher and I brought her a bunch of Bob Marley music and I said to her “This is the kind of music I want to play”, and she wouldn’t teach it to me. She wanted me to learn the exercises from the book she taught from. I look back on it now and realize that’s what she taught. She didn’t know how to play Bob Marley. At this time, I drifted away from music at 14. I was more excited, I saw “Top Gun”, and wanted to be a fighter pilot. Both of my grandpa’s were in the service, so I started thinking I wanted to go into the service. My dad was working for a music company, and one day he brought home a bass. This red Hammer bass and it was really cool looking. Before that, I was playing guitar so when my dad brought home the bass, I took it to my room and he showed me how to play scales, and how the bass moves inside of the music and he played me some jazz. I took it school and to my “World beat” music class. I started playing the bass for the class and teacher was like “Wow! You actually sound pretty good on that, have you ever thought about playing it for real?” and I said “Well, this is just one my dad brought home but yeah, I’ll try to play anything… I’ll play it”. That was it, I started playing the bass in the world beat music class, and my teacher, “John D’Earth, then decided I should join a jazz class so he moved me over to a jazz class. This was a really small private school, like only 100 kids and it went from 5th grade to 12th grade. It was great, kids were going to Brown, Yale Harvard, and they were aces in classes but I was there… not for academics. I was holding off. That’s it, that’s how I started playing bass.
DMBFP: Now, we’ve heard a lot of versions of this story, but when the band was coming together, Carter knew your father, and he suggested that you should play with the band… is that true?
SL: I’ve heard different stories. I can tell you what I know from where I was. By this time, I was 15 and when I was 15, Dave was invited to come and play for my world beat music class. He had long hair, and was a friend of my teacher, he was someone who John wanted to show as someone who can sing and play the guitar at the same time. It was sort of like “This is a folk musician”. So, Dave… I think he played us, I’m not too sure but it might have been “Recently”, or it might have been “Watchtower”. I don’t remember much about it. I remember thinking he had a funny voice! I was listening to reggae, I was listening to punk, I was listening to hip hop, jazz, folk, world beat, any music I could get my hands on, I would listen to.
I wanted to play an upright bass so I got an upright teacher, Pete Spar. John D’Earth used to invite students of his to come sit in with his Jazz band that played out in Millers every Thursday. One of those nights, I happened to be there and John asked me to come up and play the blues. I played the blues, and I believe LeRoi was on the gig… I don’t think Carter was there yet, it was just LeRoi, so that’s how I first played with the LeRoi. The next day, John comes up to me and says “Roi came up to me while you were playing and said “Wow, listen to the bass”, which is a huge compliment coming from Roi because he doesn’t usually say much”. I was floored; all of a sudden all these professional musicians are coming up to me and saying I have this talent and I never really had that before. So then, I played with Carter one night, and it was the same thing; I just sat in. It was after one gig when I sat in with Carter and Roi that this guy named Ross, who was friends with Dave who was helping put musicians together for Dave. He was helping Dave getting together a band, and he comes up to me and says “ Would you be interested in being in a group with Dave, the bartender?” and I said “Uh yeah, sure I’ll try it out” he goes “ Great. Carter and LeRoi, they already practiced. They had one rehearsal and they’re trying to rehearse again tomorrow, are you available? I said “yeah, that sounds great”. So, what I think happened, and what I was told the whole time was, my music teacher is the one who went to LeRoi and suggested they ask me. Dave made a demo with my music teacher before he had done anything with Carter or LeRoi. My music teacher, and this guy Greg Howard who plays the chapman stick, he actually played on “Dreaming Tree”, and so him and Greg they did a demo of “Recently”. John knew Dave’s style and thought that I would make a good bass player for the ensemble.
DMBFP: Did you think, when you walked in, this was going to last? I know Carter has said he knew it was special.
SL: At first, I didn’t think it was as precious as that. I think for me, it was just sort of like “Oh weird, jazz musicians are playing folk music, like that’s cool!” I played a lot of folk music but I played with a lot of folk musicians. I didn’t play folk music with Jazz musicians and to me “Recently”, although it turned into what it turned into, when I first heard it I just thought “oh, folk music” because it was a guy with a guitar. Around Earth Day, the year before the band played Earth day, I was on the street with a bunch of folk musicians playing upright. To me, it was kinda funny. When we first started playing the music, I actually had an upright and it was so off! It was horrible! I was like “I’m going to bring an electric to the next rehearsal and see how that goes”. It was after our first gig when a young Japanese exchange student asked me for my autograph did I start to realize this was going to be something special.
DMBFP: So, it’s just the four of you at this point… How did you find Boyd?
SL: Boyd! So, Roi knew about Boyd. Boyd grew up with Roi and Carter in the same neighborhood and he was always the dude sitting on his porch playing the violin while everyone was playing football. At this time, BT had his own band… it was “The Boyd Tinsley Band” and a side project called “Down Boyd Down”, so he was pretty well known in Charlottesville as being the dude who was a front man. You know, he used to sing and play the violin.
DMBF: I forgot Boyd sings! There’s a DVD, “Listeners Supported” and all of a sudden Boyd’s singing and Dave’s singing back up to him..
SL: It was good moment.. because it’s just a moment ya know? It made a real band when he did that. So, BT, we want to record at a studio near Charlottesville and when we recorded “Tripping Billies” Roi was like “Man, we should get BT to come and sit in with us and do a solo on Trippin’ Billies! I could totally hear a fiddle right here”. And, everyone was like “oh yeah cool!” So, it happened and then we invited him to a gig and it just started to happen. But, then we were going to go to Colorado and it was a pinnacle point in the band. I was about to go to college, and it was either college or the band. BT was doing a gig with his band, so he couldn’t go to Colorado, so we brought out Peter Greiser and started playing with Peter and that was really the moment it all happened.
Our interview is briefly interrupted by the arrival of our food. After splitting our Crispy Fish tacos, beef and bacon burritos and taking our first bites, Stefan jumps right back into it all.
DMBFP: 20 years later, do you have any regrets about the name?
SL: I think there’s a cool thing about a name that means something else. Like, Led Zeppelin, Rush. I grew up with bands. In music, it was Clash, Sex Pistols so it was a bummer for me to not be in a “band, band”. That was one of the things I always regretted, but it still felt like a band, it just didn’t sound like a band.
DMBFP: Why not college? What was that decision point for you?
SL: Money. I was getting offered money and the college was taking money. And my parents didn’t really support me financially, and the college didn’t want to support me going on the road. If they had supported me going, and then coming back and giving me credits I would have stayed in school. And, I probably could have finished school but they basically said “We don’t want you leaving campus to go do gigs”. I’m like “how could you tell me that?” I was performance and composition, so for me it was like “how can you tell me I can’t go off site and play with professional musicians?” They wanted me to just concentrate on in school assembles and spend all my time rehearsing and practicing. They let me in a year early so they felt like they were doing me a favor. It was just one of those things. I was being told by the manager at that time that if I didn’t go to the gig in Colorado, they were going to get this jazz fusion bass player from Richmond who everyone knew was awesome. He was going to sit in, and I thought to myself “As soon as this guy sits in, I’m out” because he was awesome.
DMBFP: How did Yukon Kornelius take formation?
SL: Its funny. Literally, it came from my “project manager” who comes up with projects and helps get them done. The project he wanted to do for the longest time was to get me in a snowboarding video. So, Warren Miller came around and Warren Miller was interested in doing something with me. And, he thought “Well, we can sweeten the pot”. He is friends with Jason Biggs, and Barenaked Ladies Ed Robinson, and Adam from Guster, and Warren said that if you wanted to sweeten that film thing you could make it a whole little segment. Then, they were like “Well, do you think they would all be interested in doing a gig?” Then, it became a little more because I had to find a drummer and put it more together. So, the Warren Miller film fueled the creation of Yukon.
DMBFP: How do you decide what you are going to play with Yukon?
SL: Well, it started off more as 90s pop. We did R.E.M., and we did some classic rock and some 80s rock. We do “Let’s Dance” we do some Bowie. Its kinda like, “Okay, whose going to sing what?” and we learn it.
DMBFP: You also sing with Yukon which is pretty incredible!
SL: With Yukon, yeah I like to get up and sing a song or two. I started off singing. I was a choir boy when I was younger. I would sing in the chorus, I was in a boy’s choir when I was in the sixth great. But, then when I went to my private school there was no singing. It was so frustrating for me because I couldn’t find a good group to sing with. So, I had vision of starting my own band, and then next thing you know I’m the bass player in the Dave Matthews Band. Twenty years later, I’m still the bass player of the Dave Matthews Band. Yukon was just a way for all of us to just go out and have fun, and that’s what we’re doing. It’s like the garage band. Some of them used to be in it, and some of us were never in. It just sets up this place where you can do something like that. You can sing, and one year we had the drummer from Barenaked Ladies, Taylor, come up and sing “Rockin’ the Free World” and he killed it! It was awesome! Eventually, Dee Snider came along and he will do anything in front of the camera. Warren Miller told him and he was like “What? A bunch of jam band players in a band? Okay, I’ll do it!” and it just keeps growing.
DMBFP: What’s your favorite place to play?
SL: That’s a hard one. I love traveling abroad and I don’t do it enough. Anytime I get out and play in front of a new audience, that’s absolutely my favorite. As far as the states go, any room that sounds good and the crowds rocking! It doesn’t really matter where it is. It changes year after year. A lot of the rooms, from where we are, look the same. Indianapolis always looks like Hartford from where we stand. It’s a big shed, with a lot of people and the lights the same. There are special places like The Gorge. Red Rocks is a special place, outside natural phenomena places…
DMBFP: SPAC is like that!
SL: Saratoga is wild because it has the balcony so it always stands out. SPACs crazy for me. I don’t know what it’s like from the audience perspective but with the balcony, the balcony is pretty insane. I mean, it’s a big place. SPACs lawn seems kinda of small, but its close.
DMBFP: As far as size goes, Hartford is definitely one of your bigger places that you tour/
SL: Hartford lawn is huge, but as far as size goes I think Alpine is our biggest. Alpine is huge! It looks like a football field behind. And, there are two levels of fields. The Gorge is also up there.
DMBFP: There are always these rumors that you all have “Favorite Places” to play, and it doesn’t help the rumor mill when you play amazing set lists at certain arenas. Last night, we heard from a lot of people that they Hartford is “the bands favorite place to play” and we even met people who flew in just because of that rumor.
SL: Well, I can tell you from the stage, compared to the other shows we have done this year, and I don’t know why it was like this, but it looks like the people were just a bowl. They stacked them up so much that the energy was so much. That’s the whole idea of the pit. If you’re willing to do that, what it does is it increases the energy of the band because the band is getting what the crowd is giving off. The thing is, in Hartford it didn’t look like it stopped. In some places, the pit stops and then there’s people sitting down and then there’s the crowd. All of Hartford was a pit so that energy off the sides is crazy. The Gorge is great, I love playing at the Gorge but we are a far ways away from the crowd. I like to be closer up to the front of the crowd. The places we play where I feel that I can reach out and shake someone’s hand, those to me are actually the places where I feel the energy is higher.
DMBFP: Our two friends were there at Hangout Festival, and they said that the crowd was not a “DMB Crowd”. When you guys came out, it wasn’t like how it was at Randall’s or any of the other Caravans because people weren’t as excited.
SL: It’s a festival crowd, and we like that! It feels like you have to work a little bit to win them over and where we were from up there, the crowd seemed so far away, it was so dark and you’re in your in ears, it’s hard to gage. But, when the lights came on the place was packed! It was such an awesome day at Hangout that I didn’t care. By the time I got on stage I was ready to play!
DMBFP: One of the most unique aspects of the band is the fact that you truly have a following. There are fans who have attended 100 plus shows, and when you go it really is a family, which differs from other artists. It’s unbelievable what you have created in just 21 years.
SL: Thank you! It’s wild! Sometimes you have to stop and realize that it is crazy, but it’s also just our work ethic. Because we come from a place where folk music and jazz, you play different songs every night; there’s never such a thing as a set “set list”. I was looking to maybe go and audition with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers when I was younger because my dad knew the manager and the manager said that when I got out of college I had an audition waiting for me. As a jazz artist, the ideal is that you need to know a lot of standards and be ready for anything in the set. Frank Sinatra used to just go up and say “ Okay, we’re going to do this tune next boys, let’s go!”. The whole idea of live music started changing with technology where more people started creating set shows and could use things like loops and click tracks to put on a solid show. I would have a hard time playing the same thing each night! The element of surprise is something live shows have less of now. I think that’s why The Grateful Dead had such a following too. It wasn’t about “ oh, they sucked tonight”, it was more about “we had no idea they were going to do that!”. I think, unfortunately not a lot of people do that anymore. I’m sure, bands like Blink 182 are going to play the same 90 minute set each night.
DMBFP: Speaking of which… how did you feel about the video Mark Hoppus posted?
SL: Well, it’s funny because I thought it was a good video, they should have used a different bass player from a different band. Out of the bands that I know that I watch, I’m definitely one of the more hyper bass players.. or at least I think so.
DMBFP: Your telling me! You were everywhere last night! During “Anyone Seen the Bridge” you were all over the stage!
SL: Well, the thing is I’m always trying to tone it down for the sake of not looking cheesy. Mark Hoppus is quintessential cheesy and that’s okay, like if that’s who he is. I’ve seen the band, and they’re a real fun band, but for someone who has never seen one of our concerts to just throw up a picture of me and using me to describe a “boring bass player” I kinda felt like it was out of place. But, it sure did get me a lot of recognition in his world so I’m not mad about it at all.
DMBFP: Have you guys talked at all?
SL: Yeah, we talked. He finally got back to me on twitter. I was just bugging him on twitter, I was like “Dude, Fuck you its Stefan” and he finally responded, and was like “Dude, I don’t even read music” and I was like “ I don’t read music either dude!” I said “Why don’t you come to one of our shows one time” and he said “I’ve never been to one of your shows. My wife’s favorite song is “Crash into me”. Like, what do I say to that?
DMBFP: Do you ever forget a set on stage? Do you ever have a moment where you’re like “What the hell is coming on after this?”
SL: So, the sets usually happen like this. We go rehearse around 5, we talk about what we want to do. Any new songs, any covers. We might talk about 5 or 6 songs and only play one. Then, we might play it and it might feel good and we will say “You want to play it tonight?” and we put it on there. So, we kinda have an idea of a few songs on the set. And then, Dave will go in, write out the set that he feels works well for him vocally and kind of what he feels. Then, he gives it the monitor guy, and then he gives it to me and Carter to make sure about the rhythm section because we are the two working the whole time, well, mostly Carter and I because we are the rhythm section. We might make suggestions, like for example in Atlanta I was fighting that set, and I don’t mind saying that because I said it to Dave. The beginning of the set I thought was too slow. Too much repetitive, same tempos and I had this feeling that it was going to lull everyone a little bit. And, when I made that suggestion I wanted to put a couple of the bigger songs up front and move some of the smaller ones down the line, but instead, Dave put “Sweet” at the top of the set. I looked at my monitor guy like he was crazy! I felt like I just swallowed ethanol. I was like, “that’s not going to bring the set up at all… I was looking to raise it. But, it’s those types of things that happen where, you go out there and you try to get yourself in the heart of the set, but some sets, you don’t feel it as much. If I go out and want to rock real hard and we have a mellow set, it’s hard. But, at the same time, if Carter and I are really ready to have a mellow song it can have the reverse effect. It sounds like you’re trying too hard. So, for Hartford I suggested “Halloween” because we never played it there. Steve was there, our manager has a lot to do with it too. He will come around and say “the crowd really wants to hear this”, so there’s a lot of input, and it all comes from Dave’s initial place of what he feels good doing. When he says “I feel good playing these songs” I’m always like “yeah, okay cool! Let’s do this”. It might be a little slow to start but let’s see what happens. I’ll never say a set sucks because to me the set is art, and I don’t think any of our art sucks.
DMBFP: I never think any of your sets are terrible because it’s a lot different when you’re standing there in the moment, and when you’re looking at it on paper. For example, Hartford Night 1, there were so many negative responses regarding the Encore specifically “Cornbread”, and to me, I thought the encore was great. “Cornbread” is a great song to end a set with because it’s upbeat and there’s a night 2 coming.
SL: I secretly love doing “Cornbread” now because I hear the chatter about it. Why do people hate “Cornbread” so much?
DMBFP: I have no idea! I love it!
SL: Yeah, it’s like old school funk for us. I love it!
DMBFP: Is there ever a time when you’re in the studio where you think “I don’t like those lyrics”?
SL: You know, we might help someone out if someone is having trouble trying to find themselves in the song if we have an idea, but we don’t ever criticize what they decide to do, especially if their heart is in it. Whether it’s a drum section, a bass line, unless it’s obviously horrible and clashing, that has never come up after 21 years. There might be lyrics that I don’t particularly like in a song, or it might evoke a memory that I don’t want to think about, but that’s what songs do. I think that being a musician and being in a band that is so lyrical its part of the process. I have always had faith in Dave, and the poetry Dave has. I am a poet myself, I just don’t put it out there as much because I don’t have the vehicle to do so, but Dave as a mentor, he is someone that I look up to when it comes to writing lyrics, so if anything I just take quiet notes and sit back.
DMBFP: Do your kids understand what you do and who you are?
SL: They understand. Flora is more impressed with a few of the road stories that I’ve told her, than the actual fact that I’m on stage. My other daughter, has an incredible singing voice and was already a lead in the “Little Mermaid”. She was Ariel, she is 8 years old and is just a natural at it! She has great memorization, and incredible pitch, so she understands it. She understands the stage part of it. They both do, but I don’t know if they respect me for it, haha.
DMBFP: Wait until they start googling you! There’s always this notion around the band that you all smoke before the show and go on stage in a less than flattering state. Do these rumors have any validity?
SL: We juice! Jeff Coffin is back there making fresh beets, apples, celery and all sorts of stuff. This is the first year I’ve been juicing, so maybe that’s why I’m a little more vigorous on stage. I definitely feel like I have amazing energy. And, its kinda cool having the same energy as everyone else has. I know Carter just drank as much juice as I did and to have these vitamins sort of pouring through you. But, there was a time we used to have… You know, in the early days, we drank on stage. Carter and I used to pass a bottle of Jack back and forth. We always smoked cigarettes. We were a gnarly little band of twenty and thirty something years old. But, when it got to the point of where it’s at now, we look at the show much like a football player looks at a game. It’s a party, but we are bringing the party now.
DMBFP: After all these years, is it still fun for you or has it become a chore?
SL: Well, it’s fun and it’s not a chore. It’s only a chore if you’re having issues; whether it is on stage or with yourself. Not every night does the music put you in your super happy place. You have to find it. But, on a whole, it doesn’t matter what song it is, it’s just the interplay. There’s always moments with every song we play, and there’s always someone that you connect with. Some of the songs are harder to get across. Some of the “Stand Up” songs are hard to get across live. We don’t feel like we really succeeded with those…
DMBFP: You brought back “American Baby” and American Baby Intro” at the Caravan..
SL: “American Baby” is pretty easy to play, and “Baby Intro” is great. It’s just how they were recorded. In the Lillywhite produced albums, they are recorded live so we play them maybe twenty five times in the studio, and he took the best of the performances. So, it’s easier.
DMBFP: You really started this following on Twitter. You revolutionized the way people view Twitter because you made it interactive. And, I know from my own perspective and from stories that I’ve heard from other fans that being able to interact with you makes coming to the shows and the band that much more interesting because you respond, and make it all relatable. It makes us all feel as if we are part of something. What made you start using twitter that way?
SL: It’s so funny because back when Dave was doing the solo project, I realized I was supposed to work on that record, and it got pushed and pushed and eventually I never did. So, maybe I felt like I had to do something else on my own outside my band. I wanted to do a solo record, but BT had just finished his solo record, and I didn’t really like how the record company handled his record. I didn’t want to go through RCA, so I thought “you know what, I’m going to make my own website. Ill push my music, tour and make it really interactive. People can sign up”. My idea was like “MySpace”, but MySpace had literally just happened. So, someone told me to go on MySpace, so I did. I set up an account, out of the blue, and boom! One person was like “wait a minute… is this?!” and overnight it grew. I had 100, 200 so then it grew a little bit. It was still on a small scale. So, I started the MySpace thing for a little bit. I did some blogs, got in a little trouble with some fans, called some people out. Learned the ropes of social networking and how to act online. Then, Facebook came. Facebook is like the middle ground between MySpace and Twitter. I went from MySpace to Facebook straight to Twitter. To me, Facebook, it was too much. At first it was too college oriented, and then it was too much all wrong. I hated the apps, I hated the games, I hated the pokes! MySpace was still cool and artsy but then MySpace got boggled by ads, which made Facebook look cool all of a sudden. So, I did the albums on Facebook. I did the “You and Me” album where you could tag me on Facebook. But, then I went to Twitter. I remember going to Jenny and Jason’s house one day and I was like “You gotta check out Twitter! This is the coolest thing! All you do is make headlines! Everyone reads headlines! No one reads blogs, everyone reads headlines! It’s awesome!!” Jenny was like “Whatever, I can’t get involved in anything else”. I was like “Wait! You’ll see!”. And now, she’s like the twitter goddess of comedy and Jason is huge. He has way more followers than I do..
DMBFP: I think “American Pie” has a lot to do with that one!
SL: Yeah, right! That’s the thing with Twitter. It sets a platform for anything to happen in that way. I don’t know where it got to this. There were lulls; there were months where I wouldn’t go on it, and I would follow 100 people. There would be a few mentions. Then, the tour happened and I thought “Well, I’ll follow someone every stop” and that got annoying, so I would follow, unfollow, follow and then I was at 600 or something. But, I would look at my timeline and it would be “negative, negative, negative”. And I thought, I don’t want to be reading the minds of my fans! I don’t want to know interior stuff. So, then I was like… alright, defollow everyone! Go back to the few people I keep up with. But, I guess this last spring I thought that I always wanted to do something before the tour, but with this last album everyone was like “stay hush, low key” so I couldn’t really do much. But, by the time the tour came up I was like “I’m going to blow shit up! I’m just going to start following everybody!”. If you want a follow, just don’t make it negative and I’ll follow you. I then discovered lists, and that helped out. I can still look at my few family and friends.. .I only have like 10 so that worked out. I don’t really look at my timeline, but if I wanted to I could. And, now I have all the fans in the “inner circle” timelines. It all worked equal. I never planned on any of it. I didn’t know you could fill up lists. Like, once the list is filled, you have to make a new list. So, once “Inner Circle” was filled, I had to make a new list. So, now I was like “What do I call them?”. At the time, I was reading this book on North Korea. And, in North Korea they’re all about divisions. Division 1, Division 2.. I work in Division 5, go over to Division 25.. It’s all divisions! So, I thought, that’s pretty cool. So, I made “Inner Circle, Division 1”, that filled up, I made division 2 and division 3. It’s so funny because I still have people who freak out and are like “What does it mean to be in division 2?!” and, then of course, you forget that you have to back tweet. If you really want to see what someone says, you have to back tweet and read back. And, if you read back you’ll see that I explain myself many of times about the lists and divisions and there are still old school twitter followers who still don’t get the division thing.
DMBFP: Last question, what do you want your legacy to be?
SL: Well, I just want to leave as much art as possible, whatever art it turns out to be. If it’s my bass playing, if its paintings or drawings. I’m not even forty yet. If I have another thirty years of making music outside of the band, what are those thirty years going to hold? I have no idea what my legacy is going to be, but I definitely just want to leave as much art as possible.
We finish our meal, and outside the restaurant Fonz shares his amazing pictures from the graveyard at Hartford. After a few pictures, autographs, and hugs, we each go our separate ways, once again becoming little ants.
You’re probably wondering what happened to DMBfanpage, or that boy, or how I started securing press passes to photograph the band. This will be a continued tale- maybe I’ll take you on Dave’s bus with me, or regale you about the time I was robbed by a Meth Addict at the Gorge while staying in a Yurt.
As a little note, there might be a lot of “I’s” written, but this was done with a lot of “we’s”, too. His part of the story is not mine to share: it’s tricky to untangle your memories, which is probably why I never tried before. So, if he is reading this, which he might be, know that a decade later, I still think what we accomplished is pretty cool.
I’ll see you Thursday for a little bit of Salt.