ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE NAMES DAVE AS ONE OF THE 'PEOPLE OF THE YEAR'
December, 2001 --- "DAVE MATTHEWS:ON THE ROAD, HE WAS STILL THE KING. AT HOME, HE BECAME A DAD"

"I'm sort of a haphazard person," says Dave Matthews. "Not real organized. But everything seems to be falling in place for me right now." No joke. The Dave Matthews Band's 2001 release, Everyday, has sold close to 3 million copies since its February release (making it the eighth-best-selling record of the year), and the band's summer tour - its first full-on stadium outing - sold more tickets than 'NSync or the Backstreet Boys. The man didn't do too bad at home, either: In August, Matthews' wife, Ashley, gave birth to twin girls, Stella and Grace. Not that family life has slowed him down. In the four days after we talked, Matthews traveled from his home in Seattle to San Francisco to play solo at the Bridge School Benefit, then to Virginia to shoot a video with the band, then to London for another solo show.

QUESTION: You started a family this year.

My wife and I had twins! That was a high point that kind of overshadowed everything else. And, just a few days ago, Carter [Beauford], who plays drums for us, had a little daughter. I feel blessed, and now my daughters have just started to have human qualities beyond crying - little smiles and things like that - so that's occupied the majority of my conscious waking hours. Sleep is not as big a priority as it was. Two babies is a hundred times more work than one baby. If my wife and I have one kid after this, it'll be a piece of cake. But I don't know - maybe we'll get two again, or maybe we'll get three.

QUESTION: Were you on the road when they were born?

No. We had canceled about fifteen or twenty shows knowing that the twins were coming sometime in August or September. Actually [laughs], I had a conversation with them before they were born and said that they should come on the 15th of August, because that was perfect timing. And they did! It gave me about a week and a half to be with them before we did a few more shows.

QUESTION: Will fatherhood make touring harder?

It will probably make us participate more heavily in the planning of tours, and we'll probably take some family out. We'll have nanny buses. Family buses, which will be exciting.

QUESTION: What was the high point for the band this year?

We had a great summer, one of the best we've had. I knew things were going well when we went to L.A. and played Dodger Stadium. L.A. is a difficult place to play, but it was great this time; the whole summer was a real fine musical moment for us. We got along real well all summer.

QUESTION: You scrapped an entire record before making Everyday, and it ended up geting bootlegged on the Internet. Did that bother you?

I would have preferred it if the album we hadn't finished didn't get out, although it's been well-received. It was like having a painting and not finishing it, and then seeing it show up in a gallery. It would have been nice if we could have put the tag on it. But overall, I think it's a blessing in some ways, because people still enjoy it. More than likely we'll probably cut those songs again.

QUESTION: You recently performed solo at the Groundwork benefit in Seattle and at the Bridge School Benefit in the Bay Area. Do you like doing it alone?

Well, I'm intimidated playing alone. I love playing with the band so much. I've never worked at anything nearly as hard, so there's really a sense of freedom and accomplishment when we all play together. It's odd when I'm out by myself, because on top of having terrible stage fright, I have to comfort myself with the thought that I'm out there representing the band, not just myself. But I'm still always kinda like, "How did I get here?"

QUESTION: How different is the world after September 11th?

I think we're gonna see there's a lot of changes, and I think we're right at the beginning of those changes. We can only hope that peace will prevail, and not at the expense of too many things that are beautiful and wonderful in the world. There is no madness that human beings unleash on the world greater than war. For me personally, there is a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty, but we must carry on and live as lovingly as we can. It's a very uncertain time.

QUESTION: Do you approve of U.S. military action?

I was raised and I've always been a strong believer in nonviolence. But what do we do when we're faced with this sort of thing? I certainly couldn't stand up and say peace is the only answer. [Al Qaeda] is an organization that is destitute of the capacity to empathize with people suffering, destitute of any respect for women. It just boggles our minds. So where I would say let's go peacefully in most instances, you can't say that about coming face to face with this kind of evil. You can't say, "Well, I'll offer my hand in peace," because they will remove it. I find it impossible to forgive an organization like that. I also find it relatively impossible to live in a world where that kind of organization is allowed to flourish, entirely in hatred. What I wish could happen is that someone could reach down from the heavens and just pluck them like weeds in a garden. That would be the great answer, if we had some heavenly tweezers.

QUESTION: Your band decided to cancel its upcoming European tour. Was it a hard decision?

There's a big part of me that just wanted to carry on, because it's important to do that, but some people in the band felt that they didn't want to be far away from home at this time. People feel insecure. I'm disappointed that we're not going to do it, but I'm realizing that there's more important things than whether or not we play.

QUESTION: Will pop music become more serious now?

To pretend that we can encapsulate the horror in pop music is a little shortsighted. Music in the Sixties and early Seventies obviously became a very strong record of the anti-war struggle, but at the same time frivolous entertainment has also thrived in times of war and trouble. Because one of the properties of music is to entertain and to - I don't mean this lightly - distract us from the things that pull us down. Music should be not only a source for political ideas but also a source of hope, for the simple things in life - like dancing.

QUESTION: Do you have any resolutions for 2002?

To spend more time with my babies, spend more time with my family. That's what I want to do. And I'm going to practice saying no. I have a hard time doing that.