Latest Dave Matthews Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I think making things that aren't necessarily shiny, happy feelings, putting them in that environment is sometimes an easy way to deal with the ugliness. Like, I know that as a kid, that I found - I think I learned this a bit from my mother - that if I could be as warm around strangers, no matter how strange or what different environment I was in, that people tended to be warm back.

  Dave Matthews

  Mother, Kids, Thinking

  "Dave Matthews: An Unlikely Rock Star At The Crossroads". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. August 13, 2010.

• I find a therapy in playing music, in many different ways. At this point, I'm incredibly grateful for the relationship that it's given me with the men that I play music with. It's a great journey, and I'm really grateful for that. And also, being able to scream at the top of my lungs in front of people is very therapeutic.

  Dave Matthews

  Grateful, Journey, Men

  Source: www.wbur.org

• The melodies are always the most important part to me. I am pulled more to the groove than the chord progression. After you find the groove, you find the most simple chord progressions and then sit inside that groove.

  Dave Matthews

  Simple, Important, Progression

• I know I have a very unusual style of playing, where other more recognized and technically proficient players might look at me and wonder what the heck I'm doing. The purpose of my learning to play the way I do was more to accompany my singing. I figured out a style where I'm mentally playing the drums over a simple melody.

  Dave Matthews

  Simple, Player, Style

• I have always been drawn to percussion and drums, to bass and piano, in music much more then I am drawn to the guitar and the other lead instruments.

  Dave Matthews

  Guitar, Piano, Bass

• I don't touch electric guitars. It's just not my thing - I stick with acoustic guitars only.

  Dave Matthews

  Guitar, Acoustics, Sticks

• I grew up in a very politically aware family. My mother always taught me to question everything, never believing anything simply at face value - especially the nicest, most adamant politicians.

  Dave Matthews

  Mother, Believe, Faces

• Sometimes it's nice to be able to reflect on the music itself and then write lyrics that I feel anyone can relate to. It's not my dreaming tree that is dead. The feeling of a loss of hope is universal. There are moments that we've all felt a little bit of it, so I don't think it is something that is too hard to identify with.

  Dave Matthews

  Dream, Nice, Writing

• I feel that I have worked my whole life to get to the point where I should have a good understanding of women.

  Dave Matthews

  Should Have, Understanding, Whole Life

• 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.

  Dave Matthews

  Mistake, Fixing, Forget

• People are not very pro-active in general, I think, because we are too busy rushing blindly towards our own goals.

  Dave Matthews

  Thinking, Rushing, Goal

• I think we have to be active in teaching our children, and teaching each other. We have to be active about kindness and about peace. I've always fantasized that it would be great if there was a Department of Peace. We have a military, but what if there was a department devoted entirely and truthfully to finding peaceful resolutions?

  Dave Matthews

  Children, Kindness, Military

  Source: www.cnn.com

• When I was a kid growing up in New York, I was pretty unaware of racism. I think when we're young - before we lose our innocence - we're sort of unaware of the more flawed qualities of each other.

  Dave Matthews

  New York, Growing Up, Kids

  Source: www.cnn.com

• It's so hard for me to even acknowledge America without talking about race. If you look at our society, if you look at the prisons, if you look at the poverty and which side of the line the majority of people are, we have to acknowledge how we divide ourselves up, that there's racism alive in this country. And it's not in the law. It's in our minds. And that's what we have to actively battle.

  Dave Matthews

  Country, Race, Talking

  Source: www.cnn.com

• I think we should all talk to our enemies and talk to our friends. Talk! That's the only way we'll find solutions.

  Dave Matthews

  Thinking, Enemy, Way

  Source: www.cnn.com

• We spend a lot of time bickering at great cost, and very little time actually coming up with solutions. And I think we misuse our ambition for our own gains and rarely for the betterment of ourselves, and people around us and our environment. And I think that's sort of pathetic and desperate.

  Dave Matthews

  Ambition, Thinking, People

  Source: www.cnn.com

• I don't feel like I'm standing in a position where I have some right above other people to say what I think. We should all be talking to each other about what we think is important - whether we're in politics, or whether we're checking out at a grocery store. We shouldn't put walls up between each other.

  Dave Matthews

  Wall, Thinking, Talking

  Source: www.cnn.com

• Probably most of the time I watch children's movies because my kids are on the bus, so it requires them.

  Dave Matthews

  Children, Kids, Watches

  Source: www.today.com

• I'm not a real gadgety person. In fact, some people think that I'm kind of primitive.

  Dave Matthews

  Real, Thinking, People

  Source: www.today.com

• I'm not a real gadgety person. But bottle opener is probably the gadget I can't live without. Actually, I can open a bottle of beer pretty easily without it, but wine is always too much of a pain in the (rear) to open that up. So a corkscrew is probably the gadget that I can't live without.

  Dave Matthews

  Pain, Real, Wine

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

• 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.

  Dave Matthews

  Atlas, I Can

  "Dave Matthews no longer Strangely Brown". Associated Press interview, www.today.com. May 27, 2005.