Can't find a top-notch recording studio in town? Just buy a custom home and convert it.

At least that's an option after you've sold 17 million albums and routinely fill stadiums across the country.

After years on the road, the Dave Matthews Band wanted to stick close to home to record the follow-up to Before These Crowded Streets, but the combo couldn't find an adequate studio in Charlottesville, Va. Instead, the band found a house with a huge dance hall built by a developer who hoped to lure friends and family to parties at the remote, lakeshore home. But the house was too remote and the parties too infrequent. The house went on the market, and before long the band had its new recording studio.

"It's this mostly brick place that's sitting out on a lake here in Virginia that's just perfect. It's hard to believe that it wasn't built to be a studio," Matthews said.

"We ended up buying it. It will be a place where we can go when we're off the road. I'll be able to call up (drummer) Carter (Beauford) or anyone else in the band, and I'll say: 'Listen, I've got an idea. Let's go into the studio and record it.'

"It's got a similar vibe of the early days, when the band was rehearsing together, when we'd sit outside talking and throwing the football around and then we'd go inside and play music, sitting in a circle together."

Maybe it's a tad too comfortable. The group's fourth major-label studio album was scheduled to be in stores in the spring, just in time for the band's now-routine summer stadium tour. But the album's release has been pushed back until November, meaning the combo doesn't have new product to push during the 2000 tour.

"There was no real push to get finished," Matthews said. "If you're far from home, there's the urge to finish things, because you're away, you're at work. Obviously, being at home is a distraction, albeit a good distraction. It was nice to be home. The years in the recent past have been quite rushed for us, and it was nice to rediscover our friendships and our kinship to each other."

Not even the band's label was worried about the delays for what will probably be another multiplatinum album.

"It seems strange to have a record company say: 'No. No hurry."' the singer said. "I don't know if they're expecting to be incredibly disappointed. I wouldn't put it past them — unless we all put our instruments down, get real fit and start dancing."

Matthews is alluding to the choreographed boy bands that rule the charts these days. But his group has never had any problem bucking trends. A jam band that also sells records and gets played all over radio, the Dave Matthews Band has created a genuinely unique niche that rides above the fickle fads.

For its next album, the combo is again working with producer Steve Lillywhite, who produced the outfit's last three studio albums. And after loading its last disc full of guests, the group has pared the production down to its five members (Matthews, Beauford, violinist Tinsley Boyd, bassist Steffan Lessard and saxophonist LeRoi Moore).

The less-crowded approach has given the group a lean and more direct sound, Matthews said.

"It's great that it's the five of us, although I can think of no other guitar player I'd rather be in the room with than Tim Reynolds. But the band started out in the basement, and that's the sound we love. And that we're back in Virginia, recording with the five of us — it's a great way to come full circle.

"The fact that it's the five of us, it has added a real punchy-ness, a spare-ness to the music. Also, I've had a chance to step forward. I've never had a real faith in my guitar playing. I'm also surprised in the faith that a lot of the guys have in my guitar playing.

"I was really happy to find that, because Lillywhite is always tearing me down. Once we finish recording, he was always, 'OK, first let's turn Dave off, then mix the recording.' Especially when you have a great guitarist like Tim, you're not going to search through the buzzes and splinters of my guitar playing to find the good bits."

The album doesn't have a title yet, although the group is starting to bandy about ideas. One candidate under consideration: Busted Stuff, "because of the many connotations that I'll leave up to you, and anybody else," Matthews said. "Also the way it sounds. It's kind of silly."

The group is giving some of the songs a road test this summer, including Bartender, Digging a Ditch and a song tentatively titled JTR.

"They sound great in the studio, but it will be great to come back with the confidence of having played them live," he said.

"Also, it's good to see how people react. Like maybe on one night we play it a little faster, or maybe there's a part that we thought would be a minor part, and it's clear it should become a major part. There's a song called Sweet Up And Down that we've been playing, and there's a part that I thought could be in the song quite a bit, but Steve (Lillywhite) said, 'We don't want to put that in the song too much.' But once we started playing live, it was one of those parts that the crowd really gets off on. So now we're going to throw it in all the time," he said, laughing.

"Not to overdo it, but if you do something once in a song, and it's the high point of the song and it just makes people dance, then maybe you should put it in two or three times."

The wait for the new album will be nothing compared with how long it will take to see the singer's acting debut. Matthews was cast in the remake of Where the Red Fern Grows, a remake of the 1974 movie based on Wilson Rawls' children's book. However, funding for the film dried up before it was completed.

But, talk about strange relationships: Matthews struck a strong friendship with Dabney Coleman, the 67-year-old actor from Nine to Five, On Golden Pond and WarGames.

"If nothing else comes from this movie, and obviously I hope something does come from it, at least I got to meet everybody there. Most especially Dabney Coleman. There's no end to his wisdom and fun," Matthews said.

Then why not bring Coleman out on the road with the Dave Matthews Band?

"Oh, no," Matthews said with a laugh. "Although I wouldn't mind going on the road with him. But I don't know if we'd be performing or just looking at the world."