Early in 1991 Dave Matthews decided to put the songs he'd been writing on tape. And rather than record only his voice and guitar, he decided to gather some other musicians to give the project a fuller sound. As a bartender at Charlottesville's premier jazz venue, Miller's, Dave had seen and heard much of the local and regional talent, including Carter and LeRoi who were well known throughout the area for their jazz chops. Dave told them about his plans to record his songs, and they agreed to help him. Stefan, who at the age of 16 had already gained the respect of local musicians as an excellent upright and electric bass player, was chosen for the project because, as Dave said, "I just had a feeling about him, his spirit, his sense of the music. It was so much beyond his years." Rounding out the quintet back then was keyboard player Peter Griesar, a fellow Miller's employee and friend of Dave's who joined in as the band rehearsed at the club. When strings were needed for a tune the band was working on, band members called on Boyd Tinsley and his high-energy violin. After sitting in with the band on a few different occasions, Boyd was asked to join full-time, and The Dave Matthews Band was born.

After several rehearsals in basements (first Carter's mom's, then Dave's mom's), they were ready to play in public. The first gig was May 11, 1991 at a party on the roof of an apartment building in Charlottesville. About 40 people were in attendance that night. Their first open-to-the-public performance was at the 1991 Earth Day Festival on Charlottesville's Downtown Mall. That exposure led to regular Tuesday night gigs at a small restaurant called Eastern Standard. The owner of Trax nightclub (the largest music venue in town) heard them play one night and suggested they move the Tuesday night gigs to Trax. The band agreed and were soon filling Trax to capacity with locals and University of Virginia students week after week.

As word spread of the infectious new sound coming out of Charlottesville, the Tuesday night gig evolved into three-, four-, and five-day tours around the region. Having always allowed fans to tape shows for their own enjoyment and for trading, the music often arrived in towns before the band did! Frequently, audiences were well acquainted with the band's music before ever seeing a live performance. Consequently, the band began drawing considerable crowds throughout the Southeast. As fans traded tapes and mailed them to friends around the country, club owners got wind of DMB as a hot live act. The tour schedule expanded north to Philadelphia and New York and west to Boulder, Colorado.

As the fan base grew, so did the demand for an album. Dave's original demo tape that brought them all together had long since been forgotten, and Peter had left the band. Not wanting to interrupt their touring schedule and hoping to capture the energy of a typical performance, DMB decided to release a live album. They chose The Muse Music Club on Nantucket as the site and recorded "Remember Two Things" in August of 1993.

DMB's first album was released November 9 of that year and was distributed independently from the tiny Charlottesville office that served as the DMB home base. Fans loved "Remember Two Things" immediately, and it debuted November 22 on the College Music Journal chart as the highest independent entry.

In February of 1994 DMB released another independent record, a 5-song EP entitled "Recently." It contained previously unreleased material and one remixed song from "R2T." At that time the disc was only available at live shows or through mail order.

While all this was going on, the band kept touring. And the number of fans kept growing. DMB appeared with the summer 1993 HORDE Tour in Richmond, Virginia and Raleigh, North Carolina and as the opening act for Phish, Blues Traveler, Colonel Bruce and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, and several other prominent touring acts.

1994 proved to be a huge year for DMB. They played their first theater shows as the headliner. They toured the country most of the summer, and spent three weeks as part of the HORDE. They also recorded and released their major label debut. "Under the Table and Dreaming" (recorded in Bearsville, NY) was released on September 27th and DMB left the country in November for their first European tour. They returned to the States to close out the year as they had the previous two years with a sold out NewYear's Eve show in Richmond.

The band spent the first half of 1995 on tour with Big Head Todd and the Monsters and on DMB's first "official" US tour promoting their major label debut.  After another European tour in June (this one comprising mainly opening slots at large festivals and some club shows), DMB hit the road for the rest of the summer. With the exception of HORDE shows in Milwaukee and Chicago, Dionne Farris was their support act for this stint of touring.

Late in 1995 DMB went back to the Bearsville studio to record their second major label album. Recording "Crash" kept the band busy until almost the end of the year. They managed a brief post-Christmas tour and ended 1995 with two shows at the Hampton Colliseum in Hampton, Virginia December 30 and 31.

The band toured promoting "Crash" starting in Richmond on April 30, the day "Crash" was released. DMB also spent several weeks in Europe that year.  The year once again drew to a close with a New Year's Eve show in Hampton, Virginia.

Dave Matthews Band took a needed and well-deserved break from touring in 1997. Having toured and recorded for the better part of five years, the time off in 1997 was the longest break in DMB's history. The band went out for a six week tour that summer with support acts Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and Los Lobos.

Following a short break, DMB went back into the studio (this time just outside San Francisco) and recorded their latest release, "Before These Crowded Streets" available in stores now. The band kicked off their 98/99 international tour with a sold out stadium show in Roanoke, Virginia, and just finished the first leg of that tour with another sold out show at Giants Stadium, in New Jersey.

Dave is a self- taught lifelong lover of music. He credits his family with instilling in him an interest in all types of music. Dave draws from the folk traditions of many cultures from around the globe, finding common themes among their complex rhythms. For him, making music is about bringing people together, "lifting spirits." Says Dave: "It's a good focus; to try to bring people together rather than separate them."
 

Sometimes Boyd finds it strange that he abandoned the reserved precision of classical violin for the spontaneity of a contemporary musical performance. "This was an area I hadn't explored before," says Boyd, who has been playing popular music since 1985. "When I'm really into the music, my whole body, my whole soul is into it." The band's diverse roots are a great asset, Boyd says. "We're very American, as Dave says. Jazz, fiddle-style, rock, it's almost a melting pot of American music." "People are drawn into it," he says. "There's passion here."
 

LeRoi and Carter have been jazz compatriots for years, playing together at paying gigs and informal jam sessions. "Jazz is probably my main influence," admits LeRoi, who also has classical training. "But at this stage I don't really consider myself a jazz musician." For him, DMB remains a challenge because there is room to explore, to respond to the expressions of the other four players. "I have plenty of space to improvise, to try new ideas," says LeRoi, whom Dave credits with arranging many of the songs he writes. "It's almost better than a jazz gig."
 

Stefan Lessard is a musician whose age belies his talent. An upright bass player who has played clubs since the age of 15, he was tapped by Dave who "just had a feeling about him, his spirit, his sense of music: it's so much beyond his years." Stefan admits he feels lucky, but his band members say it's talent, not luck, that has brought him so far so soon. "The best thing about this band," Stefan says, "is that you get this great mix of different styles."

"I was raised on jazz," says Beauford. The son of a jazz trumpet player, his jazz influence is evident in the makeup of DMB. "Except for Stefan's bass guitar, we're an acoustic band," he says. "That comes from the early days of jazz, and from the classical influence too." The result is a multi-textured sound that offers new challenges to Carter and the other band members. "There are so many different elements in our music," he says. "You really can't put a label on it, and that's why I love it so much."  Carter was a history teacher before he joined the Dave Matthews Band.