Early in 1991 Dave Matthews decided to put some songs he'd been writing on tape. The results, he decided, lacked the full sound he had been looking for, and so he went about gathering other musicians to help with the project. 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. One day while the band was working on a song called Tripping Billies, someone had the idea to add strings, and band members called on Boyd’s 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! This meant that audiences were frequently 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. The demo tape which 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 its November 22 debut on the College Music Journal chart was 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. Meanwhile, 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. Later that year, DMB played opening slots 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. In Bearsville, New York, they recorded their major label debut, "Under the Table and Dreaming". The album was released on September 27th, and after a month of US dates, DMB left the country for their very first European tour. They returned to the States to close out the year as they had the previous two years with a sold out New Year's Eve show in Richmond. The band spent the first half of 1995 with Big Head Todd and the Monsters, on their first official tour. Immediately following, DMB opened two shows for the Grateful Dead at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas. 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. The making of "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 Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia on December 30 and 31. The band started the "Crash"tour on its release date, April 30, 1996. DMB also spent several weeks in Europe that year. Support acts for the US tour included Soul Coughing, Ben Harper, Boxing Ghandis, Me'Shell N'Degeocello, G Love and Special Sauce, Corey Harris, Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise, and Bela Fleck & the Flecktones. The year once again drew to a close with a post Christmas tour ending with the 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 only toured for six weeks that summer with support acts Bela Fleck & the Flecktones and Los Lobos. In September they played Farm Aid with, among others, Willie Nelson, Beck, John Foggerty, and John Mellencamp. That fall, DMB took part in both The Bridge School Benefit in San Francisco as well as two Rolling Stones shows (November 1 in Dallas and December 5 in Miami), in which they shared the stage with Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20, and The Smashing Pumpkins. Each of these shows required a break in their recording of Before These Crowded Streets, their upcoming album which is set for release April 28.
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