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Dave Matthews Band music biography continued...

Dave Matthews grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa, but moved to Charlottesville, Virginia to avoid joining the South African military to fight in favor of an apartheid political system. Soon, Matthews was writing songs and jamming with other talent at the city's premier bar for local musicians. By spring 1991, the Dave Matthews Band played its first concert at a rooftop party in Charlottesville with its soon-to-be permanent lineup: Matthews, Beauford, Moore, virtuosic violinist Boyd Tinsley, and bassist Stefan Lessard. The band built up a fan base by allowing fans to record and circulate tapes of the band's performances. The band's first record, 1993's Remember Two Things, was an indie success on the college charts and eventually went gold. RCA signed Matthews and released Under the Table and Dreaming, which yielded the hits "What Would You Say," "Ants Marching," and "Satellite." Within a year, Under the Table and Dreaming was four times platinum. 1996's Crash debuted at #2 on the pop albums chart and earned DMB a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performances by a Duo or Group in 1997 for "So Much to Say." The award solidified their status as one of the preeminent pop/rock groups of the decade.



At the beginning of the new millennium, Dave Matthews took time out from the group to record a solo album and was rewarded with a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for "Gravedigger." The Dave Matthews Band reunited and returned to the road in 2004, releasing some live material. They also joined Bruce Springsteen's Vote for Change tour toward the end of the year, just as their mail-order-only DMB Live Trax series debuted. In 2005, he reunited with the band and came out with Stand Up, which became the group's fourth consecutive album to make it to the top spot on the Billboard charts, making them the only band to do so other than U2. Clearly, the Dave Matthews Band has reached a level of superstardom that few other musical acts could claim.