The Devil and Dave Matthews

Some Devil has a clarity. The lyrics are more complete than any album I've done before. A lot of times I get in this corner where I say, "Now I've got to finish these lyrics." That wasn't the case with Some Devil.

"Gravedigger" is about slavery, a mother losing her children in World War II and the death of an eight-year-old. How did a gloomy song like that become the first single? The songs I was most drawn to -- "Gravedigger" and "Some Devil" -- were the ones that would be the least likely to fit the mood of radio nowadays. And people were like, "What do we do? Christ. Put the one with some drum beats on it." But I'm glad. It's a lonely song that dwells on the topics we're more inclined to escape. One radio station said it didn't want to play the song anymore because a woman had phoned in saying it made her cry. I was like, "Oh, thank you. I succeeded." If I induced vomiting -- that would be different.

You include a bit of "Ring Around the Rosie" in "Gravedigger." This is not the first time you've incorporated a children's song in your music. What's the attraction?

Kids come up with really great songs. I didn't know what to do for a bridge in that song, and I hadn't used that nursery rhyme before [laughs]. I believe "Ring Around the Rosie" was something that kids would sing during the plague. It's the classic of classics about dying. Nowadays, can you imagine what kids in Sierra Leone or Baghdad are doing? Probably picking up pieces of buildings or body parts and dancing around with them. Just like singing songs when everyone in your European town is dropping dead.

How will you approach the next Dave Matthews Band album?

So much of the writing on Some Devil was done by me -- or [producer] Steve Harris and me -- playing a click track and getting ideas down, building songs piece by piece, taking things apart and rearranging things on the computer. It's something I'd like to get into with the band: all of our heads facing the same task at the same time. We did that with Before These Crowded Streets, which I think is our best album. It had a lot of surprises.

Is that your game plan, or the band's game plan?

I think it would become everyone's idea [smiles]. This summer was the best tour we've ever had. The music was so on. Carter [drummer Beauford] was driving like a maniac, and everyone else rose to the occasion. This next record, we'll build around Carter. When you have such a strong hand in the rhythm section, then you can be a little more aggressive and experimental.

DMB uses a microphone system that allows you guys to communicate with one another onstage. What do you talk about during shows?

We talk about rude shit. Just bad humor.

Do you talk about girls in the audience?

Yeah. Sometimes we're kind of brutal. We might just laugh at someone who can't dance, the size of breasts. We talk shit about each other. I spend a lot of time asking Carter how much I suck.