Dave Matthews Mixes It Up

After the arduous final recording sessions for 2002's Busted Stuff, Dave Matthews Band made some big changes: The guys gutted their studio outside Charlottesville, Virginia, rebuilt it to state-of-the-art specifications and hired Eminem's producer to record the follow-up.

Brooklyn-born multi-instrumentalist Mark Batson, who co-produced Eminem's "Mosh" with Dr. Dre and has worked with 50 Cent, the Game and Gwen Stefani, brought a novel approach to recording the band's sixth studio album. In October, when DMB returned from the Vote for Change Tour, Batson hooked up with band members individually, getting ideas on tape. Songs emerged from the five members listening to one another's riffs. "Most bands have one dude, maybe two dudes, who write everything," says Batson. "But all of these guys are amazing musicians, and they all have something unique to say. If we were here for a few more months, we could write a hundred songs."

DMB has cut at least twenty-five songs for the still-untitled album, which is due out in May. The new studio, which sits high above a small lake, boasts a personal chef, a bar and, on this Saturday night in January, a pitcher of magic-mushroom tea in the fridge. "There's something about this place," says bassist Stefan Lessard. "It's like a little home away from home."

"This album," says Matthews, "is about love, life, God, death and sex." Highlights include the supersonic funk jam "Stand Up" and "Old Dirt Hill," a sweet reflection on childhood, built around Boyd Tinsley's plucked violin. Lessard wrote the music for "Hunger for the Great Light," with lyrics about oral sex added by Matthews, who says, "That is our most overt 'fucking' song ever." "American Baby" opens with sounds of bombs dropping, but Matthews says it is meant to be optimistic: "There is a divide in this country. That song is hoping that apple pie and lemonade, baseball and sunny-day barbecues are not going to be replaced by a 'fuck 'em all and let God sort it out' vibe."

At around 11 p.m., twenty DMB employees gather to listen to the tracks. Matthews sips red wine, Batson rolls fat joints and everyone cheers after their favorite songs. Cocktail hour stretches into Sunday morning, and Matthews joins a poker game in the garage. The album is pretty much done. "There are songs I really love that won't make the record," says Matthews. "There are some that appeal to others that I love a little less. It's a weird thing. But we wrote a lot of songs, and that's a good thing to complain about."