As a member of the famous progressive rock quintet, the Dave Matthews Band, violinist Boyd Tinsley somehow found the time to recently record his own solo album entitled "True Reflections" (Bama Rags/ RCA Records, 2003) released earlier this month.
The album features guest appearances by Dave Matthews, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Chris Bruce (with whom Boyd co-wrote many tracks), drummer J.J. Johnson, singers Lisa Germano and Toshi Reagon, keyboardists Patrick Warren and Dave Palmer, and bassist David Piltch.
On the 11-track record, Tinsley covers Neil Young/Crazy Horse's "Cinnamon Girl" arranged as a ballad of sorts.
While in his teens, he studied violin with the then-concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He later became interested in the work of violinists like Stephan Grappelli, Jean-Luc Ponty and Papa John Creach. Tinsley met Matthews while attending the University of Virginia and joined his band in 1991.
Wy talked with Tinsley about the Dave Matthews Band's current tour once again playing stadium shows, along with his recent work that put him in the role as bandleader.
Wy: During the recording sessions, you had a chance to step into the role of a bandleader. Some bandleaders are fairly relaxed while others are highly structured in terms of how they want to present their music. How would you describe your presence in the studio?
Tinsley: It was definitely a more relaxed approach. I brought to the table the songs and Craig Street, who is the producer on this album, is just a great producer. He has worked with a lot of great musicians, a lot of whom he brought in on this project. So I knew that everybody could play since they're all incredible musicians. I just told these people, 'Here are the songs. I'm not going to sit here and tell you what to play. But let's collectively come up with the best way to portray this music.' It's a hard role since it's your music and ultimately you're the one responsible. The good thing for me though was that I had an incredible cast of characters to work with.
Now as a bandleader, you're writing lyrics. How is this process different than writing music?
For me, I started out writing the music and then from the music I'd feel certain things when I'd listen to it. From those feelings would come the words or a story. That's how I'd start and I might build a song from just one line, but it all came from how the music made me feel. I wrote "True Reflections" 10 or 12 years ago and I also co-wrote "So Much To Say" (on 1996 DMB's album "Crash") so I knew songwriting was something that was in me and I always wanted to get into it. So, this project really began because I wanted to write these songs. At the beginning of the process, I didn't realize that I was going to be singing these songs. I'd thought I might take these songs and introduce them to DMB and we might record them, or I thought I might write these songs and get someone else to sing them. But then I began to think that I might sing them. I think just because the songs ended up being more personal in nature, I felt that I should go ahead and sing them.
You play an instrument (violin) that demands you develop an incredible sense of pitch since it has no fret board like a guitar or an electric bass. This is, of course, vital to playing in tune. Do you think your development helped you in learning how to sing?
Definitely and even my whole experience with the Dave Matthews Band since not a lot of the stuff that we do is easy to play. I think one of the things I did realize through this whole process is that I've really learned a lot as a musician just from being in this band for the last 12 years or so.
While on the road, have you had a chance to test out any of your own tunes with the Dave Matthews Band?
Only "True Reflections," but we've actually played this song from the very beginning. However, now we're taking a slightly different interpretation on the song compared to my solo album. A large part of that is because I'm looking at the song and seeing it in a different way. But that's the way we are with all of our songs. All our songs evolve eventually just from playing them over and over again during live gigs. We don't really strive to play songs the same way every night, we do something creative and different with them.
Speaking of 'True Reflections,' the arrangement on your album is varied from the recorded version on the 'Listener Supported' live album, but I'm happy to see you kept those same harmonic lines Dave Matthews sings at the end of it.
That was one thing about that song. I didn't think it would work at all without Dave. To my ears, his singing was just an integral part of it. I think on that song the main thing we were trying to accomplish is to build the song up from this bass line with a huge crescendo with Dave, the Dirty Dozen and Chris Bruce taking a guitar solo, and me playing the violin. It's a slow-build song.
Most of the songs on your album have slow- to mid-tempos and grooves. How conscious were you about making a record slightly different from those high-energy songs synonymous with the DMB?
I think the only thing consciously different was the fact that I'm singing and writing the songs. I don't think there was any conscious effort to be different from the Dave Matthews Band. The thing about all of us is that we came from all different backgrounds. Carter (DMB drummer) was playing fusion jazz and straight-ahead jazz; and Leroi (DMB saxophonist) was playing in funk, rock and jazz bands. I had played in a country and a rock band, and Dave had never even been in a band before, he just had these songs written down. This is just a sampling of my former background before the band. I grew up in the 1970s listening to a lot of the big guitar bands like Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. These people are heavy influences on me. This album for me is sort of going back to my roots as a musician.
There always seems to be a theme for bands on tour as far as what the members are listening to during that time. Do you experience this?
Oh yeah.
Do you think it affects your playing?
I know it does, but I don't know exactly how. I definitely do know that every tour there is sort of like an album that I might gravitate toward more so than others. I'm still sorting it out on this tour since we're only a month in, so we got about 2-1/2 months to go. Actually so far, it has been a big Joni Mitchell tour for me, her "Blue" album.
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