'I was touring with the Stones, and I completely forgot the words to Memory Motel'

TALKTIME:DAVE MATTHEWS Actor, activist and frontman of the Dave Matthews Band

First of all, congratulations on your performance at the Grammys. Very understated, I thought . . . Only what, 40, 50 people onstage?

(Laughs) Well, you know, we were understated in our own way. There may have been 46 people onstage, but every one of them was actually playing.

No passengers . . .

No passengers!

Who was the first musician you saw as a child that made you sit up and think, wow?

I remember as a small kid, maybe five or six years old, seeing Pete Seeger play at the Clearwater Festival on the Hudson River and just loving the idea of people being able to make music together. A few years later, I was holding a tennis racquet, pretending to play Beatles songs. It wasn’t until my early 20s, though, that I had the courage to actually stand up and play my own music in front of people.

As a touring outfit today, the Dave Matthews Band is up there with U2 and the Stones in terms of ticket sales. But you have a much lower profile.

Our success in Europe certainly hasn’t been spurred by the press or MTV or anything like that. Those things kind of followed behind us. Once we had an audience, then MTV occasionally mentioned us and the newspaper might write an article. When we started out, I don’t think our fashion decisions, or our general awkwardness, boded well for us on television. Maybe our music lacked a singular quality. I don’t know. But we’ve been very fortunate overall, so I’m not complaining.

You play Dublin next month. Do you at least appreciate the relative anonymity you enjoy over here?

Sure, last time we were in Dublin, not only did we walk the beautiful city streets, but we visited Howth, looked at the sea and saw some strange birds. We even had a couple of pints before heading back to town. I wouldn’t say we were anonymous though – we’re still noisy Americans. Our asses hang out no matter what we do.

The Dave Matthews Band is regarded as a quintessentially American band. But you were born and spent a substantial amount of your youth in South Africa. Do you still go back there?

Oh, I have lots of family and friends there, and I go back quite a bit. I spent a lot of my childhood in New York, but most of my teens in South Africa. When I finished high school, my choices were to go to back to the States or join the South African military. And I certainly wasn’t going to join the military under apartheid. My mother still hears the influence of South African music in my songs. No so much in the chords or the melodies, but in the idea of music as part of the blood and the earth and the sky – something you pass on. Not a product.

The band has been together for 20 years, but your most recent album, ‘Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King’, is among your most successful. How do you avoid lapsing into ‘Greatest Hits’ mode?

Well, I tend to look at bands that still inspire me, like U2. They’re still making legitimate records. Not everyone is as good as the last, granted. But some are still better than the one that came before. I think the big motivator is fear of sucking – I don’t want to stop yet.

At 43, you’re a relative youngster in rock-star terms. What’s it like to share a stage with members of the Mount Rushmore generation: Neil Young, the Stones, people like that . . .

It’s terrifying. There was one night in Amsterdam when I was touring with the Stones, and I completely forgot the words to Memory Motel. I didn’t know how to apologise to Mick the next day, so I asked if I’d gotten any of the lyrics right. He said, “No, I don’t think you did.” And this is the part I’ll always remember – he sat down at the piano in the hotel and played. And I sang over his shoulder. I mean, walking out in front of 50,000 people is one thing. But singing together, when there was no one else in the room, was just crazy.

Finally, what did you make of John Edwards promising his mistress that you would play at their wedding

(Laughs) Well, he’s a bit of a “Slick Willy”. There was always a “niceness” about him, I thought, that alluded to the possibility of something maybe not as nice lurking beneath the surface. But it was still laugh-out-loud-funny when I heard. Because my manager came up to me so seriously. He said, “I just want to let you know . . . ” And it sounded very grim. I just laughed and laughed. I thought, “The Dave Matthews Band is going to play our wedding” . . . what a slimy line. He’d have had to pay me a ton of money. I mean, that is a weeny gig.

The Dave Matthews Band play the O2 Arena in Dublin on March 9th