Dave Matthews

Initially, he and Harris experimented with drum loops on the song. “Finally, [Stephen] turned off the loops and the computer, and it was just me and the sound of the guitar. And then the song just fell out. It was just like, ‘Bang, here it is,’ the parts and everything in a couple of hours. And within 24 hours, it went from stumbling around to the finished song. We spent a lot of time after we recorded that song, sitting and listening to it, saying, ‘What are we going to do with it.’ But the more we listened to it, it was more like, ‘Why? What would ya? What could we do with it?’”

When Some Devil began taking shape, neither Matthews nor Harris knew they were making the singer’s first solo record. Matthews was simply using a band break to record and experiment with some songs and ideas. He had a few songs that hadn’t quite gelled with the band and was coming up with new ideas all the time.

As the sessions (done in Seattle, where the singer lives much of the year) continued, he and Harris realized they were on to something. And it wasn’t long before his first solo record was on RCA’s release schedule. “Going into it, it just seemed like good therapy,” Matthews says. “And then it started to really take on some personality. [After a few months] we started thinking, ‘We might be making something worthwhile here.”

Sitting here in this restaurant-bar in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel, Matthews is unrecognizable to most. A half-dozen businessmen in charcoal suits have walked past him numerous times, oblivious to one of the biggest rock stars of the past 15 years. A pair of teenage girls pass by a couple times, unable to muster the courage to say hello. Instead they steal sideways glances at Matthews, giggling after they think they’ve gotten out of earshot.

As he talks about how he, Harris, Anastasio and the others crafted and obsessed over such songs as the dark “Gravedigger,” a portly African-American man approaches the table with a wide grin. Reaching out to shake the singer’s hand, he exclaims, “Is that Dave Matthews!? How you doin’, man!?”

Matthews looks over, shakes his hand and in a stern, slightly arrogant tone, says, “Good, man. I’m in the middle of something.” Unfazed, the visitor nods and begins to walk away when Matthews gleefully shouts over to him, “Naw, I’m only kiddin’,” as he starts laughing. “Did you like that? That’s a diss right there!” The man smiles and continues on his way. Turns out the guy’s a Dave Matthews Band security guard, and has been for ages. As he walks toward the hotel’s front door, Matthews notes, “He’s a good dude.”

Earlier, when Matthews ambled into the restaurant, his eyes looked tired, his hair ruffled, his clothes slept-in. Unassuming as ever in a gray button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and cargo pants, he looks as though he could have been sleeping for 12 hours straight after the previous night’s marathon set. (The evening’s show was the first after a break of more than a week, and drummer Carter Beauford remarked backstage that coming back after days off, “My hands were killing me.”) But then again, Matthews could have just as easily been up until the wee hours kicking back cocktails.

Some seven hours later, he’ll walk onstage wearing the same clothes and deliver a set nothing short of rapturous to the thousands packing the Continental Airlines Arena, home to the NBA’s New Jersey Nets. The crowd will remain riveted for nearly three hours, during which opener and former Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts will join in for a song. The band slays, delivering deep album cuts alongside such hits as “Everyday” and “Satellite.”

Whereas the songs on each DMB album—with the exception of 2001’s Everyday (composed by Matthews and producer/songwriter Glen Ballard)—were co-written by each of the five DMB band members, Some Devil was created somewhat in solitude, Matthews says. It is perhaps his most personal release yet because of his bandmates’ absence. “I didn’t have a chance on this one, as often, to ask someone that was looking over my shoulder, or to look over someone’s shoulder as much as it was … me looking at the page.”

As he, Harris and the others pressed forward, finishing some of the tracks just two months before the album’s release, Matthews composed the next inevitable chapter in his career, one that finds him advancing yet again—climbing one more rung on a seemingly endless ladder of success. And, at the moment, it seems as though there’s nothing on the horizon but more rungs, more pimply “bros”—and more interrupted trips to the bathroom.

(To subscribe to Paste and receive a free sampler CD with each issue, click here)