Exclusive: Dmb Plugs In, Rocks Out On 'everyday'

The Dave Matthews Band's fifth studio album, "Everyday," turns yet another new page in the multi-platinum quintet's sonic storybook. The set, due Feb. 27 on RCA, finds Matthews playing primarily electric guitar for the first time, infusing the material with a renewed urgency and edge. Although the finishing touches are still being applied to "Everyday," Billboard.com can reveal that the album is likely to include 12 songs and clock in well under an hour, making it the shortest DMB release to date. Sessions for "Everyday" began this summer in DMB's Charlottesville, Va.-based studio with producer Steve Lillywhite, who helmed the group's past three studio efforts. But as first reported in early October, the sessions were scrapped in their entirety, and the band regrouped in Los Angeles to start fresh with producer Glen Ballard (Aerosmith, Alanis Morissette). In its revised state, "Everyday" no longer includes any of the new songs that have made their way into DMB's live sets over the past two years -- including "Grey Street," "Bartender," and "Grace Is Gone." Billboard.com can also reveal that Carlos Santana guests on the track "Mother Father," returning the vocal favor Matthews lent to "Love Of My Life" from Santana's 1999 smash album "Supernatural." "Everyday" is due to be DMB's first studio release since the 1998 album "Before These Crowded Streets," which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200. Here is a rundown of eight finished "Everyday" tracks previewed last week for Billboard.com: "So Right": An edgy number marked by a prominent electric guitar figure, pounding drums, and one of the more insistent melodies in recent DMB memory. Matthews' lyrics reflect the moment: "Our love is so right / I won't waste a minute here tonight." "When The World Ends": The track's funky verse quickly gives way to a thickly textured chorus, where Matthews proclaims love as salvation from the apocalypse. After a breakdown in the vein of early favorite "One Sweet World," the thundering chorus returns for three final repetitions. "The Space Between": Matthews is at first backed only by a jagged electric guitar on this arena-ready anthem that imagines a more muscular take on the tearjerking "Cry Freedom," from 1996's "Crash" album. "I Did It": A strong candidate for the album's first single, "I Did It" is another uptempo rocker with heavy verses and an infectious chorus: "I did it / do you think I've gone to far / I did it / guilty as charged." Violinist Boyd Tinsley handles the vocals for a few lines half-way through the song, which recalls DMB's 1996 top-10 rock airplay hit "Too Much." "If I Had It All": Slightly slower than the cuts that come before it, but no less affecting, "If I Had It All" sports an impassioned Matthews vocal performance accented by creative production and Carter Beauford's multi-faceted drumming. The lyrics are plagued with self-doubt: "Sometimes I feel lost / As I pull you out like strings of memories / Wish I could weave them into you / And I could figure the whole puzzle out." "Angel": The most playful of the preview tracks, "Angel" recalls the honeyed blues of the Jimi Hendrix track of the same name. Matthews pines for an absent lover with lines such as "why do I beg like a child for your candy" and "when you're not here / it's hard to pretend it's all right." "Dreams Of Our Fathers": Apparently one of Matthews' favorite new tracks, the toe-tapping "Dreams Of Our Fathers" boasts the album's most sparkling chorus with shades of the Police and Sting. With its immediacy reflected in Matthews' desire not to "live and die by" the title phrase, the track concludes with a psychedelic breakdown of shimmering, almost synthesized guitar tones and cut-up vocals. "Fool To Think": One of the most musically interesting of the preview tracks, the soaring "Fool To Think" also brings to mind the Police with its undulating guitar line a la "Message In A Bottle." It ends with Leroi Moore's horn flourishes and a decaying electric guitar tone.