On this date in 1967, David John Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. After high school he moved to the United States to avoid mandatory service in the South African Army. He moved to Charlottesville, Va., in 1986, where he began to hone his musical talents by playing guitar and singing on stage. In 1991 he formed the Dave Matthews Band, a rock group with jazz influences, along with Carter Beauford, LeRoi Moore, Steffan Lessard, Peter Griesar and Boyd Tinsley.
The Dave Matthews Band has recorded nine studio albums as of this writing and continues to tour extensively. The latest is “Come Tomorrow” (2018). Several live albums have also been released and Matthews released his solo album “Some Devil” in 2003. He and his wife Ashley were married in 2000 and have three children: twins Stella Busina and Grace Ann, born in 2001, and August, born in 2007.
Matthews was raised Quaker but lost his faith in his teens after struggling with the idea that most of his loved ones, including his father, would end up in hell. “It would be safe to say that I’m agnostic,” Matthews said in a 2001 Boston Globe article. He elaborated on his agnostic beliefs in an Oct. 4, 2009 Q TV interview: “I can’t believe, in any way, in a god that cares about me. That makes no sense to me, a god that’s watching me and hoping that I make the right choices. That god is impossible.”
