I don’t know if Dave will have that same, ‘Hey, we’re sorry man, it actually turns out you’re the fucking best.’ But I think it’s a good time to release this, I’m genuinely super-proud of it.” And now they’re the most influential band in indie rock. I was talking to a friend the other day, Steely Dan was a band for nerds and record heads. But we live in this post-guilty pleasures world. I guess the easiest criticism would be jocks liked him a lot, that frat culture, which I fucking hate, too. Everyone 40 and under has heard Dave Matthews. But if you were in high school, say before 2005, Dave Matthews was so in the lexicon, in the culture of America. If somebody doesn’t like it, I understand. I’m in the indie rock world I can’t cover a Dave Matthews record without having to explain myself, without a little context. It’s all out of love, but there’s a little shred of irony in there. But they infamously leaked on Kazaa, LimeWire, Napster…and every Dave fan was like, ‘This is the best version.’ They said, ‘Let’s try again,’ and they shelved the sessions. They made the record with Steve Lillywhite and for whatever reason, it didn’t work out. We decided to cover The Lillywhite Sessions, an earlier version of Busted Stuff. At a Christmas party, me and Eric were drinking, and we’d be like ‘Wouldn’t it be sick to cover a Dave Matthews record?’ One day he said, ‘Hey, I think I can actually get a budget and make this happen.’ I’m a fucking white dude, so of course, some Dave Matthews records came my way. These are songs about mortality and grace, surprising and genuine. Those listening for the sly, ironic tone that characterizes Walker’s social media feeds may find themselves initially baffled. Though mocked and derided by many as Clinton-era feel-good fluff, Walker highlights both the musical adventurousness and lyrical darkness that exists in the best Dave Matthews Band material. On “Busted Stuff,” the first taste of the forthcoming album, Walker draws a line straight from Chicago post-rockers the Sea & Cake to the DMB. “With the wine you gave Jesus that set him free/After three days in the ground.” “Bartender please, fill my glass for me,” Walker sings on “Bartender,” the album’s best moment. These are far from faithful renditions Walker opens “Grey Street” with discordant, minimalist reeds, recasts “Kit Kat Jam” with a math rock tint, and brings a sense of impressionisitic melencholy to the bleary “Sweet Up and Down.” For all the instrumental reinvention though, Walker seems keenly tapped into the existential fears that the DMB’s buoyant jams have a tendency to obscure. But for their new album, Walker and collaborators Andrew Scott Young and Ryan Jewell took inspiration from the initial, stranger, and altogether less-polished takes, using them as raw materials with which to fashion something new and unexpected. Originally recorded in 19, many of these songs surfaced on the DMB’s shined-up 2001 lp Everyday. On November 16th, he releases his second record of 2018, The Lillywhite Sessions, a reimagining of the Dave Matthews Band’s lost album. Earlier this year, Chicago-based songwriter and bandleader Ryley Walker released his fourth full-length lp, the knotty and darkly funny Deafman Glance.
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