A Band’s Net Gain

Steve Lillywhite had the feeling he was on to something special, just like when he was working with U2 on “War.” This time the record producer was at the console listening to Dave Matthews push himself through music that was painful and poignant.

“I felt that we were working on something that was really deep and meaningful,” Lillywhite recalls of those first few months of 2000. “I was excited to see where it would all go.”

Where it all went was a shelf--the work, judged too dark and downbeat for a band looking for a larger audience, was set aside. Lillywhite, who had produced all three previous Dave Matthews Band albums, was jettisoned and looked on as they regrouped with a new producer and produced a far sunnier album, “Everyday,” that debuted No. 1 on the pop charts. “I admit, it knocked me sideways a bit,” Lillywhite says.

The abandoned album could have become a forgotten footnote or future rarity, but, in this Internet age, it has become something more intriguing--an online sensation. The recordings, now famously dubbed “The Lillywhite Sessions,” were apparently smuggled out of storage at RCA Records and then spread with viral speed on Napster and other Web sites.

For an entertainment world accustomed to the insider tidbits of director’s-cut versions, this is something new--a cut-director’s version. More than a curiosity, this ultimate outtake has become a touchy topic for those involved.

That’s because the band’s famously devoted fans are debating whether the brooding music of “Lillywhite” is truer to the DMB’s roots than the album that pushed it aside. “Everyday” was guided by star producer Glen Ballard, who co-wrote all of the songs and cast aside much of the decade-old band’s musical approaches.

Ballard’s influence brought a leaner, more radio-friendly sound for the jam band, a sore spot for longtime followers who miss the extended solos and collage of musical shadings. But the producer’s hand has also propelled “Everyday” to almost 2.1 million copies sold since its release, a success that Ballard says can’t be tainted by the “Lillywhite” noncommercial success in cyberspace.

“It exists,” says Ballard, noted for his work with Alanis Morissette and No Doubt. “What are you going to do about it? Except to persevere and try to make good music. There’s not much you can do about it, really. It’s like trying to chase down shadows. We have an album we believe in, and it’s doing well and finding some new listeners for him. And the hard-core fans will always have something else of his to find.”

Indeed, the hardiest DMB fans--like the Grateful Dead faithful they are often compared to--have an unceasing hunger for the band-sanctioned concert bootlegs that helped the Virginia group become a touring sensation. For these devotees, the insider allure of “Lillywhite” is powerful, but the attention it’s getting goes beyond that.

Entertainment Weekly ran reviews of both albums and gave the unofficial album a better appraisal than its store-shelf counterpart. One of the band’s leading fan Web sites, https://www.dmbml.com, not only has a link for the lyrics to “Lillywhite,” but also lists it above the “Everyday” lyric link. One fan has set up a Web site called “The Official Release Lillywhite Recordings Campaign” to beg the band to formally finish and release the tracks.

For its namesake, meanwhile, the unofficial album’s release has been bittersweet.

“I would give anything to finish what a lot of people consider to be some of the most emotional songs the Dave Matthews Band has ever recorded,” says Lillywhite, who has also worked with the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and Pogues. “I don’t condone the release of unfinished material, but I thought these were some of their best, most moving recordings. It’s like 70%, 60% finished.”

Lillywhite has just finished working on some songs for a new Counting Crows disc and has overseen the recording of a live U2 concert for a planned DVD release. Next on his plate is the launch of his own label, Gobstopper, and getting a young Iowa band called Rearview Mirror in the studio. He says he would pounce on a chance to produce a future DMB album.

Handlers for Matthews said he was unavailable to be interviewed for this article, but the South African-born singer-songwriter has pointed to the months working with Lillywhite as coinciding with a dark time in his own life, marked by depression and heavy drinking. The haunted perspective is clear in the songs “Digging a Ditch,” “Grey Street” and “Bartender,” the latter including the lyric: “Bartender, you see / The wine that’s drinking me / Came from the vine that strung Judas from the Devil’s tree / His roots deep, deep in the ground.”

The band’s work with Lillywhite went two months over schedule and was described by Matthews’s bandmates as oppressive because of the singer’s mood. Matthews himself later told Rolling Stone that while he thinks the original sessions produced some of his best songs ever, the work was akin to passing a watermelon through his bowels. Lillywhite responds, chuckling, that “from my experience with great bands such as U2, art that lasts doesn’t come out like diarrhea.”

Matthews has said his label, RCA Records, and bandmates grew frosty toward the work under Lillywhite’s guidance and supported a sharp change of direction. The frontman agreed that the album was too bleak and Lillywhite was sacked in summer 2000. The music they had worked on would be put aside, its fate determined later.

With a major tour looming, the album due dates were pushed back and hit-maker Ballard was tapped for quick help, much like his duty on No Doubt’s last album.

The work approach that followed was markedly different from the band’s history with Lillywhite: Matthews had excelled as a solo songwriter, but now Ballard would collaborate, and the rest of the band would be brought in later as if they were studio session players. Songs were kept shorter, the rhythm section was pushed forward, and Matthews strayed from his trademark devotion to acoustic guitar, adding an electric charge to the sound.

The new sound was embraced by many--reviewer Steve Hochman, for example, wrote for The Times that “the result is added passion and life, drawing out both the romance and social fire in the lyrics”--but some Daveheads cried sellout. If Lillywhite also shares a dim view of Ballard’s handiwork, he won’t admit to it. “I would give anything to work with the band again,” he said. “We went on a journey that took them from the beginning of a career to where they are now--which is a great place. And we got there without compromise, and for that I feel very proud.”