Tonight, America’s favorite reggae-meets-jam-meets-ska-meets-dub-meets-hip hop-meets-Hassidic Judaism performer will be at The NorVa.

I spoke to him last week, less than a day after he recorded Live at Stubbs II, a live album and DVD recorded at the famed Austin venue and set for release next year.

(Photo | Ruvi Leider)

Coming off a great year already, complete with the crossover radio hit “One Day,” which was featured not only on a variety of radio formats, but also on NBC for the Olympic Games. I chatted with Matis about live performing, how to save the world, and liking Sublime in the 1990’s (aka: when we were young).

AltDaily: You just recorded Live at Stubbs II last night. How did that go?

Matisyahu: It was great, thanks.

Is there a reason you went back to Stubbs again after recording the first live album there? Do you have an affinity for that venue?

It’’s just that Live at Stubbs Volume One was a fundamental part of my career, you know? As far as breaking my career out, you now? A lot of my fans know me from that record, so to go back and to do part two of that record, that’s the idea, you know? That’s the sequel.

Confession time. I worked for your label during the making of Part I, so I’m particularly excited to hear this record come out.

Cool. A lot of my fans feel like that was a fundamental record. And I feel my music and my sound now is in a new place. So, it’s—I felt like it’s time to now create a new fundamental record for my fans and for myself based on how my sound has evolved—and the live energy within the live show is such a fundamental part of the music that I make, you know?

Agreed. Your live show is extremely essential. How has your sound evolved since we heard you last?

It depends when the last time you heard me was. It’s just natural growth. It’s hard for me to put my finger on it and say exactly what it is, what’s changed. But you know, I guess, I’m playing with a new band now called The Dub Trio and we kind of created a certain sound, a certain unique sound. I’m not very good at explaining what it is or how it’s different.

OK. I read you said “improvisation will be at the core of this live set” when talking about making Stubbs II and watching your live shows, even on YouTube, there’s so much energy and diversity. How do you go about doing a show? Do you pre-plan a set list or improvise?

Well, it’s a combination of planning and allowing for improvisation. For example, one of the things I guess that’s really been prevalent in this music that I’m making now with The Dub Trio is this combination of a certain looseness and openness; and at the same time, it’s very rigid. It’s really combination of those two things. Like, it has a certain edge. The music has a certain edge to it and in some aspects, in some ways, it’s very crisp and tight. And then in other ways it’s very loose and very meditative.

So, um, yeah, so like for Live at Stubbs II, we really worked on a set and really worked on crafting it, but at the same time letting it breathe and letting it have the room to express whatever needed to be expressed in the moment without dragging things on too long. It’s a balance, you know?

Shalom, homie.

Absolutely. Are some of Stubbs 2 songs going be played for us at The NorVa?

Yeah, for sure. I mean. I would say the last ten shows or so, we were really honing down the set because I didn’t want to play songs from the first Live at Stubbs, so even though we’ve been playing those songs on tour a lot, we weren’t playing those for like the last two weeks. So, we’ll do a combination. We’ll probably get back to playing some of those songs and also playing a bunch of the songs that are gonna be on the new Live at Stubbs, which are songs off of Youth and songs off of Light, the last record—and some songs that were never put on the last record. A new song; and a song off an EP I put out called Shattered. We’ll do a combination. Even the old songs are different. Like, I’ve got a lot of old material; it’s evolved with me. So it’s fresh in a certain way.

Tell me about The Dub Trio. Are there new instruments or arrangements?

It’s a trio. The first Live at Stubbs was a trio also—drums, bass, and guitar. So I expanded, like over the last five years, I’ve had percussion, I’ve had keyboards. I’ve had, like, different things, different instrumentation. Now it’s back to a trio, but it’s very different. There’s a lot more—like both the guitar player and the bass player have keyboards as well, and the drummer does live dubbing and electronics as well, so there’s a very like big electronic sound meshed in with the organic instrumentation and stuff. We’ll switch back and forth, like in the middle of a song where maybe everyone’s playing an instrument, then it’ll just flip, and everyone’ll just go to their keyboards and their electronics and then back to the instruments, so it creates a different kind of sound.

I’m excited to hear it. Your sound works well with the music fans in this area—being near the beach, there’s a lot of reggae, ska, and jam. I know you used to follow Phish, and they like playing here. Let’s talk about Light. I heard it was partially mixed or produced around here.

Is it Virginia Beach? There’s a guy named Serban [Serban Ghenea], who’s a mixer. He’s one of the top guys in the world. He does a lot of the top 40, the hits you hear on the radio. He’s out of Virginia Beach, I believe, so we mixed part of the record in Virginia.

“One Day” is off that record. I read you wrote that fairly quickly, and were trying to tap into “a raw sense of hope.” What are your hopes for what’s going on right now? For us as a country, a world, and for the future and the kids growing up today?

Well, I mean, I think that, um, I don’t really have big ideas on how the whole world can change. I really am a believer that people, you know, can make a change within themselves and that’s really the way to do it. I think the thing is consciousness, you know? Awareness, consciousness, knowledge of self, and being aware of and respectful of the people in the world that we live in—in every aspect, from the food that you eat to like the amount of energy that you consume, to the way you treat people when you meet them on the street and the way, you know—I just think that basics—that as a country or as a nation or as the world.

Congratulations on that single.

Thank you.

You recently finished a tour with Sublime With Rome [Sublime with a different singer]. They had a big following here in their heyday—ska being a big genre, as I said. Were you a fan of them in the nineties?

From Pioneer Park this month.

I was a fan at a certain point in my life, when I think I was maybe around 18 or 19, and I was introduced to their music and I had a couple of their records and there was definitely a time period where I listened to all of those songs, you know? Like you said, like our generation, they’re kind of a staple for our generation. Everyone knows those songs.

Are you listening to any new music now outside of your own?

I don’t really. I don’t really have a lot of time to listen to music, and the most music that I listen to is before we perform. We listen to music before we go onstage and one artist we’ve been listening to a lot, I’m trying to remember the name. Hold on one sec…um..I can’t remember their name. Sorry. So I guess the answer is no, I haven’t listened to a lot of music lately.

It’s ok. No worries. I recently saw your Funny or Die skit—the one filmed in the Subway restaurant. [Watch it at the end of this story. “You smell like lavender incense, Matisyahu.” “Sometimes,” he replies.] That made me crack up. It’s also made me think how cool it is you let our sense of humor come through for your fans—you have a willingness to make yourself accessible to fans in more ways than just CDs and shows. You’re on social networks and the internet a lot more than other artists. Why is it important to you to reach your fans in these ways?

I guess for me it’s just sort of a certain sense of gratefulness, you know? They’re the people that allow me to do this, you know what I mean? Like, you make music and you put it out there and it becomes not yours anymore. You give it out. You give it to people to do what they want with it, you know, and it’s always just an amazing thing to me that my music resonates with people. And when you can make connections with people, I think that’s a big part of what we do.

You know, and it’s little things like, some guy wrote to me, and he wants to trade me some tickets. He doesn’t have any money. He wants to trade me some tickets to my show for some hummus. You know? He wants to make hummus. I can’t eat the hummus unless it’s kosher, so I just told him, like, where my bus is gonna be, and “you can just show up and make the hummus on my bus with my kosher pots and pans,” you know? It’s kind of a risk, you know [laughing like a regular dude-bro while saying this, it sounds like he realizes it's partially awesome and partially insane]. You don’t know what you’re gonna get into, who this guy’s gonna be, but, you know what I mean? Haha. I kinda put myself out there like that.

I took a picture of my bus in Austin when we got there the other night. I said “We’ve arrived.” And then someone wrote a tweet saying, like “Oh I know where your bus is. I can tell, it’s at the same hotel where I’m staying. We drove from Dallas for the show and we’re staying at the hotel. Can we come say what’s up?” And it’s like 3 o’clock in the morning or whatever. So I was like ‘All right, go knock at the bus door.’ Then it’s like this kid, and we took some pictures. Then I saw him again at the show and pulled him up onto the stage and he was like dancing around on the stage at the show and it’s gonna be in the DVD, you know? I think it’s cool to do that. It makes people feel good, you know? And why not?

Is there anything you want to say to Norfolk or your fans here before Tuesday night’s show?

We were there like [last year]. Yeah, we’re just looking forward to being back and seeing everyone there and just sharing my music again with everyone.

Matisyahu performs tonight at the NorVa. Click here for tickets or information. And now, the funnies.