ISU students hear the sounds of Tim Reynolds’ intricate guitar work wafting up and down dormitory hallways all the time, and many of them probably don’t even realize it. The guitar virtuoso has played on every studio Dave Matthews album, as well as many of his live albums. The duo teamed up a few years back and played a sold-out tour across the country.

Although he’s most commonly affiliated with Dave Matthews’ superstardom, Reynolds has forged an impressive solo career, climbing the ladder of success over several decades without ever signing a label contract. His solo performances have fallen subject to critical acclaim and his deep-swelling passion for music only became more apparent when he took an afternoon to talk to Pulse about his career. Reynolds said he looks forward to putting on a show for Iowans Thursday in Des Moines.

Dan McClanahan: As a child you moved frequently because your father was in the military. What effect did that have yon your musical development?

Tim Reynolds: I guess in a way I’ve always kind of kept learning new styles – I move around because I get kind of bored with different styles. I play acoustic, sometimes I get really spacey, sometimes I get really into metal and all that stuff. In a way that’s a metaphor for all the moving I had to do as a kid. I was in the Midwest for quite a while in the ’70s, and then I started moving around again. In a way I kind of comically look at it as a progression – if you believe in reincarnation of course – where you start out you move from state to state, country to country, planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy and universe to universe. That’s of course if you believe that there’s a continuous thing that keeps going after you die and whatnot.

DM: Are you a believer in reincarnation?

TR: Well I think you can believe in it on many levels. For sure I think scientifically it’s been proven. I mean we all inherit DNA from our parents and we all inherit a large genetic tree so there’s a technical thing. In Buddhism when they talk about reincarnation a lot of people are like, “Oh, you come back as a dog.” And that’s kind of the far-fetched theory. What they mean is that humans come back with propensities that they carry on from the last time they were reincarnated. That can mean bringing things from your family tree or it can be taken as “I was born a dog and I’m coming back as a rabbit.” Even in their own writings they admit that those are really more like psychological profiles of humans. Those are all really psychological profiles of what people are like.

DM: You seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject.

TR: I’m a curious student of the subject. I’ll put it that way.

DM: Your father was a Christian minister, right?

TR: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DM: Did you get into music as a rebellion from your conservative upbringing?

TR: Well, that’s definitely one side of it. There’s the positive sense that I like it and when it comes to where you perceive yourself as being surrounded by dark forces metaphorically, i.e. parents that want to kick your ass because they think you’re going to be a hippie and that’s the evil thing when your dad’s from Vietnam and all those people are just trying to bring him down. Music was the thing that I got everything I needed from. Spirituality, everything. It was an escape as a way to rebel at the same time. I think no matter what kind of music I liked, if it wasn’t gospel it would have been rebellious to my dad.

DM: Is your dad supportive of you in what you chose to do?

TR: Yeah, once I got relatively famous, you know what I mean? Once it was a successful business thing and I hooked up with Dave and he got famous and I started making money. It was all okay with my dad, but I swear before that, you know, I was a dog. I was a dime-a-dozen musician. I couldn’t get my shit together and I didn’t have a job and all I did was play music. It wasn’t really legitimate until it became big. I can’t blame him; every parent wants their children to be successful.

DM: Why haven’t you ever signed to a label?

TR: I wanted to keep a little less of a profile. The higher you go in terms of popularity, the more singular your music has to be for people to digest simply. If you’re a pop musician, you pretty much have to keep making pop or people will think “he’s like, so crazy.” If you stay a little lower profile, you can pretty much do whatever you want and have more fun with it. You last longer and you can do more stuff with it.

DM: What attracts you to live music?

TR: When people go see a show and it kicks all their asses, there’s a great report that all people can have, it’s not like dumbing down – there’s this spirituality about how people are uplifted by music. It’s a beautiful thing. I love to go to concerts, but if I don’t weep – it’s not a concert. It’s got to have that sort of “get you right inside.” Nine Inch Nails, when they rock it’s like a spiritual thing because it’s so hard. It tears your heart apart, he’s singing this sad thing and it just kills you. I love that shit.

DM: How do you feel about being mostly known as “that guy that plays with Dave”?

TR: Well, if [Dave] wasn’t the nicest guy in the world – I mean they’re just so nice, I don’t have a problem with the association. If someone likes guitar playing, I think my stuff is different enough from his that hopefully people will get into my stuff. I’ve been touring for years at this point, so I don’t really worry about any of that. I’ve already sifted through that, you know?

DM: How did you originally meet Dave?

TR: When I started playing at that place Millers, that like during the middle ’80s and Dave was a bartender there. Due to his personal charisma, he was an actor in town and he already had a posse before he started playing. We used to get together out in his basement and just play and make recordings just for the hell of it.

DM: You mentioned all the passion that goes into a live show. How do you get in the mood before a show? Do you have a routine?

TR: In a way it’s like the most normal thing for me to do . Of course the audiences are different, but I’ve learned to deal with that over the years. If you’re playing to lots of angry drunk people, you play Led Zeppelin (laughs), but if it’s really people that are listening to every small note, you can play something elegant and complex.