David John Matthews

Born January 9, 1967 in Johannesburg, South Africa! At two years old, Matthews' family immigrated to Yorktown Heights in Westchester County, New York, where his father, a physicist, started working for IBM. In 1974, the family moved to Cambridge, England, for a year before returning to New York, where his father died from lung cancer in 1977. The family moved back to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1977. Upon Matthews' graduation from St Stithians College high school, he was faced with conscription into the South African military just as civil disobedience to the practice was becoming widespread. A Quaker (and consequently pacifist), Matthews left South Africa to avoid service. Matthews moved to New York in 1986 where he worked for IBM for a short time, then joined his mother in Charlottesville, Virginia, the same year, a town Matthews' family had lived in before he was born. It was in Charlottesville that he became part of the local music community. Matthews started play the guitar at the age of nine and has been hooked ever since.