Dave Matthews Band's Jeff Coffin reflects on Rock Hall induction
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Saxophonist Jeff Coffin plays during a Dave Matthews Band show in 2009. Photo: Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Jeff Coffin has a lot of jobs.
- The Nashville-based saxophonist is a longtime member of the Dave Matthews Band. But his resume also includes work as a bandleader, a composer, an instructor at Vanderbilt University and the head of his own independent label.
Why it matters: After decades as a working musician, Coffin and the rest of DMB will receive one of the music industry's highest honors this weekend when they are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
- Coffin is still reeling from the news.
- "I just wanted to play music," Coffin tells Axios. "And this is where the path has taken me."
Flashback: Coffin discovered music at a young age. The infatuation was immediate.
- "I decided a long time ago that that I wanted to live a creative life surrounded by creative people," he says.
- "To be able to express the things that I'm feeling through sound and through rhythm, through melody. Those are things that continue to inspire me."
Zoom out: He moved to Nashville in 1991 and racked up Grammys as a member of Bela Fleck & the Flecktones from 1997-2010.
- In July 2008, he began touring with DMB, filling in for the beloved founding member LeRoi Moore. After Moore died, Coffin joined the band as his permanent replacement.
What he's saying: "The band is incredible," he said this week in an interview from Cleveland, Ohio, where he was preparing for the induction ceremony. "It's like a big traveling circus."
- It took him a few years to find his footing within the band. Once he did, he began to relish the euphoric moments during performances "when time kind of ceases to exist."
- "When you're really in that zone, it feels like literally everything is connected. There's no me, there's no them, there's no audience. It's all one thing."
The big picture: Coffin is the first to acknowledge that getting to the Rock Hall has been a sprawling team effort.
- "The people that have also sacrificed with us, our family and our friends and our teachers and our students," he says. "This belongs to them, in my opinion, as much as it belongs to us."
The bottom line: While touring will continue to take him around the world, Coffin says Nashville will remain his home.
- "My creativity is pretty wide, and I feel that the breadth of my creativity can be satisfied and satiated with the players who are in Nashville," he says.
- "No matter what I want to do musically, I can do it there."
How to watch: The induction ceremony will stream live Saturday at 6pm CDT on Disney+. A highlight special will air Jan. 1 on ABC.