Stefan Lessard – Bass

Lessard was born in Anaheim, California, to musicians Ron and Jacqueline Lessard. After moving a number of times during his childhood, Lessard and his family eventually settled in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1987. After moving back to Charlottesville, he enrolled in the Tandem Friends School, where he studied music under trumpeter John D’Earth and bassist Peter Spaar. D’earth and Spaar recommended Lessard to Dave Matthews for inclusion in his new band, which was looking for a bassist. Lessard joined Dave Matthews Band just as it was forming, when he was sixteen years old. Due to his age, he sometimes had to sneak in the back door of the clubs where the band was playing due to prohibitions on persons under 21 entering venues that serve alcohol.

Lessard completed his junior year of high school and was accepted into the Jazz Studies program at Virginia Commonwealth University. He passed the GED examinations in the summer of 1991 in order to enter the program later that year. However, he withdrew after six weeks when it became evident that he could not pursue full-time college studies and simultaneously be a touring member of a band with rising popularity.

Lessard doesn’t appear to have done much outside of the Dave Matthews Band but one of the sessions he did do was to play on the track ‘Beautifully Broken’ on the 2001 Gov’t Mule album, ‘The Deep End, Volume One’. Other bass players on that album include Allen Woody, Jack BrRuce, Oteil Burbridge, Bootsy Collins, John Entwistle, Flea, Roger Glover, Mike Gordon, Larry Graham, Dave Schools, Mike Watt, Chris Wood and Wille Weeks.