The Samples [ tickets ] will kick off their first tour of the new year later this month, an outing for which dates are scheduled into early March. The Colorado-based jam band continues to tour in support of last year's "Return to Earth."

"Return to Earth" (Apache), the group's third release on its own Apache Records label, features Dave Matthews Band [ tickets ] violinist Boyd Tinsley on the track "Great Blue Ocean."

Tinsley first collaborated with the Samples in the early '90s, when the Samples invited Dave Matthews Band to open for them on a number of dates, according to an online book that Kelly is publishing chapter by chapter on the Samples' official website. Kelly claims in the book that the Samples were instrumental in Dave Matthews Band's success, but that, aside from an ongoing relationship with Tinsley, relations between the two bands have since broken down:

We hit a point where DMB and the Samples touring together was becoming more of a double bill rather than an opening slot, so we very carefully explained to our manager at the time that we would like to stop playing this way now that Dave Matthews was a fully established band. They did not seem to need us anymore and that was understood. I am not sure, but my gut says that our manager at the time manipulated it in some way to look like we did not like playing with DMB anymore and wanted them to leave, because the relationship went sour right after that and there was no reason unless DMB was misinformed.

Kelly added that efforts to again tour with Dave Matthews Band have failed, as did an attempt to release "Return to Earth" on Matthews' ATO Records.

Kelly will precede the forthcoming Samples tour with a pair of solo acoustic dates. Details appear below.