Rob Thomas has a narrative to inform. In an interview over Zoom, the prolific songwriter dives proper in, sharing an anecdote a couple of excessive encounter with Excessive Occasions years in the past. “Two occasions in my life I’ve been the very best I’ve ever been, and one in every of them was at Excessive Occasions for a photograph shoot,” Thomas mentioned. “I assumed the arrange was superb since you had the door to Excessive Occasions and you then had the door to Excessive Occasions’ legal professional proper subsequent to it. I figured that was fairly sensible again then.”
Whereas occasions have modified and legalization has expanded since Thomas’ 2005 Excessive Occasions interview with Shirley Halperin, one factor has remained fixed: The relevancy of Matchbox Twenty.
With their first new album in 11 years, Matchbox Twenty continues to be very a lot top-of-mind and has a slew of upcoming tour dates to flood audiences’ ears with new tracks—and older hits—which for a lot of function beacons of previous experiences. “Now we’re at a part the place we’re at a present and also you see individuals who have recognized one in every of our songs for 27 years,” Thomas mentioned. “They’re connecting with how they felt once they first heard that tune they usually’re connecting with who they had been and the place they had been of their life at the moment. It’s a wholly new expertise. The tune was a vitamin and now it’s a time capsule.”
For Thomas and Matchbox Twenty, The place The Gentle Goes presents a chance to create new time capsules for a wholly new viewers and feed current followers a brand new dish—one which feels extra akin to seeing an outdated good friend for the primary time shortly, selecting up proper the place you left off, and studying of all their new adventures. Whether or not the music is drugs or a portal to the previous, Thomas is grateful for the chance to proceed sharing himself with followers and hopes his experiences—by tune—proceed to resonate with them.
Excessive Occasions: Rising up, what was your first publicity to music?
Rob Thomas: I used to be in a band in ninth grade—one in every of my first bands—and we’d play covers at pool events for pals. We had been additionally the home band at an 18 and below heart, and I bear in mind I stop college for just a little bit in tenth grade as a result of we acquired a gig at a Sheraton in Vero Seashore by the pool and thought we’d “made it.” I don’t assume there was ever a second the place I considered being a profitable musician as a result of my concept of success was knowledgeable by 80s motion pictures that I’d seen. I assumed being profitable meant in the future I’d come again to my highschool and play on the huge expertise present, and everybody can be like, “Oh, wow—he’s actually good” [laughs]. It was a really small bar for what “making it” was going to be.
It wasn’t till my early twenties once we truly began jobbing and I began writing songs [that things started to shift]. Additionally at the moment, you begin to understand you’re letting different viable choices for a future go by. I didn’t go to school, I nearly—however didn’t—be part of the military, and I didn’t get in on the bottom flooring at an actual “profession” as a result of each job I had wanted to be a job I may stop on a Friday. If I had gigs they usually wouldn’t let me off [I could quit] after which get one other job on a Monday. So it was each building job, each restaurant job, delivering beds, constructing futons, cleansing and delivering boats—something I may do was only a job that wouldn’t take an excessive amount of consideration away [from music] as a result of we had been making little strides as a neighborhood band.
Like, we may play 4 hours on Thursday nights on the school bar as a result of that was the large evening—and we may do half covers and half originals—so we thought we “made it.” A number of months would go by and we’d be like, “Effectively now we’ve ‘made it,’ clearly.”
Excessive Occasions: It seems like a sequence of small wins that felt huge that stored crescendoing to the following factor and the following factor and the following factor till it turned your full time focus.
Thomas: I bear in mind I talked to Adam Duritz—who later turned one in every of my actually good pals—proper earlier than we’d gotten signed. I went to a Counting Crows present and was backstage as a result of we had been the large native band and I feel I mentioned that to him, like, “Oh yeah, hello—My title’s Rob, we’re with Tabitha’s Secret, we’re like the large native band round right here.” [Laughs] I used to be bragging about being the large native band as a result of that was as huge as I’d gotten—and that may have been it.
Excessive Occasions: As people, we’re restricted by what we are able to or can not understand or know, so if the thought of one thing grander at the moment wasn’t but in your consciousness, you then’re not even occupied with it.
Thomas: Yeah, after I was rising up my grandmother owned just a little common retailer in South Carolina the place she truly offered weed. I may separate seeds and stems after I was eleven to make little dime baggage. It was just a little shitty common retailer with a home hooked up to it on this tobacco city, and we had been actually, actually poor. However I didn’t know we had been poor till my mother moved us to a low/middle-class neighborhood. I didn’t understand we had been dwelling in squalor as a result of everybody else round us was dwelling the very same method. So at each stage we had been at, we felt like “that is nice.” We had been like Damone in Quick Occasions at Ridgemont Excessive, like each place we had been at was the place to be.
Excessive Occasions: Which helps you recognize every ascension.
Thomas: But in addition you probably have sufficient time to spend at every plateau, you actually can settle into it and personal that second earlier than you progress on to a different one.
For us, you’re in a neighborhood band, you assume that the end-all-be-all is touchdown a document deal. That’s it, man, you gotta get a document deal. Then you definately get the document deal and also you simply hope the document will get made. Then the document goes out, and also you’re like, “If we go gold, we get to make one other document.” Then the document goes gold and also you’re like, “We’ve a gold document!” However you then’re like, “Wouldn’t it’s nice to have a platinum document? Then you possibly can’t cease us—that’s large!”
So Matchbox goes on and the document [sells] like 15 million copies. However you then’re like, “Ah, shit. We could possibly be a one-record surprise. Wouldn’t it’s nice if the second document does effectively? That’s what we actually want. We gotta beat the ‘sophomore droop.’” Second document comes out and we had our first primary single. So then we had been like, “ what it’s actually about? Let’s be one of the best fucking reside band. Let’s simply exit and actually play the shit out of it each evening.” Then that turned [our] focus, of attempting to up our recreation each time. It turned much less about successes that different individuals may provide you with and extra like cross-fit the place you had your individual targets in your head you wished to attain.
Excessive Occasions: What gave you the boldness to go all-in and pursue that path?
Thomas: I feel it’s important to be just a little naive, proper? You’ve acquired to have a blind spot to the percentages of one thing like that having the ability to occur to somebody, and you then combine that in with just a little little bit of an ego. I feel anyone who does one thing inventive and places it out to the world—whether or not author, filmmaker or songwriter—there’s acquired to be a little bit of an ego there. There’s acquired to be one thing in you that claims, “I don’t know why, however I feel different individuals ought to hear this or learn this.” There’s an audacity to that feeling of “I must share this and it is advisable to hear it.”
If we actually thought concerning the odds, we might have been like, “Oh effectively, that’s by no means going to occur.” However there was one thing in us that was like, “Oh yeah, we are able to do that,” after which it was like, “Oh shit, now we have to do that—we don’t actually have a number of different choices.”
Individuals used to ask, “What would you be doing in another way in the event you weren’t [playing music professionally]?” My reply is that I might nonetheless be doing this, simply at a a lot decrease degree. I might be doing this at a lodge bar someplace or I might be doing this in a marriage band. However I might nonetheless be doing this as a result of that is form of what I used to be constructed for.
Excessive Occasions: Do you assume infusing coronary heart into what you create is why it resonates with individuals, regardless if it was on stage at a stadium or at a lodge bar?
Thomas: I hope so. I’m not a singer, I’m a author, and I sing the songs I write. I don’t do different individuals’s songs actually. Quite a lot of actually nice, actually huge writers come to me like, “I wrote this nice tune, that is nice for you,” however that’s not what I do. The one time I sing another person’s tune is that if it’s written by Paul [Doucette], who’s in Matchbox Twenty. He’s the one individual whose tune I’ve sung that wasn’t mine, and I feel it’s as a result of he’s my greatest good friend, I do know the place it’s coming from, and I can empathetically put myself into the voice of the author.
I write about issues which might be essential to me and I’m a reasonably regular individual, so I really feel that a number of the issues I relate to are issues different individuals will relate to as effectively. If I write a tune a couple of battle I simply had with my spouse—I’m not writing a tune about my spouse and my battle—I’m writing a tune about how that second made me really feel. A listener then is aware of that feeling, possibly for one more purpose—possibly one thing else of their life has made them really feel that method—however they’re like, “Oh, I get the vibe. I do know what you imply whenever you mentioned that as a result of I’ve felt that method too.” It’s not describing to somebody their situation, it’s extra about utilizing music as a approach to form of carve out my situation and what I’m actually feeling. Then anyone else is like, “Ah, shit—yeah, I get that.”
Excessive Occasions: With Matchbox Twenty’s new album The place The Gentle Goes, what creatively was the inspiration behind it?
Thomas: In case you’ve been doing this for this lengthy, each document isn’t going to be hit after hit after hit. What you need although is that each time you set one thing out, you need it to have a pair bricks in it to place into the wall.
Our final document [North] had a tune on it known as “Overjoyed.” So many individuals now have used it at their wedding ceremony—it’s a tune individuals stroll down the aisle to or have their first dance to—they usually wish to hear it once they come to our present. That album has a pair bricks—it’s acquired “She’s So Imply,” “Overjoyed,” and a tune known as “I Will” that followers actually like. It’s acquired just a few bricks that we are able to placed on the wall.
Subsequent time we’re touring or making a document—and on this case, we’re speaking about The place The Gentle Goes—we wish to make sure that there’s a few songs which have caught round—that for one purpose or one other resonated with individuals. In case you do this, it looks like a pleasant success, of having the ability to proceed on, and every time you come on, you’re including a pair different songs to The Matchbox wall.
Excessive Occasions: Talking of music creation, what position does hashish play for you creatively or in your life basically?
Thomas: There are two issues when writing a tune: You’ve got inspiration and craft. The inspiration is the half you’re not accountable for—it’s whenever you’re sitting down and a melody simply form of comes out. In that little piece of melody and that chord, there’s form of a shade, and that shade begins to tell you that it’s a tragic tune or a cheerful tune or a sure vibe. Most everybody I do know simply has gibberish [hums melodic gibberish notes that sound like a song without using real words], they’re probably not saying something, after which one phrase pops out and it begins to tell you of what you’re doing.
You write so many songs that in the event you’re not cautious, craft comes first, and that’s not a good way to go. You’re then sitting down and establishing a tune like, “I’m going to write down this form of a tune.” There’s one thing about smoking or gummies that helps take that layer away so you possibly can sit down and shock your self. You’ll be able to sit down and begin taking part in the piano with out an agenda after which hear it in a disembodied method. Weed’s at all times form of helped me get to that time.
Once I’m writing lyrics, it’s the identical factor. Typically I may simply sit there and beat my head towards the wall as a result of I’m attempting to say one thing, however then if I simply smoke just a little bit, phrases turn out to be like colours they usually come out with these bizarre sensibilities of issues that I most likely would have by no means mentioned. Like, I used to be amazed with the brand new single “Wild Canines.” I didn’t assume the fellows had been going to go for it as a result of I used to be on a roll with the tune after which [belts out “Wooo Wooo”]. That most likely would have by no means occurred if I wasn’t excessive [laughs] as a result of I’m not a cool sufficient man to write down “Wooo Wooo” in a tune. However after I’m excessive, I’m.
Some days, [weed] places on little blinders for you and retains you zoned in on what you’re doing, not on the place your life has been up till that minute. You may need a number of heavy stuff happening in your life, however to write down about it, you continue to must step away from it. You’ll be able to’t be burdened by the precise emotions of one thing unhealthy that’s occurred in your life, like “I really feel [insert emotion]” after which write about it. For me, I smoke just a little little bit of weed after which I’m wanting at [things objectively].
Excessive Occasions: In that method, weed helps you healthily detach and self-reflect on no matter expertise or second is going on. You’re nonetheless tapped into the feelings however you’re not dominated by them.
Thomas: I took a break for a bit as a result of I used to be an all-day on a regular basis man. I might present as much as a writing session and the very first thing I might do is pull out my bong. A short time in the past, I acquired again into the enjoyment of attending to the airport and getting just a little excessive, placing on headphones after which simply going by how all the pieces is part of some movie that you just’re in—wherever your head’s at in that music—as a result of music is far more 3D. You’ll be able to form of attain inside it and it has depth. So I went again to the enjoyment of my sixteen-year-old-self, the place I’m simply excessive for no purpose in any respect, aside from it makes the stroll by the airport so significantly better, and typically, that’s sufficient.
Observe @robthomas, @matchboxtwenty and take a look at https://matchboxtwenty.com/ for tickets and tour dates