Rob Thomas talks new album, tour, and being a part of our collective nostalgia

Rob Thomas is kicking off a brand new tour in Atlanta at Synovus Bank Amphitheater at Chastain Park on Aug Photo by Randall Slavin Credit Randall Slavin Matchbox Twenty is the rare popular s band that hasn t broken up What s more than that its members manage to do solo work without jeopardizing their relationship with each other Frontman Rob Thomas is in the middle of one of his solo runs right now kicking off a brand new tour in Atlanta at Synovus Bank Amphitheater at Chastain Park on Aug The tour is celebrating the upcoming release of Thomas new album All Night Days which will be distributed on Sept But don t worry Thomas loves the new stuff but he has no qualms about playing the old Ahead of the show Rough Draft Atlanta spoke with Thomas about how his career has evolved over the years what keeps Matchbox Twenty going and how he felt about the use of his song Push in the blockbuster film Barbie This interview has been edited for length and clarity I wished to start with the album itself I know it s been a bit since your last album and you did a Christmas album somewhere in there too Rob Thomas There was a Matchbox record somewhere in there as well When did the ideas start coming to you for this new record All Night Days Thomas I started making a solo record in It was all happening right before COVID and we had this whole plan that Matchbox Twenty was going to go out at the end of It was just a tour no record no anything I was already starting to think I m gonna start working on this new record And then everything got shut down right Matchbox we postponed to So by I put out that Christmas record because there was one summer that I could literally record a Christmas record because I wasn t out doing anything Then we were like Matchbox Twenty wants to make a record Specific of the songs that I was working on for my solo record there were songs like the single Don t Get Me Wrong and Queen of New York City they all wound up on the Matchbox record Where the Light Goes Then a limited of the songs that I was writing for the Matchbox record that we didn t quite finish in time wound up on this record It was a whole process that kind of started then The single Hard to Be Happy was mostly written in and just kind of sat on a shelf Does that happen often with you guys Like you ll be writing something and think maybe this should be on the Matchbox Twenty album Thomas With Matchbox it s kind of great because we ve been together for years I m not such a good songwriter that I m gonna be like I m gonna write this for this and I m gonna write this for this I write all the time I m just a guy that s consistently writing So if we come into Matchbox world I just kind of lay out okay this is what I ve got These are the songs If they like it we ll work on it If they don t they don t There hasn t been a period in the last years like that two-and-a-half lockdown period that kind of COVID era We ve never had to contend with that ever There s never been a time when I ve been that far away from particular sort of project This is a solo tour but as you just mentioned Matchbox has been together for years A lot of bands can t maintain that type of longevity You guys obviously do your solo stuff and come back together How do you handle and maintain that longevity Thomas When I first put out my first solo record nobody cared We had been out on the road we went from record to record to record non stop We were never not on the road We didn t even know what a personal life looked like And we all wished to do our own things Paul Doucette was making a solo record Kyle Cook was making a solo record It was like okay let s go do that Then my record came out at number one Obviously I was really fortunate to have the success on the solo record I kept going back and forth At first it was a sore point because if I m working solo for the summer if I m touring like right now Matchbox can t be touring right now I just take that off the table for them totally At first there was a complication but as friends they couldn t take something away from me that brings me delight because it s inconvenient for them and these are Paul s words I think if you take the idea that we have that kind of time apart from each other it turns out to be one of the things that keeps us close and keeps us genuinely excited when we get back together When we toured last year it was the greatest time of our lives We never fight which is kind of funny We only fight if we re making a record because we only fight about creative things We ve never had a personal argument in years well except for me and Paul one time But that was up to us I think that kind of friendship and giving each other that space like a good marriage it just creates a really good bond I want to talk to you about songwriting a bit Every writer has a different answer for this but are you a music or lyrics first kind of person Why do you think your brain works the way it does Thomas I m a melody guy Sometimes I just go fishing and I ll sit at a piano and I ll just start tinkering around until a good melody comes out A melody will have a certain tone to it which creates a color and it creates an emotion So you start trying to find a turn of phrase or something that fits into there Once you ve gotten the whole structure you ll sit down and really start crafting out a good lyric and really start trying to write lines to try prose I think the reason I work that way is because I also do a lot of writing just walking down the street or driving the car without the radio on I ll work out this whole melody in my head and kind of see the song before I can get home and sit down at the piano The melody of a song for everyone is like the hot guy or the hot girl at the bar right It s the first thing that draws you over before you know anything about it It catches your eye it catches your ear and you go oh I m kind of into that You don t know why And then when you listen to it again you re like oh my god I like these lyrics Now you re having a conversation with the song Now you re having a relationship with this song I find the melody draws me in because I find it draws everybody else in first too I ve heard you talk about writing AM which I love and I think everyone else does too That song is specific to your experience with your mother but you had a comment about it that I liked people who listen to it even if it might not be specifically about them or their specific situation are able to take it and connect it to aspects of their own lives I ve invariably felt that the more specific a story whether it s a song or a movie or whatever the more universal and stronger the emotion becomes What about writing that song helped you crack that open and helped you become a better songwriter Thomas Right up until AM and I was a young man then I was in my s I was in my early early s and I was writing it about a time when I was even younger I dependably say that when I was a kid I grew up in Florida right And I didn t know anything about sports or cars or guns Laughs I had to figure out my own thing and music kind of became my thing I was writing songs and they weren t good songs obviously because I ve been writing since I was You re writing songs about love and loss and this is all speculation at this point Me and my mother had a very weird relationship By the time I was I had been homeless for a couple years I d been hitchhiking around the country I had been just trying to find myself and distance myself from the relationship that her and I had That s when I realized that when I was really young and she had cancer that had a huge impact on me I was a caretaker at a really young age I had a life that when I went to school it was like a little secret Other people didn t have to deal with the stuff I had to deal with When my mother got better she decided to have her second childhood right when I was still trying to have my first one I had written AM about this relationship that she and I had I realized at the time that this was the first song that I had written where I was like oh this is what songs can do I can write this song and it makes me work through sh t and there s a catharsis here for me I can go through that But then later on and this is the only thing that you can realize if you re fortunate enough to have selected success and maybe even specific longevity with that success I started to realize what it was meaning to other people It was meaning things to other people for their marriage and meaning things to other people for their children and people that they d lost and people they d loved That s when I realized that if I write a song about me and my wife being together years and having a big blowout fight you don t need to know about that fight I can write about how that made me feel and you perhaps relate to that feeling Like you commented if you write something very specific about your situation the more specific the more you re talking about how it makes you feel That s the part I think that people resonate with At least that s how I feel about other writers I don t know what they re writing about but that certainly makes me think about this right I totally agree Or I haven t lived that specific experience but it s so specific coming at me that it makes me relate it to other things Thomas Except Sammie sometimes you know if Cent writes In Da Club it s just about being in the club Laughs There s no other meaning We can all relate to being in the club How has your relationship to or feelings about specific of those older songs evolved over the years as you ve lived more life or evolved as a songwriter Thomas There s a suspension of something when we do them live Like I m fine if I don t ever hear them again Because when I hear them I hear production choices I hear age I hear a distance between what I would have done differently When you play them live you re sharing them with all these people and it feels brand new every time Someone appealed me the other day in an interview they were saying I know you re excited about this new record but when I come see you live I m so excited that I get to see AM or if I get to hear one of your older hits like Little Wonders Does that bum you out I was like man it is such a rare gift to be around long enough to be someone s nostalgia I mean dude if I go to f cking see Billy Joel and he doesn t play Piano Man it doesn t mean that I don t care what he s got going on I just want to hear Piano Man That s just the way it is Every one of those songs is like a member of my family We ve talked a lot about the old stuff but with this new album what are you excited for people to hear whether that s a specific sound or a song Thomas I m excited about people really getting to have a relationship with Thrill Me That song really means a lot There s a lot of satisfaction on this record This is almost too f cking cheeky with Hard to Be Happy being the first single but I think it s easier to be happy as I get older The other day I explained something that I don t think I ve ever stated One of the guys was talking about the production and he s like well maybe one night we re not gonna be able to get these trusses in here and I was like dude it s fine It s just a show It s just music It s not gonna kill anybody We ll do the best we can we ll have a good time That s kind of how things are now as I get older It s like listen I know I have had particular serious life-changing sh t to happen in my life I will guarantee you nothing that happens in one of these shows is gonna be that you know You bring up the it s easier to be happy as your older thing and I m sure you ve talked Barbie to death at this point but that moment where Ken sings Push it s obviously commenting on masculinity etc But when I was younger I used to scream that song Thomas When I got the sheet that stated this is Greta Gerwig I was already in They announced It s Ken s favorite song He s gonna sing it at a campfire So I knew exactly the angle you know I totally understand But then Greta she assured me that she chose the song because she grew up with it She loved it The idea of Ken just being an angry guy who doesn t know what to do with his emotions so he screams Push in all honesty in my s I was just a young angry guy that didn t know what to do with my emotions and I wrote Push Laughs There was a total relation to that kind of powerlessness maybe just not for the reasons Ken felt his powerlessness You know what I mean I didn t feel like feminism was encroaching on me so I had to write Push Laughs The post Rob Thomas talks new album tour and being a part of our collective nostalgia appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta