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ON THE COUCH WITH: Rob Thomas

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Can you tell us a bit about your debut solo album?
Rob Thomas: The new album is called "Something To Be." It's something that, in a lot of ways has been a long time coming, but I'm not sure that I was ready to do it until now. I think I had to go through the process of learning how to do this as a group until I had the confidence to feel like I could do it on my own and throughout the Matchbox Records I would also spend like all my free time writing for other people. Like country people and Latin people and hip-hop people and trying to spread out my writing chops as much as I can and so this record I think was like put-up-or-shut-up time. You know, like I had the time to do it and I had to see if I had any possibility of having talent on my own or did it all rely on everybody that I was surrounding myself with? So, it was just kind of like a gut check for me, you know. The one thing that doesn't change is kind of the magic that unfolds itself as you work on it, you know what I mean? And like, and that is kind of the beauty of a track, where you have a great song. But then making the record is all about just being there at the right moment with the right musicians to come up with the right thing. And so, once I realized that all I had to do is put in my input. I have to go in there with my instincts and then let it just kind of come out, it started to in a lot of ways, just kind of record itself you know? Like if you had a good song and if you had the people that you knew you wanted to play on it, you'd wind up with something a lot better than you thought you would. And you're like, well this is easy, I can do this.

Access All Areas.net.au: This is your first time you’ve gone and recorded a full album solo, how hard was it for you to record an album without the input of the rest of the band [of Matchbox 20] with you?
Rob Thomas: I didn't want to go into it with any idea of what it was going to be like. The only thing is when I started telling people about it, that I was going to make a solo record, the same question kept coming up which was, well if you write the majority of songs for Matchbox what's the difference? And that was my only pre-conceived idea going in was that I didn't want to make a Matchbox record with different musicians. I'm already in a great rock bank, of great rock musicians and so if I just went to make another rock record it would really seem redundant and it wouldn't be the best use of my time to do something creative and new. And so that was the only pre-conceived idea was that it was not going to sound like a Matchbox record. It can't sound like two guitars a base player and a drummer. It's got to be something a little, you know, wider than that. But other than that, I think any themes, they wind up coming up later. When you look back on the record and it completely mirrors you life and you go, oh man, that makes so much sense. Like this whole process was a hard process I had a lot of, my wife had a lot of illness over the last two years and that makes it's way into the record, a lot of that record. So, in turn the songs that aren't about that directly are still kind of about getting older, about realizing what's important in your life and touching more on a spiritual nature, not religious as much as spiritual, and trying to find a center and ... I think it all just matches the point I'm at in my life and the age that I'm at and the place that I'm at and you know, a confidence that I have about ... Like hopefully I'll never be confident in my career because I think that what drives you is like what I don't think I have is what makes me want to create and and want to do something new. But I think I have a confidence in my life that gives me the confidence that gives me the confidence to say that I can go out and do it. You know?

Access All Areas.net.au: Is there a particular song that stands out to you on this album or one that you’re most proud of?
Rob Thomas: Something To Be has a song that is the title track on the record and, I mean in a lot of ways the song itself seems like the obligatory you know, autobiographical guy and his struggle with himself and his identity. In the record business you know, everybody has to write one of those songs. And this in a way, was my song, but the record was more than that. I mean the idea of making a solo record and the idea of really finding out things about yourself that, even though you've really been doing this for a long time you've never even touched on these parts of that. And I think Something To Be was about that for me. It was about me trying to find ... Something To Be you know, the song itself takes on the idea of Something To Be image-wise and kind of takes a joke at that. But for me it was about doing this for so long at a really high level and still having no idea what it was that I was capable of doing or what it was that I did really. You know, I just knew that I wrote songs, but in don't want to be one thing. Nobody wants to be one thing you know. And so this record was me trying to step out of that.

Access All Areas.net.au: In what sort of mind frame were you in when it came time to actually recording the album, like did you consider recording duet’s on this album or collaborating with other artists?
Rob Thomas: It was important for me to make a record, like I'm a front man and so like the duet record didn't seem like a good idea to me. But there's so many musicians you know, that I've never had a chance to work with. So Mike Campbell from the Heartbreakers, Robert Randolf from Robert Randolf and the Family Band, Wendy Melvin from Wendy and Lisa and Prince and the Revolution, Jeff Traught(?) from Cheryl Crow's band, John Meyer plays guitar on a track. For me it was just all about these people that I really just admired their playing and I thought they would bring something that I've never been a part of. As much as, like we changed everything around except for our rhythm section. We have John O'Brian as our programmer, Gerald Hayward was our drummer and Mike Alzano(?) is our base player and that's all the way across. And it's nice because these ... Gerald Hayward as a drummer and Mike as a base player come from a very urban, hip-hop world. You know, Mike plays for Dr. Drey(?) and M&M and Gerald Hayward is Beyonce's(?) drummer and so for them to come in on this project was something like what they've never done in their entire life and it was more rock than anything they've ever done and simultaneously I was working on the exact same project that was farther from rock than anything I'd ever done and so we were all out of our element. And when you take a drummer like Gerald Hayward and you put someone like Mike Campbell playing with him it's inherently got something completely different. That's just two sounds that you wouldn't expect would be there, it's you know, "you've got your rock and my funk", "well you got your funk and my rock". It's like a big Reeses Pieces of joy.

Access All Areas.net.au: And the people that you have worked with for this album, what was it that you thought that they could bring to the album? Rob Thomas: All the people that I used in this record, every musician that plays, there's a direct link to something they've done in the past that I really wanted to get a piece of, that you know, that they can do I think, like no one else. And also the idea of taking all those people and putting them together. Like, Wendy is an entirely differently kind of guitar player than Jeff Traught, but the two of them together are, it's an amazing combo. So, no one in the world would have ever thought of that, you know. And it wasn't just studio musicians, a lot of these people aren't studio musicians, they're just people that are really good and they'll play on things that they want to play on. And I was lucky enough that they said yes to mine.

Access All Areas.net.au: Previously, a lot of your song writing has been with the other members of Matchbox 20 so how did the song writing process of writing a solo record differ to that of a Matchbox 20 album?
Rob Thomas: Surprisingly the actual writing process isn't that much different. I mean I think, regardless of when you make a record the thing that doesn't change is the song. And the song writing is usually a really personal process. You know, you're either at a piano or you're at a guitar and you come up with a melody that you like. And that really doesn't change much. The only thing that changes is, I have to be a lot more honest with myself because I don't have four sensors like I used to. Like, it's funny because like, I'm the writer and I write with all these other people and so people just think that like I bring the songs to Matchbox and the guys are like, "Oh, thank you so much." But it's not like that at all. It's a lot of deliberation and a lot of songs that the guys don't like and sometimes they're correct and they're completely correct and I had to be honest with myself at this point, I had to come in with a song that I loved and then be able to tell myself you know, that verse could be better or that's not a good bridge or this isn't really done. And so I had to become my own censor and luckily Matt S(?) was really instrumental in helping me do that and in guiding me along. But even he was really concerned about this process about wanting to give me my room to do this and wanting to make sure that I have my time to make my own mistakes. And he'd be around and it'd be like, "Are you sure you want to?" "I'm not sure, you know." And sometimes Matt would beat me up over, you know, "Come on you've got to find something better than that song, that's not the song, that's not the song." And then like two months later it would be, "Okay you're right, that's the song." Okay, but not because he didn't think it was the song before but he was like, "I'm going to make sure to beat you until you come up with something better. And if you don't and if you know you've tried then there are no cop-outs. You did it. This is the best song to be on the record." And so Matt would really be a taskmaster in a lot of that. And we have so many songs that when we started we thought were going to be like center pieces of the record, that aren't even on the album because we wound up going past that. And that's an amazing place to be.

Access All Areas.net.au: How do you think this album will come across live?
Rob Thomas: In general, getting this thing off the ground and taking it from the record to live is something that I've been really excited about since we started. Like this always sounded like a record that was going to be really great live. And so I think, do you know, I mean for us it doesn't matter if we go to Europe or if we go to Australia or if we go to Cleveland you know. We want to put on the exact same best show that we possible can. For me I'm really excited about, like I was hanging out last night with this guy, Matt Beck, really talented guy, he's my music director. And we were going through who was going to be you know, in the band and what we wanted and what we were so excited about was like, we look at the musicians that we were about to work with and what our next year's going to be and it's going to be great from the get-go but like six months later after we've been out on the road with this caliber of musicians, this show is going to be something completely of it's own animal. It's really something I'm excited about to see it grow. And I think what's better about international is by the time we get overseas we've really honed it over here. So when we hit overseas it's going to be just a great show. And that'll be good.

Access All Areas.net.au: What are you most excited about as a solo artist and releasing your own album?
Rob Thomas: I think touring is to me going to be the most exciting part of all this and I think I always feel like you make a record for the purpose of touring it. And this more than I've ever felt in my life because I think some of these things are going to be so amazing to bring out live. And it's going to be, like I think over the last ten years Matchbox 20 has went from being a good band and an okay live bands in the world and I'll stand up to anybody because we've done it for a long time and we've lived on a stage for the last ten years. But that took a long time. And so now that's a really important thing to me and I want to go out now and I want to do it with this band, I want to take it out because this band right off the bat is going to kill it. It's not going to take another ten years, and so that's good.

Access All Areas.net.au: How do you think Matchbox 20 fans will take to ‘Something To Be’?
Rob Thomas: I believe if you're a fan of anything I've done in the past then you're probably a fan of my songs and I think that you're going to like what I do on hear. But I can definitely see things that, I mean if you're not a fan of traditional kind of rock music then you're not a fan of traditional rock music. You know, it sounds heart-landy to you or something. There's just nothing you can do about that and I can't blame you for not liking that. But it is nice where like, Matchbox exists because of the people that are in it you know, like there were two guitar players, there was a drummer there was a base player, there was a keyboard player and so everything had to have that in it. Everybody needed to be represented and that was what the band was. Now being able to be completely free of any of that, like when you go into a song you don't have to worry about how that fits into the mold that you created. You're just completely free and it's funny because it sounds like thank God, the band's not around any more but, like when I talk to the other guys in the band they're experiencing the exact same thing, you know. Like Paul D(?)is our drummer. He's just finished making an amazing record. And he calls me up and he's like, "Man, it's so amazing to make a record without you guys. It's amazing to be alone. To know what I can do on my own." He like, "I never realized how much I relied ..." And we have like, I feel more confident bringing myself forward and bringing an idea around anybody else in the world with the exception of those four guys. Do you know what I mean? Like those four guys are the gate keepers for me and I'm one of the four for each one of those guys. And so, you feel less confidence around each other because you, like I can't be a rock star around Paul, Paul knows me. You know what I mean? But now we all kind of go off into the world and I think we're going to take some valuable lessons that when we come back, it's going to make us a much more confident band. I think it's going to make the process even harder because we're going to feel like we know even more and that's probably good because I think we're going to come up with a better record than we would have had we just gone and made another Matchbox record. And I think that for one reason or another, for a lot of reasons, we had to take a break before we made another record or else, I don't think it would have been a good record, I don't think we would have liked it, I don't think we would have had fun. Do you know?

Access All Areas.net.au: There’s been a lot of speculation of “has Matchbox Twenty split or not?”, so is there any plans for another Matchbox album in the future?
Rob Thomas: Like as far as we are right now, everybody kind of has it in our head that Matchbox Twenty is going to get together at some point and we'll make another record. But I think part of this whole time that we're having, what's important is that we haven't put a date on it. We're not really thinking about when it's going to happen. Everybody's got so many things that are going on as it is. We're all just kind of here in each other's corners for all of our other projects that we have going on. And frankly, like this is just, nobody knows what tomorrow is. Like this is where my head is right now. You know, so, that's the only place I can be.

Access All Areas.net.au: What genre would you say that your music fits in to?
Rob Thomas: I think you know, I learned that genres mean nothing at all, and it doesn't matter the kind of music that you're making. It still all comes down to, you just have to mean it. Like whatever you're doing you just have to really believe it. Like even if it's just a song about having a good time, you need to feel like it, you know, it needs to not have any pretense to it. Do you know, and I think that doesn't change, no matter what kind of music you're making and you feel that, you feel certain songs somehow effect you. And I really believe that those songs, and sometimes they're, they're a little more frivolous songs than you would thing would effect you. And sometimes they're these heartfelt songs, but I really believe it's because when they're recorded it meant something to them, you know. And so I think that doesn't change no matter what kind of music you're making. And now I think I've realized too, that I don't know how many records I can make back to back because I think like I want to produce something now. You know, like I think I want to like write some more for other people now and so ... we might have to, I don't know, tour less, I don't know, there's only so many hours in the day. I don't know how to do it all.

Access All Areas.net.au: Has there ever been a point in your career where you’ve thought you’ve had enough?
Rob Thomas: As you get older there's that idea of, you can never produce as much as you can create in your head. You know, you can never have every creative idea displayed that you've ever wanted to have and so, when you get older you start to realize even less when you have to do it in 12 song increments and then support that record for a year and then spend another six months, get another 12 songs together. After a while you're like, well, I spend a lot more time promoting than I do creating and the road part of that is what always like, right when I'm just about to the point where like, it's never about like I always want to continue to make music but sometimes I want to do it so bad that I don't want to be in a band or do it live because I want to go and I want to write and I want to produce for other people and I want to try and be in as many different genres as I can. And then I hit the road and then I get on a stage and I'm like man, I can't imagine doing anything else in the world. Like this is totally where I feel more comfortable than anywhere else in the world. And that's a weird thing, that I feel more comfortable in front of ten thousand people than I do sitting here talking to somebody about standing in front of ten thousand people. And I don't know, that's a very special kind of animal, so I don't think I should do anything else.

Access All Areas.net.au: Having come from Matchbox Twenty, did you actively try to create a solo record that was different?
Rob Thomas: I think as much as I tried to want to do something different without just doing it for the sake of doing something different, I still believe I made an album, I still believe that it really needs to be taken in and you've got to start at the beginning and you've got to go to the end because we worked really hard. And there's a lot of great songs that didn't make it because they messed up what we thought was the flow of the record and this record tells it's own kind of emotional story in a way. It has it's ups and it's downs and if you take it from the beginning to the end you feel like you went on a journey and that was really important for me. Like I want people to kind of feel that. I don't want to feel like you just sat for an hour listening to a record I want you to be able to just put it on and have them all kind of go by you and be like, wow, that was really nice I want to listen to it again, you know?

Access All Areas.net.au: Do you feel that people have a pre-conceived idea of what to expect of a solo album from you?
Rob Thomas: For what people probably think that they expect out of a solo record that was coming, I think it was much more bombastic than people would think that it's going to be. I think that it's a little more loud. I mean there's more songs on this record that aren't about personal male/female relationships I think than I've ever had on a record before, which to me was a really big step, you know, not just the kind of songs that I'm writing but the content of the songs that I'm writing and trying ... like I've been really focused all the time on relationships and not just like man/woman relationships, but always like relationships between people. And so I've been trying to branch out on the subject matter and write a little bit more about myself sometimes or just a little more about you know, things that strike me in the world. And I'm still not great at it, because you know, that's not what's on the forefront of my mind, but it helps me move things around.

Access All Areas.net.au: You’ve got your own charity foundation called Sidewalk Angels, how did you get in to that?
Rob Thomas: Sidewalk Angels is a foundation that actually my wife and I started. And actually she was a really big part of it. It all started out of a necessity for us to help. There's a no-kill animal shelter in New York, called Pets Alive that we've done a lot of stuff with. And this amazing woman who's devoted her entire life for this and she gets no funding. And then there's no marketing there's no anything so, it was important to us to kind of do a fund raiser. And just like anything I think when you touch on something benevolent it's just like picking away at something and you realize all of these things that you want to be a part of and that you want to help and I mean I've always been a believer that most of your charitable things should be done quietly and you should do them you know, out there. And luckily with the bank we have an opportunity to do it kind of where people can know about it so, you still want to do as many things as you can that nobody knows about, but it was important to us to have a foundation that we could use to link to other foundations and charities that we could use you know, whatever name that we've gained ... and when I say "we" I mean my wife and if because she's you know, a huge part of it. She's the one that gets the website together, and she's the one that runs the organization and I'm just the big Baby Huey, and I use my name. But she has, I mean this has been a really, really important thing for her to do I think and over the last two years she's not been well and I think it's been even more important to her to try and give back. And so now that she's been getting better this year there's going to be a lot of really good Sidewalk Angel things coming up. There's a lot of stuff with you know, some local charities, children's hospital at home that we want to do some stuff with. So, now that she's getting better, I think we're going to try and do a lot more with that.

Access All Areas.net.au Can you take us through your new album?
Rob Thomas: There were these four writers that, to this day, I've never met that wrote this track and it was this whole other song, you know, that I wrote to it. And in it I'd written part of the chorus for "This Is How A Heartbreaks". And nothing ever happened to the song and the guys took the track back and I think it became another song and something ... But I still had that melody. But you know, I had to like, you have to be honest and say well, I wouldn't have come up with that melody had it not been for this track that these guys gave me. So even though I wrote a completely different song around it and it was my melody that I brought in, it's a writing credit that I share on my album with these four people that I've never met in my entire life, but they're on there. Like I couldn't tell you their names, you have to look on my album to know. So I thought that was a pretty interesting story. But the song itself was just lyrically, like I had the line, "this is how our heart breaks.", then the idea that you start to try and direct an entire relationship you know, from beginning to end, kind of metaphorically like how it, how it starts when you meet and what it feels like and then what it becomes as it starts to decompose you know, in a lot of situations.

Rob Thomas: So, "Lonely No More" is another one. Like, Lonely No More is just as much about an exercise in writing than it was anything else. For me it started with the line, "I don't want to have to pay for this." That was originally like, what I thought the song was going to be, so I'm playing it and I'm, "Ta da da da ba da da, I don't want to have to pay for this. Ta la la ba da da ba da." And I had this melody and this rhythm long before I had anything else. And then when I had the line "I don't want to be lonely no more. I struggled forever because I'm so like, so much of my songs for some reason are I'm lonely or I'm angry. So it seemed even funnier to me to write a song that says, you know, I don't want to be lonely no more. I don't want to be angry no more. Because, underlying message, you know, I'm just kind of sick of the same themes over and over and over. And it seemed funny that the first single of this record should be those themes. But I got the title from my favorite novel, it was a Kurt Vonnegut novel called Slapstick. And in it, you know, Kurt Vonnegut liked to use actual drawings, like little sketches that he would do in his books. And one of those was a button that says, "Lonely No More". And without going into the plot, it had something to do with the book. And so, I always thought that was great, it stuck in my head, "Lonely No More". And so, that was the name of the single.

Rob Thomas: Ever The Same is the exact opposite of something like a Lonely No More, which is, you know, Ever The Same was kind of representing a really, really rough couple of years that went into making this record like during this period of time, my wife had been really, really sick and she had been you know, at the end of the last Matchbox tour and going into the making of this record and the writing of these songs and that song represents like an actual moment of our life, like one evening where we were just kind of at the end of our rope and not quite sure how to handle all of it and I just ran downstairs and I wrote it in like five minutes it just kind of came out. And there was this song and the best ones do that, they just kind of come out of you, you know. And so Ever The Same is kind of special for me on the record as being that, as one of the most complete from feeling to being a song in one fell swoop, kind of a thing.

Rob Thomas: There's a lot of stuff on this record that touches into me personally and a lot of songs start from somewhere very personal but then they kind of go somewhere else. Like you get out what you have to say but then it starts to become more interesting to you than just about what you have to say and you take it somewhere else. This song was just that. It was the most personal attachment I think I've probably had to a song in a long time, you know?

Rob Thomas: "I Have An Illusion" is great because it's a song that got passed on for the last Matchbox record. I played it and Paul didn't buy it. That was his answer, he was like, I don't buy it. But like I've always been a big fan of the song so I kind of held on to it, knowing that it wasn't a song that would ever want anyone else to do, that I felt really personal about it and it and I wanted to do it and I'm glad I waited because working with the musicians that I work with on this record it became something close to the vision that I always had for it but even more so. Like just more sinister and more driving and you know, it just went to a place that I never would have gone on my own or with the people that I've worked with in the past. Only with this group, like, everything that Matchbox has ever done, it is that way because of those five people and no one else would have made these records. And I feel like on a lot of my record it's the same way. Had I chosen different people it would have taken a completely different direction. And that's why you choose the people that you choose, because you want to take a piece of them and not you know, just have them play ... You know, I'm not a great guitar player, so I really wouldn't serve myself well if I get a great guitar player and just tell him you know, what I want him to play.

Rob Thomas: I think on this a lot of it had to do with you know, Matt S(?) was really instrumental in kind of helping me ... With a song that's been around for a long time you get married to ideas that you shouldn't be married to. It just how you hear it. Because in your head it's already a song. So sometimes that's not a good thing. Sometimes it's right and your vision is always the way to go because that was your first instinct, but sometimes you sit on a bad idea for so long and nobody has ever heard it that ... in your head you've heard it already realizing that that's the way the song goes and so Matt was really good at kind of slapping me out of that and going no, trust me, it could be a lot better arranged than it is. And John O'Brian, who's the programmer, had a really big part of bringing that in. And when he started like, getting into the Um, ... (Sings rhythm) uhn da uhn. Like I was really scared of that for a while. And I started to love it and then when Mike Alzano(?) came in and my only direction was you know, I really, like, I hear it being kind of driven in that bulletin blue skyway, you know? And he came in with that base line ... and then it all came together you know? And so it was just one of those ones that when I listen to, I'm just like, Aw, yeah, yeah, you know? And I know the guys in Matchbox will listen to that one and just be like, Yeeeaah, so ... that's fun.

Rob Thomas: "When The Heartache Ends" almost didn't make it on the record you know. It's funny because it's one of my favorite ones on the record. But it was one of those ones that, like every record I've ever made always has one on it that I don't really think much of, that I've had this melody floating around and it only becomes a part of the album because like, one night hanging out having beers with Matt I'm like, you know, I really want to do something one day with this melody, it's just a pretty melody. And I'll play it and Matt will always smack me and be like, "What are you doing that's great. Let's get in there and let's do it." And so this is one of those songs that, sometimes just a pretty melody and you have an idea, what the album is. And you're think, well I'm not sure if it fits here and you realize that even those albums ... Like the reason you don't like some albums is because it's just so linear. It has one place that it's going and it has one thing that it's saying and it's just that for 12 songs. And so I thought this should be a soft moment that's on this record that's pretty loud. And it seemed like one of the songs one the record that would kind of be what I think a lot of this record to be, like a whole album of this. But the beauty of this one is that Mike Campbell plays on it from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. And Tom Petty is one of my favorite artists of all time and Mike Cambell is a really amazing guitar player, he's an amazing song writer. He's one of the guys that wrote, "Boys of Summer". Just you know, wrote a lot of Tom Petty stuff, with Tom. And he's just like a really amazing writer and he plays like a writer. And so, it sounds like Rob Thomas and the Beartbreakers when I listen to it you know. I feel like that one moment I get to be, in my own little free-falling moment. And as soon as he hits the guitar the sounds like Mike Campbell. And it's funny because it's not in any way that he plays it's just the way that he holds an instrument and the way that his fingers sound when he hits the strings is different play guitar. And it's an amazing thing to just be that in tune with your instrument.

Rob Thomas: "Someone To Be" is the title track on the record. It was a song that I'd written about ... it seems obligatory song, like everybody at some point has to write the autobiographical of their point of view on ... and I didn't want to write about the of view of the music business. Because I think it's all very subjective to your place in the music business and what you do in the music business. And It's a really easy cop-out you know, all this is ... the most evil thing in the world. But it's not really. You're at the end of the day, really responsible what you do. You're responsible for the situations you put yourself in, you're responsible for what you do with your music or what you don't do with your music. So as much as you blame the industry, it's not really the industry because you always have the option of saying, well I'll sell less records, or I won't be as famous, or I won't get as much notoriety, but I'll do this because it makes me just comfortable. It's because a lot of people don't want to make that compromise, they're like, "I want it all, but then I just want to bitch about it in the meantime. So, this song was kind of about that, about me realizing, okay, during this whole time that I'm doing it you know, from the time that I started maybe in my early twenties and then now, you look, like a decade later just about and you realize the whole time while the world's watching you're trying to figure out who you the ____ you are. You know, each record, each time you do something you look at it and you're like, what was I wearing, or what was I thinking, or what was that or what was I saying? Did I really mean that or who the ____ was I, you know? And I don't think I like me. And then you go through all these things and then you'll come around now to this solo record, which right now at this point in time it feels like, who I've become. You know, because this is now. So the present, this is who I am, this is my record, and this represents who I am. But three records from now it's really only going to be who I was. It's really only going to be who I was in this transitional period, which every period is transitional. It's just harder to remember that in the present. So, this record was that. It was you know, a chance for me to kind of figure out who I am right now, to put it all down, figure out who I could be on my own this time around you know. But in the end maybe no more you know, maybe no more special than whatever's going to happen in the future. You know, who knows, so, it's just something to be.

Rob Thomas: "All that I Am" was another song. It's been laying around for a long time and it's always been this melody that I've really, really kind of held close and wanted to do something with. You know, for a while Matt and I talked about we wanted to make a musical because it seemed very theatrical and very dramatic and it seemed like it would be a great center piece around something you know, a musical that we wanted to do. Like create a real story and put real good songs to it, you know, not show tuney songs. And so, the idea had come across at once for me to do a song that was associated with the Passion of the Christ. And I'm not a super religious person, and I'm trying to figure out if I'm a spiritual person or not, you know. But you know, I saw this film and it really moved me you know, and this was months before it had come out. And so months before anyone had any chance to sway my opinion on what I was to think of it, or what it was ... and I saw it as, I saw it the same way that I like, I watched "Gandi", or the same way that I watched you know, a movie about Dr. Martin Luther King. You know, this movie of suffering for good. And it really effected me and I went and I wrote the lyrics to this song, All That I Am. And then the whole project, and nothing can stain the way that I felt when I saw that film but what the film became, and then the idea of like, being a part of something that's nothing more than a marketing tool for this thing that's already kind of become something other than I think even Mel Gibson kind of thought that it was when you started it. It just didn't seem like what it was. It didn't seem as great. And then my record company saved me, because my record company came and said well, we don't want you to do it anyway. And I was like, Oh, oh damn. And it didn't work out and I didn't do it and I'm really sorry because Max and Mel Gibson called me in my like, hotel room to thank me for being a part of it and I was like, Mel Gibson just called me. So don't be mad at me, Mel Gibson, I'm really a fan. But you know, my record company said no, and I went a long with them, and it was another one that I wasn't sure if it was going to wind up on this record or not. Like, does it fit this record, or it's so modern, or it's so this. But, the idea of this record, the idea of something to be, the idea of me trying to make it as diverse as I can possibly can, and try to cover as much ground as the music that I listen to. Then it seemed like perfect place for it. And it also seemed a great little place on the record for it to kind of wind down and take a complete left turn that no one expects it to take. And I think when you make an album those are the kind of journeys that you really like. Those are the journey's that keep you listening from one to 12. It takes you up and it takes you down, and just when it's slamming in your head, it gives you a little break sonically, and then it takes a little twirl around, you know, and then comes right back again. And so, I think this helps the direction of the record a lot.

Rob Thomas: (Inaudible) to the idea of when you make a record it's really more about how it all fits together for you. And not, it can't be, is it a hit? Because we've weeded out some songs that were potential hits, but just had no connection whatsoever. And you don't feel good you know, spending a year and a half of your life out supporting something that you don't support, you know? And "Problem Girl" was one of those. It was the last song to be added to the record, one of the first songs to be recorded. It's got a great solo by Mike Campbell, as well. But the idea of not having it on the record really upset me. And it was a song that we kept going back and forth between. And it was this track that we'd built out of this other song, and at the end of it all we liked the track so much more than we liked the actual song. But when I kept going back, the one sounded like a guaranteed hit. You know, it sounded like, if we could just get that right. We had a good melody going with it and it's like, wow this sounds like a hit. And then Problem Girl just sounded so right. You know, like I loved this song. It was funny because it really, even though I wrote a long time ago it really fit what was going on with my life and with my wife right now, you know, and we were going through a lot at the time. It just seemed very serendipitous that this song kind of resurfaced. And it seemed like it belonged on this record. And so it sits there, it's like one of those songs that I think ... I get so much feedback if you would hear the record. It's like this quiet little song on there that people stumble on and are like, you know, I love that song, I love that little song. And so I'm really glad it's on there. I think it fits into the record really well.

Rob Thomas: "Fallen Pieces" is one of my favorites. That's another one that I think is a lot of fun. I just like to play it for people. It's got this weird hip-hop, country vibe to it that I can't quite explain. It's like a Zideco(?) thing you know, mixed in with, we had the Soggy Bottom Boys come in, and they sing ... like when I first wrote it, to me, on the guitar ... I started it off as a love song that I wrote while in a hotel in LA while my wife was sleeping. And I'm real quiet at the foot of the bed because it was like a one room thing. And we're sitting in there and I'm writing, (Sings inaudible words), and it was like an old country melody, like an old Johnny Cash song would be, you know? And ... my toes are going crazy ... it was like an old country melody and so, when I started writing this idea of her falling to pieces, which was just ... (sings), "... falling to pieces", you know, and I love that so much. And somehow you keep going through all your songs and certain songs mix together. And these two mixed together really well for me and when I sped up the other melody I liked it so much, but I wanted it to retain some of that country vibe. Like it had a great country feel to me. So partly in the Zideco Beat, partly in the instrumentation, mixed in these you know, John O'Brian's programming with you know, real violin fiddle playing and real harmonicas, you know, real steel guitars. All this kind of music that shouldn't go together. And then me saying that and then putting the Soggy Bottom Boys behind it, you know, singing along, it sounds like an old Loretta Lynn record or an old Conway Twitty record when they come in, you know. And so, I love the way that feels sonically, and then at the end we just went off into this wild you know, Elvis place you know, that we'd never go to. It's fun, like when you, it was a great example of what you can do when you don't have any deliberation, you know. And for better or for worse, you ... well let's do this, it makes no sense whatsoever. And it's about a moment that you felt was necessary that maybe people with good sense around you would have talked you out of. But because they weren't there to talk you out of it you did it, and you're like, well that's completely irrelevant to anything else (Inaudible). And I love it, it's beautiful, it's great, it's a great moment. So ... that's one of those.

Rob Thomas: "My, My, My", that song has been around forever. And all it has been is a chorus. I've had, "My, my, my, let your bright eyes shine" and that's it, for like a year and a half. And it's become like, you know, so many different versions of different songs. And then it wasn't until like, I knew kind of the way I wanted it to go and we built and entire track of the entire song, My, My, My, from beginning to end. And the only difference is, it starts off now with a verse. It starts off, you know, "the light form the window's fading". And it used to start off, "ma mama ..." and when I went in to record it I hated it. And I almost just threw it out the window again. For like another two years it would have sat around. And then I sat in the booth lighting lyrics until I found a melody for a verse, you know. And instead of having to re-record it, I was like, well I'm going to make it fit in here. So I ... well, no intro, that's a good way because that'll give me time. So I started right on the one. So all these things I did was just to make a good melody fit. And it wasn't until, "the law and the light from the window is faded and you turn on the night", that everything clicked. And I was just like, oh okay, and it just kind of opens up and you're like, okay now I see a song. And I ran off, and then you can write it all in like 10 minutes once you know what you're doing. And with this, you know, another great example of what you can do along like when you're making a solo record, it's just you and the guy engineering. And I could sing along and then listen to it and see if I like it or not, you know, and sing another line. Play it five times in a row and just free associate, to see what comes out you know, to try and find the right rhythm or the right something. And this song was that, it was really belabored over. It took hours just to kind of run out of the room and rewrite and rewrite and get it down you know, to where it was going to be. Once it all came down the lyrics came in no time. But it's really more about that vocal rhythm, like, how you want it to sound when it comes out that's more important.

Rob Thomas: "All I had on a street corner", was the chorus. And it was, (Sings) "Come on over, down to the corner," And so I had the vibe there. But then it was you know, I didn't want it to be like, white boy funk, hokey. But I didn't want it to be hip-hop. You start kind of going back and forth just between what's it going to sound like. And I think a lot of that helped you know, when John O'Brian came in and laid down the programming for it. You know, it was just kind of tough, it had a good, (makes sounds) you know, which made it not so light and fluffy, you know, gave it a good edge. And then John Meyer, you know, like John Meyer is the underrated guitar player and everybody knows he's a great singer and everybody knows he's a great songwriter. But he really is kind of an underrated guitar player. And he's an amazing guitar player. And for him to come in ... I think he had a good time coming in just to be a guitar player, not having you know, we'd thought of you know, do you want to do backing vocals? And he was like, "No, no. I don't want anything to do with it. I just want to play guitar. I just want to be a guitar player." So he came in and he played, and he did a really great job on it. And there was another one where you know, we had a lot of fun I think with the sections on this, you know, and the arrangement of it. And we approached it an arrangement in a different way, you know. There was a solo and there was a bridge and we weren't sure which one we wanted to use and we kind of decided to use both. And the bridge fit with this old vibe we had but when you put in the new vibe it worked kind of well too, even though it didn't sound like a part of the sound. And so there's a lot of that going on in this, it was just kind of us throwing everything in there. And then in the end it sounds really kind of sparse, but there's like a million tracks going on because it's just a lot of things that happen once you know, throughout the song. Like one little thing here, one little thing here and little horn part here that just kind of pops up out of nowhere. So I struggle with every song, whether it belongs on the record or, you know, is it a song that I want to sing. And then all my friends are like, Oh, that's my jam, that's my jam. So that song just would up being really special. And you know, it's a good song to ... like a lot of these songs have the backing vocals of The Greater Anointing. And The Greater Anointing are this family that are just the Trivets you know, they come in and ... just this amazing group of people. They're amazing vocalists and they have amazing talent, but their also really just amazing people to have around. And they're just like this ... just, joy that ... like a big pack of joy that travels around. And I've seen them in gospel awards and I've seen them perform and it really is an inspiring thing to watch them perform. And so having them around had a lot to do with the vibe of this record as well, when you hear Lonely No More and you hear the background vocals on that. Or when you hear the background on How A Heart Breaks, you know, and the background vocals on Street Corner Symphony, they are such a huge part of that sound. Them coming in and just bringing there joy and just laying it on my record is really great.

Rob Thomas: The minute that we wrote "Now Comes The Night" we knew that was a song that was going to be right at the end of the record. It seemed like a closer. We also knew that it was going to be the song on the record that didn't have anything other than one keyboard and one vocal and one piano track and that was it. And that was the way that we were going to record it. Even though the rest of the record is so heavy with production and we put so much on it, it seemed perfect to close it out with the quietest song that we could possibly think of. And it was a song that was kind of written about death. It's funny because there's just a lot of that on this record, there's a lot about death on this record. Some of it's in happy form. But it's funny that some songs you write and this is documented on the record, you know, on the dual disk. You can see the process kind of, of what ... you know, a lot of songs are written in solitude, a lot of songs are you by yourself. And this melody and the whole beginning of this song started you know, on my own. But we have it documented, Matt and I really tearing into this song and kind of talking about what it is that we're talking about and making sure that we're saying what it is that we're saying in the song. And make sure that it says something and is it one cohesive thought. It was important you know, for this to be a song to me that you could read the lyrics to and they would make as much poetic sense to you without the melody and disjointed without the melody and the music and just completely read it. And it was one of those I wanted to be a nice poem set to music. And I think it was. "Now Comes The Night" was my poem set to music.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

For nearly a decade now, Rob Thomas has been a ubiquitous presence on the modern musical landscape. As the primary composer and lead singer for matchbox twenty, he has been the driving force both behind and in front of one of the most consistently successful rock bands in recent history. Independent of the band, Rob’s growing reputation as an exceptional songwriter has led to invitations to collaborate with a select list of artists – most notably Santana, for whom he wrote and sang the multiple Grammy-winning “Smooth.” But despite his remarkable achievements, Rob found himself at a crossroads. It was a personal turning point that led to the creation of “…SOMETHING TO BE,” his debut solo album.

“It’s been a long time coming,” says Rob, “but I’m not sure that I was ready to do it until now. I think I had to go through the process of learning how to do this as a group until I had the confidence to do it on my own. I was also spending my free time writing for other people – country people and Latin people and hip-hop people – trying to spread out my writing chops as much as I could. So I think this record was put-up-or-shut-up time. It was a kind of gut-check for me. Could I do it on my own or did it all rely on everybody that I was surrounding myself with? I just had to go in there with my instincts and let it come out. Fortunately, the one thing that hadn’t changed was the kind of magic that unfolds as long as you start out with a good song.”

Working without the safety net of four other “censors,” as Rob calls his matchbox bandmates, proved to be both a liberating and challenging experience. “I had to be a lot more honest with myself,” he says. “It’s funny, because since I’m the writer, people just assume that I bring the songs to matchbox and the guys go, ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ But it’s not like that at all. There’s a lot of deliberation, and there are often songs that the guys don’t like, and sometimes they’re completely correct. So with this album, I had to come in with a song that I loved and then be able to be honest with myself. I had to have the room to make my own mistakes and then be my own censor.”

“…SOMETHING TO BE” was produced by matchbox’s longtime collaborator Matt Serletic and mixed by Jimmy Douglass and David Thoener, with recording in New York City, Los Angeles, and Ossining, New York. Making special guest appearances are John Mayer (guitar on “Streetcorner Symphony”), Robert Randolph (lap steel guitar on “I Am An Illusion”), and guitarists Mike Campbell (Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers), Wendy Melvoin (Wendy & Lisa), and Jeff Trott (Sheryl Crow). The rhythm section features bass guitarist Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Eminem) and drummer Gerald Hayward (Mary J. Blige, Beyoncé). The core band is rounded out by Serletic on keyboards.

“It was all about having people on the record whose playing I really admired and who I thought would bring something that I’ve never been a part of,” says Rob. “Every musician I used on this record has a direct link to something they’ve done in the past that I really wanted to get a piece of, and that they can do like no one else. It was also the idea of taking all these people and putting them together. For instance, Wendy is an entirely different kind of guitar player than Jeff, but the two of them together are an amazing combo.

“Mike and Gerald come from a very urban, hip-hip world, so for them this project was more rock than anything they’d ever done. And simultaneously, the project was farther from rock than anything I’d ever done, so we were all out of our element. And then you put someone like Mike Campbell with them, and it’s inherently something completely different, with sounds you wouldn’t expect to be together.”

Rob’s determination to set this album in a landscape far removed from matchbox territory is reflected in a diversity of unexpected sounds – from the use of a sample of Bessie Jones’s “O Death” on “I Am An Illusion” to the appearance by the gospel choir Greater Anointing on several tracks, including the beat-driven first single, “Lonely No More.” Then there is the world music approach that permeates “All That I Am” – which the Los Angeles Times calls “arguably the emotional centerpiece” of the album – featuring the shofar (the ritual Hebrew ram’s horn), kanun (Turkish stringed instrument), duduk (Armenian wind instrument), and various percussion.

As for the album’s musical direction, Rob notes that “I wanted to do something different, but not just for the sake of doing something different. I wanted to make it as diverse as I possibly could, and I learned that genres mean nothing at all. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you’re making. It all comes down to the fact that you have to mean it and you have to believe it. I really believe that the songs that affect you most are the songs that really meant something to the artist when they recorded it.”

Equally important to Rob as the diversity of the album’s sounds and styles was that it not be a mere collection of songs, but reflect a personal and musical journey. From the driving rock of the album’s opening track, “This Is How A Heart Breaks,” to the deeply moving closing ballad, “Now Comes The Night,” the album “tells its own kind of emotional story,” says Rob. “A lot of great songs didn’t make it because they messed up what we thought was the flow of the record. The album takes you up and down… just when it’s slamming in your head, it takes a kind of wind-down and makes a left turn that no one expects it to take… then it takes a little twirl around and comes right back again. Those are the kinds of journeys that keep you listening from track one to twelve. If you

take it from the beginning to the end, you feel like you have been on a journey, and that was very important to me.”

Rob remains an artist who creates very personal songs with universal resonance. “There are songs on the album that are very personal, and songs that start from somewhere very personal but then go somewhere else,” he says. “My wife had quite a lot of illness over the last two years and that makes its way onto a lot of the record. And the songs that aren’t about that directly are still about realizing what’s important in your life – touching more on a spiritual nature, not religious as much as spiritual, about trying to find a center.”

With “…SOMETHING TO BE” wrapped up, Rob has turned his attention to taking the music on the road. “One thing I’ve been really excited about since we started is taking this thing from the record to the stage. This has always sounded like a record that was going to be really great live. The show is going to be something of its own animal, and I’m exciting about seeing it grow. I feel more comfortable in front of ten thousand people than I do sitting here talking to somebody about standing in front of ten thousand people.”

In the end, “…SOMETHING TO BE” is but the latest stop on an evolving musical journey. “Right now, at this point in time, this record feels like who I’ve become,” says Rob. “This represents who I am. But three records from now, it’s really only going to be who I was. It’s going to be who I was during this transitional period, because every period is transitional. It’s hard to remember that in the present. This record was a chance for me to figure out who I am, who I could be on my own this time around. It was just something to be.”

www.robthomasmusic.com

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

The Living End
I could probably go on for hours, but the one stand out for me was in 2003 at the Auckland Big Day Out. It was the set of the Queens Of The Stone Age & 2 songs in the gear blew up & they had to stop playing, everyone was pissed & the band was so bummed out. At about 11pm at night however, an announcement came out stating they were doing another set on a smaller stage & everyone just scrambled to get there. This set was just so energetic, so aggressive & so impressive & it really stood out as just one of the best shows I’ve had the privledge of witnessing while on tour.

Ideal Lineup?
Well for me it’s straight up ACDC as I just love them so much, I would also say U2 once again they’re really great live & play great music. I suppose the only other band I could think of would be Cog, 5they have a great live show & just fit a festival no matter where they play. So yeah, those 3 for me.

Tips for attending Music Festivals?
Well the biggest tip I can definitely give is either take or get as much water through the day as you can as it will help you so much, of course people may not take that advice as there’s other stuff to drink at festivals. Make sure you have a plan so you don’t get lost or lose time of the day & ensure you have things mapped out to know where to go for all the essentials. For me the essentials are the bar & the toilets & then the stages, so once you have the plan & the water, it’s all good.