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

Matchbox Twenty is the rare popular 90s 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.1. The tour is celebrating the upcoming release of Thomas’ new album “All Night Days,” which will be released on Sept. 5. 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 wanted 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 2020. 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 2020. 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 2020 to 2021, 2022. So by 2023, I put out that Christmas record because there was one summer that I could actually record a Christmas record, because I wasn’t out doing anything. Then, we were like, Matchbox Twenty wants to make a record. 

Some 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 few 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 2020, 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 30 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 always 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 30 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 some sort of project. 

This is a solo tour, but as you just mentioned, Matchbox has been together for 30 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 wanted 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 problem, but as friends, they couldn’t take something away from me that brings me joy 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 30 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 “3AM,” 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 always 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 “3AM” – and I was a young man then, I was in my 20s. I was in my early, early 20s, and I was writing it about a time when I was even younger. I always 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 14. 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 20/21, 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 [“3AM”] 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 some success, and maybe even some 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 27 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 probably relate to that feeling. Like you said, 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 50 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 some 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 asked 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 “3AM,” 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 joy 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 said something that I don’t think I’ve ever said. 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 some 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 said, this is Greta Gerwig, I was already in … They said, 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 20s, 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]