Rob Thomas: How He Wrote the #3 Most Successful Song Of All Time | Matchbox Twenty | Guy Raz

Key Takeaway

Treat creative work as a volume practice, not a test of your talent. Today, block 30 minutes to make one imperfect draft—a song idea, paragraph, design, or proposal—and finish it before judging it. Rob Thomas writes constantly, often completing work no one will hear, because each finished attempt clears mental space and teaches him what leads to the next good idea. Inspiration may start the work, but consistency and completion make it usable.

Episode Overview

Rob Thomas recounts a difficult childhood, his path from local bands to Matchbox Twenty, and the slow, grassroots rise of their debut record. He also explains how he wrote “Smooth” with Carlos Santana and reflects on authenticity, creative self-doubt, resilience, and sustaining a band for three decades.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Rob Thomas: How He Wrote the #3 Most Successful Song Of All Time | Matchbox Twenty | Guy Raz from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

you're about to hear the behindthescenes story of one of the biggest pop songs of all time that part was there and how one of the biggest bands of the past 30 years Matchbox 20 almost crashed and burned it is not a hit it is not an instant 65 records or something I think on the first week my guest Rob Thomas is really candid about the challenges he faced early in life I was like a little kid who learned how to like make dime bags of weed by the time I was like 10 years old how his career almost went in a totally different direction I dropped out of high school and got my GED because I was going to join the Army and the creative process behind his hits such as 3:00 a.m.

and push songs that turned him into a rock legend even though the critics didn't always see it that way the first time I ever appeared in Rolling Stone it was just a picture of me at glastenbury looking really fat it said uh the road to success leads to the deli so without further Ado here's my conversation with Rob Thomas Rob Thomas Thanks for for joining us thank you for having me guys nice to talk to you um to say I mean to say that you had like a dezian childhood is almost an understatement you had a really difficult childhood I know your parents split when you were like a baby um do did you have a relationship with your dad growing up at all it was a weird it still is I think a weird relationship that I have with my father in that he you know him and my mother uh separated my mother was a force of a person you know she was a yeah a really big drinker and a big personality and uh she that I think drove a wedge between me and my dad and his ability you know and to see me and so uh I at the time never really understood that I just kind of thought he wasn't around a lot yeah and I think my mom would kind of just let me let me run with that narrative even if she didn't feed it um and so I just wound up by the time you know my father and I got pretty arrain and we would see each other I always liked him he's always the nicest guy like I've kind of I see good traits in me and I know that they come from my father um but it's just that the way I grew up my dad kind of came back into my life right when the band started to do well and then he was kind of around a lot but by that point I had gotten to an age where I had learned how to live without the need for parents and I and and my family became my you know the people that I was on the road with my manager was more of a father at that time probably than my father and so it was just a hard transition for me to be like to be the kind of person that feels the need to pick up the phone on a holiday and of the people I want to call he was on that list and so when those things happen it just gets more and more arranged and I keep thinking like Cats in the Cradle cuz my son and I are really really close and we talk all the time but I tried to invite him out to Vancouver and he couldn't do it cuz he was too busy and so I just hear like Harry chapen playing in the back of my head I'm like no yeah my boy turned just like turned out just like me um I mean when you were I mean from from the time you were I mean your entire childhood really um was like a it was a a lot of financial instability right you were moving around you Liv in South Carolina for some time um both your mom and your grandmother who you spent a lot of time with um had a lot of addiction issues and tell me about just being a kid in that environment well I mean as a kid it probably wasn't until middle school that I that I had anything to contrast it to it seemed pretty common they seemed like a nor this is just the way the normal thing is you know my grandmother who was another big personality she was a big drinker in a really weird way and that she wouldn't drink for years and then she would go on a really violent Bender that lasted like two weeks um she owned a store it was like a general store in South Carolina and then the house that we lived in was attached to the store and it was a very meager uh place you know like if there was a hole in the floor it went straight to the ground um and it was the major hub for all the tobacco farmers and all the people that kind of in the area that's where they'd come for lunch that's where they come for their Saturday nights and she was she was allowed to sell Boo or beer but not liquor so she would bootleg liquor out from under the stairs and she would sell like uh dime bags of weed to the to all the farmers and stuff as well and it was it was all a friendly little business but I was like a little kid who learned how to like make dime bags of weed by the time I was like 10 years old um none of it seemed out of the ordinary didn't seem strange cuz that's that's what your environment was exactly and then my mom so my mother was always really really smart and had a really great head for numbers and she moved out to she moved us to Columbia South Carolina and she lied about her age and had gotten a job because like she she got married at 14 and then get married again at 16 which at that time wasn't as uncommon in the South as you know as one would believe so she lied about her age when she was like 19 or so and got a job in computer programming for a banking software company because it was a new field they were still using like key cards for computers right and it was and everybody who was doing it had to go to these seminars and learn about it because it didn't exist and because she had a really good head of and retaining numbers and things like that she went and she shot she excelled at it and she you know that moved us up to a status where we could live in in you know a better shitty apartment in Columbia South Carolina and little by little you know we would we would kind of like live for a while we would live however the guy she was dating was living you know like if she was dating a guy that had a little more money then we had a little more money for a while and if she was dating a biker then we were all bikers for a while um but she managed on her own to move us up to middle class to a really nice middle class existence in Florida we went to Sarasota for a very short period of time and even then like I didn't know that we were we didn't have money until like I remember one kid at school this girl she says oh where do you live and I was like oh I live in Shadybrook apartments and she goes oh you must be rich and I I spent most of the day thinking that oh that must be a nice Apartments until it literally was that I was like oh no she's making fun of me I'm not rich I live in I know that I live in a shitty apartment I just didn't want to know it um so we moved there we moved to Orlando and during Orlando she moved her way up at F servant City Corp and became you know like the head of quality assurance and we moved into a really really nice place and I think by then though she took that opportunity to go back and relive some of the youth that she had taken away from her and that left me a lot on my own sometimes for days where she would you know she would go or or I just wouldn't see her for days maybe she would leave early in the morning she would come home late at night we just wouldn't cross paths what would she be doing um sometimes just out making friends and partying you know meeting new men even though she had this like stable job and stuff she was yeah yeah no yeah it was kind of amazing I think it uh it probably informed why I drink too much because I saw someone doing it and still being able to maintain functional yeah yeah that's the functional and functional alcoholic comes from uh so during that time I think is where my rebellious streak started to come out of because I had a lot of this time to do it and I I and I had this need to feel to rebel against her because I didn't know I needed structure at the time and I didn't know I thought that I was really appreciating the space that she gave me and all the kids in school thought it was the coolest thing in the world cuz I didn't seem to have any rules you know um and I didn't have rules because whenever she would come in and crack down her whole thing was just to kind of lock me down so like I would be grounded I wasn't allowed to go anywhere so then I would leave and uh and that just became longer and longer periods of time like from 75 to 17 I would be gone for longer periods of time I'd be gone for days for weeks where would I would start well for a while I would be at friends houses I had a lot of friends that would some friends would let me sleep in their car like my older friends would let me sleep in their car outside until their parents left and then come in take a shower at their house and get ready and still go to school um I think every every group of kids had that one parent who kind of took in the Stray kids and had like three or four kids living in their you know in their garage or in their basement and I had you know friends like that they would help me out um for a longest time I tried to maintain tried to keep everything going tried to stay in school um until I just couldn't and then I think the first time I got suspended was the first time I decided to to take off and hitchhike around the country or not I'm sorry not around the country just around the southeast like maybe up and down to South Carolina and back trying to could check back in on my roots in South Carolina and again all of this felt pretty normal at the time you know like what didn't feel normal is all these other kids that you know I was now in a nice middle class school with nice middle class kids yeah and they had they had school activities that they cared about and they had they were really cared about their grades and they cared about you know where they were headed and I I had someone once tell me that when I was in like ninth grade biology or no algebra that I had mentioned in school that I didn't need this because I was going to be a musician and uh someone said well you know if you're going to be a musician without algebra how do you count your money and I said well I'll have an accountant and they'll take care of my money I mean it sounds like there was a lot of kind of um instability in your in your child hood and into your teenage years and and how did you tell me about music I mean I mean obviously everyone listens to music um was was was there music played at the house as your mom into particular types of music what what did you listen to Growing Up yeah it's funny my mom did I mean like her stacker records influenced me a lot like I got had a drum set that my grandmother got me and I would have to play drums to her records so I was playing drums to like you know Grover Washington and give me the night uh you know a lot of like uh that kind of like FM R&B pop R&B stuff that was happening um George Benson George Bon was that was going to drive me insane yeah um but it wasn't really a musical household I think I really got turned on like I remember my mother would have they would have these parties and one of the her friends a group of her friends at her office had a band that would play these parties and I would get up and I would play with these with this band and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world you know getting up and singing songs and then yeah then I like I had a job once at a BT bones like a steakhouse in Florida and they'd have a band on the weekends and there was a lot of bikers would go there and I was a bus boy but I would get up and sing like one or two songs on the weekend nights and it got to the point where you know at certain point in the night these bikers would start going singing bus boy and I would come running out from the back of the kitchen you know and come up and sing like I think walking on a thin line by huie Lewis uh was one of them um I just had that bug yeah and I was in ninth grade uh 1987 uh Lake Bradley high school and I had a group of seniors who became my friends and they were just about to graduate and go on to Berkeley College of Music two of them wow and they wanted to start a band I started singing Because I had a crush on this girl that was in chorus class and so to try and get closer to her I tried out for Guys and Dolls for the School Musical right now I didn't understand anything about musical theater so I was like one of the first to I was the first to audition and I came in and I just sang the song I kind of stood there and I was like I got the horse right here his name is Paul R and there's a guy that says if and uh and I was like okay I felt pretty good about that and then I watched everybody after me right and everybody after me was I got the horse right here his name is Paul RI and I was like oh it's musical theater I'm not going to do that that's not for me um but the Mr Deuce was the uh the coral director and he said he thought he liked the tone of my voice and he thought if I you know if I wanted to then I should join chorus and so I joined chorus which I only lasted a semester because it was all just a bunch of you know like Latin chants or something and it wasn't for me uh but he did let me skip classes every now and then and hide in one of the rooms to to play piano and and that was like helping me learn how to play piano and and and did you I mean did you take piano seriously I don't think I took anything seriously the thing was I didn't take it seriously but at the same time I spent 18 hours a day doing it because it was like it it thrilled me to do you know so in a way I was building a work ethic towards music but I didn't really think of it that way and I didn't look at it that way to me I was trying to find ways to off and for me off was learning to play the piano and learning how to and learning to do things because there's no way that was going to become a career right and so I would have my friend um my mom at one point would let the band rehearse at our home at a certain time in the afternoon and so this the band with with the friends who were going to to Berkeley College yes so we were I think at the time we were a band called fair warning and you were the singer I was a singer yeah and it was most we were just doing 80s covers for the most part um and there was a guy named K Alat traki who was writing The Originals like he would go to school he would go to history class and learn about the Waltham system and then we come back and write a song called the walam system uh he was always like he was he's introduced me to all this like depesh mode and all these really great alternative bands and and that was the kind of music he wanted to write um then when they went to Berkeley it kind of stopped I just without music I was kind of back to I don't know just general buffoonery in getting getting yeah getting in trouble I was a kid sneaking out late kind of getting arrested just a lot of uh I it's probably a cry for attention my therapist would say now um just like my career um but uh when they came back they brought back come some other guys from Berkeley and they had they were a bunch of guys who had I have to stress had never been to the a real beach all these these guys from from Jersey but they started a surf Rock band called tidal wave and uh we would do covers like Woolly Bully you know and like like really amped up 50s songs like Lou Louie and willy bully and then they had Originals like me and my Surfer babe and uh Johnny's got a wave it was Ridiculousness and we'd play these metal clubs because that was the only like places that would let us play and they loved us because we would just go crazy running around jumping on the bar like just making a spectacle um dressed up like just dressed up like you know surf rats yeah um that was a lot of fun but at the same time I still never really it wasn't part of the writing bug because I wasn't writing yet this was like just the kind of like being in a band Fun I dropped out of school a little bit in 10th Grade because I we got a gig at a Sheron in Vero Beach H playing by the pool so of course I thought we had made it that was it it was Rockstar time and uh we got fired after like two weeks on the job and uh just for again for shenanigans you got fired for stealing for stealing beer from the from the hotel stealing beer from the thing and I also was sleeping with the the owners were friends of our keyboard player and that's how we got the gig the friends of their parents and I was sleeping with their daughter which caused a a big stir and uh we were asked polite to leave I remember the woman actually saying you are not the Stars one day maybe you will be the stars but right now you were not the Stars that's how she fired is you know basically you're mainly a singer right and and and tell me a little bit about how you cuz you were not writing songs when you were in 10th or 11th grade and I know you you would eventually drop out of high school um and you know play with different bands a lot of cover bands tell me how you started to write your own songs tell me when that started and how well there was a period you know between with playing music with the high school guys and just kind of being you know lots of different jobs and I think that was around that time is when I got my my I dropped out of high school and got my GED because I was going to join the Army and the only way I could join the Army was if I had a GED your dad was in the Army my dad was in the Army you were actually born at at LOL in Germany bur in laun tool and in an Air Force Base and to be fair my dad his one piece of advice he ever gave me was whatever you do don't join the Army uh but you know again there and and I think this this kind of falls into it a little too guy you know the when you're a kid at a lot of high schools the Army Band comes and plays and not the band you're you know not the marching band but the there's a band and they come and they play they were playing like Terence Trent Derby and they were you know and they the guy was just like hey and you come in the Army you could do this and I was like you know they had the fatigue sleeves roll up and they're you know hey we're just like you man we're playing your songs and and I was like oh yeah and but if you take that between the propaganda telling me that you know I don't see my future I don't see a lot of things lining up I let College go by I let you know maybe yeah you know employment go by but they could give me a chance they could set me up you know they could move me forward so I went in and I and I took the asab tester you know that that you have to take and got like a 99 on it which says a lot about how easy that test is and they were and then I went and took my my GED and I got like a 98 on the G D and then they were like and we're going to set you up with officer training at the beginning because you know we you look like your your test SC scores are great and somewhere in that time I had I was writing uh I had written 3:00 a.m.

I think I was like 19 uh trying to to get that timeline together right there because there was a very important moment where I did not take the Army Route thank God and I went back into music and then around that time I started really writing and writing songs that at the time I'm glad weren't on the first Matchbox record but they were so much better than anything I had been writing before they were there were songs that that were meant to have some sort of a content and some sort of a link to who I was as a person as opposed to a bunch of love songs just to try and pick up girls you were in um a band that you formed with some friends you were 21 was called tabith the secret um right and and two of those bandmates who go on to to to to join you in Matchbox 20 but you were at that point writing songs 19 2021 you were writing music uh you're writing your own songs including 3:00 a.m.

which would wouldn't wouldn't be released for few more years but tell me about about writing that I mean um how first of all I I I from what I understand it's about your mom or inspired by by by taking care of your mom who was at that point quite sick she was diagnosed with non non Hotchkins lomite I think when you were 12 and you had spent a lot of time kind of looking after her um so tell me about that tell me about writing that song well I think you know like looking back and I even when I go I guess sometimes I that that part of of it which was a huge part of it but it kind of gets gets looked over you know going back the being with my mom and taking care of her when I was really young and her being that sick and I think when she beat it I think that was another part of her new Liberation right yeah and where she her her kind of second childhood cuz she was she was given six months to live and they gave her six months to live I mean she went through the chemo she lost a lot of her hair she but you know in her her way she was she was the one who was like well if I'm going to lose my hair I'm going to go out and buy like purple Dolly Parton wigs and that's what I'm going to wear everywhere you know she uh she was she wasn't going to let it beat her and she beat it twice uh when she passed away finally it wasn't it had nothing to do with with cancer um but that song was about I think maybe having to grow up a little earlier having to like when you when you're young and you've got that kind of sickness in your home I guess no matter what age it's your little it's like the part of part of your life is a little secret that other people don't know about you know it's not it's not a part of that you show them and everybody else has kind of a this normal thing going on this Rhythm that you and especially at that age all these kids are doing 12 and 13-year-old kid things and your life is nothing like that and to be fair my life was never like that before but it was just starting to seem like it was never going to get anything more like that um and I think when she got better maybe that's part of why I split too did you Rob when you were at that time you know starting to write your own lyrics I imagine you were dreaming of making it but did you think that that was even a prospect I mean you were in Orlando Florida your high school dropout you taken the GED but like you were not going to college I mean were you thinking I am going to be a rockar I'm going to make it or like what was going on in your head at that time I think when I was when you're when I was in like you know high school before you know late you know 171 18 I think success to me was you know like a scene in a movie where you come back and you play at the high school talent show and everybody's like oh he's so good you know like I never really applied it to real life because I didn't have a plan for adult Rob so I never really kind of thought about what adult Rob was going to be doing yeah um I think when tab of the secret started we were part of a music scene that was there in Orlando right we were seeing bands before us having labels come to check them out so we started to know that that was a possibility as a you know as a thing we you know we play in these clubs we were getting paid and who were and who was I mean Brian and Paul Brian Yale Paul ducet who who were those guys were they high school friends or were they just guys you met no so uh there were two other guitar players guys named John and Jay and they knew Brian and I had these songs and so they were let's let's start a band and we had a drummer named Chris Smith at the time and this was a very pivotal time for a lot of reasons but one of those reasons is these guys one day just kind of came in I didn't understand anything about the music business but they came in with a bunch of copyright papers with all of our names on them of my songs and said here sign this they told me that's what you're supposed to do you know they were they were a little more savvy than me they would you know they read Donald Pan's everything you need to know about the music business book that to me you know it seemed like they had cred and so they write up a copyright paper and we would we would all sign it and we played and we became you know I think like one of the big local bands you know like we were always on the top Bill of any local thing if a national act were to come through town and they didn't have an opening act they would call us you know like we'd open up for hoodie and the Blowfish and feel like rock stars for the night yeah um it it it went South we you know we we all had different ideas of what we wanted to be we were fighting all the time and so I you were the front man you were the leader yeah I was so I leave the band now this is a a really quick a a lot of quick things happen in one motion here uh just before I had quit the band a guy named Matt sertic had come to see actually actually his brother Dean sertic came to see the band Matt CTIC had just had a lot of success with a band called Collective Soul on he was a producer for Atlantic Records and uh was having some success was moving now on to the second successful Collective Soul record and he was going through I think a K100 or krock station trying to find other bands maybe that he wanted to work with and his brother's like you got to come check this band out Matt came and checked us out he's like you know I don't think the band's really good I think these songs are really good so like a month or so later the band breaks up Matt comes and he says listen I think we could do something here you know you know if you want to I think we could make something happen here so we uh he finds US Kyle Cook and Adam Gainer the two guitar players from Matchbox 20 we don't have a name yet we we rent out one of those storage spaces we go to it every day for like8 hours a day and we start you know shedding like four or five songs to play for the label so while this starts happening the other two guitar players from tab of the secret come back with lawyers and try to sue us for this record deal that that we're trying to get the record deal comes in and it's for me sign for me to sign to Atlantic Records I say that I don't want the record deal to be alone I want it to be with me and Paul and Brian they agree we all signed the record deal we're in the middle of this lawsuit and the lawsuit all hinges around the fact that we wrote these songs together right yeah so I I I go through this it feels like a long story guy but the reason I'm going through it is because they usually say that your your first album that you make is you have your whole life to write that record yeah you know and that's that's why the second record is really the clutch to time yeah but I was so fed up with this whole situation that was going on that I said fine sat down over like a six-month period and wrote what became the first Matchbox 20 record left all of the other songs behind except for 3:00 a.m.

because 3: a.m. was special to me and no matter who got paid for it I knew that that song was going to be special and I wanted other people to hear it yeah so I guess out of necessity and spite I wound up writing my second record and it and it was it was a godsend because maybe though that first group of songs was good on a local level but it never would have flew nationally you know like I I thought about it every day like once we were a band that was playing with like Smashing Pumpkins and the Dave Matthews bands and opening for the stones I was like this would never be happening if we were playing those songs yeah so it was like it's just one of those another situation where something that you think is the most horrible thing in your life has actually turned out to be this blessing that you haven't seen yet you haven't seen it play out yet um and then that was you know what became Matchbox 20's first record were those songs so you you guys for Matchbox 20 in Orlando you've got a bunch of songs you're working on um and 3:00 a.m is part of of this you know this new plan um but tell me a little bit about how you started to think about I mean at that time obviously it's changed over the course of your career but like take me back to when you were you know in your early 20s and you were writing music I mean where were you I mean 3:00 a.m.

obviously connected to your mom some inspired by your mom um how are you how were you sitting down and writing music were you sort of thinking of Melodies in your head and writing down lyrics or were you writing down lyrics and then bringing them to the Musicians like walk me through the process I think it's it's always been the same for me it's always been kind of sitting down with lyric like a a melody and like some sort of jumbled lyrics speak and I think it's a I found over the years now it's a language that all songwriters understand um and somewhere in that it creates a color tone it it creates a a pallet that you start to understand and and it gives you a sense of the tone and the and the timber of what this song is going to be about and then maybe in that jumble word soup there's one word that kind of pops out and you're like oh yeah I mean sometimes I can get a third way through a song and and then I where I'm just kind of like forming an abstract kind of vision and then I go oh that's what this is about I now I get now I know what I'm tapping into here and then that's where craft comes in and you fill in the lines around it and then that's when you kind of like you know make your statements and try and write lyrics um so it's always been inspiration up front and then craft in the back end okay so you record the record and that first record uh yourself or someone like you comes out in 1996 and it is not a hit it is not a we 65 records or something I think on the first week yeah um so you were I mean you had a bit of a following in a lot of following in Orlando but it wasn't that that the record wasn't really doing anything I mean there are thousands and thousands of stories like this you know bands that get signed or artists that get signed I mean we only know of the ones who make it because that those are the ones who become famous but the majority of them don't yeah I mean when you're a kid a kid you know when I say kid because now in my 50s in your 20s you're a kid yeah um when you're a kid you think that the label is the thing like everybody talks about getting signed getting a record deal man when we get a record deal deal when we get a record deal man let me tell you when we get a record deal I'm going to buy everybody a house and I'm you know like it's all the imagin you the conversations you would imagine people having and you don't realize until you're in it and it's and that's I think it's like nobody tells you and then they shut the door behind you so that the the next group doesn't get to see it either that that's just the ticket to get on the ride yeah you know what I mean like you just got yourself a chance to take it and now you get to figure out whether it's going to be a long ride whe you know like what this what it's going to bring you but all you literally got was just a ticket into the door maybe not even onto the ride yet like you got a ticket into the park you know and you and you haven't you know until you start selling records you don't even get to get on a ride yet you can just kind of walk around to the concession stands and get free CDs from the label like that was all all you could do at the time also also guy our record label lava was an imprint on Atlantic and it folded the day are record like the day like I woke up you know my manager called I'm expecting him to be like happy release day and he's like right right listen don't freak out and I'm like well that's not what you want to hear so I mean the the the deck is stacked against you I mean you've got this record that you guys think is pretty good but no one's really going to hear it and what were your options at that point what did you guys do as a band well at the time we weren't we still weren't aware of our Dire Straits because we had had a song that was playing on 120 Minutes on MTV which which was the song 3:00 a.m.

uh no it was a long day okay it was the first single I mean that was a great show influential important so it was also putting you guys in that sort of alternative rock World which which was a good place to be yeah especially at that time right like you know we GRE if you if you if you're if you're old if you're younger now you don't realize that like in '90s you 95 96 97 that period all music was almost like hit pop top 40 now like it was the thing um we we the one thing we did really good is we went on we went we did more at Radio than almost any other new band we would show up before we had a record out we'd show up at radio stations and whoever wasn't working we'd bring in pizza and soda and we'd bring them into a conference room and whoever was wasn't working and willing to we'd play three or four songs for everybody there and we did that around the country like nonstop to any station that would let us in just walking in cold who was behind that was that was that Matt that was behind that that strategy cuz that's I mean it's like a business strategy very yeah this is I'm you know I'm sure this was Atlantic Records uh Andrea ganis who's still there actually one of the few people that's still there she runs radio at Atlantic Records uh she was a big Champion you know for this and uh and and and and kind of a Savvy street team you know like yeah it was pre- internet right and so there's no social media so it was there was a lot of like kind of gorilla Warfare in radio like how do you make this you know how do how do you get your name right up in front and to be fair it didn't really help us a lot on that first single because you know a dud is a dud but uh we're out on the road playing to nobody pretty much every night and we pull into Birmingham Alabama to play The Five Points Music Hall and there's a line around the block wow it's just packed and it turns out that a guy named Dave Rossy who is the program director at the station in Birmingham on his own because again this was a time when you could do this you could be a program director take a song that you liked and play it on your station without any playlist without any computer telling you I mean no algorithm to contend with Y he played it played it a lot it became the number one song in Birmingham like very quickly this is push this was push yeah and uh Atlantic was like just had their finger on the you know the drop button was like well let's let's give this one more round let's they were they were about to drop you guys yeah I mean because everybody else had gotten dropped around us everybody except for I think us Sugar Ray Kid Rock and Edwin McCain I think we're the only four people out of the entire label there's like bands called Civ and uh there's a bunch of other bands that were just you know I don't know maybe they could have done great but they they got dropped when everything folded yeah and so we were the second group you know on The Chopping Block yeah um and then I mean everything from that point on was almost like movie level climb straight you know like every day was just a move forward and a move Birmingham Alabama that song push and so then what then the label released that song as a single nationally right they put it out nationally we did the same thing we got n van in the trailer went back out but only this time we had a single that we were supporting all of those stations remembered oh my God you were the you were that group of kids that came in and played at our lobby you know and uh and I think to this day we try to maintain that kind of Goodwill with radio because at the end of the day we're like we are two things even in in social media age we're a radio band and a live band like those are the two places where where we really feel like we've we've got our roots in so it was like s or eight months after the album was actually released when it started to catch fire and 3:00 a.m.

then gets released as a single and that goes multiplatinum becomes a massive hit you know it's interesting hearing that song I I I obviously before this conversation I was listening to a lot of your music and um you know I know you grew up in the South and you you were immersed in that world I mean you had to have listened to you know country music growing up I mean it was around you all there was and there's a part I mean there is an element of that song that sounds like a country song yeah I mean I was I don't know how many years old when I when I kind of realized that there was other things like when I was a kid you knew about Will and whan and Merl Haggard and Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn Tanya Tucker like that was everywhere and then the things that crept through were like Kiss Michael Jackson cool in the gang you know like there's a few of these things like at the skating rink right that you would listen to at the skating rink um and then so I was fully informed by that so that there was this kind of Storyteller mentality in writing that that I you know these were like hard men that would go out and they would and fight and drink and then they'd write these beautiful songs about it you know uh and then you know like the second English wave I guess you would call it came through you know you got your depes modes and your bow house and Joy Division all that kind of stuff and and uh and like I remember like Bizarre Love Triangle just blowing my mind the first time I hear it like so then I'm informed by these two things this kind of this pop country you know sensibility um and then I remember like when I wrote 3 am.

I wanted it to be Paul Simon like I I remember thinking that like she said it's cold outside and she hands me my rain Cod that sounded to me like a Paul Simon line yeah you know and I it's probably like if you diagram it out he said every one of those words in a you know in in a song Somewhere well soon said 4 in the morning Tapped Out yeah and also uh what is it hand me my cigarettes I think there's one in my rain coat yeah right uh so um so yeah I think I wanted to be Paul Simon at that time the thing about my entire career is like I every time I want to be Jeff Tweety I'm Rob Thomas and every time I want to be Paul Simon I'm Rob Thomas and whenever I want to be Elton John I'm I'm Rob Thomas and like it you know it took me a while to kind of start to realize to lean into who I was you know or at least maybe just not be disappointed with the outcome well well before before before we get get there I mean you're still at this point on on this rapid now rap what became became a rapid climb after you know sort of a grueling six or seven month period of of just obscurity you guys are essentially touring I think nonstop for like two years yeah you start that tour playing to like 10 people sometimes right you end that Tour opening up for bands at like stadiums and like playing massive venues just tell me who like who are you at the beginning of that tour and who are you when that ends like because you've gone through a in just a massive transformation just just because of the success of the of the band but I mean what did that do to you well I know that uh going into it so like it's funny like you you talk about obscurity like we were obviously more obscure before we had a record deal we you know like the level that comes right before being obscure but you feel more obscure once you get the record deal and you realize that nobody knows who you are cuz then you're out there you know trying to push it like really push it you're doing what you did locally only now you're doing it on a much bigger scale and you're still doing it in the same van and trailer um but I know that at the beginning of the process when I signed occupation after I had a record deal I signed musician and then at the end of that process like three years later when when the whole record was done and the story of that record was closing off I would sign occupation International Rockstar you know like that was that was the was the difference um I mean we had we we had learned we we spent enough time in each Plateau we had learned how to be a great bar band then we had learned how to be a really great small theater band then we learned how to be you know a great large theater band and then we were ready to become an arena band and by the time we were done with that we were a great Arena band um all that happened because of this kind of slow over night success that we were having it was you know it was once it started it it climbed steadily but it still we were out on that record for three years playing those same songs and bringing and and for us still bringing new life into them because they just kept getting better and better and better and better we were ready by the end of it you know to start playing more songs yeah uh and that's where you know things got funky too because when when when the record was over Atlantic want us to go in immediately you know and kind of get on the success of this record start right away let's let's do it back to back to back to back we had seen uh one of the biggest bands of our time right before that was uh band hoody the band Hoody and the Blowfish right and they had they were like our names kept being set a lot because we were like the two bands that were kind of just good good guys that played good music and we had sold the buttload of Records right and Hoodie came out immediately after that first record so much so that when they put out their first single from their second record they still had they were competing with songs from their first record on the you know the same charts yeah that to us seemed like a mistake and we said thanks but no thanks and we just went away for like six months and just kind of like when I got on a bus for the first time three years later when I got off that bus in New York City I was a different person and I'd never been that person off the road I've never taken that person in real life and like just living a life and see what that feels like um and so we went I moved to New York I I had met my wife while I was on the road she was from New York we moved to Soho um during that time that's when I met ital Shure and smooth came along because I took that break in between records yeah I mean you guys you guys had a gap of four years from your first record to your second you toured you met your wife and married her in 1998 you're still married today which is also an unusual rock and roll story um puts you in a a category of very few people to had a a marriage that that last has lasted so long um and you're New York and you get approached to work on a song for this is Carlos Santana's like comeback record right this is the record that he's going to kind of come back and and collaborate with a bunch of artists and and you're I guess contacted by by somebody I don't know if it was a songwriter ital sh or some someone else to work through Evan Lamberg who was like one of my best friends at the time and still and he was also my publisher at Emi MH and Evan so Evan was the guy who who the relationship was was solid I I was broke when I met Evan I had another Publishing House offer me $100,000 more than than evans's company could offer me and the and I was like listen they're like what can we do and I was like well if you can hire Evan Lamberg than you know otherwise I'm I'm going to go with Emi and Evan took care of me and he had had a plan and that plan was we're going to get this Matchbox off the ground I want to get you solo off the ground and I want to have you writing for other people these are the like a three-point project that he had so he had this plan and there and he he knew that Santana was working on a record and that there was a song that was being worked on and what his suggestion was oh send it to Rob to see if he could he could write the song or or or improve it or something yeah etall had written a track and a part of a Melody the lyric was a a song about like there's a party on the the fourth floor in 427 or something and let's all go to the party right and Carlos is like he feels the vibe he likes the vibe but Carlos doesn't sing about songs about going to the party in 427 like and there was a Melody there was a a piece of the melody yeah you know I think it was um that part was there the melody so he sent it to me the track with nothing on it and I wrote the first verse in chorus then I went to e Hall we finished the rest of the song together um and at the time like I was just thinking I mean this is Carlos I also wasn't thinking that this was going to go anywhere I didn't think of it a comeback record I just thought that Carlos was going to make a record yeah and I was going to get to work with Carlos and that sounds great you know and my first chance writing and you were not writing this for your voice no you were writing it for who was going to sing it in your mind I wanted George Michael to sing it oh wow and so you're in your mind it wasn't a song you were writing for yourself but you were capturing a kind of a Vibe like obviously that song obviously so many millions people know the song but it's like you think of like I mean you mentioned Spanish Harlem you think of a hot day you think of you know all this mashup of like Cuban and Caribbean and Latin jazz like just kind of you know spontaneously just on the streets in you know in a neighborhood and and in a beautiful woman like how did you kind of come up with that story well I mean I I had been just living in summer in New York yeah you know what I mean and and it was new to me you know that feeling of of like and you got to imagine it's downtown Soho before Starbucks came you know what I mean like it still felt like like Soho and you just like cruising through the streets every day and that energy is just and I've got this hot B equa wife with me you know my my new family is is is your wife is Puerto Rican yeah my wife yeah is Puerto Rican in Spanish it all just kind of like made sense to me and and then on top of it I was writing about my wife and I was writing about Carlos you know you're so smooth I mean it's interesting because you were here's here's this white kid from South Carolina in Orlando who grew up in a totally different like environment writing a song that was about you know know about um sort of Latin culture but you must have been immersed in that because of your wife and her family yeah I mean you know that and also when we travel through Spain you know we grab a bunch of free CDs from the Spanish label and we were listening to a lot of you know a lot of that we we were doing the same thing with French music and doing the same thing with you know like we were trying to get to get to places and kind of soak in the musical culture from all these places um I had I just had my blank page by the time I was in that phase of my life had a lot more possibilities in it than my blank page when I was starting off as a kid writing you know and I was learning more so there's a lot less uh conjecture you know I mean there's a lot less trying to pretend like you you know I'm actually starting to have things that I care about enough to write about you know like when you're writing about love and loss early on it's a lot of speculation but as you start to get older you know I I I was in love for the first time like this was this was going to the woman I was going to marry so you you write this song and and one of the famous you know blinds of that song Give Me Your Heart make it real or else forget about it right I think everyone can hear that that that lyric you record a demo just to send to Carlos Santana just you sing it but it's just here it is and you had had hits at this point You' had hits with Matchbox 20 so you knew kind of what a hit sounded like did you think that this song was was a hit I thought that it it sounded like it had possib my wife thought that it was going to be a really really big hit I I'm not going to lie I think I just I I wasn't aware at the time of of how hard Clive Davis and and his label were were were really pushing this and what a priority it was at that label my next phase of thought once I realized that car so Carlos had no idea who I was in fact I think he said when he heard the demo after a million times trying to figure out who was going to do it he's like well does this guy sing and they're like yeah yeah he's a singer in a band you know they they just had a successful record and he's like well I believe him let's just have him do it and once I found out I was doing it I I had heard some of the other songs on the record right and you're talking Eric Clapton Dave Matthews Lauren Hill why cleff Sean so I thought well I'm going to be on the record but no one's going to hear this song you know like this is like the bastard pop song on this beautiful record like I thought that it was definitely going to be Maria Maria or Dave Matthews love of my life like one of those I thought especially because you're talking about even Paul had to walk me down like like the first time someone wrote about it I called Paul from Matchbox and I was just like they didn't even mention me in this in this article about this record and Paul's like well dude like everybody there is really famous like what do you expect you know like you're you just and I was like yeah you're right all right and so I didn't even know that it was going to be the single yeah until I was walking out in in SoHo right like right outside of my neighborhood and this a convertible full of hot girls just stops at a red light and and the radio is blaring and smooth is just playing out of their car and I was just like oh it's this is awesome you know um and then that was the second time in my life that I've ever been a part of something that that kind of had that escalation only nothing I'd ever been a part of was like this on this scale you know you mentioned and and and I think this was kind of a theme certainly with Matchbox 20 that like and you've talked about this that there critics or certain types of fans who who didn't think Matchbox 20 was cool it didn't matter Matchbox 20 was huge you sold millions of Records but there was a a sort of a a certain type of person who was like oh you know he's not this is not cool or this isn't and and did that get to you at the time sure I mean you know if people wrote about us they wrote about us that we were a faceless band you know we this band that just so all these records but you couldn't pick us out on the street um the only the first time I ever appeared in Rolling Stone it was just a picture of me at glassenberry looking really fat and it said uh that Rob Thomas has grown as a performer and then it said the road to success leads to the deli tray um and I and I was like that's that's the what you're going to write about uh we were an easy target you know what I mean like we were we were really successful we were not very controversial we're not a band that spoke to any certain disenfranchised youth you know like we we weren't we're not a t-shirt band we were just a band that if you if somebody mentioned us you're like oh yeah I like their songs that's a good band you know we our our songs and our music were much more successful and famous than we were as a band yeah and then I'm sure that's proba that's still true today honestly yeah I mean you you you mentioned um a little while ago you know you you want to be Paul Simon but you you were Rob Thomas you you want to be Jeff twey but you Rob Thomas and it's interesting because um you would go on to write songs for and have written songs for tons of other artists like we had Ryan tedar on the show a couple months ago and obviously you know he's has a similar career in the sense that he has recorded his own top singles and has written singles for other people yeah um he's amazing I remember I him and I were in a bar when night he said you know I I was talking about you and I think you're probably one of the most ubiquitous writers that I hear on the radio consistently everywhere and I was like no dude you're the guy that I hear everywhere on the radio you know and he's like no no he's like between me and you know he's said between you work and your solo work mostly and he's like between me you know Ryan's working his right you know with other people because he writes so many hits for other people I wrote a lot of songs for other people but they weren't necessarily hits you know yeah like I don't have a giant group of hits that I wrote for Willie Nelson or for you know Mary J blig or seal but I just I it was just nice to be able to to work with people like that for sure do you I mean when you when you talk about thinking of other songwriters that you admire like Paul Simon or Jeff twey or others but that when did it get to a point where you you you were able to say I don't have to be that person I am me like I this is who I am this is the way I work did it take you a while to get comfortable in your own skin I I mean I don't I think there's a part of me that always retains the the part that doesn't you know like I I I feel like there's so much art is exists in that space between who you are and who you want to be and so I think feeling that you figured it out might might you know be the curse um but I do feel like I I I started to feel comfortable in knowing that I have a certain style you know then if this sounds like Rob Thomas that's okay um and because I find that when I tried other things they never land in quite the same way they they they and and what I had was that whatever I've written that's done well especially it was genuine I I was giving someone something real that I that I was thinking about it wasn't manufactured it didn't come from some other place and I was giving the best song that I could at the time and so if nothing else I had authenticity and so I realized I didn't want to give that up to try to like be cooler and that that was a big thing for a while like even when we were on spin for the first time Spin Magazine Paul had written on a giant t-shirt he wrote cool bands don't sell records um and so I think you know by by record three end of record two we leaned into it like we would literally we would roll into a town and like the local Music Magazine would say uh Matchbox 20 Bland white American rock and then we would all buy white t-shirts and write Bland white American rock and and that's what we'd wear on stage that night you know like we so we we started to find a way to lean into it instead because at the same time like we were we were selling a lot of Records we were making a lot of money we were selling out all these Arenas it it would I don't know it just seemed stupid to complain you know and this and this is where everybody that we've ever seen be really successful kind of found themselves at some point when they just say screw it I'm I'm I'm not going to worry about what other people or critics think about my work yeah and you know now it's an amazing thing the bands that we were really really jealous of for their profile a lot of them aren't around at all yeah yeah and so you know I I I'm much happier with the way things panned out again you know when you're in it sometimes and you feel like this is the worst thing ever you don't realize that it's you're in the middle of the blessing right then um your your wife was quoted saying you know if if Rob was you know a different person or if if people knew about the way he grew up or something he would be considered to be you know one of the most gifted songwriters out there um but he's you know often passed over as this like Bland middle class white guy um she she she said because people didn't you know don't know you did you did you feel that way that you were sort of overlooked as a songwriter because maybe you weren't I don't know talking about your story or life or for reasons that you can't really put your finger on no I mean I think that if anything I I give people so little about me personally there's there's so little sensationalism around me as a you know like what I'm selling isn't anything more than the music that I'm making yeah I'm really happy that that that it's done as well as it has you know people can't be underrated you know like whenever somebody talks about people being underrated they talk about like a Jeff Tweety Jeff Tweety isn't underrated Jeff Tweety just isn't as successful as someone who appreciates music like that thinks that they should be right but they're not underrated every if you talk about great songwriters they're going to talk about Jeff Tweety every time yeah you know he's just he's he's a you're gonna talk about Wilco you're GNA talk about uh um lonard Cohen you know like you're going to talk about these people they're not underrated they're just there's a in the same way that like uh classical classical music is is undercompensated you know it's not underrated it's just undercompensated uh yeah I think that I'm in a good place where nobody thought that I was overcompensated uh and I I managed to make a living playing the music that I write so I I can't feel that I was underappreciated or underrated I think that yeah you know if you like me you you come to see me play and if you don't you don't that sounds fair how do you write a song I mean and this is such a open-ended question and maybe even AB abstract but like you I mean Matchbox 20 has a new record right I mean which is amazing the band is still you guys still make music together you know 30 years later which is amazing right but when you sit down to write music now you're you're in your 50s it's a different the world is different you're the things around you are different what inspires you is different how do you get an idea and how do you start that just pen to paper process I mean think I kind of keep my head cleaned up and ready for the Muse whenever she you know makes her way through I think sometimes it feels like the Muse has been cheating on you with with a younger man you know I think that man might be Ed Sheeran but but that's but that's just that's the way it happens sometimes you know uh I'm always writing like writing is a constant process it's if I if I'm off the road and if I'm not doing anything I make I make an effort a few hours a day to come down turn on the computer turn on my keyboard and just start fishing around for something to see if something pops up yeah more often than not I'm just cooking or something or driving and a Melody kind of pops up and you make a little voice note and then you go down and you kind of Flesh it out and I try and just write right right right right and then when it's time for a project I see what you know which of those kind of work um I write I'm sure no exaggeration for every record that any body's heard I've probably written three you know and and a lot of those are like full demos like eight hours a day of making bass making drums making counter Melodies you know writing the whole thing out and it just sits on my computer for years and years and years and no one will ever hear it but I had to get through that one to get to the you know the next one so youve got to I have to finish them because there's also like an OCD in my head that if they clutter up and I don't get rid of them there's no room for other ones you know yeah th this this new record um that you guys release where the light goes out uh where the light goes um how do you I mean what are the stories that you're telling now at this this moment in your life what what is that record you know um I know there's you know a single off there called wild dogs it came out um earlier in 2023 um but what is the you know what's the sound you're going for what's the what's the mood you're you're going for is it is it different has it changed from 10 years ago 20 years ago a big difference between like early Matchbox like first record Matchbox and now is there is zero trace of manufactured angst do you know what I mean even if at the time we didn't realize it was manufactured maybe uh but there's zero trace of performative anger you know like I'm going to be the show you you know like we we we have started to move farther farther and farther away from that it's funny somebody said something that was meant to diss US on a on a board the other day and we we were laughing cuz we loved it they're like you know I used to love them on their first record when they were like rock band but now they're just like Wham with four guys I was like Wham was awesome are you kidding me that's great um we uh we're not scared to to be happy we're not scared to have some joy in our songs and joy in our music um when we write about getting older it's not necessarily lamenting our youth uh in the way that that a song about getting older used to be it's more about embracing all the the things that come with getting older all the things that we've acquired over the years you know the fact that we got a chance to be young and not everybody who's young gets a chance to be old and it's a gift that you know that we have and every you know every time that we do this it's it's a gift you know that we're given to be able to have this time and so it's the best case scenario to be older so writing songs about being an older person is about writing songs about being a Survivor and being you know being a champion because you're you're still around um and so we find you know that that subject those subject matter we gra they those are things we kind of gravitate towards a lot more um you know I write if I write a song that isn't a joyful song you know it's not like Queen of New York City I'm not sure if it's necessarily joyful but in my way it is because it's a song where I use to celebrate my wife and every it's about everything that she's been going through healthwise and all the problems she's had to go through but it's really about her strength and her resilience Through The Eyes of like a Don kyot character who you know who is a New Yorker going through and battling the the buildings like they the giant windmills and uh and realizing that I think the more if you have that much heart bakon that much of the universe trying to keep you down the only way that you possibly St stay strong and resilient is to be a little bit delusional and a little bit crazy you know I think the only way that you get through a lot of things is by suspension of disbelief and a little bit of naive and saying no I'm I'm GNA be fine I'm gonna make it I got this um you you mentioned that the song about your wife you've been married I think over 25 years um and she's had some some health challenges um I know and you were you you've talked about it and um how first of all how is she doing uh it's it's a it's still a thing it's just a thing you know what I mean it's a it's a constant thing that you live with every day I I say it's something that she lives with every day um I just you know I use the word resilient a lot but I think it's because I'm amazed at seeing someone who goes through something that can literally take them out of commission for days and then the first day that they get a whiff of like energy they want to do Take On the World with it you know they're just they want to do everything with that day so um the uh it's funny like I I never thought that I'd be in a situation where the question I'm asked the most is you know how MTI you know uh it's it's kind of our it's our little heartbreak over here that we deal with but yeah she I think she deals with it better than most what do you think accounts for the fact that that Matchbox 20 is now I mean you're you're approaching 30 years together as a band you know your first record was released in 96 but you guys really got together in '94 9394 um what what do you why do you think the band still makes music today I mean so many bands don't make it they split up their fights their you know disputes and we had Johnny Mah on the show of the Smiths you know an amazing band that for four years produced incredible music but that was it they they split up and had a falling out and they're never going to get back together yeah why why are you guys still playing together what's the secret I don't know I mean you know I went solo when I knew I had to go solo um and the guys let me come back and we kept you know and they knew that that was now just a part of my personality and my identity and who I was yeah um I think when we did that it opened up the floor to let Matchbox be more collaborative and a lot more real estate for people to write and not just play my songs uh at the core of everything with Matchbox we really like each other like we really do there's a genuine love and a fondness that we have for each other yeah and we get together when we do it for real and we do it for Keeps and we enjoy it we enjoy the process and maybe maybe those things are uh maybe it's geography maybe it's because early on we moved to like La New York Nashville and Miami so we have that absence you know and that distance and we get together we're genuinely glad to see each other again uh whenever we're apart you know Paul's has has successful television and film uh scoring Paul Kyle's been producing and writing and and playing and doing solo stuff we come back together we bring all that back together and we're kind of excited like oh look what I learned uh yeah I think if we were a band that we like we have to make a record every you know however many years and we have to tour here we have to do and we felt like we were being held to that we might implode and then not be a band anymore but I think because we've always been like a we're like a butt dial or like a booty call band we're like you up you know hey you want to make a record all right yeah sounds good um and you can tour and I mean you have a a huge fan base around the world so I mean at any moment you guys can tour and sell out big venues wherever you go yeah I mean I think you know even now with a new record we're not unaware that you come to see Matchbox 20 because we've been around for 30 years there's a huge part of it is Nostalgia yeah you know in but in the same way that I am if I go see you too I don't think of him as an old band I just know that I that I want to hear all the songs that I love yeah um that's a that's one of the biggest gifts I think like when we did this record we weren't going to make a record we we actually after North decided that we were never going to make a record again we were just going to tour every now and then every few years um maybe a new song here and there uh and that was going to be it like that was kind of what we thought our career looked like cuz I was I was going to keep doing solo um Paul was doing his film scoring that was just what we felt like we had time for in our life because the things that are super important to you in your 20s are not the same things that are important to you in your 50s and when we were young the only way this band could get off the ground is it had to be everything to everyone you had to give up everything all your time all your friends and loved ones everything poured into this band for years and years and years it was like a you know getting a Plane off the ground like you had to put all of that inertia into it and now at this age it's very important to us but it's not everything it it can't be you know like now my wife and my son you know my family those things Paul's family means more to me than the band does you know what I mean so like if Paul can't do something because of the family of course we all understand uh that just comes with getting older yeah do you um I mean do you imagine that that you're going to be recording music until the end of your life I mean do you is is that the plan yeah I mean I don't think it's going to I think there'll be a lot less you know like ass shaking music and a lot more stool sitting music but yeah I think uh I you know I think it's you can write songs as long as you can breathe you know they're all in there uh and I and I when I was when you're 20 years old and you look back at your teen self like some idiot that you that's not even attached to you right and then in your 30s you're like no now I understand like I'm in 30s now you know my 20s I was a young man I'm going to put those things away and then 40s you're like oh man but 30s that was the time you know but but now the wisdom and and so I can't imagine that stopping anytime soon and I think 60-year-old me is going to have a lot to say um I don't know if anybody's going to want to hear it and you know at that point may I guess it doesn't matter you know you just if there's an initiated group of people that want to you know I I'll play it for those people but if I don't get it out it's going to clutter up my head guy so I'm going to still have to get it out there do you go through periods where you feel less confident as a writer yeah all the time I don't think I'm a great writer yeah I don't think I'm a great no I think I'm a good writer you know what I mean I think I'm a really confident writer and I think I have moments of real inspiration I think I have like moments where I'll listen back and I'm like wow that was a good line or that's a really good melody or like um but I never I mean I've never thought of myself as like look at me I am the great songwriter I just I feel like it's I'm doing exactly what I should be doing for a living and I think I I probably do it better than if you look at the amount of people in the planet right that write but if you just look at you know like people who are good songwriters and put me in there I'm just one of them you know and then a lot of them I'm just like oh how did you do that like somehow like somebody can still write a verse and a chorus and a bridge and it's so good it sounds like math to me like I just don't understand like where did that come from it's I know those chords I know those Melodies I if I sit down and sus it out I'm like oh I know how you got there but I don't know how I can make myself come to that conclusion on my own and so I guess one day when I'm not fascinated you know at least once a week by some you know new songwriter then maybe then I'll feel like a great songwriter does it matter if you if you I mean to me self-doubt is critical I think it's super important for for any any anyone going through a a you know a creative slowdown or whatever I mean it's I think it's part of the process um but how do you overcome moments where you're like I suck or I'm not good if you have them oh then then just the right one comes at the right time and then you feel like the god of creation for at least 24 hours you feel like oh my God I am a I am great I'm amazing like listen to this where did this come from I have no idea you know this is inspiring me I'm gonna go write every day now I'm gonna write a song a day now it's pouring out of me and then like it wears off like some sort of a drug and you're just like I'm a heck I don't I I can't do that again I don't know where that came from uh I I mean I think you have to bring your own inspiration at some point you have to do something that inspires you and then CU it's not past success you know sometimes past success you don't want that to become some sort of a prison that you're in you know like there's a great it's a great feeling when somebody comes and says oh my God I used to love your band in high school yeah there's something amazing about that but then the insecurity in you is always just like well what about now yeah like what's going on now yeah so I think past success alone is definitely not enough that's going to you know pull you out of that hole you have to write something and it doesn't have to be a successful something that's that's that's key doesn't no you know it's nobody even has to hear it really but you have to write something that you feel like you you're amazed at you know and that's basically it's it I mean basically it's just you got to do the work yeah you got to do the work and it it's you've got to be quality control for yourself you know there's there so many things out there I think that I didn't think we're going to land and they landed a lot better than they they did or things that I thought were going to be really big and they weren't that's why I'm not an anr guy that's why I don't work at a label you know I just can I just know that each one of those songs when I wrote it I felt like I was writing one of the best songs I could at the time yeah Rob Thomas Thanks so much guy thanks that was a great interview I appreciate it nice conversation thanks for watching my chat with Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 by the way their new record is now out it's called where the light goes and you can learn more about Rob and see clips from his videos and get links to his music at our website the great creators.com Thomas and if you enjoyed this please give us a thumbs up maybe even consider subscribing to the channel thanks for watching and I'll see you right back here next week