Matchbox burning brightly
IT'S certainly refreshing to see the artistic space Floridian post-grunge rockers Matchbox Twenty currently inhabit.
As the annals of rock and roll are littered with examples of bands torn apart when their leading player gets a taste for the limelight and, ego now fed, loses all sense of why they formed a band in the first place.
Yet while gruff frontman and as chief songwriter Rob Thomas has seemingly remained grounded throughout the quartet's phenomenal success, there has arguably never been any doubt in the man on the street's eyes who the star of the show was.
These feelings were further fuelled when after the two-times platinum-selling success of third LP More Than You Think You Are in 2002, the band proceeded to take a five-year sabbatical in which time the affable Thomas continued to forge himself a fruitful solo career, buoyed further after his 1999 collaboration with Woodstock-playing guitar legend Santana.
So, to discover the band's comeback release was easily their most organic and democratic body of work to date in which each member had a plentiful hand, is heartening indeed.
Backstage prior to a Melbourne arena date, genial rhythm guitarist Paul Doucette is quick to reveal his pleasure with the dynamic the 2008 Matchbox Twenty currently boasts.
"Up until now Matchbox has pretty much been a vehicle for Rob's songwriting and they'd be an occasional song by one of the rest of us - so writing songs together from the inception after 15 years as a band means this whole wealth of opportunity to delve into something we hadn't done before has opened up."
After originally meeting up after the hiatus to put together a greatest hits collection with perhaps a couple of new songs, New York-based Thomas is just as tickled with how things rapidly unfolded.
"I think we're all more pleased than we thought we'd be. Instead of going back to what was comfortable, we shook it all up - and from the first night when we started writing how far we have come it was like 'this is something we should've done years ago!'"
Offerings
Ironically, the success the German-born singer's solo offerings afforded him have enabled this new collaborative approach to bear fruit.
"If I didn't have a solo career to put those songs out through, maybe I wouldn't be as a carefree.
"It's actually kind of nice to know that it won't be just be sitting down writing songs like I would for a solo record, I know what we do will be different as a band and I'm going to be just as surprised at the end of the day with what we come up with as they are."
The end product of the quartet's new found writing harmony is the Steve Lillywhite-produced Exile On Mainstream - a Rolling Stones-inspired title, Doucette proffers, which perfectly encapsulates their position in the industry.
"I called up a friend of mine for a title a while back and he said that and I just thought it summed us up completely - as we've taken so much s*it for being a mainstream band and we would tend to believe it in the past because we maybe listened to too much of our bad press."
The resulting release includes their biggest hits plus several new songs and now older and wiser, Doucette feels the band have found true contentment.
"We've now come to place where we're like 'why should we walk with heads down low, just because we write music that a lot of people like - we should be proud of that'."
It is of course a time-honoured tradition, band makes it big - cue the inevitable backlash.
And with Matchbox Twenty's debut release Yourself Or Someone Like You garnering a stupendous 12 platinum discs, the Orlando-formed outfit went bigger quicker than most, as Doucette confirms.
"It totally makes sense, our first record sold 20m and we went from playing to four people in a room to arenas - so people are gonna be suspect of that as if it we had been created or manufactured, which of course does happen."
Both small town guys (Doucette and Thomas spent their early years just outside of Pittsburgh and in Lake City, South Carolina respectively), they both revelled in the opportunities the Sunshine State afforded them and Thomas' budding songwriting passions were soon being sated.
"There was such a big singer-songwriter scene back then, everybody was a guy with a guitar wearing his heart on his sleeve.
"We'd go to open mic nights and we'd all get together as one big band so we could earn free beer!
"There was a great vibe and I learned a lot watching all these different musicians playing different styles - everybody was really encouraging."
Enthusiasm
Doucette's enthusiasm was pricked by an advert placed by the vocalist in a local paper, it led to a crazy few days as the then drummer reminisces.
"I answered an ad in the paper looking for a drummer who listed their influences as R.E.M. and The Replacements, so I called them up and headed down their and this guy with a mullet answered the door and I was like 'these guys have never heard a Replacements song in their life!'"
Things quickly took an up turn when a non-mullet sporting Thomas showed his face though.
"We hit it off and then I heard him sing and I was like 'wow!', we got along from the get-go - although he took me out after our first rehearsal to this all-night bar and I almost got my ass kicked - it was a quite a night and I got home thinking - 'this guy's interesting!'."
With the endless days of fuzzy, drink-soaked tours now behind them, the pair are now both fathers and pander to the draw of home for different reasons.
With a solo LP due out in the autumn, Doucette's now a resident of Los Angeles and married to Moon Unit, the daughter of madcap, psychedelic rocker Frank Zappa - and the couple are happy with the domesticity that life raising daughter Mathilda offers.
"Moon's a writer, actress and a mum now and our daughter's three and we actually live on the road my wife was raised on.
Moon
"I'm older now and like being as home as much as possible and because Moon's seen the whole road life already, she happy to stay home too."
For Thomas once back in the Big Apple, re-connecting with his son Maison is top of his to-do list.
"He lives in Boston with his mum, so when I get home I head up there to see him - he's a great little guy and we have fun together."
Although one imagines Maison, a budding guitarist himself, did not ingratiate himself with the neighbours when they discovered quite how he liked to have fun.
"He calls me up sometimes and I get this message with this blaring guitar noise followed by 'guess who?' before the phone goes dead!"
With the band's home life currently on the back burner as a world tour works its merry way to England and the Manchester Apollo in May, talk has already turned to new material for next year, as Thomas reveals.
"We're in a good place now and I think we're even more excited about the stuff we're working on now for the next record."
He may have written and worked with industry giants Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson and of course, Santana, but one senses being back in the studio and on the road with his old mates from Orlando has delivered an unexpected and new found happiness for Thomas just us much as the rest of Matchbox Twenty.
Matchbox Twenty play the Apollo on Monday, May 5 and Tuesday, May 6. £25.
Click here to book.
YOU can listen to audio from the interview below.
Published: Fri, 25 April, 2008
Comment on this article
You need to be logged in to comment. Login | Register