matchbox twenty Enjoying 'Smooth' Sophomore Ride
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001009/re/music_matchbox_dc_1.html
Monday October 9 3:37 PM ET
By Gary Graff
DETROIT (Reuters) - On matchbox twenty's 1996 debut album, frontman
Rob Thomas pleaded for the real world to stop bothering him. That
turned out to be a prophetic request, given that ``Yourself or Someone
Like You'' sold more than 10 million copies and made the singer one of
rock's hot new stars.
The real world certainly hasn't forgotten Thomas since then, either.
How could it, when he was the voice and co-writer of ``Smooth,'' the
Grammy-guzzling song that vaulted Carlos Santana back into the black
magic limelight last year? The big question was whether fans would
forget matchbox twenty, particularly in light of Thomas's solo
notoriety. They haven't.
With the single ``Bent,'' which has received ``Smooth''-like airplay,
the group's second album, ``mad season by matchbox twenty,'' debuted
in late May at No. 3 on the Billboard charts and is already certified
double-platinum. It also assures that ''Yourself or Someone Like You''
was more than a fluke.
But Thomas says he and his bandmates -- guitarists Kyle Cook and Adam
Gaynor, bassist Brian Yale and drummer Paul Doucette -- were braced for
any kind of sophomore ``slump'' they might face.
``We kind of expect things, but none of us expects another freakish
success, like another 10 million,'' Thomas explains. ''When you sell
3 million records, you think you're hot ... But when you get to 10
million records, you start to realize how many things are out of your
control. You realize it's the management and the record company and
the timing and the radio stations and MTV.
``For something like that to happen, all the chains have to be connected
and everything has to work. You're just part of something as opposed to
being the sole machine that made it run, and it took a lot of the
pressure off to realize that nobody expected to do that again.''
Thomas is not one to complain about his band's success; he does,
however, say that matchbox twenty's rapid ascent was a cold slap in
the face, especially since the group's lineup had solidified only
shortly before it hit the studio to record the first album and was just
learning how to be a band, let alone how to handle multi-platinum sales.
``We're just playing a bunch of songs; that's the intention you start
off with,'' Thomas says. ``When it first starts happening, you get
consumed by it. It's like nothing you've ever done. And it's so fragile;
you want to keep it going.
``I had a hard time being comfortable when I was in that position, and
then I went through a period where I had a hard time being comfortable
in my own skin, and not quite sure how to be normal or how I was
supposed to act.''
The group came to grips with its status by taking some time off. Thomas
made the most of it -- moving to New York, getting married and, of
course, doing the ``Smooth'' collaboration with Santana that led to his
own bandmates referring to the singer as Sir Grammy Davis Jr. in the
studio.
Thomas, however, tries to deflect that particular spotlight.
``I always liken it to a parade; it was like Carlos' parade, and I got
to have a float right behind Carlos in it,'' Thomas says. ``It was good
to be swept up in something like that. I find myself trying to
constantly sieve Carlos and figure out how he does it, maintain being a
musician for 30-some-odd years and keep his integrity and never take any
of the wrong roads and do everything for the right reason.''
Thomas and producer Matt Serletic, the man behind the band's first album,
began working on songs for ``mad season'' at a lakefront retreat near
Atlanta and held a similar session in the mountains of North Carolina.
``Once we got back into that process and it gets rolling, it's a fun
thing, just pounding out hours and hours of rehearsals, 'Let's try this
idea. Let's try that idea,''' Serletic recalls.
In the end, Thomas's relationship with his wife inspired many of ``mad
season's'' songs -- even ``Bent,'' which he describes as a ``'90s co-
dependent love song.''
Most importantly, he says, the group was more cohesive -- thanks to
nearly three years spent on the road to support the first album -- and
the band members were each open to new ideas rather than feeling tied
to an established sound.
``Everybody wanted to -- not necessarily do something different, because
that wouldn't be honest, either -- but to start from scratch and do what
we did with the first record, which was pick the song we like and take
each one separately and do exactly what that song needs,'' he says.
``We realized we had to make a record as if we hadn't made one before,
and don't try to think about one cohesive feel or think of us as a band
or an image. I think that was the only way to get an honest record out
of us.''
And that philosophy, Thomas says, ultimately insulates the band from any
measure of ``mad season's'' success other than its own.
``I think the main thing was, when we left the studio, we were happy,''
he says. ``That's really the only mark of whether you think you made a
good record or not; it can't be whether it sells or whether people are
jumping on it right away.
``We wanted to be happy with it before we moved to that step, and I
think we really were.''
(Gary Graff is a nationally syndicated journalist who covers the music
scene from Detroit. He also is the supervising editor of the award-
winning ``MusicHound'' album guide series.)
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