Rob Thomas |
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Mon. April 11.2005 12:00 AM EDT |
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Rob Thomas: Solo FlightMatchbox 20's singer steps away from the band on a new disc. Here's his track by track breakdown of Something To Be. by Tiarra Mukherjee |
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(Atlantic) |
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Rob Thomas made his name as the leader and songwriter of Matchbox 20, whose first album Yourself or Someone Like You sold ten million records and made them the most popular rock band of the late '90s. He also helped propel Carlos Santana to
Though still a member of Matchbox, Thomas is about to drop his first solo disc, Something to Be. "I was trying to make a diverse album," he says, "one that didn't have too much of one thing on it...to show that this was different from a Matchbox 20 album." He experiments with many sounds on Something, but have no fear Matchbox fans, Thomas's vocals and hooks will lure you in and keep you wanting more. We asked the singer to take us through the album and give us the lowdown on each track. As he explained 'em, his wife, god, and John Mayer popped up in the conversation. "This Is How A Heart Breaks" I started it a long time ago, writing a melody for the chorus from a track I was writing for someone else. When I started on the verse for what later would become the song, I kept coming back to that chorus over and over again. On the record I share a writing credit with these four guys who I've never met; I have no idea who they are, but they gave me the track that inspired the song, so I put their names on to share the credit. "Lonely No More" It's me knowing that I was making a different kind of CD and trying to write a different kind of song. I tried to make this album so diverse it's hard to pick any song that represents the rest of the disc. "Lonely" seems to represent the distance between a Matchbox Twenty album and my new one. "Ever The Same" While we were making this record we found out that my wife was sick - she had a problem with her immune system. It's something we were dealing with the whole time we were making this album. I can't imagine it took much longer to write this song than it took to play it. Jeff Trot from Sheryl Crow's band plays the slide guitar on there and he did just a really beautiful job on there. "I Am An Illusion" That was written a few years ago and we passed on it for the last Matchbox album. It was a song that I always felt connected to. The idea of sitting at home in your pajamas. turning on the TV, and seeing a much cooler version of you, doing fabulous things with fabulous people. Some people think your life is really great or really awful, but either way it's always different from you own perception. So you are yourself and you are whoever everyone else thinks you are. I used Robert Randolph to play the lap steel. He came in and within like 20 minutes just threw it down, It's one of the best solos I've ever heard. "Where The Heartache Ends" Another personal song. My wife had once said something that always stayed with me. At the end of a really bad day she asked if I was still going to be around when all the heartache was over. That to me was just the sweetest sentiment. She sounded so scared, and it just inspired me. Certain songs just kind of flow right out of you, they seem like they were meant to be written at that moment and that was one of them. And Mike Campbell from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers plays guitar on it, he's one of my favorite guitarists and writers. Everything he does is completely original, completely specific to his own touch on the guitar. So I felt like Rob Thomas & The Heartbreakers for at least a couple of minutes. "Something to Be" I wanted to write a song that went "Yeah, yeah, yeah." So for like a month I'd sit around with my guitar singing "Yeah yeah yeah- ba-dum-ba dum." I had no idea what I was going to say and then one day I got really angry at my record label and I said "Hey I got a song" and I wrote this song about people wanting you to be something that you're not. And then it took on another meaning, the idea of going out after almost a decade and doing different kinds of music because you've been doing the same thing for so long that you don't know how much of it is you. "All That I Am" "All That I Am" was a song that I wrote about my feelings about God. We recorded that song with a seven piece orchestra, but it was made up completely of instruments from the early Roman AD period, all around the time of Christ. We used all these weird flutes and old instruments. We had this harp player who was the only guy in New York who could play it, so even before he takes his harp out you have to pay him in cash - then he'll take it out and play it. These instruments were just so hard to find: one guy pulled out a bag of tuned ram's horns. Great. "Problem Girl" It was written six years ago and it never had a bridge; it still doesn't have a bridge. The track almost didn't make the album. We were at this point where we wanted 12 songs and there was one last spot. We had like 18 or 20 tracks in the archives. One day I was riding in my car and I put "Problem Girl" on. I thought "I just love this song." At the end of the day the album still had to be made up of what I thought were the best songs, and it would have been a shame to not have it on the record. "Falling To Pieces" It started off as a sweet little country ballad that I wrote it in an L.A. hotel room while my wife was asleep. One day, totally as a lark I was testing different sounds on the keyboard and it started a little bit quicker. I was like, "What was that? That's great. That's perfect." So we got a programmer to give it kind of a zydeco beat. I wanted it to be funkier but I wanted it to retain that old country melody. So the Soggy Mountain Boys came and sang on it so it sounds like an old Johnny Cash record popped up in the middle of it. I wanted this record to have as many hybrids as possible - things that shouldn't go together but somehow do. "My My My" My favorite thing about it was the process. It started right off the bat (sings0 "My My My" and it had no verse and we just went in and cut the track. We had the drums and the bass and we put the piano and everything on it, just like the instrumental version of something. I went in one afternoon and just started singing. I'd write a line out and sing along and then go back and listen to it, and think "That doesn't work for me" and then I'd run into the other room for a half an hour and completely change it around and then I'd say, well let's make it go from chorus to chorus and chorus and then we'll put in a verse." So it kept going back and forth. In a band you can't do that because everybody's helping. Sometimes you want it to be quiet and you want to think about what you think sounds best "Streetcorner Symphony" It was written by myself and Matt Serletic, my producer and friend. John Mayer played guitar on it. I think John is one of the most talented guitar players in popular music today. He's such a great singer and songwriter and when you see his live show he tears it up. We both happen to live in the city and we were at a dinner and I said, "Hey you want to come play on my record?" He was like "Yeah, sounds great." It's nice when there aren't managers and labels and people trying to cram artists together so it can be marketed like "featuring this and this guy and this guy." The footage of how the recording went down is going to be on a documentary we're putting out later in the year. "Now Comes The Night" I had written this track almost like a poem. Every album that I ever made has always had one song on it that I didn't think would be any more than a little lullaby just for me. On the second Matchbox album it was "If You're Gone" I wasn't expecting anyone to ever hear it. This song was one of those. It's a testament to Matt Serletic, and one of the reasons I love working with him. He's always got his ears open. One night we were in a writing session and he was on the phone. I was playing the piano a bit. Matt is the chairmen of Virgin records, so he's running the label in the day and running to the studio at night. So somewhere in the middle of making a big record deal, he heard me playing and came running in with his phone and was like "We gotta work on this." Do you have a favorite on the album? My favorites change from day to day. And then after six months I hate them all (laughter). I really like "This Is How A Heart Breaks" and "I Am An Illusion." I like the intensity and drive of them. But I think "Ever The Same" and "Where The Heartache Ends" are my favorites, too. They grab me and really mean the most to me. |
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