With a career in music spanning three decades, it might be hard to believe Rob Thomas has no issue with writing new material.
The 53-year-old is about to release his sixth solo studio album, All Night Days, and admitted to 9honey Celebrity that it’s been well curated over a long period of time.
“At least I had time to make sure that I liked all the songs before I put it out,” he laughed.
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While Thomas is known as a standalone artist, he’s also the lead singer of Matchbox Twenty and admitted the process of deciding what’s his and what goes to the band is actually rather simple.
“I mean, honestly… I wish I was that good, I just write all the time,” he explained.
“And when it’s time for a Matchbox record, I kind of lay it all out. We all just go, ‘This is what we’re working on’ and play each other’s stuff.
“If they don’t, I hold onto it and maybe it’ll wind up on a solo record, or by the time I make a solo record I’ll realise it wasn’t good.”
He joked that now, looking back, he’s realised he understands why the Matchbox guys sometimes didn’t like a song, because it really wasn’t any good.
For Thomas, a lot of creating music has been trial and error – just writing all the time.
“Eventually you give yourself a deadline and say, ‘OK, well, I’ve got to put the brush down and I’ve got to put something out by this point in time,'” he added.
Thomas’ new album has a similar sound to one fans of not only him, but of Matchbox Twenty have come to love.
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But the really special part he’s realised about his career is that his fans span generations – something that wasn’t even a thought when he first started.
“I mean, obviously you want what you want,” he said of peoples’ tastes in music.
“I didn’t realise when I was young what a gift it would be if I had this career and I had it for this long and I was allowed to be someone’s nostalgia.”
The fact his songs hold so much meaning, or special memories to people is something that’s not lost on him now.
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“When I look out and I see the audiences, they’re literally from their late 70s, because they were probably my age when my first record came out, and all the way down to their grandchildren and little 13-year-old kids singing every word,” he said.
“Of course you want that.”
Looking at things now, he knows that his perspective has changed throughout his career.
“When you’re really young and you’re first starting out and it’s your first few records, you really go out there with the intention of ‘you need to get that record heard,'” he said.
“[It] and needs to climb the charts because that’s what’s gonna get you onto the next thing and that’s how you’re gonna get recognised and kind of found.”
But now things are different.
“After 30 years you kind of pull together your own little group of initiated people that like what you do,” he explained.
“You’re kind of gearing what you do to it, you want them to like it more than just, maybe, throwing it out into the ether.
“Like it’s great to pick up a few fans and you hope that new people turn themselves onto it.
“But I have more of a chance of probably people turning themselves onto this new record because they go see us live and they connect with me live and then go, ‘Oh, I wanna go check out the new record.'”
All Night Days is out on September 5.
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