When your debut album sells 10 million copies and you're a multi-Grammy winning vocalist, you'd think you would have more on your mind than the arcane nomenclature of the music industry. Not so Rob Thomas of US rock band Matchbox 20, who sits in his hotel room wondering why his band can be huge in his native country but still "gonna be's" in Europe: "The sort of music we play is defined as either `adult alternative' or `contemporary mainstream' back home," he says, "but over here we've yet to fit into any such formatting category - I think that will change with this new album."
The confusion is that on this side of the pond some people only know him as the vocalist on the No 1 single by Santana, Smooth (hence all the Grammy awards). "I just fell ass-backwards into luck with that song. Everything about Smooth has been so special and so beautiful. We were taking our time working on the new album so Smooth became this really good bridge. We needed a break, and it kept us from the `Where are they now?' file."
With its distinctive vocal sound and catch-all hooks, Matchbox 20 is described as the missing link between Pearl Jam and Counting Crows, And now it is poised to join the charge of the Yankee brigade, launching its European assault at a time when US music is in the ascendancy, what with Mercury Rev, Semisonic and others all making a big breakthrough.
Yet it must be difficult to go from household name status in the US to relative anonymity over here? "No, not really, because selling 10 million copies of your first album is freakish - you can't compete with it and you can't recreate it. Besides we never really felt the fame thing. In fact, since the first album (Yourself Or Someone Like You) was released in 1996, we've spent at least 600 nights on the road. And when you're riding in a van from gig to gig, you never feel very famous. Even when people tell you how many copies you're selling, you still feel like you did when you were playing those dives when you first started."
It started for Rob Thomas playing in local bands in Orlando after he dropped out of school. Quickly signed to Atlantic records, Matchbox 20's first two singles, Long Day and Push, broke through on college radio and soon Thomas's quality as a songwriter was much commented upon - the first album was described as "a soul-infused collection of modern classics", on its release. "Ever since I can remember I've always wanted to tell stories. But I never had the patience to sit down at a typewriter and write short stories or anything like that. I started writing songs as a way of communicating ideas the best way I could. Most of the things I write about are still basic emotions. If you sell a billion records and the only thing you can come up with to write about is selling a billion records, then you're probably a pretty shallow person."
As dynamic and melodic as the new album, Mad Seasons, is, Thomas says there's an "if it ain't broke . . ." feel to the overall sound. "What we do is play rock music. We are not Korn or Beck or Dr Dre. In a sense, it's not important to us what other type of music is out there, we're more intent on keeping our own sound. I suppose it would have been easy for us to do remixes and stuff and change the sound around, or even throw in a few big loops, but I think that would be too much like smoke and mirrors."
Similarly, there's been no image makeover or supermodel-snogging stories to up the band's "celebrity" status. "We've never had an image thing going on and we're not interested. What we most wanted to do on Mad Season was to bring out an album that could have been released anytime. I've been listening to all those new American bands like Uncle Tupelo, Wilco and Whiskytown - all the y'alternative brigade - and I really admire the work-in-progress nature of their work. I suppose it would be easy for us to do things like play the Smooth song live because it was such a big hit but we're not going to do that because it's a Santana song not a Matchbox 20 song. In fact, we're thinking of getting T-shirts made up that say `We're not playing Smooth' on them."
Despite the band's huge success with its first album, Thomas says there was a conscious decision to ignore the pressure and hype on the new one and as a result he feels the band has released a very organic work. "When we made our first record, we hadn't really been a band for very long. We hadn't had any really good fights, we hadn't had any really good laughs, we hadn't done much of anything together. But now, so much has happened to us that we've formed a character within ourselves. This is the first one where we can really say `This is our sound'."
Mad Season by Matchbox 20 is released on Monday on the Atlantic label
