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The Songs Are Eclectic, Dark and (Hopefully) More Famous Than Him
By Alan Light
MSN Music
"I can talk about the craft of writing a song," says Rob Thomas. "Once you get the germ of an idea, where you go from that. But no one knows why you hear a melody in your head, and you always have to respect the weird, crazy magic that is. When Bruce Springsteen wrote 'Brilliant Disguise' or 'Devils & Dust ' -- it didn't exist, and then it did, and it has the power to change your molecules. That is an intangible, otherworldly thing."
Thomas knows a few things about songs that make an impact. In addition to the tens of millions of albums he has sold as the lead singer of Matchbox Twenty (including six No. 1 singles), he has collaborated with such legends as Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson and, of course, Santana -- for whom he wrote and sang the 1999 megasmash "Smooth," which sits at No. 2 in Billboard magazine's chart of the "Hot 100 All-Time Songs."
Now, Thomas is releasing "cradlesong," his second solo album. Though side projects by front men often head in a singer-songwriter direction, "cradlesong" displays an eclectic mix of styles, more uptempo and rocking than contemplative. As with some of Matchbox Twenty's biggest hits, though, the lyrics sometimes reveal the darker side of Thomas -- like the first single, "Her Diamonds," which addresses the battle the singer's wife is waging against an autoimmune disease. (The same day as the album's release, a DVD will also hit stores; titled "Something to Be Tour: Live at Red Rocks," the 18-song set was originally filmed for the PBS series Soundstage.)
Related: See photos | Watch "Her Diamonds"
In conversation over the phone, though, 37-year-old Thomas discussed the reasons he sees the diversity of "cradlesong" as a strength rather than a liability, while conceding that it does sometimes makes life more difficult in the worlds of radio and promotion. In the end, despite all of his success as a performer, he maintains that he wants to be remembered as a songwriter. "I want to be a musician," says Thomas, "whose songs are more famous than I am."
Alan Light: When you sit down to write, do you know whether you're working on a Matchbox Twenty song or a Rob Thomas song?
Rob Thomas: With Matchbox it's easy, because I'm not the only one making the decisions. On the last set of songs, the new material we did for the greatest-hits collection (2007's "Exile on Mainstream"), we all started writing together for the first time, so now I feel like we don't really have to worry about Matchbox world until we all get together. Then we sit down, have a few beers, and play each other the stuff we've been working on.
As we all get older, it gets harder to leave our families for a year and a half to promote a record, so anything we do really has to be something that we all feel really connected to. I brought "Her Diamonds" to them, and they loved it, but they said it sounded like it was really for a solo album.
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