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MatchBox Twenty Bio!
This is the story behind Maychbox Twenty. This information was taken from The Official Matchbox Twenty Website.
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Soulful vocals, ringing guitars and probing lyrics about people
whose lives are coming apart and their struggle to hold on--
these are the elements that drive the debut album by
matchbox 20, Yourself Or Someone Like You (Lava/Atlantic).
It's a record that, in the words of Guitar World, is
loaded with guitar-driven melodic rock tunes and emotionally
charged vocals. Hits commented that the vocals are gutsy and
the production by Matt Serletic (Collective Soul) is
impeccable, while critic Shawn Ryan noted in the Birmingham
News that the guitars bite; hooks are large...lyrics are
sharp and sincere. Elsewhere, Microsoft Music Central critic
Rod Moody noted: Rob Thomas is a storyteller whose lyrics
focus mainly on personal relationships, and he delivers his
lines with a certain intimacy, like two friends sharing a
good secret. Yourself Or Someone Like You builds
momentum from the strong vocal delivery of principal
songwriter Rob Thomas, who doesn't so much sing these songs
as bite into them. He's complimented by the background
vocals of lead guitarist Kyle Cook and rhythm guitarist Adam
Gaynor, whose electric and acoustic guitar arrangements are
combined with the rhythm section of drummer Paul Doucette
and bassist Brian Yale.
You can hear their dynamic interplay in songs like "Long Day",
the LP's first radio track which charted Top Five, "Real
World", "Argue", "3 AM", "Girl Like That" and "Push", the
LP's second radio track. Thomas describes the romantically
combative "Push"--whose chorus is highlighted by the
lines "I wanna push you around, I will, I will/I wanna push
you down, I will, I will/I wanna take you for granted" --as
a song about how I was manipulated and how I handled it; how
I grew to like it and got comfortable with it. I felt that
the only way that you could have a relationship was if you
were being controlled or if you were being manipulated.
Thomas adds that the song was actually written from three
points of view, including the one of the woman who it's
about. Thomas adds, "Some people get the wrong idea and
think that it's about physical violence, when it's really
about emotional violence. I usually get my best ideas when
I'm walking," responds Thomas when asked about his
songwriting approach. "I used to do a lot of hitch-hiking
when I was younger, from 17 to 20, and I'd spend a lot of
time at 3:00 in the morning sitting on an off-ramp for
hours. You just sit there and no one is around you. You can
scream, you can sing if you want, you could do whatever you
want. I had my little keyboard with me in my backpack and
I'd pull it out and sit there and work on some tunes."
During this period of Thomas' life, he drifted around in an
effort to understand his family problems at home. The
characters on Yourself Or Someone Like You
compellingly wrestle with ghosts and demons, and while it's
not clear if they'll win their battles, you root for them
throughout the album. The folks who inhabit these songs are
bruised ("well I'm surprised that you'd believe/in anything
that comes from me," from "Long Day"), but they're proud,
too ("she's got a little bit of something, God it's better
than nothing," from "3 am"). They're dealing with busted-up
romances ("and we're all grown now, but we don't know how to
get it back to good," from "Back To Good"),
insecurities "she said I don't know if I've ever been good
enough," from "Push") and fears ("you think this life would
make me bolder but I'm running scared is all...I'm same old
trailer trash in new shoes," from "Girl Like That").
Thomas--who was born on a military base in Germany and reared in
the southeast--honed his songwriting abilities while
fronting in a variety of local bands in his high school
years (he lists such artists as Van Morrison, Elvis
Costello, Al Green and R.E.M. as influences). While enjoying
the local scene, Thomas was introduced to Doucette and Yale.
After playing together for a few years in bands and touring
regionally, the threesome decided to start a new band--what
was to become matchbox 20. After recruiting the talents of
Gaynor from Criteria Recording Studios in Miami and Cook
from the Atlanta Institute of Music, the line-up was
complete. Matchbox 20 quickly joined forces with producer
Matt Serletic, who co-produced the Collective Soul albums,
and began tracking demos. It wasn't long before the band
attracted attention from both coasts, signing with
Lava/Atlantic. They wasted no time and headed back into the
studio with Serletic to record Yourself Or Someone Like
You. The instinctive union among these five musicians--
immediately evident during the band's electrifying live
shows--is a reminder of what can be achieved when musicians
never lose sight of the fact that the song is the most
important thing. "I think we get up there and try as
honestly as we can to convey the songs as energetically and
heartfelt as we can," says Thomas. "These are our songs and
we really feel good about 'em. I don't think we try and put
any dramatics into it, but after a show when we're just
talking to people, they'll tell us, 'You know you were so
into it, that was so intense to watch.' To us, we were just
playing the songs and losing ourselves in them. It's like if
you come to a rehearsal, you're gonna see the same thing.
It's not something that we can help really
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