When you’re the frontman of a successful band, what do you do for your second act? Go solo, or step behind the scenes and write hits for someone else? Rob Thomas almost chose the latter.
On the Zach Sang Show on Nov. 9, the Matchbox Twenty frontman revealed that “Smooth,” the 1999 Santana smash that made him a household name, was never meant for his voice. “I wasn’t going to sing it,” Thomas said. He had hoped to break into writing for other artists and was sitting in Clive Davis’ office brainstorming singers. “I was trying to help push George Michael for a while,” he said.
Carlos Santana had other plans. After hearing Thomas’ demo, he decided he wanted the songwriter himself on the track. The result spent 12 weeks at No. 1, won three Grammys and ranks as the third-biggest song on Billboard’s all-time Hot 100 list.
Nearly three decades later, Thomas is still sorting songs the same way, just with a different sounding board. He told Sang that he shares most of what he writes with bandmate Paul Doucette, in case something he hears as a solo track is really better for Matchbox Twenty. “I have no problem with sending Paul a song that he just goes, ‘That’s not for us,’” Thomas explained, “because I know he doesn’t mean that’s not a good song.”
That back-and-forth has led to something fans weren’t sure they’d get: new Matchbox Twenty music. Doucette said Thomas had once been ready for the band to simply tour, and the group had accepted that. Then the two started trading songs they’d been working on separately. One of Thomas’ songs instantly caught Doucette’s ear, and what began as a plan to release a track or two for the tour “just kind of kept going.”
Doucette said that being past their 20s and 30s, when every move is under a spotlight, has made the process “much less of a pressure cooker” and opened the band up to “directions we might not have gone previously.”
For a songwriter who once tried to give away the biggest hit of his life, this time, the songs are staying in the band.
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