Mark McEwen talked to the band about their new album, Mad Season, for Monday's edition of The Early Show.
THE STORY OF MATCHBOX 20 |
AWARDS | Best New Band award in Rolling Stone's 1997 Reader's Poll. |
Billboard's 1997 best Duo/Group. |
Favorite Group: New Artist trophy at 1997's Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. |
Made the Top 10 in Spin's 1998 "Year In Music" issue. |
Rob Thomas named "50 Most Beautiful People In The World" in 1998 by People Magazine. |
Thomas was named BMI's 1999 Pop Songwriter of the Year for "Smooth" and his work with Matchbox 20. |
Band won BMI's Pop Award in199 for "3am," "Real World," and "Push." |
in 2000, Thomas won three Grammys for "Smooth" — Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. |
- Singer/songwriter, Rob Thomas was born on a military base in Germany and spent much of his childhood between his mother's house in Florida and his grandmother's place in South Carolina.
- He dropped out of high school at the age of 17 and sang in various bands in the Southeast, before settling in Orlando, Florida. There, he met bassist Brian Yale and drummer Paul Doucette, and the three spent several years drifting through local bands before Matchbox 20 officially formed. They recruited the talents of Adam Gaynor (rhythm guitar, vocals), and Kyle Cook (lead guitar).
- Producer Matt Serletic, who's worked with Collective Soul, recorded a batch of demos which helped the band get in the door with a deal at Lava, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records.
- Though their debut album Yourself or Someone Like You received little attention at first, Matchbox 20 continued to tour America, cultivating a fan base.
- In the spring of 1997, "Push" began climbing its way to the top of the modern rock charts, as it received heavy airplay from radio and MTV. They won a large audience by crafting songs that appealed to both traditional rock audiences as well as Top 40 mainstream.
- They finally hit it big with "Push," though critics were quick to label them a one-hit wonder. The group and their fans proved naysayers wrong, as the follow-up singles "3 a.m.," "Real World" and "Back 2 Good" also climbed the charts over the next two years. By 1998, it had gone platinum five times; by 2000, ten times.
- Throughout 1999 and early 2000, "Smooth," a song on Santana's Superantural album, co-written and sung by Thomas, was inescapable. It brought more attention to Matchbox 20, and Yourself or Someone Like You rocketed to over 10 million copies sold which qualified it for the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) "Diamond Award." (See more awards at right.)
- In the midst of all the success with Santana, Matchbox 20 recorded its second album in Atlanta and Nashville, again with producer Matt Serletic. The sophomore effort, entitled mad season by matchbox 20, was released May 23, 2000 with the single "Bent" making a splash on radio charts.
DISCOGRAPHY |