Rob Quotes

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"I'm a good bad boy - I drink too much, smoke too much, curse too much, party too much and I like deviant sex."

"The guy from Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony walked past us and said, 'You guys got a really good record, you guys are good.' You don't expect that...to happen."

"If you sell going on 4 million records and you have fans and people supporting you, and you and your friends and family are healthy - if a couple of critics don't like you, you have to be a real jerk to be offended and start going, 'Man, my life is shit. I can't believe I don’t get any respect.'"

"Still "Time" magazine called us and Prodigy two of the worst records of the year because it was misogynistic rock. It really upset me because if you are not going to like us because you think we suck, that's one thing. But to say that we are one of the worst bands because we're misogynistic rock? That means one, you didn't listen to our whole record. Two, you didn't actually listen to the one song you heard. It's uninformed opinion. Critics have the responsibility to be informed."

"The main feedback we get from people is that they take the album personally. They listen to it and use it in certain parts of their lives. We were playing in New York and we were drivin' to the next town. Me and Paul were looking at each other and going...'Man, three million albums- that’s amazing!' We all ran to the front of the bus and listened to the record for the first time in six months. We were all up there smoking like chimneys and saying...'I don’t know if I get it.'"

"If thats the way its going to be the rest of my life, if critics aren’t going to dig it but music listeners and fans are, I'm fine."

"I can't tell if we are going to be a popular band for a long time, but I feel like we're going to be a band."

"We wanted to do well enough that we ensured that there was going to be no problem with us making our next record. Once we went gold, we thought at least we could do that. If this one gets a big 'shit sandwich' tomorrow, it's going to be fine with us because we get to do it again."

"It was all about emotional violence, about being manipulated, controlled and how relationships can become a game of who can control who. That was the whole intent behind it." [on "Push"]

"It's like it's OK that we do this and you didn't go to be lawyers and OK that you didn't head off to university. It's OK that you don't own a chain of dry cleaners or whatever it is other people set out to do. Now, it's like our parents can be proud of you."

"It was all because we got calls from New Hampshire. There’s a lesbian organization that wants to ban it from the radio because they think that it’s a misogynistic song and it’s about violence towards women. I met these friends of Kyle’s (Cook) that knows this group of girls in Indiana that won’t listen to it either because they think that’s what it’s about, which means they didn’t really listen to it in the first place. It’s no different than Bob Dole or any of the right wing religious groups that ban music without even hearing it, only it’s from the other side of the scale--it’s from kids and people that like rock music. I think that, if you listen to the lyrics, it’s pretty easy to tell. Usually, you’d think about that when you’re making a record— that we’d catch some slack for this-- but it never came up once that people were going to think this."

"We think it’s funny because we made such a serious record, but we’re such goofballs. To hang out with us, we’re never serious about anything except for that hour or so that we’re on stage. I think it was just our way of throwing a goof in there."

"I have better clothes--that's about it." [on how he’s changed in the past year]

"I want to bring everybody in on it [much-improved outlook on life]. I want to let everybody come in and feel like a rock star."

"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."

"I'm not one of those people who suffers for his art-it's more like I'd be suffering without it. Writing songs is almost medicinal for me; it's the best therapy I can think of."

"I think it's good."

"We can't help that we write poppy songs."

"I guess our biggest goal now is just to do well enough to make another record and have anybody care."

"You can spit-shine me all you want, but I'm still the same old piece of tin."

"All five of us are starting to fuse together so that Matchbox 20, as an entity, has its own personality instead of five totally different guys."

"I usually get my best ideas when I'm walking."

"Wouldn't that be great? People would say, 'Who are you gonna go see tonight?' and you could go, 'Larry.'" [on wanting the band’s name to be Larry]

"Well, before we started Matchbox 20, three of us were in another band called Tabitha's Secret. The only thing was--it wasn't a good band. That was the only thing that was holding us back. We could have gone all the way if we'd had any talent."

"Yeah, okay, you're right. We're just a flash in the pan and we're totally untalented. Thank you."

"But I can't listen to music when other people are talking or if there's stuff going on in the room. I have to listen to all the words. It drives me crazy to be in the car listening to my favorite CD and everyone's talking. I keep turning it up until everyone in the whole van is yelling: ‘Turn that down!’ So I bought headphones and I feel better about myself now. Everybody likes me again."

"I've been on the Internet twice, maybe three times."

"Everything has exceeded our expectations. Anything that happens now is just extra. We're waiting for the first big thing to screw up. Like a plane crashes into our rehearsal space so we can go, ‘Oh, there you are.’"

"It's fun buying your friends drinks."

"I spend a lot of time in L.A., and I'm always the least rich, the least popular guy in the room. If I ever get rich, I'll go back to L.A. to remind myself, ‘No you're not rich, you're not even that attractive. Go back to your hotel, which isn't even that nice.’"

"If I wasn't playing music, I'd probably be in prison."

"If you're delivering flowers, every house you go to, everyone you meet, you're a good guy to them. All day, you're making people happy. Unless it's a funeral..."

"Some people like us because they think we're cute, some people like the songs, or we remind them of someone else. You never know why and you can't question it."

"We're just normal guys playing normal music."

"We don't know what's hip."

"I just think we have these forgettable faces."

"I say, if you're going to bash us, just be clever."

"I don't understand how people who claim to have a brain can misunderstand [the song] so much." [on "Push" just one more time]

"Call them a one-hit wonder and people won't expect much from them. It just didn't work the way they've planned it."

"We don't take ourselves real seriously. It's like a big comic book."

"We played the record company a few new songs, had a few beers..."

"Somebody working at McDonald’s would love to be where I am, so I’m going to give it my all."

"It’s like you just go 'Boooinng.'"

"I failed chorus class and I failed keyboard class, so it's weird that I became a piano-playing singer."

"There's something good to be said about being raised entirely by Southern women."

"It's reasonable to want to be a policeman, but when you say you want to be a rock star, it's like saying you want to be a princess or a goat or a firetruck. It's not realistic."

"We saw someone scalp a ticket to a show of ours for $200, and if I saw our show and we sucked, I would hate us forever."

"Just go read some bad press. That'll keep you going."

"Yeah, but we're better behaved." [in answer to something Paul said]

"I remember looking down from the stage and seeing my two ex-girlfriends beating each other up. Those were the days of big, high drama."

"(Laughing) That's right. Paul had this patch over one eye, he was bald and he had chicken pox." [Paul’s condition during the recording of the first album]

"My defense for the critics is: We are John Fogerty's favourite record. Bernie Taupin likes us. These people write music, so we must be doing something right to a degree."

"(Long pause, looks carefully at Doucette) Um. . . I am." [in response to the question, "Are you all millionaires?"]

"We just drank a lot and picked up girls."

"Me and Paul would sit in one room of a hotel and in the other room there would be like, beer and booze, and women passed out, and we'd sit on the couch going, 'You know man, we live a very shallow existence. Do you want another beer?' We out-drank Pantera."

"I flail."

"Yeah, our one album killed rock & roll as we know it. I should call up the Rolling Stones and apologize. I feel just terrible."

"Most of it is like: 'You guys have sold too many records. You don't deserve that.' But what are we going to do?"

"We wrote some songs, we put out a record and people liked it."

"All we ask is that we be called four-hit wonders. That's not too much to ask for, is it?"

"We are not interested in being hip."

"On the first few takes [of 'Smooth'] there are these twenty-minute versions with just screaming back and forth between Santana and the vocal. It was mad fun."

"I think teenage girls are great because they don't drink, and don't get annoying! And then they're nice and say they like us!"

"I just hope we're popular with lots of different people."

"I'm peeing right now! Adam's wearing slippers, and Rob's peeing!"

"I lived in detention! After day detention, every Saturday, Saturday school. Because I thought it was more fun to go to the beach and surf than classses. And first period forget it."

"I think if you're over 17 you can fuck up your life any way you want, but -- you can't blame me for it. You can blame Adam."

"It was in Houston at the Hard Rock, it was a small room with a shitload of people. And at the end of the show, Kyle actually picks up Adam and threw him into the crowd and walked off the stage!" [most embarrassing moment]

"It depends. It's a matter of geography. Because the Smurfs are land animals while the Snorks are clearly water animals. So it really matters where they fought. But Poppa Smurf has got his shit together, and could build boats out of mushrooms, and use something to maybe drop on the snorks. Or find a way to drop things into their little airholes, like dead fish." [who would win in a war of Snorks vs. Smurfs] What the hell are Snorks??

"I'd be Bill Dance, the fishing guy. You just sit around and fish and drink beer."

"We're a vocal dynamo!"

"You know Paul doesn't like to sing. Although he sings like an angel."

"With a straw." [how does he eat a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup?]

"Could you note that I'm peeing again!"

"We would go out and sometimes I get grabbed by some drunk person, and Paul says, I'm glad it's you out there."

"It's really a great band. I wouldn't want to play with anyone else."

"I don't think it makes me that special. This is my one special talent. It's my place my in the world."