Matchbox 20 sits down with Deluxe 920

After ten years and selling in excess of 37 million albums worldwide, it seems that Matchbox Twenty has come a long way. After a five-year hiatus to pursue solo projects (most notably frontman Rob Thomas’s platinum-selling album, Something to Be, and his collaboration with Santana on the Grammy-winning “Smooth”), the group reconvened to write a song or two for what was meant to be simply a greatest-hits CD. What ended up happening was a new chemistry amongst the band members that led to six new songs. The first single, “How Far We’ve Come,” has reminded everyone that Rob Thomas, Kyle Cook, Brian Yale and Paul Doucette are returning from their self-imposed exile, and they are ready to take over the mainstream once again.

Deluxe 920: I have to take a second to be a geek and say that I’m a huge fan, so I appreciate you taking the time out to talk to us...

Paul Doucette: No problem! Thanks so much for being a geek! (laughs)

D920: I was happy when I heard you were putting out Exile on Mainstream, especially with you having the new tracks on it. Was that always part of the plan to have that much new material on it? Drummer-turned-guitarist Paul Doucette took some time out to chat with Deluxe 920 Magazine to talk about their new tracks, their upcoming tour, and just how far they really have come…

Doucette: Yeah, I mean, it was a bunch of things that kind of evolved. We knew we were going to get back together, and Atlantic [Records] was kind of harping on us for a greatest hits, but we thought “Well that doesn’t sound like that much fun.” So we wanted to use it as an opportunity to get back together, because it had been SO long. Then it kind of evolved, and we decided, “Well we’re not going to do just one song – we’ll do like four.” And then we got together to write and we wrote a lot of stuff. Then we thought maybe we should do ten, and we’ll do a new record and the greatest hits, and we’ll put them all together in one package. Then it got to be a money issue with the label, and then the only way we could make it work was for six to be the cutoff.

D920: So with the single, “How Far We’ve Come,” what made you decide…

Doucette: I know where you’re going with that! (laughs) It wasn’t. Honestly, it NEVER occurred to us. After we finished recording it, Brian, our bass player, pointed it out to us. All of us were like, “Oh yeah.” It really is a song about waking up on the last day of the world and asking yourself, how far have we come as a society? We never thought about it for us as a band, but it does work.

D920: That’s funny that it never occurred to you.

Doucette: I know. I mean, we never thought of it. And it’s so incredibly obvious now!

D920: So you’re geniuses beyond your own mind.

Doucette: Exactly! (laughs) We’re such geniuses, we can’t even measure…

D920: Did you know you were going to be going on tour to support the album too? You probably could have gotten away with just throwing it out there to the people…

Doucette: Yeah, we’re kind of playing a lot of things by ear. You know, how does this feel to do? Ok, then let’s do that. After we got together to write, then everything kind of started falling into place. Up until that point, we really didn’t know the future of the band. We knew it wasn’t over, but we didn’t know if we would get together and just not be able to work together anymore or get together and have it be great. Luckily, it turned out to be great. So much has changed about the dynamic. Adam’s no longer in the band, I now play guitar, so we’re all writing together instead of Rob bringing in the songs – everything about the band is completely different! So we didn’t know how it was going to work.

D920: You’ve mentioned in the past the various moments of tension within the band. You said you were quitting the band every morning and coming back Do you think you’ve finally found the formula that works?

Doucette: Yeah, because the band is finally what we all want it to be. I always described it as we were Rob Thomas and his overly-outspoken backup band. I mean essentially, we were a vehicle for Rob’s songs. And I did some writing along the way and had some stuff on the record, and me and Kyle and Rob [sic] did some songs in the past, but for the most part, it was a vehicle for Rob’s writing. And we got older, that’s just wasn’t as fulfilling to us anymore. It’s also a lot of pressure on Rob, because every time, Rob’s gotta come up with the songs, and it’s like “Hey, where are the songs, songwriter guy?” Kyle and I started writing over the years, it’s like now we have three regular writers in the band – how do we make it work? So we just decided to find out what it was like to write together. And it was so easy, and came so quickly.

D920: Everyone has their own solo projects going on outside of Matchbox Twenty. Are you going to work in any of the solo stuff into the tour?

Doucette: We’re all fans of each other, and like each other’s stuff, so we’ll probably do it in encores and stuff. Like one night play one of Kyle’s songs, and one night play one of mine, and one of Rob’s…

D920: I remember seeing you guys in Phoenix on the tour that Train opened up for you, and you guys sounded so polished and had just a really clean live sound. And you don’t get that enough in live shows. Is that a credit to how well you guys gel together? Or is that just “practice makes perfect?”

Doucette: We rehearse maybe two weeks before the tour. We do a lot of promos and stuff too though. But now we have a new drummer, and I’m on guitar, so we kind of have to start over.

D920: What are you bringing to your show this time around that you haven’t brought out in the past?

Doucette: Alanis Morrisette.

D920: Besides that!

Doucette: (laughs)

D920: What are you bringing to your SET?

Doucette: Oooh, our set’s going to be good! But I can’t tell you.

D920: Come on…just a hint?

Doucette: Well we’re trying, in theory, and we don’t know if it’s going to work, but we’re trying to bring some 3-D stuff the show. It all works in our heads. But I don’t know if it’s actually going to work.

D920: Are you just going to take the night off then, and have a 3-D Paul, a 3-D Rob…

Doucette: How great would that be? (laughs) That would be so great! You know, there was a band in the 90’s called Man or Astro-Man who hired a band to tour as them. I thought that was the best idea ever. Isn’t that great?

D920: You could be like the Gorillaz and just have animated videos and concerts and such!

Doucette: Completely! It would work for everyone but Rob, because they know him. I can’t imagine Kiss never did that. You know, “Hey, let’s just stay home and let someone else do it.”

D920: All we need is to get a Matchbox Twenty tribute band…

Doucette: Ahh, that would be so great! I’d love it. That’s one of my favorite things in the world - when you walk into a bar and you hear a band doing a cover of one of your songs. It’s the best!

D920: Is there one that stands out in your mind?

Doucette: I remember a band – it was in Milwaukee – and we walked into a bar and they were playing “3 A.M.” and it was horrific! (laughs) I loved it. I loved that they were doing it, but it was like wow – that song doesn’t sound ANYTHING like that at all! (laughs)

D920: Are there some older tracks that you’re kind of “eh” about playing live because you have played them so much?

Doucette: There’s some from every record that you think didn’t hold up as well. You go back and – we have enough records now that we can change the setup on different nights. So we’re going over all the records and the songs that we haven’t played in years like “Last Beautiful Girl,” I’m looking forward to playing that one.

D920: So when I first saw you guys live, it was when “Push” first came out and was all over the radio. And I remember I was surrounded by a bunch of screaming teenage girls. But in Phoenix, the crowd was still highenergy but a bit more mature. Have you seen your audience grow up, or you’re just targeting different people?

Doucette: We’ve seen them grow up, but we’ve also gotten a lot of new fans too. The great thing about “How Far We’ve Come” is that it was a pop song. It was a pop hit – which we haven’t had in awhile. So it brought in a younger audience. But it’s always been that way – we’re the band that you’ll see 10 year-olds and 50 year-olds.

D920: So in 2008, you have the tour, and your solo projects. Your album should be coming out in March-ish, and I hear Rob’s got one in the works. Is that the plan for the year?

Doucette: We’ll be touring til May, and what happens from there depends on how we feel. We may go back out, we may not.

D920: How nice is it that you write your own ticket now?

Doucette: It’s fantastic. It’s the kind of thing that you work for. But we’ve taken four years off. I mean, Rob’s solo record definitely kept us in the limelight, but for us to come back after four years and play the same kind of venues as before – we’re completely grateful for that.

D920: What’s the next single, so we know to be listening for it?

Doucette: It’s “These Hard Times.” We’re gonna make the video for it in two weeks.

D920: Any hints on that? Do you know the concept or anything for it yet?

Doucette: I do, but it’s not quite done yet. It’s something that, every day, a phone call happens like “What if we did this?” It’s just gonna be a nice video.

D920: Aww, all of them are.

Doucette: Oh no – we’ve made some pretty bad ones (laughs).

D920: They’re at least amusing.

Doucette: They are. I get some good laughs in the “What were we thinking?” category.

D920: Will all of the Exile tracks make the show?

Doucette: Oh we’ll play them all. The one great thing about the new stuff is that it’s really fun to play live. The big difference in the old stuff and they new stuff is how we did it. The new stuff is really live – we just did a couple of takes and ok, that felt good. The old stuff we spent so much time trying to perfect it. Plus they’re new – they haven’t been played before. See Matchbox Twenty at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee on February 5th. And pick up their recent CD – Exile on Mainstream – while you’re at it too, would ya?