Promoting their multi-platinum album, Yourself or Someone Like You, has kept Matchbox 20 on tour for more than two years. But their forever-on-the-road lifestyle is still cushier than Thomas's upbringing. Born on a military base in Germany, he grew up for a while with his grandmother in South Carolina, then with his divorced mother in Orlando. After dropping out of high school, Thomas slept frequently on park benches and friends' sofas, a semi-homeless existence the optimistic 26-year-old has expressed little angst over.
In fact, Matchbox 20 may cast a deep dark shadow in videos, but in person they're pure Florida sunshine (give or take some sunglasses indoors). The band recently found time to perform at Z-Day, a concert at Radio City Music Hall sponsored by radio station Z-100 to salute New York City's 100th anniversary and to benefit PAX, a non-profit anti-gun violence group that Thomas believes in passionately. PEOPLE Online chatted with the amiable Thomas and Matchbox 20's equally friendly drummer, Paul Doucette, after their sound check.
Rob, you were named on of PEOPLE's 50 Most Beautiful People this year. What was it like? Do your bandmates resent you?
Doucette: We do. I'll just tell you, speaking for the other bandmates point of view, it makes meeting women really hard. The competition is just [whistles].
Thomas: A lot of the bandmates rag on me quite a bit, but the novelty wears off. And it's definitely not a scientific thing. [PEOPLE] calls you, and you don't believe it 'til you see it, and then it's like [eagerly], "Oh wow, this is f---ed!" It's a weird thing. It doesn't really happen to you, it happens around you.
When will your non-stop touring end?
Thomas: We have some time off in November.
Is it hard to be on the road for so long?
Thomas: It doesn't feel like two years at all.
Doucette: You get into such a routine, it's like every day we wake up and have a piece of paper slid under our door that has what we're going to do that day, what time our soundcheck is. And when we're off, when we don't have that piece of paper anymore -- it sounds pathetic but it's true -- you get very used to that. And you get very used to living out of a suitcase. We've been doing it for so long, constantly with no breaks, that that's the only way of life we know now. So I'm actually scared to come off the road -- now I have to go find an apartment, go buy furniture. I have to start a whole new existence. We're the classic cases of, "I used to live with my girlfriends." [laughs]
Can you manage relationships like that on the road?
Doucette: Except for Kyle [Cook, guitarist], the rest of us are single.
You've said you wrote your single "Real World" when Matchbox 20 was poised to take off about trying not to let fame change you too -- how hard is it to handle success?
Thomas: It's not the success [that affects you], but all the craziness that goes on.
Doucette: The fame is not what kills you. A lot of people get into this business and they think, "I'm in a band, I'm gonna play music and that's all I'm gonna do." And then you realize no, that's not what you're gonna do, you have to run a business now. You're in an industry.
Thomas: It's not a make-all-the-money-you-can business. It's a make-sure-you're-watching-out-for-youself-becuase-no-one-else-will business. It's so not about the money, though there's all this money going around.
Doucette: It's money you're responsible for, whether you get it or not. And that's a lot of pressure to put on some 25-year-old kid. We have 15 people, more than that, who work for us.
Thomas: We're responsible for their salaries. Like when Hootie sold all those records, and the next record still sold like three million records -- which is a success -- but it was considered a flop. There was this focus that because [record label] Atlantic had sunk all this money into Hootie, this giant corporation was going to tumble. These guys are just guys who play music -- that's all they do, that's all they care about, all they wanted to do, and now they're held responsible for that.
How do you feel you've handled success so far?
Thomas: I feel that everyone in the band has held themselves together really, really well. No one's taking themselves too seriously. No one's been concerned with anything other than getting out there and trying to play as well as we can. 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. So the only thing we're really concerned with is every time we're on tour, trying to make a bigger and better tour.
Doucette: We're also our own worst critics. We will tear us apart more than anybody else. That's another thing that will constantly keep you grounded: You walk off, and even if it's one of the best shows you've ever played in months, there's still someone in that room who will say we could've done it better.
Thomas: Yeah, or just go read some bad press. That'll keep you going.
Doucette: We've got a lot of that to go around. [laughs]
What else do you do to keep your feet on the ground?
Doucette: Don't take yourself to seriously, that's our universal band thing. We don't take anything too seriously, except music. . . Of course, that works to our detriment too. We don't take anything seriously, [so] none of us have had successful relationships in our lives.
What's it like to make videos? How much control do you have over them?
Doucette: We're into clever videos. [simultaneously with Thomas] We don't have any. We didn't have a lot of control. We're not video directors, and that was always the stance we took. But we've always made videos that we weren't excited about, so we took more control of the "Real World" video, which didn't come out the way we wanted. Thomas: But it's our favorite one so far.
I understand you have a particular passion for PAX, Rob. What's your connection?
Thomas: I think I'm connected in the same way everyone should be, when you look at the figures -- about 100 people die a day [from guns, according to PAX estimates]. If you go on stage and cut out a cross-section for 100 people you grasp how many 100 people are -- 100 mothers, fathers, grandchildren, children. Then 500 people wounded, it affects their entire life, their family. If you want to feel right about it, you have to give something back, these are real people. This sounds kind of cheesy, doesn't it? But it's true. These are actual people, they could be related to you. And with these numbers, one day they will be.
Are you interested in being a PAX spokesperson?
Thomas: This is the first chance, actually, we've had to get this close, just because our schedule has been too much. We don't want to seem arrogant and just say , "Hey, we played a show." That's what we do anyway.
But let Thomas explain it: "First they say, `These guys are pretty good, but they're never gonna get signed.' And then you get signed.
"And then they say, `Well, they got signed, but are they good enough to get some radio play?' And then you get radio play.
"And then they say, `Well, they get radio play, but are they gonna sell any records?' And then you sell some records.
"And then they go, `Well, I bet you that's the single on that record."
This being where Matchbox 20 is after the huge single "Push," Thomas knows what he will hear even if the next single, "3 a.m.," takes off: "But they don't have another record in them."
"I don't think it's a jaded point of view or skeptical, I think it's more of a humorous thing that goes on," he adds. "I do it myself. I didn't know how much I did it until I got in this business."
Since his quintet launched out of Orlando, Fla., 2 1/2 years ago, Thomas has seen the tides shift.
"In the beginning, you're the underdog and people want to see you do well," he says. "All of a sudden you sell a couple of million records, and they're looking at you like, `Do you really deserve this?' And then you really have to go out and prove it."
"I failed chorus class and I failed keyboard class, so it's weird that I became a piano-playing singer," says Rob Thomas of Matchbox20.
His academic washout in high school apparently had little bearing on his musical career. Yourself Or Someone Like You, Matchbox 20's debut album, has sold 4 million copies and is No. 9 in billboard. The Florida-based alt-rock group, which has drawn comparisons to Live and Counting Crows, was dubbed best new rock act by Performance magazine and beat Prodigy and the Wallflowers to be anointed best new band in the Rolling Stone reader's poll. Breakthrough hit Push is up for a rock performance Grammy, and current single 3 AM peaked at No. 2 on Billboards' modern mainstream rock charts.
Matchbox 20's success culminates years of extracurricular homework. Thomas obsessively studied a broad range of singer/songwriters, especially Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, Jim Croce and Paul Simon. To belong to the '90's generation of Musicians That Matter is the only A+ Thomas ever desired.
Though soured on formal education, Thomas fondly recalls a guidance counselor in Florida who deviated from standard procedure to help him drop out. He gave Thomas $69 for a bus ticket after he threatened to hitchhike to South Carolina. Thomas repaid the debt last year.
"He wrote me a nice letter saying that I'd restored his faith in people," says Thomas, 26. "He thought I was a lost cause that he'd never see gain."
The counselor saw potential in Thomas that he sensed would never flower in school, the singer theorizes.
"Individuality and cleverness are frowned upon in the public school system," says Thomas, ducking under a canopy as El Niņo clouds grumble over the rooftop pool at his hotel. "I think there is a wealth of possibility in a kid that is 15, clever, a little sarcastic and a real individual. I had great teachers but they had to follow a strict curriculum."
Thomas' home life wasn't strictly traditional either. His parents divorced when he was 2, and he lived in rural Lake City, S.C., with his grandmother, who peddled marijuana and bootleg liquor. He rejoined his mother in Columbia, S.C., and they later settled in Orlando, Fla.
Despite his father's absence (they're slowly reconciling), Thomas says he had a healthy upbringing.
"There's something good to be said about being raised entirely by Southern women," he says.
"A lot of the guys I respect, guys you introduce to your girlfriend's friends, don't have a strong male influence in their lives, yet they're strong and sensitive. People think you need a father to give you backbone. Southern women have backbone for days."
On Yourself, lives unravel as characters struggle to cope with difficult relationships and circumstances, themes inspired by a rocky youth that included a homeless period in his teens.
"But the album is not depressing," he says. "It was meant to be a celebration of getting through, surviving and being on the upswing. For me, these are happy songs."
And for him, homelessness did not equal hopelessness.
"The record company wants me to work the homeless angle," he confides, "but it was just a character-building time. And I enjoyed the hell out of it. Girls could come up to me in a Burger King and say, 'Do you want to go to the beach for a week?' and I'd say yeah, without even thinking about it. I wasn't sleeping on the street every night thinking about my horrible situation."
Thomas downplays his years as a street urchin but not the plight of other homeless teens. He and his bandmates - guitarists Kyle Cook and Adam Gaynor, bassist Brian Yale and drummer Paul Doucette - are asking fans to bring jackets, sleeping bags, socks and sneakers to concerts on their tour. Goods will be distributed to homeless kids by Children of the Night.
"When I see a homeless person, I think, that could have been me but that will never be me," Thomas says. "The homelessness I went through was so much less desperate. I had friends who looked after me. I had avenues, even if they weren't traditional avenues. True homelessness is a life crisis and an epidemic, and it minimizes what I went through."
Throughout his troubled teens, Thomas pursued rock 'n' roll, a passion his mother supported.
"There was a period when she was really worried," he says. "There's a fine line between someone who's really tenacious and determined and a loser who doesn't have a job. I know it was hard for her to be fully behind me. 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 fire truck. It's not realistic."
"Oh my god, no, we could not stand that name," Thomas grumbles. "Matchbox 20 was the stupidest name we had ever heard. But a couple months later, it was the only name that stuck in our heads. All right, what the hell.
