By Tricia Despres
It was 2015, and Rob Thomas was scared to death.
His wife, Marisol Maldonado, was waiting for her phone to ring, waiting to hear what the doctor had to say about the tunnel vision she had been experiencing, waiting to find out if the lesion that the MRI had found at the base bone of her brain was something that would change their lives forevermore.
And there they were, one of music’s biggest music hit makers and one of the world’s most beautiful models sitting in a dreary parking lot in Chicago, waiting to learn their collective fate.
“I remember that we went out by the airport, and for two weeks we parked our bus over by O’Hare and just everything stopped until we knew more,” the Matchbox Twenty frontman recalls to Ravinia. “And when I say everything stopped, I really mean everything.”
And after the call came, despite still having to face the autoimmune issues she had been dealing with before her brain surgery, Maldonado would eventually get better.
“It’s a process,” Thomas admits. “We hang onto the good moments.”
Then the 47-year-old hangs onto a deep breath. “I think its good when life is bad but you still weather through it,” he continues. “Whether that’s love or loss, you deal with it. And as you get older, you get that sort of perspective that the rough days are just going to be a part of your life, and that’s okay.”
And it’s this reminder that is serving as the backbone of Thomas’s current single, “One Less Day (Dying Young),” which speaks of the importance of living life to its fullest, despite what you might see waiting for you right around the corner. His lyrics touch on how he’s not afraid of getting older.
And he’s living those lyrics at the moment.
“Some people may say that getting old sucks, but as far as I am concerned, the alternative sucks even more,” Thomas laughs. “With youth comes a promise, a feeling that you can stay young forever, a time when the possibilities of the future are sexy and beautiful. But then you have the people who make some bad decisions, and you realize that getting older isn’t afforded to everyone.”
One of those people is George Michael, a “very good” friend of Thomas’s whose Christmas Day death in 2016 continues to rock him emotionally. Thomas says Michael is just one of the many artists that indirectly influenced much of the music on his fourth studio album, Chip Tooth Smile, which was released on April 26. “I just wanted to pay homage to him and all of those people that made up that time [of my life],” he says of the disc, recorded primarily in his basement.
That time was the ’80s, when Thomas found himself smack in the middle of a hectic home life in the middle of the state of Florida. Thomas anchored himself by swallowing up music—from Prince to Phil Collins to Cyndi Lauper to the Scottish rock band Big Country—that would influence a career primed to explode. Thomas was 22 when he signed his first record deal with Matchbox Twenty, an accomplishment that came after a few rough years of hitchhiking around Florida, looking for a place that would give him the home he desperately was searching for. He played in local cover bands and devoured the songwriting found within the catalogues of Fleetwood Mac and Billy Joel and Elton John before someone finally took notice.
In 1996, the crazy success of Matchbox Twenty’s debut album Yourself or Someone Like You and its sting of hits—“Push,” “3AM,” “Real World,” and “Back 2 Good”—forever changed life as Thomas knew it. Three years later, the accomplished songwriter would tease a possible solo career by way of his collaboration with Carlos Santana on the mega-smash “Smooth,” and finally, in 2005, he released …Something to Be, the first solo-debut disc by a male artist from a rock group ever to hit the ground running atop Billboard’s charts.
“For most songs, I can still remember what sparked the idea,” says the accomplished songwriter. “And now, for me and my wife and my family, these songs have turned into little diaries. Our entire life finds their way into the set list in some way. The songs serve as our own personal timeline.”
They also play a special role in the timeline of his fans, who have stuck with him throughout the ups and downs of his career that still has him out on the road playing his distinctive music. This summer, Thomas will visit Ravinia on June 6 as part of his extensive North American Chip Tooth Tour with special guest Abby Anderson.
“There is just this thing that you find in cities like Los Angeles and New York and Chicago that you just can’t find anywhere else,” Thomas says. “I mean, Chicago is genuinely American, and the music that comes from there is genuinely American. You are going back to the well there. You are sacrificing to the gods of the past. [Laughs.] Chicago audiences are just the type of audiences you try really hard to impress.”
Having played Ravinia both in his solo guise and with Matchbox Twenty, Thomas says he appreciates the unique nature of the venue. “It’s bigger than just the act that finds itself playing up there on the stage,” Thomas says. “And I’m constantly intrigued about what all of the people are doing that you can’t see from up there onstage.”
Whether he can see them or not, he knows his fans have grown up alongside of him—have gotten married and had kids and have celebrated life’s treasures and mourned life’s disappointments in equal measure to the life he’s laid out in song.
He treasures that connection.
“One of the greatest things about being around this long is that I can still go out and play live and these fans make the conscious decision to spend part of their Saturday nights with me,” Thomas says. “In these songs are their loves and losses too, and that connects us forevermore. To an artist, that fact is such an amazing gift. It’s just such a gift.”
So yes, growing old is a gift. And with Maldonado recovered, still at his side, Thomas relishes it. Together they work on the Sidewalk Angels Foundation, an organization that is “dedicated to providing critically needed funds and support to over 20 no-kill animal shelters and animal rescues across the country that help to fight for the rights and fair treatment of those with no voice.” And now Thomas is getting to see his son, Maison, begin to follow in his footsteps.
“So many great things have already happened to me in my career and in my life,” Thomas says. “So many things have happened that still surprise me, quite frankly. I’m more about focusing on little goals right now rather than big, elaborate plans.”
Nonetheless, he does have one big, elaborate plan in mind.
You see, Thomas finds himself constantly writing new music, and some of that music just might find its way to drummer Paul Doucette, guitarist Kyle Cook, and bassist Brian Yale for Matchbox Twenty’s first project since their 2012 album, North. “I’m hoping in the near future to get back with Matchbox Twenty and put out a new song or two,” he hints. “I mean, I can’t see it being 2020 and not going out on tour with Matchbox Twenty. It still feels good when we play together, that’s for sure. It still feels good to play and write music.”
It all still feels good. ▪
Tricia Despres is a Chicago-area freelance entertainment writer whose work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Taste of Country, and a number of local, regional, and national publications. Follow her on Twitter at @CHIWriter.
Tricia Despres is a Chicago-area freelance entertainment writer whose work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Taste of Country, and a number of local, regional, and national publications. Follow her on Twitter at @CHIWriter.