Credit: Randall SlavinMatchbox Twenty are celebrating 2020 by hitting the road for an extensive summer tour. In a new video promoting the trek, the guys look back on their early days, when they were just another band from Orlando called Tabitha’s Secret.
Tabitha’s Secret included singer Rob Thomas, and current Matchbox Twenty members Paul Doucette and Brian Yale. “All the [Orlando] bands knew each other and they all played with each other. The camaraderie was really kind of great,” Rob recalls.
“We had this willful ignorance about it,” he adds. “We thought, well, of course we were gonna get signed…And of course we’re going to go out and have songs all over the radio — because that’s what you do.”
Turns out that’s exactly what happened — but only after Rob insisted that they remain a band.
“The guy who signed us, he came to see us for months and he would keep saying, ‘You’re not ready yet…'” says Rob. “And it wasn’t until that Tabitha’s Secret disbanded that he came to me and said, ‘We’d like to offer you a deal.’ And I said, ‘The deal should be me and Paul and Brian.'”
But they didn’t have a guitar player, so they auditioned some…and found current member Kyle Cook.
“They were looking for somebody who sang, somebody who was thinking about harmony and somebody who appreciated the art of melodicism,” Kyle remembers. “And I knew that Rob had some really great songs, and in particular, ‘3AM” was on a demo that he had given me…I think that song made me really interested in the band at that time.”
Adds Rob, “It just felt like this magical time because it was a turning point and you don’t realize it is really just the beginning.”
Matchbox Twenty’s tour kicks off July 17.
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