Rob Thomas was the singer and principal
songwriter for Matchbox Twenty, a Florida-based adult
alternative combo that found success with a blend of '70s
rock influences, slick hooks, and 1990s post-grunge crunch.
The band broke through in 1996 with "Push" and
never looked back, issuing single after single, scoring
hits in various radio formats, and watching its debut
LP, Yourself or Someone Like You, go platinum 12 times
over in the U.S. Thomas himself won numerous songwriting
awards as the scribe of such Matchbox hits as "Real
World," "If You're Gone," "Bent,"
and "Mad Season," and parlayed that success
into a career as a solo artist.
Rob Thomas was born February 14, 1972, on an Army base
in Landstuhl, Germany. His parents divorced, and the ex-Army
brat spent most of his childhood in South Carolina and
Florida. He dropped out of high school at 17, and bounced
around the South singing in pickup rock bands before landing
in Orlando in 1993. There he helped form Tabitha's Secret,
and the group had some regional success before Thomas,
bassist Brian Yale, and drummer Paul Doucette left to
form Matchbox Twenty with guitarists Adam Gaynor and Kyle
Cook. Their debut, Yourself or Someone Like You, had gone
five times platinum by 1998, and it established them as
superstars even if Thomas wasn't individually well known.
That all changed with a song he co-wrote for the Carlos
Santana album Supernatural. "Smooth" was ubiquitous
in 1999, and it made Thomas a star. The track took home
three Grammys including Song of the Year, and Thomas
landed on People's "Most Beautiful People"
list. He also married model Marisol Maldonado. Mad Season
(2000) and More Than You Think You Are (2002) continued
Matchbox Twenty's success, but after years of touring
for both records, the bandmembers decided they needed
a break, and Thomas used the hiatus to write and record
his first solo album. When "Lonely No More"
debuted in early 2005, its sleek and funky dance-pop
sound was closer to Justin Timberlake than Matchbox,
and it set up the April release of Something to Be.
.