Matchbox 20 - Yourself or Someone Like You · Riffology: Iconic Rock Albums Podcast

Chris0:08 Ripology, Riffology, Ripology, Riphology.

Neil0:14 I don't know where to go from that. I don't know. I just. I, I. We're back.

Chris0:19 Back.

Neil0:20 I love this album. We did matchbox 20.

Chris0:23 Chris.

Neil0:23 I'm Neil. This is apology. I do, I really do like this album. I like the lyrics. I like the song. It's brilliant.

Chris0:28 I like it a lot. Yeah, it's good.

Neil0:30 That's it.

Chris0:30 Done. Podcast done.

Neil0:31 It's so good. I do know we have talked in the past about singing in the car to stuff. This is one that I sing in the car to.

Chris0:39 Is it your belt here?

Neil0:40 I do. I like it. It's got.

Chris0:41 And you've got a CD player now.

Neil0:45 I do. I really like it. I really like having a. I know. It's a bit like. I don't know.

Chris0:49 I know we're really old. I think we can embrace that. It's fine.

Neil0:52 There's just something really cool about putting a cd. A physical thing, like the, the music's in the thing.

Chris0:57 Yeah.

Neil0:58 You go, you hold the thing and you put the thing and it's like. Then the music comes out.

Chris1:01 Yeah.

Neil1:01 And it's like, it's like.

Chris1:02 Does it?

Neil1:06 Yeah, but, but I, but what I will say is this album for me, yourself, or someone like you.

Chris1:12 Yeah.

Neil1:13 The songwriting and the lyrics in there have always stuck with me, like, ever since I remember first hearing this on cassette.

Chris1:20 Yeah.

Neil1:20 And in the car. I remember getting a cassette. This is back. This is back in the day where you didn't always have CD places back in the, like the mid to late 90s.

Chris1:29 Yeah, yeah. Got it.

Neil1:30 You'd have had a CD player at home. Yeah, but lots of, like.

Chris1:33 But you record on a TD90 or whatever it is.

Neil1:36 Yeah. You would have had like an SA90. But you'd have. You'd have. You'd have. Yeah. You might not like the car. I remember the car I had at this time did not have a compact display.

Chris1:49 No.

Neil1:49 Could have fitted one. You could have changed the head unit, maybe.

Chris1:51 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:52 But I was, you know, so.

Chris1:55 Or you have one of those tape ones where you plug the tape and then it's got a little cable that comes off it and then you have a Walkman that sits on a little platform.

Neil2:02 You see, people had them.

Chris2:03 Yeah, yeah.

Neil2:03 People had them that I didn't have them.

Chris2:05 Did you not? I had one of those. Yeah.

Neil2:06 I, I just had.

Chris2:07 It was very important to me to have. To have music all the days in the car. Yeah.

Neil2:12 I.

Chris2:12 All the toys.

Neil2:14 Your car always feels Like, I'm in a studio, you know? I mean, when your car. There's always cables and things. It's always, like, loads of cables. But no, I. I remember getting this on and I remember, like, listening through it, like, twice, and then a lot of the lyrics to a lot of the songs just, like, imprinted into your brain.

Chris2:31 Yeah.

Neil2:32 You know, like, some songs take a couple of listens.

Chris2:35 Yeah, yeah. No, this is straight that. It is every song's immediate, this one.

Neil2:39 The writing and the word, the hooks and. And it's the storytelling. Like, you.

Chris2:44 You.

Neil2:44 You hear the song. You hear the first bar of the song. If. A couple of bars and you. Oh, God.

Chris2:48 And you feel like you've known it forever.

Neil2:49 Yeah.

Chris2:50 And then.

Neil2:51 And then you're on that story, like the. The 3am or push or. Do you know what I mean? It's this. It's the story. It reminds me massively of Alanis Morissette that put you in a position and tell you, you know, by 3am for me, is just epic. Just the way. And the way he weaves the. The lyrics.

Chris3:12 Yeah.

Neil3:13 For that. So. And the story. And it was. It was. It's kind of all written about him caring for his. His. Yeah. His mommy, she was dying of cancer and she.

Chris3:23 She.

Neil3:23 She wasn't well and. And I don't know, there's just something about that that just kind of hits you. It's just like, you know, I mean, it's just. Just epic. Absolutely epic. And tons of this stuff was like that. For me, this record. It was. I. I always felt it's one of those records where I learned. There's a few records like this for me, where I just kind of don't get that people don't like it.

Chris3:48 No.

Neil3:48 Like, I literally can't. Like. Like, I kind of feel like I'm gonna have some kind of seizure.

Chris3:52 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil3:53 When someone tells me, if somebody says I don't. Either I've never heard of it or I don't like it.

Chris3:57 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil3:58 You know, and. Yeah. I'm just like, what. What do you mean? I don't. It's. It's. I think it's that good. I don't. I just don't understand how anybody cannot love it.

Chris4:07 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil4:08 It's bizarre.

Chris4:08 Yeah.

Neil4:08 And I also don't get how. But here in the UK, like, I think it's all. At 20 million copies worldwide.

Chris4:15 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It just didn't. It didn't happen here.

Neil4:17 We didn't get it. Like, I know a handful of people that. That know matchbox 20 and. And like I guess our fans.

Chris4:25 Yeah, yeah. So what? So my first, first ever band that.

Neil4:30 Yeah.

Chris4:31 Was called Fade. Yeah. Then it was called Lightheaded for a bit as well.

Neil4:35 It's very 90s.

Chris4:36 Yeah, yeah, it was good. And it had Dave House in it.

Neil4:39 Oh, I like Housey.

Chris4:41 And he had Rich Onion and Eddie

Neil4:43 G. He's a good drummer, isn't it?

Chris4:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Andy's a drummer. Yeah, yeah. And that he G played bass. And they've just put the band back together again. Three piece. Yeah. Well, I don't know what I think they're called Coke Bottom Lane. And that was what they used to be called when they were at school before I got involved, if that makes any sense.

Neil5:00 Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah.

Chris5:01 So they were. They did like a band thing called Coke Bomb Lane and they've just, they've just pulled it back together to do a little gig together.

Neil5:06 Cuz how. He was doing some stuff. Wasn't he on his own? He was doing some stuff. He did. That's Dave's. Dave's Used Cars.

Chris5:12 Yes. Yeah, yeah. That was the Buffet Anxiety Project. I like that. But they, they, yeah, they, they, they did this song. They did Push. Caving in and I don't know if I've ever been really loved by a hand that's touched me and I feel like something's gonna hook you up and I'm a little bit angry. Oh wow. This ain't over no, not here not while I still need you Forever. You don't owe me we're not changing yeah, we just might feel good. I wanna push you around well I will, well I will I wanna push you down well I will well I will I wanna take you for granted I wanna take you for granted and I will. I. Said I don't know why he ever would lie to me Like I'm a little untrusted When I think that the truth is going to hurt you And I don't know why you couldn't just still with me you couldn't stand up be near me when my face don't seem to want to shine Cause it's a little bit dirty oh well don't you stand in there say nice things to me Cause I've been cheated I've been wrong with you you don't know me all I can't take a well I won't do anything at all I wanna push you around well I will, well I will I wanna push you down well I will well I will I wanna take you for granted I wanna take you for granted Hell, hell well, I will all don't bow me over Just wait a man Hard things get so crazy Crazy don't rush this, baby don't rush this, baby baby I wanna push you around well, I will well, I will I wanna push you down well, I will well, I will I wanna take you for yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I want to take you, take you, yeah well, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will How? Well, yeah. I wanna push you around well, I. I wrote a song about the idea of, you know, like, the way that I felt I was being done wrong in a relationship, but I kind of felt like me whining didn't sound as fun. So I thought, like, you know, putting yourself in the other position and writing, you know, about what you. You know, you. And it was all emotional manipulation. If you go through the rest of the song, you can obviously tell that it's. It's about, you know, emotionally pushing somebody's buttons to try and see, you know, how they're gonna respond. But just, you know, a lot of people don't listen to. I mean, some people don't listen to the point where I've had people come to me and say, you know, push was my wedding. And I'm just like, wow, you. You really never listened to it, did you? Because that's a horrible wedding song. You guys are doomed. You know, I was into heavy stuff.

Neil9:38 Yeah.

Chris9:38 So I was kind of like into the punky stuff. And they. They really like their kind of like pop rock.

Neil9:44 This is quite smooth. This is.

Chris9:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil9:46 It got lumped, I think in the US this got lumped into what would be post grunge.

Chris9:50 Yeah.

Neil9:51 But it's weird for me, this is. It's like. It's got like a different vibe to it. It's far more like collective soul.

Chris9:58 Yes.

Neil9:59 Or Third Eye Blind. Is that kind of. It's quite poppy. It's guitar.

Chris10:04 Really easy.

Neil10:05 You know, I. I listened to another album this week, which, again, I'm really, really keen to do, and that's America's Least Wanted by Ugly Kid Joe.

Chris10:13 Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Neil10:14 And I was convinced. I thought that I. Yeah. In my brain, I was thinking, oh, yeah, they're a similar time. Honestly, there's that Those are so different. Like, the texture of those records. Like, the Ugly Kid Joe is quite guitari and thick and driven and. Do you know what I mean? It's got like a. Like a weight to it.

Chris10:32 Yeah.

Neil10:33 This just feels, like, effortless. It feels Kind of like. I don't know that. You know, it's quite. I'd say, like. But I mean, it's. It's a. It's a very polished record. Very produced.

Chris10:47 Very.

Neil10:47 Click. It was. You know, there's not a note out of place.

Chris10:52 No.

Neil10:53 On this. On this record doesn't sound like a rock. You know, it doesn't sound like a rock and roll.

Chris10:56 And I think that's why I didn't get it.

Neil10:58 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris10:59 I listen to it now and I go, oh, I love all these guitars. Like, the acoustic sounds. Beautiful.

Neil11:03 Yeah.

Chris11:03 The electrics are cl. Crystal clear. And listening to it now, I go, actually, I don't know what. I don't know why I missed this.

Neil11:09 Yeah.

Chris11:09 But then back in the day, I was like. Actually, I like really gnarly stuff. I was really. I was just getting into heavy stuff.

Neil11:15 Yeah.

Chris11:16 I was just exploring Fear Factory and corn and, you know, Green Day, the Offspring with my diet.

Neil11:23 So. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris11:24 So I was into that sort of sound. And it's a totally different animal, this.

Neil11:27 It is.

Chris11:28 And, you know, if you're into that stuff, you're not into this stuff, I think.

Neil11:31 Yeah. It's easy to forget, isn't it? Like, it's weird, don't you think? Like, now coming back to it, you can, like. I feel like I can enjoy all of this music from. From the 90s, like, and. But at the time, you couldn't.

Chris11:44 No, no.

Neil11:46 And, like. Like, say, for the. This one for me landed. They just kind of caught me by surprise a little bit and. But again, it was really out of my sphere, really. This one was. This would have been a. I don't know. It's one of those albums that, like, makes you happy.

Chris11:59 Yeah.

Neil11:59 Whereas most of the music I liked was super heavy and. But this is. This is. This is one that I would have. Yeah, this is one that I would have. I would have put on in the car and sang to and it would have kind of perked me up a little bit.

Chris12:13 Yeah, totally.

Neil12:14 And there is. Do, you know, think as well. It's aged really well.

Chris12:18 Yeah, it really has, I think. I think, you know, if. If. Is it 25 years old about now? Is it.

Neil12:24 I think so.

Chris12:25 It might be a bit longer. Oh, no, it's a bit longer.

Neil12:27 Yeah. 96. So. 96. So you're dealing with 96. 96. 2006. 30 years old.

Chris12:36 Years old. Yeah. So it's. So it's.

Neil12:38 Yes, that's a lot in it.

Chris12:39 You know, there's kind of a 90s feel to music at the minute, like new stuff that's coming out.

Neil12:45 Yeah.

Chris12:46 And I think if people kind of dial back into this. Yeah, I think they'd really enjoy it. I think. I think there might be a bit of a resurgence.

Neil12:53 You know, my youngest has been doing YouTube shorts. He likes Lego and Formula One.

Chris12:58 Yeah.

Neil12:59 And he's been doing like making of Lego and other bits and pieces and it's been recording himself and putting, you know, putting it in the shorts. And they keep using 90s music.

Chris13:07 Yeah. A lot of Nirvana and stuff. Yeah.

Neil13:10 I keep hearing it and thinking, what are you doing? Yeah. And then you kind of go in like. And it's like, oh, no. And he looks at me, he's really funny. He's like, what is this? Is this not a good Nirvana song? But, yeah, I think there is a resurgence for sure. There's definitely a resurgence. My Facebook feed is full of really cool new bands at the minute that are in that. Not necessarily all kind of like this, but.

Chris13:36 But I think the guitar's back, isn't it?

Neil13:39 Yeah. The 90s vibe is just like pop punk. There's some really cool, like, punk stuff happening. There's some really. I think some really cool metal stuff happening as well, which I think is. Is. Is really, really cool. You know, hot kind of hard rock stuff is. Yeah, he's. It's coming back.

Chris13:56 Long may it continue. That's what I say. I like guitar music.

Neil13:59 I could tolerate. I. I struggle with not guitar music.

Chris14:03 Yeah.

Neil14:03 I just. I don't know. How do people listen to not guitar?

Chris14:07 I can. I like it, but I don't enjoy it, if that makes sense. Boring. Yeah.

Neil14:11 Hey, so.

Chris14:13 Yeah.

Neil14:14 Just stop it. What's that all about?

Chris14:18 Yeah.

Neil14:19 I don't get it. Anyway, you know. You know, we've been talking about the album and that.

Chris14:23 Yeah.

Neil14:23 And we've got. I wanted to ask you what you've been doing. I know we normally do this at the beginning. I feel like we've not had.

Chris14:29 Yeah, we had a couple of weeks.

Neil14:30 I've not seen you for two weeks. I know you've been on holiday and I don't want to know what you've been doing.

Chris14:34 I've not been on holiday. I've been working away. Oh, is that what you were doing?

Neil14:38 I thought you were on holiday.

Chris14:39 No, I was in Brighton at a conference.

Neil14:41 Oh, were you at the Dome?

Chris14:43 No, I was at the. No, it was actually. It was the Brighton Center. I got all totally wrong.

Neil14:49 I, like, I have a conference at 1. A conference once a year in Brighton and I love it. It's favorite. Normally conferences are in big, sterile and they're not, you know, they're just in big, big brooms.

Chris15:00 Yeah.

Neil15:01 Just. I mean. And you feel. I find them soul destroying because as you walk in the door, there's so bloody many.

Chris15:06 Yeah.

Neil15:07 You just feel like a number.

Chris15:08 Yeah.

Neil15:08 You feel so insignificant.

Chris15:10 Yeah, yeah.

Neil15:11 And like. And like often for me, I'm, I'm. I'm speaking, I'm an important, I'm really important. But you walk in the door and there's millions of. And you just think, oh God, if I died no one had noticed. Like literally. I don't think anyone would notice so many people here. And I find them just, just soul dest anyway are the ones that we haven't have one in Brighton. And there's just something. I think there's just something about the place.

Chris15:33 Yeah, yeah.

Neil15:33 And it's just. I don't know, it's. I think it's been on the coast as well.

Chris15:36 Yeah, I like it. I quite like I've been before and I don't think I saw enough of it. It's cool. Yeah. But it's a cool place. I enjoyed it and I'm gonna go again.

Neil15:45 They've got a lovely vegan fish and chip shop.

Chris15:47 Are they?

Neil15:47 Which I like. I go and have that. It makes me feel a bit sick if I'm honest, but I always don't. I go and shove it in my face. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ram it in. It's lovely.

Chris15:56 I enjoyed that. So that was good. And then. Yeah, did a bit of studio stuff and recording. Yeah, it's been nice. Been a good couple of weeks really. But it meant that our usual weekend, Saturday, Sunday night type.

Neil16:06 Oh yeah, yeah. I'm sure everybody, I'm sure everybody understands why we're a bit late. I was just a bit curious, that was all. Yeah.

Chris16:13 And you've been building, you've been building

Neil16:15 apps I've been doing. Because I'm a bit of a nerd, as we've discussed previously. But we've got Artemis going, going to the moon and I wrote a tracker for the ISS and the Chinese space station and a bunch of other satellites as well. So you can go on to like ISS info and it will, it will give you this stuff and I wanted to do a tracker for Artemis and I thought everyone would be doing them. So anyway, I did it and lots of people did do them, but they're all really bad and I think the fact that we spent such a lot of time doing the Other ones? Yeah, ours was, like, pretty clean and clear.

Chris16:52 Yeah.

Neil16:53 And it's just been really busy, so I've just been trying to. It's one of the, you know, people say, oh, it's gone viral. Yeah, it was a bit like that. I think like150,000 people hit the site in the first few hours and then I spent, like the rest of the day trying to figure out how to keep it up and keep it running. And, like, you know, I didn't think.

Chris17:13 No, you just. Yeah, I didn't think that far ahead, to be honest.

Neil17:15 I just thought, oh, this would be cool. I can keep an eye on what's going on. And then all of a sudden I think it got.

Chris17:19 Well, I think a lot of the. Because all of the different bits you. Bits and bobs you're making is, like, stuff that you're interested in, isn't it?

Neil17:25 Yeah.

Chris17:25 And you're just kind of doing stuff that you like.

Neil17:27 Yeah, I can't do stuff that I'm not interested in, but.

Chris17:30 But it's just that thing where I suppose when other people suddenly find it interesting as well. That must be quite.

Neil17:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good, yeah, it's been good. It's been good. I will. I will say the number one request for. For the Artemis tracker, because I did everything in, like this. The space crew are quite. Quite nerdy.

Chris17:48 Yeah.

Neil17:49 I mean, as you'd expect. Right. So. So I aligned everything to the standard NASA SI units and did everything by the book. And then, like, treble checked that I was using exactly the right space terminology.

Chris18:02 Yeah.

Neil18:03 No one was going to give me, you know. Oh, I think you're fine. Yeah, I knew that was coming. So I did all of that and I was really pleased with myself. And the single biggest request was, can you not put it in miles per

Chris18:12 hour for the Americans.

Neil18:15 Yeah. So most of our audience are American, so. So I did that for you. But I wish. I wish you'd all just. Just used meters and stuff, like.

Chris18:26 So what's that called? Is that metric or is that Imperial? What's the. What's the difference? I can't remember.

Neil18:29 Imperial was like the one that was invented by a drunken monkey. And then. And then. And I say this like, lovingly a little bit, because as much as I make fun of Imperial units, because they are bonkers and. And metric is significantly better, but here in the uk, yeah, we use metric and Imperial mixed with.

Chris18:51 No. With no.

Neil18:52 No rhyme or reason. So it is just. It is utter insanity here. So at least when you in.

Chris18:57 In.

Neil18:58 In the United States.

Chris18:59 Yeah.

Neil18:59 They use Imperial.

Chris19:00 Yeah.

Neil19:00 And they're very proud of using Imperial and they'll defend Imperial. They really like it, like miles. They're like feet.

Chris19:06 Yeah.

Neil19:06 Big fans of that.

Chris19:07 Yeah.

Neil19:08 Here in the uk, if I want to go and buy a tire, the diameter of the tire is in inches.

Chris19:14 Yeah.

Neil19:14 The width of the tire is in millimeters. And the height of the tire wall is a ratio between the two.

Chris19:25 I think. I think it's about balance, though, isn't it? I think it's about. I think we're very inclusive. We want everyone to win and I think that's why we've chosen to use all the different ones.

Neil19:33 It's just nuts. We've got you by. You buy pints.

Chris19:36 Yeah.

Neil19:37 That are actually served in liters. So we buy a pint and you actually get like 0.7 of a liter. If you look at what they give you.

Chris19:44 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil19:45 You get like. It's just insanity in this country. It's mad. Look, I'm a big. I do like. I do like the. I do like metric.

Chris19:53 Yeah.

Neil19:53 It's my favorite. I think if I was. If.

Chris19:55 What's that then? What's metric?

Neil19:56 Metric is like meters and kilometers.

Chris19:59 Yeah.

Neil19:59 Tens, right?

Chris20:00 Yeah.

Neil20:00 But if. If I was king of the universe. Right.

Chris20:02 Yeah.

Neil20:02 If I was like. Like chief of the. Of the all of the knowing world, I'd. I would do two things overnight. One, I'd get r. Daylight savings because it's stupid. It's just utter stupidity. Just stop. And the second thing is.

Chris20:16 Yeah.

Neil20:16 Like just. Just force metric everywhere.

Chris20:22 Yeah.

Neil20:23 And that's it. And then I just go to bed.

Chris20:27 Would that solve everything, do you think?

Neil20:28 Yeah, I don't.

Chris20:29 Or all the current. Because there's lots of tensions in the world. You know what I mean? So you think so just sort sort metric out.

Neil20:36 All the water.

Chris20:38 All the water in all the two things. They'll start stopping.

Neil20:41 Yeah. Just. Just. No daylight savings, you said. Get your message.

Chris20:44 Yeah.

Neil20:44 LAUGHING that's it. Nobel Prize, absolute disaster. Do you know, they didn't. They didn't do it here in the uk, so there was a big push in the. Oh, I was in the 70s or the 80s that. To move. To move to metric.

Chris21:00 Yeah.

Neil21:01 And they said that it wouldn't like the British population are too stupid to switch from miles per hour.

Chris21:09 Yeah. To kilometers.

Neil21:09 Kilometers per hour. And that we would all just die. So we would. We would get into our cars tomorrow and not be able to read the road signs and just, Just don't kill ourselves, which I just think is brilliant.

Chris21:22 Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of faith, isn't it, in your populace. That's what that is.

Neil21:25 It's rubbish, isn't it? But, yeah. No. So as much as I don't like Imperial, I think the US have got it right. Pick one. Just pick one. Stick with it. That's it. Just whatever you do, don't let them convince you that having both is a good thing, my American friends, because it's bloody well not.

Chris21:51 She don't. She will. He sells anything to keep her by him. She takes what she gets and she never did flinch, no sober and over Will anyone wealth any mind would think that's all she gets. If you want you can get to know me well we get along so we shouldn't argue Real and I don't know else if I don't now know all these feelings cloud up my reasoning. We had a cloud of my resort now. Well I know but I still believe in ignorance My best defense so go on, wreck me Find out how I carry on and not be taken over I will not roll over on anyone. Cause anyone will stand up on my side. If you want you can get to know me well, we get along so we shouldn't argue yeah and I don't know El said I don't know now all these females Cloud of my reason Cloud of my reasoning. You know it's funny how sometimes it don't work out like you want to know you're never getting nothing at all when the she tells you that it's over. Oh boy. Don't you hate it when it's over? I guess something just got lost and it deeply saddens me so over and over Will anyone Hey, anyone. If you want you can get to know me well, we get along so we shouldn't. Are you real and I don't know Yes, I don't know now all these feelings they cloud up my reason now we belong so we should. I hear it out. We belong so we should argue. When you spend years, you know, writing and working on a record and getting it together and you. You're really proud of it and you put it out there. We just wanted to get to a point critically where if you don't like what we do, there's nothing that we can do to help you. I understand that there's certain people that just don't like the cut of our jib. They don't like the music that we make, that kind of a thing. But I think that we've Gotten to a point where we do what we do really, really well. And so I think over the years now we've gotten more reviewed on the way that we do what we do and not so much. We would get reviews of people that come to our show and they'd be like, the audience loves it. They sound just like the. They put on a great show. They're a tight band. I friggin hate them. You know, and you're like, well, that's not fair. But you know, over the years, I mean, you know, we've managed to have a lot of success. We've been really fortunate. We've been doing it long enough that we kind of know now when we put out a record, we have a certain group that we're putting that record out for. And so now as you know, getting into your 40s, you stop kind of playing the please love me game everywhere you go. Like, come on, please, please. You know, and you just put out your records and hope people come see you play and then, you know, know, just get enough so you can put out another record.

Neil25:36 Yeah.

Chris25:37 Can we talk about Tabitha's Secret and all that lot labels and the formation of the band?

Neil25:48 So they were all in a band called Tabitha's Secret, I think.

Chris25:53 Were they all in it?

Neil25:54 Rob was in it, but also Matt.

Chris25:56 Matt Seletic Masaletta, the producer. Producer, yeah.

Neil26:00 He was involved with Tabitha's Secret. I think he signed them.

Chris26:05 Yeah.

Neil26:05 Like he got them signed to. To a deal. Tabitha's Secret. And that was the kind of the band that. That Rob Thomas is in. He. So a bunch of songs that ended up on yourself or someone like you that were initially created. I guess Rob initially wrote them while he was in Tabitha's Secret.

Chris26:24 Yeah. But it's different guys, right?

Neil26:27 Different. Yeah, completely different guys.

Chris26:28 Rob Thomas and different guys. And they were doing gigs, got the label interest, they got the producer interest.

Neil26:35 Yeah.

Chris26:35 But then that band folded.

Neil26:37 You kind. Yeah, kind of. What? And then Rob. Well, it was a little bit to. Rob walked away. Right. It was. It was a little bit un. Like unhappy. There was. It was pretty acrimonious.

Chris26:48 Yeah. Does that mean bad?

Neil26:50 Bad?

Chris26:50 Yeah.

Neil26:51 B, A D. So. So they. That was bad. They didn't get on. They're quite unhappy.

Chris26:55 Yeah.

Neil26:55 Interestingly, Matt Seletics still stuck with Rob Thomas then.

Chris26:59 Yeah.

Neil26:59 Rob Thomas put together Matchbox 20, but

Chris27:02 still use some of those old.

Neil27:03 So then. Yeah, a bunch of. Well, they're from his perspective, they're his songs.

Chris27:07 Yeah.

Neil27:07 Now 3am was a really interesting one because 3am ended up on yourself or someone like you. Yeah. Tabitha's Secret also put out the same song. Did what?

Chris27:16 With a different singer.

Neil27:17 Different singer, same words. Yeah, different singer. Different. Yeah, same word. But it's interesting because obviously it was quite a personal. I don't know. I like. I kind of get it. It's a great song.

Chris27:27 Yeah.

Neil27:28 But it's a song that Rob wrote about a personal experience to him. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting. So I. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it.

Chris27:40 Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's like. Yeah. As. As a songwriter. Unless we had a nice conversation about it and we weren't acrimonious and everything was nice, and they were like, look, we wrote. We. We played. We played this song together. It kind of came to life while we were doing it. Is it okay if we still do something with it? You kind of, like, in my world, you agree the split. You agree the. The. The terms of that, and then. And then you see what happens. But this seems like they didn't talk and they just did it anyway.

Neil28:09 I think so. And Tabitha's Secret, actually.

Chris28:13 Do they have someone singing that sound like Rob Thomas as well?

Neil28:16 It doesn't. It's interesting. It doesn't. It doesn't sound like the same song to me. It is the same song. Same lyrics, same structure. Really? Different song.

Chris28:26 Yeah.

Neil28:29 Not different songs. Not the right word.

Chris28:31 So. So wait, so the. The version they released had Rob singing as well, Is that right? Or do they do. They did their own version.

Neil28:38 I think they did their own version.

Chris28:39 Right.

Neil28:40 But.

Chris28:42 Yeah.

Neil28:42 I don't know. Like, I'm not sure how I. I'm not sure how I feel about.

Chris28:46 Yeah, yeah.

Neil28:46 Right. And I think. I think if it had been a song about, you know, if it had been, like, Motley Crue.

Chris28:51 Yeah.

Neil28:52 Singing about girls.

Chris28:53 Yeah.

Neil28:54 You know. All right.

Chris28:55 Yeah.

Neil28:55 Do you know what I mean? But because it's such a personal story, and I think. Because most of Rob Thomas's songs

Chris29:05 autobiographical.

Neil29:06 Yeah. They're very storytelling.

Chris29:08 Yeah.

Neil29:08 Like, there's a lot of the stuff on this album that is, like, rooted in his experience and his.

Chris29:13 You know, so it'd be the same as me. Me sort of like suddenly recording Riding the Low songs with all Paddy's lyrics.

Neil29:21 Yeah.

Chris29:22 It'd be totally wrong.

Neil29:24 It's just bizarre. I don't know. I don't know legally what happened, but I know Tabitha's Secret took. But they took the who to court. It wasn't just Rob, Tom. They took the whole Band.

Chris29:32 Oh, the whole of matchbox 20.

Neil29:33 All of matchbox 20 to. To court. And was this one of those.

Chris29:38 That was like years later as well or was it at the time?

Neil29:40 No, this was this. Well, I don't think it was much later. I think. I think it was.

Chris29:44 Well, because I think cuz the band got big.

Neil29:46 Yeah. Cuz when this, when, when this album was launched, what could know what? Like lots of the albums that we talk about.

Chris29:52 Yeah. No one got it straight away.

Neil29:53 There's no. I think a few hundred albums were sold in the first week and just no one cared. And then eventually it started to gain main traction. Like we had this before. There's a bunch of albums like bush. Yeah. 16 stone. Yeah, it was like this, you know, where eventually they kind of get picked up on the radio and then it makes sense and then all of a sudden. Oh, okay.

Chris30:12 We get all of a sudden like Come Down's Massive and glycerin.

Neil30:14 But that's what. Yeah, that's what happened here is that no one really got it. And then eventually it started to.

Chris30:19 Yeah, yeah, we did 16, didn't we?

Neil30:22 Yeah, I love that, I love that.

Chris30:23 Yeah.

Neil30:24 Finally got the. On CDs in my car.

Chris30:25 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil30:26 On the compact disc.

Chris30:27 It's probably worth. It's probably worth the saying that like if you enjoy is your first time listening to this.

Neil30:33 Yeah.

Chris30:33 We've got quite a few of these now, haven't we?

Neil30:35 Yeah, loads.

Chris30:36 And you're like, you might want to have dive in and we're getting, we're getting probably. Probably getting worse at it. But. There's some that. They're absolutely pearlers. I mean, you know, it's worth it, it's worth it just to explore the law of like fruit pastels of bongo Cokes, to be honest. I mean that's the.

Neil30:55 Yeah. If you don't know what fruit pastels and bongo Cokes is, what are you even doing? Just go, go back, go back and figure that out. That's really cool. You'll get us moaning about being a

Chris31:04 lot and cold and old, not being

Neil31:06 able to get up. Yeah.

Chris31:08 Wheeze. Oh, wheeze.

Neil31:09 A lot of talking about wheeze. Yeah. And then. And going to gigs and not. We're not going to gig because you have to stand up. It's like it's just people. It's just us whinging, isn't it?

Chris31:20 Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Neil31:20 Praising the fruit pastels.

Chris31:22 Yeah.

Neil31:22 Enjoying the. The bongo Cokes and then. Which is good.

Chris31:25 Yeah, we had Bongo Cokes tonight, didn't we actually? We didn't have to.

Neil31:27 And we've got some of Lindsay's fruit pastels.

Chris31:29 Yeah, yeah, thanks, Linds.

Neil31:31 Lindy sent us some, some red and

Chris31:32 black fruit pastels which, but they've actually got them in. Well, that la. The last time we went in we had. Because obviously there's a global sources now of everything because. Everything because of like the war.

Neil31:40 Yeah.

Chris31:40 But then, you know, maybe free past, like.

Neil31:46 Oh God, it's only Fools and Horses, isn't it? Yeah.

Chris31:49 No water, but. But I think we might be all right with fruit pastels for a bit. For a bit, yeah.

Neil31:56 Mr. Didn't you meet Mr. Round Trees or something?

Chris31:58 No, I put in. There was a bid that I put in.

Neil32:00 Oh, you're asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris32:02 See happens with that.

Neil32:03 Yeah, we thought, I, I, I thought we were going to meet the man who invented. We're gonna meet the person.

Chris32:08 Yeah, yeah.

Neil32:08 Who invented fruit pastels.

Chris32:09 But I think what we'll do is like, if it's a successful bid.

Neil32:12 Yeah.

Chris32:12 That I put in, then we'll say like, look, do you also know that we like.

Neil32:16 Do you know who invented true Pasta?

Chris32:19 That we also do a podcast. But it's really important that each week we have red and black food pastels and actually, you know, sometimes the shop doesn't have them. Would you like to send us some?

Neil32:29 God, Jesus. Of all the things that are happening in the, of the, all of the people, all of the, the suffering and pain and we're like sitting here winging either. Winging is too cold.

Chris32:42 Yeah.

Neil32:42 With our heater on.

Chris32:43 Yeah.

Neil32:44 Or complaining that we've got the wrong color fruit pastels. First world problems. Yeah, it isn't it, but yeah, it means a lot. Fruit pastels.

Chris32:51 Yeah. It doesn't quite feel. Cuz also we've got the Diet Cokes tonight. Not the Coke Zeros.

Neil32:56 No, I don't, I am.

Chris32:57 And it's like the color, the color coordination isn't quite right.

Neil33:01 I prefer the Diet ate Coke.

Chris33:02 But. Yeah.

Neil33:03 Since we've been doing this.

Chris33:05 Yeah.

Neil33:05 Well, I've kind of switched allegiance a little bit.

Chris33:07 Have you?

Neil33:08 Yeah, yeah. Normally I wouldn't even think about it. I just walk in, shiny silver can in my face now.

Chris33:13 Yeah.

Neil33:14 The Coke Zero.

Chris33:15 No, I'm a Coke 0. 1.

Neil33:16 Yeah. No, I've gone, I've gone for the Coke Zero a lot lately.

Chris33:19 Yeah, yeah, I think there's that. And then because it's red and black as well, isn't it? On the can. So oh, my God.

Neil33:30 Oh, dear, dear, dear. Let's talk about the name. Yeah, well, there's two things I want to talk about, so we'll. We'll come Back to the 3am thing in a sec.

Chris33:38 Yeah. Okay.

Neil33:39 Yeah, I want to talk about the name.

Chris33:40 What? Matchbox20.

Neil33:42 Matchbox20? Yeah. Because you know what I thought it was for years and years and years.

Chris33:45 20 matches in a box.

Neil33:46 No. Do you know Matchbox made little cars?

Chris33:48 Oh, yeah.

Neil33:49 I thought. Yeah, it was. I thought it was a type of Matchbox car. The Matchbox 20 was like maybe a size or. And. And I was like, oh, see, I

Chris33:59 thought it was one of those where you have, you know, the little paper, you know, not. Not a box of matches.

Neil34:04 Yeah.

Chris34:04 But those ones weather in like a foldy card thing.

Neil34:06 Oh, yeah.

Chris34:06 And I thought you might have had 20 in those and that might be why it was called Matchbox.

Neil34:10 It's interesting. I was so confident that that's what it was. I never bothered to look.

Chris34:14 I really miss Matchbox cars.

Neil34:15 Yeah. I actually miss them, I have to be honest. So. Yeah, definitely. My youngest is really into them and he's a Hot Wheels.

Chris34:24 Okay. Yeah. Are they good? Hot Wheels.

Neil34:26 Yeah. He likes. He likes all this. Got all the F1 cars.

Chris34:28 Oh.

Neil34:28 Isn't it over the house? Anyway, but matchbox 20.

Chris34:33 Yeah.

Neil34:35 So what I didn't realize was, was that. So Doucette. I'm going to spell it. I'm going to. I'm going to pronounce his. His name wrong. Paul Doucet.

Chris34:48 Yeah.

Neil34:50 He worked in a cafe, like a. Like a diner.

Chris34:53 Yeah.

Neil34:54 They were thinking of a name for the band. So Tabitha's Secret had. So. So Atlantic Records were chasing Tabitha's Secret. Tabitha's Secret kind of split up.

Chris35:04 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil35:06 And Atlantic then started chasing Rob Thomas.

Chris35:09 Yeah.

Neil35:10 Suggested that they kind of pull another band together.

Chris35:12 Yeah.

Neil35:12 Because they liked his songs. So then he then got with. With Paul and Adam Gaynor and, you know, the rest of what would have gone on to be the. The rest of Matchbox 20. But they needed a name.

Chris35:26 Yeah.

Neil35:26 And Doucette was in his AS at work and he saw a guy like, in a baseball jersey.

Chris35:31 Yeah.

Neil35:31 Which said Matchbox on it. And then number 20.

Chris35:34 Right. Wow.

Neil35:35 And that's where.

Chris35:35 That was it.

Neil35:36 Yeah. And. And I just think. I just think that I don't like band names. People agonize over it, don't they? To me, people like. I'm naming the band's quite hard if you. If you're not in a band.

Chris35:50 Yeah.

Neil35:50 Like Try and name a band.

Chris35:52 Yeah, it's really hard. Yeah.

Neil35:54 Like, it's. It's like, I think, naming anything, so. Except for a cat.

Chris35:58 Yeah.

Neil35:59 If you've got. If you. If you've got a new kitten, by the way, can you call it Gusset? Aching to call a pet Gossett? So just do that before me. That would be great. But, yeah, that's where the name came from. And I. I just think that, you know, they're like the new Foo Fighters record coming out in End of April, I think.

Chris36:21 Ye.

Neil36:23 And I mean, they're. They're on the record saying it's a stupid name. And, you know, Dave Grohl said if I. If I'd realized the band was going to be anything, you know, certainly would not have called it Foo Fighters. But I don't know, it's like, for me, it's interesting. Like, Matchbox 20 just kind of works. It's interesting that they changed the stylization. It used to be matchbox 20 with a 2 and a 0.

Chris36:46 Yeah.

Neil36:46 And by the time that they did.

Chris36:49 Yeah, I know, I know. You mean the blue. What, the one with the blue cover.

Neil36:52 Yeah. So. So you've got yourself or someone like you, which was Matchbox. I'm going to show you. Look, matchbox 20.

Chris36:56 Yeah.

Neil36:57 With the name.

Chris36:57 Oh, there's some controversy about the COVID that we'll talk about in a bit as well.

Neil37:00 Oh, yeah, there is.

Chris37:01 Yeah.

Neil37:02 So. So you. You, you. So you got the 20, but then. Then they did. Is it Mad Season that came after this?

Chris37:10 Yeah, that's it.

Neil37:11 And. And. But then they started to get rid of the 20 and have spelled the word 20, which, again, I think is really interesting. Made it hard to find them on LimeWire. If you don't know what that is, look it up.

Chris37:24 Yeah.

Neil37:26 But Anyway, back to 3:00am yes. So we are going to play a little bit of the Tabitha Secret.

Chris37:31 Yeah.

Neil37:32 And then you have done some whizzy.

Chris37:34 Yeah, I've edited them.

Neil37:36 So.

Chris37:36 So I've done melding.

Neil37:38 Melding. So we're going to start with the Tabitha Secret, which is like welding, but for music.

Chris37:46 Oh, my God.

Neil37:47 It's like forging.

Chris37:48 Forging. Yeah.

Neil37:49 Everything. Everything. I like. I write a lot of apps and code and stuff, and almost everything's got forge in the top.

Chris37:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm melding now.

Neil37:57 Yeah, Melding.

Chris37:58 Yeah.

Neil37:58 Meld Forge. Yeah. But, yeah. So Chris. What Chris has done is essentially like Weld. Weld forged the two together. So we're going to start with Tabitha's Secret. Version which sounds really. If you've never heard it before, it sounds a bit weird. You'll recognize it and then we're gonna.

Chris38:14 It drops into the.

Neil38:15 Drop into the matchbox.

Chris38:16 But they're in different keys, which is also strange.

Neil38:18 You don't like that, do you?

Chris38:19 No, because it's wrong. So I've cut. I've cut the point in the song, which is right. Yeah, but it jumps keys. It jumps. It jumps up like a tone or something. Might be a more semitone. I don't know what it is, but it jumps up a little bit. So it's a little bit jarring when it jumps, but it's good. It's. The edit's all right. You look Chamele did well.

Neil38:38 Shall we do it?

Chris38:39 It's well melded.

Neil38:41 God,

Chris38:53 She says Cold outside and your hands in my wrinkle. She's always worried about things like that. She said it's all gonna end and it might as well be my fault she only sleeps when it's raining and she screams and her voice says strange she says, baby, it's 3:00am I must be lonely to she says, baby well I can't help but be scared of it all Sometimes. She's got a little bit of something God is better than nothing. And in the color portrait world she believes that she's got it over. She swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to

Neil40:20 and

Chris40:20 she only sleeps when it's raining and this is great Hearing her voice says straining she says baby, when it's 3am I must be lonely. Well, I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes gonna wash away I believe yes. She believes that life is made up of all that she used to. And the clock on the wall has been stuck at 3 for days place. She thinks that happiness is a mouth that sits on her doorway but outside it stops raining she says, baby heart when it's 3am I must feel lonely Heaven she sells baby well I can't help but be scared of it all Sometimes the rain's gonna wash away I believe this. When it's 3am I must be lonely. I like the way it makes me feel to write. I enjoy the process of coming up with something out of nowhere. You know, I like the idea of the trip from having a song in my head and walking around the streets with it in my head to hearing it on a record and hearing all the parts done and then having it on the radio where other people get to hear it, you know, it's Kind of a. It's a charge. It's a good release, I think also, there's a catharticness about it. Something about being able to, you know, to take this. You know, like it jumbles up in your head and you get. You get upset or you get mad or you get bogged down, and it's a good way to kind of sort it and take it out and put it over here. It leaves you kind of free the rest of the time to be okay, you know, and kind of goofy and fine and have no problems. You know, there's a songwriter language that I've heard every songwriter use at some point where they're. They're playing, you know, and they've got the idea in their head and they're singing along. They just. And maybe you'll keep coming back to. You don't know. You know, you don't have any words yet, but these vowel sounds are coming out of your mouth, you know, little by little. I spend a lot of time with lyrics, I think. I mean, down to the And. And the ifs and the ors, you know. I mean, like, for me, the lyric is everything. I think that you have to always. You have to figure out where you put yourself when you write a song, and always put yourself there every time you write a song. Just to bring yourself back to just the joy of writing a song, you know, you have to kind of write it thinking that no one's ever going to hear it. Sometimes you sit down and it pours out of you just like it was already written, you know, and you're just singing it. And then sometimes it just takes months and months and months to get it put the way you want it. I get inspired by my wife. I think our life together, you know, like, that's our life, has kind of become my muse in a way. You have to marry somebody pretty special, I think, to put up with that. You know, somebody that, like, we can have an argument and then she has to listen to it on our record, you know, all the time. You know, I figure if I wasn't doing this for a living, I would still be doing it. I would just be doing it, you know, in a crap club and not getting paid a lot of money for it. Because I'm really not good at anything else. Like, I don't know anything else. I've kind of put myself out on the line here. This is it. So we mentioned the COVID before, and it was controversial.

Neil44:14 Controversial? I don't think it was controversial at the time.

Chris44:17 No, no. No, because it was. It was. It was not a problem. It was one of these, like, Nirvana, where the young man on the COVID

Neil44:23 It's totally normal to show a young boy's penis in. In a water thing. Totes normal.

Chris44:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil44:31 Couldn't get away with that now.

Chris44:32 I couldn't do it now. But he. When he was older, he didn't like it, so he sued him, didn't he? Yeah. I think a similar thing happened with a matchbox 20 man.

Neil44:40 Yeah. The dude is called Frank Torres and it's really interesting. Course they asked him if he would. So. So.

Chris44:49 So he's walking down the street and they got a photo of him. Is that right?

Neil44:52 Yeah. So the. It was taken by Catherine Thomas. Thomas. No relation to Rob.

Chris44:57 No relation.

Neil44:58 With art direction and design by Valerie Wagner. And the band photos in. On the. In the. In the album and in the CD cover. If you've got the cd. I've got the cd. You can have a look inside it and the pictures of the band and thereby Chris Cafaro. But the man on the covers, Frank Torres. Now where it gets interesting is that he was walking down the street. They asked him to pose for a photograph, which he did. He. He said he consented for his, you know, photograph to be used. Obviously got used.

Chris45:34 So they said, can we take a photo? Yeah, but they didn't say, can we use it for an album?

Neil45:38 Yeah, so they didn't like. So he claims that they never, like. They didn't. I didn't. He didn't sign like a release or anything like that. This was in the 90s. You didn't do that in the night, like now you would have to. In the 90s. You didn't do that. No, I wasn't anyway, so.

Chris45:58 But was it the same thing as, like, with, you know, with the other band and suddenly this. This band's getting big, so. So everyone's kind of vulturing around and going, right, how can I get some money out of this?

Neil46:06 Do you remember the. When we talked about this a little bit with Pink Floyd.

Chris46:09 Yeah.

Neil46:09 You know, like on the wall when you had the. The kids.

Chris46:13 Yeah.

Neil46:13 Choir singing. And then you had Claire Torres on Great Gig in the Sky.

Chris46:18 Yeah.

Neil46:20 I mean, famously. Famously. Claire wasn't even credited on the song if My Page. They bunged like a te. Tenor and.

Chris46:26 Yeah.

Neil46:26 You know, bought her a meal deal and told her to get lost. You know what I mean? Yeah. It wasn't credited on the song or anything. But, yeah, I think it's interesting. I think here, this band in nowhere. There is no band, really. There's no money. No, they. They got a deal from Atlantic, so there would have been, like, a few quid to go and pull things together. Yeah, but they certainly weren't like, you know, rolling in money. And my gut feeling is no one was expecting what was coming, so they didn't sign the release and all that. Stu. Anyway, Frank Torres is the guy that's on the COVID who. Yeah. Took them. Took them to court, essentially.

Chris47:05 Yeah.

Neil47:07 It was interesting because there was a massive delay. I don't think it was like something like 2006. Oh, 2005. 2006.

Chris47:16 Yeah.

Neil47:17 He put legal action, so he did his.

Chris47:21 So it's a good tenure photographing, like,

Neil47:23 would have been like 95, I guess. And then. Then album came out. No one really cared. Eventually, obviously, he got bigger and then by 2005, clearly he's realized that there's some money to be made here.

Chris47:34 Yeah.

Neil47:34 And then goes after them for some. Some cash. So. I don't know what happened to the lawsuit. I couldn't. I did read about it. I couldn't find.

Chris47:41 I think he died.

Neil47:42 He died in 2016.

Chris47:44 Yeah. I think he died before anything really came of it, which is.

Neil47:47 It's a bit of a shame, really.

Chris47:49 Yeah.

Neil47:49 What the name. It's cool. It's a cool album, I think. Color cover. It's one of those album covers that

Chris47:54 I. I wonder if that slide has an impact on how the feel about the record, though, you know, like. All right. It gives them a bad taste in the mouth when they think about it because of that legal challenge or whatever, or because of, like, 3:00am And I wonder if it taints the. The kind of feeling around a song or a record.

Neil48:10 And I've heard Rob Thomas in interviews. He always seems really pragmatic to me, but he's. He's. There's a lovely bit I heard. Heard him, and he was saying that, like, he said, you. You have to develop a really thick skin. Like, you can't let this stuff get to you.

Chris48:27 Yeah.

Neil48:28 Because he said, like, once the band got big, like, we just seemed to, like, Like. Like a magnet for criticism. Like, everybody felt they got the right to tell us, you know, how crap we were.

Chris48:43 Yeah.

Neil48:43 You know, and the critics were pretty harsh to us. And, you know, the. The. The album was selling bucket loads.

Chris48:50 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil48:50 But the critics were telling us how terrible we are.

Chris48:53 Yeah.

Neil48:54 You know, and like, you. You can't let that get to you. Do you know what I mean? You kind of. Because. And. And I Get. I can't remember where I. Whether I read this or I heard it, but. But it's essentially him saying that, like it's a very personal.

Chris49:10 Yeah.

Neil49:10 Thing this record, all of the records for Matchbox 20s, they're very personal things. So you know, when somebody criticizes it, it's like criticizing you and you, you have to build this like, mechanism for that not to. To bother you. And like, like. Actually, I'm gonna go on a bit of a slight tangent, but. But famously the track Push was used in the new Barbie movie.

Chris49:35 Yes. Yeah.

Neil49:38 And I think. And again, I saw a lovely snippet from Rob Thomas saying that when he got the call, he just assumed that they were going to be like the butt of the joke. Right. That there was going to be this kind of joke about, you know, whatever, you know, about it being old fashioned or whatever or, you know, dude culture or whatever.

Chris49:55 It.

Neil49:55 Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't kind of land in quite that. Quite that way, I think. I think Matchbox 20 come out of it quite well. Yeah. I think they come out of it kind of liking Ken in the movie and liking the song.

Chris50:09 Right.

Neil50:10 I think it's kind of an interesting thing. But yeah, I think, I think the band get more like hate than they deserve.

Chris50:18 Yeah.

Neil50:18 It's not in the same. Not quite in the same league as. A Nickelback.

Chris50:26 Yeah.

Neil50:27 But it's that kind of thing where it's kind of like, well, they're making loads of money so it's totally cool to just, you know, be trash them.

Chris50:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil50:36 But yeah, it's interesting listening to Rob Thomas talk about it in this. You know, he said it's quite a. It's a skill. It's a. It's a skill you need to learn.

Chris50:43 Yeah.

Neil50:44 You. You write these really personal lyrics and songs and then put them out in the world and then people feel they've got a right to rip them apart.

Chris50:54 Yeah. I don't know if I deal with that very well. I'm quite Marty even I'm saying negatively wanted to cause them damage. I don't know. I get quite. Yeah. I couldn't imagine experiencing that. I think that's why I asked about. I wonder what. I wonder whether it's. It's sort of tainted their feeling around the album or the songs anyway. But it sounds like it was just say the dudes built. Built a bit of a mechanism to help him to sort of deal with that.

Neil51:21 I think so. I think.

Chris51:24 And you know, it's just. He sold loads of records. He's been hugely successful.

Neil51:29 Yeah.

Chris51:30 You know, it's a. It's a massive album, this one, and subsequent work. And he did that thing with Santana that was a big deal. So he's done some cool stuff, you know, so. Clearly.

Neil51:39 Right song I do like. Again, off on a tangent a little bit, but I do love listening to the Nickel Back Boys.

Chris51:44 Yeah.

Neil51:44 Like, just like. Like, like, like what? What? We don't take this. That seriously. Why is it. Why is everyone else taking this seriously? Like, we. We. We just, like, we got in a band to have a good time. Yeah. Yeah. And we. We wrote songs about having a good time and we liked that. It was great. And then, you know, and then all of a sudden, the world, like, lost its mind and it was like, we. You know, but it was like, it was okay to. To hate on us. And, like, we've not done anything. We've literally done nothing. We just. You just written some songs that are a good laugh. What's the. What's, you know, what is coming. Surely this doesn't make any sense. And it's. It's weird. It feel. It is. This kind of. I don't know, it's this thing where I think once artists become a certain size, it's okay to. To just hate on them.

Chris52:33 There's a Coldplay thing as well, isn't there? Same sort of thing.

Neil52:35 God, hate Coldplay. I saw that. That woman. You know, the. The Coldplay Kissatron thing.

Chris52:44 Oh, yes.

Neil52:45 And that couple were there. And then they. I still, like. That's just. Still one of my favorite things, where they just kind of sleep.

Chris52:50 Sleep now.

Neil52:52 But she's back in the press, right? She's. Because she's kind of resurfaced back in the press, saying that she was disappointed with how Gwyneth Paltrow reacted to it.

Chris53:04 How weird. How strange.

Neil53:07 I do think that's brutal, though, isn't it? Imagine being. Being like. Like everywhere. Like the. You just. What would you do? Yeah, I mean, what do you like?

Chris53:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil53:15 Do you know what I mean? Your face is everywhere. How do you.

Chris53:18 At least it's the bit. I suppose it's a bit where people are making memes out of you. Yeah, that's the one in it.

Neil53:24 Have you got. If you can make memes, make a meme out of me. I quite fancy being famous. Not for very long.

Chris53:31 No.

Neil53:31 Just.

Chris53:31 Just 10 minutes. Yeah.

Neil53:32 I don't want to be famous a lot. Would you like to be famous?

Chris53:34 No, like, would you, like.

Neil53:35 Like, imagine if riding they're like, blew up and they were massive and you had to. To be on the telly in that.

Chris53:40 Yeah.

Neil53:40 Now, how would that.

Chris53:42 Yeah, I'm rubbish. I'm not very good at things like

Neil53:44 that, I don't think, because I always. I always feel like. Because, like, Patty's megastar and he's in these massive movies and stuff, and I

Chris53:51 always just think he deals with it so well, but he's.

Neil53:54 It's the things he has to deal with.

Chris53:56 Yeah. Like, you can't just go shop, do stuff.

Neil53:58 You have to kind of. Yeah. I think you pay, you know, I mean, I think you kind of. I don't know, it's like. Like. Like you sell your soul to the devil a little bit. You know what I mean? It's one of those things where you're like that when you're famous, you.

Chris54:14 Yeah.

Neil54:14 And people know who you are.

Chris54:15 Honestly, I had three days on tour and the third day, I don't know if everybody. I was like. I was like, just have a 10 minutes just for me. Just. Just on my own YouTube in that.

Neil54:29 But I want to watch. I want to watch a man welding.

Chris54:32 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil54:33 But I do think I. There's just something it. Where people feel they've got this. I mean, I remember being with Paddy at gigs where people have been over and told him about the movies. That. And their perspective on like. Like, their critique of his.

Chris54:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil54:50 And you just. I. And like, you say he's so magnanimous and he handles it, like, so well. I know. I. I remember sitting there just thinking, God, who are you to tell? Yeah, Jermaine.

Chris54:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil55:00 What have you done?

Chris55:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Neil55:02 Which.

Chris55:03 Where's your film?

Neil55:03 Yeah. Which, like, movies have you done?

Chris55:06 Yeah.

Neil55:08 Anyway. Yeah, that's it. Coming from a podcaster. So you've got an opinion on everything. Telling you you're not allowed to have an opinion. That's the way the world works, I'm afraid. So.

Chris55:19 Yeah.

Neil55:19 Show me some facts in that.

Chris55:21 Let's do some. Oh, should we do a. No, let's not do a song yet. Let's do facts first, then a song, and then we talk about next week.

Neil55:27 Right? Yes, I'm on it. Okay. So. Released 1st of October, 1996. I'm always a little bit concerned when release dates appear as the first of the month.

Chris55:37 Yeah.

Neil55:38 It's generally a sign that when I've asked the AI.

Chris55:41 Yeah.

Neil55:43 It doesn't know.

Chris55:43 Oh, I see. Okay. It just goes.

Neil55:46 Yeah. So if the release date is like, October.

Chris55:48 Yeah, it'll.

Neil55:48 It'll say may or may not have been released 1st of October 1996. Don't really care.

Chris55:54 Yeah. If it's right, if any of this stuff isn't right, just tell us and then we can put it right. Don't shout at us and say we're rubbish. Just say, like, that's not quite right, lads. Could you. Could you just have a nudge of that and like educators and informers of the correct thing. Yeah, that'd be lovely.

Neil56:08 Just don't.

Chris56:08 Oh, just don't.

Neil56:11 No one's gonna die over it. Just. Just. You know what I mean?

Chris56:14 Everything will be all right.

Neil56:15 Have some fruit pastels. Artist matchbox 20 with a 20 initially with a 2 and a 0. Not the words. Twent Y. I think this is an interesting one.

Chris56:28 Did they ever, like, knock it on the head or. Are they still together or.

Neil56:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah, they are still together.

Chris56:33 Yeah.

Neil56:33 They've just released EP of old, say old music, but it was from the North Recordings, I think, so. Not that old. Yeah, so, yeah, they're still around. Still doing. Still doing. They did have a bit of a hiatus, but, yeah, they're still. Still around. I think it's interesting that. So then swapping the name from 220 to 20 20. This was kind of in the. The era of Google.

Chris57:02 Yeah.

Neil57:03 And I. I just think it's interesting they would have done that and how that would have impacted people being able to find their music.

Chris57:10 Yeah.

Neil57:11 Because this is in a. This is in. Back in the 90s, computers were terrible.

Chris57:14 Yeah.

Neil57:15 So I think if you'd have typed for one. And I can imagine like Apple Music getting like. Like, getting like, you know, like. Or Spotify, whatever. Getting. Having two. Two artists.

Chris57:23 Yeah.

Neil57:24 Anyway, label. So my copies on Lava Records. But it's. It was released by Atlantic, I think. I don't know. I don't know the relationship between Lava and Atlantic.

Chris57:36 Maybe. Maybe Lava, like a subsidiary. Probably Atlantic.

Neil57:40 Yeah, probably produced by Matt Selectic.

Chris57:43 Now, that's good because in a minute. Yeah, there's the. In the interviews we're going to use, it talks about them meeting him and how important he was because he did collective soul.

Neil57:55 Yeah, he also did. And I've got this queued up somewhere. I'm just gonna have a quick look for you. Guess. Guess. He did a really big thing. Guess what.

Chris58:07 A big one.

Neil58:08 Yeah. Guess what he did.

Chris58:09 Oh, I don't know.

Neil58:09 Now, do you want to tell you what he did?

Chris58:11 Go on then.

Neil58:12 He produced the song. I don't want to miss a thing.

Chris58:16 Oh, really?

Neil58:17 Aerosmith? Yeah. On Massive Chain Armageddon, which I liked a lot.

Chris58:23 That was a good song. That was. Yeah, they didn't ride that. That was a. That was a female songwriter. She wrote loads of hits, but Aerosmith didn't actually write.

Neil58:30 Aerosmith used loads of songwriters and they were properly songwriter. They were one of the first, I think that kind of got into to that. But they also. He also did a bunch of stuff with. So, so, yeah, so he, he was produced producing Tabitha's Secret, but he also. As a teenager, Selectic joined a band with members of Collective Soul.

Chris58:55 Right, interesting.

Neil58:56 And he also produced them. I really like Collective Soul. They're a band that I listen to when you. If things aren't going very well.

Chris59:03 Yeah.

Neil59:03 I quite often put collective solo.

Chris59:05 Right, that's interesting.

Neil59:06 They're quite cool.

Chris59:06 I don't think I've heard enough of them, to be honest.

Neil59:08 Quite a cool band. Yeah, they're a band that, like, never do anything that is like, offensive or loud or. You know what I mean? Really? I can't imagine anybody ever, like, shouts and goes, oh, get that rubbish off. Yeah, I can't imagine anyone's ever said, I hate Collective soul.

Chris59:25 Yeah, they're not that kind of band.

Neil59:27 They're a kind of band that. You know what I mean?

Chris59:30 Like. No, got it. Because. And also he, he wrote some of these songs as well. He was a co writer.

Neil59:36 He was. That's very, very true. I'll get to that in a bit. But yeah, he, he did, he, he did stuff on, on. I think he did 3:00am yeah.

Chris59:45 So I wonder if it was like parts. Maybe he came up with some parts or something that were quite integral to the song or something.

Neil59:51 I mean, you'll probably know more about this, but, but I, I just imagine he is in the studio, just got ideas, you know, just. Oh, hang on. Have we, have we tried doing this?

Chris59:58 Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

Neil59:59 Well, there you go. It was recorded at Triclops Recording in Atlanta, Georgia. I, I, you know, Atlanta's fame. Famous for, for me. Why, why do I know about sports? No, it's because the Walking Dead was recorded there.

Chris1:00:15 Oh, really?

Neil1:00:15 And I like that.

Chris1:00:16 All right. I haven't watched it.

Neil1:00:18 Zombies got halfway through series two about Zombies and that. It's only. There's only so much zombie stuff you can do, I think. Yeah, yeah, I did like that. I like. Do you know what I like? What I really liked about it is like the end of the end of the world stuff. I like how it shows, like, the the underbelly of human society. Society and how bad things will get.

Chris1:00:37 Yeah.

Neil1:00:37 You know, and I like. I like imagining that. I think it's quite exciting.

Chris1:00:41 Yeah.

Neil1:00:42 Anyway, that was in Georgia, probably. There were no zombies when they recorded this. Which. Which is. There you go. Interesting. The track. This says 12 tracks on the standard edition and 15 on the deluxe edition. I did some looking online to try and find a copy of. Of the deluxe edition on the compact disc.

Chris1:01:03 Yeah.

Neil1:01:04 Can't find it.

Chris1:01:04 Right. Okay.

Neil1:01:05 I have a. Funny, I don't know, the streaming on online thing. Yeah. I don't know. But yeah. 46 minutes long.

Chris1:01:15 I would say of those 46 minutes there's more. You know when you said earlier about the immediacy of this record.

Neil1:01:21 Yeah.

Chris1:01:21 Doesn't take many listens and it goes quite quick.

Neil1:01:25 Six minutes, four or five tracks are just bangers.

Chris1:01:28 They're just.

Neil1:01:29 They're all like heavy singles.

Chris1:01:31 Yeah.

Neil1:01:32 And then the tail end of the record are kind of these like slow burns. Like you've got like Cody and you

Chris1:01:40 did like the end of the record.

Neil1:01:41 It's phenomenal for me. This is. It's got those big poppy hooks at the beginning, the big singles. And then it kind of. Every listen through, you kind of enjoy a little bit more of the album and then a little bit more. It's really, really nicely done. Didn't sell any copies when it was launched. Eventually sold. It was 12 times platinum in Australia, 10 times platinum in Canada, 8 times platinum in New Zealand, 5 times platinum. And in the UK it was gold.

Chris1:02:08 Yeah.

Neil1:02:08 Which I think is like 500.

Chris1:02:10 Yeah. It's not comparatively. It's not many, is it? At all.

Neil1:02:13 It's not. 15 million copies sold worldwide.

Chris1:02:16 Yeah. Yeah. Big record, which is big for.

Neil1:02:19 For record singles. Long day push, 3am real world and Back to Good.

Chris1:02:24 Yeah. Just banger after huge songs.

Neil1:02:27 Banger.

Chris1:02:28 And the. The time when selling that amount of records and. And get, you know, that. That's a bit. That's a big impact on your wallet that, you know, at that point in time it was a big. Yeah, there's a lot of. Around that kind of mid-90s to late 90s period, sort of into those early 2000s, you know, there was a lot of money to be made in music.

Neil1:02:50 Well, this would have been like. It wasn't peak CD, but it was CD, you know. I mean, lots of CDs were being sold out. So. So the music itself was making money.

Chris1:03:02 Not just because it kind of went into games after this.

Neil1:03:05 Yeah. Film a little bit like your TV Yeah. So. So at this point in time, buying the physical media, everyone made like a few quid.

Chris1:03:17 Yeah.

Neil1:03:18 Of selling it. Yeah. And then of course, by the time you got to like 2000, 3, 4, 5 or. No one bought physical media, everyone bought streaming and then no one got any money except for like, I mean, itunes probably started to. Everyone talks about Spotify killing it was probably itunes that killed it because you got like 79 people single.

Chris1:03:35 Yeah.

Neil1:03:36 You know what I mean? So.

Chris1:03:38 But you didn't have the manufacturing costs. That's your trade off, isn't it?

Neil1:03:42 Yeah, yeah, that is true. You still. Yeah.

Chris1:03:45 And that's the thing with streaming as well, you know, the trade off is you've got. You've got worldwide distribution. Good button. For free. For free. Effectively discoverability. Yeah.

Neil1:03:53 All of that stuff.

Chris1:03:54 Yeah. But. But it's. But you don't make any money off the back. So you see. Yeah. It's a real catch 22, isn't it?

Neil1:03:58 It is, it is.

Chris1:03:59 I think the way I've heard it spoken about is that. Is that as an artist, you really want to treat streaming as pr.

Neil1:04:05 Yeah.

Chris1:04:05 You know, you want to treat it not as. Not as sales or, you know, you want to treat it as a. Vinyl's

Neil1:04:11 come back in in a vengeance, hasn't it? Which I quite like. I do. I really like that. We had. There'd been a couple of kids parties and I was bored waiting for the kids to finish, so I bogged off to the record shop.

Chris1:04:25 Yeah.

Neil1:04:26 And when I came back, one of the mums was there and she was probably like, where. Where have you been? I've been to the record shop. And she was like, where's the record shop? And then she went to the record shop. It was just interesting that, like, I think you wouldn't have had to go back like many, you know, three, four years and in like a mainstream. Yeah, your mainstream friends wouldn't have. Wouldn't have.

Chris1:04:48 No, done. No, no.

Neil1:04:50 Absolutely wouldn't have done that. Do you know what I mean? And it's just. I like that. I like the fact that that stuff's kind of. I like the fact that music is valuable.

Chris1:04:58 Yeah.

Neil1:04:59 To some degree. And it's not. Not invaluable in, like, monetary terms, I guess. But it's just the fact that people are prepared to.

Chris1:05:07 And the thing is. And, you know, I think we're gonna have a resurgence pretty short shortly of people being interested in music again because of the levy that's starting to come in, which is, you know, big, you know, like in football how the.

Neil1:05:19 Oh, the big club.

Chris1:05:20 The big clubs pay for Sunday league stuff. Money filters down. The same thing's happening in the music industry now. So your big arena tours and all that sort of stuff. There's like a quid of every ticket going into this pot which then is being distributed out to the grassroots.

Neil1:05:36 Yeah, it's difficult if you think about it. You know, it's really hard to imagine how bands will

Chris1:05:44 you. Unless you're middle class, you've got no talent pipeline. That's the thing is. Is music will become a very middle class thing because. Yeah, it wouldn't be accessible for working class people.

Neil1:05:52 You need. I guess you need the money. But you, you, you. What?

Chris1:05:55 You.

Neil1:05:56 Yeah, you're right. But. But it's like if there are no venues to go and practice.

Chris1:06:02 Yeah.

Neil1:06:02 You can't have a scene and you can't have people and you can't. You can't practice.

Chris1:06:05 And that's what it's about. It's about building those ecosystems.

Neil1:06:08 It's crazy.

Chris1:06:08 Building those. Yeah.

Neil1:06:09 You don't get the opportunities to. To go and do it. So. Fact, I gotta. I got. I'll go down my. I've got my top 10. So the album was originally titled the Woodshed Diaries.

Chris1:06:21 I didn't know that's a reading the blog.

Neil1:06:22 And in fact 3500 copies were pressed with that title. With that title, they were never released. But Thomas and Doucet were. Were at Cafe Largo in LA and they heard a singer say, this song is for you or someone like you. And they loved it so much they begged the record label to change the title. How mad is that? Imagine that. Yeah, I think it's nuts. 3am was originally written when Thomas was in Tabitha's Secret. So we talked about this before and it was all about caring for his mother during her cancer treatment. When he was 12, Tabitha's secret remaining members released their own version on Don't Play with Matches and later sued Thomas, Doucet, Yale and Selectic for a share of the profits. Push was born from a single word. So when they were. So Rob Thomas and Selectic were in a hotel room and he opened a book and told Rob Thomas to point at a random word. And the word was rusty. That element. I'm a little bit rusty. It's the lyrics and the way he plays with lyrics and the way he's able to do, you know that kind of stuff.

Chris1:07:39 Yeah.

Neil1:07:39 Do you know what I mean?

Chris1:07:40 Just playing with words, it kind of

Neil1:07:42 touches you as well. Kind of. It's Kind because you. You hear those lyrics and you. You, like, internalize and you just like, oh, yeah, that means something to me. I mean, that although, you know, Rob Thomas. Thomas wrote. Wrote that song that it. It kind of feels like it touches you and you can. A bit like Alanis Morissette and a bunch of others where they write these. I don't know. Yeah. They write these stories for want of a better description in. In the song. And everybody can feel some kind of connection to it.

Chris1:08:13 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:08:14 I think that's what makes them work.

Chris1:08:15 Yeah.

Neil1:08:16 In its first week, the album sold 610 copies.

Chris1:08:20 Yeah.

Neil1:08:20 Which is crazy.

Chris1:08:22 Hardly any in comparison. I mean, if you saw that many as a. These days, that's quite a good number. But yes, only back then it was hardly anything.

Neil1:08:28 It's mad, isn't it?

Chris1:08:29 Yeah.

Neil1:08:29 Neither Push nor 3am were eligible to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 because Atlantic refused to release them as commercial singles. The album was selling too well to risk cannibalizing sales, and pre1998 rules required a physical single release for Hot 100.

Chris1:08:47 That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. So. So they didn't release a single even the massive tunes.

Neil1:08:52 Eventually, the pushing 3am worn and they

Chris1:08:57 didn't want to go there.

Neil1:08:59 Frank Torres, the man on the COVID we talked about, already sued them in 2005, saying he never consented to his image being used on the COVID He said the photo caused him emotional distress. I'm not sure it would cause me emotional distress. Anyway, the band rehearsed for a solid month in a storage shed in Orlando before entering the studio. The recording sessions in Atlanta took six weeks, which is quick, isn't it? I think for such a polished record.

Chris1:09:27 Yeah, no, absolutely.

Neil1:09:29 Producer Matt Seletic played keyboards and percussion on the record, co wrote Push Girl like that. His brother Dean Seletic, and Tabitha Colema served as assistant co producer. I didn't know his brother was involved in record delivers. Rob Thomas grew up listening to country, so Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. When early reviewers suggested there was a Southern influence in the band's sound, Thomas was initially amused being the only Southerner in the group, before realizing those natural storytelling instincts had genuinely shaped his writing. And I think there is definitely something that kind of Southern writing. Talked about this a little bit as well. The Matchbox. The band's name from a softball jersey. Paul Doucette spotted Matchbox and the number 20 on someone's shirt at a restaurant. And that's where the name came from. In in 2023, Ryan Gosling recorded a cover of Push for the Barbie soundtrack for the. The song in. In the movie Push caused absolute chaos when it was released. All of the.

Chris1:10:39 Oh, because they thought it was about domestic abuse. Feminist.

Neil1:10:42 Yeah, there was a huge feminist kind of thing, like an anti.

Chris1:10:46 Glorifying.

Neil1:10:47 Yeah. And. And Rob Thomas had to go and. And have loads of interviews explaining that it was the other way around and that he was the. Like there was kind of, you know, he was the subject of the abusive relationship and not the other way around, which is. I think it's fascinating. There's that assumption, isn't there, where it just feels. Because he's. Maybe because he's singing. Maybe because the expectation is that the kind of male is the one pushing the female around. But I thought that was really interesting.

Chris1:11:17 Fascinating.

Neil1:11:18 And that's it for facts. That's what I've got for facts for this album. Adam Gaynor as well. I'll say as well. Adam Gaynor was in. He left in 2004. The band went on hiatus in 2004. When Adam left. Now, I wasn't sure what happened, but I did some reading that Adam Gay, although He left Matchbox 20, he formed the Matchbox 20 foundation and it's done a loads of fundraising and charity work and stuff like that. So I kind of just get the feeling that. That he just didn't want to be in a band anymore.

Chris1:11:48 Yeah,

Neil1:11:50 it wasn't Acrimonious or.

Chris1:11:53 Yeah, I know what that means now.

Neil1:11:55 Yeah. Acrimonious.

Chris1:11:57 Yeah. No, that's interesting. There's a few bands that have done foundation, like Make Yourself foundation, which Incubus, isn't it? There's a few that have done that sort of thing.

Neil1:12:04 I think, you know, it's interesting as well. I think there was. There was a bunch of bands that followed after this as well, I think Kind or. Or in the same group. That kind of post grunge stuff. So. Like Lifehouse?

Chris1:12:18 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:12:19 Remember Tinder Train?

Chris1:12:22 Yeah, I'd love to do Train. I'd actually love to do Drops of Jupiter. I think it's an incredible album.

Neil1:12:27 Album. That's a bad album.

Chris1:12:29 Yeah, I'd love to do that.

Neil1:12:31 They're all kind. There's a lot of them are in that same vein on their Third Eye Blind and stuff. There's a load of them in that. In that. In that space. It gave us some quite good albums. I think maybe we go.

Chris1:12:42 Should we put a tune on then? Talk about what's next?

Neil1:12:44 Yeah, put a tune on. All Right.

Chris1:12:45 And this is the bit where it's nice. We talked about Matt Selectic then, because he comes up quite a lot in these next interviews.

Neil1:12:51 Oh, good.

Chris1:12:52 We met Matt because Matt's brother Dean went to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. And so at the time we were playing a band called Tabitha Secret and Matt was looking for a band to work with. And Dean, Matt had just come off of working with Collective Soul.

Neil1:13:10 Yeah, yeah.

Chris1:13:11 Who was also in Atlantic as well. And he went.

Neil1:13:13 So he started a production company and he sort of wanted to work with the band.

Chris1:13:16 So he was like. So his brother Dean was like, hey, there's two bands down here that are doing really well. You should come check them out. One was tab of the Secret Us, and then the other one was a band called 7 Mary 3, who also later signed to Atlantic. And we just connected with Matt. Yeah, when we started with Matt, it was, you know, listen, I don't know what's gonna happen, but why don't we get together and re record these four songs or five songs for an EP and then try and shop on the ep? Because up until this point, we had just had our local demo of a cassette. Right. Because there was like, there was no website. So like if you. When you're trying to get signed, you'd have a folder and inside you tape a bioset with it. Yeah, with a bio, some bumper stickers. Section of you standing by the train tracks. Fly. Yeah, definitely. Or in front of a brick wall. Yeah, brick wall. And then. And then you have flyers, I guess, just to show people that you actually did play live.

Neil1:14:05 Yeah.

Chris1:14:05 Like put flyers from your previous gigs, you know, in there. And that was the kind of. The whole package. So, you know, Matt came was like, listen, these songs are good. You guys are good. These recordings are horrible. It's sitting by the overcoat, the second shelf. The note she wrote that I can't bring myself to throw away. And I'll so reach the set for no one else but you. You won't turn away when someone else is gone. I'm sorry about the attitude I need to give When I'm with you. But no one else will take this shit from me. And I'm so terrified of no one else but me. I'm here all the time. I won't go with you. Ye, it's me. Yeah, well I can't give myself to go away. Hey,

Neil1:15:03 it's me

Chris1:15:06 and I can't get myself to go away. Oh God, I shouldn't dare. This way. Now reach down your hand. Pick up My head Pour out some hope for me it's been a long day Always say that right but no Lord, your hand won't stop out Just keep your trembling it's been a long day all the way to say that right well I'm surprised if you believe in anything that comes from me I didn't hear from you if you saw the one else and you're so sad in life Man I pissed out there waiting too damn bad to get so far so fast so what so long it's Reach down your hand in your pocket Pour out some hope for me it's been a long day Always say that right When I loud your hand won't stop at Just keep you some more hand it's been a long day oh, we'll sing that right, Sam? Anyway was me yeah well I can't give myself to go away oh God, I shouldn't fail this way now reach down your hand in your pocket Pour out some hope on me it's been a long day always Ain't that right? Well now launch your hand won't stop it Just keep you trembling it's been a long day always Can I say that right? Reach down your hand in the pocket well reach down your hand right now it's been a long day always Ain't that right? Reach down your hand and your will Reach down your hand right now it's been a long day always Ain't that right? Hard and. It really depends on what it is you're trying to go for. I think if you are a solo artist, I think you want to. I think no matter who it is, you want to find someone who kind

Neil1:17:58 of gets what you're doing.

Chris1:18:00 But if you're, you know, I think it's. I think it's a different thing if you find a producer, if you're a solo artist, if you find a producer, if you're a band, I think if you find a producer, when you're a solo artist, you kind of want someone who can kind of bring everything to the table that you don't have, which a lot of times involves the production of things, the tracking the tracks of things. But if you're a band, you kind of want the one who's going to sort of be that missing piece that makes the band come together and have bring out things in the band that you didn't really know were there. And that's kind of what you kind of hope for. But I also think you also need somebody who understands songs. It can't just be about something that sounds cool. It has to be like, this is a great song. This isn't a great song. You need to keep working. Someone is not afraid to tell you those kind of things. Yeah. Especially when you're starting out. I mean, like 20 years into the game, we have a different idea of what we need whenever we step into a studio. But then we. We had no idea how to do anything. You know, everything was. Was new to us. Playing to a click. Yeah. I'd never played to a click track in my life. All of these things, like, when you. It's a skill set that you don't learn playing local clubs and. And doing. And doing that. That. That run, it's. It's a whole different thing. And so at the time, just knowing, you know, learning that, like, it was the first step in learning what makes a good song, what makes a good record, what the difference between a. You know, and. At the time, we didn't even realize then that Matt was learning as well, because he was really young, too. You know, he was only just a year older than us. He just seemed so much more mature and accomplished.

Neil1:19:34 And plus, he had a hit, so he had dealt with all this stuff before.

Chris1:19:39 But when we did the. We did Exile on Mainstream, the sort of greatest hits thing, and I remember we were remastered during it, and we were listening to it, and Matt, we were talking about. I was like. And Matt finally admitted to me.

Neil1:19:51 He's like, I had no idea what I was doing.

Chris1:19:52 Yeah. I was like, really? You know, it doesn't. Doesn't really sound very good. Yeah. None of us knew what we were doing, and. So what should we do next then? Because we. We spoke about Ugly Kid Joe.

Neil1:20:04 Oh, God. You want America's Least Wanted? I definitely want to do that one. That's.

Chris1:20:09 And then there's these other ones that are in. So that. Because that's. That's like a different world of music, isn't it? But then we just went down this sort of, like, rabbit hole of Third Eye Blind Train.

Neil1:20:17 Let's do Train.

Chris1:20:18 Okay.

Neil1:20:18 Let's do Drops of Jupiter.

Chris1:20:19 Yeah.

Neil1:20:22 I think it kind of. I think definitely rolls off the back of this one. Yeah. I can. I. I remember Lizzie having this and Drops of Jupiter, and she used to work in Woolworths.

Chris1:20:34 Okay.

Neil1:20:35 Yeah. And she would have had both of these on, like, when. On the CD changer, when the supervisor wasn't around.

Chris1:20:40 You had both.

Neil1:20:41 Both of these on the. The Woolworths. If you're in Burton on Trent and you had these listening, at least playing. That's probably why.

Chris1:20:49 Yeah.

Neil1:20:49 And they'd have been stealing stuff from the picker mix.

Chris1:20:53 Stealing the worms.

Neil1:20:53 I got loads of my CDs. Have still got the Woolworths from when you stole them. Oh, she got a discount.

Chris1:20:59 So. Okay.

Neil1:21:00 So I'd be like actually real. Yeah. The genuine. And I'd be like can you. And there'd be a list.

Chris1:21:05 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:21:06 And I didn't want to pay full price for them obviously. So. So I'd wait. I'd wait for them to be on discount.

Chris1:21:11 Yeah.

Neil1:21:11 And then she'd get a bigger discount.

Chris1:21:13 Great. That's a double discount.

Neil1:21:15 Double dust, double discount. Yeah. And then it was really funny when she first started to work there. There was a lot of thievery of the pick and mix until. Right. So the theory of the pick and mix was like a. A big thing. The people that were there until there was like some. You know they're like stock taking and stuff and. And they did a clean out of the pick and mix.

Chris1:21:39 Yeah.

Neil1:21:39 So they drained everything down and. And she said when she saw what was at the bottom of the pick a mix. Yeah. She never would have it again. She's like. It's like dead flies and fingernails. I'm not. Not doing that.

Chris1:21:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:21:54 So sorry if that. If you did up. I turned. I had my body weight in. In Woolworth to pick a mix. But it was all fingernails and dead flies.

Chris1:22:03 Yeah. So okay. That's the.

Neil1:22:04 That's. And then we'll do.

Chris1:22:07 I play that song quite a lot live. Used to. And then it just bit off the set. I love singing it. It's such a good. So nice song. It's quite hard. Yeah. Yeah, it's good.

Neil1:22:19 I like it. It's that good. He's. He's got. They did. Oh. I remember I was studying for an exam. One of the first proper like. Like grown up industrial exams that I did at. At work. And it was a real big thing. It was like a. It was like a five week residential thing. It cost a fortune. And you probably like if you fail any of these exams you just kicked out and you.

Chris1:22:45 Yeah.

Neil1:22:46 Big deal. And they had an album. I'm gonna have to look it up. I can't remember. I can't remember the bloody name of it.

Chris1:22:55 Trained it. Yeah.

Neil1:22:58 I'm gone. I'm gonna find it. Because it was now I didn't. I needed an album to still study tea and I couldn't find. There were two albums that I had on like literally on back to back. It was Skunk and Ancest Wonderluster.

Chris1:23:09 Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:23:11 And Trains Save Me. San Francisco.

Chris1:23:18 Right, okay.

Neil1:23:19 And I had them. I remember having them on like repeat. It was literally just those two albums just. Just like clicking from track to track to track. And I remember that I had had that, which. Which I really liked. And then again the memories of. Of Drops of Jupiter as well. Like, it puts me back in that. Like Lizzie working at Woolworths.

Chris1:23:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Neil1:23:43 I mean, absolutely slams me back into that.

Chris1:23:46 Yeah.

Neil1:23:46 But my. And that's where a lot of this music for me came from because she loved it. So like it wasn't my. You know, but for me, this kind of timeframe would have of. I like same as you, really.

Chris1:23:57 Kind of.

Neil1:23:57 I was just getting into kind of corn. And later, just after this would have been like Limp Bizkit and, you know, Lincoln park and this. But this was her music. Yeah, she really loved it and that. So that had a big impact on me. Yeah, yeah. Looking forward to that. So let's do this. Yeah, let's do Drops of Jupiter.

Chris1:24:14 Yeah.

Neil1:24:16 Then I think we should do Ugly Kid Joe. That's a rip roaring album.

Chris1:24:23 Yeah, yeah, Ugly Kid Joe.

Neil1:24:25 So let's do that after that.

Chris1:24:26 Yeah.

Neil1:24:26 And then we'll figure out where we go next. Yeah, I don't know where. I'm not quite sure where Ugly Kid Joe takes us next.

Chris1:24:34 No, no, it's got to take us somewhere. Yeah, it's got to. It will do. It'll be. It'd be really nice.

Neil1:24:38 There's a whole bunch of stuff we've not really touched. Like we could do Limb Bizkit. Yeah, yeah, we could go into that kind of.

Chris1:24:45 There's also. There was also Jimmy World.

Neil1:24:48 Yeah, Jimmy World.

Chris1:24:49 I'd love to have a go at that one as well. At some point.

Neil1:24:53 There's probably like more.

Chris1:24:56 I'm thinking, have we done a Green Day one?

Neil1:24:58 I was thinking there's more Green Day. Yeah, we did. Doy.

Chris1:25:00 Yeah, there's more Green.

Neil1:25:01 There's more space for Green Day and bring. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff we could do here. Off. Off. That. That was a little bit more. Cuz we've been quite gentle. We've been quite grown up. I think the last few records, like you could play to your mom and she'd be like.

Chris1:25:18 She'd be quite happy with it. Yeah. Oh, that's nice.

Neil1:25:20 I'd like to get to some albums that you can't play to your mom.

Chris1:25:23 Yeah, okay.

Neil1:25:23 Yeah, that's where I'd like to get to. So let's. Let's do. Let's do some of that.

Chris1:25:28 Yeah. So train Ugly Kid Joe and then ones you don't place your mum.

Neil1:25:33 Yeah. I don't know where we go do we do. We could go like. Ride the lightning.

Chris1:25:37 Yeah. Yeah.

Neil1:25:38 We could go like. Say we could go do to more Green Day Offspring. Whole.

Chris1:25:46 Yeah, I like whole. Yeah. Let's talk about hole in a minute. Isn't there? Did we do a hole? I'm done. Oh, no, we did do a whole one. Did we do a whole one?

Neil1:25:55 I think we've done it. I'll have to look. I think we did.

Chris1:25:57 Yeah.

Neil1:25:57 Now we've done. Yeah, we'll have to look.

Chris1:26:01 Yeah.

Neil1:26:01 And see what we can.

Chris1:26:02 We're at that point now, aren't we? We've got to look through the archive, see what we've done.

Neil1:26:05 Well, also, there's albums that we can do now that we. We couldn't previously, so.

Chris1:26:13 Oh, yeah. Because of the new.

Neil1:26:14 Yeah.

Chris1:26:14 Actually, well, trains. One of those trains. The trains are 2001 1.

Neil1:26:17 Ugly Kid Joe might take us into Book Cherry.

Chris1:26:20 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Neil1:26:22 Which would be really cool. I'd love to do a Donners. Yeah, I love the Donners. The Donners again. That's another one. They're. They're music I scream along to in the car. That's properly mega. I really like that. Raucous. And just. Do you know what I mean? Just. Just mega. Let's do all that. It'd be great.

Chris1:26:40 Yeah.

Neil1:26:40 Rock and roll. Thanks for coming and. Yeah, sorry.

Chris1:26:43 So.

RIFF083 - Matchbox 20 - Yourself or Someone Like You

Show Notes

When a Jersey Number Changes Everything and 15 Million People Prove the Critics Wrong

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