Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.

I'm Rhett Miller.

Rob Thomas is a singer and a songwriter, a record producer, and a multi-instrumentalist.

You probably know him best as the lead singer of the rock band Matchbox 20.

He's collaborated with McJagger, Willie Nelson, and Santana, and released three solo records,

most recently The Great Unknown, in 2015.

He creates what Rolling Stone calls sparkly pop music that actually strikes a chord with people

at a time when the world is very short on bona fide pop stars.

That ability to strike a chord with people is what makes Rob so important and why I'm so glad to have him here with me today.

Welcome, Rob Thomas.

Hello, Rob.

Hey, how you doing, Rhett?

Really good. Thanks for making the trip. We're in New York City right now.

In New York City. And you and I both live? Really good. Thanks for making the trip. We're in New York City right now. In New York City.

And you and I both live a little north. Yeah, sadly not close enough. It's like you're in the Westchester area and I'm in the Hudson Valley proper. Right. Like, we're about an hour. I'm about an hour from the city and you're about an hour from me. Yeah. Just to give a little geography lesson here on where we are.

What's your exact address?

Um, yeah.

So. in you're about an hour from me. Yeah. Just to give a little geography lesson here on where we are.

What's your exact address?

Yeah, so I'm sad that I don't get to see you more, but I'm really happy that you're here today. Yeah, thanks for asking me to be here. And I just started it. And before we maybe get into, you know, I've obviously got questions for you. But before we start, we were talking about my last guest I had, Fred Armisen.

We were telling Fred stories.

Right. Well, this wasn't, okay, this is Fred, this is Fred adjacent. Okay. We went to a party at Paul, Paul from Matchbox's house. It was like a barbecue all day. I was out in L.A. And Hansen came over.

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