No Exile On Mainstream

Apr 21 2008 by Gavin Allen, South Wales Echo

MATCHBOX Twenty might be massive in America but it’s a different story over here. Gavin Allen finds guitarist Kyle Cook is honest about being uncool and ‘selling the brand’ ...

“CARDIFF,” says Matchbox Twenty guitarist Kyle Cook with certainty.

“It’s near Liverpool, isn’t it?”

I explain that it isn’t. That it’s in a different country.

“Hi, I’m Kyle,” he laughed, starting over.

“I swear I know nothing about geography.”

He shouldn’t feel so bad because there is some mutual ignorance going on here.

If you don’t know who Matchbox Twenty are, I wouldn’t worry; you’re not alone.

In the US they are superstars, a million-selling band who reconvened to record their fourth album in 2007 after a three-year hiatus while their superstar frontman Rob Thomas was off chasing solo success.

But in the UK, the band’s singles have only twice breached the top 20 and been no higher than No 16 with their 2004 single Bright Lights.

Despite shifting more than 44 million albums worldwide, the band’s best link to a UK hit came via Rob Thomas’ vocal on Carlos Santana’s super-groove Smooth in 1999.

The band want to change that but the UK has proved much harder to crack.

“I partly understand it having toured there previously,” said Indiana-born Cook, 32, from his new home in Nashville.

“The one element of music that unites all the members of this band is country music and I think that’s the thing that doesn’t connect over there.

“We have a lot of work to do over there on selling us as a brand.”

That last sentence perhaps says more about why Matchbox Twenty aren’t a major act here than any other reason and Cook knows it.

I offer the names of a few country artists who do well in the UK in an attempt to prove that country music isn’t a barrier – names like Ryan Adams.

“But he has an artistic edge, that element of indie rock and the word ‘cool’, which is a word that arises a lot when we are talking about this band,” he said of Matchbox Twenty, which released its debut album Yourself Or Someone Like You in 1996.

“It’s something we have struggled with for some time. It seems like there are a lot of hipsters in the UK but every now and then a song comes along, like Crazy by Gnarls Barkley, that has indie credibility but is also a smash hit.

“I wish we could find a way through.”

Not many bands will talk openly about the likes of “branding”, fearing it will render them uncool but it seems Cook has accepted that fate for his band already and while many musicians will claim they don’t read reviews and don’t care what they say, again Cook is honest about that.

“If you ask different people in the band you will get different answers,” he says, prefacing his comments.

“We very rarely get any love from critics, we have never been critical darlings.

“Some people in the group don’t care anymore but I would be lying if I said it doesn’t bother me and I’m one of the few people who will be open about that.

“It would be nice to sit down one day and read some reviews and get a bit of love from the critics, because it’s not as if we try to sit down and write something bland. We are trying, we all listen to all kinds of music and we aren’t sat around listening to the top 40 thinking ‘how can we write that hit song?’

“We are not that kind of band, we want to make albums that are artistic, and there’s a lot that goes into our music artistically.

“We are pleasing ourselves first by making music that we like, that we find interesting, and if our career in the UK was to end now then we could still say we played Wembley and that’s not the sign of a band who aren’t doing well.”

Matchbox Twenty play at Cardiff International Arena on Wednesday, April 30. Tickets cost £25 from 029 2022 4488.