They’re chart topping, radio hit makers and they’ve sold over 20 million records. Matchbox Twenty come back to life again touring in support of NORTH, their new album. Not in an arena or an outdoor fest… see them LIVE up close and intimate at The Riverside!
North is a direction. It’s a place. It’s a marker of progress — and an intended destination.
NORTH is also the title of Matchbox Twenty’s fourth album, the quartet’s first release in five years, and their first album to debut at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. It is also the band’s first set of all-new material in a decade. And like other connotations of the word, the 12-song set represents a determined journey, a carefully considered path that combines earnest melodicism with sly and even snarky fun as well as a new internal world order that has made Matchbox Twenty a tighter and even more collaborative band than ever before in its 17-year career.
“We approached this record a lot differently,” attests front man Rob Thomas. “Rather than me just writing a bunch of songs, bringing them to the band and then us arranging them together, this was a lot of collaboration. A lot of the songs we wrote together, especially me and Paul (Doucette) and Kyle (Cook). We needed a little time to figure out how that works, how that dynamic works with three people who are used to writing alone. How do we get in a room and not kill each other?”
Doucette has the answer: “Taking our time was exactly the point. We were like, ’Let’s use that to our advantage — take our time, not feel as much pressure or any pressure and just write a lot of songs and see what kind of record we want to make.”
NORTH finds Matchbox Twenty—Rob Thomas, Paul Doucette, Kyle Cool and Brian Yale – honed and fine-tuned, from the roof-raising arena-sized anthem “Put Your Hands Up” to the kinetic beat of “Our Song” to the rich craft of "Overjoyed and “Parade.” “English Town” and “I Will” are the group at its balladic best, while Thomas thinks “Like Sugar” “sounds almost like a Dr. Dre tracked mixed with our band, really fresh.” And then there’s “She’s So Mean,” NORTH’s high-energy, harmony-laden first single which is already topping the charts.
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