Matchbox Twenty Is Done with 'Manufactured '90s Angst' on New Album: 'Familiar in the Best Way' (Exclusive)

Rob Thomas and Paul Doucette break down the group's first album in over a decade, Where the Light Goes, as they release new single "Don't Get Me Wrong"

Matchbox Twenty's first album in over a decade does indeed sound like it's from the same band behind "3AM," "Bent," and "How Far We've Come." It's unmistakable. Lead vocalist Rob Thomas will tell you that himself.

But while the hitmakers hope there's some continuity from their early classics throughout Where the Light Goes, not everything from the '90s and early '00s necessarily has to stay.

"We had finally, completely, and it happened gradually, like a disappearing McFly. But we have erased every trace of manufactured '90s angst," Thomas jokes with PEOPLE over Zoom. "We've extracted all of that out of our DNA completely. It doesn't exist anywhere in there. Not even hidden in the corners of this record."

Related:Rob Thomas Credits Hallmark Christmas Movies with Helping Him Record a Holiday Album Over the Summer

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For their first LP since 2012's North, and with the help of producer Greg Wattenberg, Matchbox is returning with what member Paul Doucette describes to PEOPLE as the most "joyful" album the band has ever made. "I also think this is a record where we let ourselves not be defined by the word 'band'," he adds.

"You can come see us live. We're going to play, we're going to do it well because we practice and we've been doing it a long time," Doucette says. "We don't need to prove that. Let's just make something. To be fair, part of that was dictated by the times. Part of that was dictated by the pandemic. Part of that was dictated by the fact that we all live in separate areas. Part of that was dictated by the fact that we have different ways of working now individually. So all those things played into it, and it definitely makes this record different than the rest of them."

Where the Light Goes, which arrives on May 26 via Atlantic Records, marks a lot of firsts for the guys. It's of course their first LP released this decade, the first taste of how they sound as a four-piece after some time apart, and the first LP that features their kids to some degree — Doucette's sings on the album and Thomas' son also influences much of his listening habits nowadays.

"It sounded like who we are, we know who we are, but also a glimpse of what we sound like in 2023, which I'm glad," Thomas tells PEOPLE.

"Of everything about this record, the one thing I'm glad is that I got to see a glimpse of what we sound like when we make music together now."

Ahead of the album's release and upcoming Slow Dream Tour — and as Matchbox unleashes their second single and video off the LP, "Don't Get Me Wrong" — Thomas and Doucette opened up to PEOPLE about learning from their kids and shooting for longevity — even when they weren't sure if a new album was in their cards this whole time.

How does it feel to be together doing these interviews again?

Doucette: I actually noticed this the last time we played a show where it was just basically, there was something that's very natural about this. Even though there's been a lot of time that we haven't done it. We've done it so much in our lives that it's a very familiar thing. And it's the same thing with playing. I had the realization when we were on stage the last time where I just was like, I don't feel any different. I don't feel older than I've ever felt. It just feels like I'm on a stage. Rob's next to me. Kyle's on the other side. Pookie's over here. Yeah, I've been doing this with these guys for so long that it doesn't feel anything. It just feels like normal.

What would you say has been the biggest change about the group in the last decade?

Doucette: All joking aside, we're older. So we've had a lot of a different life experience and we've had a lot of different life experience apart from each other. So who we are individually is a lot more established.

Thomas: We have lives. We have families, we have wives, we have children. We have all these gardens to tend to that we didn't have to tend to when we were young guys making our first few records... We're also more protective of our time [than] when you're young, and we're not as precious about real estate on a record. And it's not like, whereas maybe a younger musician [would be like], 'I want to get my idea on this record, I want to be heard.' Now it's like, 'I just want the best idea to be on the record. I want you to make this idea better.' And I think that comes with a sense of security and ownership over yourself that you can't have when you're just starting out in the business for sure.

And when you got back in the studio for this record, was it easy to return to that sense of being together working on a project?

Doucette: We made this record in a different way than we've ever made a record before. And I think that that was an adjustment for everybody, and it was more natural to some than others. And so that was a hurdle that we had to overcome. And then I also think that the reality of it is when you don't work with somebody for 10 years, you can have a little bit of reservation about going back in.

I personally had gotten to a point where I had never thought we were going to make a record again. And I kind of got to the point where I was OK with that. I definitely had a little apprehension about getting back into the room because the person in my mind that I was having a conversation with or an argument with or whatever, was someone I had an argument with 15 years ago. That person doesn't exist anymore. That person is now the person who exists now, and they've had as much life as I've had.

Thomas: I had a sense of trepidation about going in, having it, like Paul said, a certain way that you do things... [But] one of the first things that I sent out that we all kind of liked, and this was even before we knew we were going to make a record, was the song "Where the Light Goes." But there was this feeling, I sent it off to Kyle and Kyle took it in his studio and kind of made a demo out of it.

And when it came back to me, it felt so familiar in the best way. It felt like Matchbox. You know what I mean? It was like, "Oh, it's different ingredients to make a different cake." It's not the same thing and it's not supposed to be the same thing. And so you decide, well, "Do I like the idea of just being able to work the way that I've gotten used to working? Or if I just live in that world, I'm going to miss the magic that's over here that happens when we get together."

Was that an immediate thing? That you were going to make an album with this being the title track?

Thomas: I mean, to be fair, you look at every song on the record and would be like, well, "That's just a s---ty album title, so that's not it." And then you go through songs and lyrics that we like in songs. "Slow Dream," I think was in that, because we have the Slow Dream Tour and "Wild Dogs (Running in a Slow Dream)". Then [there was] a song called "Rebels." And the content of the song itself is about how as you get older, it's OK to let that part of yourself go... But if we put out a record and just called it Matchbox 20's Rebels, people would think that we were being serious and oh, 'We're rebels.' It really involved a month of me and Paul just sending each other, which out of context, the f---ing weirdest [album title] texts you've ever had.

And the cover as well. The first time I saw it sort of gave me the feeling of More Than You Think You Are, where it's these silhouette versions of yourselves. Was that intentional? And when you put together a new body of work for the first time in 10 years, do you try to put hints of the past in there as little Easter eggs for fans?

Thomas: We've never been comfortable being a band that has our faces on the cover of a record. And early on, it was a funny thing. The labels would get really mad. We put out Yourself or Someone Like You with that dude's big, beautiful head on there. And then Mad Season, which is that piece of art that Paul found, More Than You Think You Are was a direct response to a great guy who was the president of Atlantic Records at the time, who was just like, "We just want you guys on the cover. Just be on the cover." So it was our joke to have us with our hands over our faces and just knowing that they had to spend a lot of money on a billboard in Times Square of all of us up there. We actually sent him a framed photograph of four pictures of him with hands over his face and we're like, "Here, this is for you." So I think in a sense of there, not a throwback to that record, but there's a throwback to the idea of "Hey, look, we're on the cover, but we're not really on the cover."

At what point did "Wild Dogs" come to you?

Doucette: The very end. We were kind of done and I had this track. I sent it to Rob and Craig and Rob was like, "I think I hear a different melody on top of it." And this goes back to one of the things I was talking about before about not being so precious where he was like, "Do you mind if I write something else on it?" And I had something completely different on there. Because I'm the same way. I just want to try to make the best record we can make. If Rob has a better idea, go for it. Do your thing.

But has it happened to you before where you're at the tail end of a process and then you get a stroke of genius and it becomes a single or a lead single?

Thomas: "Disease..." And that was a different time because it wasn't like now where everything just kind of comes out. I always associate, when we first started out 20 years ago, everything was a funnel. You controlled the point of entry on everything and you were very precious about what the first song was going to be and who was going to air it, how it was going to be heard. You have that ability. And then over the years that funnel's become a collinear. And so once it goes in, it comes out everywhere at one time.

And so that experience doesn't exist now. It's another experience that that's just as gratifying to be a part of. It's just, it's completely different. And once it's out there, it's just out. It's not like, "Oh, it's going to premiere on the radio for the first time, or this video is going to premiere on MTV." I remember even before us, when I was a little kid, sitting at home every hour on the hour staying up for 24 hours because they played Prince's "Raspberry Beret" video every hour on the hour. And they would announce it all hour. "Coming up in 18 minutes."

What would you say is the biggest difference between this record and everything you've put out in the past?

Thomas: I think we genuinely say that whenever we're done with something, we gave you the best record that we could possibly make at that time. And we as individuals, we listen to so much other kinds of music than just two guitars and drums and a bass. So that needs to be represented in here as well.

And how do you discover new music? Rob, you've been doing it every day for a very long time, your "Song of the Day" tweets.

Thomas: If I like something, I throw it into my playlist and then it goes, "Oh, you like that? Well then try this, motherf---er." And I like how it keeps up in the bar on there. I think Spotify is a pretty good place to go for me just to hit play and walk around my living room doing whatever I'm doing and just going, "Oh s---, I like that."

My son is a really big influence on those things, too. He's 24, he's a musician. And I mean, he's just got bands that are out of this world. They're jazz-fusion polka s--- where he's just like, "This is crazy." And I like that he has that kind of life where they'll go on a road trip to go see this band because they're playing in San Francisco or something. I appreciate that he has that zest for wanting to discover new music as well.

That's something else I wanted to ask. This is the first time you're releasing a record where you've got adult children to experience this process with you. What is that like just having them around for this?

Doucette: My kid sings on the record. My kid has a great voice, so I definitely utilize that. But honestly, I think that secretly they think it's kind of cool, but realistically they don't care. They're like whatever. When they were little, they saw us play and after I got off stage, they asked me, "Why do you act like that on stage?" Because it was so foreign. I'm not that person on stage to them.

What do you hope this record in general can say about you guys, it being your first in over a decade?

Doucette: When someone's been around for a long time, the first time you listen to something, you're listening through expectation. You have a whole vision of what you think this is supposed to sound like. And then nine times out of 10, it doesn't. And so you have to live with it for a second. And I think that that's true of everything. I had that experience when I listened to Harry's House for the first time, I was like, oh, I don't know. I don't know if he did it this time. And then two more listens, I was like, "I'm an idiot."

Thomas: It's like when we were younger and when No Doubt made that switch over from the Ska thing into "Hella Good." And it was like the first listen, I was just like, wow, this is out there. And then the second listen, I'm just like, and the third listen, I'm just like, "This is my f---ing jam..." There's a journey that's gone on there each time as we've moved forward. And the reason why that's been allowed to happen is that we've been really fortunate with fans that take that journey with us and give us a little leeway.

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