Rob Thomas' Unusual Journey: Unapologetic Pop Star Opens Up

There are lots of things you likely don't know about Matchbox Twenty and solo singer Rob Thomas — that he survived a violent redneck childhood, that his weed-dealer grandmother hired a serial killer to off an ex-boyfriend, that he thinks Third Eyed Blind's Stephan Jenkins is "really just a cock." As Thomas releases new solo LP Cradlesong, Erik Hedegaard gets one music's bona fide pop stars to peel back his mellow nice-guy exterior and go beyond "being one-dimensional," as Thomas puts it, in a revealing profile in the new issue of Rolling Stone.

Grab the issue for the full story, and take a look back how far Thomas has come — his career, in photos:
• Rob Thomas' Journey: From Matchbox Twenty Frontman to Chart-Topping Solo Artist

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  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
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  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
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  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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