Band of one

Rob Thomas has a problem.

He can’t stop saying “we” when talking about his upcoming solo album, “Something To Be”: We’re going on tour. We just shot a video. We…

“I’m so used to being in a band,” he says.

No surprise there. Thomas’ biggest musical moments have come in the company of others, from fronting the multiplatinum-selling matchbox twenty to working with Carlos Santana on the Grammy-winning “Smooth.”

But now Thomas is making music by himself. And he may be onto something: His first single, “Lonely No More,” is climbing the charts weeks ahead of the album’s April 19 release.

“When it first came out, we” – there’s that word again – “did really good with radio play,” Thomas says. “But there’s that part of you where you think maybe over the last 10 years you’ve gained radio’s ‘We’ll play it when it comes out’ support,’ whether they like it or not.”

“But when it goes on like this, you’re almost afraid to think they really like it.”

In a Manhattan studio, Thomas tapped his foot and nodded his head while giving a reporter a sneak peek at the album. It was decidedly not rock ‘n’ roll, blending drums, bass and keyboards to create danceable beats.

“It’s different just because there are not two guitars, a drummer and a bass player anymore,” he says. “It allows me to go to different places musically.”

And oh, does he.

“Lonely No More” is about a guy warning his girl not to play with his emotions. The lyrics belong to a matchbox album, but the music makes it as likely to be heard in a pulsing dance club as well as a darkened bar.

There’s a little country inspiration on “My, My, My” and the dark “Now Comes the Night.”

Thomas characterizes the ballad “Ever The Same” as his last five minutes of a John Hughes movie, thanks to its ‘80s sound. He wrote it for his wife, model Marisol Thomas, when she was battling a lingering illness, the story of a man promising to be there through the tough times.

The title track, “Something To Be,” is about the 33-year-old Thomas trying to find his own niche.

“At 17 or 18, I had my rock star attitude,” he says. “You know, the parties and the girls. I probably would have hated me if I had heard me talking about being a rock star.

“That was what rock ‘n’ roll was to us then. Then things change,” he says.

“You grow up, you get married and you build a life together. That is my new rock ‘n’ roll.”

Thomas says the inspiration for the song “I Am An Illusion,” reminiscent of matchbox’s megahit “Mad Season” and featuring the band’s guitarist Kyle Cook, came from “that feeling of being bogged down by everyday life.”

The song, he says, was actually written before the band recorded “Mad Season.”

As matchbox twenty, he says, “We have done something really special, and to abandon it wouldn’t make sense. I always want to be able to go back to matchbox twenty. But I don’t want to go back to matchbox because I have to.

“I feel like matchbox is the best of what we do, the genre. That’s a feat,” he adds.

“But it also limits what you can do. Here, I’m doing something new. It sounds a little borrowed, a little pieced and a little glued together.”

It’s also darker than his previous work, best exemplified on the song “All That I Am,” written after he saw Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ.” The song opens with bells and an orchestra, which sounds like an army marching to war.

Thomas is auditioning a band to go out on the road, first with a club tour in late spring and then a more traditional tour. Hundreds of hopefuls have turned out for the opportunity, and Thomas has enlisted matchbox’s keyboard player to screen the applicants.

“He goes out through the first really bad 100 guitar players and then he sends me five to check out,” Thomas said. “I can’t go through the ‘American Idol’ audition process.

“This is not a rock record. It’s not about how fast you play. This record is about the best drummer and the best player.”

And you?

“Yeah. And me.”