Rob Thomas: No, I just think they leave us alone a little more. The thing is, selling a whole bunch of records doesn't make you a better band, so if you do it on your first record, you still have to realize the shortcomings you have as a band. To people who don't like your band, maintaining success isn't going to make them go, "Okay, I like them now." They're still not going to like what you do, but maybe they'll respect the fact that you still manage to do it honestly.

PB: What do you think the late great music critic Lester Bangs would say about Matchbox Twenty?

RT: I hate to think about that. It's funny. I remember once somebody asked me what I thought because Mike D from the Beastie Boys made a comment that bands like Matchbox Twenty and Third Eye Blind were clogging up America's airwaves or something. I didn't know what to say. I think the Beastie Boys are really fucking cool, so that really gets under your skin when you start to realize that people you love might not like your band.

PB: You recently told Matt Lauer on The Today Show the name of your band doesn't fit anymore. How so?

RT: Not a lot of time and thought went into picking the name. We had the idea that, just like when you're born, you're given a name and it takes on its own personality. When people think of you, they think of your general nature and it fits with your name. We'd just come up with a name. "Matchbox Twenty, that sounds like it. It doesn't mean anything, but as we start to grow, that will be what it is." Some days we don't know if we like it, but we're stuck with it.

PB: What would you change it to if you could?

RT: U2... [Laughs] U2 II.

PB: Do you know Bono?

RT: No. I got all excited once because I was at the Grammys and I got to present the award to U2 when they won. As I handed it off, he walked by me and he shook my hand and he goes, "How you doin', Rob?" I was like, "Dude, Bono knows my name."

PB: You ran away from home when you were 17. How long were you gone?

RT: Until now. For a while I would live at friends' houses, because their parents would let me stay there for a week or so. Or sometimes I'd sleep in a friend's car, then, when their parents would leave for work, I'd get up and take a shower in their house. And I would still manage to make it to school...for a while. The only reason I quit school was because I was in a band. We played at a Sheraton in Vero Beach. I was like, "This is it! I'm at a Sheraton in Vero Beach! We're fucking rock stars now!" What else was I going to do? I was bitten by the bug.

PB: How come you don't have a rock and roll haircut?

RT: What's a rock and roll haircut? We work our asses off onstage. I've tried to put some kind of gel in my hair, and that sticky shit just comes running down, man. You're sweating and you feel like a fucking popsicle's melting and running down your face. It's not worth it.

PB: The subtext of that question is that you don't coif like a rock star. Leather pants aside, you look pretty wholesome.

RT: Hopefully I'm starting to plant the seeds for aging gracefully. I'm starting to do that so when I look back I'm not embarrassed by anything I've done. I don't want to have my "Dancin' in the Street" video somewhere down the road.

PB: Speaking of Mick Jagger, how did you come to co-write the song "Visions of Paradise" for his Goddess in the Doorway album?