Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas [ tickets ] doesn't realize how good he has it. "This Is How a Heart Breaks," from his top-selling debut solo album "... Something to Be," has been chosen to promote the NBA playoffs featuring the Detroit Pistons vs. Miami Heat, and the Phoenix Suns vs. San Antonio Spurs.

Last year, the Black Eyed Peas cemented their success when "Let's Get It Started" was adopted by the NBA as the theme song to the 2004 playoffs.

"All my friends are much more excited than I am, because I don't know anything about sports," Thomas said. "They're going, 'No dude. It's big. Trust me. It's big.' I don't know anything about any sport, period. [The NBA] put together a mock video to show me what it would be like, and I thought it was pretty cool."

Thomas recently wrapped up a club tour to promote the album, which, according to his website, marked a couple of firsts: it was the first time a male artist from a rock or pop group debuted at No. 1 with his first solo album, and it was also the first album released exclusively as DualDisc to hit No. 1 on the charts. (A DualDisc houses the full album on the CD side and video presentations on the flip side.)

Was it hard to get used to playing with new guys on your club tour?

Oddly enough, no. I think I started working live with other people after I made a whole record. I'd already kind of gotten used to working with different musicians and making new friends, so to speak. When I got out doing it live, it was amazing how this band fell together and how everybody just played so well together. We had an instant musical bond. It was great. I've been really fortunate.

Why do you think the first single, "Lonely No More," struck such a chord with fans?

I just don't know. I hope it's a fun song. It's not a heavy song. It's a good song for the spring and summer. It's hard to ever say what's going to make a connection or not. It's such a subjective business. I have certain songs that, to me, aren't my favorites because you're in a band and everybody has a say. Sometimes, you wind up putting things on the record that you don't love. Someone will come up to me and say, "That's my favorite song. I love that song." I'd be like, "Really?" And that's me talking about things I wrote. It's really hard to say. The things that you think are going to do great sometimes don't turn out great. The things you don't think much of ... when I wrote [the Matchbox Twenty song] "If You're Gone," it was just, to me, a pretty little song that I had that I almost didn't bring to the band. I didn't think it was something that anybody would find interesting. It turned out to be one of our biggest hits. The one thing to do is, when you start off, don't try to think about it. When I listen to my songs, I think about what takes me somewhere else, what really makes me feel something. That should be the song that goes on the record. I'm a pretty normal guy. I'm a fair cross-section of some sort of demographic. If it takes me somewhere, I imagine it'll take somebody else somewhere.

Was it a different process writing songs for your solo album than it was for Matchbox Twenty?

"Lonely No More," if I would have brought that song to the band, I'm sure they would have been like, "No, no, no, no." I would have probably ended up having it on Carlos' [Santana] record or something. I think that being able to have freedom to make my own decisions about which songs should go on the record is reason to have a solo record right there.

When you were writing Matchbox Twenty songs, did you specifically save songs that you thought would be good for your solo album? Or did you specifically write for your solo album when the time came?.

No, I don't like to save anything. If I'm working on something, I'll see what the best songs I have are. If anything, sometimes I'll bring a song to Willie Nelson and the [Matchbox Twenty] guys will be like, "Oh why didn't we save that?" There's a song called "I Am an Illusion" on my new record that I brought to the band that Paul [Doucette, Matchbox Twenty's drummer] didn't want to do. So we wound up not doing it on the record. It was one that hung around that I liked a lot, so I put it on this record.

So you wrote most of the songs just before you recorded the album?

While I was in the studio making the record. It seems like a good time, because you're trusting your instincts, which is all that writing is: your subconscious mind kind of hearing melodies and you're trying to write them down. Sometimes in the studio, it's such a creative environment that you really get a lot more done. There are so many songs that get written after you start making the record. You go in and you start working on a small idea, but because you're in the studio--because it feels creative there--you start working on it and you turn it into a song.

Does that songwriting process differ when you're writing for Matchbox Twenty?

Not really. So that part doesn't change much. On the last record, there were two songs that a few of us wrote together. Then there was a song that Kyle [Cook, Matchbox Twenty's guitarist] wrote and a song that Paul wrote. They write on their own at their house, just like I write a lot of the stuff, and then we bring it to the band.

Do you see yourself recording with Matchbox Twenty again?

Yeah, for sure. We have no idea when. Paul just finished a solo record that he hasn't even put out yet. So he still wants to do that.

So are you and the rest of the band on a break to pursue solo careers?

Yeah. We've just been doing this for 10 years together. We needed time to go out and get the inspiration somewhere else.

What was it like to work with Robert Randolph and John Mayer on your album?

They're great. They're both, to me, two of the best contemporary guitar players we have right now. In 25 years, I think either one of these guys could easily be compared to Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana or Buddy Guy. They're so talented and they're such good people. I think that carries a long way in this business.

How did you hook up with them?

With Robert, it was more of, like, I was just aware of him and liked his record a lot. I thought that the part that this song called for ... it just should have been him. With John, it was different. John lives in New York and I live in New York. We just kept running into each other. I just said, "Do you want to come over tomorrow and maybe have some lunch and play on a song?"

Did they write their own parts?

Yes. For Robert, it's this rippin' solo. You can't write that. It's like an extension of him. You really can't write that. John Mayer, a lot of my favorite parts, he wrote. He wrote the intro to "Streetcorner Symphony." A lot of the parts he plays on the record, we let the track play and let him feel what he feels. That's why you pick certain people to work with. Like, you want to work with Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but you don't want to have that 30 years of knowledge in the business in the room and tell it what to play. You want him there to tell you what to do to your song.

Tell me about your fall tour that you have coming up. Any plans yet?

A little bit. The only reference we have so far is the club tour we just did, which was great. It was a lot of fun. In so many ways, it's a different show than a Matchbox show. There's so much to do with these musicians in a different configuration of a band. We've got all the record songs down, now it's just about learning great covers, I guess. [Laughs]

Do you play Matchbox Twenty songs in concert?

Not with a band. Sometimes I'll come out and play a song acoustically. But I don't like to have guys in the new band play parts from the guys in the old band.