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41

1

or the love of Moses,"
Adam Gaynor says once
again in his running b con-
versation on music, his
versation
family, Judaism and his band, the
pop/rock group Matchbox Twenty.
I use the phrase regularly, at least
once a day," he says. He's not sure
where he got it, but says it's just one
way he connects with his Jewishness.
The guitarist/vocalist spoke after
enduring an eight-hour flight delay on
the way to Fargo, N.D., where
Matchbox Twenty was beginning
rehearsals for an upcoming tour that
brings the band to the DTE Energy
Music Theatre on Friday, Aug. 10.
If only two hours of sleep and eight
hours of rehearsal slowed Gaynor
down any it certainly wasn't apparent.
Then again, it must be a quite a
rush to be part of a band whose first
album, Yourself Or Someone Like You,
has sold 11 million copies since its
release in 1996, generating such radio
hits as 'Push," "Real World" and
"Back 2 Good."
And 14 months after the group's
second album, Mad Season, peaked at
No. 3 on the Billboard charts, it still
ranks in the Top 100, having gone
multi-platinum and remaining a staple
of modern rock, adult alternative and
Top 40 radio stations. It also earned a
2000 Grammy nomination for Best
Rock Album for the band, whose
sound has been classified as "a blend
of '70s arena rock and early '90s
American alterna-rock."
Gaynor is quire proud that, on the
band's last tour for that album, they
sold out Madison Square Garden in
his hometown of New York (he lived
there until his teens) in just 40 min-
utes. Detroit sold out in four hours.
Matchbox Twenty got its start as
Tabitha's Secret in the early 1990s in
Orlando, Fla., with future Grammy-
winner Rob Thomas (for his collabo-

-

E

8/3
2001

84

A va

l tftwo
e m

Don Cohen is a West Bloomfield-based
freelance writer-.

ration with Santana on the smash hit
"Smooth") on vocals, Brian Yale —
the band's other Jewish member — on
bass, and Paul Doucette on drums.
In the mid-'90s, they wooed Kyle
Cook (guitar/vocals) away from his
studies at Atlanta Institute of Music
and Gaynor away from his office job
at Miami's Criteria Recording Studio
to form Matchbox Twenty. The post-
grunge guitar band signed with
Lava/Atlantic almost immediately and
soon recorded their debut album,
finding almost instantaneous success.

Jewish Roots

While he had no hesitation telling a
secular Vancouver newspaper that he is
"just a nice Jewish boy from Florida,"
Gaynor obviously doesn't get asked
much about his Jewishness. At first, he
seemed a bit at a loss to address the
issue. But then, it seemed to boil
down to family and values.
"I am proud of my heritage, and
definitely when I have kids they will
be raised Jewish," he says. "My inner
beliefs are very important and, while I
am non-practicing, I miss the seders
and Chanukah, candle-lighting I had
with my family.
"I'm always on the run and I lose
touch with my family and the holidays.
It's kind of sad that I'm missing out."
His respect and love for his family is
evident in his liner notes on Mad
Season, where he touchingly thanks his
parents and sister. And the fact he
likes to talk about his grandmother is
noted on many of the numerous
Matchbox Twenty fan pages on the
Internet.
When this reporter told him that
one such site, "Lauren's Adam Gaynor
Page," had a Torah scroll rolling and
unrolling at the bottom of the home
page linking to e-mail, he was excited.
"Really? That's cool," he says. "I
have to check that out!"
Born in 1964, Gaynor feels he was
somehow predestined to make it in
the music business. As a youngster, he
says he was the kid "everyone thought
would be famous.

