After years of support from your show, and building what we thought to be a strong relationship between us and your station, I'm sad to have to write this letter. On the North Carolina leg of our radio promo tour, I came down with food poisoning. Not that I have to, but let me give you a peek into what was my morning.
At 4 a.m., I woke up, and began vomiting. This lasted for 5 hours straight, until 9 a.m, causing us to miss our first radio appointment. Then, I made my next stop, but was too sick to sing so we signed for over 150 very understanding fans, after which I was sick again. We then made it to our next station after an hour stuck in traffic on a two-lane road. We were very late but managed to squeak out 3 songs.
At this time, Paul and I were still planning to make it to your station, when our record company informed us that time would no longer allow and we had to move on to our next non-radio event that was scheduled. (I'm sure you know that we are not hovered over our computers making our own routing and schedules.) We were concerned about missing our appointment with you, but were assured by our record company that they had explained it to you and we would make it up.
After doing this for years with some level of success, this is not the first time that we have had to cancel a station. In the past, we make a plan with the station that we missed and ALWAYS follow through and make good. Actually, I was in the middle of scheduling a 5:30 a.m. flight in November to Charlotte to do the make up gig, when we saw on our website that you had completely jumped the gun and started to speak out on the air about how you weren't going to play our music until we apologize in person to you. Even though this is the first time a DJ has ever publicly blackmailed us, we have pretty thick skin and would have still found a way to work something out with your station. The final straw for us was that you chose to read and make fun of letters that fans sent you, trying to defend us. To make great radio stations, you need DJs, the bands they play and, most importantly, the fans who listen. It's our belief that you have left out two of those three things.
We are not precious; far from it, but we have worked hard over the last 15 years (always respectful of radio and all it's given us,) and refuse to be publicly blackmailed. We would like to give the 12 fans who we missed that day free tickets and passes to our show at the beginning of next year and after that, we respect if your decision is to not play anymore MATCHBOX or Rob Thomas records. We thank you for the years of support and are sorry it has to come to an end, but there is no way we will ever apologize after being threatened on the air.
Sincerely,
Rob Thomas & MATCHBOX TWENTY
P.S. The "thanks to Matt and Ramona" on the CD credit was to Matt and Ramona Serletic, not you.