LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Rob Thomas is a busy guy -- so busy, he apparently hasn't had much time to check in with his Matchbox Twenty bandmates.



Rob Thomas prefers to focus on the "musician" side of his career, rather than "celebrity."



We only know this because we ran into guitarist Paul Doucette at the BMI Pop Awards in Beverly Hills several weeks ago, where he was picking up a plaque for songwriter of the year.



"We're interviewing Rob about his solo album," I told him.



"Hey," Doucette exclaimed. "Tell that guy to call me, would you? I didn't even know he was in L.A.!"



By the time we met up with Thomas the next day, he and Doucette had already connected over drinks somewhere between midnight and the morning -- musician's hours.



Thomas recently released "Cradlesong," his second solo CD. Even though he's clearly excited about it, he spends as much time talking about Matchbox Twenty as he does the solo album he's in town to promote. For the 37-year-old singer-songwriter, it's all interconnected. One has fed into the other since he gained household name status a decade ago, after scoring a massive, Grammy-winning hit with Carlos Santana on "Smooth."  Watch Thomas describe the difference between being a celebrity and a musician »



The following is an edited version of the interview.



CNN: Who has given you the best piece of advice?



Rob Thomas: Carlos [Santana] will constantly send you messages out of nowhere. Carlos will call me at 10 at night and be like, "Listen, I had a dream about you, and so much good is happening, but there's dark forces at work, and when you get out of here, I have this woman who wants to cleanse you." I think Carlos' most important piece of advice ever was that he taught me the difference between being a celebrity and being a famous musician.



CNN: But some artists don't have that kind of success, and they try for celebrity instead.



Thomas: Sure, and sometimes that works -- but none of my favorites have done that.



I remember when Matchbox Twenty started years ago, and we had a lot of success, but nobody knew who we were. The first time we did an interview with MTV, it was about how no one knew who we were. We had sold 8 million records. I don't know if we were being naive at the time, but we thought we'd won because our songs were more famous than we were.



I'm much more known for the music that I make than what I do with my life. It's never, "Oh yeah, I've been seeing you in [the New York Post gossip column] Page Six at these clubs that you go to" or "I know who you're sleeping with."



CNN: When you became famous for being Rob Thomas the solo artist, did that cause problems within the band?



Thomas: No. I think the guys would rather it be me than them. None of them want the job, and they realize that it's working now. They have a singer. I can go out and do it [publicity] for them, and they're fine with it. They can stay home.



I think there's nothing more attractive than wealth and anonymity. If I'm not out supporting my work, I really don't want people to see me. I go to movie premieres -- my wife and I -- all the time, and nine out of 10 of those movie premieres, much to my publicist's dismay, I get there, but I sneak around the pictures and get into the party [using the back entrance]. If I have a record coming out, I'll go in front of the cameras, and I'll say, "Hi! Hey, I'm at this movie premiere." I liken it to being a switch that I can
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