Going by singles and album charts and sales, it’s easy to assume that the high point in the career of Jimmy Eat World came with the band’s third album, 2001’s “Bleed American” and its hit single, “The Middle.”
But singer-guitarist Jim Adkins notes that album sales and chart positions don’t tell the whole story of a band’s career journey. At least that’s the case for Jimmy Eat World, as this year marks 30 years since Adkins, guitarist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind came together in Mesa, Arizona.
“‘Bleed American’ gave us a start. It definitely changed things for us,” Adkins said in a recent interview. “But we’re playing bigger shows now to more people than we ever have. Like, we’re playing at Red Rocks (Park & Amphitheatre near Denver, Colorado). We’re playing Central Park. We’re playing at the Greek (Theatre in Los Angeles). We couldn’t do any of those, even at the time when ‘The Middle’ was like the top song in the country and we were on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ It just started something for us that we’ve been fortunate enough to sort of nurture along and then build from there. It definitely gave us a big jump. It was the nitro for our race car. Now we’re just cruising along.”
Jimmy Eat World is opening for the Offspring across the country this summer on a tour that brings the bands to Alpharetta’s Ameris Bank Amphitheatre on Tuesday, July 15.
Credit: (Courtesy of Jimi Giannatti)
Credit: (Courtesy of Jimi Giannatti)
Beyond material from “Futures” and “Bleed American,” Adkins and his bandmates have plenty of song choices at this point. The band’s catalog includes 10 studio albums, the most recent of which was 2019’s “Surviving.” But the band has since released a trio of stand-alone singles, “Something Loud,” “Telepath” and “Place Your Debts,” the latter of which reached No. 21 on Billboard magazine’s Alternative Airplay chart.
“We put out the singles because we’d never done that before and we wanted to see if we could meet listeners where they’re at when it seems like so much is consumed (track) by track, instead of by album, on playlists rather than full-lengths,” Adkins said.
There certainly have been times when Jimmy Eat World’s albums have connected. as well. That’s especially true of “Bleed American,” which became a platinum-selling hit and gave the band their its No. 1 single, “The Middle,” which topped Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart and peaked at No. 5 on the magazine’s all-genre Hot 100 singles chart.
The next Jimmy Eat World album, “Futures,” gave the band another Alternative Airplay chart topper with the song “Pain.” Subsequent albums, if not as popular, have generally peaked in the top 20 of the Billboard chart and several later singles have been top 10 Alternative Airplay hits.
“Bleed American” and “Futures” (along with the band’s third album, 1999’s “Clarity”) also got Jimmy Eat World recognized as one of the founding fathers of emo, the musical genre characterized by emotionally charged, often confessional lyrics. Band members never really embraced that label, feeling that it didn’t capture Jimmy Eat World’s catchy and rocking brand of guitar pop, but have come to terms with it.
Adkins will even allow that there have been benefits to being called emo.
“It’s a mixed bag, for sure,” Adkins said of the label. “I think people want to categorize bands in music, and if you don’t have any category, it’s a little tougher for the elevator pitch, why your friends should check out this thing that you like. So I think in that regard, it’s helped because it’s been like a shorthand to describe a scene that we sort of came up in, I guess. As far as helping you out musically with what that might actually sound like, it’s not very helpful. But for better or worse, it describes the period of time and the scene we were involved with.
Despite it being two decades or so since emo peaked as a “thing” in the rock music scene, Adkins has accepted the idea that Jimmy Eat World will always be considered emo.
“I don’t think we can escape it now. We crossed the event horizon some time ago,” he said. “Now it’s just like I could try to argue with people why where I grew up and what scene I came up in exactly, why I feel like that describes something other than what we do. But it’s just wasted breath. At this point, if somebody finds something we do that they can connect with, however that comes to be, is a huge compliment. It’s the only validation that really matters in music and art. So if that comes with emo being a part of that whole equation, then I am grateful.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
Jimmy Eat World
7 p.m. Tuesday (opening for the Offspring). $30-plus. Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, 2200 Encore Parkway, Alpharetta. livenation.com.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
