Jimmy Eat World - London, UK - Spring 2005
By: Samantha Hall
Jimmy Eat World are far from poets or revolutionaries, but few can deny that they make you feel.
As frontman Jim Adkins was once famously quoted, 'When you're young, everything seems better - you care so intensely, so deeply about everything... and, when you grow up a bit, you kind of laugh at yourself for being so serious, but are quietly crushed at how you did used to care so much about everything.'
To feel, to soak in and ponder and grip so tenderly to some simple melodies and a gentle chorus line is nothing to be disgraced over. By far, many would agree that it is in those tender moments that there is the most pure and earnest passion... the most poignancy. It's not in the climax of the entangled limbs of the hot lovers that is the power, but the loving kiss on the forehead afterwards that usually makes us glow.
Jimmy Eat World... ate the world, for many. They certainly ate my world... the band of my real adolescence, they made live shows worth being ripped and crushed to pieces for. A band for the youth - for the 'caring'... who have now moved on to 'far trendier, sexier' pastures and left their two-feet purple Camden flares back in the mosh-pit.
Oh, to feel. To really feel. What a beautiful thing... not to let beats and guitar-flutterings wash over you with bashful admiration, but to really gorge a lump in your throat and a twist in the deepest valves of your heart. It takes a lot for us - the adult, openly condescending muso-obsessives of today.
On the dawn of the re-release of their fourth album 'Futures' - this time, 'Futures - Tour Edition' - we slide up to Rich and Zach, the rhythm-section of JEW, in the rather coolly conditioned Royal Gardens Hotel lounge bar. Jim, unfortunately, has been suffering throat difficulties and to 'save' him for the show at the sold-out Astoria tonight he is not present. Tim is just sorting out some 'personal affairs' and should be down before our time is out, although we see a certain guitarist with one acquaintance in hand, striding out in search of the nearest source of Macchiatos while waiting in the lobby... Regardless, we begin.
'Futures' is a far more complex work than its predecessor 'Bleed American'. An older, 'grown-up' album. Although the quartet do indeed attract the younger generations of rockers, we're not tackling pop punkers here... there's nothing more eyebrow-raising than a group of punk demons cavorting round the stage approaching the other end of 30. No; Sum 41 imitations are a far cry away. Angular harmonies - concentrated, sugared-up and simmered to perfection. God, this LP could be feeding film soundtracks for years; guitar-solos (not so frequent on their earlier releases) and an accompanying CD2 full of rough, garage-style recordings of earlier songs entitled, imaginatively, 'Demos'.
'It gives people a little bit of glimpse of the life of a song - the original recording, how it's different, we thought it was an interesting insight into the creative process... you know, sometimes, we record them nine or ten times over... before the real final (track). Hearing early versions, you can hear bits we thought were cool and expanded on, or get rid of...'
An echo of ideology to counter the idea of any inevitable 'The Singles' release indeed.
But why, if having so much admiration for simplicity and songs in pure form, release one of the most heavily produced and refined albums of the year?
'Haha... (Rich tuts not so energetically - sipping at his ever so tiny little cappuccino with his ever so big hands.) We appreciate both kinds of recording, but we want to be as good as possible. We have lots of pretty rough recordings.'
Zach chirps up. 'Sometimes, it's funny; you make an album and you can never represent the rough version - never recapture that quality... even with better equipment, a recording studio...you never know when that moment's gonna happen... and there's usually no good gear around.'
He sniffles and looks bashfully down. 'It's all about the energy in the room. It's really weird.'
'If we have the opportunity to work with really amazing people and equipment, we're going to take it. It may not happen again,' concludes Rich maturely.
And how the mood's changed between albums. JEW had been away so long - lifestyle-changes and influences from being ordinary guys plodding 'round dear Arizona to worldwide super-emo-heroes must have had some kind of profound effect on the thing we like to call 'music making'? If not in a direct, narrative content, but at least in the complexities and depth of their sound, their technique? In this post-Strokes, post 9/11 world, the emo rock nest must have been flustered...
'It's surprising how you have a new type of success - like we're doing even better. It's easy to get whatever attention you want for stupid things... a particular genre... labels... I prefer to play 'uncool' music, but to have people like it.' They snigger together.
'We toured so hard, so constantly for two years, we weren't really thinking about the next album, it's really hard to switch gears from tour to creative... It took a while.' Zach has such an intense earnestness it's hard to distain anything he says as a routine press hotchpotch.
'We had loads of ideas... about thirty... a huge pile for songs...' chips in Rich.
'But we learnt from our experience, we're being aware, keeping our minds creative, so the album's out sooner next time,' interrupts Zach.
'9/11, gee. People thought more about lyrics... they didn't just write 'bout the party, but people turned back real fast. It faded very fast. You know what I mean? 50 Cent's got people singing about being pimps and then you got us...'
Perhaps us Europeans are just more empathetic? JEW's battle-plans over our little continent this year can be claimed as nothing but extensive. Attacking Reading, supporting Green Day on their megadome dates and merging kids on all sides of the art-rock jitter/punk-rock thrash borderline...
'It seems like, in the UK, if you'd go to see Korn - like a harder rock - or Limpbizkit, you may come see us. It's more open-minded over here in regards to what music is, so many different kinds. The UK's small, but every city is a music city... It has a live music scene... It's not that way back home... Kids aren't so used to going to real rock shows.'
And the biggest change over the past two years?
'We built our own studio. 'Futures' was definitely like chasing your fairytale. It was deliberate, that sound; it was more refined.'
And so Jimmy will rule - as they do best - as a quaint, simply motivated band from Arizona that touched teenage, brooding hearts; passion and uncomplicated fervour for everyday life that can perhaps warm the edges of even the more 'astute' of us. One self-confessed, former emo-chick included.
Artists in this article: Jimmy Eat World