Jimmy Conquer Mainstream

In the not so distant past, the bulk of my esteemed music collection seemed to mirror the collective vision, passion and rage of primarily underground artists. Each disc, record or tape existed as a sonic reminder of the disregard that disaffected youth had, and still has toward mainstream America and corporate agendas. Although the majority of these treasures remain intact in this refined ethos, there are those whose presence now represents a fledgling revolution; an ambiance flecked with the scent of major label success and mainstream acceptance, despite their once defiant air.
Regardless of how frustrated you may feel when these groups attain recognition, it’s unbelievably tough to, in essence, discard your fond memories of them; the brief time before the leeches caught wind of your precious secret. It’s even tougher when you’re talking about the purveyors of the emo-pop movement, and further, the exhumers of the rock ballad sing-a-long, Mesa, AZ’s Jimmy Eat World.
Synthesis recently had the pleasure of chatting up such issues with bassist Rick Burch while he and his band mates zigzagged across the country on yet another tour.
Unless you’ve been residing snugly underneath a rock in the Mojave Desert, you should be aware that before Jimmy Eat World burst onto the scene with 2001’s brilliant self-titled third album, the musical landscape of North America resembled the musty bravado of an overzealous high school football rally. And while rocking the boat may not have been Jimmy Eat World’s intention, the reaction to its seamless blend of emotionally charged, lullaby pop vignettes stood in stark contrast to the bro-core stylings of a majority of pop music’s heads of state, thus marking an upheaval in the mainstream, poorly dubbed “emo.”
Criticisms of this tag are of little use at this point, but despite the relatively modest insurgence of such bands, Jimmy Eat World remains the genre’s most prominent members, though perhaps reluctantly. “I don’t wanna take credit for anything, I think [the advent of emo] was destined to happen anyway,” asserts Burch.
October marked the release of Jimmy Eat World’s fourth full-length album, Futures, which, according to Burch, emerges as an impromptu sequel to 1999’s seminal disc Clarity.
“When we made the last record, we were limited on studio time, we were paying for it ourselves,” explains Burch. “We didn’t have the freedom to experiment with layers and different ideas and we were really crunched for time, which is why that one was so bare-boned. On this one, we had as much time as we needed so it opened us up to go back and do what we did on Clarity.”
True to form, Jimmy Eat World’s latest release aptly explores areas of sound that few bands dared to before their raucous success. Initially, the band had achieved some moderate notoriety with Clarity’s reluctant single “Lucky Denver Mint” being featured on the Drew Barrymore film Never Been Kissed. Yet, this kind of exposure, at the time probably euphoric, is nothing compared to the level of spotlight attached to the group’s hit tune “The Middle,” which was widely hailed as one of the best rock songs of 2001 and furthermore, whose video (featuring a gaggle of underwear-clad teens and twenty-somethings) earned them a VMA nomination from MTV.
The onslaught of attention the band endured as a result of the success of “The Middle” caught the band by surprise.
“It was pretty weird. It’s strange, even just hearing it on the radio the first time, even still it’s weird,” explains Burch. The bassist’s tale of a karaoke night gone awry elaborates further the surreal impact on the band. “Jim [Adkins, vocals/guitar] actually entered a karaoke contest and sang ‘Sweetness’ and he lost! How do you lose a karaoke contest to your own song? The other guy was really theatrical though,” jokes Burch.
Keeping things in perspective may be why Jimmy Eat World has been able to persevere, even after touring for almost two years in support of their self-titled third album. Bringing in a new producer, Gil Norton, after leaning on the expertise of Mark Trombino for all of their previous albums, added a unique vision to the group’s sound.
“He [Norton] was a new ingredient in the mix,” states Burch. “To have someone other than Mark changed things greatly. I think it was good also that we had gotten really comfortable with Mark, and we weren’t really pushing ourselves as hard as we could. Having Gil there, he was definitely able to pull things out of us that we were to lazy to get on our own.”
In spite of my most basic urges to secure and defend some artists whose impact on my short tenure remains vital, still the saying goes, “If you love someone, set them free…” or some such nonsense. I’m pretty sure Jimmy Eat World won’t be regressing into the murky dungeon of the underground anytime soon, or probably ever again, so why dwell on it? The fact that their success means hope for a previously disregarded faction of the populace exhibits that their aim is true and that their true fans will revere them no matter what. And so will I.

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