Jimmy Eat World return with new album after three years
By KELLY WILSON
Get Out

The four members of Jimmy Eat World kick back on a cushy sofa in their Tempe studio, looking a bit frazzled.

You can’t blame them.

Recently returned from a concert tour in Europe, the East Valley band, which rose to national prominence with their million-selling 2001 self-titled CD, finally will release their much-anticipated follow-up, “Futures,” Tuesday.

They will perform on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” Thursday and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Oct. 22, followed by an Oct. 23 concert in Tempe. Then they will hit the road — again — for a couple months.

The new album’s first single, “Pain,” is already receiving avid radio play and the video is being aired regularly on MTV, as is a making-of-the-video documentary.

And a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly ranked “Futures” as No. 17 on its 25 Must-Have CDs list.

“We’re only 17?” lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins asks, pushing a lock of brown hair out of his eyes. “We’re going to have to call our publicists and yell at them on why it wasn’t higher.’’

The usually reserved 28-year-old frontman is clearly a little feisty today.

“Next week there’s going to be a new savior of rock ’n’ roll, and it’s not going to be you,’’ Adkins continues. “You’ve got to keep those things in perspective. I like stuff like that just because I know that relatives that don’t know anything about what we do will see that and think it’s cool.’’

Another CD, another label

Since the band’s four members — Adkins, guitarist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind — graduated from Mesa high schools in the mid-1990s, they've learned firsthand about the uncertainty of the music world.

Originally signed to Capitol Records in 1995, Jimmy Eat World put out two albums — ‘‘Static Prevails’’ and ‘‘Clarity’’ before parting ways with the label in 1999. They signed with DreamWorks and in 2001 released ‘‘Bleed American’’ (the title was later changed to “Jimmy Eat World” after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks).

In January, however, DreamWorks was swallowed up by Interscope, which is putting out “Futures.”

“It’s kind of par for us,” Adkins says. “We like putting out a record on a different label every time we do it. It keeps it fresh.”

He says the group felt the inevitable follow-up pressure with “Futures,” but “I think that forced us to adopt a higher standard for ourselves.”

The new album is darker than the band’s last one and there’s a guest vocal track by rock goddess Liz Phair on the song “Work.”

“She just kept coming by the studio and wanted to hang out with Tom,” Adkins says. “She begged us to let her sing on the record. We were like, ‘Alright already,’ and decided to let her sing.”

Adkins’ bandmates burst into laughter and his brown eyes widen as his voice takes on a sincere tone.

“We wouldn’t have done it unless it sounded like she could really bring something to it,” he says. “Her part isn’t that big, but I think it really just fits well.”

Outlet on the Internet

Although Jimmy Eat World hasn’t put out an album in three years, the band has produced two songs — “Splash, Turn, Twist,” an outtake from “Bleed American,” and an unlikely cover of Prodigy’s “Firestarter” — that have been popular downloads at Apple’s iTunes music store.

“We were asked to be on a compilation that was put out in the U.K.,” Adkins says of the Prodigy cover. “They invited different artists to do covers of different No. 1 hits.

“There’s two different ways you can approach a cover song. There’s like the karaoke version, which is fun because you get to pretend that you’re in that band. And then there’s the really try to give it a unique and new interpretation.

“We felt like with ‘Firestarter’ it would be a good opportunity to do the latter because none of us were even that familiar with the song when we decided to cover it. We just had the lyrics.”
Lind, who says the band hasn’t played either song live yet, thinks iTunes is a great alternative outlet for music.

“It’s good because it’s another opportunity for people to hear your stuff,” he says. “It’s also a way to get stuff out there that normally wouldn’t get out there as much.”

Adkins adds, “It's awesome because we might decide to cut a song from an album but in the increasingly available digital distribution model, the songs that get cut don't have to stay on the shelf somewhere.’’

Singing a different tune

In the eight-plus years since their major label debut, the four members of Jimmy Eat World have done some growing up.

Adkins has been married for two-
and-a-half years to Amy McCarthy, a former Nita’s Hideaway bartender. The couple has a 2-year-old son and live in Mesa.

Lind, 28, has been married for nearly five years and has a 3-year-old son. He lives in Gilbert, as does Linton.

Burch, 29, now living in Phoenix, has been married for a year-and-a-half.
And Linton’s marital status?

“Tom’s married, too,” Adkins says. “To rock and roll! Tell us, Tom. What makes Tom Linton tick?”

With the focus on Linton, a crimson shade fills his face and his eyes drop to the floor.

“It’s been four years,” says Linton, and his bandmates once again crack up.

“It’s been four years since he's gone a night without getting laid,” Adkins laughs.

When asked if fatherhood has seeped into his lyrics, a big smile breaks out over Adkin’s face.

“It’s funny, but when I was playing a lot of video games, I remember playing Final Fantasy 7 non-stop for a few months and some of that started to creep in,” he says, imitating the video game’s music. “You know the bad kind of background music?

“I’m probably going to be subconsciously ripping off ‘Rubber Ducky’ and ‘I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon’ and classic ‘Sesame Street’ songs like that. I hear so many kiddie songs now like all the time that I'm sure some of it's going to rub off.”