Jimmy Eat World - Telling Stories

Happiness is not conducive to making great art – and Jimmy Eat World are, finally, a happy band. They tell Rock Sound that when it came to conceiving their seventh album they just, well, made everything up…

Posted Monday, 27 September 2010 in

Every great record has some legend behind it that fuels its genesis, guides its creation and serves as an emblem for all the songs contained within. For Jimmy Eat World the story behind seventh album ‘Invented’ was that, truth be told, there was a complete absence of drama.

“I’m really happy to be where I am right now, I’m grateful for my life and what our band have achieved and, to be honest, that makes for a really, really lame song,” admits frontman Jim Adkins with a hearty laugh.

As Rock Sound speaks to the singer it’s Friday morning in Arizona. On the schedule today: band practise in the afternoon and then a night of popcorn and movies with his wife and two children. His offspring have recently discovered Transformers and so, regardless of whatever film is eventually chosen, Adkins knows he will spend some part of his evening struggling to manipulate the latest Decepticon and Autobot figures under the bemused gaze of his kids.

“The new Transformer toys are kind of hard to switch back and forth,” he confesses with an air of resignation. “But I think it might just be a generational thing as I remember my dad could never work out my toys. I suppose it’s important to keep yourself in check. Every now and then you need to pick up the Transformer and be humbled by it.”

Laughing at the nature of the conversation he turns the focus back to his opening thought.

“See, the problems I have right now are not real problems and no one wants to hear about them,” he continues. “I always feel like there has to be some kind of adversity in any narrative otherwise there’s no ability for empathy. There has to be that wider dimension, there has to be a reason for the happiness.

“Conversely I also think you can’t just sing about how pissed off you are. Why are you angry? If you are depressed with no reason you are just a cartoon, there has to be some other dimension to whatever you create.”

Recent releases have usually reflected an aspect of what surrounds Jimmy Eat World at the time. Fifth album ‘Futures’ was a heavy record that was burdened with impossible expectation and had the aftermath of the crippling tour schedule that accompanied the success of previous offering ‘Bleed American’ (later renamed ‘Jimmy Eat World’ after the attacks of September 11) written all over its melancholic reflections. Following it three years later by the more buoyant ‘Chase This Light’, the band had dealt with their hangovers and committed to not bowing to stress, worry or compromise. The lightness was evident as the anthems of uplift once more returned and, despite it selling markedly less than ‘Futures’, the road ahead seemed full of possibility once more.

This is an excerpt from a full article published in Rock Sound issue 140, onsale now from WHSmith and all good newsagents. To buy it online from our eBay store, click here.