Jimmy Eat World
Arizona Highways
Jimmy Eat World follows up its tenth anniversary tour with Invented

By Brian Baker

Three years between releases might seem like a substantial gap for some bands, but it’s barely a blink for Jimmy Eat World. As the old saying goes about birth and death dates in an obituary, it’s not the numbers on either end that count, it’s the dash in between. Jimmy Eat World has always done plenty with their dashes.

In the three years since their last album, 2007’s Chase This Light, the Arizona quartet has circled the globe touring that album, and then in the midst of recording its new album, Invented, hit the highway for a tenth anniversary tour to celebrate the re-release of Clarity, the Jimmys’ 1999 swan song for Capitol. It might seem slightly counterproductive to interrupt the creation of new material to revisit a decade-old album, but the Jimmys don’t think like most bands.

“I think the [Clarity] tour got us thinking about performing,” says singer-guitarist Jim Adkins via phone from his Phoenix home. “All of the songs but one on Invented are ones that we intend on playing live at some point. Maybe not all at once, but by the end of our touring time for the record, we’ll probably be playing the whole thing.”

From the band’s 1994 birth, there’s very little about Jimmy Eat World that has followed the standard rock template. The quartet released two singles and its full-length debut on a micro indie label, sowing the seeds of melodic emo pop in the process, and then signed with Capitol for 1996’s Static Prevails and 1999’s Clarity. In between, it shot out an EP for Fueled by Ramen and sprinkled its catalog with a variety of split singles. When they recognized their non-existent label status, the Jimmys opted out of their Capitol contract, bought their albums back from the label, booked a five week tour of Europe and distributed their albums themselves, all without label or management assistance.

The Jimmys’ big (and perhaps notorious) break came with their DreamWorks debut in 2001, originally titled Bleed American but rechristened and re-released eponymously in sensitivity to the 9/11 attacks that occurred just weeks after the album’s release (a 2004 re-release reclaimed the album’s original title). The single release of “The Middle” broke the Jimmys wide open, inspiring a host of similarly toned emo pop rockers and setting the stage for the band’s wild success in the new millennium.

Invented is clearly poised to advance that success. Reunited with producer Mark Trombino, who produced Static Prevails, Clarity and Bleed American, the Jimmys (Adkins, singer-guitarist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch, drummer Zach Lind) have imbued Invented with the spirit of their earliest work (the visceral impact of “Evidence”), the power of their breakthrough years (the fist-pumping anthemics of “Coffee and Cigarettes”) and the hard won maturity of their 16-year history (the acoustic beauty/electric heart punch of “Movie Like”). The consistent appeal of Jimmy Eat World is that the band doesn’t take a calculated approach to the creative process, allowing songs to come out organically.

“We’ve never set out to make a particular type of album,” says Adkins. “It’s a song by song thing. Your musical taste is going to change over time, your technical ability is going to fluctuate over time. The records are more or less documents of where you’re at, personally, emotionally, technically. It really is kind of pointless to compare, because you’re always learning and changing.”

One departure for Adkins on Invented was the lyrical influence that he drew from the photography of Cindy Sherman and Hannah Starkey. Using shots from their books as inspirations, Adkins would write narratives about the scenes they captured as a pure writing exercise.

“It wasn’t to get material for songs, they were just exercise sessions that started creeping into songs,” says Adkins. “It was just a jumping off point for a lot of material.”

Invented also represents the first time that Linton has taken a lead vocal on a song since the release of Clarity. Like everything in the Jimmys’ world, there was no calculation in the decision to put the band’s original lead vocalist back in front of the mic.

“Tom sings lead on ‘Action Needs an Audience,’ which was a music piece that was sitting around for a really long time,” says Adkins. “I had the melody and phrasing and some lyrics for it, but I was never really stoked on what was happening. It sat around for so long, it was hard to get back to a place where I felt like I could turn it into something I would like. So we had the idea to let Tom have a go at it. And he did. I’ve wanted to get more Tom vocals on the records for awhile.”

Another new wrinkle was the addition of vocalist Courtney Andrews to the sessions. Her powerful female pipes provided a fascinating complement to Adkins’ typically powerful vocals, a combination that proved so attractive, the band is taking Andrews on the road for its upcoming fall tour to provide backing vocals and occasional keyboard fills.

“ “Her material is like mellow, acoustic-based things but she has an amazing voice,” says Adkins. “There are a couple of bits on Invented that I wanted a female vocal on, so we invited her down to take a crack at it. It went really well so I put her to work on more songs. In the past I would do a lot of the back-ups myself, and some of them are really high and not sustainable to do on a nightly basis live. I can get it down for a take and that’ll make the record, but it’s nothing I could do every day. It’ll be nice to have her along to hit those.”

Of all the things that could have been swirling through the Jimmys’ collective mind while working on Invented, the top five Billboard position of Chase the Light was not among them. Even if Invented manages to match or eclipse that vaunted mark, it won’t mean a great deal to Jimmy Eat World.

“I had totally forgotten that it had gotten to #5 until this morning, when, in another interview, I was reminded of it,” says Adkins with a laugh. “Chart positions and record sales aren’t necessarily benchmarks of whether or not your career is on the right track. It’s an impressive feat, but you don’t necessarily need to sell a lot of records to continue to do what you want to do. Look at a group like Dinosaur Jr.; they can operate at the level they’re at forever. Then there are people who had #1 records last year that couldn’t fill a club. It’s nice for the parents and grandparents, but I don’t put a whole lot of ‘Yeah!’ into it.”