Jimmy Eat World with Chris Ryan

Chris Ryan is back to help tell the Jimmy Eat World story. CR and Yasi talk about the power of the split seven inch, Clarity vs Bleed American, and the magically accidental path from playing pop punk in used clothing stores in Mesa, AZ to their (don’t call it) emo explosion into mainstream success. EPISODE PLAYLIST: Listen to the best of Jimmy Eat World HERE CREDITS: Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalek Guest: Chris Ryan @ChrisRyan77 Producer: Rob Sundermann Editor: Adrian Bridges Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Theme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  What's with this band, anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, Bandplain? Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. I really hate this band! Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. Bandplain!

• 1:40Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandplain. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is about Jimmy Eat World. If you've never heard Jimmy Eat World... Are you listening? Whoa!

• 2:05Yasi Salek?

  I was trying to get my CR energy there like you do on The Watch when you-

• 2:08Speaker 04

  When I just fired up?

• 2:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:09Speaker 04

  Takes it up a notch. We don't even need help with this band, though.

• 2:12Yasi Salek?

  No, we really don't. But I was like, I was like, pre, so I should introduce you, everyone knows who you are. My guest today is the host of The Watch, proud owner of Jimmy World and J. June Split 7 Inch.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  That's right. And the mineral Christie front drive. No, the mineral split and the Christie front drive and Sinsfield split. I got them all.

• 2:30Yasi Salek?

  He's the man, babe.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  The whole set.

• 2:31Yasi Salek?

  Chris Ryan. I just sat in the parking lot, pre-gaming and listening to Come On Davy sing me something that I know-

• 2:39Speaker 04

  Price course.

• 2:39Yasi Salek?

  Maybe six times.

• 2:42Yasi Salek?

  Maybe six times in a row, and I'm amped. Tell me, before we just dive in to Jamesy World, what's your history with this band? What's your backstory?

• 2:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, so I feel like they're, not their official debut, but like the first record that most people heard by them was Static Prevails, which was on Capitol. It came out, was that 96?

• 3:06Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  96. That was like, I saw that in UCD bins, no disrespect, but it didn't, it didn't sell a ton. And I remember being like, what is this? Kind of like feeling like it was adjacent to alternative rock. This was like right when I was like out of high school and college. And then when I moved to Boston in the like second half of 96 and I met like people who were in the Boston music scene, I became a little bit more aware of Jimmy World's connection to what we now refer to like loosely as emo and that scene there. And then that was like the years leading up to Clarity. So that, it goes back to like pretty early days for them with me.

• 3:44Yasi Salek?

  People in the Boston music scene like Avondando.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  No, um, not Buffalo Tom, not Jay Mascis, no, not Mission of Burma. It was like bands, like, like I was living with a group of guys in a band called The Shyness Clinic. There were a bunch of bands. I, you smile every time I say it, but that's the name of the band.

• 4:02Yasi Salek?

  Because it's, it's hard to-

• 4:04Speaker 04

  They were awesome.

• 4:05Yasi Salek?

  It's, it's hard to, I'm not saying they were bad. It's just, there's like two chunks of types of band names that were so egregious and it was like this era of emo.

• 4:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:16Yasi Salek?

  And then, um- Like the Warped Tour, Black Veil Brides.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:21Yasi Salek?

  Type bands, which I used to say my name for my band for that would be Corner of Solace. It's pretty good, right?

• 4:28Speaker 04

  I like that.

• 4:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  K. Corner?

• 4:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, K. Corner of Solace.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 4:32Yasi Salek?

  K.O.S.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  This was, Jimmy World, though, was a little bit of odd men out because they were already on a major. This was still like a conversation back in 1996, 1997.

• 4:43Yasi Salek?

  When you were on Crash Activated.

• 4:44Speaker 04

  No, but like, I mean, it was just so a conversation about like, oh, like they're on a major and like, is that just like mall rock? Is that just like corporate radio rock? And obviously they weren't, but they had such a unique trajectory because they were signed out of nowhere and then consigned to like the dustbin of major label like backwater history until like a couple of songs changed their lives.

• 5:06Yasi Salek?

  Totally. I'm, I'm very actually, I mean, this happens to me almost every episode, but I'm very obsessed with this story because going in, I was a little bit like, I love Jimmy World. I'll lay down my life for Bleed American and I'm sure we're gonna be like, you know, Clarity, BF, Bleed American, GF, like back and forth, but, which I love both, but I was like, ugh.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  What are we gonna talk about?

• 5:27Yasi Salek?

  What are we gonna talk about?

• 5:28Speaker 04

  It's in blur.

• 5:29Yasi Salek?

  The nicest guys on the planet from everything I've gathered, like, you know, but not a lot of like drum, goss, tea. Like they're a little post MTV rock hero status. So they don't even really have that part where they were like, I feel like most bands that came out, at least in the front half of the 90s, just have more lore and mythology.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  There was a more definable or recognizable arc probably where it's just like, you were this and then you betrayed us, but we still love you and you got in it.

• 6:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Jimmy World was just like, I think what's, the reason why they have persevered and lasted this long and the reason why people keep going back to Clarity and Bleed American and Future's for me is the songs transcend any kind of like, it was emo, it was alt-rock, it was this, it was that. Like to me, my relationship through those records is not that much different. I'm not saying they are of the same caliber, but it is not that much different than my relationship to Tom Petty. Like those songs just like last forever.

• 6:37Yasi Salek?

  They're. They're perfect. To me, you are perfect. These songs. But also, what I was getting at is that the story is actually really interesting.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:46Yasi Salek?

  It's kind of insane. So I'm, and, and it does, it's like a once in a life, like one in a million story.

• 6:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 6:55Yasi Salek?

  Like, not-

• 6:56Speaker 04

  It's almost like three in a million, because when you read it, you're like, oh, wow, like, how the hell did you guys wind up on Capitol? And then you were like, gonna be one of those bands that seemed to be in contract hell.

• 7:07Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 7:07Speaker 04

  And you're like working at Lowe's and working at like-

• 7:10Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  A video store or whatever.

• 7:12Yasi Salek?

  For the rental car place.

• 7:13Speaker 04

  And then you're on a movie soundtrack. And you know what I mean? Like, it's just like, everything that hit for them seemed to hit like the Powerball.

• 7:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's fascinating. I noticed that you didn't specify what wave of emo Jimmy Eat World was when you said the word emo.

• 7:29Speaker 04

  Well, I don't really, I don't know how much I buy into it. Because like, because I-

• 7:33Yasi Salek?

  The taxonomy of emo, you mean?

• 7:34Speaker 04

  Well, also, like, just every single band that I knew back then was like, we're not, like, I don't know what that is. You know, like, I have a Texas is the reason shirt. It doesn't mean, what is that? What is that?

• 7:43Yasi Salek?

  It's so true. God, the men that you put on this earth to provide for us are on Reddit arguing about the various waves of emo.

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:53Yasi Salek?

  Is how I feel about it.

• 7:56Speaker 04

  We used to hunt and gather.

• 7:58Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  And now we define waves of emo. Yeah.

• 8:00Yasi Salek?

  Get Up Kids is not Midwestern emo. All right, let's start, let's take it from the top, which is James Christopher Adkins.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  Wait, what about your background in history and-

• 8:07Yasi Salek?

  Oh, mine is not as cool. I didn't hear Jimmy Eat World until college. So Bleed American was my exposure. I might have heard- Okay, so there was a man, by man, I mean an 18-year-old boy in my dorm, and I would dox him if I could, but I don't remember his last name. His first name was Josh. And it was like my, one of my early dorm room, like, romances, but he was very like, don't tell anyone.

• 8:32Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 8:32Yasi Salek?

  You know, one of those cool, amazing guys. Very Bridgerton. And he showed me Get Up Kids. And I think he also showed me Clarity, but I was really-

• 8:40Speaker 04

  What school is this again?

• 8:41Yasi Salek?

  UC Santa Barbara.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  UCSB.

• 8:42Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I was besotted with the Get Up Kids. Clarity is like, a little, like, I think doesn't grab you as fast if you're just- And then five minutes later, because this is 2000 to 2001 was my freshman year, Bleed American came out.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:57Yasi Salek?

  And I was like, so I have such a nostalgia and attachment to Bleed American. Like, it is the soundtrack of me being like so wild and on my own for the first time. And like, I like have such like a distinct memory of like, we picked up a keg and I was driving my Chevy Blazer. Like, and it like we're like-

• 9:19Speaker 04

  See, it is Tom Petty.

• 9:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. We're blasting Sweetness and I'm just like, you know, windows down, and I think I made a sharp turn and the keg cracked my back window.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:30Yasi Salek?

  Like, it was just like, I got, that year they played at Santa Barbara on the quad for free and I got to see them play. Like, it was just like really magical and I just, this album Bleed American is like so special to me. Clarity, I went back to.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  That's how I felt, that's how I feel about Clarity. It's like Clarity came out at a time in my life where I was like, I can't believe this, yeah.

• 9:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and Clarity's amazing, don't get me wrong, I fucking love that album. Like, it's incredible, it was very cool to like have Bleed American and then be like, what else is, and then be like, oh, this also?

• 9:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:58Yasi Salek?

  You know, but Bleed American is just like backwards and forwards. Like, I know that album by heart and I have, it's like, and it's like, it's so celebratory about music and about being young and about how important music is when you're young.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:14Yasi Salek?

  I feel like that's such a theme throughout that, and that's how I felt, you know? Like, I was like, I was in charge of, I wasn't a big raver kid, but I was really into ecstasy and we would have these little parties at our house and I was the curator of the music.

• 10:30Speaker 04

  Mad Chester without the Chester, basically.

• 10:31Yasi Salek?

  Basically, yeah, Mad Chester like with pajamas on and like Vicks VapoRub and like a gallon of orange juice, um, dad earmuffs. And I would make these like just super random mixes, they were just about like eliciting emotion and like I would always put Jimmy World on it, you know? Next to like just so much Groove Armada and Dave Matthewsman, it was just like all over the place. But that's where, that's where Jimmy World lives for me.

• 10:55Speaker 04

  Take, take me to the beginning.

• 10:57Yasi Salek?

  James Christopher Atkins, babe, born November 10th, 1975, like yourself, a Scorpio.

• 11:01Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 11:02Yasi Salek?

  I grew up in Mesa, Arizona. They're all, have you been to Mesa, Arizona?

• 11:05Speaker 04

  I have not been to Arizona.

• 11:08Yasi Salek?

  At all?

• 11:08Speaker 04

  It's one of the states I have not visited.

• 11:10Yasi Salek?

  Bam, it's actually amazing.

• 11:11Speaker 04

  Is it?

• 11:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you gotta go to EG's, which they have, they're known for-

• 11:14Speaker 04

  In Mesa, or?

• 11:15Yasi Salek?

  EG's, I think, is a chain, the Arizona people are gonna get mad. I know for sure they have it in Tucson, and I think in Phoenix, it might just be Tucson.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 11:23Yasi Salek?

  But it is, it's like a fast food place that is like regional, and they have ICs that, like, 20, 30, 40 different flavors, like seasonal flavors, it's really cool.

• 11:34Speaker 04

  So it's kinda like Sonic a little bit?

• 11:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but, but regional.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  Can I digress for a second?

• 11:38Yasi Salek?

  Please.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  The other day, I found myself in a YouTube rabbit hole watching Rattle and Hum clips.

• 11:44Yasi Salek?

  Okay, as we do.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  You know, they were filming concert footage on the, I guess it was the Joshua Tree Tour, to put in this movie, and they needed a full stadium, so they played Sun Devil Stadium two nights for five bucks a ticket, and it's fucking mind blowing when you watch that, and it's just like completely full. Yep.

• 12:05Yasi Salek?

  We used to be a proper.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  That'd be pretty sick, if you're like, what are you doing tonight? And it's like, I'm going to see U2-

• 12:11Yasi Salek?

  For five dollars.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  For five bucks.

• 12:13Yasi Salek?

  I mean-

• 12:14Speaker 04

  And they play like the best version of Whether or Without You I think they've ever played that night.

• 12:18Yasi Salek?

  But to contextualize, it's not like a stadium concert back then was $370 like it is now.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  No, it was like 30 bucks.

• 12:25Yasi Salek?

  So you were getting like a nice discount, but it wasn't like it's free.

• 12:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Arizona's really cool. It's also just like, looks like if you went to Mars.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:34Yasi Salek?

  It's like so beautiful and interesting, and they have like really specific regional food. I love Arizona. Anyways, he played guitar since the second grade. I think there was a misrepresentation that it was since the age of two, but I don't think a two-year-old could play guitar. Do you think a two-year-old could play guitar?

• 12:50Speaker 04

  Not the two-year-old's line, I know, respectfully. I think they show passion and enthusiasm for music and instruments, but not like open C tuning.

• 12:58Yasi Salek?

  Dexterity of the fingers, yeah. He was very into hair metal.

• 13:04Yasi Salek?

  Did this make sense to you?

• 13:07Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 13:07Yasi Salek?

  Just because of like, the timing? Because it's like the-

• 13:10Speaker 04

  Well, not only the timing, but I think that, like, you know, you just have Molly on for Molly Crew. And I think there is like, a bunch of those bands that are, you strip away all of the signifiers, and what are the, those are like, pop-rock songs.

• 13:22Yasi Salek?

  Totally. And that's kind of what James Z World is also-

• 13:26Speaker 04

  And there is also, like, in a lot of those bands, like, um, I don't know, like, there's a bunch of Poison songs, there's a bunch of Def Leppard songs that are kind of like, this is super sincere.

• 13:34Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  You know?

• 13:36Yasi Salek?

  That, the, the ballad.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:38Yasi Salek?

  He really liked Def Leppard. Photograph, he's mentioned as a-

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Do you like Def Leppard?

• 13:42Yasi Salek?

  Um, as I told Molly, I don't, like, have any feelings or thoughts, no thoughts about Def Leppard.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  I feel like the one-armed drummer really-

• 13:50Yasi Salek?

  That's the thing I know about them.

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:52Yasi Salek?

  I hate Pour Some Sugar On Me, it's one of my least favorite songs on the planet.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  Hysteria is a really good song?

• 13:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's what I've been told.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  Uh, but it is also basically just Heroes by David Bowie.

• 14:02Yasi Salek?

  Okay, which is also a really good song.

• 14:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:04Yasi Salek?

  I'll look into it. He also then got really into Joe Satriani.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:09Yasi Salek?

  Which, respected Joe Satriani as some, a bit of a punchline here on Bands Play for some reason, because he's the only top-tier guitar player of, you know, Guitar Center accolades that I know to reference for when people are doing a bit too much.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  It's also Yungy Malminstein is pretty hard to say.

• 14:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I can't pronounce that.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  In fact, I just butchered it, I'm sure.

• 14:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I'm not sure, so we have to go to Satriani. But anyways, he was really into guitar, and he was playing it all the time. He liked hair metal. Um, I listened to a German podcast interview with him that was over an hour long. This is what I mean when I say that I sacrificed-

• 14:44Speaker 04

  You really did. We could have just been like, let's just cut to clarity right now.

• 14:48Yasi Salek?

  But no, I had to listen to the hour and a half long- German, and it was actually amazing, because as you know, German people have just a different style.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  They're very direct.

• 14:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like, the third question on the German podcast was, "So, you had an alcohol problem? Is that, is that done now? Is that okay now?" Third question, he's like, "Oh." And to his credit, German can so play, and I used to this man. Um, but he says that one of the first tapes he bought himself was Quiet Riot. And he found all these bands on MTV, but interestingly, he was like, "I didn't have, like, the-" Accoutrement, I didn't have the posters on my wall, I just liked the songs. I just wanted to learn to play the guitar parts.

• 15:27Yasi Salek?

  Jeremy Yocum, a person that will come in to play soon, was his friend when they were kids. And he said, "He was the only 10-year-old I knew who played guitar. Then at 13, there was maybe one other kid that played. And by high school, there's maybe three or four kids playing guitar. And he was leaps and bounds above all of them. We were weird goofy kids, so we didn't look that cool, but he could shred." All right, all right. And then he discovered Fugazi.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  This is, this is the key moment.

• 15:50Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:51Yasi Salek?

  Something, something unlocked in Nebraska.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  Up until, and even maybe through Bleed American, you can still hear, like, the Fugazi influence pretty heavily in the band.

• 16:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. In what sense?

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Maybe even through Futures, the guitars.

• 16:06Yasi Salek?

  The guitars, yeah.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, cuz like, the thing that I think I always drew me to them, aside from like, the incredibly direct emotional sincerity of it, is like, they're trying to basically tear these like, Jay-Z and Fugazi guitar sounds and dynamics, and bring it into like, the sweetest pop music you could possibly imagine.

• 16:28Yasi Salek?

  Right, otherwise like, structurally, normal songs.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they're do- but they're doing like, breakdowns, and you're like, what? But this is like, this is, this is like, basically a power pop song.

• 16:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:39Yasi Salek?

  It's kind of perfect. You both get the like, sense of security that, that, I don't want to use the word "normal" again, but you know, like, a classic structured song has. But you also get to lose yourself in it.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:50Yasi Salek?

  You know, it's like, the best of both worlds, kind of. Whereas like, sometimes when something's like, a little too avant-garde, you're like, I don't know what's happening.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Well, you know, like, there are, there are songs you listen to probably a million times in your life because of the earworm. Because you're like, I just need to hear, like, the what happens at the end of Voices Carry, "Pit Till Tuesday", you know what I mean? But then, I find myself returning to Jimmy World because there's like, a rhythm guitar part that's underneath three other guitars. I'm like, That's so sick when that kicks in again, you know, like there's dynamic stuff that they do and there's musical stuff that they do that I find really rewarding.

• 17:25Yasi Salek?

  Can't believe I've never asked you this. Did you play guitar?

• 17:28Speaker 04

  I did play power chords, but I never was able to like do it for real. I can't, I don't think I could sing and play guitar at the same time, for sure.

• 17:35Yasi Salek?

  Seems difficult. I couldn't either.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  It's like insanely hard, considering how we evaluate all of the men who have done that.

• 17:42Yasi Salek?

  And women.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:44Yasi Salek?

  All genders are able to do that. I think.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  I meant more like the men who are also now on Reddit talking about which wave of emo that many of them.

• 17:51Yasi Salek?

  Who came here to provide for me, then are arguing about rites of spring and braid.

• 18:00Yasi Salek?

  I do find it really interesting that like, given the story we're gonna tell, that like Fugazi on, in one sense, radicalized Jim Adkins and probably the rest of the lads. But not philosophically.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 18:12Yasi Salek?

  Because they didn't, you know, and we're gonna get, you already said, like, they signed to a major right away. And it's, we can talk, we're gonna talk about why, and it wasn't like Craven or anything, but like, that is not a Fugazi move.

• 18:26Speaker 04

  It wasn't, but I guess Fugazi almost had the luxury of deciding. You know, they had already obviously set up the infrastructure that they had with Discord through rights, from Myer Threat, but.

• 18:36Yasi Salek?

  I mean, you could make the argument Jimmy World had the luxury too. They were 18 years old. They could have waited.

• 18:40Speaker 04

  Sure, yeah, absolutely.

• 18:42Yasi Salek?

  They were banned for seven months.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 18:44Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I wouldn't have. I'd be like, write that check, put it in my hand. Um, okay, so anyways, we're at Mountain View High School. And Jim forms a band called Sonic Pudding.

• 18:53Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:54Yasi Salek?

  Great.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Opening for, uh, what was the Creations Corner? What was your band?

• 18:58Yasi Salek?

  Corner of Solace.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  Corner of Solace, okay.

• 19:00Yasi Salek?

  Creations Corner. That is not a Warped Tour, Black Male Brides type beat band. Then they changed it to I Eat the Sandbox.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 19:10Yasi Salek?

  And then Shown Theory. These are all very bad names. I'm so sorry. But this is when they were like into the Jay Ho and the Rocket from the Cryptid at all and sort of like mimicking that. But then they were also really, okay. When we get to Jimmy World, which we're about to right now, 1993. Zach Lind, born March 19th, 1976, of Pisces. And Jim were like friends since preschool. Zach's mom was their preschool teacher. He was forming a band with Tom Linton, born August 8th, 1975. He's a Leo. And they needed another person. And Jim came to play bass. But I think it pretty quickly was clear that he's so good at guitar. Like, why would you waste him on bass?

• 19:56Yasi Salek?

  And then they tried to get their other friend, Rick Birch, born February 4th, 1975, in Aquarius, to play. And he was like, no, I already have a band that's called Carrier. I'm busy. He's gonna come back around, obviously. So they get Mitch Porter, who is in a band called No Reason Boner,

• 20:15Yasi Salek?

  to play.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  1993 in the house.

• 20:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, very 1990s, very like 15-year-old boys in 1993.

• 20:21Speaker 04

  It's like, I saw the word "Mother Love Bone", decided to just come up with my own, yeah.

• 20:26Yasi Salek?

  I think at this time, they're really into like propaganda.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, like pop punk, right?

• 20:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Yeah. And you hear it.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  Screeching weasel?

• 20:36Yasi Salek?

  Screeching weasel. I know they directly reference propaganda. And there was probably, maybe a little No Effects.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 20:43Yasi Salek?

  And I mean, No Effects is like a, No Effects is like an early 80s band, which is what you kind of forget.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's insane.

• 20:49Yasi Salek?

  Anyways, that's what they're drawing from. Okay, the name of the band. This kills me.

• 20:56Yasi Salek?

  The name, as you know, comes from Tom's little brothers, Jim and Ed. They're fighting. Ed runs to his room, draws a picture of Jim eating the world. That was like a sick burn. Jimmy Eat World. They put this name. And forever after, Jim Adkins is like annoyed that they think it's him. And it's like, do you?

• 21:15Speaker 04

  That it's Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but it's not.

• 21:17Yasi Salek?

  What, your name is Jim?

• 21:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:20Yasi Salek?

  Where was the foresight?

• 21:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:21Yasi Salek?

  Of course, that's gonna happen, babe. You should have called it something else.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  I'm surprised nobody at Capitol was like, great, excited to have you guys.

• 21:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Literally, no one knows who you are. Well, let's call you Carrier.

• 21:31Yasi Salek?

  We totally have time to change this name.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:35Yasi Salek?

  There's nothing wrong with the name. I'm just like, but you can't get mad if people think it's you. And your name is Jim.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  Well, that's probably a lot of German podcasts being like, and so you are the Jim of uni world.

• 21:43Yasi Salek?

  Jimmy. They played their first ever show in the back room of a place called Name Brand Exchange, which was like a Buffalo Exchange, a local Buffalo Exchange.

• 21:54Yasi Salek?

  They didn't have, there was no infrastructure.

• 21:56Speaker 04

  One of the greatest shows I've ever seen was in a vintage, well, a thrift store.

• 22:00Yasi Salek?

  What was it?

• 22:00Speaker 04

  Locust, like garment district.

• 22:02Yasi Salek?

  Wow.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  No, no mic stand, so they had to hang the microphone from the ceiling over a water pipe. And they just had like one light and it was fucking bananas.

• 22:12Yasi Salek?

  Wow.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  Nineties. I can't remember.

• 22:14Yasi Salek?

  Incredible. Justin Pearson. Quite a, quite a front man. They make a demo in a local church.

• 22:28Yasi Salek?

  It's pop punk.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 22:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. They start their own, I'm curious if you ever did anything like this. They start their own company called Bring Me The Head of Productions. Because again, there, there's no places to play shows.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:44Yasi Salek?

  They're trying to kind of get in a scene. They're also underage. And they list it in Maximum Rock and Roll's Book Your Own Fucking Life.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would just say for any of our younger listeners, this isn't like starting an LLC. Like you could just do this and be like, yep, I have a label. You know, like it wasn't.

• 22:58Yasi Salek?

  And Book Your Own Fucking Life was really cool. It was a thing that Maximum Rock and Roll kind of compiled so that bands could just, it's like the Yellow Pages of scene in other cities. And you could just call the number of like a guy who's in Tempe and say, I'm coming, I'm on tour. Can I play?

• 23:18Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 23:19Yasi Salek?

  And that is kind of like how they start trying to get shows. Speaking of Tempe, there was a whole scene in Tempe that we should mention with Gin Blossoms and Meat Puppets and Refresh and stuff, but it was bars and they can't play in bars.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  I don't, I, I hear a lot of Gin Blossoms and Jimmy Eat World.

• 23:34Yasi Salek?

  Me too.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  And I would have to, I, I've never actually, I've seen Jim Atkins obviously cover Hey Jealousy like as like a, like a live thing, but I don't, I don't ever remember hearing him talk about it. I don't know if you came across anything.

• 23:48Yasi Salek?

  I didn't, except for that video you sent me and the front man of the other band, whose name I,

• 23:52Speaker 04

  The Format.

• 23:53Yasi Salek?

  The Format being like, I don't think any band in Arizona could exist without Gin Blossoms.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  Fair.

• 23:59Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 24:02Yasi Salek?

  I guess.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:04Yasi Salek?

  I loved Jim Blossom.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  I actually don't know of any bands in Arizona before Jim Blossom.

• 24:09Yasi Salek?

  Meat puppets.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  Oh, right. That's true.

• 24:12Yasi Salek?

  How dare the.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  I thought they were, I thought they were New Mexico. My bad.

• 24:15Yasi Salek?

  No. And, and technically Pavement.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Why?

• 24:20Yasi Salek?

  Because that's where Spiral Stairs was living when he came up with the name.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 24:26Yasi Salek?

  On a technicality. Okay, so they're playing shows. People think they're, I guess, okay, including a guy named Steve Naughton, who owned like a local studio called The Groove Factory. And he was like, I'll record you guys for free. And they were like, okay, great. We'd love to do that. We have no way to put that out, whatever we record. So Jeremy Yocum, who I mentioned before, and this guy Joel Lebo, decided to form a record label to put out their pals' records. The story of how they had money is so insane. Jeremy Yocum had money in a, in a savings account because he had a burn injury in 1988. Did you read this?

• 25:05Speaker 04

  I did. I read your research, but I also like, love how many pieces of art were randomly funded with like, I fell down the stairs of my apartment building and I was able to like, paint for a year.

• 25:16Yasi Salek?

  It's very American to fund the arts through lawsuits.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  That's our dole.

• 25:21Yasi Salek?

  That's our Medici's. Those are, yes, exactly. Our dole is litigation.

• 25:25Speaker 04

  Getting hit by calves.

• 25:27Yasi Salek?

  Getting hit by calves. The one with Yocum where him and his friend would just set shit on for like a little pyromaniacs and like, his friend threw up a can of gasoline and it doused him and lit a match. I don't know what they were thinking and he got burned. But I was like, who did you sue? Your friend?

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, the gasoline can company.

• 25:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. There's no legal, you know, aspersions being cast here. I was just curious. I was like, who paid for that? You were in a field? I don't understand who's at fault. Anyways, they had money. And so they put out. The first EP, 1, 2, 3, 4.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:59Yasi Salek?

  August 20th, 1994. Do you have thoughts or feelings about this EP?

• 26:02Speaker 04

  This is not a band that I feel the need to do the biography, like, what are the early...

• 26:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Like skeletal structures of them.

• 26:11Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 26:12Speaker 04

  These are fine songs.

• 26:13Yasi Salek?

  These are just pop punk songs that are kind of rudimentary and teenage.

• 26:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:17Yasi Salek?

  Not bad.

• 26:18Speaker 04

  And are largely just, you can find them on YouTube, but...

• 26:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally. They're all on YouTube. They, they like wisely are like, this doesn't exist, this never happened.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:26Yasi Salek?

  It's not on Spotify, don't talk to us about it.

• 26:36Yasi Salek?

  The only notable thing is that Tom sings all the songs. Jim, Jim doesn't sing.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:41Yasi Salek?

  Which is kind of, oh, he sings usury, the one song off of the first album, which is self-titled. But I thought that was kind of interesting that it just never came up that he would sing.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm deeply fascinated by, usually it's the two guitarists and trading off who's gonna sing and like what leads to a dominant voice in a band.

• 27:03Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 04

  You know, obviously, we did Pavement together. I think there was a version of Pavement that was a little bit more like 50/50 or like whatever. And it just seems like, it starts to become, over time, it's just like one person is like, I also have lyrics for this bit that I wrote.

• 27:21Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  And it's like, I'll sing my lyrics and we'll just keep it moving.

• 27:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's not like a Noel Gallagher, Liam Gallagher, where it's like, I'll write these lyrics and you'll just sing them.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Right, right. It's more just like, hey, I brought this song.

• 27:32Yasi Salek?

  And it's my...

• 27:33Speaker 04

  It's pretty done, you know?

• 27:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  It's pretty ready to go.

• 27:35Yasi Salek?

  I also think Tom Linton's voice, which I actually really like, is a bit more pop punk.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, me too.

• 27:43Yasi Salek?

  Like tonally and just like, delivery-wise, like Jim's voice lends itself better anyways to like the new kind of music they end up doing. There's one song on Reason 3, on Jimmy Eat World called Reason 3, 4, 6 that I like because it, I thought it sort of presaged a little bit.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can feel a little bit of it starting to come together.

• 28:03Yasi Salek?

  There's these like little plinking instrument bit, I don't know what instrument it is, but it's sort of that like magical thing that they, they really like a plinking and a chiming

• 28:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:14Yasi Salek?

  moment, you know, later on? And that's like, I was like, oh, this is a little bit here.

• 28:26Speaker 04

  So the one thing I wanted to chat with you about that I thought was really cool about the early days of their career and also was something that I felt pretty, pretty like viscerally when you would be like, if you went to like 150 small club shows a year or whatever, you would kind of, and you would also like see a band come through town like two or three times.

• 28:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 28:46Speaker 04

  This is more towards like mid to late 90s when I was like going to the Middle East in Boston a lot.

• 28:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  You'd see Joan of Arc come through like two or three times or something like that. Is watching a band's sound change like in real time over a very short period of time. So like typically you go back and you're just like, obviously like this was like something that was so organic and then like this happened to change this band's sound or whatever. But like so much of it for these guys, and I think for a lot of the bands at that time period was like being on tour with people.

• 29:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Real time influences.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Hearing a guitar sound that you had not heard before and then like, that's fucking awesome. I'm gonna like start to try to play like that.

• 29:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  And they do that basically.

• 29:29Yasi Salek?

  No, 100%. Also, like, I mean, I think part of it is skill level as well.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:35Yasi Salek?

  Like.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  You just get better.

• 29:36Yasi Salek?

  Playing pop punk is easy.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:38Yasi Salek?

  Respectfully, I love pop punk, but you know, it's real bar chords, like you said.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:43Yasi Salek?

  And exposure. I think, I was trying to think back like what's happening in 93, 94 and it's like 94 is Dookie and Smash. So it's like big, big pop punk hours. Also, if they're reading Maximum Rockin' Roll, they know about Jovember. Cause it's not, it's right around this time that Tim, Ben Weasel eats his hat.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. Cause they signed with a major.

• 30:02Yasi Salek?

  Cause they signed with a major.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:04Yasi Salek?

  Phenomenal stuff. It begs the question for me, it's like, well, where did Christy Front Drive learn how to do that?

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:11Yasi Salek?

  Like if they were.

• 30:12Speaker 04

  I can't, Christy Front Drive, who I guess we can talk about now.

• 30:15Yasi Salek?

  We're gonna get into it, this is the next thing.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  Is the band that I heard around this time period. So like when I moved to Boston and honestly, like you just, whether or not you called it emo or not, like a lot of it was like the label or a lot of it was like, there was an aesthetic to the record cover. You know, like whether it was that Jason Niuakau style from Promise Ring or. In Christie Front Drive's case, like, it's a picture of a field of wheat. And you're like, hmm. Like, and so you would give stuff a try, or you would, you would get a seven inch or whatever?

• 30:45Yasi Salek?

  You were like, a picture of a field of wheat.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  And Christie Front Drive, like, took the fucking top of my head off. Like, I was like, this is so beautiful.

• 30:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  And so, but also, like, really heavy, and, you know, their vocals are mixed all the way down. Like, you can't, it's unintelligible lyrics, but it, it really hit me hard.

• 31:03Yasi Salek?

  You know where they got it from?

• 31:04Speaker 04

  And maybe a little bit of, like, MBV, where the vocals are kind of buried in part of the music.

• 31:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm theorizing, I don't know, but it's, I was remembering, Sunny Day Real Estate is kind of early, too.

• 31:16Speaker 04

  I, I do wonder whether any of these bands had been listening to Bedhead at the time.

• 31:20Yasi Salek?

  Hmm.

• 31:21Speaker 04

  Because it's like, that guitar sound is like, or that melody, sort of direction, is very Bedhead.

• 31:26Yasi Salek?

  I didn't go deep into Christie Front Drive, but I don't remember Jimmy World mentioning it, but it's totally possible.

• 31:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:33Yasi Salek?

  Okay, well, the reason we brought up Christie Front Drive is around this exact time, 94, 95, Denver, Colorado band, Christie Front Drive, puts out their first self-titled album, again, with some money from a punk kid who had a trust fund.

• 31:49Speaker 04

  Or a massive accident.

• 31:50Yasi Salek?

  Well, I actually said it was a trust fund, so. Punks with trust funds have existed for, since time immemorial.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, we don't have punk without trust funds, basically.

• 31:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Maximum Rock Roll called that first album "A Collision of Moss Icon and Sam I Am." I just wanted to say, like, to say how much I love Sam I Am.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  I love Moss Icon. Here we go.

• 32:10Yasi Salek?

  Handshake.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  Predator meme.

• 32:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally. Man, I was like, I just went off on such a Sam I Am tangent again when I was doing this episode, but anyways, that's a great, that's a glowing recommendation, is what I'm saying.

• 32:54Speaker 05

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• 33:24Yasi Salek?

  They start sending copies to people in Book Your Own Fucking Life, including Bring Me the Head of Productions. And Lebo says, "I remember Jim and I listening to it and being like, 'Holy shit, this is amazing.'"

• 33:38Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 33:39Yasi Salek?

  "I talked to Eric Richter of Christie Front Drive on the phone for an hour, telling him we were blown away by it. And Jim said the LP was awesome. So we were like, 'Yeah, we'll totally help you out.'" So they came to town for this show that we set up for them, and it was horrible. It was so bad. Whatever, it's classic. It was like a little venue, a little stage, no one there knew who Christie Front Drive was. It's Mesa, Arizona, baby. But they were like, they became friends, and Lebo was like, "Hey, do you guys want to put, do a split with Jimmy Eat World and I'll put it out?" And Richter was like, "I'd never heard them at the time." And they gave us a copy of that first CD with the two kids on the cover. And I remember listening to it later and thinking, "Uh-oh. This is a bit of a different style than us."

• 34:23Yasi Salek?

  It felt more like an LA punk band, definitely more pop punk. But we told them we'd do it, so we kept our word. It's like so sweet. They were like, "This is inconsequential. We can do this." Meanwhile, Christie Front Drive is continuing on their little tour that stopped in Mesa, Arizona, played a show in LA with Sencefield, where a man named Lauren Israel, an A&R at Capitol, was there because he had somehow gotten their first record, and he wanted to sign them.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  Christie Front Drive.

• 34:49Yasi Salek?

  Christie Front Drive.

• 34:50Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 34:51Yasi Salek?

  He was really mad that he had missed out on Beck. I don't know how this is at all related or connected, but he, I think he wanted his version of like an unusual and interesting rock band.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  Yes. There's also like a, if you do certain things to Christie Front Drive's sound, it becomes... Not unlike a U2 kind of anthem rock band.

• 35:10Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  You know, like you would have to change what they do. And I think change like their, their fundamental like kind of proposition.

• 35:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 04

  But A and R people used to do that.

• 35:20Yasi Salek?

  Well, also like you have to think that they've now started printing money off the back of Green Day and Offspring. And then prior to that grunge, so they're just looking for, and I'm not saying that this Lauren Israel being gross or anything, but it's like, you identify a new subculture to be like, oh, that's going to be the next.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 35:36Yasi Salek?

  Thing, you know? So Eric Richter gets home from tour, there's a tape waiting for him with this new Jimmy World song on it for the seven inch. And he's like, oh, cool. And he puts it on and he's like, what the fuck? This shit is good.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 35:54Yasi Salek?

  And he's bummed because they had like one of their like throwaway songs to put on there.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  I kind of like that Christie Front Drive song.

• 35:59Yasi Salek?

  I think it's good slide, yeah. Lynn said, I think Christie Front Drive was the band we started listening to where we loved the power and the melody of it. Even though it was slower, it had this weight to it. All of that informed a shift. We thought we could slow it down a little bit and explore more melodic ways of expressing ourselves. I think our first real attempt was at that split with Christie Front Drive. Their song, this is from Dan Ozzy's sellout, shout out Dan Ozzy. Um, their song is called Digits.

• 36:20Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 36:21Yasi Salek?

  Fucking good song.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  Which is kind of Christie Front Drive-ish.

• 36:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally.

• 36:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:24Yasi Salek?

  I mean, it was really like, I, I love lamp, you know, like I saw this, I'm going to put it.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  Uh, it's, it's also like, it was very helpful as a listener, those splits that you would get. Because if you bought it for one band.

• 36:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  You would kind of take the band's word for it that it was like, oh, well, if you're going to do a split. Like I'll check out, that's how I like find Boys Life back then. And that's how I would find like all sorts of stuff, yeah.

• 36:47Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It makes total sense. Now Lauren Israel is like, I'm going to sign Christie Front Drive. He leaves a message for Eric Richter's mom. He's living at home. I want to sign them to Capitol. And Eric Richter's like, I talked to him and I was like, you know, we're not really looking to get on a major label. We were very punk at the time. I was pretty adamant that we weren't really interested. I don't really know why. I look back and wonder if I was crazy or not, but I was young and idealistic. We just wanted to be punk like Fugazi.

• 37:17Yasi Salek?

  Now Jim Adkins has like eight houses, probably. Probably has a house in like Cuomo.

• 37:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, but you have to write the middle to do that, you know?

• 37:24Yasi Salek?

  Who knows if the Christie Front Drive could have written the middle?

• 37:26Speaker 04

  True, true.

• 37:28Yasi Salek?

  I'm just saying, it's a bit of a sliding door situation. So instead, Eric Richter, an angel from heaven, tells Lauren Israel, well, we're putting out this float with Jimmy Eat World, why don't you check them out?

• 37:38Speaker 04

  That's nice.

• 37:39Yasi Salek?

  So nice.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:40Yasi Salek?

  Like, he's like, we don't want to sign with you, maybe they will. And Lauren Israel's like, I'll check them out. And then he was like, yeah. Okay. If not you, then them. So Jim Adkins is going to Northern Arizona University and sharing an apartment with Jeremy Okum, who's the one who's at home, because Jimmy's, I can't help it, they did it to themselves. Jim is not home. And he answers the phone, Lauren Israel calls, not Lauren Israel, sorry, Craig Aronson calls, his colleague. And he's like, is Jimmy Eat World there? Jimmy Eat World is not here. And he's like, well, I'm calling from Capitol, can you please take a message? And he's like, yeah, yeah, like writes it down. And then he's like, oh, by the way, they're playing in Mesa next Saturday at the Nile. And like hangs up and then completely forgets about the message, like never tells Jim.

• 38:26Yasi Salek?

  Disappears in this message. Cool. Thank God he told him about the show, though, because Craig Aronson shows up in Mesa to this show. And he goes to meet the band. I love this quote from Lebo, he's like, it's kind of awkward, because it was like, who is this guy? Why is he here? And why is his shirt tucked into his jeans?

• 38:45Yasi Salek?

  You, it like, it reminds you that 1995, like, normal guy gear is like Friends?

• 38:51Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 38:51Yasi Salek?

  Like, it's like full, like-

• 38:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's Matthew Perry.

• 38:53Yasi Salek?

  It's Miller's Outpost. Yeah, Matthew Perry, because I was like, literally picturing Matthew Perry. Takes them out to breakfast. He's like, let's, you know, let's do this.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  Let's make a miracle.

• 39:03Yasi Salek?

  Let's make a miracle. Again, Ben Weasel has eaten his hat. People are upset about selling out. Jimmy Eat World's been a band for seven months. They have no manager, no lawyer, no tour manager. They were like, okay, we'll check it out. They go to LA a few times. Craig takes them to Shakey's Pizza. Shout out Shakey's Pizza.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  That's where Bill does his... Every year, they watch the first NFL playoff game at Shakey's.

• 39:25Yasi Salek?

  Do you go?

• 39:26Speaker 04

  No. It's for his fantasy league, I think.

• 39:28Yasi Salek?

  The Mojo potatoes are really good.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  Is it... Does it kind of depend on what branch you go to?

• 39:32Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 39:33Yasi Salek?

  It's a bit of a chain.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  No, I know, but like, I didn't know if Shakey's to Shakey's, the quality varies.

• 39:38Yasi Salek?

  I don't even know how many we have anymore.

• 39:40Speaker 04

  A lot of fast food talk on this pod, regional fast food talk.

• 39:42Yasi Salek?

  It's something near and dear to my heart. And Barney's Buonire, which, have you been to Barney's Buonire?

• 39:47Speaker 04

  I have.

• 39:48Yasi Salek?

  The original?

• 39:49Speaker 04

  Uh, yes, it's a very funny place for Jimmy Eat World to have gone on their...

• 39:52Yasi Salek?

  Well, they're not old enough to go anywhere else.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:56Yasi Salek?

  But also, Craig took them to the Viper Room to see Adam Ant, and Leonardo DiCaprio was there. So Hollywood.

• 40:02Speaker 04

  Do you think Leonardo DiCaprio's ever listened to Jimmy Eat World knowingly? Since then?

• 40:08Yasi Salek?

  I can't tell.

• 40:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's hard, because when he does the press stuff, he's like, it really does seem like he's like, I have never looked at a phone.

• 40:15Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna tell you one thing about Leonardo DiCaprio, he will go to every party on earth, though. Like, he might not listen to Jimmy Eat World, but that man will go to the opening of a paper bag.

• 40:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:23Yasi Salek?

  He loves to party. I've seen him at so many parties.

• 40:26Speaker 04

  I respect it.

• 40:26Yasi Salek?

  Me too. Sometimes I'm like, what, you are an A-list?

• 40:29Speaker 04

  It's good to say yes to things.

• 40:30Yasi Salek?

  Star. I'm trying to open my heart as well. I hope he's done some sitting in the headphones with Clarity, reflecting. So they go, they do that classic thing where they're like invited to the Capitol office, and they walk out with like armfuls of free CDs to go sell to make money to live off of.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 40:46Yasi Salek?

  And they do end up signing with Capitol. And Jim said later, "It was either continue putting out records with my roommate's label, or with Capitol Records." No one else was knocking down on it.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  That's the thing. It's like, it's not like Matador was trying to sign them, or Jade Tree or whatever.

• 41:01Yasi Salek?

  Because they had only put out one thing.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  Now, I wonder if you replay Jimmy Eat World's career, whether they have like a quote-unquote bigger, earlier part of their career. You know, like through Clarity, if they're like on Crank, or Jade Tree, or Merge. But like a worse second half of their career?

• 41:23Yasi Salek?

  I think probably, yeah, because they did. They built the same audience in the same way you would have.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 41:30Yasi Salek?

  If you were on Merge, but actually, honestly, worse because they didn't even have Merge. And like the cool factor of being associated with Merge and other Merge bands.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:39Yasi Salek?

  To do it with. They really kind of did it fully on their fucking own. Because no one was like, let's go check that new Capitol band, you know? So it is kind of impressive what they were able to build.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:48Yasi Salek?

  I don't have any skin in it. I mean, I think selling out in this sense is like such a new concept that like prior, like the Sex Pistols were on a major label, The Clash was on a major label, like it wasn't really a consideration until like the 90s.

• 42:00Speaker 04

  There's like a, yeah, there's like this brief, relative to the entirety of pop music history, a brief period of time where we're like, do not do that. And then after a certain point in 2000s, it was just like, do whatever you want.

• 42:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Because we were just even talking about on the Motley Crue episode, I was like, the New York Dolls wanted to be on a major label. It's like they wanted to be like, go down in history as this like very cool and influential but obscure and failed band.

• 42:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 42:23Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so we're signing to Capitol, um, and thank God because just not long after Jeremy Okum gets a call from the IRS because whoopsie daisy, he has not paid any taxes on Wooden Blue Records. And they're like, you either have to pay all this money or you need to shut it down. And he was like, we're shutting it down.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  And stopping small businesses from thriving.

• 42:42Yasi Salek?

  America, babe. It's just lawsuits. Just litigation and, and regional fast, regional and national fast food establishments. Capitol, it sounds like could have cared less if Jimmy at World lived or died. Yeah. Dan Ozzie put it really well in his book. He said, "On paper, the band looked like a bunch of well-mannered, clean-cut boy scouts who lacked the dangerous edge of the amplifier-smashing Nirvana and didn't pack the same power chord punch as Green Day." And also, again, aesthetically didn't have. Like Green Day and Nirvana had such specific aesthetic looks.

• 43:13Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:14Yasi Salek?

  And Jimmy at World, God bless their hearts, looked like four white guys from Arizona who have been to the Millers Outpost.

• 43:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 43:22Yasi Salek?

  Not a negative, but it's also not a selling point.

• 43:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:27Yasi Salek?

  They only really were able to sign them because Gary Gersh, who was then the head of Capitol, was Craig Aaronson's mentor. And even he was like, you should not sign this. I'll do it, but you should not sign this band.

• 43:36Speaker 04

  Right. Too bad nobody told Jimmy World that.

• 43:39Yasi Salek?

  Nobody told them that. They, I think they were like, this is my thing with Jimmy World. This is the Forrest Gump of rock bands.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  They just keep popping up in different places?

• 43:49Yasi Salek?

  No, they're like guileless in like a cool way where they're just like tra-la-la. Like that, they were not, and I don't want to put words in their mouth, but this is like what Luke Wood, um, who later signed them to DreamWorks.

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:03Yasi Salek?

  Told me, he was like, they didn't ever care about the outcome. They weren't like after it in that way.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  I wonder if some of that might be from where, about where they're from, you know, like where it's like, you don't have this like,

• 44:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  What, where, what's happening next for this band? It's like, they're like, we like writing songs together.

• 44:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And like, that's basically what Luke would say. They love, they took the music very seriously. They wanted to make good music, but they weren't like, we want this level of success or we want this. They're like, we just want to put it out and play shows.

• 44:31Speaker 04

  And there's also like anecdotes that we'll get to about the making of some of those early records, but especially Clarity, where it's really admirable, like regardless of if you still have like a moral issue with them being on a major, that's, that's your thing. But these guys were sleeping in sleeping bags on floors and be like, every single dollar we have, either available or our own personal money is going into making this record sound as good as it possibly could.

• 44:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Poor Mitch Porter, by the way, you remember Mitch Porter?

• 45:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 45:01Yasi Salek?

  He has, he's Mormon and his parents want him to go on a mission. Um, so he drops out right before they sign the contract. And then they're like, hey, Rick Birch, remember us? And he's like, oh my God, Carrier? Who? I don't know. Capitol Records? I'm here. And so he signs. I don't know what the details of the financials of this deal were, but they got the equivalent of like $5. Um, nobody quit their jobs. Like, but the best thing that happened was Capital bought them a used Ford Conalline van to tour. Cause another problem was they couldn't tour. They didn't have a van and they couldn't rent a car because they were under 25 without paying like $600 a day in fees or whatever. So now they have a van.

• 45:37Speaker 04

  Some of my favorite stories from around this time are like guys going in on a used van.

• 45:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 04

  And it being like a ticking time bomb and a money pit, but not, they're not my favorite because of like people losing their money, but it's just kind of funny.

• 45:51Yasi Salek?

  It's just so crucial.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  Where you're just like, you bought this used Ford.

• 45:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  And now you're gonna try and drive it out of the desert. Good luck.

• 45:58Yasi Salek?

  Or somebody has like a-

• 45:59Speaker 04

  So that you can play in Des Moines or whatever.

• 46:01Yasi Salek?

  Or somebody has like a station wagon.

• 46:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:02Yasi Salek?

  That they take from their parents and then they like trick it out somehow. So like all the gear and your sleeping selves and the dog can fit in.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  I mean, Ian McKay showed us the way. He showed us how to pack a van.

• 46:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and the good Tetras. They're like, who do you want? Capital's like, well, who do you want to produce you? And they were, Jim Atkins is like Mark Trombino.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:21Yasi Salek?

  Mark Trombino hadn't done a whole ton at that point.

• 46:24Speaker 04

  Of production?

• 46:25Yasi Salek?

  Of production.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Funnily enough, John Reese, who's also in Drive Like Jehu, he's the, one of the guitar players, singers in Jehu, is, uh, he's like more of a known producer in the early 90s, I think. Like he produced On The Mouth by Superchunk.

• 46:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  Then Trombino probably was, and Trombino was the drummer, but then Trombino does-

• 46:44Yasi Salek?

  But he had done maybe Boyzly?

• 46:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:47Yasi Salek?

  Also Jehu had just put out their major label, really.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:50Yasi Salek?

  Yank, Crime on Interscope, and then promptly broken up right after that.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:54Yasi Salek?

  Mark Trombino's 29 at this point, by the way. This is really crazy. They make a seven inch together, they get along great, and Capital's like, that's fine, but he's not that experienced. So we're gonna need-

• 47:08Yasi Salek?

  Wes Kidd, the frontman of our other signing, Triple Fast Action. Do you know this band?

• 47:14Speaker 04

  I remember the name, but I cannot hold a note.

• 47:17Yasi Salek?

  I think it was Gary Gersh's, like, proud signing.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 47:21Yasi Salek?

  So they're trying to get the label to care about it. I also saw something in the Dallas Observer in 1999. Lot of All Weekly is quoted in this story because it was really the peak of All Weekly.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:35Yasi Salek?

  That they were trying to get Rob Schnopf. Fucking legend. And Tom Roth, Rothock, Rothrock? To do it, but they didn't, Jimmy World didn't want that. They wanted Trombino and they were like, okay, fine, bring in this other guy if you need to. But actually Schnopf and Rothrock did end up remixing two of the songs that come out on the first.

• 47:57Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting.

• 47:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Rockstar in 17.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:59Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so they record at Sound City in Van Nuys. That's where Nevermind was made with Butch Vig. Lynd was like, we tracked in the same room where Tom Petty did Wildflowers and Rage Against the Machine made their self-titled album, Fleetwood Mac made Rumors. We recorded in that space and we got to learn how records are made. That was huge. That totally informed who we'd become. I think that's also a good point in your speaking about how their trajectory would have gone if they had signed like a merger or whatever.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  You have four days with Steve Albini, make the most of it.

• 48:29Yasi Salek?

  Exactly, like, or like, here's this guy's garage, you know, whatever. Like, instead you're in, you're like, in one of the most iconic studios with everything available to your disposal.

• 48:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:39Yasi Salek?

  You know, because they are really a studio band.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 48:42Yasi Salek?

  You know? So they make Static Prevails. Chris Ryan's Bargain Bin by UCD.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:50Yasi Salek?

  Secondspin.com. Remember Secondspin? It was a chain of used.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  My, my spot was, when I was in Philly, it was Toons in Marlton, New Jersey. I would go there. They had a lot of really good used CDs. Repo Records, kind of Rosemont area.

• 49:08Yasi Salek?

  Very nice.

• 49:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:09Yasi Salek?

  Very nice. That was a warehouse music, unfortunately that wasn't near me. I didn't discover the cool record stores till later, later on in high school. Warehouse music had great stuff. I got a Feelies tape there for a dollar.

• 49:19Speaker 04

  Damn.

• 49:20Yasi Salek?

  We used to be a proper fucking country, okay? All right, let's talk about Static Prevails. It's really interesting to me though, because when we're talking about this timeline. What's happening in music is so irrelevant to what's happening with like Jimmy World, or even like The Promise Ring, or all these bands that, you know, like, it just like is unrelated.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 49:42Yasi Salek?

  Like, the fact that Sublime's self-titled comes out this year is like, or Weezer. Weezer's Pinkerton may be lightly related, but like, it's not, no one cares.

• 49:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. I had come to this music from indie rock.

• 49:58Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 49:59Speaker 04

  And listening to Pavement, and listening to like, well, Oldham, and Arches of Loaf, and, you know, some other stuff, but like, it was like, a lot of mystery, a lot of the lyrics were very opaque. I love Arches of Loaf, but, when I moved to Boston, one thing that was really interesting was like, a lot of the guys who were in bands that maybe sounded a little bit like Jimmy World, had different pockets of taste than I had. Like, you know how you like make assumptions, like, well, we all like Pavement, right? They're critically adored. And it's like, yeah, they're good, but like, I also like this as much. And that, I think, quality is also what I was responding to when I heard Static Prevails, even though it's not like, in any way, shape, or form, like, they're a great record.

• 50:44Speaker 04

  There's like pieces of Static Prevails where you're just like, whoa, there's something really like, absolute, like a blast of like, new energy and like a fresh kind of perspective in this record that, I don't know, I was really looking for it without knowing I was looking for it.

• 50:59Yasi Salek?

  You didn't care about pop punk.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  I liked it.

• 51:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah?

• 51:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I was not, I didn't self-identify as that.

• 51:05Yasi Salek?

  Were you like Fat Records?

• 51:07Speaker 04

  No. I was an East Coast kid. So that was another thing. It was just like, regionally, I was just like, this snot-nosed, like, eh, eh. But like, there are still like, fucking anthems out of that, that like, disconnected by Face to Face.

• 51:21Yasi Salek?

  No, you don't know what you are given. No. Face to Face from Apple Valley.

• 51:27Speaker 04

  You don't know what you want.

• 51:36Yasi Salek?

  That song is so fucking good.

• 51:38Speaker 04

  It's crazy.

• 51:38Yasi Salek?

  It's got the chills. K-Rock anthem. Yeah, great. Face to Face, great band. I love, West Coast pop punk is like my.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  I know.

• 51:46Yasi Salek?

  That's my. The blood that runs through my veins. I think Rockstar is actually a fabulous song.

• 51:52Speaker 04

  I think Call It In The Air is a fabulous song.

• 51:54Yasi Salek?

  The single, Become Your Dad.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  I know.

• 51:57Yasi Salek?

  What an insane lyric.

• 52:05Speaker 04

  I think the first line of that song is leave home today.

• 52:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 52:08Speaker 04

  So if you're like 20 when you hear that, or 18, you're like, holy shit. Someone's like speaking right to me.

• 52:13Yasi Salek?

  I like that Jim was like, you guys, I tried writing a song. Here it is. Become your dad. And they were like, whoa. All right. Live unquestioned, it's in your head, nostalgia's dead. I think it's interesting that you're connecting to the emotional part of this because their lyrics aren't opaque, but they're also extremely broad.

• 52:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't really, I think I, when I say I connected to it emotionally, I think I connected to his voice more than the words that he was saying. Now, like every once in a while, there will be a line where you're like, holy shit. But not only are the song meanings kind of impenetrable, but he also does not give a lot when it comes to like, this song is about this.

• 52:54Yasi Salek?

  No, he's not interested.

• 52:55Speaker 04

  I think he's done it like five times.

• 52:56Yasi Salek?

  Malcolm's core, yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you're left to your own devices. Or you're left to references like episode four, where you're like, that is Star Wars.

• 53:03Yasi Salek?

  That's Star Wars, which as you know, they played that song in Tom DeLonge's wedding.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  That's pretty funny.

• 53:08Yasi Salek?

  It's pretty great. We love that. We love Tom DeLonge on this podcast. Trombino also did Dude Ranch.

• 53:15Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:16Yasi Salek?

  Seminole.

• 53:16Speaker 04

  Damn, caked up that year.

• 53:18Yasi Salek?

  Seminole, Blink 182. You know Cheshire Cat and me are.

• 53:24Yasi Salek?

  Carousel.

• 53:26Yasi Salek?

  Eminem's, that was my song with my high school boyfriend. That's a really perfect album. I'm kind of sad that they departed from that.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  That lane, yeah. That they went on to make some of the most indelible pop music.

• 53:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I really wish they had stayed with the.

• 53:40Yasi Salek?

  Anyways, have you watched the video for Rockstar?

• 53:44Speaker 04

  I have.

• 53:45Yasi Salek?

  It's just torsos in my memory and feet.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:49Yasi Salek?

  What were they, what were they going for?

• 53:51Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 53:52Yasi Salek?

  These guys are sort of. You know, illegible, so we are going to really play up on that?

• 53:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I don't know necessarily that that was like David Fincher level filmmaking. No offense.

• 54:05Yasi Salek?

  What was the endgame? Were they like, MTV will see this and be like, yes, give me 10?

• 54:09Speaker 04

  If you show their faces, MTV will be like, who are these jokers? But if you just show their torsos, they might be like, interesting. You know?

• 54:15Yasi Salek?

  Artsy.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:27Yasi Salek?

  This album cost $100,000 to make.

• 54:31Speaker 04

  Adjusted for inflation, that's an insanely expensive record.

• 54:33Yasi Salek?

  Insanely expensive record.

• 54:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:35Yasi Salek?

  I didn't mention, but Jim sings way more on this album. I think Tom only sings maybe one or two songs. The cover is a rooftop in Denver. Those chimneys.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  Do you like their album covers, generally?

• 54:47Yasi Salek?

  It's really across the board. I like the Eggleston photo, of course, because...

• 54:53Speaker 04

  It's just ama- did you ever read that interview with him where they just show him all the bands that have used his photos? So it's like a pitchfork interview where he does like the 5'10", 15, 25 or whatever? And he's got great taste.

• 55:04Yasi Salek?

  He's a big star, primal scream, all the...

• 55:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, but then they, they start showing him the records and they get to like Jimmy Eat World. He's like, I've never seen this before. He's like, I know the photo.

• 55:12Yasi Salek?

  I don't know her.

• 55:13Speaker 04

  And they're like, well, presumably you got paid for it. And he's like, not even sure about that.

• 55:16Yasi Salek?

  I'm sure.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  I'm sure he got paid, not trying to besmirch them.

• 55:19Yasi Salek?

  Steven Spielberg made sure that, you know, Eggleston was paid.

• 55:23Speaker 04

  Steven Spielberg did?

• 55:24Yasi Salek?

  DreamWorks, babe.

• 55:25Speaker 04

  Oh, right.

• 55:26Yasi Salek?

  Right. Is Static Prevails an iconic record?

• 55:30Speaker 04

  No.

• 55:32Yasi Salek?

  Does it have some good stuff?

• 55:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 55:34Yasi Salek?

  Yes. Are we seeing some progression?

• 55:36Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 55:37Yasi Salek?

  And also like, I'm glad. It was, it's like they went to grad school. That $100,000 was them all going to grad school and how to use the studio.

• 55:45Speaker 04

  Yes. And what with Tom, you know? This declarity is one of the craziest leaps that you will ever hear.

• 55:51Yasi Salek?

  This album gets no reviews, basically. I mean, Lauren Israels writing reviews himself for it and sending them into the fanzines. He said this, which I thought was funny. This was in the era where these fancy writers were talking about Jawbox and Texas is the Reason or Rites of Spring. Cap'n, you can hear like the vitriol, like why he, Jawbreaker, Knapsack, all these bands. I'm sorry, but Jim and Tom had better voices than all these guys and they knew how to write a hook.

• 56:17Speaker 04

  Go off, Lauren. I love Napsec. I loved Captain, I love all these bands.

• 56:20Yasi Salek?

  Jobbreaker. I mean, yes, Captain Jazz couldn't write a hook if they were like literally, you know, blindfolded and put a gun in their mouth, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a good band.

• 56:32Yasi Salek?

  Jobbreaker is very hooky.

• 56:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:35Yasi Salek?

  Anyways, there's one review that I found, Lollipop Fanzine, nine seven, it says, "There's four guys from Mesa, Arizona, on their way to the MTV Buzzbin in a sometimes hard rock band with a cool name, playing distorted clingy guitar intense music peppered with additional musicians. The CD started out frenzied and boiling, and I thought I'd really like it because my head was banging and my fingers were tapping on the keyboard. After a while, though, the vocals, ranging from screeching to breathy to that whiny gruff but sensitive rock star thing, started to annoy me. If they were my friends, I'd probably think Jimmy World was the best band in the world, but they're not, and they're not. Bye, Chris Ryan, just kidding."

• 57:12Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 57:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:14Yasi Salek?

  I liked that. If they were my friends, I think they were the best band in the world. I thought that was like such like, it's such a cute, like.

• 57:19Speaker 04

  That's true, right? If you, like, there's no objective, objectivity when they're your friends. You're just like, this is unreal that you guys like, you know, you know people and you're just like, you guys don't know how to clean a kitchen, but you somehow made an album like.

• 57:32Yasi Salek?

  No, my best, my, my friends in college's band was called El Jefe. Was it rap rock? Correct. Was there a trumpet? You bet your fucking bottom dollar. And was I at every show being like, you are Led Zeppelin.

• 57:45Yasi Salek?

  That's how, it do be like that sometimes. Okay, so Capitol's like, once again, we don't care if you live or die. I didn't even know this was made. Why don't you guys tour 7-Eleven parking lots after school gets out?

• 57:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:58Yasi Salek?

  Low key, they were made fun of it. I think that's kind of a good idea.

• 58:01Speaker 04

  It's sick.

• 58:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:02Yasi Salek?

  I was like, I was at the Taco Bell parking lot every day after school, like.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  If Jimmy World showed up, you'd be like.

• 58:08Yasi Salek?

  My new favorite band.

• 58:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:10Yasi Salek?

  Where's the merch? I'll buy it.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:12Yasi Salek?

  So I do think that that Capitol idea was good and they shit on it, but I, you know, get a fucking slurpee and see Jimmy World, 3pm after school, or talkies or whatever we were having. Oh, no, it was Jolt Cola.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  We did not have talkies.

• 58:25Yasi Salek?

  No, we didn't have talkies. We had Jolt Cola.

• 58:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 58:27Yasi Salek?

  May arrest. Did you not have Jolt Cola?

• 58:29Speaker 04

  Uh, I think Jolt was around.

• 58:31Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, like 10 times the caffeine of a Coca-Cola.

• 58:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:34Yasi Salek?

  Jolt Cola is absolutely illegal. I can't believe they let 12-year-old kids buy a Jolt Cola on the way to school in the morning.

• 58:44Yasi Salek?

  Throw that back.

• 58:45Speaker 04

  We, I used to take down, um, between school being over and basketball practice starting, I would do, um, a roll of Sweet Tarts. An entire roll.

• 58:55Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 58:56Speaker 04

  And, uh, king size Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. And then like, like, they were fine.

• 59:03Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you're one of those genetically blessed people.

• 59:05Speaker 04

  Which is weird because my dad's English, so it's like, how did that happen? Yeah.

• 59:09Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so they, they keep it moving. They're like, we're not gonna tour 7-Eleven parking lots respectfully, but we will tour with Mineral and Braid and your beloved Jay June. They also are like, we're not allowed to do this, but we're gonna put out some illegal split seven inches.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  At this point, I would say, as they like start touring with these bands, I've, I've seen like, I see them a couple of times around this.

• 59:30Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you do?

• 59:31Speaker 04

  Era.

• 59:31Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 59:32Speaker 04

  I think I remember seeing them with Mineral. I can't remember. I did see Mineral a couple of times around this, this period. And they have a split with Mineral and Sense Field around this time. I will say that around this time, I believe I started hearing songs from Clarity, like on tapes that like.

• 59:49Yasi Salek?

  Oh, being.

• 59:50Speaker 04

  Well, because like they would play and like if it would be like.

• 59:53Yasi Salek?

  That's too early. It hasn't not happened yet.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  It hasn't not happened yet?

• 59:54Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  There, but there's like, there's like a point.

• 59:57Yasi Salek?

  Oh, maybe they were, you think they were playing them on tour? Is that what you're saying?

• 59:59Speaker 04

  No, no. I mean, like, it, at a certain point, like in 97 or something like that.

• 1:00:03Yasi Salek?

  But that's not yet.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  And, but even more so, like, I think they would be like, hey, here's our record to a band that they had toured with. And then that band would make a copy of that record or something like that. But maybe it's a little bit later.

• 1:00:13Yasi Salek?

  I think it's a little later. But, but to your point, Secret Crush.

• 1:00:16Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:17Yasi Salek?

  Was on the split with, uh, Mineral and Sense Field.

• 1:00:21Speaker 04

  And becomes Crush.

• 1:00:22Yasi Salek?

  And becomes Crush. So that was existing. Yeah, I don't think they, again, I can't know if they've written and started.

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  Sometime around there, What I Would Say To You Now is on a seven inch. I think that's on the Jay June seven inch.

• 1:00:31Yasi Salek?

  That's on the Jay June seven inch.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  And that's on one of my favorite songs by them still.

• 1:00:36Yasi Salek?

  Because you got to.

• 1:00:37Speaker 04

  But it's not on Static Prevails. It's like the in-between song.

• 1:00:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah. This is, this is, this is when they're kind of building their bread and butter of like, we're in this scene.

• 1:00:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:00:44Yasi Salek?

  We're associated with these people. We're kind of like.

• 1:00:49Yasi Salek?

  Making these songs, they were like really like touring with The Promise Ring and, and, uh, Boys Life and Christopher and Drive again. The seven inches were fine because as they said, capital doesn't know we exist. So they didn't sue us because they didn't care. Also, like, what, how much money are you making on a split seven inch with mineral, you know, like 500 bucks? So, yeah, God, that, what would I say to you now, is such a good song.

• 1:01:13Speaker 04

  That's another one that has like, like a, almost like a lyrical hook that starts it. Like, it's like, still sitting there with your legs crossed, not paying attention to me, which I think probably is a very damning assessment of, of emo gentleman at the time, like, being mad about that, but, like, it was awesome.

• 1:01:31Yasi Salek?

  But also, like, Nobel Prize in Literature, you know?

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, you just are like, wait, I gotta hear what he says next.

• 1:01:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Yasi Salek?

  He is a really good writer. He's a really good lyricist.

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• 1:02:56Yasi Salek?

  All right, in 1998, they opened for The Promise Ring on tour. Let's fucking go. I love The Promise Ring.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:03:02Yasi Salek?

  I'm really a Get Up Kid's son. Promise Ring moon.

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  Gotcha.

• 1:03:08Yasi Salek?

  Jimmy, world rising.

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:03:10Yasi Salek?

  You know, that's my big three.

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  That's your star sign.

• 1:03:12Yasi Salek?

  That's my big three of emo, probably. I mean, sunny day, real estate, everything, though. That's my...

• 1:03:18Speaker 04

  What about Jeremy Enix's solo record?

• 1:03:20Yasi Salek?

  I like it.

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 1:03:21Yasi Salek?

  The Frog King?

• 1:03:22Speaker 04

  Abigail Ann?

• 1:03:23Yasi Salek?

  Abigail Ann. Oh, shit.

• 1:03:26Yasi Salek?

  That man is touched by God. I love him so much. They're sure they're gonna get dropped, right? They're like, okay, that... I think Clarity sold 10,000 copies. Cost $100,000 to make. You do the math.

• 1:03:39Speaker 04

  But they're caught up in like the the engine waste of like major label industry where they're just like, ah, you're in accounting era.

• 1:03:46Yasi Salek?

  Also, again, it's 97. Like, they're still printing money in 97. You know, like CDs are like cost nothing and are flying off the shelves and like Napster who? We don't know her yet, you know? Like, she's simply a nightmare lurking around the corner. And Craig Enson's like, guess what? We're picking up a second record. And they were like, what? Okay, cool. This is very important because they come into this being like mom spaghetti, you know? I got one shot.

• 1:04:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:15Yasi Salek?

  They're absolutely, we're never gonna get another album on Capitol. So like, let's take the most advantage of the studio possible, right? I mean, that's the lore of Clarity. Like, that's why it goes so fucking hard in the way that it does, which is like, what if we had a, what is it called? A tampani?

• 1:04:35Speaker 04

  Tampani, yeah.

• 1:04:36Yasi Salek?

  Like, okay.

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  Is there like a Mellotron here? They're doing like drum tracks, like layered drum tracks?

• 1:04:42Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because they're like, we're never gonna have a budget to do this ever again.

• 1:04:46Speaker 04

  There's also something that happens on this record that's really cool, which doesn't really necessarily have to do, although I think the financial aspect of it, or the this is our last shot aspect of it certainly helps, which is like Jim starts treating his vocals as like... An instrument.

• 1:05:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  Huge part of the songwriting process where it's like, you can hear on "Sack Prevails", like, he's like fighting over like these sheets of guitars and like, it's still pop punk, mild post-hardcore dynamics.

• 1:05:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  And he's screaming against that, but it's, the Clarity stuff is where he's like, "My voice is pretty good and I also can do all this stuff with harmonies that", it's like, he's like fucking Lindsey Buckingham on this record.

• 1:05:29Yasi Salek?

  I do not understand why it never comes up that this man has the voice of a fucking angel. It never, like, like, I remember when I was researching U2, they, they call him Bono because it's like a word that means like golden throat or something. I'm serious. Like, I can't remember exactly what it is, but that's where his nickname comes from. And with, no one's like, "Hey, our buddy Jim, have you heard him sing? It's fucking crazy." In fact,

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Yasi Salek?

  Tom's gonna sing all the songs. Like, it never just like comes up. And then all of a sudden in Clarity, he's like,

• 1:05:55Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I also like, and I know how to use it the way the Beach Boys use vocals or the way Fleetwood Mac uses vocals.

• 1:06:03Yasi Salek?

  You know who said it really good, I'm gonna say it since this is a perfect timing, Andy Greenwald, do you know him?

• 1:06:08Speaker 04

  I do.

• 1:06:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, you know him, he's a celebrity, he's right here.

• 1:06:13Yasi Salek?

  He said in that book, "If Clarity is more concerned with the emotional struggles of its songwriter, it wages the defining battles in the music as well as the lyrics. Again and again, Atkins uses his newfound studio expertise to create beautiful moments of singing with himself. When his voice or lyrics are at their most fragile or vulnerable, a second Atkins appears, scooping up out of the studio crackle to lend strength and harmony." Okay, Andy Greenwald.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  I know, go off, King.

• 1:06:40Yasi Salek?

  Go off, King.

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Yasi Salek?

  Gorgeous.

• 1:06:44Yasi Salek?

  Damn, I don't even wanna talk anymore.

• 1:06:46Speaker 04

  I think my review is like, "This is good."

• 1:06:48Yasi Salek?

  No, I think I told you what you said, you're in here, hold on. "Perfect balance of noise and bliss. Chris Ryan and the new Rolling Stone album guy."

• 1:06:55Speaker 04

  I think I said more than that, but yeah.

• 1:06:57Yasi Salek?

  That's just what's quoted on Wikipedia and I didn't go further because I don't have that book. Okay, well, let's take it from the top. Clarity, produced by Mark Trombino and Jimmy R. World, took 50 days to make. Which again, that's,

• 1:07:09Speaker 04

  That's a long time.

• 1:07:10Yasi Salek?

  A big budget studio, yeah. They're like, "Worrr, is anyone looking? No, okay, I'm just gonna keep going." They have a cellist, Suzie Katayama, and a violinist, Joel Druin, and they just do whatever they want because, which is so insane to me because it's not- They have, it seems like unlimited money, but no oversight.

• 1:07:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like the best of both worlds, right? Like, they actually have, and also weirdly, like, probably no expectations on a macro level of, like, radio rock and like the great global music scene, but within their, I, I think at this point, like, people were kinda like, "It would be cool to hear, I wonder what Jimmy World is doing."

• 1:07:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  Within this kind of, like, emo scene.

• 1:07:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, if they were trying to make radio rock, I mean, I'm telling you what is charting as enema of the state.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:07:58Yasi Salek?

  So they didn't do that.

• 1:07:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's like, um, kind of like this,

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  what am I, it's not even a cliche, it's like just this idea that I think hangs over a lot of pop rock, that it's like, in a just society, this teenage fan club song would be bigger than a Britney Spears song and stuff like that. And I think, like, the public has voted. You know, like, guitar rock is popular enough, but like, it's not, there's not some great injustice being done that Matthew Sweet is not bigger than.

• 1:08:32Yasi Salek?

  Damn, but Sick of Myself is such a thought.

• 1:08:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, but like, Sick of Myself is a perfect example of like, how is this song not like number one on the charts? And I think that, like, I think pop rock fans or power pop fans are a little grieved by, like, the idea of, like, there's, there's just been a robbery of, of like, great riches and fame.

• 1:08:52Yasi Salek?

  But I think that's so stupid, because honestly, the, the protective layer of pop rock, or cool pop rock anyways, is that it's, it's cool.

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:59Yasi Salek?

  Which by definition means it's not for everyone.

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Yasi Salek?

  Where if you remove that, it's Gin Blossoms, which is great, I'm not saying they're uncool. Or Hootie and the Blowfish. There's plenty of pop rock that did chart as high as.

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  There's also just that you can never, you never know where the roulette wheel is gonna stop. And sometimes it's on like, 867-5309, and you're like, "That's a fucking banger." And, like, it still gets played on the radio.

• 1:09:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, or Alanis Morissette, which we just talked about on this podcast, who has like, the 15th highest selling, or whatever, 18th highest selling album of all time, still to this day.

• 1:09:31Speaker 04

  But who could've guessed?

• 1:09:32Yasi Salek?

  Who could've guessed?

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  Let's just, let's just say, this is my favorite record by them. I think this is one of like my favorite rock records of the decade, certainly. This record has no skips.

• 1:09:45Yasi Salek?

  This is Van Morrison's "Moon Dance" to you.

• 1:09:47Speaker 04

  It's fucking nuts, though. Like, I keep, at various stages of my life, I feel like this, this record's not like, it's not gonna be that good when I put it back on.

• 1:09:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:56Speaker 04

  And "Lucky Denver Mint" starts, and then I don't stop. I literally don't skip tracks on this record. And it's got two or three of my favorite.

• 1:10:05Yasi Salek?

  Song, so I guess you're bismerching.

• 1:10:07Speaker 04

  "Table for Glasses," my bad, yes.

• 1:10:10Yasi Salek?

  No, it's incredible. It's, it's interesting, they were like, "We can do both." Like, here's like a super nuanced, interesting, at times quite weird album, that's really beautiful, and then here's a very straightforward, catchy, but also still interesting and beautiful album.

• 1:10:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:10:30Yasi Salek?

  You know, like, they were like, "Oh, we can do both things."

• 1:10:32Speaker 04

  Yes. This one felt more rooted, this was like a culmination of like a lot of the sounds of that time for me. And so I think it both functions as like a time capsule piece, but also like, it's, it stands the test of time. Crush and Clarity are in my like top five Jimmy Eat World songs list rankings.

• 1:10:55Yasi Salek?

  Which version of Crush?

• 1:10:56Speaker 04

  I prefer "Secret Crush" because I like, felt like that was like a message from outer space when I heard that 7-inch, but Crush is incredible.

• 1:11:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:04Speaker 04

  Clarity, the song is incredible. "Lucky Denver Mint," which I think is kind of their left of the dial. Like, if you listen to the lyrics, it sounds a lot like, "This is really hard, but this is the only thing like, worth doing, being a band." And there's like lots of bands out there like trying to make it work, and... I'll catch up when we get home because we're going on tour for a long time.

• 1:11:27Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's about taking a risk, gambling. Actually, I think it was literally written after going to Vegas. Do you know what Table for Lasses is about? You do now because you looked at my doc. See, is it fun when you look at my doc beforehand? That's what you wanted.

• 1:11:37Speaker 04

  I need to have a little roadmap. I can't just sit here for three hours and be like, what's happening next?

• 1:11:42Yasi Salek?

  You've done it so many times and you've got grace and aplomb.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  I know. I'm getting used to it.

• 1:11:47Yasi Salek?

  I think you know what happens next in the Jimmy Eat World story. Well, I'll tell the listeners, Table for Lasses. Oh, well, this is something we should talk about. A lot of these songs were not written for Jimmy Eat World.

• 1:11:58Speaker 04

  Yes, I had no idea about this.

• 1:12:00Yasi Salek?

  So Jim Adkins had a imaginary side project?

• 1:12:03Speaker 04

  This is where he mentions Bedhead.

• 1:12:05Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 1:12:05Speaker 04

  Is I did see an interview where he mentions like, we wanted to make a very pretty, direct, stripped down, like kind of soft rock band.

• 1:12:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, with six people.

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, three guitars, like Bedhead.

• 1:12:16Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. You know what? Another thing Luke would tell me is that he has an incredibly diverse and broad musical taste. Like he knows, like he listens to Suicide and like all these things that he would never like really talk about, but like he knows everything.

• 1:12:27Speaker 04

  It was sick. I watched him on the amoeba, like what's in your bag? No, I can't remember where it was, but it was something where he was just like, they were like, name your emo anthems. And he just kind of is like Boiler Maker by Jesus Lizard.

• 1:12:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he loves Jesus Lizard.

• 1:12:40Speaker 04

  You know, and it's like, he does not take the assignment. He like, is just like, I'm gonna shout out.

• 1:12:44Yasi Salek?

  I'm not playing your game.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:47Yasi Salek?

  You've called, you've.

• 1:12:47Speaker 04

  Five Jahu songs, Boiler Maker by Jesus Lizard.

• 1:12:50Yasi Salek?

  So good. But yeah, so again, a lot of these songs were written not for Jimmy Eat World. It was Jim Adkins writing for, again, probably writing, thinking Jimmy Eat World's contract was not renewed.

• 1:13:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:02Yasi Salek?

  Or whatever, they were not making another album and writing for this other version of this band that I don't think these people were in.

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  I think some of the, like, one of the Jimmy Eat World guys was maybe in it.

• 1:13:14Yasi Salek?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  But I think he had like half a dozen songs that were done. They were like, well, they're like, they have music and lyrics. Like, obviously, they change a lot.

• 1:13:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:21Speaker 04

  But, um, yes, to my point earlier where I was like, I was mysteriously getting clarity bootlegs. I wasn't, it was probably right around, when did this come out? In 98?

• 1:13:33Yasi Salek?

  Uh, 99.

• 1:13:35Speaker 04

  I had heard some of this in like 98.

• 1:13:38Yasi Salek?

  That makes sense. That makes sense. You mentioned this earlier, but just to note, like, they are, they have a big recording budget. But like you said, they're using it all for recording.

• 1:13:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:13:49Yasi Salek?

  They're sleeping on the floor of, they had a manager at the time who managed Ice-T. And they were sleeping on the floor with Trespass, Surviving the Game, and New Jack Hustler posters above our sleeping bags.

• 1:14:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:05Yasi Salek?

  So great. I mean, they're like 20, right?

• 1:14:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, if you had a chance to make this, like,

• 1:14:12Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:14:13Speaker 04

  It's fucking crazy.

• 1:14:14Yasi Salek?

  They were like, we need 10 cowbells and different pitches. Like, we need tubular bells. I don't even know what that is. They love bells.

• 1:14:21Speaker 04

  Talk to me about this record. What are some of your favorite songs on this record?

• 1:14:26Yasi Salek?

  They're all good.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  Did you enjoy this the most as an entire, like, as an LP in its entirety out of their catalog when revisiting?

• 1:14:35Yasi Salek?

  I still, and it's neck and neck. But, but Bleed American, I have such more association with. Yeah. I mean, they're both so easy to put on and listen to. Like, you don't want to skip the, I'm gonna say it, and I don't, I think it's a good song, but I think it just suffers from too much. I do skip the middle.

• 1:14:59Speaker 04

  The song in the middle?

• 1:15:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I just skip the song in the middle. But that's not because it's a bad song, it's just like fatigue. Jim mentioned he was listening to a lot of Low at the time.

• 1:15:08Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:15:08Yasi Salek?

  Does, do you pick that up at all?

• 1:15:10Speaker 04

  I mean, not tempo-wise, obviously.

• 1:15:12Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:15:13Speaker 04

  The sort of, um, glacial guitar sound, not glacial, like, slow, but like, glistening guitar sound that they have. And I wonder whether or not he picks up anything from Alan and Mimi's harmonies.

• 1:15:25Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:26Speaker 04

  And like, basically, he's like, I'll do this myself.

• 1:15:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I think that might be true. Okay, Table for Glasses, I'm just gonna TLDR what it's about. It's literally about him being at an art, a weird art show in Mesa and watching a girl, she's cleaning.

• 1:15:41Yasi Salek?

  The ground with the tail of her dress. And then she went to a candlelit table and started picking out the dirt from her dress and putting it into these glasses on the table.

• 1:15:52Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 1:15:53Yasi Salek?

  Table for glasses.

• 1:15:54Speaker 04

  And this is like relatively speaking, one of the few times he's like been like, this is what this song is about.

• 1:15:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, there was more than I thought. It was just very buried. Like, I had to really, really dig.

• 1:16:03Speaker 04

  Get to the German podcast.

• 1:16:04Yasi Salek?

  You had to get the German podcast and these like Wayback Machine.

• 1:16:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:07Yasi Salek?

  Like fanzine websites that are defunct now. That's the thing. He's not.

• 1:16:14Speaker 04

  Willfully obscure.

• 1:16:14Yasi Salek?

  He's not willfully obscure. And if you ask him directly, he usually answers. But he, I just don't think, I think to have mythology, you kind of have to self-mythologize. And this is not a band that self-mythologized. Jimmy Rold did not do that.

• 1:16:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:29Yasi Salek?

  And, I mean, good for them. Why bother?

• 1:16:34Speaker 04

  I love some of the quotes about, like, the way that this album hit people and also, in a Pinkerton-esque way, I think, continued to have like 10 to 15 years of influence on musicians.

• 1:16:47Yasi Salek?

  Do you think it's still influential? Do you think people still go back to Clarity?

• 1:16:50Speaker 04

  They, they like just played Best Ten's Friends Forever. And I think it was like 70% Clarity.

• 1:16:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It's, it's kind of emerged over time as like this like.

• 1:17:00Speaker 04

  The Dark Sister of Bleed American?

• 1:17:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and just a classic, right? Like, yeah, the Led Zeppelin IV of emo rock.

• 1:17:06Speaker 04

  Who said that?

• 1:17:08Yasi Salek?

  Didn't find a quote. It was like some zine.

• 1:17:09Speaker 04

  Jim Adkins.

• 1:17:10Yasi Salek?

  Jim Adkins himself. The Paul's Boutique of emo was Matt Prior.

• 1:17:14Speaker 04

  I kind of like that. I'd not thought of it that way. But like, when you listen to it now, you can tell how layered the production is, that it almost makes sense that you would compare it to Paul's Boutique.

• 1:17:26Yasi Salek?

  Do you think that, given the chance, like a band like The Promise Ring would have made a similar record if they had that much money?

• 1:17:32Speaker 04

  That's a great question, because you do almost wonder, if we're talking about sliding doors moments about like their career, Christie Front Drive's career, so much of like how people made records in the independent music scene was about this like. We got together, our label gave us $4,000.

• 1:17:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Speaker 04

  We have two days.

• 1:17:52Yasi Salek?

  It was about limitations.

• 1:17:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, like and then I can do vocals like when we mix or something, but like this, this idea of getting to make rumors.

• 1:18:01Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 04

  Like, which I know it's, it's a crazy comparison, but I think it sounds more like rumors than it does like 30 Degrees Everywhere.

• 1:18:10Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:11Speaker 04

  And so I think that there is like a, a kind of, um,

• 1:18:16Speaker 04

  artistic like license that they had because they were in that like, kind of like, hey, the label's gonna get us like this thing, we're gonna put all the money into it. Could the Promise Ring have done that? I think a lot of those bands, when they did get signed and when they were given like bigger budgets, like, they were like, oh, we'll go country. That's our idea. You know, like, or whatever, like, we'll, we'll,

• 1:18:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:36Speaker 04

  It didn't, it didn't feel like they were like, we're gonna like really, really push the limits of what we can do.

• 1:18:41Yasi Salek?

  The only comp I can think of is Sunny Day Real Estate, who were not on a major when they made Diary, but they were on Sub Pop post Nirvana. So they probably did have more money to play with.

• 1:18:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:52Yasi Salek?

  And to me, Diary, I just always think of it as a comp, because Diary is such a crazy, good and interesting album.

• 1:18:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:18:58Yasi Salek?

  That was like, like nothing before it, you know? And I don't know how much that is.

• 1:19:04Speaker 04

  Diary still sounds like those four guys in a room.

• 1:19:06Yasi Salek?

  It is pretty sludgy.

• 1:19:07Speaker 04

  And one dude singing.

• 1:19:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it is pretty sludgy.

• 1:19:09Speaker 04

  So it's not like, it's like.

• 1:19:11Yasi Salek?

  It's not sonically.

• 1:19:12Speaker 04

  They weren't doing like, I'm not saying Goodbye Sky Harbor is like,

• 1:19:15Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:19:16Speaker 04

  Better than anything Sunny Day has ever done, but I am like, you have to have like a real fucking imagination about what you're capable of to make Goodbye Sky Harbor.

• 1:19:23Yasi Salek?

  Totally. Or like, it's a perfect storm of like, the imagination of what you're capable of and the fact that nobody cares if you fail at it.

• 1:19:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:31Yasi Salek?

  There's no failing, right? Cause like, what would failure look like?

• 1:19:33Speaker 04

  And what are they following up? It's like Static Prevails was like, people liked a couple of songs off of it.

• 1:19:37Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Yasi Salek?

  I want to talk about, well, we should talk about Lucky Denverman. You brought it up. That's probably the catchiest song on here. It's the most pop forward.

• 1:19:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, and like, I fucking, I was like, I remember the first, I do remember like, hearing this for the first time and being like, what did they do? Like, do you're allowed to do that with drums on these records?

• 1:19:55Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:56Speaker 04

  Like, this is nuts.

• 1:19:57Yasi Salek?

  The drum was, they took it from somewhere else, right? Am I misremembering that?

• 1:20:02Speaker 04

  I thought they maybe like, recorded it on two different drum sets or something like that.

• 1:20:05Yasi Salek?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. This is like a real classic example of like, I don't know what they're on about, but I feel it in my soul with the, "I'll catch up when we get home. At home, I'll leave a dollar underwater. Keep on dreaming for me."

• 1:20:18Yasi Salek?

  That meme of the...

• 1:20:27Speaker 04

  Isn't that throwing money in a wishing well?

• 1:20:31Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 1:20:31Speaker 04

  Dollar underwater? Like a dollar of change in the wishing well?

• 1:20:34Yasi Salek?

  I'll leave a dollar. Do you usually use bills?

• 1:20:37Speaker 04

  No, like, change. Throw like, four quarters in a wishing well. I mean, that's a lot of money to put in a wishing well. Most people throw pennies in there. Penny for your thoughts, yeah.

• 1:20:44Yasi Salek?

  They're really, they're really betting on themselves with the whole dollar underwater.

• 1:20:47Speaker 04

  It's capital, you know? Gersh is just like, throw a dollar in there, kid. You never know.

• 1:20:51Yasi Salek?

  Well, Gersh is gone. He's been replaced.

• 1:20:54Speaker 04

  Oh, right.

• 1:20:54Yasi Salek?

  A new guy who also doesn't care about Jimmy World has been, uh, been in. I, I have like, a vague, I, I don't know if this is an implanted memory now, because it's like, this was played on K-Rock, which means, means I must have heard it. But then I was like, I don't really remember it. And then I was like-

• 1:21:08Speaker 04

  Lucky Denverman?

• 1:21:09Yasi Salek?

  Lucky Denverman. And I was kind of doing the math, and I was like, oh, yeah. This came out in 97. That's when I moved to Singapore. That's A. But B, even when I was back home in LA, I didn't drive yet.

• 1:21:23Speaker 04

  Hmm. So you weren't listening to the-

• 1:21:24Yasi Salek?

  I was in the streets with a walkman. So you're not listening to the radio as much. It's like, my biggest radio time was when I was too young to be in the streets. So I was just at home taping K-Rock off the thing.

• 1:21:37Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:21:37Yasi Salek?

  And then in the car.

• 1:21:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:21:39Yasi Salek?

  But this no man's land in between, I'm just like, in these streets with my walkman or discman, listening to like, my own mixes of like, maybe a little bit more obscure stuff.

• 1:21:47Speaker 04

  I think I've talked about this on other episodes, but this period of time was like- The Discman trapping you with one record and then your wallet trapping you with like a finite amount of music.

• 1:22:00Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:22:01Speaker 04

  And so you were just kind of like, yeah, like there was plenty of stuff that you would buy and be like, I do not like this. I'm going to sell it and get like through five bucks for this.

• 1:22:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:07Speaker 04

  But I remember this record very rarely also following me around. So it would be like, oh, my Discman. And then it would be like in the car, my buddy's van, he just had a tape of Clarity that was just like

• 1:22:18Yasi Salek?

  Always.

• 1:22:19Speaker 04

  Always be on. People would play Clarity at like the record store I worked at. Like we would just like listen to Clarity.

• 1:22:25Yasi Salek?

  You were partying, listening to Clarity.

• 1:22:27Speaker 04

  Well, it was just like something that broadly was agreed upon. That was good, you know? And so you listened to it twice in a day, three times in a day. How often do you listen to an album three times in a day for like months?

• 1:22:40Yasi Salek?

  And now?

• 1:22:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. So do you develop a different relationship with some of this stuff?

• 1:22:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally. This song was also Never Been Kissed, we sort of alluded to earlier. Capitol.

• 1:22:49Speaker 04

  And that kind of like literally saves their career, right?

• 1:22:52Yasi Salek?

  Well, the K-Rock of it all and the Never Been Kissed is like why this album even came out.

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:58Yasi Salek?

  I think it would have been shelved and they kind of say as much too. They're like, if that magic hadn't happened, no one would have ever heard Clarity because Capitol would have owned it and never released it.

• 1:23:07Speaker 04

  I remember there was like, so I think if I remember now, I'm sorry to work through my

• 1:23:12Yasi Salek?

  That's okay. That's what we do here.

• 1:23:13Speaker 04

  I do think that there was a conversation or, because the vinyl of this came out on Big Wheel? Rec? What did it? Or there was like, I can't remember who put the vinyl of Clarity out at one point, or there was gonna be like a vinyl release. But there was like, if this doesn't come out on Capitol, who's gonna put Clarity out?

• 1:23:33Yasi Salek?

  Right. Well, nobody, because it's something that Jim Atkins did say very early on before they signed to Capitol that did cross their mind, which I thought was interesting, which was like, you hear the horror stories you do hear about signing to majors is they just don't put your album out.

• 1:23:49Speaker 04

  But they don't let you go.

• 1:23:50Yasi Salek?

  They don't let you go.

• 1:23:51Speaker 04

  We're just like.

• 1:23:51Yasi Salek?

  And that happens. That's happened to a lot of artists. And they don't care. They'll just keep it. It'll never be heard.

• 1:23:55Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:23:56Yasi Salek?

  Never get the light of day, you know? So that was a real risk. When we say they had no risk, that was the risk.

• 1:24:01Speaker 04

  Sure. Yeah.

• 1:24:03Yasi Salek?

  So, thank God for Lucky Denver Mint and Never Been Kissed. A great Drew Barrymore film.

• 1:24:07Speaker 04

  But I wonder whether or not that six-person soft rock direct band would have been like their Jets to Brazil.

• 1:24:13Yasi Salek?

  Are they, would he, would you, I don't know about the legality of this kind of stuff. Do they just own the recordings?

• 1:24:18Speaker 04

  I don't know. I think it's probably different from contract to contract. Like, do you know if Blake Schwarzenbach and Jawbreaker, like, did he have a separate personal contract that was, I'm not trying to be annoying and get in his business.

• 1:24:29Yasi Salek?

  No, no, yeah.

• 1:24:30Speaker 04

  I remember when Jets to Brazil started, it was like, part of it was like,

• 1:24:34Yasi Salek?

  I have to.

• 1:24:34Speaker 04

  There is not going to be another Jawbreaker record because DGC like owns them.

• 1:24:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Yeah. Which sometimes they own you specifically too, but I guess it didn't happen. Anyways, that didn't happen here. Thank God. Lucky Denver Mint. Your New Aesthetic?

• 1:24:49Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:24:51Yasi Salek?

  A lot of this album, and then a lot of, um, lead American are very awesome about their career, which is so interesting. Like this verse in Your New Aesthetic, I remember back then thinking, easy comes but doesn't stay. What comes easy never stays. But the politics need means and business never leaves. You better sing now while you can. Better sing now while you can. Imitate and water it down, which is like literally the making of the album, right? It came so easy. We had this major label, but the politics need means and the business never leaves. So you better sing now while you can.

• 1:25:30Yasi Salek?

  Believe in What You Want, What You Ignore Is Priceless To Me at Capitol Records, like literally just speaking directly to the label.

• 1:25:38Speaker 04

  But all of these lines are vague enough that if you're 17 and you're like, this is about my girlfriend.

• 1:25:45Yasi Salek?

  Or the girl in class who doesn't pay any attention to me. Yeah. Jim said about Believe in What You Want, we were asked to contribute a cover for a Duran Duran tribute album and part of the hoopla for the release. We got to play with Duran Duran in the Hollywood Tower Records parking lot. That was a really cool place to see shows.

• 1:26:00Speaker 04

  They've played a lot of parking lots.

• 1:26:01Yasi Salek?

  Well, it was the 90s. It's California. We're outside and we don't have winter. This was during the Static Prevails during time, when we were playing shows in garages and basements that Zach himself was booking. At one point after we met the band, Duran Duran, we were surrounded by paparazzi. I kept thinking, this is crazy. None of you know or care who we are. I suppose the greater meaning behind the song is to keep in sight what is truly important. Don't get caught up in the fluff that doesn't really matter. Jim Atkins also always writing these sort of like. Broad self-help things.

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:26:33Yasi Salek?

  In a, this is a positive. I think it's cool.

• 1:26:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:26:36Yasi Salek?

  But like, from the beginning, kind of being like, you know, hey, don't beat yourself up, yep, or whatever they say in the middle.

• 1:26:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, it's so direct. And it does feel often addressed to the listener.

• 1:26:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:51Speaker 04

  You know, rather than obviously written about himself, or obviously, I mean, later he does like more character stuff, but there's a lot of like second person, like you, you, you stuff. That rubs off, you know, like that becomes like, you're like, oh, it is about me.

• 1:27:05Yasi Salek?

  He cares about me, yeah. Which, it probably was about himself, but it's easier to put a little distance and say you. A Sunday.

• 1:27:12Speaker 04

  Very nice. Very pretty.

• 1:27:13Yasi Salek?

  Chimes.

• 1:27:16Yasi Salek?

  I love it when they do chimes.

• 1:27:26Yasi Salek?

  This song is about driving south on I-17 from Flagstaff, Arizona, back home to Phoenix after a weekend visiting old college friends. I was hungover. It was Sunday morning, and I was thinking about a girl in Phoenix. I guess I realized that it was just not gonna happen, and I didn't really want it to.

• 1:27:40Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:27:41Yasi Salek?

  That's what a Sunday is about. Crush, we talked about, you love it. I also love the earlier version a little bit better. We were talking about it, and I was like, I think I like it because of his vocal quality.

• 1:27:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, because his voice cracks so much.

• 1:27:52Yasi Salek?

  Ragged, yeah, which to me is like so emotional.

• 1:27:53Speaker 04

  It's pretty ragged on this version, though, too.

• 1:27:55Yasi Salek?

  But maybe it's buried a little bit more in the production, or in, or in there's so much more going on.

• 1:28:00Speaker 04

  Simple discourse breaks you clean in half. It's true. It's why we can't reach across the aisle in this country, you know?

• 1:28:06Yasi Salek?

  So true. Simple discourse, my whole job. Breaking me clean in half. Every day I have to come simple discourse about some band.

• 1:28:22Yasi Salek?

  122395.

• 1:28:24Speaker 04

  I love this fucking song.

• 1:28:25Yasi Salek?

  Really fucking good song. I was listening to this morning while I was doing my makeup and I was like, "Go off. Go off Jimmy." This is, uh, this is really good. Paquita Moss is mentioned in the talking, not in the lyrics, but when they were talking about making this. Back to your regional fast food.

• 1:28:41Speaker 04

  And this is like a good, like, look at the, the brothers explore the studio space and really cook.

• 1:28:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:48Speaker 04

  Where they're like, we're doing backwards drums, we're doing like these crazy like guitar things, like, keys, like all this stuff.

• 1:29:06Yasi Salek?

  They use a Dr. Rhythm at the house when they're demoing. There's also apparently some Final Fantasy VII influence.

• 1:29:13Speaker 04

  Couldn't speak to it.

• 1:29:14Yasi Salek?

  No, you're not a gamer.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  Uh, very sporadically. So deep into like five games, but then not.

• 1:29:20Yasi Salek?

  I don't, I don't know about it. I didn't write anything down for 10. I don't think it's a skip or anything, but I just didn't write anything down for it.

• 1:29:27Speaker 04

  But you, we, we can just say that Just Watch the Fireworks is...

• 1:29:32Yasi Salek?

  What did I write? Gorgeous perfect song.

• 1:29:34Speaker 04

  I love this song Gorgeous Perfect, yeah.

• 1:29:38Yasi Salek?

  That's the butterfly.

• 1:29:39Speaker 04

  This is the seven minute one. This is around seven minutes, right?

• 1:29:42Yasi Salek?

  Why would you?

• 1:29:43Speaker 04

  Kind of like a dress rehearsal for Goodbye Sky Harbor.

• 1:29:46Yasi Salek?

  They're like, they're, they're testing the limits of how your attention span.

• 1:29:50Speaker 04

  But you listen to it, you're never like,

• 1:29:51Yasi Salek?

  Didn't even notice.

• 1:29:52Speaker 04

  "Why is this so long?"

• 1:29:53Yasi Salek?

  Didn't even notice.

• 1:29:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:54Yasi Salek?

  It's really beautiful. This lyric off, for me, this is heaven. And this is what she said gets her through it. "If I don't let myself be happy now, then when? If not now, when?"

• 1:30:15Yasi Salek?

  God tier. That's a god tier lyric. Jim Adkins, what were you smoking in this beautiful studio coming up with these? Do you know that in 2019, Taylor Swift put this song on a playlist of her favorite love songs?

• 1:30:26Speaker 04

  Did she really?

• 1:30:27Yasi Salek?

  Taylor Swift's a big Jimmy Eat World fan.

• 1:30:28Speaker 04

  Well, I know she's a big Jimmy Eat World fan.

• 1:30:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:30Speaker 04

  But I thought maybe she was-

• 1:30:31Yasi Salek?

  She's a head.

• 1:30:31Speaker 04

  Basic and just like the middle.

• 1:30:33Yasi Salek?

  No, she's a head. Clarity.

• 1:30:34Speaker 04

  I'm sorry to denigrate her.

• 1:30:37Yasi Salek?

  Don't besmirch her emo credentials.

• 1:30:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:39Yasi Salek?

  I was gonna say, and I'm a Taylor Swift fan broadly, like I don't need to get into how I feel about-

• 1:30:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:30:46Yasi Salek?

  Albums after Evermore. It's none of my business. But I actually really do like Taylor Swift's songwriting dating back from like Fearless. And I can really hear the influence of Jimmy Eat World, like so crazy.

• 1:30:58Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 1:30:58Yasi Salek?

  Like in a very cool way.

• 1:31:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:01Yasi Salek?

  Cause it's confessional songwriting.

• 1:31:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:31:04Yasi Salek?

  And it's beautiful.

• 1:31:05Speaker 04

  And I think she probably like, I don't know if she's influenced, but I could hear like some of the vocal stuff and some of the harmony stuff, for sure.

• 1:31:12Yasi Salek?

  That's great. John Carmonica wouldn't know that.

• 1:31:15Speaker 04

  I'm too busy listening to Morgan Wallen.

• 1:31:17Yasi Salek?

  You're listening to John Carmonica? You should listen to Vans Plan once in a while. But you know what? You'll never hear this because you don't listen to this show. Okay, Blister. I love, I don't know, I don't understand why.

• 1:31:27Speaker 04

  All the homies thought this was the anthem on this album.

• 1:31:29Yasi Salek?

  It gets me every time.

• 1:31:30Speaker 04

  We were all like, we're rock dudes and Tom, and we always thought the chorus was incredible.

• 1:31:35Yasi Salek?

  It's a fucking banger.

• 1:31:37Speaker 04

  The West Coast has been traumatized.

• 1:31:38Yasi Salek?

  The West Coast has been traumatized.

• 1:31:48Yasi Salek?

  The West Coast has been traumatized is truly like emo Mad Libs, like-

• 1:31:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:53Yasi Salek?

  Like that could be a Death Cab for Cutie lyric. That could be, like, you could just say that's a lyric of one of these emo bands and you'd be like, correct.

• 1:32:00Speaker 04

  You would never be able to guess, yeah.

• 1:32:02Yasi Salek?

  How long would it take me to walk across the United States alone?

• 1:32:07Yasi Salek?

  Great. Could be a jawbreaker lyric. Like, oh, really? It all, but I fucking love this song. I think it's really smart that they put this on here because it does sort of like bring it, like, kind of solidify it again, where like you've gotten a little loose.

• 1:32:22Speaker 04

  It has like a great arc.

• 1:32:24Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:24Speaker 04

  It has a great three act structure, this album, because it starts out with Table in Denver, Mint. You know, this is really good. And it kind of like, the first peak, I think, is Crush. And then it has like a really beautiful middle section, and then revs back up again with Blister and Clarity, and then goes into outer space with Sky Harbor.

• 1:32:47Speaker 04

  Talk about any one of those. I mean, Clarity, also a top five Jimmy song for me. And the Goodbye Sky Harbor, actually, the only worthwhile, and like, straight up, like, maybe even better than the original listening to the record, front to back live, like, album performance that I've ever seen live. I went and saw them play, this must have been '09, I guess, the 10-year Clarity show. In, I think it might have been Terminal 5, but I, I don't remember, in New York. And I was like, this album is flawless, but they were also like, a very active band who were even better musicians. And they did the Goodbye Sky Harbor loops, like, all live.

• 1:33:32Speaker 04

  Like, he sings into a microphone and like, looped his own voice to do it.

• 1:33:37Yasi Salek?

  Is there a recording of that?

• 1:33:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I think he's done, I think he does that when he does Goodbye Sky Harbor.

• 1:33:42Yasi Salek?

  Sounds so cool.

• 1:33:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because like, well, they, he said it in one of these interviews, that he was like, it didn't even cross our mind how we would, like, that we would have to play this live. And how would we do this?

• 1:33:52Speaker 04

  They were just playing like a six-minute version of Sky Harbor for a while.

• 1:33:55Yasi Salek?

  They kind of like abbreviated it. Sky Harbor is the airport in Phoenix. This song contains lyrical references to a book called A Prayer for Owen Meany.

• 1:34:08Speaker 04

  John Irving.

• 1:34:09Yasi Salek?

  John Irving.

• 1:34:12Yasi Salek?

  It's the story of John Wheelwright and his best friend Owen Meany. They grew up together in a small New Hampshire town during the 1950s and 60s.

• 1:34:20Yasi Salek?

  Owen is a remarkable boy, and he believes himself to be God's instrument.

• 1:34:24Speaker 04

  I am but one small instrument.

• 1:34:25Yasi Salek?

  I am but one small instrument.

• 1:34:31Yasi Salek?

  You know, I think all songs are about God, so that really, this one really gets me.

• 1:34:41Yasi Salek?

  Jimmy Eat World is giving a little Christian faith, I have to say.

• 1:34:44Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:34:45Yasi Salek?

  This is, again, for me, a glowing positive. I don't think they are at all, but I'm, it's giving a bit.

• 1:34:51Speaker 04

  They're doing the teenage symphonies to God thing, for sure.

• 1:34:55Yasi Salek?

  Love it.

• 1:34:56Speaker 04

  And they're trying to hit ecstatic moments.

• 1:34:58Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, whereas Sunny D Real Estate is like, "God, why have you forsaken me?"

• 1:35:02Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:35:04Yasi Salek?

  "He doesn't know why he's here, and I don't dare tell him I don't know why he's here. I just know he has to be here. Am I simply crazy? Is tomorrow just another day? Is tomorrow a day just like the rest?" That's the first line of the song. That's the lyric.

• 1:35:23Speaker 04

  I love all the different sections of this song, too.

• 1:35:27Yasi Salek?

  Why? I just bolded "I am one small instrument." I love it so much.

• 1:35:30Speaker 04

  And then the switch, and the first time it switches to "again," and then the organ comes in.

• 1:35:36Yasi Salek?

  He said in an interview that he was like, "We wanted to see, we wanted to go exactly one, like, I don't know what he said, like, one measure, like, one melody further. Every time, when you wanted it to change, we just went one further."

• 1:35:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, that's awesome.

• 1:35:53Yasi Salek?

  Like, he was like, "We did that on purpose."

• 1:35:54Speaker 04

  To subvert your expectations.

• 1:35:55Yasi Salek?

  To subvert your expectations and just sort of see what that would sound like. Because they were always trying to do something different, right? And I was like, "Oh, you can kind of hear it, because you can't predict."

• 1:36:04Speaker 04

  This certainly also reminds me of Low.

• 1:36:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:17Yasi Salek?

  I just, I love it. He also said, "We just really dig playing that riff." "We just liked it so much, we just did it for fucking 16 minutes." Do you think Mark Trumbino is sitting there and be like, "What are y'all doing?"

• 1:36:32Speaker 04

  It is so funny how different, by the end of "Goodbye, Sky Harbor," it's about as far from Drive Like Jehu as you could probably get. Yeah.

• 1:36:40Yasi Salek?

  Do you think that's their best song?

• 1:36:42Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:36:42Yasi Salek?

  No, you said what you thought their best song was.

• 1:36:45Speaker 04

  Don't, you're already sneering at me. It's like-

• 1:36:46Yasi Salek?

  Because it's shocking.

• 1:36:47Speaker 04

  It's not that shocking.

• 1:36:49Yasi Salek?

  When this song exists?

• 1:36:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, but this is like a great, this is really cool, but I just mean, like, I think of Jimmy Eat World more as like a three-minute-

• 1:36:56Yasi Salek?

  Okay, sure.

• 1:36:56Speaker 04

  Anthem band.

• 1:36:57Yasi Salek?

  I like that Jim said that Anthrax always had a Stephen King song, so that's why he put these John Irving lyrics.

• 1:37:06Yasi Salek?

  Again, what a broad palette this man has.

• 1:37:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37:08Yasi Salek?

  Listening to Anthrax. Pitchfork was at its tricks again, babe. They scrubbed this from the internet because later in 2021, the Sunday Review gave clarity an 8.6, but.

• 1:37:19Speaker 04

  I still am underreading it.

• 1:37:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:21Speaker 04

  That 8.6 isn't hard.

• 1:37:22Yasi Salek?

  That should be, that should be a 9.9.

• 1:37:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37:23Yasi Salek?

  Maybe a 10. Probably a 10.

• 1:37:26Speaker 04

  It's up there with OK Computer.

• 1:37:27Yasi Salek?

  Weirdly, Pitchfork hates Jimmy Eat World, as far as I can tell. At least in the beginning.

• 1:37:32Speaker 04

  I think it's probably hard, they were a hard band to write about always.

• 1:37:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:36Speaker 04

  Because it's like, what does this band mean? Frequently, that is like, sort of like what you're trying to answer when you're writing a review or when you were writing reviews back then. And it would often be very frustrating as a critic because you'd be like, I just want to say that this band rules, but I don't know why this band, why now?

• 1:37:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:52Speaker 04

  Like, what, what, what this band says about music right now? So it was a problem, I think, for people had writing about them at the time.

• 1:38:01Yasi Salek?

  Why do you think Brent DiCriscenzo gave it a 3.5 and then wrote the entire review as a conversation between the president and someone in the army about sonic warfare with Yugoslavia?

• 1:38:17Speaker 04

  I can't speak to that. It's an interesting bit. It was like, it's like anti-clickbait.

• 1:38:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's an interesting bit in the sense that, like, it goes on way too long.

• 1:38:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:38:28Yasi Salek?

  And you're like, I don't, this is, a little bit would have been OK.

• 1:38:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:32Yasi Salek?

  He didn't like it, though. He said, "Wait, I hear the music. This is it? This is what they hoped to drive us out with? It is just the opening song, sir. But still, listen to this. The plodding drumming and toy xylophone, a cello. The guitar sounds like crystal chimes. And the vocals, so much harmonizing. They sound like sensitive white American boys. I imagine if one of the photos in those vaguely homoerotic Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs came to life and started playing music, it would sound like this." I guess also, "back to our Jimmy Eat World" wasn't exactly cool.

• 1:39:06Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:39:07Yasi Salek?

  That is like, this is peak cunty Pitchfork. Like, you're not cool enough.

• 1:39:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. I also think, like.

• 1:39:16Speaker 04

  Even by the time Clarity came out, I think emo was starting to have a little bit more of a pejorative. It was a little bit like, like, it was more like, oh, look at these guys wearing like messenger's bags and crying.

• 1:39:29Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:39:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:31Yasi Salek?

  American Apparel hoodie?

• 1:39:32Speaker 04

  Maybe. Who can say?

• 1:39:34Yasi Salek?

  Trying to think of like what 99 looked like.

• 1:39:37Speaker 04

  99 was like thrift store clothes.

• 1:39:40Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 1:39:41Speaker 04

  You know, I'm just describing myself, but.

• 1:39:43Yasi Salek?

  99 is basically, 99 is like hipster has started to like uproot.

• 1:39:50Speaker 04

  Mod stuff is coming in.

• 1:39:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:52Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:39:53Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and Death Cab is, Transatlanticism is like two years later, but they.

• 1:39:57Speaker 04

  It was a band that bridged the sort of, it was like the, like, it was like a little bit of, it was an indie rock band that had appeal to emo guys.

• 1:40:05Yasi Salek?

  So I'm just trying to like, think of what's going on in the landscape of like, what Pitchfork would care, would be dealing in, you know?

• 1:40:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:40:15Yasi Salek?

  They're not, it also doesn't really get any other reviews, as far as I could tell. Again, there's probably fancy ones that I don't have access to. In 2019, Ian Cohen wrote about it for Stereogms. That would have been 20 or? I don't know if I can properly replicate the jarring incongruity of hearing this kind of stuff expressed by men playing what otherwise scanned as alternative rock.

• 1:40:36Speaker 04

  This, I completely agree.

• 1:40:38Yasi Salek?

  That was your, that was your feeling?

• 1:40:39Speaker 04

  Kind of, yeah. I don't know if I was like, and I think one of the difficult things about it was like even being like, I like this a lot. It was, it was, you felt self-conscious being like, this is really speaking to me, you know?

• 1:40:49Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:50Speaker 04

  Because like, you could say that about like, oh, Promise Ring or Get Up Kids, but like, there was, there was a mess to their music. There was like a kind of shabbiness to their music, like, and it was like, in that sense, a little self-effacing, and this is going for it.

• 1:41:05Yasi Salek?

  Right, and on every level, like, the, the like, booming earnest vocals plus the shimmering and like beautifully produced music. Okay, that, that makes sense. I hadn't thought about it. And I guess prior to this, like, male rock emotional expression tended towards like anger or disinterest or irony?

• 1:41:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, or it was just, it was more difficult to put a finger on where the, the emotion was being directed. Like, obviously, like, say, like, Archers of Loaf are a very good example of.

• 1:41:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, like a very, like especially that first record is like really raw. But like, what is web in front?

• 1:41:44Yasi Salek?

  What are you talking about? I do want to be your spine.

• 1:41:47Speaker 04

  Yes. But I. Imagery is like I'm obsessed with the imagery on that song, but I don't know. It's not like Crush or Clarity.

• 1:41:57Yasi Salek?

  Also, just vocally, it doesn't sound. There's something very vulnerable about Jim Adkins' singing.

• 1:42:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:42:04Yasi Salek?

  Not as much with Eric Bachman, whose voice I love also, but it's just a different. And yeah, emo, to your point, had kind of become a pejorative at this point.

• 1:42:13Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. It felt like it. It's like a lot of bands are doing now. At this point, like bands are kind of like, okay, we're gonna make like a country rock, like, um. I don't, I don't remember when Sea Change by Beck came out, but like a lot of people were very like.

• 1:42:30Yasi Salek?

  Two thousand?

• 1:42:31Speaker 04

  Around this time, I feel like people were like, I like Wilco.

• 1:42:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:35Speaker 04

  I like Beck.

• 1:42:37Yasi Salek?

  Thanks a lot, Wilco.

• 1:42:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:38Yasi Salek?

  Thanks a lot for taking away my beautiful emo music and making it alt-country.

• 1:42:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:42:43Yasi Salek?

  It's what we needed, more alt-country.

• 1:42:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:42:46Yasi Salek?

  So they come out of Clarity. They play the Snow Summit Festival. I don't know if that's the same one I went to, but not, not the same year anyways. Um, they tour with, uh, Sheila Devine.

• 1:42:58Speaker 04

  From Boston.

• 1:42:58Yasi Salek?

  I don't know that band.

• 1:42:59Speaker 04

  Great vocals.

• 1:43:00Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Um, at the drive-in, Sainsfield, uh, they play South by Southwest. This is a tour during which Jim Adkins starts to suffer from a panic disorder. This will come into play when we talk about the next album. They also record, okay, here's what's so insane. This is so insane.

• 1:43:20Yasi Salek?

  Basically, wh- what I came to understand through a few sources in my research is that right before they get dropped by Capitol, Capitol comes to them, and this is like a common practice, apparently, with major labels, and they're like, here's 5,000 more dollars. Go give us your best song.

• 1:43:38Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:43:39Yasi Salek?

  And they're like, okay. And they go record a little song called Sweetness. And Capitol's like, meh, this sucks. Fuck you. You're out. No thanks. No thanks to sweetness.

• 1:43:55Yasi Salek?

  Okay. Can you imagine? How could you ever hear? Even, you can hear the version that Capitol heard because it's on the like extended clarity or whatever. It's phenomenal. Who heard that and was like, we're good?

• 1:44:09Speaker 04

  I guess it's like...

• 1:44:11Yasi Salek?

  That, maybe that's not marketable, maybe we can't sell that.

• 1:44:13Speaker 04

  I mean, at this point also, aren't you basically going through

• 1:44:16Yasi Salek?

  Californication.

• 1:44:17Speaker 04

  A pop moment? Like, in terms of the radio.

• 1:44:19Yasi Salek?

  Yes, it's very Britney Spears and saying...

• 1:44:22Speaker 04

  So it's like NSYNC and Backstreet Boys and...

• 1:44:24Yasi Salek?

  Spice Girls.

• 1:44:24Speaker 04

  That's like changing the math on like what a success is, I think.

• 1:44:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but Blink-182 is still really successful.

• 1:44:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:44:32Yasi Salek?

  They weren't, they weren't not making rock music anymore in 1999.

• 1:44:36Speaker 04

  No, I just, but it's like the idea of sweetness ever being like a hit in the face of

• 1:44:43Speaker 04

  Backstreet Boys is hard to imagine.

• 1:44:44Yasi Salek?

  Sure, well, they fucked up. Right before they get dropped, they play the 1999 Warped Tour. Guess who was there?

• 1:44:50Speaker 04

  You.

• 1:44:51Yasi Salek?

  Yasi Salek. Guess who did not see Jimmy at World because she didn't know who they were? This girl.

• 1:44:56Yasi Salek?

  But I saw Eminem.

• 1:44:57Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:44:57Yasi Salek?

  Get booed offstage, they pelted him with water bottles.

• 1:45:00Speaker 04

  Did you throw a water bottle?

• 1:45:01Yasi Salek?

  No. I was just more like, you have to remember, this is like the earliest Eminem, no one, it was, it was My Name Is, like, nobody had heard of him. I skinned my knees in the Less Than Jake pit. Okay? I saw Pennywise, I saw Unwritten Law, I saw The Vandals. This is, my hometown here is Deviats.

• 1:45:20Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:45:20Yasi Salek?

  This is a fucking great, Warped Tour was so cool.

• 1:45:23Speaker 04

  How was Seven Seconds, do you remember?

• 1:45:24Yasi Salek?

  Didn't watch them.

• 1:45:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:45:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I, I made, Good Riddance, who I love.

• 1:45:29Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:45:30Yasi Salek?

  Saw them. Um, The Black Eyed Peas apparently played, not familiar.

• 1:45:33Speaker 04

  No shit.

• 1:45:34Yasi Salek?

  I actually started to love The Black Eyed Peas just like a year after this and there, it was like a backpack, they were still backpack wrapped prior to The Fergie. But this is a really interesting snapshot of what's happening where they're trying, Ice-T also played this, I think it was, it says on the website that it was just him, but I think it was Body Count. There are, we're trying to kind of mixing these

• 1:45:56Speaker 04

  Genres.

• 1:45:56Yasi Salek?

  Genres as all being alternative and what we forgot to point out besides in between Blink-182 and Californication is rap rock is

• 1:46:06Speaker 04

  Sublime, and then

• 1:46:08Yasi Salek?

  Limp Bizkit.

• 1:46:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:09Yasi Salek?

  Korn.

• 1:46:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:10Yasi Salek?

  Is starting to dominate the charts as well.

• 1:46:12Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:46:13Yasi Salek?

  Also not the same.

• 1:46:14Speaker 04

  Which is like a pivot against emo sensibilities.

• 1:46:17Yasi Salek?

  Hard, it's like, what if we hated women again?

• 1:46:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:20Yasi Salek?

  You guys, have you thought about if we hated women again? And the radio was like, yeah.

• 1:46:28Yasi Salek?

  Finally.

• 1:46:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, but women who are dressed like schoolgirls, they're okay. Yeah.

• 1:46:32Yasi Salek?

  It worked, it worked out. Molly says something so smart, which is that she thinks that rap rock is like the spiritual heir to hair metal. And I think it's so like, spot on. Um, okay, so Capital drops Jimmy World by.

• 1:46:47Yasi Salek?

  Jim said, people ask me all the time if we felt like quitting then, quitting the band. And he said, are you kidding? I threw a party when we got out of the deal with Capital. They were so happy. Zach said, I brought this up because you're a movie guy. I felt like the dude in The Shawshank Redemption. It was in the river just going like this.

• 1:47:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:08Yasi Salek?

  They hated it because they-

• 1:47:10Speaker 04

  I know, but I think it all worked out because they don't know if they were like happy if Clarity would have sounded like Clarity. Like, I don't know if they would have written songs.

• 1:47:18Yasi Salek?

  No, it's perfect.

• 1:47:19Speaker 04

  If they had a label that was like, we really believe in you guys and we're gonna put you out on tour, like, you know, you're gonna headline Warped Tour or something. Like, I don't know. Everything about how this band goes, goes the way it needed to go.

• 1:47:31Yasi Salek?

  Fate, babe. It was everything. They trawl all odd their way.

• 1:47:39Yasi Salek?

  It's just, it's phenomenal. So they, they just kind of like put on their big boy pants and they're like, all right, we're just gonna keep doing what we're already doing anyways, without a label, which is playing shows with these bands and like, playing for our fans. And so they toured Europe. This I found was fascinating. They had wanted to go to Europe and Capital was like, no, you barely even have a fanbase in America. Why would you go to Europe? But their roadie, Paul Drake, had gone on a tour, um, with Braid and the Get Up Kids and brought a whole box of Static Prevail CDs. And like, kind of started distributing them around Europe. And so they started to get a fanbase.

• 1:48:18Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:48:19Yasi Salek?

  Particularly in Germany. They were weirdly huge in Germany.

• 1:48:22Speaker 04

  Where they started all podcasting in Germany. All the men in Germany were like-

• 1:48:26Yasi Salek?

  Are now podcasters because of Jimmy World. And they started, so Jimmy World started buying copies of their releases at cost from Capital and shipping them themselves to European distributors. And then the first time they go to Germany for a show, 600 people were there.

• 1:48:41Speaker 04

  Not bad.

• 1:48:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And then Luke Wood told me that by the end, they were playing like 1,500 people in Germany on this Clarity tour.

• 1:48:46Speaker 04

  It's pretty good.

• 1:48:47Yasi Salek?

  Pretty good, considering, you know. Then they put out the singles collection. Were you, since you were already like big time Clarity guy, did you remember this coming out? Did you get it?

• 1:48:56Speaker 04

  I do remember this coming out. I remember like the record cover. I had like some of the songs and then some of it was new stuff. But I, this was like a really good idea to kind of almost reestablish themselves. It's like, we're a band, band. Like, we've done other stuff besides come and go with a major.

• 1:49:12Yasi Salek?

  Yes, totally. It's smart on many levels. A, there's some really good songs on here. The Wedding Present cover is major. Jim Adkins loves The Wedding Present. My guy. Love The Wedding Present. But also, they needed money because they were gonna record another album and they had to fund it themselves.

• 1:49:28Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:49:28Yasi Salek?

  Because that was like already their plan.

• 1:49:30Speaker 04

  So maybe this is the time when there was like conversations about like, who's gonna put this Jimmy World record out? And maybe they'll be on like, I don't know, like J-Tree.

• 1:49:38Yasi Salek?

  I think that's what you're saying is right. Because everyone kind of knew they were making an album, but they were unsigned.

• 1:49:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:49:44Yasi Salek?

  So they used this money. They also did a split with Jebediah that has cautioners on it.

• 1:49:50Speaker 04

  Which is a very good song.

• 1:49:51Yasi Salek?

  Very good song. They're like, we're gonna make this album. We're gonna take our own money from touring. We are going to put every dollar we have and just like make this record. They get their jobs, like you said, like they're, you know, Jim is valet parking buses or I don't even know. No, Jim's working at an art supply store. Anyways, they're broke, they're living with roommates, like. Mark Trombino does it for free upfront. He's, he both is like, I got a lot of work through Clarity because of you guys. And also like, I kind of know that this is, I think he kind of had a sense he'd get his money back, you know? But yeah, he does it for free. They use all their money to pay for studio time.

• 1:50:32Yasi Salek?

  I loved the bit where like, uh, Lynd was like, I wrote the final check for the mixing. And I was like, I think this might bounce.

• 1:50:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:50:40Yasi Salek?

  Like, I think I have $70 left after this or whatever, like, which is, but like, what a believing in yourself, you know? And they didn't care how it was gonna come out, like. At one point in an interview, they were like, we could just put it out ourselves. Like, we have a pretty big fanbase, like, because they had built up this fanbase. Like, Clarity has spread like, I don't want to say wildfire, it's not quite the right word.

• 1:51:01Speaker 04

  But it had its lifecycle, where I think it had started to like, pick up even in its short times period, like, a like, cult iconic status.

• 1:51:09Yasi Salek?

  Yes, within, within its community and, and starting to get outside of it. I think I saw in the documentary that they were saying, they're like, yeah, we were playing 600 cap rooms.

• 1:51:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:51:18Yasi Salek?

  Already, like, with no label, you know, which is, that's a pretty big.

• 1:51:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I'm sure like, there was probably like, 10 cities in the country where they could play pretty huge rooms.

• 1:51:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26Speaker 04

  You know?

• 1:51:27Yasi Salek?

  Now, this I thought was so interesting. They, they finish mixing the album, and it starts to spread. And major labels start.

• 1:51:37Speaker 04

  Bleed American.

• 1:51:38Yasi Salek?

  Bleed American. It's, no one, it's not out, nothing. Major labels start like, descending upon the studio, trying to sign them again, which is so wild. Apparently, Mark Trombino had, was friends with Luke Wood, and he had passed the demos, but I think he was passing the demos around in general.

• 1:51:56Speaker 04

  I think, I also remember these demos being around.

• 1:51:58Yasi Salek?

  They were also on Napster.

• 1:51:59Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:52:00Yasi Salek?

  Which is so smart. They uploaded their demos to Napster, because.

• 1:52:05Speaker 04

  Because I certainly remember.

• 1:52:06Yasi Salek?

  That's the year 2000.

• 1:52:07Speaker 04

  Sweetness was floating around.

• 1:52:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, well, because that was already done.

• 1:52:10Speaker 04

  They had done it, and they had like, yeah, but there was, and then like, in the reissues of Clarity, Sweetness is attached at the very end of Clarity.

• 1:52:18Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 1:52:19Speaker 04

  I can't remember when I first heard it, but I do remember hearing it and being like, oh my God, these, these guys are trying to write "Living on a Prayer" now. Like, this is fucking crazy.

• 1:52:28Yasi Salek?

  Which, you know, they always loved Hair Model, and Bon Jovi, and Guns N' Roses and everything.

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• 1:53:09Yasi Salek?

  The year 2000 was such a wonderful, beautiful year, you guys. And you need to understand that I'm a freshman in college, which means I'm at the dorm. What does a dorm have? Internet. I think you guys don't understand. There was no internet anywhere.

• 1:53:24Speaker 04

  Her email address was a paragraph long.

• 1:53:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, literally. You had, after the dorm, you had to walk to the library to check your email.

• 1:53:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:53:33Yasi Salek?

  I mean, you were, you're, well, even older than me, you know? So it was like, to have the internet as the slowest speed possible dial up in your-

• 1:53:41Speaker 04

  And wait for like the JPGs to like materialize, yeah?

• 1:53:44Yasi Salek?

  But Napster came out the same exact year I was in the dorm. So all I did all day was download songs off Napster.

• 1:53:51Speaker 04

  And bring the music industry to its knees.

• 1:53:52Yasi Salek?

  Correct. I'm so sorry. And now I have to be a podcaster. I made my bed-

• 1:53:57Speaker 04

  This is why nobody can make clarity anymore.

• 1:53:58Yasi Salek?

  Sorry. It's actually, it was me. It was all my downloads. It was me downloading Lady in Red for some random reason. But yeah, leaking the demos of Bleed American on Napster is genius.

• 1:54:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:54:11Yasi Salek?

  So yeah, they, now there's a bidding war for a band that Capitol just dropped, like five minutes ago.

• 1:54:16Speaker 04

  Did Capitol go back and like bid again?

• 1:54:18Yasi Salek?

  They sure did, babe. Capitol came back to the table and Jimmy Earl was like, if you give us our masters back, we'll have a meeting with you, but we won't even move with you.

• 1:54:28Speaker 04

  Taylor style. Jimmy's version.

• 1:54:29Yasi Salek?

  Jimmy's version. And Capitol was like, we can't give you our masters back. So they were never able to be in the conversation. In a bizarre twist of events, though, at the top of 2001, John Silva, famously Nirvana's manager, and many, he's a big guy, and Gary Gersh-

• 1:54:46Speaker 04

  Former-

• 1:54:46Yasi Salek?

  Former president of Capitol, who couldn't care less if Jimmy Earl lived or died, come to sign them to their management company. And I thought it was actually so interesting. Like, it goes to show, like, Jimmy Earl is just like- They didn't hold a grudge, you know?

• 1:55:03Speaker 04

  I find that that's like, one of the hardest things to wrap my head around. The broader entertainment industry is how like, one day, somebody's like, "I'll skull fuck you if I ever see you again." And then the next day, they're like, "I'm his manager."

• 1:55:12Yasi Salek?

  I'm your manager, yeah. I don't know, I can't explain it, but here's what Lynn said. Gersh and Silva make their bands tons of money. But they also make sure that their bands have careers beyond one song or one album. That's a really, really hard thing to do, and they've done it over and over. So that to the Phoenix New Times, like, in real time. So it's like, not only are they like, tra-la-la, no outcome, just vibes, they're smart. And they're like, rational?

• 1:55:40Yasi Salek?

  Couldn't be me, man. I'd be like, "Burnin' hell, bitch." And that's my problem. That's why women can't be president.

• 1:55:46Speaker 04

  You know, it's interesting, because we were talking about

• 1:55:50Speaker 04

  what, like, sweetness and how is sweetness not like a hit in the second Capitol hits that they're not putting it up? And it's like, well, you think about what's on the radio then, and Korn and everything, and the pop stuff. And it's so crazy that by the time Bleed American comes out, which is just a couple of years later, from when Clarity has dropped in 99, and then Bleed American's two years later, and it's like, essentially the same time as "Is This It" by The Strokes comes out? And how much, like, music will just change in 24 months like that, probably to their benefit.

• 1:56:25Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It's weird, though, because I'm not sure it changed that much. Because didn't rap rock have kind of a longer tail than that?

• 1:56:32Speaker 04

  I think it always is a slower change for fans than it is for, like, the music media. And so sometimes it's like, well, whose version of events are you talking about?

• 1:56:41Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:42Speaker 04

  Like, rap rock lives on way into the 21st century, probably, healthily. That, like, it's just that spin stopped caring about it.

• 1:56:48Yasi Salek?

  You're so right, because this morning, I was going through, I have a collection of old spins, thanks to Karen Gans, all from this era.

• 1:56:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:55Yasi Salek?

  And I was paging through them, and it's like, literally, non-stop, Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, and The Strokes.

• 1:57:01Speaker 04

  Like, all of those features, yeah.

• 1:57:02Yasi Salek?

  And it's like, oh, this, and this is like, the early 2000s. So it did really, but were those, I guess those bands were pretty commercially successful as well. Not on the level of...

• 1:57:13Speaker 04

  It was just one of those, you know what it was? It's like, some of that felt like the American version, well, the American version of Britpop, I was gonna say, in the sense that, like... The bands felt very important. I don't know if like their sales ever like blew everybody away and that The Strokes showing up in Cincinnati had everybody like going ape shit.

• 1:57:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:34Speaker 04

  But it was a real moment of like coastal supremacy of like, we've decided that this is cool and important and like the songs are just big enough to pretend that that's the case.

• 1:57:44Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:44Speaker 04

  And Jimmy World just kind of slid in through that.

• 1:57:48Yasi Salek?

  Maybe that's why the monoculture collapsed.

• 1:57:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, probably.

• 1:57:51Yasi Salek?

  Because it's been put Franz Ferdinand on the cover.

• 1:57:54Speaker 04

  No, I think it's like the monoculture would be better off if we were just like, yeah, Franz Ferdinand. You know?

• 1:57:59Yasi Salek?

  A great band.

• 1:58:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

• 1:58:02Speaker 04

  This is exactly when I moved to New York and start.

• 1:58:06Yasi Salek?

  And joined the monoculture.

• 1:58:07Speaker 04

  Writing professionally about music, yeah.

• 1:58:09Yasi Salek?

  Well, they're assigned to these big managers. The bidding war is happening. And this guy Luke Wood, who I've mentioned a couple of times, friend of the pod, who had been in a band called Sammy and opened for Jimmy World in the mid 90s, but was now, he'd worked at Geffen. He signed Elliott Smith amongst others and he was working as like a senior VP A and R or something at DreamWorks. And guess what? He fucking loved Clarity. He said, "I felt like Clarity should have sold two to three million copies and this is a band that is very productive and one that comes armed with a very strong devoted fan base. I knew this is a group that can make a partnership with a major label and that's what it truly should be. Work in a way that it's supposed to. Together, we can get Jimmy World's amazing music to as many people as possible."

• 1:58:54Yasi Salek?

  This is in Andy's book, which means it was not that long after, because Andy's book was 2003 or something. Yeah, this is very close to.

• 1:59:00Speaker 04

  Maybe '04, I can't remember, yeah.

• 1:59:01Yasi Salek?

  It's in that era. It's not like sellout where they're looking back like 20 years. So he loved them. He told the Phoenix New Times, "Their gimmick is good songs. I look at them in the tradition of a band like R E M. Over time, they develop these larger-than-life personalities, but if you actually sit down and look at that band, they're just like Jimmy World. They're normal guys." So he's like, "Yeah, here's a bunch of millions of dollars."

• 1:59:23Yasi Salek?

  Multi-million dollar, multi-album deal. Phenomenal. DreamWorks at the time had Elliott Smith, but also Dr. Octagon. Oh, fucking yeah. Toby Keith, Alien Ant Farm and George Michael.

• 1:59:37Yasi Salek?

  Poor Alien Ant Farm.

• 1:59:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:40Yasi Salek?

  They did that Michael Jackson cover to start their career and then that's all. Annie, are you OK? And that's kind of all.

• 1:59:44Speaker 04

  It's still an incredibly important music video.

• 1:59:46Yasi Salek?

  Also, such a good cover.

• 1:59:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:48Yasi Salek?

  Annie, are you OK? Are you OK? I saw them play also at Santa Barbara.

• 1:59:53Speaker 04

  I'm surprised you didn't see them at Snow Summit.

• 1:59:55Yasi Salek?

  I wasn't going to Snow Summit anymore, but they probably played there too. OK. Let's fucking talk about

• 2:00:03Yasi Salek?

  Bleed American, July 24th, 2001 on DreamWorks.

• 2:00:08Speaker 04

  Is this it came out the next week?

• 2:00:10Yasi Salek?

  That's crazy.

• 2:00:11Speaker 04

  July 30th, 2001.

• 2:00:12Yasi Salek?

  I'm back in America.

• 2:00:14Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 2:00:15Yasi Salek?

  Listening to alternative rock radio.

• 2:00:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:18Yasi Salek?

  Ready to party and here comes fucking Jimmy World to save the day.

• 2:00:23Speaker 04

  And wasn't Bleed American the first single?

• 2:00:26Yasi Salek?

  Yes, Bleed American was the first single.

• 2:00:29Speaker 04

  Guys.

• 2:00:31Speaker 04

  Of all the songs on that album, I would say Bleed American is not what I would be like, oh, that's first single.

• 2:00:36Yasi Salek?

  But you have to think that like.

• 2:00:37Speaker 04

  It's a good opening gambit though.

• 2:00:39Yasi Salek?

  A system of a down, a system of a down was made hugely possible.

• 2:00:42Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 2:00:43Yasi Salek?

  This song makes sense to come out. I'm not alone, cuz the TV's on, yeah.

• 2:00:57Yasi Salek?

  I actually really like this song.

• 2:00:59Speaker 04

  It's good.

• 2:01:00Yasi Salek?

  It's a good song.

• 2:01:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:01:02Yasi Salek?

  You know what really I realized? I didn't notice or wasn't aware of what I was reacting to until I watched that documentary, but in the documentary of Jimmy World, they show Jim and Tom recording the vocals and it's like Tom's delivery of the way he sings the chorus. It's, he does this like thing where he's like

• 2:01:28Yasi Salek?

  sweat, sugar. Like he like does this he like brings it up every time in this like really insane way that's in the back of Jim singing it straight. It just sounds so good. I can't really do it. Uh, hot. It's back to, he brought his punk, pop punk back, babe, and it worked. "Well, the American's a good song." Also, I will say that this is one of the ones that's really personal because he's talking about the aforementioned panic attack disorder. "I'm not crazy because I take the right pills every day."

• 2:02:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:02:00Yasi Salek?

  "And rest, clean your conscience, clear your thoughts with space side." That's whiskey. He's also embarking, I believe, on his now documented drinking problem.

• 2:02:10Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:02:11Yasi Salek?

  Self-medicating.

• 2:02:12Speaker 04

  As eliminated by the German podcast industry.

• 2:02:14Yasi Salek?

  Yes. He talked about it later in press when he gets sober, around the later albums as well.

• 2:02:20Speaker 04

  "I'm not alone because the TV's on," is a really good line.

• 2:02:22Yasi Salek?

  "I'm not alone because the TV's on, yeah." I think it's a good song. It's a real Bush. "I voted in my first ever election, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to participate in democracy."

• 2:02:33Speaker 04

  Wait, so he gets a futures, he's a little bit more bummed out about that. Let's talk about the fucking anthem, though.

• 2:02:39Yasi Salek?

  A praise chorus? Are you in the praise chorus?

• 2:02:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:02:42Yasi Salek?

  Featuring Davy Von Bollin?

• 2:02:43Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:02:44Yasi Salek?

  Sorry, but this is the best song in the world. Do you agree?

• 2:02:47Speaker 04

  This, like, my fucking soul left my body when I heard this because I think...

• 2:02:56Speaker 04

  You know how you hear parts of songs and you're just like, I can't believe I've, no one's ever thought to do this before? And when Davy comes in at the end of this song, it's already like a person I have like a relationship with in my mind because I like the Promising so much. And he does like five different, like, in, like, little excerpts lyrically of five other great songs and constructs them in a totally Davy Von Bollin way that almost sound like Promising lyrics, but work perfectly within not only the music of Jimmy Earl, but the baton pass of Jim saying, "Come on, Davy, sing me something that I know."

• 2:03:33Yasi Salek?

  "Come on, Davy, sing me something that I know."

• 2:03:37Speaker 04

  It's very ingenious.

• 2:03:46Speaker 04

  And so he does Crimson and Clover.

• 2:03:48Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:03:49Speaker 04

  Well, all right.

• 2:03:50Yasi Salek?

  Let me just set it up before we, I don't know, I can't talk about the song for 12 hours. Goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song. I'll bring that out at retirement. Goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song.

• 2:03:58Speaker 04

  Had you retired that?

• 2:03:59Yasi Salek?

  It doesn't come up as much anymore. Your vocal patterns change.

• 2:04:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:02Yasi Salek?

  Um, the way that this happened was they were having trouble tackling the bridge of the song. So they, they're like, Davy, can you help? And they send him a CD with the rough mix and a note that said that he should scat over this.

• 2:04:16Speaker 04

  So I wonder if they were like, you're just gonna go bop, bop, bada, bop, bop.

• 2:04:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, bop, bop, which Promise Ring loves a bop, bop, bada, or a do, do, do, do. It's a big Promise Ring thing.

• 2:04:24Speaker 04

  He scats.

• 2:04:25Yasi Salek?

  This I couldn't get a hold of if it had the line, "Come on, Davy, sing us something." I think it must have because that's what he does.

• 2:04:31Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:04:32Yasi Salek?

  So, "Come on, Davy, sing us something." It's also just so tender, like dude's rock.

• 2:04:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:37Yasi Salek?

  You know, it's like male friendship, male bonding. I'm not even mad that the, the men that God sent here to provide for me are singing to each other about songs that they love.

• 2:04:47Speaker 04

  Arguing about whether Brad Wood's hearing was damaged during their making of 30 Degrees Everywhere.

• 2:04:52Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Okay, Crimson and Clover, originally recorded and released by Tommy James and the Shondells in 1968, but likely this is more referencing Joan Judd's 1982.

• 2:05:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:02Yasi Salek?

  And cover. And then, "Our house in the middle of our street."

• 2:05:08Speaker 04

  Madness.

• 2:05:08Yasi Salek?

  Madness, 1982. "Why did we ever meet?" Why did I have a Bear and Stan Bear situation with this? Did you remember that it's "Why did ever we meet"? Is the name of that song, the Promise Ring song?

• 2:05:19Speaker 04

  Is that what it is?

• 2:05:19Yasi Salek?

  Yes, the Promise Ring song is.

• 2:05:21Speaker 04

  I thought it was "Why did we ever meet"?

• 2:05:22Yasi Salek?

  No, the Promise Ring song is called "Why did ever we meet."

• 2:05:26Speaker 04

  EE Cummings shit with their song stuff.

• 2:05:28Yasi Salek?

  You know, I love EE Cummings.

• 2:05:29Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 2:05:29Yasi Salek?

  "One thing I lost in the fire, tiny violin." Can you put a little tiny violin here? Is, I had a first edition of an EE Cummings one because I loved him so much. Sorry, I love emo music. I love EE Cummings, okay? "Started my rock and roll fantasy, bad company, rock and roll fantasy." "Don't, don't, don't let's start."

• 2:05:49Speaker 04

  They might be giants.

• 2:05:50Yasi Salek?

  Shout out Rob Revilla, that's his favorite band, I think. "Why did we ever part?" Also the Promise Ring from 1986. "Why did we ever part and give back our hands? Why did we ever part?" And then, "Kickstart my rock and rolling heart," because "Kickstart my heart" by Motley Crue.

• 2:06:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:07Yasi Salek?

  I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go.

• 2:06:11Speaker 04

  Isn't it awesome how that part happens, but the band is still going ripshit? Like, it's not like, oh, that's all like-

• 2:06:19Yasi Salek?

  No, it's-

• 2:06:19Speaker 04

  It's like, they're still fucking blowing it out while he's doing that, and then Jim coming back in is so good.

• 2:06:37Speaker 04

  I used to fucking re-peat. They invented the repeat button.

• 2:06:41Yasi Salek?

  It's not possible to hear this song once. It's criminally insane, actually.

• 2:06:45Speaker 04

  Sometimes I get like, a minute in, and I'm like, I don't want it to be over in two minutes, so we're going back to the beginning.

• 2:06:51Yasi Salek?

  Oh, same.

• 2:06:51Speaker 04

  Like, I won't even get to the Davey part, because I'm like, I'm saving the Davey part as a reward.

• 2:06:56Yasi Salek?

  It's just like, this is what I was talking about, and I was talking about like, what it feels like to be young, and to love music so much, and to be part of something. Like, I want to always feel like part of this was mine.

• 2:07:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:08Yasi Salek?

  I want to always feel like part of this was mine. All I need is just to hear a song I know.

• 2:07:13Speaker 04

  Doesn't he say, even at 25, you gotta start sometime?

• 2:07:15Yasi Salek?

  You gotta start sometime. Even at 45, Chris Ryan, me and you, you gotta start sometime. We just have to tweak the lyrics a little bit.

• 2:07:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I don't know, it's-

• 2:07:27Speaker 04

  The funniest thing about this is it comes right before their biggest song. Like, this should be the biggest song, this is my, like-

• 2:07:34Yasi Salek?

  This is the middle to me. To a certain kind of person, this is the middle. Also, it works really well if you don't know who Davey Von Bolen is, because it sounds like, come on, baby, sing me something that I know. And their voices are almost similar enough that you, if you don't have a discerning ear, you don't even notice it's someone else singing.

• 2:07:57Speaker 04

  And it's Davey double-tracking his vocals, or it's Jim singing backup to Davey. It's awesome.

• 2:08:02Yasi Salek?

  Here's the thing I found interesting, besides I love this song and I want to hear it 25 times right now. They act- these are actually things that they should have had to pay publishing on.

• 2:08:09Speaker 04

  Yes, Davey was like, I bet I just cost them thousands of dollars.

• 2:08:13Yasi Salek?

  And Jim said on the German podcast, actually, no, nobody made us pay.

• 2:08:17Speaker 04

  That's dope.

• 2:08:18Yasi Salek?

  Everyone just said, all good, babe, just like, give us a thanks in the credits or whatever.

• 2:08:21Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:08:22Yasi Salek?

  Isn't that cool? I don't know why.

• 2:08:24Speaker 04

  Huh, I wonder if that would be different now.

• 2:08:26Yasi Salek?

  Steven Spielberg called them all personally and was like-

• 2:08:28Speaker 04

  Well, it's also just such a litigious songwriting environment now.

• 2:08:31Yasi Salek?

  I know, yeah. I mean, some of them probably you wouldn't have a real case for, but like, Our House in the Middle of Our Street, I think.

• 2:08:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, kind of, kind of obvious.

• 2:08:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, but Madness was like, Take it away, Davey. Um, all right, let's talk about The Middle. As you pointed out, billion, over a billion streams, their biggest song to date.

• 2:08:50Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:08:51Yasi Salek?

  I have a question for you. This is kind of relevant, so, the first single was Bleed American.

• 2:08:58Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:08:58Yasi Salek?

  It did okay. I definitely heard it on the radio. September 11th happened, like, two months after-

• 2:09:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:09:06Yasi Salek?

  -this album comes out. It's pulled,

• 2:09:10Yasi Salek?

  re- retitled, because-

• 2:09:12Speaker 04

  It's just titled Jimmy Eat World, right?

• 2:09:13Yasi Salek?

  Just Jimmy Eat World. Bleed American was retitled.

• 2:09:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:09:16Yasi Salek?

  Salt, Sweat, Sugar. The Middle comes in November.

• 2:09:20Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:09:21Yasi Salek?

  I saw an argument made, it wasn't even an argument, it was just kind of posited in one of the articles, that the controversy elevated their people knowing about them, but I don't remember that at all.

• 2:09:33Speaker 04

  I don't remember a single thing about that.

• 2:09:35Yasi Salek?

  I don't think that's true.

• 2:09:36Speaker 04

  I also think we, like, I-

• 2:09:37Yasi Salek?

  First of all, we weren't online.

• 2:09:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:09:39Yasi Salek?

  I need to stress again that I had to walk to the library to check my email, so no one's like, seeing cancellation happen.

• 2:09:45Speaker 04

  Also, like, I think that there was, I don't think people were scandalized by pop culture in relation to 9/11 around that time. Like, I remember going to see Jay-Z right around then, and he was doing like a freestyle about, yeah, very like, politically like, apt freestyle about the towers falling.

• 2:10:05Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:10:06Speaker 04

  And like, nobody was like, Jay, you gotta get this, it's too early. Too soon, you gotta get him out of here. I know that there is like, the too soon thing, but I feel like people were not like, Jimmy Eat World, you must change your, your- Your whole like thing over this.

• 2:10:21Yasi Salek?

  No, I mean, they didn't make them change the title, but anyways, so the middle comes out as a single in November 2001, and then it's just fucking over. It hits number five on the Billboard Hot 100 by the next year. Apparently, the beat to this song is "You Wreck Me" by Tom Petty.

• 2:10:36Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 2:10:36Yasi Salek?

  Did you catch that?

• 2:10:37Speaker 04

  I didn't collect that, but it's a very, when I was kind of talking about them being like their generation's Tom Petty in some ways, it's, this is a very good example of how like you're just like, this is a A to B. We just know exactly like the most direct line to get to the, the heart of things here.

• 2:11:11Speaker 04

  I like the song a lot.

• 2:11:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's a good song. I read, I feel bad. I don't remember the writer's name because I didn't note it down, but I did read an essay that was like, I want to say it was on AV Club, that was about how like they, this guy hated the song, and then one day just loved it and was like able to put aside this like caustic cynicism.

• 2:11:30Speaker 04

  Since 2001, where I'm like, whoa, this is actually the best song ever written. Then I'm like, I can't listen to this for five years. And then I'm like, holy shit, this came back around.

• 2:11:38Yasi Salek?

  It's an incredible song. So the premise, the things that you might love about it are also things that might put you off of it. It is extremely like, here's an affirmation you say in the mirror to feel good about yourself. It's very broad.

• 2:11:54Yasi Salek?

  But it's really uplifting and it, the, you know, it just takes some time, little girl, you're in the middle of the ride. Everything, everything will be fine. Everything, everything will be all right, all right.

• 2:12:05Yasi Salek?

  Comes from a real email they got from a little girl.

• 2:12:07Speaker 04

  Oh, that's cool.

• 2:12:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, from like a middle schooler who was saying that she was being like bullied or picked on because she wasn't punk enough. And she didn't feel, she didn't know how to like, you know, go on or whatever. And Jim Adkins got this email and I guess he was in his room and he has, he said, I have an autographed promotional flat of Springsteen's Tunnel of Love. And I looked at it and I was thinking, what would the boss say to someone like that? And it's sort of, so interesting, right? He wrote like kind of in the perspective, little girl is such a, is your daddy home? Did he go and leave you all alone?

• 2:12:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12:52Yasi Salek?

  It's a great song. It deserves all billion streams.

• 2:12:54Speaker 04

  It's very cool that this song can have the life it's had and then this album can have almost a different life.

• 2:13:02Yasi Salek?

  Totally. Like, they almost exist separately for each other.

• 2:13:05Speaker 04

  Yes. The middle, and, you know, I think a lot of bands get crushed by, a lot of bands would get crushed by a song this popular.

• 2:13:13Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 2:13:13Speaker 04

  They'd be like, "I have to go play festivals for the rest of my life with a bunch of people who are drinking waiting for me to play the middle."

• 2:13:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:19Speaker 04

  And they don't have to do that. And that's-

• 2:13:21Yasi Salek?

  I'm playing the county fair in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I thought it was interesting. Trombino said, "I'm not a hit maker guy. I'm not a guy who understands pop music really well. This song didn't really resonate with me the way the other songs did, but it was obvious to a lot of other people it was the hit song."

• 2:13:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:13:36Yasi Salek?

  He was just kinda like, "That song's fine."

• 2:13:38Speaker 04

  This is the one, Taylor did cover this, right?

• 2:13:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. She did it for an Apple commercial.

• 2:13:43Speaker 04

  Did she?

• 2:13:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Selling out is so not a thing, babe, anymore. It's so gone. We don't know about that. And we don't know her. Also, didn't she at one point brought Jim Adkins out at a concert?

• 2:13:51Speaker 04

  Yes, I think during one of her tours.

• 2:13:53Yasi Salek?

  The other part that I thought was interesting is that the guitar solo is a rip-off, direct words from Jim Adkins, of a Guided by Voices song.

• 2:14:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:14:00Yasi Salek?

  "I Am a Tree."

• 2:14:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:14:03Yasi Salek?

  So, what if Bruce Springsteen talking to a little girl, but also Doug Gillard-

• 2:14:08Speaker 04

  Doug Gillard.

• 2:14:08Yasi Salek?

  Guitar solo.

• 2:14:12Yasi Salek?

  Gorgeous. "Your House," I fucking love this song. I'm sorry, I love it. I think it's beautiful.

• 2:14:18Speaker 04

  There's a couple of skips on "Bleed American" for me, but I do love it.

• 2:14:21Yasi Salek?

  "When You're On," I swear you're on. You rip my heart right out.

• 2:14:24Speaker 04

  I like "If You Don't Don't," even though it's pretty cheesy, but if I had to pick a cheesy one, I'd-

• 2:14:30Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they're kind of like, they're like twins on this album.

• 2:14:41Yasi Salek?

  "Sweetness."

• 2:14:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, sweetness is ridiculous.

• 2:14:44Yasi Salek?

  Let's fucking go! I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Like, maybe Jim Adkins does deserve that Nobel Literature Prize. Like, take it away from Bob Dylan, actually. Let's give it to Jim Adkins.

• 2:14:55Speaker 04

  To Jim Adkins, yeah.

• 2:14:56Yasi Salek?

  "I Was Spinning Free." Whoa!

• 2:15:00Speaker 04

  Do you know, it's actually-

• 2:15:03Speaker 04

  I remember being like, it takes giant balls to fucking go to make that song, to make whoa. Like, you really have to believe it and you have to like.

• 2:15:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, because it could fail so miserably. You could be like, this is so corny.

• 2:15:16Speaker 04

  It's like, it's not conceded, it's just like pure commitment to like what he's doing.

• 2:15:21Yasi Salek?

  Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like, this is the, this is what Jimmy World's like, value proposition is. It's, this is, if you deliver whoa with one ounce of like cynicism or not meaning it or irony, it'll fall flat on his face. But that man means that with his whole chest and it just flies.

• 2:15:53Yasi Salek?

  It's beautiful.

• 2:15:53Speaker 04

  It is. Incredible drums.

• 2:15:56Yasi Salek?

  Just incredible drum, everything about the sharpness of like the, when you first hear the first vocal, like if you're listening and just also like the kind of meaning of like, oh, I am listening.

• 2:16:08Speaker 04

  This is like the fourth single?

• 2:16:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think it was.

• 2:16:10Speaker 04

  And I remember just being like, what happened to this planet when sweetness doesn't become as big as the middle?

• 2:16:16Yasi Salek?

  I know. Also, interesting, now that I think about how wasted I was always listening to this song thinking like, head out the window, like, and it's literally, well, I don't know about literally, I'm surmising that it, I think it's read top line as a song about an abusive relationship, but I think it's pretty clearly a song about alcohol.

• 2:16:37Speaker 04

  I've actually never thought about what sweetness is about.

• 2:16:40Yasi Salek?

  I was spinning free whoa with a little sweet and simple numbing me. Stumble till you crawl whoa sinking into sweet uncertainty. I'm just putting two and two together, given that Jim Atkins has been public about having a drinking problem.

• 2:16:55Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:16:55Yasi Salek?

  And I felt it while I was having, I don't want to say a drinking problem, but a drinking happiness. But it is, it feels that, it feels like just spinning in circles and like, sort of like, I don't know. Um, Jim said about this song, it's just such a ridiculous melody. I just had this melody in my head and I was demoing it and singing it and kind of having a hard time with it. Also, the woes were placeholders.

• 2:17:19Speaker 04

  Because he was gonna do lyrics.

• 2:17:20Yasi Salek?

  And he just never did.

• 2:17:21Speaker 04

  That's, he should have gotten Davey to come in.

• 2:17:24Yasi Salek?

  Dave was like, I already did one fucking song for you, I'm busy.

• 2:17:28Speaker 04

  Davey's like, I can't get no satisfaction.

• 2:17:30Yasi Salek?

  I know.

• 2:17:31Speaker 04

  They're like, that's a million dollars. Thanks.

• 2:17:34Yasi Salek?

  He comes out with Beatles lyrics and they're like, go away, David. I can't listen to Hear You Me without crying.

• 2:17:39Speaker 04

  Really?

• 2:17:39Yasi Salek?

  I actually can't. If I have to listen to the, from start to finish, I will tear up. And I'm ludial right now, you guys. So like, there's just, I'm gonna cry talking about it.

• 2:17:48Speaker 04

  Do you wanna distract from your tears by just giving a shout out to Rachel Hayden?

• 2:17:52Yasi Salek?

  Rachel Hayden, that dog. What a queen.

• 2:17:55Speaker 04

  Petra and Rachel put up mad stats for like 20 years.

• 2:17:58Yasi Salek?

  Incredible.

• 2:17:59Speaker 04

  Doing BVs, doing their band.

• 2:18:01Yasi Salek?

  That dog should have been bigger.

• 2:18:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 2:18:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:04Speaker 04

  Rachel sang on like a lot of Jimmy World songs, right?

• 2:18:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:06Speaker 04

  Relative, yeah, at least speaking.

• 2:18:09Yasi Salek?

  It's funny, cause she was also, that dog was quite close with Weezer, cause they got signed at the same time. But there's like one little like throw off quote at one of these interviews where she was like, talking about how Jimmy World is so great and stayed humble after they got really big. And she was like, you know, Weezer and Foo Fighters didn't as much. And you're like,

• 2:18:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:29Yasi Salek?

  Okay, fuck, I'm gonna throw them under the bus. You're like, you're telling me Dave Grohl didn't maintain his sense of everyman humility? That's crazy. All right, Hear You Me, this song, first of all, fuck me up fam, but this song is about, speaking of Weezer, Michael and Carly Allen, sisters who ran the Weezer fan club. They were very early adopters, fans of both Weezer and Jimmy World. They would like put the bands up in their homes in Portland when they would visit, they were, and they died in a car accident tragically, coming home late one night from a Weezer concert, I think in another state, maybe? It's awful.

• 2:19:10Yasi Salek?

  And if you were with me tonight, I'd sing to you just one more time, a song for a heart so big, God wouldn't let it live.

• 2:19:20Yasi Salek?

  I can't.

• 2:19:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, I actually.

• 2:19:22Yasi Salek?

  It fucks me up.

• 2:19:23Speaker 04

  It's really beautiful.

• 2:19:35Speaker 04

  Can I cheer you up?

• 2:19:36Yasi Salek?

  Sure.

• 2:19:37Speaker 04

  And can we talk about the Authority song?

• 2:19:41Speaker 04

  This was the, this is actually the goat song on this. This is like the secret.

• 2:19:45Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:46Speaker 04

  The secret goat.

• 2:19:46Yasi Salek?

  This is like, if you're really cool and you love.

• 2:19:49Speaker 04

  There's a goat in my backyard that I don't tell anyone about. And it's named the Authority song. Because it's a John Mellencamp song about liking Jesus and Mary Chain.

• 2:19:58Yasi Salek?

  The DJ never has it, JMC automatic.

• 2:20:04Speaker 04

  He loves singing about DJs, but not in the Steve Aoki sense. In the like, kind of imaginary, like, we all, even though we're in our twenties, go to school dances and there's a DJ who's.

• 2:20:15Yasi Salek?

  Great. Fun fact, Steve Aoki also deeply tied in to this era and this album with me because he went to my college and I worked at Morning Glory Music. It was at the record store.

• 2:20:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 2:20:26Yasi Salek?

  And we talked about me working at the record store. Yeah, you've never heard of the, he actually had a house, I think it was called the Pickle Patch, and he, all the hardcore and punk shows were at his house.

• 2:20:34Speaker 04

  He's, he's really, speaking of Forrest Gump, he has really passed through so many different.

• 2:20:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:39Speaker 04

  Parts of this planet.

• 2:20:40Yasi Salek?

  I used to go to so many shows at his house, but he would come in all the time.

• 2:20:42Speaker 04

  Dimmack, was that his label?

• 2:20:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, Dimmack. He would come into Morning Glory Music while I was sitting there, feeling myself, because I worked at the record store and he would buy stuff.

• 2:20:51Speaker 04

  That's cool.

• 2:20:51Yasi Salek?

  That was the best job I ever had. Do you feel that way about working at the record store?

• 2:20:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, there was a couple of things where in retrospect, I'm like, I don't know why we had to do that. But for the most part, it was the best job I ever had.

• 2:21:01Yasi Salek?

  I would go back right now.

• 2:21:02Speaker 04

  But would you, like, I had record store jobs where like, you're not allowed to sit for eight hours.

• 2:21:06Yasi Salek?

  I only ever had one because I just told you Napster came out in 2000 and that's when I worked at the record store. So there were no more record stores like two years later. I got in right under the.

• 2:21:16Speaker 04

  I worked at Kim's until 04. We hung on.

• 2:21:18Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:21:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. People didn't have like, super fast internet immediately.

• 2:21:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, the Authority song is wonderful. Rachel Hayden sings on this one as well. You mentioned it's a John Mellencamp, 1983 John Mellencamp song, Authority song. Jim did say this is a relationship song. He said it's kind of like when you're hanging out with someone, but you don't, that you don't know that well. Or even after you do know them for a while, you're still kind of trying to like, walk the line of being honest with them, but also being kind of mysterious. It doesn't get old.

• 2:21:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:21:47Speaker 04

  Would you say that this bit is cool?

• 2:21:50Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 2:21:51Speaker 04

  They're unfashionable, but they have-

• 2:21:53Yasi Salek?

  Not pejoratively.

• 2:21:54Speaker 04

  A certain timelessness and like the fact that they can like seamlessly just like pick up Kenny Aronoff, is that the drummer, the Mellencamp drummer? It's his beat, you know?

• 2:22:03Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:22:04Speaker 04

  And it's like, the fact that they could just like seamlessly be like, it's 83.

• 2:22:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:09Speaker 04

  But it's also 2001, but we're also referencing British, like, post-punk bands like Jesus Mary Chain, but this song could also be played at like a sock hop in the 50s. There's just, they have something that just you can't even pin down.

• 2:22:23Yasi Salek?

  I think you've isolated the thing about Jimmy Eat World that I think makes them so successful in every avenue.

• 2:22:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:22:31Yasi Salek?

  Which is that to be cool, quote unquote, you have to have some level of cynicism.

• 2:22:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:22:37Yasi Salek?

  Do you agree? They don't have that. They don't have cynicism.

• 2:22:39Speaker 04

  In their music at least, I don't, yeah.

• 2:22:41Yasi Salek?

  I don't think in their personhood either, only because-

• 2:22:45Speaker 04

  You don't think they're in the dirtbag left and they're just like, we don't believe-

• 2:22:47Yasi Salek?

  Listening to Red Scare every week. Jim Adkins is listening to Red Scare right now. No, but because the way their career progressed is also like, that's not cynical to be like, I don't care what happens with this album. I don't care if it's on a, both ways. I don't, I don't care about selling out, that's, doesn't matter to me and I don't care if I put it out myself either, like-

• 2:23:10Speaker 04

  They tried to sell out by making really, really good, big songs that lots of people would listen to.

• 2:23:15Yasi Salek?

  But I, I think-

• 2:23:16Speaker 04

  But that's not like selling out.

• 2:23:17Yasi Salek?

  But I don't think they did that because they wanted to be successful. They even, there, there's an interview and I, I'm just gonna paraphrase it because I don't have it right in front of me, but where Jim Adkins kinda says like, the reason this album worked so well is because actually in a way, having no oversight from Capitol on clarity and feeling like that was the last chance to go crazy was bad. In the sense that like, it was like too indulgent, you know? Whereas here, this is exact, they had noth, it was just what we wanted to make with our own money.

• 2:23:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:23:51Yasi Salek?

  And this is exactly, I mean, you couldn't pinpoint more-

• 2:23:54Speaker 04

  They had to come buy the product after it was already finished.

• 2:23:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. They want, this is exactly what they wanted to make. And I think that's really interesting and to your point, Capitol didn't think Sweetness was gonna be a single, so why would they keep doing it?

• 2:24:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:24:06Yasi Salek?

  You know, because they loved it, because they thought it was great. The Authority song? What's this?

• 2:24:12Speaker 04

  And yet Pitchfork, and yet Pitchfork said, "No, thanks."

• 2:24:17Yasi Salek?

  Ryan Schreiber, the man who started Pitchfork, said, "Absolutely." Well, I wonder if part of that was because this became a massive...

• 2:24:25Speaker 04

  The middle was so big.

• 2:24:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, this was a huge selling, you know, it hit number 31 on the Billboard Certified Platinum. Another 3.5. This one is still on the website. It's not, you don't have to dig around the way back.

• 2:24:38Speaker 04

  Ryan stands by his taste.

• 2:24:39Yasi Salek?

  "Are you a 15-year-old TRL addict looking for a step up from Sum 41 in American Hi-Fi? Something you can connect to on an emotional level that won't sacrifice that mindless accessibility you've been forced by all your life?"

• 2:24:49Speaker 04

  It's kind of like, "What's your fucking problem, bro?"

• 2:24:51Yasi Salek?

  That's what I was saying. It's like, "Why do you hate these guys so much?" Like, just don't cover, just don't review it.

• 2:24:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:24:57Yasi Salek?

  I'm trying to, you might remember this better because you were like, this is, you said, this is right when you were kind of working in. What did they like in 2001? Because I wasn't checking Pitchfork in 2001.

• 2:25:06Speaker 04

  I was not reading it in '01.

• 2:25:08Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:25:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I don't know what was like, I also like have like a weird time machine chronology blindness for this time period. So it was like Fiery Furnaces was big then. Like, I remember we worked at Kim's, if Pitchfork gave best new music to something like Arcade Fire.

• 2:25:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:25:24Speaker 04

  Yaya's. No, I don't feel like that they, those guys were all younger. Like, I feel like it was more like Arcade Fire Funeral, TV on the Radio EP, Yaya's EP.

• 2:25:37Yasi Salek?

  Darkness.

• 2:25:38Speaker 04

  Oh, maybe, I don't know.

• 2:25:39Yasi Salek?

  The Rapture?

• 2:25:40Speaker 04

  But not until like, it was like...

• 2:25:43Yasi Salek?

  Pretty Girls Make Graves.

• 2:25:44Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 2:25:44Yasi Salek?

  We love Pretty Girls Make Graves in this house.

• 2:25:47Speaker 04

  I'll just say, the only other note I had about the actual record record was just that there was a couple of really good B-sides.

• 2:25:52Yasi Salek?

  Oh.

• 2:25:52Speaker 04

  That they put out in singles around. No Sensitivity.

• 2:25:55Yasi Salek?

  That's really good. That's, that exists on that EP that they put out.

• 2:25:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:25:59Yasi Salek?

  That had the other song from this, that had Cautioners on it.

• 2:26:02Speaker 04

  Splash Turn Twist was one, and The Most Beautiful Things. So there's like a couple of B-sides I really liked.

• 2:26:07Yasi Salek?

  They were really in their fucking bag.

• 2:26:08Speaker 04

  A shout out to these deluxe editions because the demos are good.

• 2:26:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:12Speaker 04

  There, there's like really, there's a lot of good live stuff.

• 2:26:15Yasi Salek?

  Those are the probably demos that were on Napster, floating around behind my back when I was down, laying Lady in Red and Face to Face Disconnected.

• 2:26:25Yasi Salek?

  Oh, you don't know what you want.

• 2:26:27Speaker 04

  Generally poorly reviewed, it seems like, more or less. Eh, like meh reviewed. C+ from Chris Gallo, come on.

• 2:26:33Yasi Salek?

  I know. Well, Chris Gallo, this is not really his bag.

• 2:26:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:26:36Yasi Salek?

  This is not his type of music. Metal and Jimmy World earnestness are not really his favorite. That goes to show you that you could not have predicted this would have been a big album.

• 2:26:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:26:45Yasi Salek?

  And let me give it an eight.

• 2:26:47Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 2:26:49Yasi Salek?

  Again, compared it to Blink-182. Rolling Stone, three and a half. I don't know what a three and a half stars from Rolling Stone means anymore, so.

• 2:26:55Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:26:55Yasi Salek?

  It's decent. It's fine. They did fine reviews. They don't care because they're printing money. They are selling albums left and right. Do the Warped Tour again. Play with Blink-182 and Weezer. Go on all the late shows. Here's what Jim said in 2009. "When the things were really picking up for us during the rise of lead American, there's a lot of stuff that turns off like a self-preservation thing. It feels safer to not let in the small victories. You think this could go away at any moment. It was true then and it's true now, but it's your choice to look at it in one of two ways. Not to take any of it seriously, or you could say, this could go away, so I'm willing to be present and just let everything in and be grateful. I was just going along not letting things in out of fear of rejection, a lack of self-worth, whatever. Now I realize it's way better to just enjoy it.

• 2:27:39Yasi Salek?

  I can see the appeal of being a monk, devoting your entire existence to negating your ego. If you can really let go of expectation, you can do this forever."

• 2:27:46Speaker 04

  It's very healthy.

• 2:27:47Yasi Salek?

  It's beautiful.

• 2:27:48Speaker 04

  And it's nice that they then wound up becoming a career band.

• 2:27:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:51Speaker 04

  And can put out a record every few years and obviously can basically tour every anniversary of their first three records and play nostalgia festivals if they want, or keep making new albums.

• 2:28:01Yasi Salek?

  Which we won't. This is kind of the arc of the Jimmy World story has concluded for our purposes.

• 2:28:09Speaker 04

  Well, I disagree.

• 2:28:10Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so, well, at least.

• 2:28:12Speaker 04

  But not in a weird, like, not where I'm gonna be like, no, it chased this late or something. I mean, I like some songs off those later period records, but I do want to talk about Futures for a second.

• 2:28:20Yasi Salek?

  So in a film, would Futures be the, like, part after the?

• 2:28:24Speaker 04

  Well, here's the thing I wanted to ask you about. To the extent that you can map on, like, this record's just way darker. Futures comes out in 04.

• 2:28:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:34Speaker 04

  I'm not gonna be, like, too. Broad about this or too hyperbolic, but I would say that like the tenor of the United States changed quite a bit from the years of oh one to oh four.

• 2:28:43Yasi Salek?

  Why? What happened?

• 2:28:44Speaker 04

  Well, just like living with W.

• 2:28:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:46Speaker 04

  And I think.

• 2:28:48Yasi Salek?

  We were in a war.

• 2:28:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think that was like.

• 2:28:50Yasi Salek?

  We were, we're in Groundhog's Day because we're in.

• 2:28:53Speaker 04

  Another.

• 2:28:54Yasi Salek?

  We've been in that same war.

• 2:28:55Speaker 04

  For a bush.

• 2:28:56Yasi Salek?

  More times since, since.

• 2:28:58Speaker 04

  And it was like demonstrably going really fucking bad by this point. And I think I just remember. You know, I was just coming of age in some ways like, but like being really aware of like financial pressures and like just how hard it was to like be alive. And I know that this record is like somewhat dismissed by some people. I didn't know if you knew if there was any biographical link, like when he gets sober or like.

• 2:29:27Yasi Salek?

  No, because he doesn't get sober for like 10 more years.

• 2:29:29Speaker 04

  So I think this is a dark record.

• 2:29:31Yasi Salek?

  It's, it's, no, it's a very, it's a, it's a really, there's darkness in Bleed America.

• 2:29:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:29:37Yasi Salek?

  Right? That in a way that it's not in clarity. There's, there's like a teeth.

• 2:29:44Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 2:29:45Yasi Salek?

  If that makes sense. And then this is like all teeth.

• 2:29:49Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:29:50Yasi Salek?

  Like that buoyancy of, you know, the DJ never has a JMC automatic.

• 2:29:55Speaker 04

  Gone.

• 2:29:55Yasi Salek?

  Come on, Davey. Word is not here.

• 2:29:57Speaker 04

  Even the prettiest song on this record, uh, which I think we disagree about, but I would say is work.

• 2:30:03Yasi Salek?

  I love work.

• 2:30:04Speaker 04

  And I think work is like, strangely has become my favorite Jimmy Eat World song.

• 2:30:11Yasi Salek?

  You texted me, this is the best Jimmy Eat World song.

• 2:30:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:30:14Yasi Salek?

  This man texted me at nine 30 PM, which everyone knows I'm asleep at that point. So.

• 2:30:18Speaker 04

  Well, because I saw in the doc, you were just like, good song. Like, I liked the song a lot. Liz Phair. And I'm like, this is like goat, like this is.

• 2:30:25Yasi Salek?

  It's a beautiful.

• 2:30:25Speaker 04

  Insanely good song.

• 2:30:26Yasi Salek?

  It's a beautiful song.

• 2:30:27Speaker 04

  And, uh, even that's, it's like a really sad song.

• 2:30:31Yasi Salek?

  Is it a love?

• 2:30:32Speaker 04

  It's like about almost wanting to be part of a Bruce Springsteen fantasy of getting out of a town. But there is like a kind of regret and a maybe like an awareness that it's not going to happen.

• 2:30:51Speaker 04

  I also was always fascinated of just the way that like Liz Phair comes is used in this song and the way her voice is like using her flat affect to anthemic background vocals is a really, really cool choice.

• 2:31:19Yasi Salek?

  I didn't get any information about how that happened.

• 2:31:22Speaker 04

  I think he was listening to Divorce Song and was like, I think Liz Phair would make a good addition to this song and it has a little bit of that vibe.

• 2:31:32Yasi Salek?

  Go Divorce Song?

• 2:31:37Yasi Salek?

  She really did that.

• 2:31:37Speaker 04

  I wonder what would happen if we just did a Band Splain where we both made playlists called "Goaded" and just named songs that we thought were "Goaded."

• 2:31:45Yasi Salek?

  Just one name.

• 2:31:46Speaker 04

  But I think it probably would do pretty good numbers.

• 2:31:48Yasi Salek?

  I think it would be my highest streamed episode of all time. Two things happened before Futures besides the geopolitical nightmare. DreamWorks folds or collapses or something and they are shuffled off to Interscope. Also, I just read that quote, but like it's not easy to become extremely big and famous overnight.

• 2:32:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:32:18Yasi Salek?

  And to deal with the consequences of that, it's very like protect me from what I want, you know, not even saying they wanted or didn't want it, but like becoming famous overnight is like psychic splinter. Like I have a friend who's a therapist who believes that like fame should be in the DSM 5 and I couldn't agree more. I think to come out the other side of being famous without being like mentally ill.

• 2:32:41Speaker 04

  He didn't even have to read about himself on his phone all day long.

• 2:32:43Yasi Salek?

  No, he just had to read Andy Greenwald writing about it on Spit.

• 2:32:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, very lovingly.

• 2:32:47Yasi Salek?

  Lovingly, crazily. Andy Greenwald was writing for this band throughout the review cycles. He loved Chase This Light, but I could see that is why it would be darker. I like this album, like I think it has good songs on it.

• 2:32:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, Futures references, the song Futures references Barbara Ehrlich and is like a little bit more political.

• 2:33:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:06Speaker 04

  When I listen to that, I always think about how fired up. I was because I thought John Kerry was gonna win that year. He didn't.

• 2:33:15Yasi Salek?

  We dealt with some pretty big disappointments in our first adulthood phase.

• 2:33:21Speaker 04

  Like Florida, my wife, my now wife and I, it was like one of our first trips and we went to Florida. And I was like right before the election that year and I was like, oh, man, like John Kerry. A new blue tide is sweeping it. And then went to Florida and it was just like, there's only bush signs.

• 2:33:37Yasi Salek?

  They don't know that. Kerry. Oh, a third thing from my astrology girlies. This is also Jim Atkins's Saturn return album. Saturn return is incredibly difficult for anyone, let alone someone who just like rose to crazy MTV TRL fame.

• 2:33:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, but then he's like, I'm making a song about my favorite Heat Miser song.

• 2:33:59Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:59Speaker 04

  Like, he's just, he's the man.

• 2:34:01Yasi Salek?

  I will say Pain is very strange to me.

• 2:34:02Speaker 04

  In a good way?

• 2:34:05Speaker 04

  It's got songs that are damn near Coldplay.

• 2:34:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, this one I was giving like Panic at the Disco or something.

• 2:34:13Speaker 04

  Pain?

• 2:34:13Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:14Speaker 04

  Was Panic out by then?

• 2:34:15Yasi Salek?

  I don't know.

• 2:34:16Speaker 04

  I, I think.

• 2:34:17Yasi Salek?

  Great, great question.

• 2:34:18Speaker 04

  Work and Kill are my two favorites.

• 2:34:20Yasi Salek?

  Perhaps Panic at the Disco heard that song and then formed their.

• 2:34:23Speaker 04

  Wouldn't surprise me.

• 2:34:24Yasi Salek?

  Active from 2004. They heard Futures and they were like, we're forming this band. I like 23 a lot, though, but I'm, I'm partial to like the acoustic-y, strummy.

• 2:34:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I like Night Drive. It's pretty, it's pretty like, is that's the Kiss Me With Your Cherry Lipstick one?

• 2:34:50Speaker 04

  I like 23.

• 2:34:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:52Speaker 04

  But Kill is the one.

• 2:34:54Yasi Salek?

  And Mark Hermino did not produce this album.

• 2:34:55Speaker 04

  No, Gil Norton did.

• 2:34:56Yasi Salek?

  Gil Norton of Pixies, Foo Fighters, Dashboard Confessional. We haven't mentioned in this conversation, but.

• 2:35:04Speaker 04

  Karabba's like, Thanks, Clarity is like one of the great records.

• 2:35:07Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:35:08Yasi Salek?

  I love Dashboard Confessional.

• 2:35:10Speaker 04

  But this is it. This is like my, my secret, my secret lover is Futures. I just like, you know how you have one of those in a discography where you're like,

• 2:35:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 2:35:18Speaker 04

  On my dark nights alone, it's Futures. I think it's that.

• 2:35:21Yasi Salek?

  Okay.

• 2:35:22Speaker 04

  That's for me.

• 2:35:23Yasi Salek?

  I respect it.

• 2:35:24Speaker 04

  And then after that, I, you know, this may disappoint Jimmy, world completists and absolutists. I start to have a different relationship to the band, which is like, I think something happened with me. In the several years between Futures and Chase This Light? I don't know, I just didn't, I did, it was not like I like, I am waiting with bated breath for the next Jimmy World record. So we can talk about these records.

• 2:35:49Yasi Salek?

  No, I mean, like, I, I think, like I said, the arc of the story is over. I also famously spent the entire 2000s during drugs and listening to The Smiths and The Diplomats exclusively. So I don't know about any of, like, none of my business what happened during that time.

• 2:36:03Speaker 04

  There's some good songs here.

• 2:36:04Yasi Salek?

  There's some good songs. Listen, there's, Jimmy World is a good band that like, there's nothing that you're like, ugh, unlistenable. You know, like, there's, there's definitely like moments on all of these albums that you're like, oh yeah, I know why you're Jimmy World, you know?

• 2:36:17Speaker 04

  Coffee and cigarettes.

• 2:36:18Yasi Salek?

  Coffee and cigarettes is good. Little Thing and Cut, those are off Inverted. Actually, the one I like the most is Damage. Damage almost like sounds the most maybe like old school Jimmy World.

• 2:36:32Speaker 04

  Conceptually, some interesting, like, like, I think one of the albums, I feel bad, like, not diving into this, but one of the albums is like all written in about photographs that Jim was looking at. So like, he would take a photograph and write a song about it.

• 2:36:45Yasi Salek?

  Listen, it's great. We're, I'm, we're really, we support long career musicians. It's just for the purposes of a storytelling podcast. I think the story is wrapped up by, by Futures, if they're still going. Although I want to give one last shout out, which is the 2020 cover of the Crooked Fingers song, Call to Love.

• 2:37:07Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 2:37:08Yasi Salek?

  Eric Bachman's Side Projects. The original version of that song has Nico Case. It's a, it's a call and response song with a man and a woman. And guess what? And Jimmy, Jim Adkins's cover is with friend of the pod and singer of our theme song, Bethany Cosentino.

• 2:37:24Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:37:25Yasi Salek?

  And it's a great cover. And that, it came out, I want to say it came out like four to six months into COVID. And I have a really like, like, I remember, like, it was like a bright light.

• 2:37:36Speaker 04

  Did Bethany have like fun, like, like, fun real?

• 2:37:39Yasi Salek?

  Yes. He's the nicest guy ever. And I think they did it over Zoom, obviously, because it was COVID.

• 2:37:46Speaker 04

  I saw him at the Burbank Airport recently and I was just like,

• 2:37:49Yasi Salek?

  Did you say something?

• 2:37:49Speaker 04

  I'm almost like tempted to go up and just be like, you don't know who I am, but this is.

• 2:37:53Yasi Salek?

  I'm sure he would have been happy.

• 2:37:55Speaker 04

  He was with his kid. I didn't want to bother him.

• 2:37:57Yasi Salek?

  His kid should know he's cool. His kitchen is CR of the CR Head subreddit. Thinks he's cool. Um, Chris Ryan, thank you so much.

• 2:38:07Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me. This was a fun one.

• 2:38:09Yasi Salek?

  I'm really happy that it worked out.

• 2:38:10Speaker 04

  Not that Blur wasn't fun or that any time I spend with you is fun.

• 2:38:13Yasi Salek?

  That was the implication that those other ones weren't as fun.

• 2:38:15Speaker 04

  This is a breeze, though.

• 2:38:16Yasi Salek?

  Someone on the internet asked if we could do Pavement again.

• 2:38:19Speaker 04

  Because I didn't do a good job?

• 2:38:20Yasi Salek?

  No, they just really liked it and they would like us to.

• 2:38:23Speaker 04

  No, but you can listen to our pod, Goedid.

• 2:38:26Yasi Salek?

  You can listen to our pod, Goedid, where we just say names of songs back and forth.

• 2:38:30Speaker 04

  Fucking Goedid.

• 2:38:31Yasi Salek?

  Goedid. Um, come back next week for a new episode of Bandplain.

• 2:38:45Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandplain. Our guest today was Chris Ryan. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderland, edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video animation and graphics are by John Richter. Executive producers for Bandplain are Gina Dalvec and me, Yasi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Clavon, and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, Producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fantasy, Michael Hardman, Casey Simonson, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDonough, Dana Meyerson, Jessica Hopper, and my loo-deal fates, the loo's.

• 2:39:30Yasi Salek?

  Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 2:39:42Speaker 04

  Damn.

• 2:39:43Yasi Salek?

  Like, I know. He was like, you talking about emo guys again? I'll remind you. Um.

• 2:39:50Speaker 06

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