Jimmy Eat World: Finding The Light

When ‘Clarity’ was finally released, things really kicked off for the band and saw them playing large venues at full capacity. Looking back was this an exciting time for them? Jim replies, “It was all exciting. Clarity was bigger at rentals than it ever was at the box office.” We presume meaning that people loved it but didn’t necessarily buy it. They were dropped from Capitol shortly after that release. Jim notes that before ‘Bleed American’ they had sold less than 30k of records. “Those labels are made to pump out an album that is selling 30k a week, they have no idea what to do with a band with the combined total sales of two thousand… which was where we were at the time we made our first deal… from an outsider perspective it would seem like a confidence blow to get dropped from your record label. From our perspective, the label had become background noise. Everything was happening for us. When we toured we would go back to bigger city and play a bigger place for more people…we were realising that we should never have been on a big label to begin with.” Having parted ways with Capitol and moved to Interscope (now merged with Atlantic/Universal), isn’t it a tad ironic that a band who say they should never have been on a big label, find themselves once again in that position?

Jim reminisces about the early days of touring, having the most fun with The Promise Ring, JeJune, No Knife, Christie Front Drive, The Get Up Kids and Sensefield. “You learn something from everybody you do road with. I have learned a lot from touring and local crew. You have to treat everybody with respect. I know it may sound silly to hear that, but these people are busting their arses like you are.” It may be an unwritten rule that once you hit prime time you can be a wanker to those helping you out, but surely the ability to treat people you work alongside with respect isn’t a big deal?

‘Chase this Light’ is their fifth studio album and is the one that Jim is most proud of, “I can say that we are the best band we have ever been right now. And happier too! We are excited to be back to rock!” Their February tour has now been announced but who would Jim most like to tour with? “There are lots of bands I would love to tour with. Shakira would be my first choice.” Ha bloody Ha!

It might just be that we are coming from a galaxy far, far away but we find ourselves scratching our heads; attempting to untangle intricately weaved webs of sarky comebacks. What did we do? We only wanted to ask one of our favourite bands about their career to date! If you’re quicker than a jumping jack flash you can still get tickets to the February tour dates; the album ‘Chase This Light’ is now out. We'll probably still be here searching our frazzled brains for answers.