Twenty years on from forming, Rick and Zach still sit around apprehensively before a show wondering how it will go. With eight albums under their belts, and a sound they can clearly call their own, Jimmy Eat World are embarking on another leg of their journey, following the release of ‘Damage’.
“Being in a band, it kind of goes in cycles; you’re at home and you’re working on new songs then you go in to record and by the time you’re done it’s been a while since you’ve toured so the touring part of it is always something different.”
Having just released ‘Damage’, without a label, and completely out of their own pocket, a first since their hit, ‘Bleed American’, the band took complete creative control over this album before signing up to RCA records to fill the gaps that they couldn’t.
“For us we try to do stuff that interests us… with ‘Damage’, it was sort of like putting a bucket down a well and you pull it back up and that’s what you have and you work with that. We weren’t trying to be something different.”
Given the expansive back catalogue that comes with having as many releases, the guys debate over what’s best to put forward when playing live; picking and choosing from a lot of fan favourites isn’t always that easy when a lot of your music can make it to the stage.
“We can only play so many… we are playing a handful of new songs and choosing from the old songs gives us a chance to mix the set up from gig to gig. We have certain songs, like ‘The Middle’, ‘Hear You Me’ and ‘Sweetness’, those are the kinds of songs that are non-negotiable live but if you play something and nothing happens, well then you’re not going to play it the next night.”
‘Damage’ is being lauded as Jimmy Eat World’s adult break up record, a throwback to one of Jim’s comments early on in the release cycle, but also a trend that seems to filter through the band’s albums with songs of bitter endings and heartbreaks. An interesting contrast when your main songwriter is happily married.
“As you get older, relationships are a little bit more complicated, you have kids, you have a life together and some of those things put together create a different context for a relationship than when you were in college or highschool or whatever. You have a lot more to consider and it complicates those frictions. Jim has this ability to really empathise with people and is able to put himself into that situation and write from that perspective.”
Twenty years on and almost ten years from one of their more popular albums, ‘Futures’, the band don’t have any plans to stop, but continue touring, writing and celebrating.
“We’re in the works of reissuing some of the older albums on vinyl and with ‘Futures” anniversary coming up, we’re looking at maybe doing some “Futures” shows… it’s kind of crazy to think that it’s all coming back around. I always look at people who have jobs for a really long time and I have a lot of respect for the person who’s doing their job for twenty, thirty, forty years and we’re becoming that dude. We’re feeling that pressure now, we’ve been doing this for twenty years like, if we suck, what are we doing? But so far, we’re doing well enough, I think.”
JIMMY EAT WORLD’s new album ‘Damage’ is out now