Making the Phoenix area proud for years, Jimmy Eat World has recently wrapped up touring on their seventh full-length album and has jumped into Arizona’s Fall Frenzy to officially wrap things up in their home town. After almost 20 years of being together, the band is jumping back into the studio with new music and getting geared up to play with Blink-182 and Matt & Kim on the Phoenix stop of their Honda Civic Tour. The State Press caught up with frontman Jim Adkins about playing Fall Frenzy and what’s next for the alt-rock gods.
The State Press: So you guys are doing “Bleed American” only shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Why these places? Why only “Bleed American”?
Jim Adkins: A couple shows in our tour, we played the “Clarity” record from top to bottom and got good feedback. So, I don’t know, “Bleed American” was the record for us, so we thought we’d celebrate the 10-year anniversary. It’s a little bit different from our normal show, which is fun for us, too. We’ve played some of it in our shows since it’s come out but we haven’t played its bulk in a really long time.
SP: Obviously, you’re from here, but how did you guys get onto this part of the Honda Civic Tour?
JA: It sounded fun. We heard that My Chemical Romance was backing out and we thought it’d be fun to jump in on it. We lucked out that everyone thought it would be a good idea. It also worked out timing-wise because this is the end of our tour we’ve been on for over a year. So it’s good that we get to finish up in Phoenix.
SP: Do you know the guys from the other bands?
JA: Yeah, we’ve done tours with them on and off (for) the last 10 years. We did a tour with them after the “Bleed American” album.
SP: Do you ever notice anything about performing for the Phoenix area that you don’t get elsewhere?
JA: Arizona’s always been real supportive of us which is kind of hard because it’s not really condensed. There’s lots of people here doing great work but it’s hard to gather a critical mass. The metropolis is so spread out that if one thing is happening on one side of town, before the Internet, it was hard to bring it all together.
SP: After performing for over 15 years, how have your performances grown? Do you ever work on aspects to spice up the typical show?
JA: It’s important to keep yourself open to reacting to the situation moment by moment. There are songs that you play a lot but you have to keep looking for feedback to keep the experience real. There’s not a script to it. It’s not like going to a theatrical performance. We have a general outline for what we want to happen at a show, how we want it to start and end, but the order can change nightly or during a night. You’re always looking for a way to change things up. We’ll try to throw it old songs or random B-album songs just because we haven’t done them in a while.
SP: We know that your latest album “Invented” came out within the last year but what can we expect later for new JEW music?
JA: I just pulled up to our studio now, actually, so we’re working on new songs. Hopefully, by the summer of next year we will have wrapped up with the next album. That’s our goal. We have like 90 going right now. Just kidding. We’re not a band that can write on the road. There’s lots of idea gathering there. But it’s when we get home that we can flush out writing and gather songs together. Now that the tour’s done, I imagine that we have time to start songs and see what we have going.
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