THIRD EYE BLIND play Irvine Meadows Jul 27
Third Eye Blind will play Jul. 27 at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in after they had to cancel their Jul. 19 due to heavy rain and flooding at the venue.
The rock band, known for inescapable hits like “Semi-Charmed Life,” “How’s It Going to Be” and “Never Let You Go” has been on tour with Dashboard Confessional since late May. Lead singer and songwriter Stephan Jenkins, who at the time of this interview was being yelled at on the streets of Chicago by a “Jesus Freak with a loudspeaker” telling him he was going to burn in hell, has been enjoying the match-up.
“I love it! It started out with a mutual respect. I respect Chris [Carrabba] as a songwriter and as somebody who has just been DIY, always,” Jenkins said. “It’s an amazing thing to see that many people know his songs and they weren’t on the radio. He really just created his own scene. The guy’s really kind of hardcore. He’s a skater, he’s got that bounce-off-concrete feel to him and he’s just got this straightedge, fierce way about him that I relate to.”
The bands did not know each other before the tour but gelled almost instantly.
“We didn’t know each other, but now we’re friends, and both the crews have become friends,” Jenkins said. “In indie music, when I came up, there was a tendency for things to be standoffish and even a little bit competitive. On this tour all the bands’ crews are really supportive and there’s no argument about the volume, or ‘you can’t use this light’ or any of that stuff. It’s just a lot of regard and good feelings. I love it. I’m really having a great summer.”
A true California native, Jenkins plans to hit the waves when he gets to So Cal.
“I did bring a surfboard on this tour so whenever there’s a chance to go out and surf, I do,” he said. “There’s actually a project that works with vets with PTSD, by teaching them surfing, and I’m gonna try to get together with them and participate in that — do a little surf jaunt.”
As far as set list expectations, fans can expect high energy and a “varied set.”
“There’s a lot of deep tracks that have become important to our fans, and then there are people who have just heard us on the radio, so we’ll play some old hits, and we’ll play some new songs from ‘Dopamine,'” Jenkins said. “The thing about our band is that everybody played on this record, so it’s really theirs and they want to share it. Everybody in my band feels aspirational and has this real vitality and energy. I really love that. Everybody is there to make something happen every night.”
Fans may also be in for an unexpected, pop surprise.
“Every once in a while I like to throw in a little Beyoncé.”
“Dopamine”, the band’s first album in six years, was released on Jun. 16 while the tour was in full swing. Several songs have been incorporated into the set list with enthusiastic results.
“It feels so fucking good to play these songs! Yes! I love it!” Jenkins said. “I love seeing people, like, seven rows back, knowing the words even though I haven’t put them up yet…It feels good to be comprehended.”
The new album is unique in their discography, playing on themes that are at the forefront of our culture today.
“I think this album, as a whole, is kind of concerned with authenticity and connectedness, but also the fear of being hustled; having your emotions hustled.”
Sonically, the album is a departure. Due in large part to drummer Brad Hargreaves, whom Jenkins described as “one of the most underrated drummers around.”
“Musically, it is really different because Brad gave me an organizing principle. He said, ‘Let’s just strip everything down to what is the most direct impulse to whatever that emotional provocation that we’re trying to make.’ If you listen to the beats on the album, they’re so simple and pulsing. It’s kind of that New Order, Joy Division, Gothic-undercurrent that’s on a lot of the tracks. It’s a simple driving kind of thing, which is a move away from the syncopation we have on a lot of the other records.”
Also unique to this record is a heavy wink to David Bowie, who is mentioned several times in songs like “Rites of Passage” and “Exiles.”
“Shut up about the Bowie already [laughs]!” Jenkins said. “I think I was listening to Bowie when I was writing, but I’ve always listened to Bowie. He’s always been a huge influence on me, but the concept on this record about authenticity and artifice is something that he’s a master of. So when I say, ‘you’ll be the greatest rock star ever’ that’s that glammy sheen, but underneath it there’s genuine feeling. I was sort of imagining Bowie, Tim Curry, The Smiths. You take these emotions, and you make them overwrought as a way of rendering them; putting distance on them.”
More than an influence, Bowie is also a hero, giving Jenkins a rare awestruck moment.
“I kind of feel like I’ve met everybody except like, Nelson Mandela and the Pope. The only time in my life I ever got star struck was Bowie. I was on stage in LA doing a show for KROQ, and I was in full on, maximum swagger. I was wearing a white faux-fur coat, and I looked over to my left and he was standing there on the side of the stage and I just didn’t know what to do, really. It was just like, ‘Oh shit’ because I think he is such a brilliant artist, so brilliant.”
Other influences on “Dopamine” abound, from Joy Division, Bon Iver and EDM, to post-rock bands like Nothing and Weekends. Perhaps most interesting are the intellectual influences that permeate the album.
“I think there’s also, like, a post-feminist sensibility right now,” Jenkins said. “It’s a very interesting time in culture. I really think there’s some gigantic seismic shifts in young women. Obviously women are still completely fucked in terms of pay equity, or health care, being safe on their campus, being believed. In terms of internal politics, I notice a presumption of equality that is not predicated on what it’s equal to. I see women starting to take their own equality as a given, without taking men into the equation anymore than men take women into the equation in their own sense of equality. That’s pretty fascinating. That’s, like, a post-patriarchal moment. I hear those things and that kind of shows up in the album for me. I think my mother was really a post-feminist. She was in the biochemistry department at Stanford when I was growing up. She had people working for her, chasing after her, so she lived in that state of mind. That is in some sense an intellectual characteristic of the record.”
Before continuing, Jenkins and the interview were again disrupted.
“Sorry, the guy who wants me to burn in hell was interrupting you. He’s, like, down the block I can still hear him.”
In addition to post-feminism, Jenkins cites disillusionment as a huge part of the record.
“I think politically, I’m a bit disillusioned,” he said. “I think global climate change and food subsistence and racial equality are all so clear and present. I’m disillusioned because I want to see passionate energy and passionate leadership, and there isn’t that leadership. I want to see that movement come up, and I’m not seeing it.”
It’s clear Jenkins is an acute and passionate observer, who puts what he sees in the world around him into his work, but also someone who takes his own ruminations with a grain of salt.
“I think I’ve talked way too much. You MUST have had enough by now.”