THIRD EYE BLIND play North Park Apr. 8, The Wiltern Apr. 9, The Observatory Apr. 10 photo: James Christopher
Third Eye Blind will roll in to town quite possibly on one of their “no doors” tour busses to play The Wiltern Apr. 9, while also making stops at The North Park Theatre Apr. 8 and The Observatory Apr. 10.
The rock band, known for inescapable hits like “Semi-Charmed Life,” “How’s It Going to Be” and “Never Let You Go” will play a high energy and “varied set” for their fans according to front man, Stephan Jenkins.
“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.”
“Dopamine”, the band’s first album in six years, was released last June and is unique to 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 “Dopamine” 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.”
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.”