More than a late ’90s nostalgia act
Third Eye Blind celebrates 20 years with tour stopping at Toronto’s Echo Beach
It starts with a drum fill, followed by that propulsive riff. By the time the “doot-doot-doots” kick in, it’s over. You’re hooked.
“Semi-Charmed Life,” the insanely catchy 1997 debut single from Third Eye Blind, is the rare kind of song that sounds familiar even on first listen, the kind of song destined to be a hit.
“The song is about being addicted to wanting,” says the band’s singer Stephan Jenkins, who penned the deceptively gritty tune about sex and drugs in the mid-’90s. “There’s something romantic about that. That’s why it lasts.”
But it’s also the kind of song that sinks careers, branding its creators one-hit wonders. Which is exactly how the Bay-area group are remembered by casual fans and critics: one in a sea of interchangeable majorlabel alt-rock lite bands, like Sugar Ray, Everclear and Matchbox 20 who dominated rock radio in the waning days of the 1990s.
“It was just the cohort that we were in,” Jenkins says. Media gatekeepers never understood the band “and that really bothered me.”
Jenkins became infamous for his cocky attitude and willingness to take on all comers, be it rock critics or other bands. “My cohort in my mind was totally different than what people might have assumed for me. I was thinking about Jeff Buckley and A Tribe Called Quest and Slowdive. I had nothing to do with people who put out an album the same year I did.”
Yet the self-titled album from which the song came spawned four more singles, two of which — “How’s It Going to Be” and “Jumper” — landed in the top 10. The album itself has sold more than six million copies, becoming an icon of its era.
Founding members Kevin Cadogan and Arion Salazar either left or were pushed out, depending on who you ask, in 2000 and 2006 respectively, leaving drummer Brad Hargreaves as the only other original member in Third Eye Blind’s current five-member setup. The band has maintained a relatively steady career, releasing four more albums with varying degrees of success.
“We became a critics’ darling probably in the last three years,” says Jenkins, noting that the band’s 2015 album Dopamine connected them with a new generation of fans and critics. Before, “there was something to be gained from dismissing (us). That all wore off.”
Their current tour, during which Third Eye Blind celebrates the 20th anniversary of its debut by playing it in its entirety, is packing in upward of 10,000 fans a night. Here in Toronto, they’re set to play the 5,000-capacity Echo Beach on Wednesday. That’s still more than double the size of Everclear’s recent gig at the Danforth Music Hall, where they were supported by fellow late-’90s relics Fastball and Vertical Horizon.
The reason, Jenkins says, is because even while celebrating the past, Third Eye Blind is more than a nostalgia act. “To some people we are,” he admits. “But a whole new generation of kids finds something in this music. They comprehend what I’m about in a way that is unique.
“It’s one of the biggest gifts I have received in my life: the gift of being comprehended.”
“A whole new generation of kids finds something in this music. They comprehend what I’m about in a way that is unique.” STEPHAN JENKINS THIRD EYE BLIND SINGER