Jimmy Eat World puts ‘Heart’ into latest work
MUSIC
“Love” and “heart” are probably the two most used words in rock songs. But you don’t often find them in the lyrics of Arizona rockers Jimmy Eat World, whose songs lean more to the abstract. That changes with the release of a new single, a standalone teaser between albums, whose titles use both: “Love Never” and “Half Heart.”
“We’re just crossing out all the rock cliches as we go along,” frontman Jim Adkins said by phone from Sweden this week ahead of the band’s Monday show at House of Blues. “It’s been 25 years, so we might as well. The next thing we do will be the one where we rhyme ‘fire’ and ‘desire.’”
The two new songs actually capture both sides of the band: The first is loud and heavy, the second slow and textural. Both are characteristically emotive.
“Those songs really show the two ways we like to work. At heart, we’re a guitar rock band, but we’re always open to whatever excites us. Sometimes that can be the furthest thing from guitar rock.”
Formed in 1993, the band has two landmark albums to its credit, 2001’s “Bleed American” and 2004’s “Futures.” Both took the band’s roots in the emo movement and translated them into hook-heavy, arenaready songs. Those two albums form the majority of the current set list, though the recent “Integrity Blues” (a title Adkins says refers to “how tough it can be to do the right thing”) gets some play as well. And the shows invariably end with the band’s 2001 anthem, “The Middle.” With its uplifting message of survival, that song likely got a lot of their fans through tough times.
Adkins takes that kind of connection in stride.
“It’s flattering if people tell us that something was beneficial to them. But once you start chasing the approval of some imaginary listener, you start getting away from your own personal honesty. Looking for validation from external sources is always going to lead to a place of missed expectations and pointless things to get upset about. So when I write something, it’s more about exploring whatever I want to talk about, not thinking so much about how it’s going to translate.”
Though the band has maintained the same lineup for the past 23 years, it keeps fresh by working with different producers in the studio; the latest album was overseen by Justin Meldal-Johnsen of Nine Inch Nails fame.
“As a band, we do a pretty good job of keeping things fun, and I think that’s helped our longevity. ‘Futures’ and ‘Bleed American’ may have done the best for us commercially, but the newest songs are always going to be the ones we’re most excited about. The producers we’ve used have all come in with their own personal biases and leanings, but for the most part, they’re on the same page with us. They just add an extra nudge that we might not have thought of.”
Adkins says the band’s musical future is wide open.
“The next album could be anything. We could make a ska album. I wouldn’t expect that, though.”