SOMETHING LOUD

Jimmy Eat World turn up at Red Rocks on their 30th anniversary tour

BY JEZY J. GRAY

Last summer’s comeback single from time-tested rock institution Jimmy Eat World — the first new music from the Arizona-born outfit since before the pandemic lockdown — hangs on an urgent, arena-ready question: Do you still feel part of something loud?

If you ask 47-year-old frontman Jim Adkins, who co-founded the band with drummer and lifelong friend Zach Lind in 1993, the answer is a deafening yes. “There’s a part of me that I think will always identify as the 14-year-old metal kid going to hardcore shows for the first time and having my mind blown,” says the creative force behind some of the most definitive teenage anthems of the 21st century.

The most inescapable of those anthems came in the fall of 2001, when “The Middle” smashed into the culture during the last gasp of the MTV era. With its bouncy palm-muted guitars, crashing cymbals and life-affirming chorus — It just takes some time, a generation still buzzing from the sugar rush of ’90s pop-punk collective- ly wailed into their hairbrushes — the track sailed to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Suddenly the band who had blazed a new trail through the basements of the previous decade’s burgeoning second-wave emo scene found themselves on the top of the airwaves, plunked between Eminem and Vanessa Carlton, as the last insurgent indie hitmakers of the pre-streaming landscape.

“When things took off for us in the more commercial, mainstream space, we just kept operating the way we always did: being focused on the things within your control, and being proud of your records,” Adkins says. “We’ve done months-long tours playing for nobody, and we’ve opened up for Green Day at Giants Stadium — but we’re the same band, playing the same songs. So a lot of this stuff isn’t really up to you. And you won’t make it very long if you take those things that aren’t up to you, and make them all about you. Because they’re not going to go your way most of the time. So if you just focus on things like chasing creative ideas that are exciting to you, and making music that is rewarding and challenging for you, then it’s a win.”

‘DON’T WRITE YOURSELF OFF YET’

Jimmy Eat World had been a staple in the DIY scene for nearly a decade by the time their millennial sleeper hit thumped the band into the radio-rock stratosphere. The accompanying Bleed American LP, which would reach certi- fied platinum status just over a year after its release, came on the heels of the band’s 1999 major-label masterpiece Clarity — a critical and commercial turning point for the group after years of grinding in the emo underground alongside acts like Sunny Day Real Estate and Colorado’s own Christie Front Drive.

Now, three decades and nearly a dozen albums later, the hardscrabble quartet pauses for a rare moment of reflection as they mark 30 years with a 30-city anniversary tour — coming to Red Rocks Amphitheatre on July 25 — alongside co-headliners Manchester Orchestra and Australian upstarts Middle Kids. According to Jimmy Eat World co-founder Lind, whose dad once coached the Denver Zephyrs minor-league baseball team and whose muscular percussion has propelled the band since day one, the milestone offers a chance to take stock after the whirlwind of the outfit’s relentless and remarkable career so far.

“I don’t think we really stop and look back too often. We’ve always been kind of future-oriented. We’re thinking about the next thing we want to tackle,” Lind says. “You put one foot in front of the other for so long, and then you finally turn back and look around and say, ‘Wow. We’ve accomplished a lot.’”

But when it comes to measuring those accomplishments, the band’s yardstick isn’t eye-popping record sales, stadium-filling tours or front-ofthe-pack chart positions. To hear bassist Rick Burch tell it, there’s a simpler motivation for chasing the light with his bandmates all these years — and it hasn’t changed much since he joined the ranks in 1995.

“For me, the band was initially about having fun with friends and seeing new places. And coincidentally, that’s still one of the main things I enjoy about it,” says Burch, who took over on bass ahead of the group’s formative sophomore LP Static Prevails. “That’s how it has become such a massive part of my life. It’s that thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.”

‘THE MIDDLE OF THE RIDE’ Adkins shares a similar appreciation for the basic formula that has kept Jimmy Eat World from careening down the path of too many long-running music acts who outlive their sense of urgency. He says it’s about cultivating gratefulness around the fundamentals.

“If you’re alive in your 40s, to have something in your life that’s been a consistent thing for most of it — if not the main thing — is kind of wild. And it’s definitely not an opportunity that a lot of people get to take advantage of,” he says. “Gratitude is the first thing I go to.