It wasn’t some sort of overnight success, and it looked that way because once it came out, things with us ignited in public. We were very misunderstood by our own record company, and one other thing that was strange about us was that it was a long struggle to make music. And I felt that way at the time, worse from our own image. “It’s funny because I’ll look at videos, I’ll look at the marketing and just flatline when I see it. “I had no sense that I was my own puppet master,” he says. Jenkins acknowledges the road to realizing that he was his own scene started by realizing that, while the early songs were all about not allowing yourself to be controlled by other forces, other forces were controlling his career all the while. There’s only feeling whole within your self, there’s really no exterior place of belonging, that’s it.” So much of that first record for me just came out of always feeling so on the outside, being a misfit, and it really took me years to realize that I was the inside, I was the scene. “I really only have one kind of revelation, and I’m afraid that it might sound kind of…simplistic. “What is that like?” he asks me rhetorically over the phone, taking a beat to consider his response. Jenkin’s words were thoughtful but direct, catchy, and smarter than your average pop song, if you wanted them to be. A song like “Graduate” spells out Jenkin’s concerns about adulthood quite fine on its own as he wonders if he’ll ever be able to get his “punk ass off the street,” while an allusion to The Great Gatsby in opening track “Losing a Whole Year” or the fact that the “Do Do Do’s” in “Semi Charmed Life” were borrowed from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” were only evident to those who picked up on it, and of no concern to those who didn’t. in English Literature, Jenkins didn’t bother to overstuff his songs with arcane references or inaccessible metaphors.
alone-and you’re left with a band still trying to process the feelings of transition they’ve baked into their songs while those feelings are being codified and shaped into a product.ĭespite graduating from U.C. And you likely still have them stuck somewhere in the deep recesses of your brain.Ĭast aside any considerations of Third Eye Blind’s tremendous commercial success-it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, saw the band performing single “How’s It Going to Be” on Saturday Night Live and sold 6 million-plus copies in the U.S. Two years later, they were still soundtracking memories of friend hangs and drinking beer from koozies on Michigan docks in American Pie. Three of its five singles-”Semi Charmed Life,” “Jumper” and “How’s It Going to Be”-dominated both radio and television, as frontman Stephan Jenkin’s rap-influenced singing style added an edge to the riffs and the lyrical themes that scored him ample cool points with listeners.
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