{"id":2452632,"date":"2019-12-26T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317799"},"modified":"2019-12-26T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T23:00:00","slug":"stephan-jenkins-discusses-the-third-eye-blind-renaissance-and-playing-belly-up-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/stephan-jenkins-discusses-the-third-eye-blind-renaissance-and-playing-belly-up-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephan Jenkins discusses the Third Eye Blind renaissance and playing Belly Up Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Third Eye Blind will headline Belly Up on Friday and Saturday.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A couple of years ago, Stephan Jenkins, frontman of Third Eye Blind, announced the group would no longer make full-length albums. It\u2019s a thought that\u2019s occurring to plenty of music acts these days, given the way the major label music industry emphasizes singles and how streaming encourages putting out music in small batches.<\/p>\n

Jenkins was ready for the EP to become the primary format for Third Eye Blind music \u2014 that was, until the band\u2019s next helping of music began to come together.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it funny, because I said I\u2019m not going to make LPs anymore, and here I am about to put out an LP,\u201d Jenkins said in a recent phone interview. \u201cSo yeah, it\u2019s really (saying) I don\u2019t want to be limited to LPs, but this one did turn into an LP.\u201d<\/p>\n

That LP is \u201cScreamer,\u201d and it was released in October and brings Third Eye Blind to Belly Up Aspen for a sold-out, two-night run Friday and Saturday. Embraced by critics and fans, it\u2019s been hailed as a latter-career revival for the 1990s hitmakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had them at Belly Up many times,\u201d said the club\u2019s David Goldberg. \u201cBut to have them during this renaissance is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenkins, the band\u2019s singer\/guitarist, had actually hoped the album would be ready before Third Eye Blind\u2019s summer tour with Jimmy Eat World, but that didn\u2019t happen, and the group was actually still putting finishing touches on \u201cScreamer\u201d in the last weeks leading up to the June launch of that tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the last 10% that is like the 90% most difficult part every single time,\u201d Jenkins said.<\/p>\n

On a musical level, he feels \u201cScreamer\u201d is more raw than other Third Eye Blind efforts \u2013 no small statement for a band that has often rocked hard, even though its songs also have boasted considerable melody.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing\u2019s safe, no smoothed-out edges, nothing like that at all. It\u2019s like the whole thing was keep the edge, keep it weird,\u201d Jenkins said of \u201cScreamer.\u201d \u201cI just feel like everything is so safe and like so much music, it sounds like artists don\u2019t want to have their choices impugned, or like they\u2019re relying on something that works. I don\u2019t give a f\u2013k what works. I want to make what makes a dent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I also think I\u2019m always looking for something that\u2019s revelatory,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve come to learn that I\u2019m kind of always doing two things in songs. One is I\u2019m trying to create this landscape that you can live inside, but that doesn\u2019t matter without that revelatory moment. You have to have something in there, in the song, where you are telling a truth that was uncovered. There has to be something where you are permeable, where you are vulnerable and that\u2019s what rock and roll is, the courage to put that out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lyrics for the songs on \u201cScreamer\u201d have moments that are timely, provocative and also quite personal \u2014 ingredients that meet Jenkins\u2019 standards for Third Eye Blind music.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is kind of an album about passion and friction and vitality and aliveness in the space of dystopia,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cI see us moving into this really kind of dystopian world, but at the same time I\u2019m so inspired by the energy of so many people, just really the young activists right now are the things that give me the most hope. So I see somebody like Emma Gonzalez (a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, and gun control advocate) or Greta Thunberg (young climate change activist), David Hogg (also a survivor of the Parkland shooting), and I\u2019m like \u2018All right, all right.\u2019 I don\u2019t write anything political. I only write from an emotional standpoint. But there\u2019s a song called \u2018The Kids Are Coming to Take You Down,\u2019 and that song is kind of inspired by them. So yeah, I realize that that\u2019s kind of like part of the energy, the narrative energy, of the record. But it\u2019s still mostly what I do about internal politics, the friction between, the impact human beings have on each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenkins began his journey into creating meaningful rock and roll in San Francisco in 1993, when he teamed up with songwriting collaborator and guitarist Kevin Cadogan. With bassist Arion Salazar and drummer Brad Hargreaves completing the original Third Eye Blind lineup, the band released its self-titled debut album in 1997.<\/p>\n

That debut turned the group into stars. Fueled by the hit singles \u201cSemi-Charmed Life,\u201d \u201cJumper\u201d and \u201cHow\u2019s It Going To Be,\u201d \u201cThird Eye Blind\u201d went six times platinum. The 1999 follow-up, \u201cBlue,\u201d while not as popular, still moved more than one million copies.<\/p>\n

Since then, however, Third Eye Blind has had its ups and downs. The first big episode came after the release of \u201cBlue,\u201d with the firing of Cadogan, who sued for wrongful termination and back royalties. The suit was settled out of court in 2002.<\/p>\n

Further lineup changes have followed, and Jenkins and Hargreaves are now the only remaining original band members. And the band has been somewhat sporadic in releasing new music, with only three full-length albums following \u201cBlue\u201d (the most recent being \u201cDopamine\u201d in 2015), and four EPs interspersed between those records. Despite having gone without a top 20 hit at any radio format since the 2003 song \u201cBlinded,\u201d Third Eye Blind has managed to sell 12 million albums overall and remain a reliable concert draw. The fact that the band played amphitheaters over the summer with Jimmy Eat World (and Ra Ra Riot as the opener) says something about Third Eye Blind\u2019s continued appeal.<\/p>\n

Jenkins said fans that see the band on the club tour coming through Aspen can expect to hear Third Eye Blind \u2014 which currently also includes Kryz Reid (guitar), Alex LeCavalier (bass) and Colin CreeV (keyboards\/guitar) \u2014 emphasize newer material, along with a cross-section of songs from the back catalog.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one is about just moving forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The forward-looking focus of the tour is a shift from the group\u2019s 2017 outing, which celebrated the 20th anniversary of Third Eye Blind\u2019s debut album. The hits from that popular debut figure to remain in the set this fall. Despite that record\u2019s age, Jenkins said, the debut remains relevant not only to newcomers to Third Eye Blind, but long-standing fans as well. But he can only guess about why that 20-year-old-album continues to resonate today.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is such a perplexing question. I don\u2019t have an answer. I only have a theory,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cI\u2019ll give you a theory. I think we use music, the reason why it\u2019s so energized in youth, is because it\u2019s this identity generation debunked. Somehow in, something in the rhythm, in the narrative, in the landscape of what we\u2019re doing, people find that (album) as this lattice work for creating identity and developing that sense, and that\u2019s also finding community. So you see kids who are at our shows who are 17, 20 years old, and this isn\u2019t something old for them. This is right now for them. It\u2019s an amazing thing to see. It really keeps my music alive, and it allows me also to push forward into the future. It gives me that kind of confidence. I need that confidence or otherwise I\u2019ll doubt myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Travers contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Third Eye Blind will headline Belly Up on Friday and Saturday.Courtesy photo A couple of years ago, Stephan Jenkins, frontman of Third Eye Blind, announced the group would no longer make full-length albums. It\u2019s a thought that\u2019s occurring to plenty of music acts these days, given the way the major label music industry emphasizes singles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 00:02:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}