While the band Jimmy Eat World is often hailed as one of the top emo bands, that is a label they never completely embraced.
Bass player Rick Burch says, “We found it kind of silly that you call this one style of music or whatever ’emotional.’ It kind of shortchanges the rest of music. But it really didn’t offend us either because the music is emotional, just like all other music.”
Emo or not, the band’s guitar-driven pop-rock songs have struck a chord with fans for two decades. You can catch them performing songs off their new album Integrity Blues, plus old favorites, on Friday, Oct. 28 at the Arlington Theatre. Tickets are available at www.thearlingtontheatre.com/schedule/eventdetail/463/-/jimmy-eat-world.
Burch talked to Noozhawk about the upcoming show and the new album, plus the video for the band’s 2001 hit song “The Middle.”
Jeff Moehlis: What can people look forward to at the upcoming show in Santa Barbara?
Rick Burch: We’re super excited for the upcoming gig, mainly because we’re going to be performing some of the new material from Integrity Blues, which we’re really excited about. We worked really hard to bring it together and make this album, and we’re really proud of it, and really looking forward to performing it live.
That’s like the next phase of doing albums. You make the album — you record it — and then you get to go out and perform it live. It’s nice. When you’re recording, it’s just us in the room with the producer. So we’re kind of satisfying ourselves, making the songs sound and be exciting for us.
And then, it’s an entirely other thing to perform them live and get the perspective of other people. You can see the reactions on people’s faces immediately as you’re going through the tunes. It’s really fun. We’re just really looking forward to it.
JM: I really like the new album. There’s seems to be a certain maturity to it, but you guys still rock out. There’s the song “Get Right” that’s already been released on YouTube, and I love the riff at the end of “Pass the Baby.”
RB: [laughs] Yeah, for sure. That one was super fun.
JM: How do you see this new album fitting in with the rest of the catalog?
RB: Integrity Blues is an album that we feel is a current snapshot of Jimmy Eat World, right now. That current snapshot wouldn’t be what it is without the previous albums. As you progress through — we’ve been a band 22 years — we’re always learning and we’re always adding to our toolbox. For Integrity Blues, definitely we’re using all that we have, and really giving it all we’ve got.
And also, in making the album, we challenged ourselves to take new approaches to musical situations that present themselves when you’re writing music. So we wanted to be aware of conventions we had used in the past, and then try something new, just in an effort to progress and grow.
And that’s kind of a theme of the album as well, lyrically. It’s about enjoying the journey, and not being so focused on the end product. If you focus too much on your goal, you might miss out on a lot of the good things that you have right now along the journey to reach that goal.
JM: You guys had the huge hit song “The Middle.” How did that song come together?
RB: When making Bleed American, we just had this group of songs that we were excited about. So we really had no idea which, if any, would connect with the public audience. We had no idea it would have such a connection with people.
But looking back on it, it absolutely has that potential, in that the song is about something I think everyone goes through in their lives, that moment or time when you feel like people don’t understand you, and you feel like the world’s against you and they just don’t get what you’re about.
It’s just a song saying: “Hey, don’t worry about them. You’re going to continue on, and it’s going to be better.”
JM: Was shooting the video for that song as much fun as it looks?
RB: Absolutely [laughs]. We shot that video in Arizona. The film company found a house that was taken off the market, so it was a vacant house that was slated to be demolished. So they said: “Hey, you guys can do whatever you want in here. You can bust through walls — whatever you want to do.”
So it pretty much gave the director open reign.
His idea was taking kind of the reverse on the dream that some of us have, where you’re in a public situation and you’re in your underwear, and everyone else is looking at you weird, like “Why are you the weirdo in your underwear?”
It took that and flipped it, so the normal was everyone’s in their underwear, and then there’s the two characters that are in their clothes, and everyone’s looking at them weird like they don’t belong.
So yes, we’re in this house. It was the summertime in Arizona, and there was no power at it so there was no air conditioning. Imagine a day like today for you in Santa Barbara — it’s really hot, and you’re in an old house that has no power, and everyone’s in their underwear, sweaty and dancing and having fun.
It was a really unique experience, and really cool. It was a lot of fun.
For the full interview with Rick Burch, click on http://music-illuminati.com/interview-rick-burch.
— Jeff Moehlis is a Noozhawk contributing writer and a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Santa Barbara. Upcoming show recommendations, advice from musicians, interviews and more are available on his web site, music-illuminati.com. The opinions expressed are his own.