Jimmy Eat World talk Taylor Swift, nostalgia, and how success isn’t what you think it is.

“It’s real work to find that place that works for you. Where you feel like you’re at peace with yourself. That’s something you can only self-diagnosis really…that directs your effort. But getting the record or the single or the relationship. It’s not the fix that you think it is.”

I’m talking to Jim Adkins and he seems anxious. The interview has been stop and start, and when I ask questions about Jimmy Eat World’s history the singer/frontman talks about gratitude but sounds annoyed. Atkins has been fronting Jimmy Eat World for over twenty years. The band found mainstream success with their 2001 album Bleed American. They’re an upper mid-level act, have an adoring fanbase, and have sold out shows around the world. Adkins recognizes his success, but when we start getting into the band’s new record Integrity Blues, it doesn’t sound like the success has made him any happier.

“Our last record really got into the idea of problems. What was interesting to me for Integrity Blues, I wanted to ask about solutions. Why do you want these things? What is wrong really? What are you trying to fix from the validation that you’re seeking from a relationship that’s not working out. What do you care so much? What are you really trying to do?”

Integrity Blues dives into Adkins struggle to set and reset expectations. Reading between the lines it’s easy to make assumptions that a lot of those feelings are attached to the fact that the band has never topped the success of their hit song “The Middle” . Though not at the same scale, the feelings are relatable to any twenty something worrying that maybe the best days are behind them. It’s an interesting question to explore, and while our chat wasn’t easy, I related to where Adkins was coming from in that I’m constantly worrying about where I’m at compared to where I think I should be. Our talk took place at the TURF festival. You can read our conversation below:

Graham Isador: You had mentioned that the last record Damages was talking about love and relationships from an adult perspective. Is there an overarching theme to Integrity Blues?

Jim Adkins: The album Integrity Blues is about a lot of different things, there is a lot of nuances to it, but over all I would describe it as…the over reaching theme is that the best any of us have at any given point is that we’re just in a state of progress. To pin your sense of self worth or personal happiness on finish line type goals is a limiting way to structure your existence.

There is a lyric in the single “Get Right” where you say you’re destination addicted.

“Get Right” talks about the many things you’ll try and do to try and find self. It’s about expending a lot of energy on the wrong target. To do that over and over again and ignoring the results is insanity. But it’s something we all do.

Is there a target you feel you’ve missed?

When I started writing Integrity Blues I was exploring themes of…usually some kind of adversity will trigger the desire to search out what this is. That prompts you to write something. In exploring that I found myself seeing through my own crap. You know? I would completely lose empathy for the character I was building or the thing I was trying to say. I see right through it and I realized that this wasn’t the thing I wanted to say. It’s not what I wanted to sing. I got stuck on that for awhile until I realized that what is interesting, and what I actually want to explore, is what’s behind that feeling.

I look at my feelings and maybe they’re about relationships not working out or maybe that you’re not as far ahead in your idea or a career at certain age and that’s freaking you out. Any sort of adversity that comes out, and would usually be used as some sort of trigger for creative explanation, what’s really behind that?

Hearing you talk now and reading over the letter you’ve attached to the album’s press release it sounds like you’re worried about success. You’ve had hit singles and you’ve sold over a million records. Do you feel successful?

You always have to maintain goals. Me, not like any other person, I definitely still have goals for myself. I take it in stride. There is a whole lot of gratefulness for what we’ve accomplished…but it’s sort of a tricky questions to answer. Do I feel successful? On one hand yeah, totally. But you can look at that on a scale. You look at it on a sliding scale depending on your perspective. We’ve always set realistic goals for ourselves and humanly possible achievements. So in that regard we succeed every day. We’re all winners here at camp Jimmy Eat World.

Earlier this year Taylor Swift sang your song “The Middle” in an Apple commercial. The coverage meant a new spike in popularity for Jimmy Eat World. Can you tell me what that experience was like for you?

It was pretty insane when we saw that Taylor Swift commercial. We had a heads up it might happen, but I thought I’d believe when I saw it. Then I saw it and I couldn’t believe it. It’s just a huge deal when anybody bothers to spend the time with anything you’ve done and find something in it that they can connect with. For a song like “The Middle” that’s been out for fifteen years? For it to still be finding an audience with people who may not have even been around when that song was released? It’s things like that. The more that we do this, the easier it is to find those things that you appreciate. It doesn’t take much. I’m just stoked to be outside and not dying of heat right now.

You joined her on stage for a performance of the song in 2011.

Yeah, she did a thing where she was coming through town and she would invite people to come play with her. Regionally. She invited me to come sit in with her and cover the middle.

You were an original squad member.

Sure.

In the last few years Emo music has had resurgence in popularity. There has been dance parties across the country. There are excellent sites like Washed Up Emo. I know you’ve never been a fan of the term, but what would you attribute to emo’s revival?

I think it’s a combination of factors. I think every generation has that experience growing up where the right kind of record hits you at the right time. When in you’re personal life you’re asserting some more independence. You’re figuring out how to parent yourself a little bit and taking on roles that are unfamiliar, and there is a thrill of discovery. Everything in your life is new and exciting. There is music that comes along at that point. For a lot of people that time coincided with the early days of us starting up as a band. We were touring around and playing in small clubs. There were like minded bands who were doing the same thing at the same time.

Now all the people who were seeing us at those shows are grown up and have friends who will let them DJ at their bar. So they’re going to throw it back. Who knows what it’s going to be in five years? But it’s as cyclical as that. Every year there is a group of fourteen-year-old boys checking out hardcore for the first time. Every year there is a group of nine-year old girls flipping out over a vocal pop group. And every year there is a new nostalgia trip.

It’s just a nostalgia trip?

The kids who were the early adopter people going to Kinkos to print out copies of their zine are now in charge of media corporations. They’ve risen and now they’re editing for VICE, or whatever. So they get to dictate a lot of that.

But I think that music was really important to those people.

On one hand I totally get it, because there are definitely bands like that for me. It feels really good to have bands like that in your life, it feels weird to be that person for somebody else. Because we never set out to do that. Performing for people and creating music is a communal thing, it is a social thing, it’s an expression into the univierse. But we’ve never thought about chasing an imaginary listeners’ approval. The pedestal isn’t something we ever sought out, and it’s shocking and flattering to hear stuff like that. We recognize our past but it’s not something we spend a whole lot of time dwelling on because there is a whole lot to do right now.

Graham Isador knows all the words to Clarity. @presgang