(Third Eye Blind)
Growing up a ’90s kid, “Semi-Charmed Life” is still one of my favorite songs, so I had to get Jenkins for the book. The final paragraph, in my mind, is pure poetry and the best summation of the spirit of this project.
Whenever I’m the keynote speaker at some kind of music writing seminar, I’ll inevitably get the question: “How do you make it?” Whenever they ask, I always say, “I never asked that question.” Musicians don’t dress, talk, or live the same as normal people. You have to be a bit insane to do it for a living. Before I had a record deal, I was always hustling to get a band together. I’d get one going, hold it together for a minute, and then it would fall apart. Everyone would turn out to be a drug addict, or they’d break off for some other band, and it was really hard for me to get a gig. A buddy and I just decided that we were gonna put on our own gig. This was in San Francisco, and there was a festival called Noise Pop. There was no way we were gonna get in because I could never count on any one band member to show up for practice.
So, a friend and I decided to make our own festival. He had access to a copier, so we stole posters and made one up. It was a picture of his girlfriend in pigtails smoking a cigarette, but she had stuck her belly out with her shirt pulled up, so she looked pregnant. It was a great shot! We decided we’d be the anti-Noise Pop. We called the fest Cocky Pop and made up these PSAs, which I snuck into the local radio station Live 105. They actually put them on air, so I stole airtime. I rented space, we worked on songs, and invited other bands to play the fest. I worked my hands raw putting up posters all over the city.
The big day arrived, and my friend never showed up. He was the drummer of our two-piece, so I had nothing. After all that work, and years of trying to get a band going, I was described as sitting ashen and shaky on the floor. That incident set my musical trajectory back a year, where I went back to the musical jail of trying to get something going. I didn’t play a show for another year and a half. That’s how much that one fucked me up. The point of me telling this story is that at no point during that night, or any time after, did I ever consider quitting. That’s why when someone asks me what it takes to make it, I seriously doubt they’re going to make it. No sane person would willingly put themselves through the amount of suffering it takes to make it.
The first time Third Eye Blind played Japan was at the Fuji Rock Festival, and we got hit with a typhoon. It was us, Foo Fighters, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were playing at the base of Mt. Fuji when it hit. Stinging rain was blowing sideways into our faces as we were playing. I was so new and still young enough that I just thought it was amazing. The stage was getting ripped apart, the wind was blowing so hard, and I felt like that guitar guy in Mad Max: Fury Road. By the end of the show, kids with hypothermia were being carted off, and the festival got shut down because of the electrical risk. But man, I was just like, “That fucking ROCKED!”
There was the incident where Slipknot watched me knock myself unconscious. I can’t remember where it was, which isn’t surprising, but it was some festival where we shared a bill with Slipknot. When you’re playing and the stage lights hit, they tighten up your pupils. When it’s dark and you walk off stage, you’re basically blind, and that’s why there’s always a guy with a flashlight. The last thing I remember was talking to Slipknot, who were watching from the side of the stage. That was strange enough because I was thinking, “Why the fuck is Slipknot into Third Eye Blind?” I shook their hands, said, “Nice to meet you guys,” then I stepped right off the stage into a black hole. I caught myself on the chin and knocked myself out. They had to haul me out on a stretcher, and I was so fucking embarrassed.
Our big break gig is still so vivid to me. It was right before our record deal, and I met with David Massey, who was an A&R guy at Epic Records in New York. His big artist was Oasis, and this was back when A&R people really had power. I can’t stand it when someone has power over me. It’s my punk rock roots, and I can’t abide authority. We just need to fuck with them, otherwise we wouldn’t be artists. We’d just be song-and-dance people or American Idol finalists. Suddenly, all these labels and A&R people were looking at us, and I felt like a lap dancer.
I was sitting in Massey’s office, and he has an elegant, officiant British accent. He was dribbling, but not shooting baskets, which is what had been happening with everyone I had met. I interrupted and said, “So, what can I do for you?” It was pretty rude, but I couldn’t talk small talk for one more fucking second. He said, “Well, you can sign to Epic Records.” Finally, someone had offered us a deal. He asked when he could see us next, and I happened to know that Oasis was playing the Civic Center a few days later in San Francisco. I told him we’d like to open the show. He studied me for a second as he was beginning to realize who he was dealing with—someone who had the audacity to ask for something like that.
He picked up the phone and called Oasis’s tour manager. In his very British accent, he says, “Hello James! How are ya, mate? I’ve got a band here who would like to open for Oasis. Do you have an open spot?” Massey said to me, “OK, you’re in.” My immediate response was panic. Shit, we had only played in front of fifty-five people. This was the Civic Center, which held about 8,000. Keep in mind, this was the peak of Oasis mania as well. We had only played for really small audiences at the Paradise Lounge. Even then, I played the Paradise Lounge like it was Wembley Stadium—playing all the way to the back of the room. My thinking was always to not play the room you’re in but the biggest room in your mind.
Before we went on stage, we were all shaking like greyhounds. I said to the guys, “We’re gonna bury Oasis. We are gonna destroy and fuck them up. When we’re done, everyone is going to leave because we were the main event. Everyone walk out on stage like you are the baddest motherfuckers who have ever walked on a stage.” I said all of that but didn’t believe any of it. I don’t know what we sounded like that night, but afterwards they tripled our pay. Sherry Wasserman, who was the promoter, has been a friend and mentor to me ever since. They pushed us back out for an encore, which blew us away because opening bands never get encores.
The next day, the headline was “Unknown local band upstages Oasis.” We didn’t upstage them, but they were really lackluster that night. After our set, we went backstage and Noel Gallagher was looking bored. Liam said, “You were shite, mate.” I said, “Dude, we blew you out. We just buried you.” He respected that because they come from that British pub culture where they’re always testing each other. That was the first moment where I thought that maybe we could do this.
Live performance is a really important part of my life, and maybe the most important. I’ve always wondered why, and this is the conclusion I’ve come to: It’s not about bearing witness to a DJ while he stands over his computer. A lot of bands are MacBook Pro rock, where they’re playing along to a sequencer. A show can either fly or fall apart based on the actions and empathy of the musicians playing, and if all goes right, the musicians are conjured up out of themselves. You start feeling things, and that’s what music is about. That collective, emotional moment let’s people know that they are not alone. We’re all connected on a very deep level, through fury, folly, lust, and whimsy. I feel a glorious connection, and it’s worth every smashed chin and fucked up gig.