00:00We are backstage at Vans Warped Tour Long Beach with Jimmy Eat World.
00:05Hello, guys.
00:08Welcome back.
00:09Thanks a lot. Thanks for having us over.
00:11So tell us about this whole 25th anniversary thing.
00:14It must be crazy.
00:16Yeah, it's insane.
00:17I mean, when we were making Blade American,
00:19none of us thought that we were doing something
00:22that would connect with so many people over so much time.
00:27But, you know, we were stoked on it.
00:30We were proud of the work.
00:30But, I mean, this is, none of us knew what was happening.
00:34And then when it was 10 years, everybody was like,
00:3610 years, man.
00:37Then it was 15, now 20, 25 years.
00:40Aging is not a choice.
00:42That's true.
00:43It's so wild.
00:43But I remember when I was in high school
00:45and the cool kids that I started hanging out with
00:49introduced me to Jimmy Eat World, Blade American.
00:52That was my introduction.
00:53Well, sure.
00:53I mean, only the coolest kids are listening to our band.
00:57You guys are one of my all-time favorite bands.
01:00But something that I've always wondered about
01:02with the song The Middle, which I know that you wrote,
01:05like, you were inspired because a fan emailed you.
01:08And does that person know that they sort of inspired that song?
01:14No.
01:15I mean, yeah.
01:16So what happened is we have a,
01:18we were on the cutting edge of social media in 1996,
01:22and we decided we would have a band email account
01:26instead of, like, a post office box,
01:28because, like, that's, in those days,
01:30you actually had to write.
01:31It was like a, you want to be in a band fan club,
01:35we had to, like, actually put something in the mail.
01:37And so I got an email from a young woman
01:42who was saying that they were, like, not fitting in with the,
01:47they're being rejected by the cool punk rock kids.
01:49And I just thought that was, like,
01:52really the opposite of what I understood, you know,
01:56anything punk to be, you know, about inclusion and, you know,
02:00community and helping out each other.
02:02And it's just not, popularity doesn't, you know,
02:06clicks and popularity is what punk rock was trying to, like,
02:08fight against.
02:09Right.
02:09So it just seemed like, you know, none of that matters.
02:16That's the backstory on that.
02:17And no, they don't know.
02:19They don't know.
02:19No, no.
02:20I've never been able to.
02:22We've been actually trying to get a hold of, like,
02:25some higher up people at AOL to hack our old email
02:30and, like, find out, like.
02:31We can't remember our password from 96,
02:34which is, like, I think that's pretty relatable.
02:36You know, like, I can't remember my password from, like, last year.
02:39Yeah, agreed.
02:40So we're trying to sign into the account, but we can't.
02:44So we need to get someone to hack it.
02:45We need someone to hack it for us.
02:47Yeah.
02:47So you're trying to find the fan and let them know.
02:50Yeah, it'd be sort of, it'd be sort of cool.
02:52That would be amazing.
02:53I listen to lyrics sort of well, like, not great.
02:58And I didn't know all of the lyrics of The Middle
03:01until I heard a cover of it that had slowed down
03:04and was very quiet and thoughtful about it.
03:07I was like, wow, this is really something.
03:10Well, thanks.
03:12I don't know what else we're supposed to say to that,
03:14but thank you.
03:15Yeah, it's, you know, we're proud of it.
03:17It's really crazy that Prince has covered your song,
03:21has covered The Middle.
03:22Yeah.
03:23We heard that Prince covered The Middle at, like, a Grammy after party.
03:28And we were like, no.
03:30And then, like, maybe four years ago, the audio of it surfaced.
03:35It was like, oh, that's Prince.
03:38That's pretty great.
03:39I heard Elvis did a copy of you guys.
03:42Yep.
03:43Is that true?
03:44Yep.
03:45There's, Elvis has done it.
03:48Run DMC has done it.
03:49So, in 2001, when you guys put out Bleed American, you did Warped Tour.
03:54Do you remember anything from anything that happened at Warped Tour
03:58that stood out in your mind?
04:01I remember that we were nearly booted off the tour
04:04because Tom and I were lighting fireworks.
04:08Yeah, we were kicked.
04:09No.
04:10We were kicked off of Warped Tour for five minutes.
04:13What?
04:14Yeah.
04:15But, yeah, Tom's smooth talking got us back in.
04:18What kind of fireworks were you lighting off?
04:20Yeah, this guy loves fireworks.
04:21Roman candles.
04:23Roman candles.
04:24Come on.
04:25Harmless.
04:26Come on.
04:26There's a strict no fireworks policy.
04:28If any band, like, was messing around with fireworks,
04:32like, they would get kicked off of Warped Tour.
04:33Zach, can you have pictures with Eminem and Ice-T?
04:35Yeah, we did one.
04:37This wasn't in 2001, but in an earlier year,
04:40we did a little bit of a window of Warped Tour,
04:42and it was when Eminem and Ice-T were on the same bill.
04:46Oh, wow.
04:47Bill?
04:47Yes.
04:48And I saw them talking one time,
04:50just kind of, like, shooting, you know,
04:52just, like, talking, hanging out,
04:53and I grabbed a picture of them
04:55because I just thought it was so cool.
04:56You had this old school, you know, from Ice-T,
04:59and then the new guy coming up,
05:00and Eminem was just blowing up right then.
05:02So, like, he wasn't, like, what he is now, but...
05:04That's very cool.
05:05I saw a video that was kind of going viral,
05:08and it was talking about how Eminem wanted to make sure
05:11that he was never playing at the same time as you guys
05:14because he wanted to watch your show.
05:16I don't think that's true.
05:17That's not true?
05:17I don't think that's true.
05:19It's a great rumor, though.
05:19I love that rumor so much.
05:21It would make me so happy if Eminem was the number one Jimmy World fan,
05:25you know?
05:26He probably is a big Jimmy World fan now,
05:28but at the time, I don't think he cared about us.
05:31Yeah, that's possible.
05:31Well, that's one of the beautiful things about Warped Tour
05:33is being able to see bands that maybe are upcoming,
05:36and you don't have any idea who they are,
05:38and you like them,
05:39and that's a fun thing about it,
05:41just like Coachella, same type of thing.
05:43Yeah, it's...
05:44I think it's a good way to...
05:45One of the things that helped us out early on
05:48was just being able to connect with other bands,
05:51and, you know, Warped Tour and festivals in general,
05:54but especially Warped Tour, I think, was a great place
05:56so you could do that,
05:59especially back in those days
06:00when they're just to...
06:03You know, it's really hard to be a band,
06:07and you relied on a community sort of a lot
06:10just to get by,
06:12and Warped Tour was a place where you could do that
06:14and meet like-minded people
06:16and, you know, connect and figure out ways
06:20to help each other out.
06:21If you were in their town,
06:23then you could do something with them or vice versa.
06:25Yeah, I think you feel that as a fan as well.
06:27I think that's one of the things that I always love so much about Warped Tour,
06:30is that it feels like community,
06:32it feels like home,
06:33and it's just a place for all of us to get together
06:35and celebrate music, you know?
06:36And you are one of the bands where we asked the other bands
06:39who they were excited to see today,
06:41and all of them said,
06:42Jimmy Eat World.
06:43Oh, no way.
06:44Yeah.
06:44And so, you know,
06:47you guys, just thank you so much
06:48for taking the time to hang out with K-Rock.
06:51We love you so much.
06:52Thank you so much for having us over.
06:54This is just amazing.
06:55Thank you so much.
06:56Awesome.
06:57Jimmy Eat World.
06:57Jimmy Eat World!
06:58Thank you so much!
07:00Yeah.
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