With single after single riding high on the charts and their debut album selling gangbusters, Third Eye Blind have graduated top of the class. Guitarist Kevin Cadogan and snger Stephan Jenkins are indeed enjoying a charmed life.
Charging into the Steve Miller-meets-Lou Reed street-stride of “Semi-Charmed Life” at Manhattan’s Supper Club recently, Third Eye Blind storm their worshipful audience like an ascending rocket reeady to explode. With their hit tale of oral sex and drug addiction neatly lodged at Number One on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart for the past 11 weeks, this San Francisco Bay Area band command the stage like the rock stars they always dreamt they would be.
Bono look-alike Stephan Jenkins is a natural rock presence, crouching like Oasis’ Liam Gallagher one minute, hopping up and down like Zack de la Rocha the next. Meanwhile, guitarist Kevin Cadaogan is Third Eye Blind’s backbone, maneuvering through the band’s ever-changing song styles with the skill and savvy of a baseball pitcher dropping a sinker for a wicked curve. Cadogan’s the mellow foil to Jenkins’ bravura and overt confidence, while bassist Arion Salazar and drummer Brad Hargreavescombine low-end melodicism with good old-fashioned slam.
Dressing 14 powerfully catchy pop songa in the guise of grunge, hip-hop, and a bit of accoustic balladeering, Third Eye Blind, on their Elektra debut, benefit from the shrewd Jenkins/Cadogan songwriting team- an unusual pairing that smacks of fire and water, of bold confidence and deep sensitivity, of an assured mouth and a quiet guitarist. But with two more singles riding the charts, “Graduate” and “How’s It Going To Be,” Third Eye Blind can afford to be themselves. Sometimes, though, success can breed paranoia, such as when Maximum Guitar sat down with Jenkins and Cadogan over lunch, and the singer’s instincts got the best of him.
“This is beginning to piss me off.” Jenkins spies what he thinks is a photographer snapping his photo. “That guy is following me around, taking pictures of me. He was waiting outside earlier.”
“What are you talking about? Where?” Kevin Cadogan is skeptical. “There’s no guy.”
“He’s right down there.” Jenkins points out a man who is indeed focusing his camera in our general direction.
“Wow,” says Cadogan. “That’s amazing. You’ve got paparazzi.”
“He was waiting outside when I left too,” Jenkins snarls.
“Big time, man.” Cadogan is convinced.
A few minutes later the offender in question strolls by our table, looks blankly past us, and keeps walking. No shots fired, no attention paid.
“See how arrogant Stephan is?” Cadogan laughs and goes back to his sandwhich.
“No, really,” exclaims Jenkins. “That guy took pictures of me getting into the van this morning.”
Bay Area boys who grew up with everything from Irish rebel songs to Beat poetry of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, Cadogan and Jenkins write songs that fit perfectly into what they call a “blind time.” From the melodic alterna-rock of “Narcolepsy” and the sad suicide tale of “Jumper” to the funky, Clash-styled reggae of “Burning Man,” to the closing relationship-as-rehab song, “God Of Wine,” Third Eye Blind is leading a fully charmed life.
After a hectic morning of radio spots, Cadogan spoke with Maximum Guitar, joined midway through by Jenkins.
Maximum Guitar: Your guitar sounds remind me of late-Seventries/early-Eighties players likeTom Scholz and Andy Summers.
Cadogan: The Eighties was when I was growing up and developing my taste in music. I liked the Velvet Underground, the Police, U2, Led Zeppelin, the Clash. I’m using four guitars right now: a 1977 Gibson RD Artist, which is on the record a lot; it looks like a Dali painting to me. Also, three old, late-Seventies Music Man Sabres and a Paul Reed Smith.
Max: “Burning Man” sounds like the Clash.
Cadogan: Steve and I have similar tastes and he’s a super fan of the Police and Lou Reed. For a while I was playing real sadcore music, clean and melodic. I’ve done all kinds of stuff, punk and hardcore things when I was in high school. But now I just like to have big fat sounds, big fat tones- just rock it. I like it whether it’s accessible or not.
Max: Third Eye Blind play really catchy, power-pop songs but dressed in various guises, from grunge to hip-hop to alterna-metal rock. Is that the currency that’s used nowto deliver a melodic pop song?
Cadogan: It’s not a conscious decision to make songs sound a particular way. We write to express the moods we’re in. There are 14 songs on the record and they’re not all about one song. It’s pretty diverse and it reflects our influences and styles that we all bring to the band.
Max: Did Stephan bring “Semi-Charmed Life” to the band as a finished song?
Cadogan: It was pretty much there. I added the pull-off and a couple of little hooks. I put my own sort of attitude in it.
Max: Do you and Stephan trade off between words and music?
Cadogan: It happens different ways, but for the most part I’ll be playing a riff and then Stephan, who has an amazing talent for improvising vocal melodies and great lyrics, will invent things on the spot. “Narcolepsy” came while we were sitting around my house in Berkeley. We hash things out then give it to the band.
Max: In the writing phase, is it literally eye-to-eye?
Cadogan: Yeah, sometimes I might bring an idea in on tape, but usually I play Stephan some background ideas on accoustic guitar. “Background,” “Burning Man,” “Losing a Whole Year,” they were all written on an accoustic. I don’t think it’s a golden rule, but when you write on an accoustic, since you’re dealing with the instrument in its barest form, you know you don’t have a song that is relying on effects. You’ve got something that can carry its own weight. “Graduate” came right before we were recording. It was really spontaneous; four guys hearing a song for the first time. That’s really special. That’s what you look for.
Max: You all write such catchy songs. Is the intimate nature of the accoustic guitar part of that?
Cadogan: I don’t want to overemphasize the accoustic guitar’s role in our writing. I do think it forces you to create really melodic songs. Stephan writes primarily on accoustic, by virtue of what is most handy. But other songs are completely different. “God of Wine” has huge, distorted feedback sections and wah-wah pedals. I use a lot of effects.
Max: The record has many different guitar textures.
Cadogan: Making the record was such a luxury for us. It was the first time in 15 years of playing that I was able to spend as much time as I wanted in the studio for each track, whether it’s checking out the sound of an amp or the difference in guitars, or just waiting for a moment to happen. We didn’t have to worry about how much it was gonna cost. On our demos we were always scraping pennies to go into some divey place and rushing to record everything in three hours. We were really able to focus on music completely for the first time.
Max: You recorded the album at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in San Rafael, California. Did you run into Darth Vader while you were there?
Cadogan: No, but we did see all these Stormtroopers running around! [laughs] Actually, it’s in this valley where they filmed the Ewok section of Return of the Jedi; it’s really beautiful- a great place to be creative. We were on this huge concert stage in a gargantuan hall. We’d play the songs live to get the right drum track, then move on to bass, then guitars.
Max: Stylistically, are there Third Eye Blind trademarks?
Cadogan: I like to play around with different chords and tunings, though alternate tunings are nothing new. “Narcolepsy” is a variation of an open D. “Losing a Whole Year” is an interesting tuning which I think has many possibilities. It’s fun to turn things upside down and challenge yourself; twist the gears, try to figure out chords that you can’t play in standard tuning, try to solve that puzzle, get a string to ring out open in a way that it wouldn’t sound if it was fretted on the third fret. “Losing a Whole Year” is F#, A, C#, F#, G#, E, which doesn’t sound very good when you just strum it. It drives my guitar tech mad. I like to create parts that are both melancholic and aggressive at the same time. That fits the attitude of the band. Our songs might be somewhat dark, but we don’t wallow in despair.
Max: “Semi-Charmed Life” is about drugs and oral sex. “Jumper” is about suicide.
Cadogan: It’s interesting to have that contrast and friction. None of us wants to listen to monothematic songs.
Max: Like “Dirty Old Town”?
Cadogan: [breaks into song] “Toura, toura, loura, they’re looking for monkeys up in the zoo, and if I had a face like you I’d join the English army.” That’s an Irish favorite.
[Stephan Jenkins enters]
Max: Your crowd was really supportive last night; they knew all the songs.
Cadogan: It was the same when we opened for Oasis back in ‘94. (Amber’s note- that show was actually in ‘95, I know people who went.) That was a breakthrough gig for us.
Stephan Jenkins: I have a Kevin story from that show. Kevin gets really into what he’s playing- he’s right in there. We were warned that when we played with Oasis that their fans would be throwing stuff at us. We were a totally unknown band, so we got jacked up to rise to the occasion. At one point in “Narcolepsy,” the song kicks in, and that was the first time in the show that I looked up. I see Kevin and he’s laughing, cracking up. The crowd was going off, bodysurfing and acting nuts. We had no idea. We were in. That’s our crowd, not the jaded 25-and-up people at some club.
Max: Do you see Third Eye Blind’s music as similar to Britpop, in that you have those very melodic, hook-based songs?
Jenkins: I wouldn’t compare us with what the British are doing right now. They are much more style-based. We work very hard not to have a style. You have the Who and Led Zeppelin, bands that hit really hard. But American bands now play with the power. British stuff is more temporal compared to say, Smashing Pumpkins. American bands have more force.
Max: Do the hooks come as quickly when you’re writing them, as they hit the ear?
Jenkins: We’re going around, living a life. The hooks are coming right now. There is a gestation process. It’s the discipline to keep returning to things in a spontaneous way. That’s what rock music is- it’s about spontaneity.
Max: What part of the songs do you toil over?
Jenkins: We might return to an idea, but we keep it fresh. “God of Wine,” lyrically, is what I’m most proud of on the record. That happened while Kevin was fleshing the music out and I sat on the floor and wrote it.
Max: Stephan, your lyrics are pretty voluminous.
Jenkins: We really work at that. There are three things that go into our songwriting: The basic emotional impulse that starts a song. That’s easy when it happens, but it’s a real discipline to develop that. Then there’s the arrangement, where Kevin and I have to come to terms with each other. The songs have several hooks and riffs, and A and B sections, lyrically, as well as choruses. You have to mesh it all together. It’s not something Kevin and I can talk about because we would probably just argue about it. Finally, there’s the lyrical editing. I tend to write four pages of lyrics per song. then I have to condense it and figure out what the song is about.
Max: Do you whink “Semi-Charmed Life” is successful partly because its subject matter- sex and drugs- is breaking taboos?
Cadogan: It’s something to see, man- the girls singing such perverted stuff. It’s pretty fucking sexy to stand up there and see that.
Jenkins: I haven’t analyzed why the song works. I think that most people don’t know what the lyrics are. If they did, it wouldn’t get played on the radio. At least the programming directors don’t know. Let’s be honest, there is something really alluring about life in bohemia nd taking speed. The song is a narrative, which people like. It’s also a story about the demise of a relationship due to speed addiciton. I don’t want to talk down to people or preach; the characters in this song are destroyed, and it doesn’t have a happy ending. I don’t advocate drug use. I don’t advocate anything. People should think for themselves, but they should definitely think.
Max: You guys seem very comfortable on stage- there’s no wall between you and the audience; you seem to be genuinely having a good time. But does that sense of relaxation, and the focus on you as a personality, detract from what you might be trying to say lyrically?
Jenkins: That does make me feel a little uncomfortable. Because I’m the singer, there’s this whole sex-symbol thing that goes along with it. Obviously, you want to get chicks, so that’s a good thing. At the same time, I’m proud to be a musician in this band. When we do a show, my desire is to connest with people. That seperates us from the British bands. We want to make that song come alive every single night.
Beck said his songs, after a while, just become covers- the emotional center of the song is lost. When we play “Good For You” we’re fucking playing “Good For You” for real. We don’t cover our songs. I’d like to be less self-conscious.
Max: You have to remain a little nervous to have an edge.
Jenkins: I’m not nervous anymore at all. I’m excited. If I don’t have enough adrenaline when we go onstage, I’ll have one of these guys smack me in the chest. The real challenge is to go out and throw down fully and completely when the crowd is just standing there. You can rely on the crowd to give you that adrenaline. It’s a great feeling when that happens, but the point is, you have to go out and make it happen. You have to bring that emotional center of the song. It’s a Zen thing, a [Jack] Kerouac thing. Otherwise you’re fraudulent. You’re putting on an act.
Max: Critics have been particularly brutal toward you guys, saying that your music is blatantly unoriginal.
Jenkins: You can’t listen to what Arion Salazar plays on bass on “Narcolepsy” or “Losing a Whole Year” and not say that there isn’t something new happening there. you can’t hear what Kevin Cadogan plays on the guitar and say something new isn’t going on. Let me make this assertion: Two years from now, there will be a whole generation of kids trying to play like Kevin. Just like a whole generation of kids tried to play like And Summers and Billy Corgan. Is that groundbreaking or not? I don’t know. We don’t do it to break ground, we do it because it’s exciting and fresh to us.
Cadogan: It’s important to know that things happen right when you’re at the moment of giving up. We succeeded, but we also failed so many times. We’ve had horrible showcases where everyone walked out on us. Our love of playing music kept us going. Not the hope of getting Gold records.
Jenkins: We’ve gotten press that says we’re the best band since the Who. We don’t believe that. And we’ve gotten stuff that says Third Eye Blind is disposable pop. We don’t believe that either. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be a rock star. I had a big, grand scheme. But what matters is when somebody comes up and says our song meant something to them. They made a connection to our songs. That is the really surprising thing. It’s a very humbling experience; they get it, you get it and were all in this together. The music comes from a real place. That our music travels to somebody else’s life is really a rad sensation.