From the first explosive I-got-you-in-my-sights delivery of charismatic frontman Stephan Jenkins, to the rolling rhythm section of bassist Arion Salazar and drummer Brad Hargreaves, to the signature guitar work of Kevin Cadogan, you realize Third Eye Blind is working from an inner zip code of evaporating bliss.
Their self-titled
debut album represents their do-it-yourself
ethic. The fiercely independent band eschewed
a bidding war by choosing Elektra, which guaranteed them complete control
and the kind of creative home where Third
Eye Blind could
launch their musical
assault.
The resulting LP
is a breakthrough tonic for the senses, as well. As a hailstorm of guitars
and distorted bass pelt the album's opener "Losing A Whole Year," Jenkins
offers up twin salvos of regret and vindication, recurring themes throughout
the entire record. "I
remember you and me used to spend the whole godamned day in bed,"
he wails. An Ian Hunter-like refrain both arena-ready
and bar room righteous.
"For me music is exalting and
intoxicating," says
Jenkins.
Produced by Jenkins
and recorded locally in San Francisco with Eric Valentine, who has been
associated with the group from their very first demos, the album swings
from the whimsical to the foreboding, creating a self contained Third
Eye Blind
universe - but it's a place you definitely want to know more about. Jenkins'
unique phrasing and the Cadogan-to-Salazar-to-Hargreaves crackling exchanges
juxtapose barb-wire tales with alluring ballads that pull you even further
into their world.
This musical journey
mirrors, perhaps, a line Jenkins sings on the album's elegiacal closer,
"God Of Wine": "The God
Of Wine comes crashing through the headlights of a car that took you farther
than you thought you'd ever want to go." The
explosive ballad recoils - then fades - a smoldering climax so definitive
of their style you can't believe they haven't loaded up a third side. It
is only so often that a band comes a long and re-sets the clock like this,
jarring our collective rock consciousness into a mutual recognition that
something is indeed happening here. Their crunching blasts of eerily tuned
guitars - their winding melodies - pared down at all the right moments
by the brutality of Jenkins lyrics marks this debut as one of the most
fully realized albums of 1997.
"I think the album takes you
to a place you might be wary of entering, but are curious about"
says Salazar. "I
feel that in the attitude and in the playing. There is kind of a symbiosis
going on. For example, I'm trying to make a melody that's not going to
step on the vocal, but also accentuates Kevin's playing. We are not just
biding our time on this record."
An understatement.
Even though the band plays down the temptation to read any personal mythology
into their song list, there are Third
Eye Blind currents
you can follow. "I think
most of the songs are about loss,"
says Jenkins. "But
not about having lost." It's
a defiant Jenkins who spits out the wry anti-venom on the punky anthem
"Graduate." The song is a stiff-arm to every wanna-be hipster waiting for
canonization. "To the
bastard talking down to me, your whipping boy calamity, Cross your fingers
I'm going to knock it all down," he
sings in a chopped up drawl.
"I want this record to intoxicate
people," says
Jenkins. Inhale the stinging "Graduate," or sample the hook-laden "Semi-Charmed
Life." Under the sheen of this percolating single is an insidious urban
fable of a relationship gone wrong due to speed addiction. Not the kind
of subject matter you'll find in your average pop ditty.
But both complexity
and calm can be found in a song like "Motorcycle Drive-By." Written on
a trip to New York, the song twist and turns, with the narrator finally
returning home to crash in the beautiful but desolate surf of San Francisco's
Ocean Beach.
Surfing, and the
Chinatown Warehouse where the Third
Eye Blind cabal
makes most of its noize serves as the band's sanctuary. "We
have a place where we go and meet and rehearse which is kind of away from
everything," says
drummer Brad Hargreaves. "We've
never really been part of any scene. For us it's always been more important
to make one of our own."
Ten of the album's
14 songs were written by Jenkins and Cadogan, with the remaining four written
by Jenkins.
But all agree it's
the musical embellishments that the entire band makes that bring the songs
to life. Cadogan points out they always leave room for last minute inspiration.
"We came up with 'Graduate' right before tracking," he says. About their
songwriting technique, Cadogan says: "Stephan
and I always like to surprise each other. We work fast. I've been in a
lot of bands, and believe me it's rare when you have a chemistry in a group
where you can just feed off each other and the song forms out of that."
The bandmembers cite Cadogan's adventurous guitar
work as helping to further define the group's sawtooth approach in creating
serrated but palatable melodies. Says Hargreaves, who was the last member
to join the band: "Kevin
writes amazingly hooky guitar parts that are not rock clichés."
Cadogan, who cites U2's
The Edge as one
of his influences, describes his methodology. "I
get sick of hearing the same chords. I do a lot of alternate tuning. On
a song like 'Narcolepsy' I use open tuning."
The group also cites
Perry Farrell,
Camper Van Beethoven
and David Bowie
as some of the early influences on
Third
Eye Blind's
independent streak. But the ability to glide from the visceral to the more
lyrical just may be the defining trait of the band.