Octagon, Toby Keith, Alien Ant Farm and George Michael. In the end, Jimmy Eat World signed with DreamWorks, a still fledgling label with a diverse roster that included the likes of Elliott Smith, Dr. Word started to get around about the album’s potential, so the band hired a manager and began talking to different labels. So the band began inviting interested parties to the studio to hear what they’d been working on. There still was no label to release the new album. When we knew we could pay him we paid him.”
THE MIDDLE JIMMY EAT WORLD FOR FREE
“Mark decided that he would pretty much work for free until we realized what the back end would look like. “We took all of our touring proceeds and put it towards making the record,” Adkins says. With money raised from the compilation sales and the tours, the band went to LA to work with Mark Trombino, the former Drive Like Jehu drummer-turned-producer who had helmed both Clarity and 1996’s Static Prevails. “We’d go over to Europe and play on these wacky nine-band bills and the fans would know words to these songs we were recording.” “We thought would be a cool way to get our music out there in different parts of the world where our records were harder to find. They also began uploading demos from the forthcoming album to Napster (yeah, remember Napster?) as a way of previewing what was to come. They released a compilation titled Singles on indie label Big Wheel Recreation and toured Europe, where they were able to sell boxes of CDs they’d grabbed from Capitol, albums that hadn’t been released overseas yet. As long as we could tour and play in front of people we would be fine.”ĭespite getting dropped, Jimmy Eat World kept busy around the world. We felt reinforced by the friends in other bands that we had at the time, and the way we were all working to play music. Every time we’d play a city there would be more people than last time.
“From our perspective things were getting better. “After Capitol it didn’t feel like there was this hole in our operational structure,” Adkins says. Sure they were an unsigned band, but their trajectory was continuing to trend upwards. After endlessly touring and fostering relationships with bands in their community, they found themselves in an enviable position. The band had good reason to remain positive though. It made complete business sense to not spend any more money on us.” grew over time into what it is now, but that wasn’t the case back then. But they had no idea what to do with bands like us that sold 10,000 copies between all releases. “Capitol knew exactly what to do with that.
“All big labels are extremely adept at pushing bands that are moving 20,000 or more records a week,” frontman Jim Adkins explains. In fact, they agreed with Capitol’s decision. Most artists in their position would have viewed the rejection as a potential career-ender, but the Mesa, Arizona-based band took it well. After receiving little support for their third album, the now seminal Clarity, the band was hardly surprised when they were notified in August 1999. Jimmy Eat World were only two albums into their deal with Capitol Records when they were dropped by the label.