Jimmy Eat World

Childhood friends Jim Adkins and Zach Lind partnered with guitarist Tom Linton and bassist Mitch Porter to form the band in 1993. Under local label Wooden Blue Records Jimmy Eat World released a few singles, an EP and a self-titled album during 1993-94. The band got lucky in 1995 with a contract under Capitol Records that allowed them to release the album “Static Prevails.” For this venture, friend Rick Burch replaced Mitch Porter and drummer Mark Trombino joined the group.

In 1999, Jimmy Eat World released “Clarity” which was recorded in studios in California. The single “Lucky Denver Mint” was featured on the soundtrack of rom-com “Never Been Kissed” which elevated the band to mainstream audiences. However, the album that prompted Jimmy Eat World to worldwide fame is “Bleed American” which was put out in 2001 by DreamWorks. The single “The Middle” exploded on the airwaves and took the #5 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

Following tremendous success with “Bleed American” Jimmy Eat World recruited producer Gil Norton (whose previous experience includes working with bands like the Pixies and Foo Fighters) to work on “Futures.” Their fourth album came out October 2004 and the single “Pain” became a hit. By this time Jimmy Eat World had toured independently to promote “Bleed American” and also in collaboration with Taking Back Sunday. In 2005 they joined forces with Green Day on a worldwide tour.

In total Jimmy Eat World has released eight studio albums both independently and under major label Interscope Records (formerly DreamWorks). The band’s name comes from a cartoon drawn by Linton’s younger brother Ed, who was making fun of their brother Jim. The drawing depicts a slab of the Earth resting on Jim’s jaw, and the rest is history. Jimmy Eat World considers punk bands Mr. T Experience, Radon and Tempe’s Horace Pinker as influences in their music.

Motion City Soundtrack’s story is an absolutely heartening tale of sticking to one’s guns in the face of trends, fashion and bandwagons. Their brand of punky pop-rock (or poppy punk-rock, delete as applicable) was never going to set the charts alight and make them the biggest band in the world but it did make them an absolutely adored cult band, and that suits them like nothing else they could be. Like many other bands, the genesis of Motion City Soundtrack began with two other local bands disbanding.

They were Joshua Cain’s Saddest Girl Story and Justin Pierre’s Slide Coaster, and soon after those bands feel through, Cain got in touch with Pierre with the intention of forming a new band together. The band were originally a quartet formed with Cain on the lead guitar and Pierre on lead vocals but their rhythm section didn’t last until the end of the year, this wasn’t the only reason that the nascent Motion City Soundtrack couldn’t play shows, however.

Weirdly enough for a city with a rock and roll pedigree to put most of the world’s countries to shame, there were barely any venues for a new band to perform in. So Cain and Pierre knew that in order to spread the word about their band they’d have to tour and tour hard. Fortunately, they found a rhythm section willing to tour with them and nicked the name Motion City Soundtrack off a name Justin’s brother was using for one of his musical projects. By 1998 they’d played their first show, and big things were still to come.

Their first recorded release came in the form of a seven inch released in 1999, but the band were still in a sort of flux, without a truly fixed line-up to their name. It wasn’t until three years later that Pierre and Cain found Jesse Johnson and Matthew Taylor, who to this day play as their keyboardist and bassist respectively, and Tony Thaxton, who was their drummer until 2013. By the time they’d joined they already had two E.P’s to their name, and were hard at work self-releasing their debut album “I Am The Movie”.

Awesomely enough, the original release of the album had the album housed in a floppy disk case with the CD inside, which the band members assembled by hand. However, it was the album itself and its stunning quality that got the band signed to legendary punk label Epitaph. Not, unfortunately, the novel way it was packaged. With the proper release of “I Am The Movie”, Motion City Soundtrack finally had some genuine buzz behind them, and they capitalised on that with the release of “The Future Freaks Me Out”, their debut single and concert closer to this very day.

Since then the band has become one of the most beloved cult acts in American rock, with two albums produced by Blink 182 legend Mark Hoppus and record sales in their home country of around half a million. They still tour as heavily as they’ve ever done and in their nearly twenty years together, it means that their live shows are some of the best in modern rock. Truly they’re a band that can reaffirm your faith in rock, honest-to-God good music and the power of a devoted fanbase. Highly recommended.