60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Third Eye Blind—“Semi-Charmed Life”

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

Rob explores San Francisco rock band Third Eye Blind’s hit “Semi-Charmed Life” by discussing front man Stephan Jenkins’s reputation, songwriting prowess, and unconventional appeal. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Max Collins Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stephen Jenkins is a total megalomaniac freak. He's so narcissistic that he's not really capable of irrational thought. Kevin Cadigan, formerly guitarist and Stephen Jenkins bandmate, third-eye blind. There's a few bands that we just don't like touring with. Your third-eye blinds of the world. I wouldn't go near Stephen Jenkins in that band. That guy's a douchebag. You know, you can put that on camera because I really don't care, but he is.

not a good person. That's all I'll say about that. Steve Harwell, front man, smash mouth. Stephen Jenkins is such a fucking creepy douchebag, parentheses. I feel so much better now. Close parentheses. Zach Lind, drummer, Jimmy Eat World. He made fun of me. Called me a fat guy. Screw you. He has no soul whatsoever. He and his band got to a fight once because he wanted to put just his picture on their T-shirt. shirt. I just think you are walking, breathing, living cheese. Rob Thomas, frontman, Matchbox 20. Robert gained 40 pounds on the first major matchbox 20 tour. This was pretty smooth. He was still mortal then. I don't hate him. I just don't like him. He has no soul. He's really just a

cock. Rob Thomas, immortal singer of Santana Smooth, 10 years after the walking cheese, thing. I was hip to Stevens bullshit a long time ago. I wanted to have a career in music for the rest of my life, and I knew if I was associated with that guy, I would not be allowed to do so. He was the inspiration for a lot of the songs on this record. The song, Somebody Hates You, is entirely about him. Jason Slater, former bassist and Stephen Jenkins bandmate, Third Eye Blind, talking up his new band, Snake River Conspiracy. Stephen Jenkins has caused a lot of misery in his lifetime. He's a net negative as a person.

John VanderSleis, San Francisco, singer-songwriter, and producer. After the third-eyed blind guy told me he fucked my girlfriend, he told me I was a wordsmith like Jim Morrison, Max Collins, frontman, Eve Six. This is excessive. This is mean. This is obnoxious. Let's do a nice one. Let's find a nice one. Here we go. Steve's band is great. They've got a new sound that's really exciting. Harvey Weinstein. Oh, no. What's the deal here?

Why do so many people hate Stephen Jenkins? Frontman. Third-eye blind. Stephen with an A, not an E, at the end. Maybe that's it. But really, to what do we owe the world's displeasure? Lots of megalomaniac walking cheese, douchebag rock stars in the world. What makes this? this guy special? What makes this guy the great unifier? Well, I suppose you'd have to start with what makes him great. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s. Today, it's semi-charmed Life from the 1997 self-titled debut album from San Francisco pop rock band, Third Eye Blind. I should clarify immediately that this song is awesome. It's catchy, it's gritty, It's subversive. It's ridiculous. It's incandescent. The world has spent nearly a quarter century now grudgingly acknowledging the awesomeness of semi-charmed life. Later in this show today, I will discuss the awesomeness of semi-charmed life with none other than Max Collins from Eve 6. Anyway, I heard this song for the first time on Midwestern College Radio in 1997. I was oblivious, and I was the DJ. I was standing in the DJ booth. My friend Maya walked in and made. me play this song I'd never heard of.

Semi-Charmed Life. And I did, and Maya started dancing immediately when that guitar riff kicked in. The only time in four years of basically living there when I saw anyone dancing in the DJ booth at my college radio station. I couldn't see my own face, of course, but to this day, I can still vividly picture the look on my face as I watched Maya dance to semi-charmed life. I would characterize the look on my face as you just bewildered, dumbfounded, stupefied. First reaction, what the hell is this?

Second reaction, what the hell is happening in front of me as a result of this? Third reaction, grudging respect for whatever the hell this was. Fourth reaction, what the hell did he just say? Stephen Jenkins explaining semi-charmed life to Billboard in April 1997. It's a dirty, filthy song about snorting speed and getting blow jobs. It really is funny that people play it on the radio. That quote ran above that week's Modern Rock Tracks chart, where semi-charmed Life rang in at number six.

For your reference, the top five modern rock tracks that week were as follows. Number five, White Towns, Your Woman. Number four, the wallflowers, one headlight. Number three, sublimes, Santoria. Number two, the verbs, the freshman. And number one, U-2's staring at the sun. Terrible U-2 song. Hear me now and believe me later.

Stephen was often cagey about precisely how autobiographical semi-charmed life was. Not always, though. He did tell Rolling Stone, It's about a time when my friends and I were at a primus concert and somebody brought speed. No one had ever done it before, and like three weeks later, all of my friends were addicted. Sidebar, don't ever take speed at a Primus concert.

No offense to Primus, but that sounds awful. If you simply must bring speed to a rock concert, I implore you to go see literally any other rock band that has ever existed. Stephen Jenkins grew up in Palo Alto, California and doesn't talk about it much. His parents divorced when he was seven. He struggled with dyslexia as a kid. His sixth grade teacher told him you wouldn't graduate from high school and was headed straight for juvenile hall. His high school year book quote was, success. All it takes is all you've got.

He studied English literature at UC Berkeley, graduated as the valedictorian of his class, and went back to his elementary school afterward to remind his sixth grade teacher about the you won't graduate high school thing. He's a handsome fellow. If Quentin Tarantino were playing a Grand Theft Auto-style video game, where you could custom build your own avatar, and Quinn had wanted this avatar to look like him, but the idealized, much more handsome, one inch taller, smaller, four-headed, rock star version of himself,

Stephen Jenkins. In 1990, Stephen was a starving artist living off top ramen and sleeping in a closet on Lower Hate Street in SF. He later called it, My Nineteen67, My Summer of Love. Early on, he was half of a short-lived rap duo called Puck and Natty, who somehow snuck a song called Just Wanna Be your friend onto a Beverly Hills 90210 soundtrack. Stephen later clarified that he'd never watched Beverly Hills 90210. He got paid $7,800. He bought groceries. Possibly you were supposed to get a flat 8,000, but they docked him 200 bucks for using the word horny in the song.

or maybe he was only supposed to get 800 and they gave him an extra 7,000 for using the word horny in the song. Anyway, Stephen dreamed of starting a rock band. He already had a name, third eye blind. It's ironic. He had a handful of songs inspired by his summer of love, including one called semi-charmed life that he'd started fencing with using guitar riffs from a Detroit rapper named Herman Anthony Chun, aka Zen, aka the other guy and his old horny rap duo. Stephen eventually paid Zen $10,000 and has sole authorship of the song.

Stephen meets a guitar player named Kevin Cadigan. Yeah, that guy. They started writing songs together and doing two-man acoustic gigs at Bay Area bars and whatnot. A bunch of new songs, bunch of demos,

a bunch of potential record deals, a bunch of drummers, and a couple major gigs opening for big shot alt rock bands at the Fillmore in San Francisco. World historically fantastic venue. The Fillmore, love the curtains, love the balconies, love the apples. Third Eye Blind open for Counting Crows there. Third Eye Blind open for Oasis there and got called back for an encore.

Kevin Cadigan reportedly threw a can of Coke at Liam Gallagher and lived to talk about it in 20th anniversary pieces. Third Eye Blind signed with Elektra Records, their debut album, Third Eye Blind, came out in March 1997. Stephen Jenkins on vocal and guitar. Kevin Cattigan on lead guitar. Ariens Salazar on bass. Brad Hargreaves on drums.

This album kicks ass. The whole thing. I don't mind telling you. Top 10 record of 1997. It's legitimately shocking. 13 songs spanning from pretty good to fucking stupendous. And then also this song. Quick overview.

view of major guitar rock bands in 1997, pretty much nobody wants to be a major guitar rock band in 1997, or they're no longer content to only be a guitar rock band. You got radio heads OK computer, fewer guitars, more on Wii. You got U2's pop, fewer guitars, more irony. You got Be Here Now by Oasis, same amount of guitars, more helicopters. You got the foo fighters if you're still obsessed with alternative rock and built a spill if you're getting into indie rock. And the verve if you're sticking with Britpop, but the big whoop with rock critics is electronica. And the theory anyway is that the new rock stars are the chemical brothers, or the crystal method, or the prodigy. Rock is dead. Pass it on,

all of which to say that the most subversive part of semi-charmed life isn't the oral sex or the crystal meth. It's a bunch of grown men with shiny guitars singing do-do-do-do-do-do-do. That and the falsetto. I would characterize that false. as relatable. So the shakiness here, the semi-tunefulness, the semi-charm, the pepiness, the lasciviousness, the pretentiousness, the rap adjacency, the cocksurity. Not a word. Now it's a word. Stephen Jenkins all up in the interviews, talking about how on stage sometimes, quote, I have my clash moment, end quote. All quoting Heidegger in Rolling Stone. All chatting with spin about his model actress girlfriend,

and Charlize Theron. Quote, You know why she's with me because I'm the only guy that's not intimidated by her in heels. Stephen Jenkins, he's well-read,

he's alarmingly self-actualized, he's vulnerable, he's brash, he's the kind of rock star frontman where in press photos your eyes are drawn straight toward him and all the other dudes

behind him just automatically get blurrier. It's not his fault. It's mostly not his fault. It's not entirely his fault. Okay, it's his fault, but that's the job. The job is to write vulnerable slash brash slash pretentious slash relatable lyrics,

suitable for yearbook quotes or ill-considered tattoos. And this guy is astoundingly good at his job. Success. All it takes is everything you've got. We're talking songs that make you on a water ski while tied to the bumper of a Camaro just so you can break your leg, just so you can scrawl the lyrics on your own cast. Shout out to his sixth grade teacher. We're talking songs as lifelong personal brands. We're talking red flagged Tinder bios. Never. We're talking songs that make you want

to smooch. You're also married to someone else high school sweetheart in the back of your minivan in the parking lot at your 15-year high school reunion. Every single song in this record is so much. The least obnoxious song on this record is called Burning Man. It's

incredible. It's wonderful. All of it. Don't fight it. Come on. Fall in love with the bad boy for one. fall in love with the sad literary boy who thinks he's the bad boy because if you think he's the bad boy then that's what he is picture the sad literary bad boy on j leno's tonight show in 1998 and stephen's wearing a black motorcycle jacket that is also a straight jacket it's a metaphor and he busts dramatically out of the black motorcycle straight jacket he frees his arms just in time to semi-tunefully wail the last verse of how's it going to be speaking of soft dives into a oblivion. It's so easy to find people trash talking this guy. It's too easy. It's cheap. I feel bad. I mostly feel bad. Sometimes I kind of feel bad. Not all the time. The John Vanderslice quote from earlier, John calling Stephen a net negative as a person. That's from a semi-viral interview John did with the Onion AV Club in 2013. John VanderSleis runs a famous Bay Area recording studio called Tiny Telephone. The original SF location hosted Death Cab for Cutie, Spoon, Sleader Kinney, the mountain goats, et cetera. It shut down in 2020, but there's a tiny telephone, Oakland now. That's

the Bay Area for you. Don't even think of trying to have a summer of love in the Bay Area now, unless you're a unicorn tech CEO at 20 million in the bank. Uber for summers of love. Anyway, John VanderSlyce tells this long story about third-eye blind recording at Tiny Telephone in 2002, and it's a life-alteringly terrible experience. The band's manager is super mean. And then Stephen Jenkins shows up super late for the first meeting at the studio, pulling up on his hog or whatever in his motorcycle leather, holding his motorcycle helmet. And he starts giving John the business about money. John explains it like this, quote, he takes a folding chair and then flips it around backward and then puts it uncomfortably close to me. Considering we're in a large room and sits face to face with me, sitting backward in a chair.

And he says, okay, what are we going to do about this rate? we've got to get this rate down. John Politely explains to Stephen that this is an indie studio, they're way below market rate, you're a major label band, etc. Then, quote, he doesn't respond to anything I said. He stood up with his helmet and he started pacing the live room. All the other crew they knew just to be quiet because this is his mode of whatever douchebaggery.

I don't know. He paces the studio and then he just blurts out, okay, let's do it. Then he walks out of the door, fires up his motorcycle and leaves. So, I mean, that's funny. And it's fine if this is your prevailing image of Stephen Jenkins. It's fine if whenever he's singing, you picture him singing while sitting backwards in a chair, perhaps with a backwards hat as well, and he sat down this chair uncomfortably close to you.

It's fine if third-eye blind sound to you like sonic man spreading. But I got to say that I'm into the anime super villain aspect of the third-eye blind guy. Perversely, I've read so much at this point about how unlikable Stephen Jenkins is that I really want to like this guy. There's an interview with him where he's at a French bistro in San Francisco called The Butler and the Chef, and he's eating a croak monsieur during the interview. I used to work at a rival streaming music service in that neighborhood. Don't worry about it.

And I used to get lunch from that restaurant because I loved the croak monsieur from the butler and the chef. That place shut down on New Year's Eve, 2017. That's the Bay Area for you. But that's as endearing a mid-interview rockstar food order as I can imagine. I find Stephen's taste in sandwiches almost as endearing as semi-charmed life itself, which is saying something given that this song is an enduring nuclear earworm responsible for the goofiest radio edit to ever hit ultra-heavy rotation.

The scrabbled part there is actually just Heidegger. Less endearing is Stephen's treatment of his band, according to his former bandmates and third-eye blind who are legion this gets convoluted fast so jason slater the snake river conspiracy guy who wrote a song called somebody hates you he was long gone even before third-eye blind's first album and he became a producer and played in a bunch of other bands and he died of liver failure in 2020 he was forty-nine the lineup that made the first third-eye blind record hung in there for a while kevin cadigan got fired shortly after the release of the second third-eye blind album Blue in 1999. There was a dispute as to who legally owned the name Third Eye Blind. Turns out Stephen

Jenkins did. There was a lawsuit. There was a settlement. New guitarist Tony Friedianelli. Blue sold a million copies in the United States, but the Third Eye Blind record sold six million copies. So next album, 2003 is out of the vein, which is possibly

partly inspired by Stephen's breakup with Charlie's Theron and did not sell a million copies. Stephen wanted to call that album Crystal Baller. He complained to Entertainment Weekly that the rest of the band wouldn't let him because, quote, they never let me do anything. He also clarified that Crystal Baller was a play on words.

I appreciate that clarification. Maybe it would have sold a million copies if they'd called it Crystal Baller. Anyways, Third Eye Blind has put out three full-length albums and a few EPs since then, but only drummer Brad Hargreaves is still around from the Golden Years. bassist Aryan Salazar left in 2006. A new lead guitarist Tony Friedianelli got frozen out in 2008 and also sued, which also resulted in a settlement climatically in 2017. While Stephen Jenkins was leading yet another lucrative third-eye blind tour

in part to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of their debut album, Kevin Cadigan, Aryan Salazar, and Tony Friedianelli also toured in support of that album with a new band they named XE. as in ex-members of 3EB. Fewer shows, though, in smaller venues, bars and whatnot. I told you it was convoluted. You know the social network, the movie? Stephen Jenkins is Mark Zuckerberg in the social network.

That's the not very nice way to put it. That's the ex-bandmate way to put it. If you guys invented third-eye blind, you'd have invented third-eye blind. A couple things. First of all, I saw Third Eye Blind live in 2017. the official Stephen Jenkins version. He wore a leather skirt, rock stars, man. And as dorkiest song as it might be,

specifically as much as it might sound like a rock band trying to write a boy band song, Never Let You Go from Blue in 1999, also kicked ass, falsetto and all. But second of all, with apologies to never let me go, let me tell you about the best thing Stephen Jenkins did in 1999. So listen, we all have our own favorite Rolling Stone interviews from the 1990s, and mine is with Stephen Jenkins in March 1999. It's a little Q&A. It's not long. It's a little bigger than one-third of a page of old-school, large format Rolling Stone.

This interview shares space with a story about a Crosby Stills, Nash and Young reunion tour. I'm sure that went fine. And a small item about promoters getting a permit for a venue in Rome, New York to put on Woodstock, That didn't go so well. Anyway, the conversation with Stephen Jenkins is entirely about his feuds with other rock bands. That's the newspeg here. Rock journalism used to work like this. Call up a guy with a hit song and mildly goad him into talking acres of trash. Anyways, this conversation with Stephen Jenkins is the sweetest music I've ever heard.

It's my fantasy prom theme. Stephen Jenkins on his feud with Eddie Vedder, who'd recently criticized Third Eyeblind for covering the Who's Baba O'Reilly. This is Eddie, as usual, starting something he can't finish, like Ticketmaster. So to have him policing who can play Who covers makes him a power-hungry cop. He wants to wear mirrored sunglasses and write tickets. Boom, roasted. Stephen Jenkins on his feud with the band Live. Lightning crashes and so forth. We were playing a festival and their crew was harassing people. I called him on it, and the band did the Hollywood hide behind the bouncer thing. The band is a bunch of pussies. Once you've got guys clearing the hallway for you, you're a karaoke band. Boom,

roasted. Stephen Jenkins on his feud with Green Day. There is no feud. Third Eye Blind's bassist tackled Green Day's bassist. This is why you don't let bass players out of the van or the tour bus or whatever. They should build slightly larger dog crates for bass players. They hugged it out, presumably. Stephen Jenkins on his feud with Rob Thomas. He's obsessed. He won't shut up about me. I don't know him. Boom, roasted. Stephen has asked if he once called Rob Fat. I have no idea. But if I blew up to Elvis-like proportions, I would expect Rolling Stone to make fun of me and I would take it in stride. Boom, roasted. Stephen is informed that Rob Thomas called him a good arch enemy. He's not my arch enemy. I don't know him. I don't have any idea. I don't have any idea. what he weighs. Boom, roasted. Stephen is informed that Rob Thomas called him walking, breathing, living cheese. See, even when he's talking about me, he has to use food references. I don't have any idea what he weighs. In conclusion, rock and roll needs jerks. Not just jerks, jerk-offs. Honor them, cherish them. Maybe just don't form bands with them. Maybe don't ever

try to talk to them at all, avoid them. That's what you do. Get away as fast as you can. Just know that they're not listening when you say goodbye. Our guest today is Max Collins, bassist and lead singer for Eve Six, whose new EP Grimm Value is out on June 25th. He's on Twitter. He wrote the Heart and a Blender song and we are thrilled to have him today. Thanks so much for being here, Max. Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Of course. In your opinion, is semi-charmed life by Third Eye Blind a good song? Yeah, yeah, it is. And it brings me no pleasure to admit that.

Believe me. Sure. But it is. And it's one of those songs I remember exactly where I was the first time I heard it. I was driving on the freeway, came on the radio. I was impressed not in the way that you're, impressed by genius or something like that. But it was impressed upon my mind first,

the voice, the sound of the voice, and how strange it is. He has a very strange voice. And Semi Charmed Life, I think, is a perfect example of a song that if it were sung by a singer who was endowed with that like a traditionally good voice would be awful,

would really be like really terrible and unlistenable. His voice and the strangeness of the voice brings a kind of charm to it. And, you know, this is sort of like a polarizing opinion of mine or whatever, but I really do feel like there's no such thing as a great song. I feel like there are a great, recordings of songs and great live performances of songs. But the very same song, Semi Charm Life by Third Eye Blind, if like vertical horizon, I'm just picking another band

from like the, you know, milieu or whatever, or not even, but the timeframe had done it. I think it would have been wretched. It would have been indefensible, you know, like, and the same song because so much of what gives a song its charm or its transcending quality or whatever else is that particular performance and the recording of it. So this is a way for me to have my cake and eat it too, like sort of diminish his work a little bit while also admitting that it is good. You know, I mean, like, I still, I mean, sure, I've tired of it, I guess, but I still enjoy, for the most part, listening to it when it comes on and kind of like examining it. Sure. By strange, you just mean, like, he's not in tune necessarily 100% of the time. He's just, he's not that good a singer in any kind of technical sense, but he sells it emotionally. Like, what is the strangeness of his voice that sells the song? that's part of it.

And in general, I really do enjoy recordings that kind of predate like Pro Tools and Autotune and Melanon and all of that stuff because it strips the humanity and from it makes things altogether less rock and roll.

But I think that's part of it. His pitch isn't great and I think that's good for the song. But I also think there's more going on. I mean, I think it's down to like probably physical stuff, like literally the shape of his mouth and his throat and stuff like that.

And his speech impediments. I mean, he has this like, you know, he has this weird way of embodying both, you know, masculine and feminine qualities in his voice. He has a little bit of a lisp, but it's also like authoritative or something.

He has an authoritative list. An authoritative lisp. I like that. And yeah. And then atone. Like just a tone that's nice, not because it's familiar, but because it's particular. And the fact that it's emanating from, and this is stuff that we all learned later, but from a personality, there's such a chasm between the songs, the content of the songs, and the man,

where it almost, it's almost hard to believe that he wrote that stuff. And I think there actually is, there are some like conspiracy theories surrounding that. But because he, I mean, I did, you know, EVE six did like six or eight months of touring with them. Right. And he affects this kind of like jock persona, this bluster thing. And it's always that. There's one setting. And you don't really get much of a peek into who he is beyond that.

Or frankly, if it is even an affectation or if it's just who he is, I, you know, I still don't know. But these are all things that end up helping the songs, I think, at the end of the day. If it's not who he is, then he's really committed to the bit at this point, I think you'd have to say. Like, it's, it's almost more disturbing if it is an act. He's committed to the bit to, like, yeah, absolutely, like Andy Kaufman level of commitment. And there's performance in that, too, if that's that. the case that's impressive. Sure. Okay, so I agree with you. Vertical Horizon doing semi-charmed life. I don't want to think about that anymore. Eve Six doing semi-charmed life. Is that plausible?

Yeah, I think we could do it. I think we could do a good version of semi-charmed life. Because both you and the third eye blind guy are good at just packing a lot of words, a lot of wordplay, a lot of ideas into your songs. Like writing a hit song with twice as many words as most hit songs have. Like, is that twice as hard? I think for me, and maybe for him too, actually, I think for me,

you know, I'm not like a singer's singer either, but more than that, at the time that I was writing those first couple of six records, I didn't really have great melodic comprehension. And so I think in lieu of

that, I did smash words into songs to kind of make up for that with the scan of the words. Sure. In places, I do think he's actually a really good melodicist, but he's not a great singer. So that for him could have been a case of one's limitations serving them also. Absolutely. So one of my favorite tweets of yours, the story, as I understand it, is your backstage at the Fillmore in San Francisco and the third-eyed blind guy.

shows up and says, hey, you know I fucked your girlfriend once, right? And then he tells you that you're a wordsmith like Jim Morrison. Do I have that right? You have that right, but those were two different times. The Fillmore was the I fucked your girlfriend. That's too bad.

That's too bad. But okay, go ahead. The yore a wordsmith like Jim Morrison was months later when we ended up doing just a one-off festival together. And he followed that up with. but you're a total alcoholic. Yikes. Yeah.

Huh. Did you even have time then to sort of process the Jim Morrison aspect? Like, is that a compliment coming from the third eye blind guy? Not sure. I guess that's the kind of compliment the third eye blind guy would give. I'm not sure. You're not sure if you've been insulted or not. Yeah, I don't pretend to know.

And then he did have, you know, he'd proven by that point that he felt it a worthwhile endeavor to like sort of like flex and the really funny thing about that is that at the time I was like 20 21 years old he was like 34 years old so when I like when I think about the way he would kind of like do that like try to kind of get in your head and stuff like I can't imagine myself doing that in general and certainly not to like like a kid you know a teenager right basically yeah it's really funny yeah the way you put it once that i really liked was i have nothing but love for the third-eyed blind guy he's such an asshole it's almost generous do you think he knows on some level that he's being almost generous i think he's aware of the effect that he has

and i think he enjoys it right i don't think he's concerned with whether or not it's generous or I don't think he cares if there's any like background benevolence or something going on which means I guess from his subjective place I don't think there is but I think the effect is is that I think that it's that's probably why I said almost generous it's like because it is entertaining you know of course regardless of his intention you know he's more entertaining than the vertical horizon guy. Sure. Can a true rock star also be like a good person or like a tolerable person?

Or does acting like a rock star require you to alienate literally everyone around you? It's the job. Yeah, it's a good question. I guess it depends how you define the term because, I mean, take the Jimmy world comparison and, you know, it's contextually relevant. those guys are arguably a bigger band, not so arguably a better band, and are very kind and friendly

and sort of don't have any of those typically thought of as rock star characteristics, but they have the same, if not greater levels of cloud in the eyes of the world or something. Sure. So it just depends. as to whether or not you would call a personality like that a rock star, you know? Is it?

Yeah, yeah. So I don't know. The other thing you said was, I wish rock stars like him still existed. Like, why don't rock stars like him exist anymore? Is it just that they're afraid of getting dragged on Twitter? Or we've just evolved past the need for a Stephen Jenkins of 2021? Yeah, I think everyone is scared basically of getting dragged on Twitter. Yeah.

I think that's a big part of the deal, which is pretty silly. But yeah, I do think that's a big part of it. I think kind of the culture has created a little bit of artists who really feel like they need to be everything to everyone and, you know, have their character be unassailable. And you can see why. You know, it's better to have an unassailable character than be the guy from any number of these fans that have been. gotten canceled for actually doing awful shit. Sure. And it also seems like, I think in general it's harder to be countercultural right now

because the ways in which it used to be kind of are no longer. So it often feels kind of trite and patronizing when artists do or say things that maybe 20 years ago would have been brave and possibly career ruining. But now it's sort of like, eh. Who cares? You know what I mean? Is there a 90s rock star with a worse public reputation in the non-awful shit category than the third-eyed blind guy?

Or is he sort of the biggest known jerk of that era? I was trying to think. I would say he's the biggest known jerk of that era because the only personality who is more universally loathed by artists, bands and Stephen Jenkins is definitely one of those. You bring Stephen Jenkins up to any band who's ever had to work with him or play a show with him. You know, it's a chorus of what a fucking douchebag that guy is.

But I feel like Jared Leto maybe takes his crown, but it's a different era, I guess, because his first records came out like, what, like mid-2000s or something? Yeah, that sounds right, 30 seconds to Mars, right? And it always seems from the outside, at least like a vanity project that just has been going on for a disconcertingly long time. You know, like how Keanu Reeves had bands and everyone was like, yeah, whatever. But like, this is another bit that's been going on for an awfully long time at this point. Yeah. And I think he's kind of swallowed his own swill too.

Sure. Which makes it fun here. But yeah, I'd say those two are probably, probably share that title. Yeah. Third-eye blind, to put it mildly, there's a lot of band turnover, a lot of lawsuits. There have been changes within Eve 6, but nothing near that level. How hard is it to keep a band together? Like, you think about U-2, it's been the same four guys for like 45 years.

Like, is sticking together like that even harder to do than people think? Yeah, I think it's a case like U-2 is ordering on miraculous. Like, there's such outliers. And yeah, I mean, it's like, okay, what are the chances of a marriage working with two people in their early 20s who don't know anything, let alone themselves? You know, there's a chance, I guess. It's probably not a great chance. What are the chances of like four piece bands, same kind of history, often starting even younger as teenagers. As teenagers. Yeah, being able to reconcile just the multitude of. of shit that comes down the pipe, personalities,

idiosyncrasies that you have to put up with on tour, all of that stuff. It's very unnatural, I think. Yeah. I enjoyed the detail. I think you said that when Inside Out was hitting number one, your main competition was the bare naked ladies one week. Like,

does that competition give you like a grudging respect for that song, or did it make you just totally hate that song? Can you be objective about, you know, your adversary. Yeah, I mean, that's one of those songs that don't have at least a moment that registers high on the cringe scale, I think are usually songs that that no one really cares about. That song lives in cringe.

It is. That song from note one, but no buildup, yeah. No buildup straight to full cringe. But that's laudable to me. Because what that means is that whether it's through virtue or just being unaware or whatever, that guilelessness, that lack of cool, I think often, you know, it gets written off for being, I don't know, the opposite of art or something. But I actually think in some ways it's more so art than songs and bands that really try to kind of hide behind layers. of Blase sort of cool or something like that. No, I get it, I get it.

You've talked a lot about how you wrote Inside Out as a teenager, and when you hear it now, it's like still embarrassing to hear yourself again as a teenager. I think the third-eyed blind guys were in their 20s, at least with semi-charmed life. But like, is that any better, or is the whole point of rock and roll that like 10 years later you regret whatever you said,

no matter how old you were at the time? Yeah, I think, I mean, for me, that's sort of always the case. Right. But then you have like, like, I don't think Noel Gallagher thinks that shit that he wrote when he was 19 doesn't belong in the divine canon of the greatest shit ever made. Yeah. Yeah. He's an outlier. Yeah. Has being on Twitter and getting a little famous on Twitter affected your music, do you think? Are you becoming more self-aware in that way? Are you able to separate the two? I haven't done a bunch of writing since the Twitter stuff because we finished this EP before the Twitter stuff and then we also finished a full length that will come out

after the EP before the Twitter stuff. The only song I've written since the Twitter stuff is the song that came about through a Twitter beef with bass drum of death. Wow. The artist's Basest Drum of Death who was like drunk and stuck in a bar in a snowstorm in Mississippi or something

and started like quote tweeting me and saying that I was like just like this cynical actor just trying to market the band and shit like that which was really funny a funny accusation to make about anyone on Twitter because what does anyone

do on Twitter really? So we kind of went back and forth about that and then he wrote to me the next day saying oh man I was real drunk I'm sorry. I looked like an asshole. Blah, blah, blah. Right.

And I was like, dude, it's all good. The next act in this saga is we need to do a collab. You collaborate. Exactly. So he sent me a track that day. I went to John's that day. That's beautiful. Wrote on it and we put it out, ended up putting it out that Friday. Yeah.

And I don't foresee the way I write being affected. by online stuff for anything. It's such a different thing. And I'm kind of allergic to like maybe because it was my bread and butter when I was a kid overtly like clever shit. I don't really want to hear that in song. I want to have like a dream induced. So I think it's just two different worlds.

Max, thank you so much for talking. This has been wonderful. We really appreciate your time. And good luck with the album. All right, bye, guys. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Max Collins from Eve Six. Thanks to Christian Horde at Rolling Stone for the help. Thanks to our producers, of course, Isaac Lee and Justin Sales.

Thanks very much to you for listening. And now, without further ado, here's Third Eye Blind with Semi-Charmed Life. We'll see you next week.