Where are you now, and what have you been up to?
At the moment I’m in Arizona. Been up to a whole lot of nothing really, kind of taking care of all the stuff that we missed out on when we were on tour. Catching up with friends, taking kids out to baseball practice … things like that.
What’s the weirdest thing that’s happened to you while on tour?
We got into the after-party for the MTV Music Awards in Europe and we got to meet Jimmy Page. It was a very brief meeting and he was great and all but I doubt he would remember. You know, close human contact with Jimmy Page, that was exciting, weird and “wow.” It must have been in 2004 or 2005…
What’s the craziest audience you’ve performed for so far?
We played a show once in Laguna Montana, which was a very small city in the middle of nowhere and we played at this really nice place—really old seats, old theater, and I wasn’t expecting much. But it was definitely one of the rowdiest crowds I’ve ever seen—people are moshing and crowd-surfing. I don’t know how it was even possible because there were seats everywhere … people were just hell-bent on going crazy.
Best part about being in Jimmy Eat World?
I think just being able to play music for this long is probably the best thing. We realize that it’s a fragile thing, you know, not everyone gets the chance to do what they want to do every day. And we’re really grateful for that, that we’ve been able to do that for a while now.
And the worst part?
I think now that our kids are getting a little bit older (the drummer and I both have kids), it’s a little bit tough when we’re gone for a really long time for work. I think that’s probably the worst part. It’s a mixed blessing that we get to go for tours that last for a long time, but it’s also suffering to be touring for so long and there’re a lot of things happening.
If you woke up tomorrow and found that you’ve lost your voice, what would you do?
I’d start an instrumental band. You know, I don’t have any illusions … I’m pretty certain that I won’t be playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band forever. But I know I’ll be doing something with music, you know, until I have absolutely no physical capacity to do so.
If you had to do it all over again, what would you change?
I’d probably pick a different band name.
What would it be?
I don’t know, anything. Some one-syllable thing so that no one would ever ask us how we got our name.
Message for your fans?
We’re really excited to come and play! Performing in new places has always been an important thing for us.
Catch Jimmy Eat World Live in Singapore for the first time on Apr 1, 8pm at The Coliseum, Hard Rock Hotel, Resorts World Sentosa, 6577-8899. $115-140 from Sistic.
