Artist of the Month- Third Eye Blind

If back in April of 1997 you were taking bets against whether a band could take a song about the broken love life of a junkie after his descent into a crystal meth addiction and turn it into one of the most memorable, up-beat, super-charged pop songs to hit the top 40 in years...

You would have lost. Because that's exactly what Third Eye Blind did when they released their debut, self-titled album and single, "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life."

But don't get the wrong idea, frontman Stephen Jenkins has assured his fans on numerous occasions that the song was merely an observation and not some sort of auto-biographical clip. "It's about a time in my life when it seemed like all of my friends just sort of tapped out on speed."

In fact, Jenkins has always had a higher agenda. It was about five years ago that he had just finished focusing his attentions on getting a degree in English from the University of California in Berkeley. Then, when faced with the prospect of putting that degree to work, he did the next logical thing: He formed a band. It took a number of different line ups before this current magical grouping took hold and began beating the pavement all over the San Francisco Bay area music scene. With guitarist Kevin Cadogan, who was studying guitar by the age of 13 under Joe Satriani, bassist Arion Salazar and drummer Brad Hargreaves, they diligently set out to put together a 14 song demo that gave them a pretty strong sense that they had something special in their midst.

The union they had forged was cut from a like minded response to the local music they were hearing at the time. Tired of hearing the same old "retro-altern-pop-crud-thing," they came out embracing a more melody driven, up tempo, pop sound and before long they had a few corners of the record industry jumping for joy.

The demo promptly went out to all the major labels and soon after the band put on a showcase where a number of record industry executives showed their faces and were consequently blown away by the high energy 3EB erupted with on stage. Among the crowd was Elektra Records chairman/CEO , who Jenkins actually spotted dancing and high-fiving her friends throughout the show.

Her enthusiasm plus the promise of artistic freedom paid off as Third Eye Blind wasted very little time and decided to sign with Elektra in lieu of the bidding war that had suddenly risen among the industry. The result of their choice has been a string of hits including," Graduate," "How's It Going To Be" and "Losing a Whole Year."

And here they are, over one year after the release of their album and they are still sitting proudly at the forefront of the American pop music scene. Don't miss Third Eye Blind as they make a couple of more stops on their never ending tour. First at the House of Blues Barefoot Landing on August 4 and then at the House of Blues Downtown Disney on August 12.

-Albert Torres