Third Eye Blind's Independent Insight

Radio Programmers jumped all over "Semi-Charmed Life," the first single off "Third Eye Blind" (Elektra), the debut album from the San Francisco quartet. Neither punk nor rootsy, neither metal nor techno,"Semi-Charmed Life" opened with loud guitars and a thudding rhythm section but then gave way to chirping scat vocals. It was the blend of power chords and catchy melody mainstream-rock radio had been waiting for. Released last spring, Third Eye Blind's single had topped Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart by the fall and landed in the Top 5 soon after.

Controversy erupted, however, when a closer inspection of the lyrics revealed that the song made frank references to crystal Methedrine and fellatio. This caused some anxious moments at Electra and MTV until the band's lead singer and lyricist, Stephan Jenkins, explained he wasn't glorifying speed addiction., not after what it had done to so many of his friends. In fact, he said, he was merely using speed as a metaphor for the allure of false delights that lead us away from life's true pleasures. Like sex.

"When speed came rolling into San Francisco a few years ago," Jenkins explains, "it seemed very innocuous at first. Before we knew it, though, a large part of our peer group was pretty ravaged by it. Speed's a very bright, shiny drug, and I wanted the song to sound like that, but I also wanted the frustration in there. So a real poetic decision is determining the music. That's why you have the bright, melodic chorus but also that dirty guitar sound. A lot of things are going on at the same time, which is the crux of all our music.

"What most people don't pick up about that song is how it's influenced by hip-hop, and we like it a lot. When I was writing that song, I was banging on my guitar as if it were a drum and free-associating a rap over it. It's a manic storytelling with very quick shifts between time periods, present tense and past tense. But there's a real sweetness to it, even when things are going wrong in the story. At one point, I sing, 'I believe in the sand beneath my toes�and the four right chords that can make me cry.' These are the things that really matter, and the song is about how we get separated from these things."

There is a clipped, hip-hop cadence to Jenkins's signing on the versed of "Semi-Charmed Life," but when he reaches the chorus, he's not bashful about belting it out in the anthemic style of U2's Bono or Oasis's Liam Gallagher. Third Eye Blind, which appears Sunday at American University's Bender Arena, has opened for both of those bands and works with the same vocal-guitar-bass-drums lineup. Like U2's The Edge and Oasis's Noel Gallagher, Third Eye Blind's Kevin Cadogan comes up with the guitar figures that many of the songs are built around. One example is the new band's second single, "Graduate."
"That began with another of Kevin's inventions," Jenkins recalls, "which sounded like the fattest guitar riff I'd heard since Led Zeppelin's 'Houses of the Holy.' I remember worrying, 'That's so good; what can we do to liven it up?' The answer was anger. Johnny Rotten said it the best, 'Anger is energy,' and to me it's a gloriously angry song.

"So many people feel they have something to offer this life, an so often that potential goes unfulfilled. It always seems like we're up against another power, that we have to look for approval from someone else. It's like we never leave school; we're always moving from one institution to another. The song asks, Can I graduate? Can I get my diploma? Will you finally validate me? I love playing the song live, because it's easy for me to animate that story every night. When I sing, 'To the bastard talking down to me�I'm going to knock it all down,' I still very much feel that way."

A lot of Jenkins's anger is reserved for the alternative-rock community,which has sniped from the sidelines at Third Eye Blind's quick success and arena-rock tendencies. "Before forming Third Eye Blind," he points out, "I was in a music scene that seemed preoccupied with its own rules.

All the bands had a similar sound, and they seemed to be talking to themselves and getting approval from each other. It reminded me of people jockeying themselves to avoid being ridiculed in high school. I rebelled against that, I wanted to do something different."

One of the differences is Jenkins's approach to singing. Rather than scream or mumble, Third Eye Blind's front man crisply projects his vocals, as he wants the kids in the last row of a basketball arena to get every note and every word.

"When I was still in that indie-rock scene," he says, "I saw people singing in this monotone, giving this angst-ridden vocal performance that wouldn't take a risk, that wouldn't really sing out and become vulnerable. The scene lacked honesty to me, because people seemed to be checking the headlines before they sang. When you really sing out, you're not checking first to see if it's going to be cool. You're saying this is exciting to me, and I don't care what anyone else thinks."

THIRD EYE BLIND-Appearing Sunday at Bender Arena with Smash Mouth. To hear a free Sound bite from "Third Eye Blind," call Post-Haste at 202/334-9000 and press 8101. (Prince William residents, call 690-4110.)