Circa August 1999, things couldn’t look much more dire for the Mesa Ariz., foursome of Jimmy Eat World. Jim Adkins, Rick Burch, Zach Lind and Tom Linton had seen their two major label full-length albums, “Static Prevails” and “Clarity,” ignored by mainstream media, radio and their label Capitol Records, who had just unceremoniously dropped them.
However, this same turn of events that has broken the will ó and the bank ó of many a lesser artist found Jimmy Eat World celebrating its newfound independence with a self-promoted five-week tour of Europe.
That their label had never released Jimmy Eat World material overseas was hardly an obstacle: The band began buying its own records from the label’s distributor and shipping them to Europe independently.
Within a year, Jimmy Eat World was playing Europe’s biggest festivals as Clarity hit the German charts, self-releasing and independently releasing compilations and EPs, doing Japanese licensing deals, and touring touring touring … ultimately channeling everything back into the recording of “Bleed American.”
Having recorded it on their own dime as a dedication to the fans that had kept them alive during the lean times, the members of Jimmy Eat World couldn’t possibly have predicted that Bleed American would become a platinum-plus, MTV VMA-nominated bona fide career breakthrough smash.
Released in July 2001, in a world with no iTunes store, no MySpace, no Facebook, and charts still utterly dominated by the Britneys, N Syncs and Limp Bizkits, four down-to-earth guys from Arizona who’d just been dropped by a major label improbably rode this self-funded album to platinum status, their biggest tours to date and an appearance on Saturday Night Live.
The new two-disc deluxe edition of “Bleed American” not only restores the record’s original title (the band renamed the record “Jimmy Eat World” following the events of 9/11 and the subsequent deployment of U.S. troops to the Middle East) but also provides further documentation of Jimmy Eat World’s prolific output circa 2001-2002, including obscure fan favorites, a holiday single “Last Christmas”/ “Firestarter,” the band’s cover of Guided By Voices’ “Game of Pricks,” and the never before heard “Your House 2007.”
The reimagining of the Bleed American track the band debuted on its 2007 stripped down semi-acoustic tour elicited an unexpectedly intense response from fans at the shows and later on message boards, moving the band to commit the arrangement to tape to honor its fans.
Disc one is the original album which includes the songs “Bleed American, “A Praise Chorus,” “The Middle,” “Sweetness,” “Hear You Me,” and more, along with bonus tracks.
Disc two consists of 18 more tracks including rare imports, B-sides, previously unreleased live and demo tracks, and the newly-recorded “Your House 2007.”
A complete description of the CD set can be found at: www.punknews.org/article/28379.