The band returns to Melbourne for their first visit in six years in support of My Chemical Romance
Three decades and ten albums is no small feat for a band. In the case of Jimmy Eat World, 2023 marks their 30th year of consistent touring, releases, and as their many fans across the globe would attest to, quality tunes every step of the way.
During this milestone year, the group returns to Melbourne in March for two massive shows at Rod Laver Arena in support of the recently reunited My Chemical Romance. We spoke about all of this to bassist Rick Burch from his Hobart home, where he and his wife have an apartment.
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We begin by trying to pinpoint the 30th birthday precisely, for which there is some debate; “We’re choosing to mark the beginning of the band as our initial gathering to jam together in Zach’s garage, but there was some discussion over that jam or the first gig, which is the beginning of the band? Because before the official gig, you are just some dudes in a garage.”
I explain that smaller bands probably need to think about their official first gig, but when you are Jimmy fucking Eat World, the first moment you shared a jam room together seems significant and worthy of an anniversary, to which Rick laughs and agrees; it has been decided.
The quartet from Mesa, Arizona, rounded out by Jim Adkins on lead guitar and vocals, Tom Linton on rhythm guitar and Zach Lind on drums, found commercial breakthrough success thanks to the now twenty-two-year-old Bleed American, which spawned the legendary single The Middle, a track that hit the top of the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart and spent 33 weeks on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
From there, it was all systems go, and the band’s consistent output has built large followings worldwide, allowing them to tour seemingly non-stop. If you are new to Jimmy Eat World, the 2008 re-released deluxe edition of Bleed American, which has a huge 32 tracks, including live recordings, demos and B-sides, is the ultimate way to understand the group.
When asked about the secret to this level of success, Rick’s answer is modest and simple, “our longevity stems from our short-term goal approach. We don’t really plan things for a decade down the road, so we’ve always just had the idea of setting our sights on short-term accomplishable goals and then adding more to that. Next thing you know, it’s 30 years down the road.”
As for what a short-term goal is when you are a band that has accomplished nearly every goal possible, Rick again keeps things straightforward, “it’s simple things; what kind of gigging do we want to do? Is it a performance year or a creative year? Once we decided that, it can quickly turn into two or three years of a schedule.
“We’re super excited to be doing these gigs, we were devastated in 2020 when literally four days before we were getting on a plane, Australian borders shut. We were very sad about that tour because we had the support of A. Swayze & the Ghosts, and we were very excited about playing with them. These gigs will be super fun, high-energy and a lot of people finally back together celebrating good music and great times.”
The My Chem tour has been tricky to get going, as the new dates are the touring parties’ third attempt to play. The original trip to visit our shores in 2020 was nixed by the pandemic, then the re-announced tour for 2022 had to be pushed back to the current dates in 2023.
The trade-off? Extra shows were added to the run to allow more people to head along to the very quickly sold-out shows.
According to Rick, the weight of a much-anticipated event finally *touch wood* happening is not lost on the band, “We don’t take things for granted; we never had, but now we have an acute awareness of how important it is to be in front of a live audience.”
For My Chemical Romance, this Australian arena tour marks the band’s first Australian shows since their Big Day Out appearance in 2012. The band announced their official break-up on March 22, 2013, with nothing but a greatest hits release uttered until an announcement on October 31, 2019, that some Los Angeles shows would take place the following December. These gigs sold-out in four minutes and prompted the announcement of the initial 2020 reunion tour shows in Australia, Japan and New Zealand. We all know what happened next, but now, three years later, it’s all finally happening. MCR also released a new single in May 2022 called The Foundations of Decay, hinting that gigs may not be the only things on their to-do list.
Elsewhere in the world of Jimmy, a significant change is the fact that the group is now, and for the first time in their career, independent. The band’s last full-length, Surviving, was released on October 18, 2019, through Exotic Location/RCA records. In May 2022, the band announced a new single, Something Loud, which was released on June 10, and their first released independently, a move the group said would allow them to put out songs more often. They seem to be honouring this with the latest single, Place Your Debts, which was released in October 2022.
Rick speaks about how the move to being an independent act is both freeing and exciting, “we’re so excited about the new tracks, we didn’t want to wait until an entire album was ready to share them. We’re still fans of the album format; that’s a part of our history and where we came from.”
After checking out the new music and seeing the group rock Rod Laver, Rick mentions in his closing comments that Jimmy Eat World fans should be prepared for a lot more noise from the group as they celebrate their 30th year. “Keep an eye out for how we mark our 30 years as a band; it may be some unreleased songs or new tracks, we have some things coming together, oh, and vote King Stingray in the Hottest 100.”
My Chemical Romance and Jimmy Eat World play Rod Laver Arena on Thursday, March 16th and Friday, March 17th, with very limited tickets still available.
