Jimmy Eat World “completely disassociate” from their legacy as emo pioneers.
The Middle hitmakers are set to embark on a 25th anniversary tour for their hugely influential 2001 album Bleed American, and frontman Jim Adkins has admitted he tries to focus on “smaller connections” with fans rather than the band’s wider success.
He told NME: “I completely disassociate from it.
“The longer that we do this, it becomes easier to appreciate the smaller connections that people are making with what we’re doing, and how rare and special that is.
“Accepting compliments and praise has always been pretty difficult for me personally.”
The 50-year-old musician – who revealed the group are “always working on new material” but that there’s nothing concrete in the pipeline – noted that their breakthrough collection has had something of a rollercoaster reaction over the years.
He recalled: “It went through its ups and downs in a public way in the first five years. “The Middle was very successful in a commercial way where you didn’t have to seek it out because it was on the radio. Sweetness too.
“The people that are finding the album now, or in the last 10 years, means it’s something they’ve sought out or have been able to absorb in a way that allows it to be theirs, on a personal level.”
When it came to that sudden success 25 years ago, Jim admitted the band tried to strike a balance between enjoying the moment while not getting too attached to the feeling.
He explained: “Your whole being has prepared you to reject praise and accomplishment because it gets taken away.
“We internalised things the best we could, but we were in our early 20s, so we tried to be as present as possible and have fun with it, while not taking it seriously.
“We took our music deadly serious, but tried to keep everything else in the background.”