On Jimmy Eat World's song "A Praise Chorus," a track off the band's 2001 album, Bleed American, frontman Jim Adkins sings, "Even at 25, you got to start sometime." Now 25 years later, Jimmy Eat World is celebrating a quarter-century of their biggest record.
Speaking with ABC Audio, Adkins describes marking the 25th anniversary of Bleed American as "bonkers."
"It's so wild and it just hits in a completely different way now," Adkins says.
"When we made Bleed American, we had really little expectations for what was gonna happen," he continues. "When things just went nuts, it was, you know, 'That's not real.' Where are you supposed to put that ... in your 20s?"
Adkins plans to savor the love around Bleed American more on Jimmy Eat World's 25th anniversary tour, which launches Tuesday at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado. He also feels that he and his bandmates have grown a lot as musicians over the last 25 years.
"I feel like we're better performers, we're better players," Adkins says. "So we can present this material in a way that maybe is probably the best that we've been able to do it."
Along with "A Praise Chorus," Bleed American features Jimmy Eat World's signature song, "The Middle," as well as the singles "Sweetness" and the title track. While all of those songs have long been staples of Jimmy Eat World's live set, Adkins says relistening to the record's original multitrack tapes has reminded him of how it all began.
"The measurements and ingredients of the original recipe are laid bare there," Adkins says. "Some of it isn't what I remember."
"Actually digging into the record, the guts of it ... it really forced us to look at it in a way that we haven't really since then," he adds.