We definitely saw a progression of people that were coming to shows without MTV or radio being a contributor, real fans that just got something from the music. We’d play a show, then we'd come back and be on a better bill. Every time we would come to a different city, there would be more people. We were better prepared for it because we had been touring for awhile, and saw a lot of progress based on that. Did you feel prepared for how sudden your success came following “The Middle?” You had been touring and making records for several years prior. There wasn't any major shift from our perspective, in how we operated or what we were doing. When were "on the label," and when they had let us go, we didn’t notice anything. We flew pretty low under the radar at Capitol. From our perspective, it was just a continuation of what we were doing. Is any part of “The Middle” a thematic reaction to that? Did it feel like vindication when it became successful?
You had just been dropped from Capitol before writing Bleed American. I just found it funny that these people who were identifying with punk would be closed-minded towards someone for not being punk enough, and just felt like, "They don't get it, and you shouldn't worry about them." People love to argue about what "punk rock" means, but I think a basic tenet that everyone might agree on is a level of open-mindedness. There was a girl who wrote in saying that she was not feeling like she fit in at her school, because she wasn't punk enough. It was like an electronic version of writing the band post office box. That was our first venture into the internet, before websites were a main thing. Who are you talking to in the song? Is it just a general sentiment, or directed at someone specifically?īack in the days of really early social media experiments, we had an email address. When it's the four of us playing a whole lot of shows, it can't help but influence that. It is more straightforward, more rock in a way. We were touring a lot more leading up to making Bleed American than Clarity, and I think that influenced it. At least from your own perspective, you might not have the most objective opinion about it.Įven though Mark Trombino produced both Clarity and Bleed American, Bleed American has a very different aesthetic. I remember that it came together really easily, and I think there's a tendency to think that because something came together quickly, it's less good than something you struggled with.
I wasn't even sure if it would make the album. It really wasn't until much later on that people started reacting to it.īefore the album came out, did you have any notion that it would be a single? It just felt like it was just another song we had in the bag. ĭo you have any specific memories of the actual recording process? Was there anything significant about how it came together? During that period, we were touring for a couple of weeks here and there, then coming back home. JIM ADKINS: I don't remember exactly, but it was all around the same time. At what point in writing Bleed American did "The Middle" come about?
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