With Third Eye Blind's Summer Gods tour just around the corner, Stephan Jenkins sits down with Bennett of The NEW 96.5 to chat about the band's discography, which lyrics mean the most to Stephan, and what he's looking forward to most about performing at Freedom Mortgage Pavilion on Friday, July 12, 2024. Watch above, or listen below.
As a long-time fan of the band, Bennett shares with Jenkins what keeps him going back to Third Eye Blind's shows, seeing them more than any band he ever has.
"What brought me in first were the words, right? The lyrics, always, right - and that stayed true throughout your whole discography. I've always felt that way, your words really just capture me. But, it's the feeling at these shows, it's a sense of community." Bennett goes on to share the connection he once shared with his siblings, and now with his wife while attending the shows.
Jenkins then dives in to share how he crafts the setlist for his shows, keeping things 'new' and 'fresh.'
"I just go from feeling, like how do I want to feel? How do you want to feel? How do you want things to grow? What's the mood? [...] Joy has many different components to it. We're not a party band, we never have been, that's not like anything that's ever interested me. There's more of a totality of feeling that's important to me that feels compelling to me that I'm trying to develop, so I just kind of see it. What gives you the sense of collective feeling, connection with each other, warmth - that's what I'm looking for."
As Bennett shares which lyrics from the band that have spoken the most to him over the years, Jenkins goes on to share his favorites as well.
"'The police high beams froze her perfect face in white glow for a while, The Politburo's on high alert and her name showed up on file,' I don't really know how I wrote that song [...] To have kind of downloaded that whole imagery, was really something. 'I took my blade, and I cut him deep and the blood bloomed red on his crisp white shirt for your party guests to see,'"
Third Eye Blind is bringing the Summer Gods Tour to Freedom Mortgage Pavilion this summer. As Jenkins shares what Philadelphia means to him, he also shares what we can expect from the tour as a whole.
"On this tour we're going to do an acoustic section. I absolutely vow that I will have new music, so I'm gonna have new music. We'll do a section where we strip out all the amps, just bring in acoustic guitars, mandolins, hippie drums, and kind of - try to reimage songs. There'll be all kinds of different stuff going on."
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