I saw Jimmy Eat World at a tiny little club in Memphis called Barrister’s about 10 years ago. You guys were opening for Jejune that night, and it was such a great show.

I was actually trying to remember the name of that place.

So that’s been 10 years ago, and I’ve moved up to Massachusetts since then. In a few weeks, you’ll be playing near my new home in Lowell, at the Tsongas Arena, which is about 100 times the size of Barristers. Tell me what’s changed within the band in the last ten years?

Well, I think a lot has changed. At that point in time – back when we were playing at Barrister’s – we were in a situation where we were on a major label but were sort of marginally forgotten. So we were kind of in a position that we actually shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t a good situation for both parties, because I’m sure we were costing the label money they didn’t want to spend, and we weren’t making them any of that money back. And at the same time the label were like “whatever” for us, because they didn’t really care. But the good part is that we learned to operate somewhat independently. Even though we’ve been on a major label pretty much our whole career, we’ve figured out that the more we can be involved in, the more we can do, and the more the direction that we go in comes from us, the better. So using that, just being able to take Bleed American and record it the way we did, it meant Bleed American having the success that it did, and it definitely changed things. The most notable thing that changed is that now when we go on tour, we’re going all over the world, but before, when we were a much younger band, we were pretty much just focused on the U.S. and would maybe play some Canada dates. So that’s probably been the biggest change - when we go on tour for a record, we’re not just going to the East Coast, or the West Coast, or the Midwest. We’re going to Europe, and Japan, and Australia. So I think the touring is so much different.

The album Clarity had a really profound effect on me personally. I told everyone I knew at the time that you guys would be famous one day, and for once my prediction came true, but not until an album later. I know I’m not alone in my views of Clarity. As a performer, what do you think was so special about that album that it really resonated with people?

I’m not sure. It’s hard to really put my finger on it. From our perspective, I think we’re really proud of Clarity. It’s definitely the first record that we ever made where we felt that we had a really good sense of what we wanted to do. We had a big batch of songs, and we knew what we wanted to do, just because we’d had the experience of making Static Prevails. With that album, we were kind of flying blind and not exactly sure how everything was going to settle in. With Clarity, we weren’t too experienced, but we were experienced enough, and I think that probably contributed to the freshness of the sound. It was sort of an unassuming time for us as a band. We made that record totally under the radar.

So tell me what it was like witnessing the sound that you helped shape leak into the mainstream such that you now hear it on the radio all the time? What was it like witnessing that change in mainstream radio?

I think we pretty much largely ignored it. We don’t really have that good a sense of it. We typically don’t pay much attention to that, so it’s hard to step outside of it and see it for what it is.

What kind of evolution has happened to your own music over the last few years? What’s shaped your music and how do you think it’s evolved?

I don’t think it’s changed all that drastically. We don’t really view it as an evolution. When we make a record, we have a batch of songs. If we like a song, we keep working on it, and if we don’t, we scrap it. It’s kind of that simple for us. We don’t necessarily compare it to other records. We just move forward.

Does each of you contribute your own part to the songs? Does Jim [Adkins] come in with the ideas, and you guys build around them? How does that work?

It kind of depends. For the majority of the songs, Jim comes in with a pretty full idea. Sometimes they can evolve into something totally something different, or sometimes they stay as is. Or sometimes songs are started in a totally different way, like with a drum loop or a bass line or something like that. It kind of depends, but usually for Jim, when he’s coming up with a song, he has a melody and a chord progression in his head, and he puts that down, and we build around it.

What about the changes in the music industry over the last few years? Being on a major label for most of your career, as you said, do you see that as important in this age of MySpace and YouTube?

I think things like MySpace and YouTube can help. They’re pieces of the puzzle. But the one thing I would say is, while those things can help, to a certain degree, it also allows so many other bands to “join the noise.” And what’s unfortunate is that with so many bands, and so much music – the demand just isn’t there for all that music. So on one hand, the new way of getting your music out is cool, but at the same time, it makes the whole music world more crowded.

There’s no filter.

Right. Indie labels and major labels, to a certain extent, acted as filters. They filtered out all the crap, and if you were a decent band, maybe you’d find yourself on Merge or Touch n’ Go [both indie record labels], or if you were a little more commercial, you’d be on a major label. But now, there’s no filter. It’s like, you can buy a laptop and an Mbox, and you can put your music on MySpace, and do what you can to saturate the Internet with your band or your songs. I think as labels struggle, that’s going to be the hard thing. No one’s going to know where to turn. Radio’s dying. Major labels aren’t really signing a whole lot of new bands. So it’s going to be interesting to see what happens. There’s no filter. It’s like this big white noise of bands.

A lot more work for the consumer.

Yeah, it is. And people just don’t have time to sift through it all. It’s unfortunate, because as radio’s dying, and certain traditional ways of getting your music exposed are dying, the powers that be are only going to market the records they know will sell. So if you’re Interscope, and you have a TV on the Radio [indie band from New York City] record, you’re probably not going to market that, because you want to take that money and spend it on Fergie or someone else, or you’re going to sign Paris Hilton to a record deal. In their mind, that’s money better spent, because it’s easier to market.

Tell me a little about the new album. I know Butch Vig [famed producer of Nirvana’s Nevermind album and founder of the band Garbage] played a part in the creation of it. How did that relationship come about?

We were looking for someone like Butch Vig to be involved in the record, but not on an everyday basis. The reason why is because before we started making the record, we decided we wanted to make it in our own town, in our own studio, and produce it ourselves. So we felt that having someone like Butch would be a good safety net. Someone who we could bounce ideas off of, and could be involved from afar. So while we would be at the helm, we’d have someone checking out the process and making sure that we weren’t going crazy in the studio. It worked out well because Butch had just finished touring with Garbage and he and his wife had just had a baby, so he was looking to get involved in records but didn’t want to hang out in Arizona for six months. So it worked out really well.

I almost here a little bit of that Garbage sound sneaking into the mix. Do you think his playing a part had an effect on the sound of the record?

I don’t know if he necessarily had a big part in the sound. He was really focusing on the overall vibe of the songs, and asking questions like, “Is this exciting? Is this rocking?” For this record, what we really wanted when we noticed that we had this batch of really great pop rock songs, was to make them concise and exciting, and make them jump out, and make the mix really fun to listen to. Butch was definitely involved in that, but I think in terms of the actual sound, that would have more to do with our engineer, Ross Hogarth, and the mix engineer, John Fields.

So what’s it like going home to Mesa these days? Are you guys the hometown heroes?

I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I don’t ever get stopped or anything. It’s pretty low key and anonymous.

Are there any new directions for your music? Any new places you want to take it?

We typically don’t think of our music along those lines. We try not to dictate what our sound will be. We sort through our ideas and pick the best songs, regardless of the ideas they are.

So what’s it like playing for thousands of people at Tsongas Arena versus playing for a hundred at Barrister’s? Do you have a preference?

It really depends on the crowd. We’ve played in front of small crowds that were totally dead and small crowds that were great, and the same for big crowds. I think for us, it’s all about the crowd energy and the energy between the band and the audience. Sometimes it’s there, and sometimes it isn’t. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a small show or a big show. I think there are a lot of really great things that happen in a small, intimate setting. But at the same time, there are benefits and drawbacks to both. We still try to mix it up. We’ve done some small shows in Arizona that have been really fun. It really just depends on the atmosphere.