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1 - From www.rollingstone.com:

Third Eye Blind Open Up About Next Record

3EB's Stephan Jenkins hunkers down to finish album


Blind-sided by a deadline.

Third Eye Blind finally emerged from exile to play a few songs for their label last week. Hamstrung by a deadline imposed by Elektra, the band has been putting in eighteen-hour days to finish the follow-up to their self-titled 1997 debut. "We haven't seen the light of day in weeks," complains singer Stephan Jenkins. "The pace of recording and working on this thing has really been brutal. Arion [Salazar, bassist] and I have been deep in the studio day and night.
The band began writing songs last spring and have curtailed their touring schedule to get this record out before the end of the year. "That's pretty amazingly fast," says Jenkins. "When bands like the Smashing Pumpkins started their record before we even finished touring, and they're not going to put it out this year."
So far, six of the twenty or so songs have been mastered, with seven more to go. The band didn't employ Eric Valentine, who co-produced (with Jenkins) their debut, to twirl the knobs this time around. Instead, production is credited to the Mudd Sisters, a sobriquet that Jenkins sheepishly admits is his: "Yeah, I'm the Mudd sisters, both of them." Aiding and abetting in the process is Jason Carmer, an engineer friend of the singer's whom Jenkins elevated to head studio rat.
The disc was originally going to be called Red Summer Sun, after one of the songs, but Jenkins decided to change it to Sunburn, because as he puts it, it's "a very Third Eye Blind concept."
"It's kind of delicious pain," he explained. "Things that hurt us that we do to ourselves. Sunburn is also very nostalgic because my days of sunburn are long gone. People don't get sunburns anymore because it's bad for you." But just as they were mocking up cover art, they found that another band is calling their upcoming record Sunburn and that the Juliana Hatfield-led Blake Babies also had an album of that name. "Right now we're thinking either Chopper or Ultra Violent," he revealed.
A recent contest sponsored by The San Francisco Weekly also landed a few names in the hopper, and Jenkins admits that some of them had possibilities. "The best names were Get Your Goat, Have an Axe to Grind, and Bad, Naughty Evil. Who knows, maybe they'll end up on the next Third Eye Blind album," he laughed.
The band plan to mount a tour in February, but will do a few sporadic local dates, including next month's VooDoo Fest in New Orleans, along with Wyclef Jean, George Clinton and the newly resurrected Parliament/Funkadelic, Ben Folds Five and Moby.
"What's really key about this is that we got together in the spring after two years of constant touring," Jenkins said. "All four members of this band really have juice in their own way. Kevin [Cadogan, guitarist] and I got together and wrote a bunch of songs together. And this time Arion went into the studio and produced them. So the dynamic changed a little. Brad [Hargreaves, drums] really developed the most. He's just become this sticks-smashing crusher; he's not interested in doing Dave Matthews drums. But he's one of the only drummers I know who can play jungle beats in real time. There are no loops on this record. Nothing came out of a drum machine."
In sum, Jenkins says, "it's a bigger, wilder record in a lot of ways."
JAAN UHELSZKI
(September 24, 1999)

 

2 - From www.sonicnet.com:
Third Eye Blind Singer Calls Upcoming Sophomore Album 'Earthy, Haunted'
Stephan Jenkins, working with bandmates on still-untitled effort in San Francisco studio, previews several new power-pop tunes. Senior Writer Gil Kaufman reports:
SAN FRANCISCO — Third Eye Blind singer Stephan Jenkins couldn't help but play along to the songs from his band's upcoming sophomore album as they boomed from the recording studio speakers Wednesday.
Leaning forward on an office chair, Jenkins — wearing gym shoes, cargo pants and a gray T-shirt with the word "evolve" written in English under Chinese characters — un-self-consciously played air guitar and drums to punctuate the driving pop songs the quartet recorded for the effort, tentatively due Nov. 23.
"This is where we play, literally, as in the way kids play," Jenkins said, pointing to a darkened studio littered with guitars and a massive poster of a 1940s San Francisco exotic dancer named Patti Waggin. The band has been recording the album's 13 songs at the studio on and off for the past five months, he said.
The 5-foot-tall cheesecake image of a voluptuous stripper bent over at the waist was positioned directly in front of the space where Jenkins tracked his vocals for the album. "She's my inspiration," he said with a mischievous grin. "She's saying, 'You can have my ass, but not my mind.' "
The six songs Jenkins previewed from the still-untitled album, the follow-up to the San Francisco group's eponymous, multiplatinum 1997 debut, brimmed with his signature evocative lyrics — as well as a more intricate evolution of the band's hard-driving pop-rock sound.
The debut spawned a number of radio hits, including "Graduate" (RealAudio excerpt) and the breakthrough track "Semi-Charmed Life" (RealAudio excerpt).
"I definitely think [the new album is] a bigger, wider-open record," Jenkins said. "It takes a bigger step. This record as a totality is earthy and haunted, and those two adjectives sort of pervade all the tracks" (RealAudio excerpt of interview).
Owing to the explosive '70s-rock riffs on new songs such as "Wounded" and "Never Let You Go," Jenkins and bassist Arion Salazar said the group has labeled the new sound "chopper rock."
"Imagine making a David Crosby kind of handlebar walrus mustache with your fingers, and putting your hands in the position to ride a motorcycle and you'll get what we mean," Salazar, 29, joked from the studio Thursday.
Jenkins said most of the tracks on the self-produced album are collaborative efforts by the band's four members, the exception being "Slow Motion," a rock ballad Jenkins played on a Fender Telecaster guitar backed only by an organ riff.
"Miss Jones taught me English/ But I think I just shot her son/ 'Cause he owed me money/ With a bullet in the chest you cannot run/ Now he's bleeding in a vacant lot," Jenkins sings.
He said the lyrics to "Slow Motion," which also include lines about a woman overdosing from cocaine cut with Drano, are meant as a protest Hollywood's glamorization of violence.
"Arion and I wrote two songs together, and I think it's definitely a new dawn in terms of his participation," Jenkins said. Elsewhere on the album, on songs such as the midtempo acoustic ballad "Deep Inside of You" and the dub-reggae-style "Darwin," (also known as "Is God a DJ"), the whole band is involved in creating sounds new to the group's style.
Although Jenkins said the group didn't use any drum machines on the album, drummer Brad Hargreaves played what sounded like looped techno jungle beats on "Wounded," a dark, true-life story of a friend recovering from a sexual assault.
"And you used to speak so easily/ And you're afraid to talk to me," Jenkins sings in the driving rock song. "It's like walking with the wounded," he concludes, as a swell of orchestral strings rise up after the chorus, and a barrage of '70s rock guitar chords break out behind them.
Jenkins said the group — which also includes guitarist Kevin Cadogan — has come up with several tongue-in-cheek potential titles so far, including Ultraviolet Guardians of the Chopper Universe and, once again, Third Eye Blind.
The band had written more than 30 songs for the effort, with 17 tracked so far, Jenkins said. The other song the singer previewed was the two-minute power-pop tune "I'll Give You Anything." It's a bouncy, new wave-style rock song about betrayal and loss. "You say that I changed," Jenkins sang over chopper-rock guitars, "Well, maybe I did/ Even if I changed, what's wrong with it?"
Also expected for the album are "Red Summer Sun," "Camouflage" and the emotional song "Ten Days Late," which features members of a local Catholic school boys choir singing backup.
"They were the honest-to-goodness, cream-of-the-crop best," Salazar said of the seven budding rock stars. "And this one guy, Albert, has a solo, and he's a [famed opera tenor Luciano] Pavarotti in waiting. We've introduced them to the seedy world of showbiz."

3 - Once again, SF Weekly (www.sfweekly.com) has nothing good to say about 3eb.  Dude, this was written in AUGUST and I JUST had it brought to my attention.  Think what cha like...

Riff Raff ~ History, As Written by the Winners
SF Weekly - August.18.1999 by Mark Athitakis
The story thus far: Awhile back, Riff Raff reviewed a show at the Paradise Lounge by a band called Titty, which was actually local stud-rockers Third Eye Blind under an assumed name. We said some not-very-nice things, and a lot of 3EB fans said some not-very-nice things in response. So, we decided to hold a contest where folks could suggest a title for the band's as-yet-unnamed sophomore album, and offered prizes: a 1995 demo tape and accompanying letter signed by frontman Stephan Jenkins for the first-prize winner, and a bottle of Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo brand tequila for second prize. Since then, the entries have been flowing in. OK, maybe not flowing exactly. Think steady trickle. But a smart steady trickle, at least. 
"I have an excellent title for the forthcoming Third Eye Blind album," writes Jack Chandler. "How about Derivative, Uninteresting Music for the Apparently Clueless?" 
Sorry, Mr. Chandler, but you misread what we said. This was not a Barenaked Ladies album title contest. "Oh, yeah, and tell Dan Savage I want to have his baby," he adds. We'll see if we can't pass the message along while you're working on changing genetics as we know it. 
"Smilinglightbulbhead" suggests Garden Variety Angst, which comes close to winning, but not quite — we'll keep it in mind for any Morrissey competitions we may have in the future. "Now to confess my secret shame," the message continues, "the music of both Sammy Hagar and 3EB have on occasion made me very happy, yet I can never admit it to my friends. Is there anything about a support group on the Steven [sic] Jenkins [Web] site?" 
We checked — no. But there is an interview by stephanjenkins.com's Webmaster with Mr. Jenkins, which features this scintillating exchange: 
Interviewer: "Um, did you ever have UnderRoos? The Star Wars UnderRoos?"
Jenkins: "No."
"Or were you too old for those when they were out?"
"I never had...No, I didn't have any of those things."
"You didn't?"
"Uh uh."
"I think you might've been a little too old, 'cause I'm 22."
"I didn't have any swag like that." 
Other topics covered in the course of the interview include: Mr. Jenkins' "anxieties about being a piece of meat"; whether he's an innie or an outie (answer: innie); teenage pregnancy; what he was doing the day of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (partial answer: making out). 
Matt Snyder suggests Turd I Find — oh, come on, way too easy — but deserved mention for claiming himself as a "worldwide purveyor of finely crafted donkey skills." 
Whatever that means. There were, however, winners to be found in the midst of all this. The enterprising Greg Isernhagen submitted no less than seven title ideas, including Vishnu Were Here and Polypropylene Soul, but we found ourselves most amused by Titty!: An Opera. The bottle of tequila's yours, Greg. 
Tom Grissom suggested Testosterone Hijinks: The Sophomore Years, but Gunnar Rosenquist did one better with his Beatles-esque album concept: "Have the members of the band on the cover spelling out the word 'jinx' in semaphore. Little flags and everything. Jinx would be the title." The tape and letter are yours, Mr. Rosenquist.

12 - 3eb.com confirms the new album's name and release date...

3EB New Release: November - 10/12/1999 New York, NY--(October 12, 1999)--Elektra’s Third Eye Blind are scheduled to release Blue, the follow-up to their spectacularly successful debut, on November 23. Blue, recorded at Northern California’s infamous studio The Plant, was again produced by frontman Stephan Jenkins along with his 3eb bandmates.

San Francisco-based Third Eye Blind stormed the music world in 1997 with their self-titled, self-produced debut, which achieved sales of more than 4 million. The record remained on Billboard’s Top Albums chart for an incredible 104 weeks, generating countless anthems, including "Semi-Charmed Life," "Graduate," "How’s It Going To Be," "Losing A Whole Year" and "Jumper." The band’s signature sound dominated radio, with "Semi-Charmed Life" earning the significant honor of most-played song on radio in 1997 and, amazingly, "Jumper" earned similar honors for the first half of 1999. Throughout, 3eb toured relentlessly, emerging as one of the 90’s top headlining acts, all the while landing numerous awards and nominations, a performance on tv’s Saturday Night Live, capping things off in the fall of 1998 as MTV’s band of choice to headline the channel’s premier Campus Invasion tour.

They were just getting warmed up. 3eb’s boldest move yet, Blue, hits November 23. With Blue, 3eb capture the primal spontaneity that was unleashed by three years of intensive touring.

Third Eye Blind are frontman Stephan Jenkins, bassist Arion Salazar, guitar Kevin Cadogan and drummer Brad Hargreaves.

13 - STEPHAN SIGHTING!   November issue of Glamour magazine page 100 includes a pic of Stephan with hunny Charlize!

14 - Third Eye Blind To Get "Blue" In November (from MTV.com)
STEPHAN JENKINSThose "Semi-Charmed Life" leaders of Third Eye Blind are prepared to drop their new album, "Blue," in stores next month.
The San Francisco-based group chose to stick with the production team responsible for its self-titled debut (a surprise hit which moved over four million copies in the U.S.), as "Blue," like its predecessor, was produced by frontman Stephan Jenkins along with bandmates Arion Salazar, Kevin Cadogan, and Brad Hargreaves.
"Blue" is scheduled to arrive on November 23.

16 - Lon3EBdon@aol.com   found this on cdnow.com  May 28, 1998, 12:00 am PT
Stephan Jenkins, lead singer of Third Eye Blind, found himself with a bad bout of road rage in Los Angeles Thursday (May 14), but it wasn't the L.A. drivers getting him down. It was KLYY (Y107) jock Mike Savage. While Jenkins was driving around in town -- listening to the alternative station Y107 -- h
heard Savage on-air going on about how he wanted to make an ass out of Jenkins because of his former band, the hip-hop group Puck & Natty, which had a song on Beverly Hills, 90210: The Soundtrack, released in 1992 on Giant Records. Jenkins said something to the effect of this to Savage: "Yeah, I
used to rap, so what? I was living on the floor of my friend's apartment at the time, and I was offered lots of money to put one of my songs on the Beverly Hills, 90210 soundtrack, so I did it, OK?" Jenkins went on to rant that the rumors that he wrote the theme song to the show are false (no duh), but if they had asked him to write it at the time, he would've done it in a second. So there you have it...

15 - Third Eye Blind    Third Eye Blind Feeling 'Blue' (from Launch.com)
(10/15/99, 1 a.m. PDT) - Blue, the new album by Third Eye Blind, will be released Nov. 23. It was recorded at the Plant in Northern California, with singer Stephan Jenkins handling the production duties.
Jenkins tells LAUNCH that he looks at the band's career as an constantly evolving process. "I don't think Third Eye Blind is ever going to be where it wants to be," he says. "We're always sort of figuring out what Third Eye Blind is. I don't think we're ever going to reach our goals, and why would you ever want to do that?"
Guitarist Kevin Cadogan adds that the band wanted to go into the studio after one year of its two-year touring cycle. "Of course, we got the itch," he says. "It's so much fun to go into the studio and create...when you're out on the road, you're in playback mode."

17 - Jen turns 23!  All the Libra's in the howse ~ can I getta WHA WHA!?

20 - STEPHAN SIGHTING! "Semi-Charmed Life" will be on VH1's Pop-Up Video at 9:30 am EST.

24 - STEPHAN SIGHTING! NATIONAL ARTISTS COME TOGETHER FOR ACOUSTIC JAM TO BENEFIT BREAST CANCER AT BREASTFEST ’99 OCTOBER 24, 1999
LOS ANGELES (Oct. 5, 1999) – Duncan Sheik and Stephan Jenkins (Third Eye Blind) headline Breastfest ’99 to benefit breast cancer research Sunday, Oct. 24, at the Key Club (9039 Sunset Blvd.) in Los Angeles.
Other artists performing include Grant Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo), Summercamp, Abra Moore, EarlyDawn, Govinda and Kristy Thirsk.
Held during breast cancer awareness month, BreastFest ‘99 will use music to create awareness to a younger generation, while raising funds for the UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center in Los Angeles, one of the few comprehensive cancer centers in the United States.
" After going through my mother having breast cancer, my wife and I felt like we had to take some sort of action and do it in our own way… a unique way that will really draw attention to the fight against this horrific disease," said Stephen Staats, co-event producer of BreastFest. "One of the best ways I felt to do this was to educate younger generations and raise the awareness that breast cancer affects everyone."
Tickets are available at all TicketMaster locations or at the Key Club box office, where VIP Tickets will be sold.
BreastFest ’99 was created and is being produced by Los Angeles based company, Grass Ring Promotions, whose founders’ (Stephen and Michele Staats) lives have both been affected by breast cancer. The company plans on making BreastFest an annual event. For additional information or contributions, e-mail breastfest99@yahoo.com

25 - 3eb sent an email to all fans with 3eb websites and here's what it said:

Third Eye Blind is launching a new official site at 3eb.com in early November. We are taking this url address from Elektra. The new site will include:
Bios, Tour Dates, News, Updates, Photos 
Online merchandise section
Road section with updates/road journal from the band and concert photos while band is on tour
Music section with audio and video clips, lyrics from 3eb albums
Official Fan Club with its own members only section
The band really appreciates the support and efforts of the Third Eye Blind Web community. So each month, we will highlight one of your websites so other fans can check out your hard work. 
We will also be sending you periodically exclusive photos of the band for your websites and offering tickets and passes for shows. 
The new record, Blue, is finished and will be released November 23. "Anything", the first single, will be released November 1 so please call your radio stations to request. The band will launch a tour to support the new album sometime in February. We will keep everyone up to date.
The band will appear on The Late Show with David Letterman on November 26 so everyone tune in to watch.
The band is really excited about the new album and hopes that their fans will enjoy it.

26 - STEPHAN SIGHTING! NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno airs a repeat performance of "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind.

31 - STEPHAN SIGHTING!

I do, you do, we all do VOODOO!  
Voodoo Music Fest, that is!
Sunday, October 31 12:00PM - 11:00PM (EST)
www.RollingStone.com Webcast live from New Orleans

 
For more info on this event click HERE
Look who's going to Voodoo Fest!
Jen    Jenna     Dana    Jo    Kelly    missyjoan@hotmail.com
valerie.rosenhauer@gte.net     volkswgnbg@aol.com     smiles4321@aol.com

Are you going?  Lemme know!