And walk with the mighty--nay, trample them underfoot--is what Jenkins intends for his band to do. In late '97, 3EB opened for both U2 and the Rolling Stones on their respective tours. The latter jaunt brought Jenkins' competitive nature to the fore. "Every single night I got out there and sprinted from one side of the stage to the other, just playing guitar and sprinting at top speed," he says. "I never stopped. There was no way that Mick Jagger was gonna outrun me."
Jenkins chuckles wryly as he recalls the sole interaction he and Jagger had off stage, when 3EB posed with the Stones for a publicity photo. "After it was over, Mick grinned at me and asked, 'Did you enjoy that?'"
"I don't want to slight the Stones," he continues. "I was there one night when they went into a jam that was far superior to anything U2 or Third Eye Blind ever came up with. But most nights they sucked, and we could have played their set better than they played it. And that's reality."
That 3EB are superstars in their own right and not the Greatest Rolling Stones Cover Band in the World is no accident. Jenkins, who says he was once a squatter "by choice" in a Haight Street building, assembled the group from the remnants of other Bay Area bands circa 1993. Once they began gigging and writing songs, says Jenkins, it was clear 3EB had that proverbial "special" chemistry. A couple of years later, their demo tape landed in the hands of Elektra Records chairman and CEO Sylvia Rhone, who liked what she heard and dispatched a junior staffer to San Francisco to check them out.
The scout returned with sad news: The band wasn't any good.
"Normally," says Rhone, "I would have taken that at face value. But I was haunted by these songs I'd heard that I knew had hit potential, so I went to a showcase to see for myself. And they were all that, the whole package--songs, musicianship, performance. I fought to get them and sign them. We moved very quickly on that deal." (Jenkins remembers seeing Rhone in the audience, bopping and singing the words to "Good for You," and thinking, "That matters." For the record, the tin-eared A&R person "is no longer with the company," according to Rhone.)
But despite this auspicious beginning, the group's relationship with the label hasn't been a total love-fest. After "Semi-Charmed Life" became a smash, Jenkins took great pleasure in telling anyone who would listen that the song was about methamphetamine addiction and oral sex--a fact Elektra bigs would rather have swept under the rug. The aren't-we-naughty-boys? high jinks continued at the 1998 American Music Awards, when Jenkins changed the lyric "Can I graduate?" to "Can I masturbate?" while performing "Graduate."
Earlier this year, the label went apoplectic over the lyrics to "Slow Motion," a new song about gun violence, drugs, and wife-beating intended for Blue. A squabble ensued, and a compromise was reached: A so-called instrumental version of "Slow Motion," which includes only the song's chorus, is featured on Blue, while the full song is slated to appear on a compilation the band will release sometime in 2000.
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