As fans were awed by the nostalgia of the 2022 When We Were Young festival lineup, Jimmy Eat World frontman Jim Adkins was inspired to write a new song.
"Something Loud," the latest single from "The Middle" outfit, reflects Adkins' feelings on the overwhelming reaction to the festival lineup, which, along with Jimmy Eat World, features fellow "scene" staples My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Avril Lavigne, The Used, Taking Back Sunday, AFI and Dashboard Confessional.
As Adkins tells ABC Audio, the response to When We Were Young was "kinda mind-boggling" for him, especially as he remembers the early, pre-"The Middle" days of Jimmy Eat World in the '90s.
"When we were playing gigs and on tour with ... our peer group in that festival, like, there was no one there," Adkins laughs. "There was absolutely nobody there, no one cared."
"It was just a mixed bag of emotions and thoughts and feelings that came up, just pondering all of that," he shares.
What started out as a mixed bag led to an uplifting anthem in "Something Loud." In his When We Were Young-inspired reminiscing, Adkins was reminded of Jimmy Eat World's "core mission": to write songs that are "fun to play."
"It's hard to separate all the memories I have from performances and being on tour," Adkins shares. "I mean, that's a gigantic part of my life in music."
"Something Loud" certainly boasts a classic Jimmy Eat World guitar riff, which plays between shouts of the phrase "All night!", a sound Adkins felt was appropriate for this particular song.
"We were never that band," Adkins says. "But ... that's in my head of the ultimate punk rock show experience.