| Biography
Jimmy Eat World formed in Mesa, Arizona in 1993. Singer/guitarist Jim Adkins and drummer Zach Lind, who had been friends since kindergarten, joined forces with guitarist Tom Linton and bass player Mitch Porter to try their hand at music. In its early years, the band emulated the style of their punk-rock influences, eventually recording and releasing three singles and a full-length on local label Wooden Blue Records.
 The name Jimmy Eat World did not refer to lead singer Jim Adkins. Tom Linton's younger siblings, Ed and Jimmy, fought constantly when they were younger. Jimmy, who was stronger and heavier, would usually win. Ed, at 8-years-old, as revenge, drew with crayons a picture of Jimmy shoving the entire world into his gaping mouth with the caption, "Jimmy eat world." The picture, and by extension the band name, may have been inspired by an episode of the cartoon show Tiny Toon Adventures, where the main characters put on a student film festival. Dizzy Devil's film, "Dizzy Eat World", was a 5 second piece drawn crudely in crayon where Dizzy's gaping maw engulfed the Earth. The piece met with deafening silence from the toon audience.
Eventually, spurred by bands such as Fugazi and Sunny Day Real Estate, the band began to experiment with a sub-genre of the hardcore rock scene called "emocore". As they began writing songs and touring in the indie scene, the band were surprised to find like-minded bands such as Christie Front Drive, Sense Field, and Seven Storey Mountain working on similar sounds. Typically, similar sounds came from local scenes (such as Seattle's grunge explosion), but with "emo-core", the "scene" was spread throughout the country.
As the band continued touring, they began to attract modest attention in the indie underground. In 1995, label president (and former Nirvana A&R) Gary Gersh signed the fledging band to Capitol Records. Around this time, bass player Mitch Porter parted ways with the band and was replaced by Linton's friend Rick Burch. After a brief scouting for producers, the band joined up with Drive Like Jehu drummer Mark Trombino to record their debut album Static Prevails. Static Prevails closely reflected what existed in the "emo-core" scene at the time, a balance between punk-influenced scream-alongs and quiet, introspective moments.
Rather than push the band through the major-label promotion machine, Gersh opted for a more subtle approach, allowing the band to develop within the indie underground. In the ensuing years, the band was allowed to release singles on independent labels, including split 7-inch's with Christie Front Drive, Jejune, Sense Field, and Mineral. Where most major-label bands were ostracized from the underground as "sell-outs", Jimmy Eat World found themselves in a unique position where they had support from a major label while being embraced by the indie community.
(Source: wikipedia, www.wikipedia.com)
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