Welcome to LOST A WHOLE YEAR, the most definitive stop for all your Third Eye Blind fan needs! New and interesting stuff is (not) destined to be added all the time.

Just the other day, someone was saying...

What happened to Third Eye Blind?

Geez, has it been 25 years already?! The halcyon years of the 1990s may be a distant memory today...but for a brief and glorious moment at the tail end of that decade, Third Eye Blind were one of the biggest and best bands on the planet.

The talent behind the band was collaborative. There was Stephan Jenkins, the voice. There was Kevin Cadogan; the creative counterbalance, the Edge to Stephan's Bono. There was Brad Hargreaves, the rhythm element. There was Arion Salazar, the bassist and fan favourite. There was Eric Valentine in the control room, twiddling the knobs. And there was manager Eric Godtland, who bore a lot of the impetus for there being a band in the first place.

Working together, this slate of talent created music that went far and beyond what any one of these people could have done on their own. Unfortunately, it was not to last.

No longer in the band.

No longer in the band.

No longer in the band.

Am I still in the band?

I am the band.

According to the original legal plan for the band, Third Eye Blind was an equal partnership between Stephan Jenkins and guitarist Kevin Cadogan. This was natural: Both Jenkins and Cadogan were in the band from the moment it was named; both collaborated on songwriting, and both asserted creative control over their work. But before the ink on the band's contract was even dry, Jenkins went and created clandestine "Third Eye Blind" legal entities owned only by himself. Cadogan didn't find out what happened until three years later! Tensions came to a head, and in 2000 the band's cofounding guitarist found himself fired.

In retrospect, the band's heyday ended then and there. But fans like myself tried to make lemonade out of lemons; we spent years trying to stay optimistic about Third Eye Blind's future. After all, Cadogan's replacement Tony Fredianelli had a great stage presence, and was a talented guitarist in his own right. Arion Salazar was still around, too, and was ramping up his creative involvement while engaging with fans on the web. But 2003's Out of the Vein suffered from a lack of hooks and harmonies, and seemed like a shadow of earlier work. The record stiffed, and the band were dropped by their label. Third Eye Blind entered a part-time existence, further exacerbating the tension between Jenkins and the perpetually-underemployed rest of the band. Salazar quit in 2006. Fredianelli stuck around until 2010. Like Cadogan, he found himself shut out of ownership, credit, and control. And also like Cadogan, his departure came with maximum acrimony.

And so ends the sad tale of three-fifths of Third Eye Blind's "classic" members. To say that this band has an "unhealthy" dynamic would be an understatement. Stephan Jenkins is the band's owner...and liability. He's a narcissistic megalomaniac à la Billy Corgan or Morrissey, whose material from years ago is liked in spite of, not because of, their actions and personality. He's made an enemy out of virtually everyone he worked with in the past; whether they're guitarists, managers, collaborating artists, studio owners, or even co-billed touring bands.

After taking advantage of fans' patience by delaying or cancelling literally every 3EB musical product that was tabled in the 2000s, Jenkins caught a surprising second wind of productivity in the New '10s and started cranking out new music at a rate not seen since the '90s. No fewer than six "Third Eye Blind" releases (Dopamine, We Are Drugs, Summer Gods Tour Live, Thanks for Everything, Screamer, and Our Bande Apart) dropped their way into record stores from 2015 on; all for the benefit of a shrinking core of lifelong, diehard fans willing to go into convulsions to separate the artist from the art. I jumped off this train years ago.

Stephan Jenkins owns the Third Eye Blind trademark lock, stock, and barrel, and has since 2008. Of course, this reinforces what's obvious: That Third Eye Blind as it exists today is essentially a brand name for Stephan's might-as-well-be solo career, with a revolving door of hired-hand musicians who do their jobs on stage and on records without hope of creative assertion or co-ownership.

Even decades after departure, Kevin Cadogan, Arion Salazar, and Tony Fredianelli have been unable to break free from the shadow of their old band. They're forced to stoop to rehashing old 3EB material on the nostalgia circuit, while being forced to avoid any mention of the band to which they once belonged. Sadly, early bassist Jason Slater (who later found his niche as a producer for Queensrÿche) died in 2020. The rest of Third Eye Blind's past and present members continue to walk the earth, regardless of whether they can legally admit it or not.

At some point in the last decade, collective amnesia set in and "Semi-Charmed Life" became the only Third Eye Blind song that "classic hits" radio stations still played. It's a bop that stands the test of time. But the legacy of the band itself is left to question; its name sullied by bad blood.

The rest of this site remains as a monument to 2009 and the giddy heights of uncritical fandom, which perhaps should be a cautionary lesson to us all. It's cited by Wikipedia, so it's not going anywhere, but it's not going to be actively updated either. Cheerio!

[Walk the Moon - Heights cover]

OK. What should I listen to next?

If you're interested in an exciting, currently-relevant band whose songs offer all the hooks, melodies, and emotional impact that Third Eye Blind did 20 years ago, may I suggest Walk the Moon? They have a new album out for 2021 titled Heights (RCA 19439-91277-2), featuring the singles "Can You Handle My Love??" and "Fire in Your House." Take my word: It's the best record 3EB never made.

[Song vs. Song logo]

Meanwhile, Todd "in the Shadows" Nathanson and Lina Morgan recently covered "Semi-Charmed Life" on their esteemed Song vs. Song podcast show. It's a fun listen...and best of all, they explore the impact that the band had on listeners my age (teenagers then, thirtysomethings now).

©2002-22 Andrew Turnbull.
"THIRD EYE BLIND" and "3EB" are registered trademarks of Stephan Jenkins Productions, Inc. for musical performances and recordings. This is an independent website, and I obviously have no connection to this or any corporate entity whatsoever.
Last update 16 January 2022.