Stephan Jenkins: Racket 2025

Third Eye Blind is fast approaching the 30th anniversary of the band's 6x-platinum, self-titled debut album; that 1997 juggernaut of a record guaranteed that radio hits like "Semi-Charmed Life," "Jumper," and "How's It Gonna Be" would forever be looped into the cultural zeitgeist of the 1990s.

The San Francisco-bred band has gone through innumerable lineup changes over the years, releasing six more studio albums. Frontman and guitarist Stephan Jenkins remains the constant of the group — and is playing to what he says are bigger crowds than ever.

The band's Billboard Award-winning "Semi-Charmed Life" — with its dark, drug-addled lyrics and doo-doo-doo refrain abutting a sun-splashed melody — is seeing out the summer of 2025 too, via a new interpolation by Machine Gun Kelly ("Starman"). Significantly, Third Eye Blind has a seen a post-pandemic surge in popularity with Gen Z and Alpha, splashed across TikTok, clocking over 632 million streams (and counting) on Spotify, and a jaw-dropping 44 million views on YouTube.

In March, Third Eye Blind finally had their big NPR Tiny Desk moment, and concurrently released a new single, "Like a Lullaby." Jenkins explained on socials: "My songs are emotional reactions to the times I am in. Mostly, they are driven by the subconscious — a dream of the times, if you will. In these days I am concerned with impermanence, legacy, death and what lives on. I wonder where we go when the very idea of empathy is under threat. This is my retort."

Jenkins played a seven-track solo set for "FUV Live" at Racket in Manhattan, with a career-spanning selection that included songs from Third Eye Blind, 2015's Dopamine and 2021's Our Bande Apart (their last album to date). Below, videos of two songs:  the brand new "Like a Lullaby" and the wistful "Motorcycle Drive By" from Third Eye Blind.

[Recorded: 6/18/25; Engineered by Jim O'Hara; produced by Meghan Suma; hosted by Sam Sumpter. Videographers: Erin Merriman, Alena Godas, and Olivia Iannaccone.]