Hi, everyone! Remember when I said big things were coming? Well, I hope this doesn't disappoint! This week, I had the absolute honor to speak with Kryz Reid, the current lead guitarist of the acclaimed rock band Third Eye Blind. Best known for their 1997 top-ten hit "Semi-Charmed Life", the band has remained popular with generations past and present. Despite having many lineup changes over the years, the San Francisco rockers have continued touring and releasing music to this day. Under lead singer Stephan Jenkins, each of the band's five studio albums has topped many different Billboard album charts. Reid joined the band back in 2010 after longtime guitarist Tony Fredianelli was dismissed from the group, and has enjoyed his time with the band. Despite being on a large North American tour, I was incredibly grateful to both Kryz and 3EB's manager for giving me the chance to speak with him.
bazzreviews: You’re on tour right now with Jimmy Eat World and Ra Ra Riot- how’s that going?
Kryz Reid: It’s great. We’re about a month into the US leg right now, and we have another month left to go. We’re big fans of Jimmy Eat World, and we’ve now become fans of Ra Ra Riot.
br: Which artists or albums inspired you to start a music career in the first place?
K.R.: Prince is the short answer to that, I started listening to him when I was about nine years old. When I found out that he had all of these other albums, I would always save up my pocket money for months to be able to buy the next one. I’m from Dublin, and my family would go to the UK on holidays. They had much bigger music shops there, so I ended up finding a lot of Prince’s back catalogue and earlier records that I couldn’t get back home.
br: I know that you joined Third Eye Blind back in 2010 after the old lead guitarist was fired- how did you first come into contact with the band?
K.R.: I played in a band with Brad [Hargreaves] (drums) for a while in LA. He knew that I was chef in Dublin, and I met a waiter who went to school with him. This waiter told me that Brad played in another band that I didn’t know about. Brad called me up one day and said they were having some issues in his other band. He wanted to know if I could come play for them. He called me on a Tuesday, and I came out to Hawaii to learn eighty minutes of music for a show they had that Saturday. After the gig, Stephan told me that I got the part. It wasn’t for another month when we were playing across the US until I realized how big Third Eye Blind actually was. They were never big in Ireland, and they weren’t ever on my radar either.
br: What has been your greatest musical experience while playing with Third Eye Blind?
K.R.: Every show is so different. We’ve traveled so many different places and seen so many people that it’s hard to pick a few out. I definitely think playing Summer Sonic or Fuji Rock over in Japan were highlights for me. I also really loved playing at Lollapalooza, we had an enormous crowd there. I think at that point, we were in the middle of a tour. We love doing festivals right in the middle of things because everybody’s in their groove, so it’s always a blast. At our set, it was basically everyone who was in the crowd and all the other bands that had come on to the stage and watch us. I remember there was a kid in the back of the crowd in a wheelchair, and when we started playing “Semi-Charmed Life”, his mates lifted him up. He pretty much crowdsurfed all the way to the front in a f-----g wheelchair. They were going to put him down in the pit, but Stephan said to bring him up on stage. We ended up finishing the song with him rocking out on stage. It was quite a moment.
br: Can you describe the process for how the band makes a song?
K.R.: It changes from song to song. Sometimes, Stephan will come to us with an idea and play it from start to finish on a guitar. We’ll be at rehearsal, in the studio or even at a soundcheck always trying to find new ways to layer that idea. It might just me and Brad jamming off of each other at a soundcheck, and Stephan really likes that and adds something over it. Our new keyboardist, Colin [CreeV] will come up with some ideas and show them to Stephan, who then shows everything to us.
br: What would you say is more important to you- lyricism, or production value and instrumentation?
K.R.: Neither one is more important than the other, but it does depend on the song. They really do go hand in hand. Stephan has always been a very strong lyricist, so if he’s got something going on that he wants to let out, he’ll write a song about it. We might also have something that sounds really good instrumentally, but it can’t be complete without good lyrics. It’s interesting to look at three to four songs put together and you can see very similar themes through all of them.
br: In recent years, you guys have been critics of the Republican Party here in the United States, what led you to start making more politically-charged songs?
K.R.: On our new record, we’re writing a song about the kids who died in the Parkland shootings. I’m not the one who sits down and says “let’s write a song about it”, it all just started with a riff. Like I said, Stephan is the one who writes the lyrics. He’s the one who has the opinion on all of this different stuff. With the Republican Party stuff, we were doing a benefit show for a charity that gives instruments to kids in inner cities. Stephan had worked with that charity before, and we were doing a gig in Cleveland when the RNC was going. We figured that there would be a lot of them at the show, so we decided to go with it. We ended up waking up the next morning and we were trending on Twitter. I think everything is so politically charged right now, any artist is going to reflect on that in one way or another. It would be ludicrous if he wasn’t talking about it. I’m European, so I don’t really fall into that boat. I don’t really think that it makes all that much sense. It’s as if every single thing is just a political issue here. Something like climate change, for example; how is it that if you’re pro climate change, you’re suddenly on the left? People just look for whatever is a popular movement, and politicians jump on it to get people to rally with them. It’s absurd. It’s like that stupid black-and-white argument, “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”, I don’t go for that.
br: I saw that Stephan mentioned something about an album getting released this year- can you tell me a little bit more about what it’s got in store?
K.R.: We thought we would be able to get this record out by summer, but we’re Third Eye Blind… we always f--k it up. At this point, it’s basically done, though. We recorded it out at Sonic Ranch in El Paso, Texas. It’s this beautiful recording facility right on the US side of the Mexican border. There’s nothing to do there except make music and eat Mexican food. We like to call it a “writing retreat” because we would go out there for a month at a time and nail down certain songs. While we were recording and tracking it at Sonic Ranch, Stephan did his vocals out in LA and in San Francisco. We’re hoping to get this record out in the next month or two, so be on the lookout. We’re listening to different mixes by different producers every day. In our soundchecks, we’re trying to figure out how we can incorporate these new songs into our sets.
br: What’s the scoop on the 3EB podcast that I saw you tweeting about?
K.R.: It’s in the works right now. It was just an idea I had one day. We put out some polls on our social media to see what people thought, and the response has been massive. I’ve been in the band for almost ten years now, and we’ve recorded so many songs that have never been released before. I’m the one who makes videos for the band, and we always get the biggest return when we post stuff of us working in the studio. On this podcast, we want our fans to hear all of these unreleased songs, but we’ll be talking over it. It’ll almost work like a director’s commentary on a movie. It would be that, Q&A from fans, and all that other stuff. It’s now up to me to get that up and running, so the first episode should be up in the next few weeks.
br: What goals do you and the band have for the future?
K.R.: I think that we want to keep connecting with people. We go out and do these tours, and we always sell out these huge venues. People not only connect with us, but they connect with each other. I remember one show on the beginning of the tour, Stephan told the crowd to put their arm around the person next to them. It was crazy to see the crowd embrace each other in the way that they did, and they all swayed as we finished playing “Semi-Charmed Life”. I think for us, that’s the biggest reward. There’s definitely multi-generationalism in our shows, too. There’s people who have been fans of us since the beginning, but they’re now bringing their kids to shows, too. At some of our shows, you see people with the black “X”’s on their wrist, which means they’re under 21. It’s so amazing to see that we’ve reached such a wide audience over time.
*ATTENTION*: I've introduced a new set of questions to all forthcoming interviews. It's called the Lightning Round. The questions are simple, but are there to give you guys a deeper look at the artist and what they have an interest in. I hope you guys enjoy this new addition!
LIGHTNING ROUND:
What is the most overrated and most underrated album of all time? I can’t think of an overrated one, but I think one group that I think is really underrated is IAMDYNAMITE.
What was the first album you ever owned? Purple Rain by Prince.
If there’s one instrument you could pick up today, what would it be? Piano.
Who are your non-musical heroes? Woody Allen, South Park, and Star Wars
Who was the first artist you saw live? Prince
I would like to thanks Kryz once again for giving me his time to talk, as I really enjoyed learning more about his rise to fame. I wish him and Third Eye Blind in their future endeavors! I hope all of you guys enjoyed this article, and more great stuff is coming your way soon.
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