It is the 20th anniversary of Third Eye Blind‘s self-titled debut album, a seminal ’90s power-pop album which found rampant success thanks to the Top 10 hits “Semi-Charmed Life,” “How’s It Gonna Be,” and “Jumper.” Two major reported pieces about the album were released today: Gil Kaufman’s oral history of its creation at Billboard and a look back at the band’s fraught history and legacy by Rob Harvilla for The Ringer. In Billboard‘s piece, lead singer Stephen Jenkins and former guitarist Kevin Cadogan–who now hate each other and head two rival bands that play Third Eye Blind songs–recalled one of their first major breaks: a gig opening for the then-immensely-popular Oasis at San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium.
Liam and Noel Gallagher are known for hating most other bands and also just people, especially if those people run even remotely afoul of them. Cadogan recalled a nasty incident that occurred backstage at the sold-out show, in which Liam threatened to shank Cadogan, and told him exactly what he thought of Three Eye Blind:
“That was a really cool move to get us that opening gig in San Francisco. It was pretty ballsy. It was just incredible. I got threatened by [Oasis singer] Liam [Gallagher] that night with physical violence. I was drinking a can of Coke and had finished it and crumpled it up and was going to throw it, basketball-style, 20 yards away. The can hit someone who was in the corner — I just saw this glowing ash and the can rolled over to it. After the show he said, “You could have gotten stabbed.” Literally said that. I said, “What are you talking about?” He was like, “You threw that can at me, man.” I did not throw a can at him.
Noel [Gallagher] was studying one of my guitars, geeking out on it, and I could tell he was the serious one. Liam afterwards said, “You guys are shite, you’ll never make it.” The crowd really got into it. We were told by their management not to get too upset when we get stuff thrown at us at our hometown show.”
Cadogan and the rest of the band got out of the gig okay–in fact, it “went over really well,” as Jenkins remembers, and they did an encore even though they were an opening band. Jenkins recalls giving a pre-show pep talk to the band in which he declared: “‘We’re going to murder [Oasis]. As soon as we finish playing everyone is going to leave.'” This many years on, it’s unclear who really has won the long game, reputation-wise, but still, little else from that moment in Top 40 rock music bangs quite as hard as “Semi-Charmed Life.”
