Is Your Forgotten ‘90s Band Due

For a Revival?

A bit of revisionist history may have turned oft-dismissed Third Eye Blind into in;uential alt-rock superstars. Who’s next?

BY JOHN MIHALY

Will Michael Jackson’s
death renew interest
in your band?

START

You’re Ugly Kid
Joe, who gave us the
2 Live Crew-referencing As
Ugly as They Wanna Be.
Your drummer is
in Godsmack!

You are the savvy
Smash Mouth. You're past
your 10 million album-selling
prime, but as long as kid ;icks
need montage sequences,
you'll make money.

Does your band’s
success in the ’90s
relate to any currently
popular trends?

Are you more
likely to hear your
band’s song in a movie
montage rather than
on the radio?

Has one of your
band members ever been
in the Beastie Boys,
despite being a girl?

You are Luscious
Jackson, and as of 2006,
you had a children’s album in
the works you hoped to call
It’s All Goo that has yet
to see release.

Then you are
“Cumbersome” howlers
Seven Mary Three, a.k.a.
7M3 (seriously), and you
put out an album
last year.

Then you are

Alien Ant Farm and
your “Smooth Criminal”
cover helped land you a guest
spot on this year’s
Warped Tour.

Then you are the
still-active rap collective
Arrested Development
and you might want to send
Michael Cera a hoodie
from your merch table.

Would your band’s
logo look good on the
back of a Ford F-150
parked on the in;eld of a
motor speedway?

Would it help if
a cult sitcom, which
happens to share your
band’s name, were made
into a feature ;lm?

Is it nostalgia for the ’80s?

Is that trend sexy vampires?

Then you are Aussie duo Savage Garden

(an Anne Rice reference),
and if Robert Pattinson’s
doe eyes can’t reunite
you, what can?

Did you somehow sell 11 million copies of your debut album?

Are you all about
the kids? We mean,
like, little kids.

Might you be
blamed for being
the missing link
bet ween Pearl Jam
and Nickelback?

Is your band name
frequently abbreviated
as a handy combination
of three letters
and/or numbers?

Then could your
sideways baseball caps
and baggy shorts be the
missing link between hip-hop
culture and suburban
Limp Bizkit cretinism?

You are EMF, a.k.a.
Epsom Mad Funkers
(seriously), and after a
second hiatus and a second
reunion, you’re taking
more time o;.

 

GRAPHIC BY WALTER C. BAUMANN

THE ALBUM RECIPE Chester Bennington reveals what it took to cook up Out of Ashes, by his solo project, Dead by Sunrise

1 messy divorce

Deepak Chopra’s The Third Jesus

4 L. A. recording studios

1 Obama
bobblehead given
to Republican
bandmate

20 cases of Teas’ Tea

100s of games of Call of Duty

Out of Ashes

“Linkin Park will always be my main thing, but I needed to write about going through a divorce. I lost everything. I was living in a 700-square-foot apartment. I was driving a PT Cruiser, you know? I went down into a very dark place. This album is about how I climbed out of it.”

CLOCK WISE FROM TOP: BERNHARD KUMSTEDT;RE TNA; S TEVE DOUBLE;RE TNA; YOURI LENQUE T TE;RETNA

30 NOVEMBER 2009 ; WHT R U W8 TNG 4? GO TO SPIN.COM

ILLUSTRATIONS BY HENNIE HAWORTH