Throughout the ups and downs of his nearly 20-year career, Richmond musician Jim Ivins has constantly wondered if pursuing his musical dreams was even worth it.
“Some would call it Stockholm Syndrome. Some would call it psychosis,” he says, laughing. “But I believe no matter how much the world throws at me, I know that I’m not my entire self unless I’m creating and doing things that artistically fulfill me.”
With his latest project The Fan, Ivins channels the pop-rock nostalgia of the 2000s that came to remind him of why he continues to make music. The group’s latest single, “Either Way,” which features Australian singer-songwriter and Smashing Pumpkins touring member Katie Cole, is a song about a longtime friendship where one person abruptly cuts the other out of their life, and the internalized questions that follow.
“I’ve always been drawn to pop songs with melancholic lyrics, stuff like ‘Desperately Wanting’ by Better Than Ezra or ‘Found Out About You’ by Gin Blossoms, so I wanted to make a song that continued that type of tradition.”
From a young age, Ivins always knew he wanted to make music. After seeing his cousin Bill Leverty perform as part of the ’90s hard rock band Firehouse, Ivins glimpsed a possible future unfolding before him. He started a punk band called Busted Wire before refining his sound into an acoustic, pop-rock style and forming the Jim Ivins Band in 2007. Ivins made it his mission to get out in the local scene and regularly booked gigs at the Canal Club, opening for as many touring acts as possible.
Wanting to take his dreams a step further, Ivins moved to New York in 2012 and with his brother Jack Ivins, formed The Ivins, delving into more vibe-rock. Initially, hopes for a potential record deal were optimistic, he explains, but when that didn’t pan out, rejection wasn’t going to keep him from moving forward.
He moved to Nashville in 2017 and, after discovering a fervent community of rock lovers, started a tribute show called Grunge Night that randomly paired musicians and had them perform a setlist of ’90s and 2000s cover songs on the spot. The series gathered large crowds and acclaim from the community while boasting members of major acts like Chris Daughtry, Halestorm, and Florida Georgia Line. However, pursuing a music career in Nashville took its toll on Ivins as he tried to keep up in a field that was into tribute shows but not original music. Hitting a wall creatively, Ivins moved back to Richmond in 2022 and told himself that he was never going to play music again.
“I was so fried. I was so dejected,” he says. “At this point, I had been doing this music thing for almost 20 years. I hadn’t gotten where I wanted to be, and I was just so burnt out and done.” That’s when the U.S. State Department came calling.
Through its American Music Abroad program, American musicians are selected to embark on a multi-country tour to represent the United States and American music across the world. The Ivins submitted year after year before finally being selected to take part in 2020. The pandemic put the tour on hold until 2023 when the band learned they would be going to Egypt and Sudan, the latter of which had never had an American rock band perform. The Ivins would be the first.
But Jim Ivins explains that his thrill soon diminished after he learned that a civil war was forming between two rival factions of the Sudanese military government. While performing in Sudan was one of the best experiences of his life, he says, it was also a constantly tense environment. He recalls that on the band’s first day while driving to the capital city Khartoum, they hit military checkpoints and were regularly stopped by soldiers.
“By the sixth or seventh time this happened, people were yelling at our driver in another language while pointing machine guns at us,” he says. “I’m freaking out the whole time thinking ‘Well, this is it.’”
Wrestling with the decision to quit music and having panic attacks every day while in a foreign country experiencing civil unrest, Ivins kept thinking about the music of his youth and the comfortable, nostalgic feelings it brought.
“I kept thinking to myself, I wanted to play music that made me feel the exact opposite of how I was feeling at that moment,” he explains. “I was remembering the times of the Jim Ivins Band. It felt so pure. Maybe because I was 20 years old at that time and hadn’t become jaded yet.”
Inspired by that feeling of wanting simpler times, Ivins formed The Fan, releasing “Nostalgia” in 2023 as well as regularly playing solo sets of ’90s covers around town, which he says has reignited his love for pursuing music. He’s already working on new material for The Fan, and while The Ivins as a band was completely finished, the group decided to release a new EP of unreleased material called “Echoes” back in May.
“It’s some of the best music we’ve ever done and I’m really proud of it,” he says. “I know this is what I’m supposed to do with my life. There’s no way I’ll stop.”
The Fan will be performing at the Bellwether Garage on July 19. For more on Jim Ivins, visit jimvins.com or follow him on Instagram at @jimvins, @thefanrvaband, and @theivins.
