TORONTO – Even on their most successful track, Jimmy Eat World waxes existential.

“It just takes some time, little girl,” Jim Adkins cajoled on the chorus of the group’s career-making 2001 hit, “The Middle,” and it’s a telling statement. After all, the band’s latest album, “Damage,” is the eighth in an impressive career that has stretched across two decades. The band has become an elder statesman in the loosely defined emo genre that it had a hand in moulding — and all almost out of complete serendipity.

Adkins grew up with drummer Zach Lind; Lind’s mother was Adkins’s preschool teacher; the band’s name originated from a childhood tiff between the brothers of guitarist Tom Linton. It all feels, in a way, modest — a couple of Arizona boys just making music and happening to strike gold along the way.

“It’s pure coincidence that we ended up here, now,” says Adkins. “As time goes on it’s easier and more difficult at the same time — maybe more difficult because it’s easier. We have a pretty good idea of, when we have a good idea, what we want to hear, so there’s not a lot of exploration for just (messing) around sake. There’s a purpose — we want this to happen, so we’re going to do this to get to this.

“But it’s harder because you have that standard that you set for yourself and you know what you’re capable of. You might have a clearer idea of what you want to do, but you expect more of yourself.”

The earnestness and moody thoughtfulness that has marked Jimmy Eat World’s music both persist on “Damage,” but the songwriting has evolved. Writing songs about heartbreak in your middle years, after all, will be much different than if you’re in your teens.

Adkins, now 37, speaks haltingly, chewing over his words carefully. He admits that he’ll occasionally feel his age, but that the benefit of working together for so long is a comfort level in the band’s reasserted identity.

“We’re who we are,” he says. “Some things have become more solidified, some things have been thrown out the window. I don’t know if that’s from the band changing, or if it’s just what happens when you get older. The material on ‘Damage,’ it’s not dissimilar to how I approached writing lyrics to an album like ‘Clarity’ — it’s just that all the reactions, thoughts, feelings, observations, it’s all from a perspective of having the experience I have now.”

And they’ve come a long way, from “Clarity”, that 1999 album — which featured significant experimentation because, as Adkins says, “we had no idea whether we’d get another opportunity to work in a big studio again” — to 2001’s breakout “Bleed American,” which went platinum and produced the earworm “The Middle.” But that breakout hit nearly didn’t happen at all — it was close to the cutting room floor.

“I wasn’t really expecting that song to end up on the album, because it kind of happened in an easy way,” says Adkins. “Because it happened quickly, it was hard to convince myself that it was as good as the elements that you slaved over to get to. Like it wasn’t worth as much because it happened easier.”

While their newer material hasn’t produced another mainstream hit quite like “The Middle,” Adkins is happy with where he and the band are. “Bleed American” wasn’t produced to be their breakout album, but rather as just another signpost in figuring out what Jimmy Eat World wanted to sound like.

“We’ve never made anything chasing the approval of some ambiguous listener,” he says. “I think people seem more loyal now…. I do think the type of fans we have we’re really grateful for, because most are the type of people that, whether or not we have the kind of commercial visibility, they just like what we do.”

So it’s not commercial complacency, but rather craftsmanship, that now defines Jimmy Eat World. These may no longer be their “Middle” years, but their middle years appear just as exciting for the fans who have stuck by the group, more confident than ever about their sound and who they are.

“Aging isn’t a choice; acting like a crotchety old bastard is. Complaining is. The longer we are a band, the easier it is to recognize what small things you should be grateful for. The fact that people still identify with what we’ve done as part of their camp experience or their road trip of ’99 or whatever — that’s a huge compliment.”