Third Eye Blind's a Rock Star!

LOS ANGELES (AP) - As Mark Wahlberg's rocker rival in Rock Star - opening Friday - Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins stirs the pot with snarly gusto. In one scene, the sexy bad boy even gets fresh with Wahlberg's on-screen squeeze, Jennifer Aniston!

So who minded his octopus hands more � Aniston's reel-life hubby or her real-life one? "It was hilarious," Jenkins winks to TV Guide Online. "But Brad [Pitt] was there on the set and he was laughing, so it was all good. I think there was a tacitly understood regard and respect about me grabbing his wife's bottom and not letting go."

All his cheek (and hers) aside, Jenkins takes pride in the realistic glimpse his flick offers into the rock lifestyle. "There is something about being a rock star that is enveloping," he says. "It's a very seductive world, and at times, in ways, it can be corrupting.

"And it's funny that it's corrupting," he muses, "because you're doing something that for me is totally and completely redeeming. I am redeemed by a good tune. Playing live, that's when I feel like I'm in the rapture and reaching people with music. There's something really pure about that.

"And then you come off [stage]," Jenkins notes, "and you're in this world that is corrupting and it makes you crazy. It made me crazy."