“Yeah, tenth record, which is…”
Jim James takes a long break. In the ensuing silence, it feels like we both agree – it’s somewhat surreal. When I first heard of My Morning Jacket, I was 18, while James was 25 and had just released It Still Moves, the band’s big breakthrough into the mainstream. And now here we are: My Morning Jacket are rolling out the release cycle for their tenth album, mysteriously titled Is. James will turn 47 this April, while I’m scratching on 40. And their arguably most beloved record – the one that made me a fan of the band – will turn 20: Z came out in 2005 and is about to get the deluxe treatment.
When I ask James about the album, his pride radiates: “I’m really proud of that record! It was a really difficult time in my life, because I was dealing with the suicides of several close friends and I was trying to process that. And I was trying to process my own depression and my own place in the world.
But simultaneously, I was partying a lot and having a lot of fun – I had just seen Purple Rain and seen Prince for the first time. I was getting into Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder – things I’d never heard before and my mind was just expanding so much. That was a pivotal time for the band, as Bo (Koster, the band’s keyboardist) and Carl (Broemel, guitarist and occasionally saxophonist) had just joined the band… So there was all this loss in all this gain, all at the same time. It was just a really, really difficult but really beautiful time.”
Z became an important milestone for the band not just in its appeal, but also its approach. In an era marked by nostalgia for the heyday of Rock’n’Roll, My Morning Jacket had seemed like purists, intent on reconnecting with the artistic spirits of Neil Young and The Grateful Dead, people who enshrined their musical history in the annals of counter cultural experience. But Z tore style wide open, incorporating a myriad of influences that formed a lush tapestry of futuristic experimentation, which has now become the band’s signature sound – kind of like Houses of the Holy played by a 22nd century martian Pub band. Is retains this energy: unable to stay in one place, it extends itself into many territories. Coming after a self-titled album, the title seems very intentional in its suggestive simplicity.
James agrees: “I began to realize that I was just letting go of any notions that I had in it. It kept saying to me: it just is what it is. You know, it’s just gonna be what it’s gonna be. I feel like the best way that we can be present is to just show up for what is and serve it the best we can. To think I’ve spent so much my life wishing that things were different and getting lost. All these escape methods and all these dreams and drinking. And just all of these ways that I I’ve tried to escape what is. I found in the last four or five years – just being – I’ve found this path of a therapy and trying to love myself more, that I feel like I can be more helpful to the world: by being kinder to myself. And I just try and serve reality just as it is, hoping that, in some way, maybe that’s a magic trick.
That’s what we can all do to shape the world to be more the way we want it to be. Perhaps, if we work on ourselves first and make sure that we’re peaceful with ourselves, then perhaps we can see the world begin to change, rather than fighting with each other and seeking external validation and all the things that we’ve all been trying that don’t really seem to be working.“
Beats Per Minute: I feel like that is the struggle that a lot of artists have. But they have this ability to create these incredible things. It is, sort of, an attempt to form something, a transcendence. An audience will look at what you created and think: “Oh, this is so incredible, the creator must be so incredible!” And then the person behind the art has, in their reality, gone through horrible things the past 10 years of their life.
Jim James: I feel like there’s a thing that happens with a lot of us, where, whatever the trauma we’ve experienced or whatever lack of love we’ve experienced, or depression we’ve suffered from it, creates this hole that we try to fill with external validation. And I think a lot of artists, myself included, think that if they just create something that’s just good enough, the world will love them, and then they can love themselves. I think you see pretty quickly that that’s never the answer, no matter how much you know, we’ve seen this story time and time again. So many artists that are suicidal… the Kurt Cobain story: he couldn’t have had more worldly success, but still couldn’t find peace within.
I think there’s this myth that you have to be tortured and that all great art comes from pain and suffering. I don’t think that’s true. I think a lot of great art does come from pain, but I also think that, as a culture, we’ve got to start holding space for both. We’ve got to start encouraging artists to become healthy and become well – seek therapy and seek alternative healing. I really believe you can do both and create wonderful art and be a healthy person. It’s kind of our job as creators and the press to start working together to build a new narrative to remove the shame from mental illness, remove shame from depression. And I really encourage people to talk to each other and seek help. I think of what Kurt Cobain could have gone on to make. If he would have found help, you know, or think of what Jimi Hendrix would have gone on to make if he could have escaped alcoholism… There’s just all of these instances where drugs and alcohol or depression ended up killing somebody. What if they would have been encouraged to get help?
I thought about Cobain a lot recently. It’s very heartbreaking. But I also come from a very political background, so I also read it as part of institutional problems, where artists become monetized. But then there’s also activists in music, such as Roger Waters, who uses his platform to discuss a lot of topics uncomfortable is the mainstream pop world. In that way, he channels his anger constructively, communicating his ideals with his music and live shows, instead of succumbing to the depression, or undermining your wellbeing.
I think each of us has to react to the world the way that feels natural for us, right? But I think we’ve had enough anger in the world. There’s ways to be constructive without anger, such as playing benefit concerts for causes you believe in, or donate money to organizations you believe in. We need to get away from the anger and the fighting, there’s got to be a new way of talking about things where people share their ideas and opinions and they, you know, do the work for the causes they believe in. There’s this anger that’s seeped in that I don’t think people realize is working against everything. You can’t go out and have a fistfight over peace. The internet’s created this illusion where everybody feels like it’s okay to be mean to each other, and it’s really defeating the whole point. There’s a difference between constructive discourse and mean, hurtful anger. That’s why I kind of keep going back to this, because I feel like, personally, I’ve tried all of these different methods. I’ve written political songs, I’ve hosted political videos. I’ve done all this stuff and it’s hard to tell what works and what doesn’t, ultimately, as I do see that the world isn’t moving in a direction that I want it to be moving in. So I decided to step back and ask, “What have I done? What have I tried?”
One thing I haven’t fully tried, which I’m in the process of trying now, is loving myself and how it’s like to be peaceful with myself. If I’m less angry at the world, maybe that can help. Imagine if by some magic trick, every person on earth, regardless of their beliefs, they all just focused on themselves and tried to realize truthfully, what made them peaceful. We would see the world begin to change very quickly. Because everybody that’s out there in the world that’s being angry or hateful… they’re just doing that to fill some hole that was put in them in their childhood, or suffer some trauma that they never dealt with, and they’re taking it out on the rest of the world.
What you say seems, to me, connected to the artwork of the album. We see the band sit around a table, hands on the top, as if it’s a séance. The point of view seems to come from a curious ghost that is observing their actions from the outside – was that intentional?
No, it wasn’t. But I love that you have that notion, because what I love about the picture is that, to me, it suggests potential. It suggests: anything could happen, but nothing is literally happening – we’re sitting there, our hands are on the table. We’re ready. We could do anything! Yeah, we could have a séance. Or we could play cards. We could go get up and play music. I really love the way the picture made me feel. It’s by the artist Silvia Grav. She’s a really, really great surrealist photographer, who has this way of making the everyday surreal. That’s another theme, as on our song “Everyday Magic”. I’ve been thinking a lot about the observer: when you meditate, you try to get back in touch with the part of you that is the eternal, cosmic soul. That’s the observer. That’s observing everything that’s deserving all thoughts: observing the human experience. I feel like that observer is part of us. Part of the will of God, part of the will of the infinite ocean of consciousness, which we’re all a little wave of, and we’re all part of.
So: I love how, with the picture, I felt like I was the observer, so kind of looking at what resembles infinite potential, to me. There’s nothing obfuscating, it’s happening. There’s no special tricks, it just is, you know? But I like the séance idea.
Would you say that, besides the previous album being the self-titled one, that Is personifies the rebirth of My Morning Jacket?
Well, I feel like we’re always trying to rebirth. I think that music is so infinite and we love music so much, you could never exhaust all of the ideas that the universe has for music! Every time we make a record, we’re just trying to listen to the universe and of what it is speaking, what it wants to be heard. At the end of the day, it’s out of our hands. The album makes itself and we try as hard as we can, but lots of our ideas don’t end up working. Whatever ends up working is so because of the will of the universe. I really feel that the more I realized that my job is to work on this music as a person, ‘cuz in this life, I am a person named Jim, who is the way that he is because of his life. Yet at the same time. I really need to step back and let the divine do what it’s gonna do. And the more that I do that, the more joyous it is.
And it really becomes, or feels like, this divine experience that, to me, is the point of my entire life. If I can simultaneously listen to what the universe is saying and also, simultaneously, try my best to put my own human heart into it, this can create this really beautiful meeting of the worlds.
I’m just beginning to realize that, ‘cuz, I always tried to put my human ego into everything too much. I feel like that can really cloud things. I don’t have any regrets, ’cause I know I’ve always done my best and I’m proud of everything that we’ve done, but at the same time, I’m realizing how much I’ve gotten in my own way over the years.
I recall reading this recent interview with Martin Scorsese. He was asked, in relation of his age, being in his early eighties: “How do you relate to filmmaking now that you’re so old?” And he responded: “I just realized what I can do with film, but it’s too late. I’m in my eighties. I have very little time left, and I need to work, work, work, in order to get closer to what I want to achieve, because just now I understood what my art-form actually constitutes.” You and I aren’t old, but no longer spring chicken either. You see a lot of artists who when they get older – and you can take Coppola who just made the utterly explosive “Megalopolis”, or The Flaming Lips releasing their 24 hour album 7 Skies h3, – suddenly realize what they’re actually capable of creating. The outcome of that can be so incredibly magical.
Oh my God, yeah, I really feel stronger than I’ve ever felt my entire life now! I feel more inspired of and more in touch with the universe. I think that’s another part of our job: defying this myth that age sucks! Our culture is so youth focused, and obviously youth is beautiful, but I think we all need to start holding space for this concept that everything is beautiful. If everything is beautiful, yes, youth is beautiful. But so is age, and experience, and wisdom. We need to really start holding up our elders as people to look to for advice and knowledge. We really need to be part of this shift if we want to shift the consciousness towards peace and love and universal acceptance. I’ve never felt more inspired, you know, and like Martin Scorsese, I hope I continue to feel inspired ’till the day I die.
Let’s talk about the music on Is. What immediately stands out is that it marks the first occasion that you didn’t produce an album yourself. How did that feel?
It felt really, really great! It really helped! For the first time, I could let go and know that nobody could take my love for myself away! Regardless of what happens with our record or not and letting go of that, I realized that I don’t need to be the coach of the team. I can’t be the coach and the player at the same time! It doesn’t work as well. And Brendan is such a fantastic coach. It really felt for all of us like we were playing for a professional sports team, or we were training for the Olympics. He really inspired us all to play our best, and he inspired me to write more songs and work harder on the songs I had. It was really, really inspiring and I don’t think I could have done it before, because I would’ve been… I would have been like, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, this is my song and it’s great.” I think there would have been too much ego battle going on. But it was really, really inspiring.
That’s great to hear. The record has this interesting dynamic, maybe similar to Evil Urges in how on one hand, a lot of the songs retain this borderline new wave sound. This somewhat early 80s/late 70s, guitar sound. And then, on the other hand, is this very pristine,… very,… transcendental kind of celestial beauty. My two personal favorites are “Time Waited” and “Beginning from the Ending”, because they have this quality, which I’m right now stuttering to inadequately describe…
You know, it’s so funny cause I really didn’t think about anything. (laughter) I tried to trust. I really felt a hit in my heart when I was listening to Brendan discuss the songs with me and I got this feeling that it was gonna be a worthwhile endeavor for me to listen to him. In the past, I didn’t want to listen to anybody. And so I had him telling me these comments about the songs that I felt were really valid. And then, I put all my songs into the pot! I put everything I’ve been working on as a solo recording – every voice memo, everything I thought would be a My Morning Jacket song – I put all those songs into the pot and gave Brendan over a hundred demos to listen to. And so he chose the songs that he thought would be best, that would make the best record. So with several songs… “Beginning from the Ending” is a good example of it: that was a song I wrote for a film, but it didn’t get used for the film and I had a really worked a long time on it and really was proud of it. And I was going to release it as a solo track, but I just threw it into the pot. So we ended up doing it with the band, ’cause we just kind of wanted to listen to what Brandon was thinking about. And ”Time Waited” was born at the last minute! That was one of the last songs I wrote. Because I was just inspired working with Brendan, all of the songs started coming. And then: “Time Waited”, and then “Everyday Magic”. I think those were the two last songs I wrote. All these songs were poppin’ out and I was creating demos of them and sending them to Brendan, it was hilarious. Some he just wouldn’t respond to, and then other ones he’d be like, “Oh, this one’s better than any other! Now we gotta get rid of something else!” So it was really fascinating.
I just really kept trying to do my best. And then, at the end of the day, I really got into the sequencing and the mastering, the finishing of the album. I’m really always into that. But it was just so fascinating to, for the first time, step back and let the universe speak through Brendan.
Some of that magic definitely translates. I feel like a lot of modern rock forgets about how important these factors can be, aiming for a uniform sound instead of creating memorable moments – like this incredibly piano in “Time Waits”, and how it later harmonizes with the guitar. It’s incredibly beautiful! Or this really filthy guitar tone of “Squid Ink” – it’s so lovely!
I’m glad that you feel that way, and it’s funny, ’cause “Squid Ink” was a song that Brandon hated. I didn’t like that song at all. But we were demoing it. I was trying. And then we had a really great conversation, where I tried to explain to him that we hadn’t quite reached what I wanted. I wanted the song to be more danceable and kind of mechanical and… I don’t often like to use references, but I was trying to explain to him like I wanted it to almost feel like Zappa, or Dr. Dre. “California Love” meets the rock’n’roll looseness of Parliament or… You know what I mean. So once I explained that to him, then he really got into it! Before, with the demo, we were just kind of jamming on it. It was more of just like a rock’n’roll jam song, but once I could explain to him what we were trying to do with it, he got really excited about it!
I hope he was fine with “Out in the Open” and “River Road” as bookends, because those two sum up the album perfectly to me.
“Out in the Open” was really cool, because I wrote the main ukulele riff during the pandemic. I just wrote this riff, it was so hard to play and I kinda built this loop of it, and I was just kind of meditating on it. It’s got the vocal melody, but I didn’t really have any lyrics or anything, but I really love the riff. So I put it in the pile of demos that I gave to Brendan and he really was hit by the riff! He’s like: “… do something with this! I think this riff can really blossom. The ukulele can turn into an electric guitar and the band can come in and it can kind of explode and be this bigger thing!” That really excited me, that kind of constructive criticism. I went home and I started thinking about it and built a new demo on it started working on the lyrics and it kind of all sprung to life.
“River Road” was also really cool, there’s a road in Louisville, where I’m from, that’s River Road. It is a very magical, very spiritual place where I go often to process things and let things go through my mind. I had written this song about River Road and we all loved it, but it didn’t fit on the record. We kept trying to put it into the record and we couldn’t find a place for it. And originally the record ended with this song, “Aren’t We One?”, which we released earlier during the elections here in the United States, ‘cuz, we’re trying to put just put some ‘peace & love’ into the world, ‘cuz, there’s so much fighting and so much division. We were just trying to put that song out there, to put some peace into the world, and we’re still gonna keep it on the record. But then, when I was approving the mastering, I just had this moment where the universe spoke to me and it was like: “Hey! This song’s already out in the world. Let’s put “River Road” on there instead, because the song’s already in the world! Why put it out twice?” And so, at the last minute, we swapped it out for “River Road”. Which I thought was just such a cooler ending and leaves the record in just a cooler, more mysterious open ended place.
In a way, it feels like, all these years after Z, you really did experience a sort of rebirth, or reconnection. Are there any plans to commemorate this era of the band, which started all those years ago?
Yeah, twenty years ago and now the band has been that lineup since then… We’ve been the same for 20 years now. We’re preparing a remaster, the version with demos and, you know, lost tracks and stuff like that. It’ll come out later in the year. And then we always try to do a handful of shows where we play the album start to finish, so we’ll be doing that as well later on in the year.
I know you guys are a legendary live band. Somehow the stars never were right, and I always missed you, so let’s leave it open ended: catch you in Berlin!
Definitely!
Is is due out this Friday on ATO Records. You can pre-order the album here. Follow the band on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
