CMJ New Music Monthly interview (2002)

Photo of the band, from the article

"I like to think that somebody's name was My Morning Jacket"

- Jim James
(CMJ New Music Monthly interview, June 2002)

In June 2002 CMJ New Music Monthly published a short interview with Jim James, written by Kara Zuaro.

Keywords: The band name, Live show and touring

"There was this weird old bar next to the arts building at the University of Lexington that burnt down while I was there", My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James drawls. His then unnamed band wandered into that bar's basement , where a shady exotic dancing operation had once been. They found a stripper's robe, mysteriously spared by the flames and monogrammed with the initials MMJ. "I like to think that somebody's name was My Morning Jacket", he muses. This is the sort of imagination that fuels the innovative rock and storyteller lyrics of the band's new Chocolate And Ice EP (Badman) and their recent split CD with Songs:Ohia (Jade Tree). Chocolate comes with a 24-minute epic that rings of Hendrix-tinged astral rock and Shuggie Otis's psychedelic soul; their live show evokes Granddaddy and Skynyrd at the same time. The Louisville five-piece is building a following in the States, but their most fervent fanbase is, oddly enough, in the Netherlands, thanks to a Dutch novelist fan who an MMJ album to his friends in the Benelux press. "They treat us nice over there," James grins as he speaks of their series of sold out Eurotours. "And we always like to crank it up a couple of notches. We like to blow the doors off a bit when we play live."