Chicago Innerview (2004)

In May 2004 Chicago Innerview published an interview with Patrick Hallahan, done by Justin Marciniak. The original interview can be found here.

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My Morning Jacket’s music sounds as immense as a big screen and as dramatic as a movie. It could serve as the soundtrack to an American road epic. My Morning Jacket aims to create grand, timeless music that transports listeners to another place and time. Because the atmospheric music would fit well in films, it seems right that the band has been involved with motion pictures.

One month after My Morning Jacket performs at Metro this month, the band will return to Louisville, Ky., for a festival honoring The Dude, The Jesus and the Coen brothers’ cult classic The Big Lebowski. No joke. In June, My Morning Jacket will attend the third annual “Lebowski Fest” for the first time. “We’ve always been away on tour,” drummer Patrick Hallahan says. “It’s supposed to be something ridiculous. It’s a cooler Trekkie convention.”

To get the ball rolling at the festival, the band will play a set on Louisville’s riverfront before a screening of the film. “Lebowski Fest” will not be the first time My Morning Jacket has been part of a movie. A Dutch filmmaker shot a documentary while the band still was in its “fledgling stages.” As the story goes, a Dutch music critic raved about the group’s first record, The Tennessee Fire, and My Morning Jacket mania ensued during the band’s first trip to Holland.

Perhaps as enthusiastic as The Big Lebowski fans making the pilgrimage to Louisville, Dutch fans packed My Morning Jacket shows before the band received much attention in its hometown. “They were playing big shows in the Netherlands before they were playing big shows in Louisville,” says Hallahan, who was a friend and fan before he joined the band in April 2002.

But My Morning Jacket is not necessarily bigger in Holland anymore. “Chicago, for instance, has been more than wonderful with us,” Hallahan says. “I just remember playing Schubas, and then the next move was the Metro, and we were selling that out. It was just a huge jump…But in other towns as well, it has really taken off here, and it has been very rewarding because we’ve worked really hard and toured really hard.”

For My Morning Jacket, hard work means playing hundreds of shows a year and experimenting with songs on stage and in the studio until the music has a chance to become otherworldly and timeless. “I guess music that is timeless is definitely something that stands the test of time,” Hallahan says. “And it could have been released 40 years ago; it could be released 50 years from now and still have the same impact. I think that is definitely something we strive to achieve: something that lasts, something that is not a fad, something that is just musically wholesome enough to stand the test of time.”

The test of time continues. But the answer is clear to the My Morning Jacket quiz question that asks, “What style of music does My Morning Jacket play? ‘A) country’, ‘B) rock ‘n’ roll’, ‘C) indie rock’ or ‘D) psychedelic jam-band music’?” The correct answer is “E) all of the above.”

On It Still Moves, the band tosses together several styles and influences without being a throwback to a previous rock-music epoch. “Dancefloors” swaggers like The Rolling Stones mingling with horn players at the corner of Main and Beale streets. In “Golden,” a bending guitar hook calls and responds over country strumming on the low strings of an acoustic guitar. “I Will Sing You Songs” starts as a dizzy slow dance and ends with a spacious Sigur Rós-esque coda thanks to the reverb on Jim James’ vocals.

Reverb saturates My Morning Jacket songs and helps them approach the timelessness and atmosphere the band wants. “We’ve had recordings brought back to us with no reverb on them, and they sound good, but they don’t sound like…if we had intended them to sound that way, they would be fine,” Hallahan says. “But our intentions were to make them sound out of this world, and reverb definitely has that quality about it. And it’s beautiful, and when you write a song with it and it’s not around, it’s almost like somebody’s guitar was turned off, or the vocals weren’t up high enough.”

So much reverb coats the songs that the band calls reverb the sixth member. But in a real scene of suspense in the movie-like life of My Morning Jacket, reverb temporarily became the fourth member. Guitarist Johnny Quaid and keyboardist Danny Cash left the band in the winter. “It was a scary time, and it has definitely worked out for the better,” Hallahan says. “…The touring life was just dragging them down and making them miserable. It just wasn’t for them. They needed to go do what made them happy. We’re all still on good terms. It was the next step in the long process of being a band.”
Although the toll of touring caught up with Quaid and Cash, the call of touring attracted replacements Carl Broemel and Bo Koster, who have joined Hallahan, James, bassist Two Tone Tommy and, yes, reverb on stage.

“You’ll never see five guys having more fun in your life than you will if you come to one of our shows because we just love it to death,” Hallahan says. “We’re going to go up there, we’re going to have a good time, we’re going to close our eyes and go into our worlds and hope that you all do, too.”
Hallahan almost sounds like he’s reading a script. But no.
“I’m as serious as a heart attack,” he says.