Jim James: The place we recorded, was like an old mansion, that they built back in the 20's, that sits on top of its own mountain and overlooks like, all the rest of the mountains and it was blizzarding and snowing and we were locked in there for like a month. It's kinda like the Shining. Interviewer: Yeah (laughs)(Radio interview)
Jim James: It was great
Interviewer: Is that the reason why you're the only one here?
Jim James: Yeah (laughs)
Interviewer: Are you the only one who made it out alive?
Jim James: I killed everybody else
Interviewer: (laughs)
Z is the first album where the band choose to record away from the Quaid family farm which had served as the inspiration for their first three albums. Instead, My Morning Jacket decided to record in New York's Allaire Studios, nestled deep in the Catskill Mountains of New York. In an 2005 Rolling Stone interview Tom Blankenship talks about decision to record elsewhere.
"It didn't feel right, it felt like a ghost town, going out there to the studio. We had milked that place creatively. Then we decided, 'Hey, we have two new members in the band, so we should just do everything differently.'"- Tom Blankenship
(Rolling Stone interview, October 2005)
"It's so secluded, it took a half-hour just to drive up the driveway. We had been talking for years about really locking ourselves in when we did an album, and now there was no excuse but to be in the studio all the time. You'd wake up and have breakfast and grab your coffee and walk into the control room."- Tom Blankenship
(Rolling Stone interview, October 2005)
