On May 31st 2011 Calgary Herald published an interview with Jim James, done by Mike Bell. The original interview can be found here.
Keywords: coming soon
It's an admirable thing, those comfortable with or addicted to the thrill of not knowing
Others work their entire lives not to have to experience it, while some crave the notion of moment-tomoment, day-to-day being uncertain of what to expect.
Which is why those of us who fall into the category of the staid, the predictable, the comfortable can get a little of that contact thrill from psychedelic Southern country rockers My Morning Jacket -a band that is as unpredictable as it is uncompromising in the epic music that it makes.
Not surprisingly, frontman Jim James's philosophy is one of embracing that uncertainty and following it to its (un)natural conclusion, whatever that might be.
"We don't really know what we're going to do," James says via phone from the band's birthplace of Louisville, KY. "We just try to do what we're into and what the universe is telling us that it wants to hear, like the things that pop in our brains. So we just kind of let it be what it wants to be."
What it's been for the past decade-plus has been as thrilling and unique and, ultimately, satisfying a sonic exploration as any other act currently residing in or on the outskirts of mainstream music.
The band's sixth studio statement, Circuital, is yet another work of unexpected wonder, embracing, as it does, everything from the timeless country of Buffalo Springfield, the Tusk of Fleetwood Mac and the pop of Wings to the harmonic jangle of the Beach Boys and the space of Spiritualized. It perfectly captures the freedom and energy of My Morning Jacket's legendary live performances while still managing to offer some semblance of compositional structure for those who crave that.
"We wanted to make a record that was very live and," James says of Circuital, before pausing. "I don't want to say relaxed or easy because we put a lot of effort and we put a lot of hard work into it, but at the same time we wanted to just focus on the five of us playing live in a room, and just trying to convey that sound."
The disc marks the first time the band had recorded back in Louisville since 2003's It Still Moves, and this time the studio -perhaps in reaction to 2008's Evil Urges, which was a capital "S" studio effort recorded in Manhattan -was an old church gymnasium in town. James and Co. had set up their gear inside the gym with the intention of merely rehearsing and demo-ing material, but then soon found that it suited their musical and spiritual needs.
"We had just come into play and after we'd played for a day or so we realized how magical the space was and how comfortable we felt in it and just tried to keep going. At that point, the record really took on a fun thing of simultaneously learning the songs and making the record at the same time," he says.
"We combined the process and I think that for all of us made it more exciting and more fun and . . . (it) left it open for a lot more of what we like to call beginner's magic."
James thinks the magic of the room also makes itself known on the music of Circuital, or rather between the music of the album.
"I think that space and that place, obviously you wouldn't know unless you were there, but I think you can hear it. I think it just has good spirit there.
. . . When I walked in there I felt that it was more studio than it was gymnasium. It's a beautiful early 1900s gymnasium with beautiful hardwood floors and it's painted almost," he pauses, "If the It's A Small World ride at Disney World had a gymnasium, this would be its gymnasium.
"It just had this beautiful air to it so we really tried to leave a lot of space in this record so you could really hear that air and tried not to fill it with too much noise so we really feel like the listener can hear that air as if you were standing in the gymnasium watching us play."
Fans have a chance to see something relatively similar tonight, when My Morning Jacket celebrates the release of the album with a hometown show at the Palace Theater, which will be streamed live and directed by filmmaker Todd Haynes (I'm Not There).
For James, the concert is yet another "incredible "experience that has offered itself to the band, despite or perhaps because of its unwillingness to be anything different than it is. And, surprisingly, some of those opportunities have given them exposure to a wider audience including: an entire episode of Seth MacFarlane's American Dad devoted to the lead character Stan's infatuation with My Morning Jacket; and the opportunity to provide the music for the upcoming Muppets film, as the Electric Mayhem Band, which, sadly now appears to be dead in the water but which James still keeps talking about "hoping that somebody will see it and intervene."
Still, whatever may or may not come their way is something that James will take in his trademark stride, just happy that whatever lies ahead is as welcome as it is unknown -for all parties involved.
"I can't tell you how lucky we feel. Every day, we get to work on our music or tour -it's unbelievable," he says.
"We always want our fans to know how grateful we are to them and we respect them, but at the same time we're not going to try to cater to anybody, because I feel at the end of the day we just can't. We can only make what we can make. And some people are going to like it and some people are going to hate it. But that's all we can do."
