Boing Boing video (2011)

On October 11th 2011 Boing Boing published an video with My Morning Jacket, done by Scott Compton. The original post can be found here.

"On June 24, My Morning Jacket descended on Oakland's historic Fox Theater for an epic performance in support of their majestic album, Circuital. Remedy Editorial's Scott Compton and his merry band of video documentarians made the scene on behalf of Boing Boing. You'll remember Scott and crew as the artistes who brought The Swell Season and The Decemberists to the big little screen for Boing Boing Video. We are now honored to feature their loving cut of My Morning Jacket, interviewed and live in concert on June 24, 2011."

- Boing Boing post
(October 2011)

Time spend interviewing the band: 45 minutes
Video runtime: 21 minutes
Show recorded at: Fox Theater, June 24th 2011
Equipment: 6 cameras, including a RED Epic rolling 4480x1920pixels at 120FPS and Canon HDSLRs

Rough transcript
Jim James: I'm Jim and I play guitar and I sing
Patrick Hallahan: I'm Patrick and I play the drums
JJ: And we've known each other since fourth grade, we have the same birthday. I'm four minutes older.
Interviewer: Did you guys have beards back then?
JJ: We did
JJ and PH together: We came out with beards
PH: I think that's what it was that drew us together, that we were the only fourth graders with beards
JJ: Yeah

Tom Blankenship: I'm Tom Blankenship and I play bass guitar.
Interviewer: Other than Jim you're the oldest, you've been in the band the longest.
TB: I'm the oldest living human being in the world
[laughs]
PH: How old are you now?
TB: Hundred and thirty five.
PH: You're a hundred and thirty five years old?
[nods]
JJ: Wow.
PH: Looking good baby.
TB: Thanks.

Carl Broemel: My name is Carl Broemel, I play guitar, sing, sax, pedal steel, pour espresso shots in the morning.
PH: Barista extraordinaire.

Bo Koster: I'm Bo Koster, I been like in love with the piano since I was five. Even if somebody sits down and tinkles the piano, I get excited.

JJ: Since Bo and Carl joined the band, this has been the longest line-up of the band ever since it's been around. They just totally opened up a whole new galaxy. A lot of my favorite musicians are schooled, but the school didn't destroy their creative brain. Bo and Carl have both had schooling. They brought a really great essence to us where we could look at problems we were having sometimes via their knowledge of actual notes and actual chord voicing and things you're talking about, that I'm like 'I want it to sound pink' or 'I want it to sound purple'
PH: Bo and Carl brought less nicknames to different parts our songs.
[laughs]
BK: We adopted the nicknames
CB: Hell yeah
BK: Now we talk in metaphors
CB: Exactly
[laughs]
JJ: You know I'm still grateful and appreciative to the other members who were in the band in the beginning, but to me, this is the band.

Interviewer: Could we talk about recording in a studio versus recording where you guys choose to record, which was inside a church.
JJ: So our first three records are made at our studios and then we made Z at a place called Allaire studios which is in upstate New York, which was amazing, because it was a real proper studio, but it was also in this crazy mansion. So you were still dealing with unconventional spaces, it wasn't like your typical thing. Then during Evil Urges we kind of wanted to, we were like okay we've never been in a quote on quote real studio, let's go to a real studio and just see how that impacts us.

JJ: When you're in a real studio that's already been predetermined by all these scientific guidelines, you're kind of living under somebody else's roof
PH: That's true
JJ: For us it's so much more fun to live under your own roof. So for this record when we went to this crazy church gymnasium, we're like tearing apart tents and putting over the drum set and wrapping sleeping bags around them and all these stuff to change the sound, y'know and moving
PH: Moving pianos from room to room, it's more fun that way
JJ: It's kind of like your own guerrilla space and you're trying to fight for whatever sound you want in there, it therefor becomes your sound, 'cause of nobody else has that sound.

CB: We didn't have any kind of creature comforts at all in there, it's nice, a nice break. There was no wireless internet happening
PH: Yeah
CB: There was no air conditioning in the summer too, so those are the sort of things that sort of snap you out of your normal reality, like 'I'm used to being comfortable' at time and then you're like playing, you're like fuck I'm just covered in sweat . 'Send somebody out for some, y'know, ice coffee!', it's like you can't do that. We didn't have (...) for that. So that's a good place to be in, just like out of the ordinary.

Interviewer: Do you guys write songs while you're travelling?
JJ: I always wanted to be more constructive with road time in terms of songwriting and recording, but I don't know why, it's just really tough. I get little snips that pop into my brain that I save on my cellphone voice recording, just to not forget the idea. But the days on tour, it's strange because they're pretty busy, but there's also a lot of down time, but somehow I guess. I don't know if it is the emoting you did the night before or whatever, like the last thing you really want to do is like sit around and play guitar all day, when you're going to play guitar all night. So it's kind of a strange vacuum.
PH: I think you just got an idea for one right there and you didn't even know it. Your solo album should be called snips and it should just be like tiny little bitty snips
JJ: Yeah, yeah
[laughs]
PH: There you go, you just got it right there

Interviewer: I watched the piece you did in Louisville, do you guys ever talk about that, what that concert meant to you?
JJ: Whenever we put out a new record it's like obviously a huge new chapter, a new page being turned. Starting out at home like that I feel like, it's just kind of, I don't know, it just makes sense, I mean that's where we started from. Plus the place we played The Palace is just epically beautiful, you know, similar thing as this.

JJ: The thing about these old theaters is just, it never fails to amaze as to how different they all are inside. Like they're all just unbelievable. Thank God they don't build them like this anymore.
[laughs]
JJ: What a waste.
PH: That'd be a travesty

Interviewer: Can we talk record collections?
JJ: Yeah I think we're all really big vinyl fans
PH: Mhm
JJ: And we got huge vinyl collections at home and it's one of the great things about touring, going to so many record shops and just being inspired. Often times something will catch your eye, you'll take it to the counter and they're like 'Oh my God if you like that, then you got to have this and this and this'.
BK: That never happens in the digital realm, you're never going through Amazon and stumbling upon something like that and that's the problem with Google and all the search engines nowadays, that they tailor make their searches for you and they try to basically homogenize your taste.
PH: Track you.
BK: Yeah and track you and homogenize, refine it and make it even more specific and that never happens. You never stumble upon something, you stumble upon something that you're supposed to stumble upon.
JJ: For me, vinyl is home and digital is the road. I love being on the road and being able to have my hard drive filled with just all sorts of music that I can reference at any point, but when I'm at home and want to sit and listen to something in high quality with great speakers and y'know, I play vinyl.

Interviewer: The obligatory question to ask is about file sharing
JJ: Yeah, I think it all comes down to responsibility and conscience. If you’re leading a good life and you’re putting food on the table and you’re keeping a roof over family’s head and everybody’s got health insurance, then please buy our record. But if our country is too messed up to know that it’s the right thing to provide people with health insurance, and make it an option, it’s not some crazy agenda, just call it public option, just make it happen. Yeah ‘cause if my friends can’t afford health insurance, then please steal music from the Internet all day long. But at the same time there’s a responsibility, because if you do have money and you can buy records, then you should buy records if you want to see your favorite bands keep making records.

Interviewer: Tonight I heard the Preservation Hall Jazz band is going to join you, could you give the audience a little intro or understanding of what that's all about?

JJ: I was lucky enough to be invited to come sing with them in the hall, so I flew down to New Orleans and met they guys, met (...). Being in that room is such an emotional place to be, you just feel like, I just tell people it's like their music is literally been blowing the paint off the walls in there forever. You walk into that place and it's like melting with music and ghosts and it's just crazy.

JJ: The music that they play is timeless and their carriers of this torch. It's not throwback music, it's not old music, it's like our music, it's the people's music, it's so full of life and so fun.

JJ: We try to let people that come see us and people who listen to us, know how grateful we are for them. Because we can play in our basement all day long, but without the fans, the live music, that comes to shows and stuff, the whole thing is pointless. For us touring and playing music is a all encompassing 360 experience that the fans are all just as much a part of, just as much as we are.