My Morning Jacket's Jim James Divulges His 'Evil Urges'

As with every rock band since Bill Haley rocked around the clock, My Morning Jacket often gets compared to other bands. For example, a recent review of their SXSW showcase likened bandleader Jim James' latest inclinations to Earth, Wind and Fire, while referencing Led Zeppelin in describing the rhythm section. Overall, it's a favorable review.

When I read it on the phone, verbatim, to Jim James as he walks around Manhattan, his reaction is as measured as someone who has heard it all before: First, he sees past the comparisons and agrees with the critic's general assessment. Then, he calls the writer out for making lazy comparisons ("I mean, I've heard a couple Earth, Wind and Fire songs, but ..." he says, dryly.) So, before the new album, titled 'Evil Urges,' is released on June 10, Spinner decided to squash our own evil urges to compare MMJ to the greats by letting James use his own words instead.

I sometimes play a game involving the name of your band, taking turns with placing the emphasis on each different word: My Morning Jacket, My Morning Jacket or My Morning Jacket. They each imply something different. Which word do you emphasize?

My Morning Jacket ...

So it's Your Morning Jacket?

It's everybody's.

The new album is called 'Evil Urges.' What are your bandmates' evil urges?

They like sweets, so that's kind of evil. They like sexy lingerie. That's about it, really.

What would they say your number-one evil urge is?

Probably caramel sundaes. It's hard to resist them.

That's pretty evil, but I'm guessing the album title didn't come from an afternoon at Dairy Queen. Why the name 'Evil Urges?'

It's kind of all tied into religion confusing people's morality and people always wanting to think that something is either bad or good, whereas in reality I feel that most stuff is more confusing than that. So basically, it's about being confused and feeling that most people are searching for some kind of answer that sometimes people think religion can bring. And lots of times, people will do things that they think are good in the name of religion, but oftentimes they're destructive for the world, although people think they're really being good -- or maybe they are being good, 'cause I'm kind of confused about the whole thing.

New albums from tireless bands like yours often end up being reactions to the previous release. Early reviews for 'Evil Urges' indicate that there's a renewed R&B influence. How do you think this one sounds in relation to your previous studio album, 'Z'? Is it a departure or is it a continuation?

I think it's always a little bit of both. Every time we make a new album there are certain elements that we started exploring on the record before it that we keep exploring on the record afterwards. It's also definitely a reaction because we try to make every record sound different than the last one, even the equipment we use and the studio we go to and stuff like that. On this record, I wanted to be less organic and tighter, more locked-down, and maybe more propulsive in the rhythm section and tighter in the vocal. Just kind of all-the-way-around tighter. That's definitely a reaction to some of our other records. I just think it's more fun to pick up a new record by a band and hear a completely different record, where you're trying to figure it out and wonder what's going on.

I'm not about to call you a jam band, but I've seen you play some pretty legitimate jams. When you make a new album like this, do you write with the live show in mind, leaving certain parts of songs open for improvisation and extended jamming?

Kind of, yeah, because we record all the basic tracks including the basic main body of the song live. So everything is always based around us playing it live. But also we like to explore the studio and we like to get into really nitpicking stuff and really building walls of sound and stuff like that. The album will physically last longer than we will unless humans destroy the planet before then. So we try to look at albums as things that will last forever that we put as much time and thought into as possible. The live thing is kind of cool because it's freeing in a way, since it's just going to be that one night. The songs are definitely built to be able to work live, but they're also kind of two different worlds.

My Morning Jacket have increasingly staged unique events that aren't just concerts but full-on interactive happenings. Last year you had a prom?

It was awesome. When we played the 40 Watt before, down in Athens, we always thought it'd be a fun place to have a prom. It kind of looks like a prom in there anyway. It's just an excuse to have fun with it and be goofy, and I think people really love having a theme and having an excuse to dress up and go crazy. We decorated the whole place and had cakes and had limousines waiting out front and had balloons and stuff. I think it was just an excuse for people to step out of their normal selves for a second.

Your New Year's Eve show the previous year was also unique.

Tom [Two-Tone], our bass player, had devised this battle plan of wanting to do this Oregon Trail-themed thing. So we made the whole evening based upon this skit that we were traveling, like, from back in the old frontier days across the United States on the Oregon Trail, and we ran out of food and had to eat Tom and had to cook him. But then, miraculously, he had risen from the dead to come back and play the concert with us. Then, at the end of the concert, he was mad at us and killed us all. At the end we all ascend to heaven on the stairway to heaven.

The image of your guitar is on one of my old Bonnaroo laminates. Do you know what I'm talking about?

It was! Yeah, two years ago it was. Actually, I didn't know they were going to do it until I showed up and there it was. I thought it was awesome because C. Taylor Crothers, the photographer, took this picture of me at the previous Bonnaroo where I was holding up my guitar, and I guess they took that and used it for their [backstage passes]. I thought it was pretty wild.

Going back to the beginning when you put the emphasis on My Morning Jacket but then said it's everybody's -- there was a time when people might've called your band 'Jim James' Morning Jacket.' But when a band evolves together over time, oftentimes dynamics can shift and slide. Do you think MMJ is more of a "group" now?

Yeah, definitely. It definitely is my baby and all that stuff, and I'm really lucky that the guys understand that, but we have gotten to a place where everybody's opinion is valued and respected and everybody weighs in and puts their own stamp on the music, too, and I think the guys make it a band and make it far better than I could ever make it by myself. So that to me is why it isn't really my thing. It's not me and a bunch of other guys; it's us doing it. When five guys are invested in it emotionally, it's a lot more powerful than just one person being invested in it. But at the same time, I do have a vision for the songs, a plan for the songs, and I try not to be a dictator about it or a bully about it, and I'm lucky that they guys understand that. We all just want to make it as best as we can and try not to let our ego get in the way.

Hence, in some bizarre rock critic way, you could say that it's fitting that the band is called My Morning Jacket and yet you said earlier that it's actually 'everybody's' morning jacket?

Ha-ha! Right.