Muppets and Misdemeanors

[johnnYYac]

Muppets and Misdemeanors

By Richard Clayton

Jim James of My Morning Jacket on ageing in rock and preventing a mid-life crisis



I'm not sure a rock star is the best person to dispense advice on preventing a mid-life crisis. Never mind, let's give Jim James a try. My Morning Jacket's frontman hasn't ditched his Flying V for a psychiatrist's chair – and, at 33, he's still young – but his band's new, uplifting studio album, their sixth to date, does seem to be about getting that little bit older than feels entirely comfortable.

Circuital entered the Billboard chart in May at number five, the group's highest-ever position and confirmed the ascent of the Kentucky five-piece to the upper echelon of US rock. The songs move from a scene-setting stentorian groove ("Victory Dance") to a lilting country lullaby ("Slow Slow Tune"). "The Day Is Coming" is carpe diem with Bacharach-esque back-ups, but two more tongue-in-cheek tracks grab the attention most.

"Holdin' on to Black Metal" is a psych-soul revue with a children's choir, and nothing like the genre it namechecks. "It's humorous and kind of serious," James explains when we meet in London before the band's recent shows at the Latitude Festival and Somerset House. Its companion piece is "Outta My System", a power-poppy list of past misdemeanours from smoking drugs to stealing cars that the protagonist "would never do now". The song's key lyric – and that of the whole album, I venture – is "the lustre of youth versus married security".

"It really is, yeah," agrees James, his hair a demolished haystack, his beard a battle between a Confederate conscript and David Crosby in his prime. Although happily cohabiting in Louisville, he appears slightly freaked that his contemporaries are starting to have children. "I'm struggling with the concept of age; I keep seeing all these people I know, going: 'I'm so old now: I'm thirty-whatever.' Wait a minute, what's happening?"

James maintains that "Outta My System" is about "trying to avoid a midlife crisis by doing what your gut tells you to do". The message is to let off at least some steam when you're younger, even if you don't go as far as the guy in the song. "As you get older, you discover that if you suppress those urges they all come blowing out of all proportion later, so there's a fine line to navigate," James counsels. "This record is just, like, health; it feels healthy to me."

Crucially, the musical styles aren't as pinballed around as they were on the band's previous release, Evil Urges. James describes that as "our most schizophrenically precise record", but some fans – short-sightedly – criticised him for dabbling with funk, electro and soft-rock influences. "The people I admire, Björk, Radiohead and Wilco or Bob Dylan and Neil Young, have been able to keep themselves interested in music and so keep their audience interested," James retorts.

It seems that creative restlessness isn't the only driver behind My Morning Jacket's changes of direction. Born James Edward Olliges Jr, of German stock, he adopted Jim James as a stage moniker when the host of his first open-mic night couldn't pronounce his surname. Raised as a strict Catholic, he rejected that faith in high school. Today his beliefs are confused, in the broadest sense. "I can't subscribe to anything," he admits. "The only thing I can say truly that I'm looking for is to be a peaceful soul."

I ask him about "First Light" ("First I was an ancient, then I was an infant, now I'm alive"), expecting an answer about being an earnest adolescent but chilling out in his twenties. His reply surprises me: "I really believe in the pipeline of lifetimes and reincarnation ... At one point somewhere I was older; at one point somewhere I was just being born; now I'm me, living life." That's not to imply he has a statue of Buddha at home. He goes on to cite the new-age thinker Eckhart Tolle, who identified "the collective pain body" that feeds on bad news in the media and violent films and makes us miserable. "Killing it is a lifetime quest," he says.

Is this a good moment to mention the Muppets? A couple of years ago, My Morning Jacket was approached to be the new sound of Electric Mayhem (the Muppets' house band with Animal on drums). However, the Gorillaz-ish project fell foul of a "corporate takeover", James says. "We batted around ideas for six months, then all of sudden there's this merger and, kerchung, the person you're dealing with is gone." What a shame. They would have provided the perfect blend of sincerity and zaniness.

Some of the demos resurfaced on Circuital as "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)", a wistful James Taylor-ish strum, and "Outta My System", and James reveals a plan to release "a Muppety version" of the latter. In the meantime, giving us a taste of what could have been, My Morning Jacket's lush, banjo-led cover of "Our World", formerly performed by Alice Otter in a 1977 Christmas special, is on the soundtrack of the new film The Muppets.

Don't mistake agreeing to voice a Jim Henson puppet as a mid-career wobble; the Muppets were among James's earliest musical inspirations. You can find footage of him singing Kermit's "Rainbow Connection" on YouTube. "The ultimate thing in any art is when any age group can understand the value in it," he says. So, what might a rock star do for midlife crisis?

"That's a good question," James chuckles. "Everybody who does one thing always envies the opposite – that's a natural reaction. The person stuck on the farm envies the person travelling the world and vice versa. For how long do you rock'n' roll? I don't know. Do you go on like the Stones until you're, like, 80 years old? There's some music that's timeless. It's not like Roger Waters is trying to be 16. Or Neil Young, he's like: 'This is just me now'. "

James's interests are maturing. He is writing music for films; he has a solo album as Yim Yames under way; he hopes to make another record with Monsters of Folk, the supergroup featuring Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and M Ward. But how do the rest of us, without access to agricultural land and musician buddies, go about "spinning out gracefully", as Circuital's title track puts it?

James responds by invoking the Zen idea of "the beginner's mind". "That's why I love changing up our sound so much," he says. "If you're a beginner, you don't know anything and are always thinking afresh. Some of my favourite people who are older are like that, constantly trying to do other things."

Right, then. Pottery, here I come.

My Morning Jacket's new single, 'The Day Is Coming', is out in the UK and Europe on August 29 on V2

[woodnymph]

I ask him about "First Light" ("First I was an ancient, then I was an infant, now I'm alive"), expecting an answer about being an earnest adolescent but chilling out in his twenties. His reply surprises me: "I really believe in the pipeline of lifetimes and reincarnation ... At one point somewhere I was older; at one point somewhere I was just being born; now I'm me, living life." That's not to imply he has a statue of Buddha at home. He goes on to cite the new-age thinker Eckhart Tolle, who identified "the collective pain body" that feeds on bad news in the media and violent films and makes us miserable. "Killing it is a lifetime quest," he says.  

(<--favorite part!)

"That's a good question," James chuckles. "Everybody who does one thing always envies the opposite – that's a natural reaction. The person stuck on the farm envies the person travelling the world and vice versa." 

(I'm feeling a resonance here!!)

Great article though, thanks for sharing JY!!

[SaraBananaBear]

Yes, thank you thanks Mr. JY!  :)

[el_chode]

Totally get it...my wife and others are either just crossing 30 or about to and can't stop commenting on how old they are. Then they laugh at me for saying "you're only as old as you act and feel" and tell me I'm an immature jerk. Whatever, it's almost like they want to age.

[subinai]

wonder if there will be a b-side to the TDIC single.... hmmmmm..

[SmokinShootin]

I think in many respects this album serves as a loose concept album, about growing older.  I really enjoyed reading this.

[j_rud]

Every time I read about the Muppets thing falling through I get bummed. I f*ckin love me some Muppets...