While they don't hail from a Kentucky coal mine, the
music made by the Louisville quintet My Morning Jacket
has parallels to both Janis Joplin's more somber moments
and Loretta Lynn's depressed states.
Singer/songwriter Jim James emotes like a man of
constant sorrow on moping tunes of lost love like "Death
Is My Sleezy Pay," "Bermuda Highway" and the title track
from the band's latest album, At Dawn. His
haunting, detached vocals, drenched in reverb, evoke
Neil Young's anguish folk on 1970's After the Gold
Rush. The comparisons are undeniable on
"Hopelessly," but give way to a drawl more Southern on
the bluesy waltz "Honest Man."
James and bandmates bassist Two-Tone Tommy, keyboardist
Danny Cash, drummer Patrick Hallahan and guitarist
Johnny Quaid, James' cousin, formed in the late 1990s in
Louisville. They released their debut LP, The
Tennessee Fire, in 1999 on indie-cred fountainhead
Darla Records. At Dawn wars released in June
2001, and the buzz surrounding them became fervent a few
months later, culminating in them becoming among the
"must see" groups at the annual South by Southwest music
conference in March. Around the same time, they released
a split EP with one-man band Songs: Ohia.
My Morning Jacket owe a lot to their sleepy Southern
upbringing in Louisville. They claim to derive
inspiration from the former indie-rock hotspot — home to
influential rockers Squirrel Bait in the late '80s and
Will Oldham's Palace projects a few years later — and
find their environment fertile grounds for creativity.
"Back in Louisville ... it's a metropolitan city but
there isn't that much to do," Cash explained, "so people
have to invent things to do, like bands, art."
Obtaining the twangy, crippled creek feel on At Dawn
was easy considering where the 15-track LP was recorded
— on Quaid's grandparents' farm.
"The surrounding is so peaceful and relaxing — we feel
at home there," he said. "It's not a music-oriented,
driven area ... It's a small town. Good vibe. I feel
creative there."
Grandma's farm also has other, non-musical perks. "We
have home-cooking every night. [My grandparents] tuck us
into our bunk beds and read us bedtime stories," he
jokingly added.
James' songs are harrowingly confessional, but he admits
that they don't all stem from personal experience.
Whether they're truthful or imaginative, James keeps one
constant in mind.
"I like to make them as fantastic as possible," he said.
Before you start vacating the premises to make room for
his ego, hear him out. The bard isn't referring to the
quality of his craft, but to an inexplicable element
that flows naturally but something he can't quite put
his finger on.
"When I say fantastic, I don't mean good," he continued,
"because I don't know if they're good or not. But I've
always been inspired by things like "The Muppet Show,"
the "Wonderful World of Disney" and Roy Orbison — stuff
that's really magical.
"Sometimes I don't really think about it. I just sit
down with the guitar, and it just kind of falls out. I
don't even know what it means until three months later.
But other times I'll write directly about something
that's happened to me. I like to just let it come."
My Morning Jacket, who will wrap up their tour with the
Doves Wednesday in Los Angeles, signed a new deal with
the Dave Matthews-owned imprint ATO Records in
September, and the BMG-distributed label will issue an
MMJ EP in the U.K. in November, followed by a domestic
full-length slated for next spring or summer. With MMJ
perched to make their biggest impact yet, the members
aren't shaken by the prospect of playing to larger
audiences. However, the possible consequence of being
taken out of the country — having the country taken out
of them — is daunting. So far steps steeped in
trepidation have worked, and, if My Morning Jacket is
what everyone's wearing next spring, the bandmembers
will likely follow that same path to success.
"We've all dreamed about doing this for a long time, and
we're a little bit nervous and skeptical about the whole
thing," Quaid said. "We don't want to be changed,
really. We want to grow and evolve, but we were kind of
a little bit scared coming out of Kentucky, doing
everything ourselves all the way down the line. And we
were just really cautious — that might be a better word
— about getting in with the right kind of people that
will allow us to grow and evolve as opposed to letting
someone get a hold of us that's going to fit us into a
mold or something that we're not."
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