{"id":29189,"date":"2025-04-18T05:30:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T09:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29189"},"modified":"2025-04-03T07:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T11:43:06","slug":"my-morning-jacket-put-us-in-coach-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/my-morning-jacket-put-us-in-coach-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"My Morning Jacket: Put Us In, Coach (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Jim James says that when he\u2019s engaged in the multitask endeavor of producing and being the artist, he sometimes \u201cgets super-crazy about engineering and mic placement.\u201d Working with O\u2019Brien freed him and his band mates to concentrate on making the songs the best they could be. \u201cI could step back and focus on my singing, my guitar playing, whatever,\u201d he says, \u201cas opposed to worrying about what mic he\u2019s putting on the snare drum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vibe in the studio was convivial; at its center, is<\/i> is the sound of My Morning Jacket being relaxed and having fun making an album. \u201cBrendan congealed us all in this interesting way,\u201d James says. He likens the experience of making the new album to what he imagines it\u2019s like to play for a professional sports team. \u201cEverybody played better, because they knew that \u2018Coach\u2019 was watching,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

James believes that the new working methods even affected his songwriting. Describing O\u2019Brien as \u201cbrutally honest\u201d but in a good way, James says that he \u201ckept firing new demos\u201d at the producer. \u201cHalf the time he wouldn\u2019t even respond,\u201d he laughs. In those cases, James understood that a given song hand\u2019t passed muster. \u201cBut then I\u2019d send another one, and he\u2019d say, \u2018Oh, man, this is better than anything we\u2019ve got! What [song] are we gonna lose for this one?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though the final set of songs for the new album is the result of careful vetting, James doesn\u2019t find a thread running through that links them together tonally. Instead, he suggests, \u201cIt\u2019s the universe speaking.\u201d He says that some of the album\u2019s best material arrived \u201cat the last minute. It almost felt like the universe knew that [work on the album] was coming to a close, and that it only had so long to shoot these songs into the pipeline.\u201d In his view, \u201cthe act of creation inspires more creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some artists create \u201csongwriter\u2019s demos,\u201d basic takes \u2013 sometimes only voice and a lone guitar \u2013 as references for eventual recording. James does that, too, but it\u2019s not the only way he works. \u201cI\u2019ve got a home studio,\u201d he explains. \u201cI love engineering, and I\u2019m always recording.\u201d He says that some pieces of his original home demos ended up forming the basis \u2013 or adornments \u2013 of the finished tracks on is<\/i>. \u201cThat\u2019s something we\u2019d never really done before,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was a part we liked \u2013 a drum programming thing or a sample \u2013 we might use it on the album,\u201d he says. James mentions that a ukulele riff that he recorded at home ended up finding its way into one of the songs. \u201cThat [approach] helped retain some of the fun \u2018beginner\u2019s magic\u2019 that I had already put into the song,\u201d he says. \u201cWe just built on it and expanded it. And by the end of the day, we\u2019d all be in the control room, fuckin\u2019 rocking to what we had done.\u201d<\/p>\n

One quality that makes is<\/i> even better than it would have already been is sequencing. James acknowledges that a great deal of care and thought went into determining the song order. While it\u2019s not a concept album, the record develops and unfolds in a deliberate fashion. There\u2019s a gentle, acoustic-leaning flavor the songs on its first half; around \u201cBeginning from the Ending,\u201d the music gets heavier and more expansive, and builds on in rocking manner from there. The overall effect is almost cinematic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought about sequencing a lot,\u201d James says. Once the tracks were completed, he put together a mix. \u201cI took walks with it, I drove with it, trying to imagine the journey.\u201d He would bounce ideas off O\u2019Brien and make changes in the song order. \u201cThe guys [in the band] had some good notes, too,\u201d James says. \u201cI\u2019d get to a place and then ask them to \u2018take the journey.\u2019 And they\u2019d be like, \u2018Oh, good, but how about this?\u2019 It was a collaborative effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

The act of letting go<\/i> is a theme that runs through James\u2019 understanding of the process that yielded My Morning Jacket\u2019s 10th studio album. \u201cIt\u2019s a funny thing in life, something you hear so often that\u2019s really true,\u201d he observes. \u201cIf you can hit that 50% mark of letting go, then the universe can speak. And then it\u2019s about showing up to do the work; that\u2019s when the magic happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

James pauses, and then he reiterates the other ingredient that has helped make is<\/i> such a creatively satisfying record. \u201cBrendan,\u201d he says. \u201cHe\u2019s such a good coach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Jim James says that when he\u2019s engaged in the multitask endeavor of producing and being the artist, he sometimes \u201cgets super-crazy about engineering and mic placement.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[5645,5644],"class_list":["post-29189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-jim-james","tag-my-morning-jacket","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29195,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29189\/revisions\/29195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}