Features

Jim James: Shadows & Light

Photo by Ryan Mastro

James is clear to point out that despite all his many extracurricular endeavors, there isn’t a Last Waltz on the horizon for the Jacket. Instead, over a near two-hour chat, he repeatedly mentions how much love and respect he has for his bandmates. Like James, all five members of MMJ have musical lives outside of the band. Koster has recorded with Young the Giant, the Watson Twins, VHS or Beta, etc., and recently produced Delta Spirit; Broemel recently issued his second solo album; Blakenship and Hallahan have recorded with Bobby Bare Jr., and the drummer has also performed in Black Key Dan Auerbach’s solo band, and backed Vanessa Carlton, America, and more in the studio.

According to James, it all strengthens their bond: “I think we all understand by now that we encourage each other to do these things. Our bond is strong enough where we’re not threatened by that. It’s like the old cliché, ‘if you love somebody, set them free,’ because they’ll feel free and want to come back. When we get back together, it’s like, ‘Fuck, I’m so glad to see you, I’m so glad to be here in this circle with you guys.’”

Apart from his affection for MMJ, casual mentions of past lives also pop up as James speaks. One of the biggest influences, if not the biggest influence on Regions is Lynd Ward’s 1929 graphic novel God’s Man, gifted to him by artist Gary Burden as they were working on the design of Evil Urges.

“I remember opening it for the first time and just being blown away by every page,” James recalls. “It’s just a bunch of woodcuttings from page to page, and you read the whole book without a single word ever. But it’s very cinematic. For me, it was this striking piece of art and almost a déjà vu thing. I don’t know if the past life me really liked that book in 1929, but it struck with some familiarity.”

God’s Man is a five-part novel in which a penniless, but good-hearted artist unwittingly enters into a deal with the devil (more accurately, the Grim Reaper). He briefly enjoys fame and fortune, before being betrayed and going slightly mad. Just when he’s found love and happiness, Death returns for full payment.

When James got the book, he was still shaken from an Oct. 2008 stage fall in Iowa City, Iowa. “I was really down and out and thought it might be the end for me. But I fell in love, and was rescued and had this series of really dramatic events that kind of paralleled a lot of what was happening in the book.”

The more he read the book, the more he noticed parallels between its story and his own. As he began writing for Regions, it was as if he was “scoring the book,” experiencing some form of intense “past life recognition.”

In one of the most intimate and touching exchanges ever between an artist and his audience, James spoke of the afterlives and past lives during My Morning Jacket’s taping of VH1 Storytellers last year, when he revealed that the inspiration behind “Dondante” was the 2003 suicide of his childhood friend (and Month of Sundays bandmate) Aaron Todovich, whose presence he feels each time MMJ plays the song.

“We dreamed big dreams,” James said, struggling to hold back tears. “We would see shows like Storytellers and say, ‘Some day maybe we can do that.’…But no matter how much you told him how special he was, he couldn’t hear it…He didn’t get to live out his ability to chase his dreams, so I wanted him to get a chance to play Storytellers with us.” With that, in the pin-drop quiet of the studio, James struck his guitar, signaling the start of the song about Todovich’s ghost.

At “Sleep No More,” when that performance is mentioned, it takes James by surprise slightly. He sits up; his eyes get serious. It’s a sensitive subject. He raves about the awesome kindness and encouragement of the staff at the taping, presumably to explain how he found himself in such a vulnerable moment. Later at lunch, he opens up a bit more: “There was a period of time where three of our friends killed themselves within the same year. They were all around 24. At that age in your life, what the fuck do you know? You don’t know shit. I still don’t know shit. It just makes me so sad to think of all the things they missed. But some people carry a heavy debt, a heavy weight from a past life or something fucked up that happened to them as a kid.”

The soul-searching James has done in the wake of those deaths is part of what catalyzed his attempt in recent years to try to generate a little more positivity with his recorded output—songs of hope “with mystery and melancholy.” It’s something that he figures he achieved with at least portions of Regions.

“Growing up, I feel like during the grunge era, we got sold the biggest load of bullshit,” he bemoans. “We got fucked having Kurt Cobain as our guy. I love Nirvana, but it’s like you’re watching this miserable dude who’s always bitching and always in all this pain. It’s like everybody is fed this lie that if you’re going to be a musician, you’ve got to be in pain, and you’ve got to be shooting heroin and everything’s got to be fucked. And that’s the only way your art can be real.

“But then you listen to Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield or Aretha Franklin, and it’s like, ‘Wait a minute. This is joy,’” he affirms. “You can have a life filled with joy and still make beautiful music. I really want to always try to project that.”