The April_May issue of Relix features a cover story on My Morning Jacket. Here’s a first look at the piece…

I’m bruised, sunburned, hoarse, dehydrated, unkempt, hungover and sleep-deprived, riding on a chartered bus to Cancun from somewhere vaguely “south of there.” All of the other passengers are in the same sorry shape. Not one person is smiling. Our destination—the airport—represents that final part of every adventure where the realities of work, daily routines, unopened emails, trips to the dry cleaner and the anxieties of the American rat race all come crashing onto the shore like tidal waves, destroying whatever sand castle you’ve been building, until only memories remain. Well, in this case, it’s memories and Instagram photos of the perpetual paradise that we—collectively and individually—have been living inside of for the better part of a week. Reintegration sucks. But every single person on this bus is leaving Mexico a slightly happier person than they were when they first arrived, even if they’re too exhausted to show it.

It’s a bus full of My Morning Jacket disciples. There are fans that flew from all points across America (and beyond) to spend a week in Mexico this past January; fans who spent their rainy-day funds on sunny days in the Yucatan Peninsula; fans who just used up a chunk of their paid vacations so that they could not just watch but experience three consecutive, totally different, never-before-and-never-again My Morning Jacket concerts in 80-degree, mid-winter
weather with five open bars and a free buffet lining the perimeter. There was also a waterslide, a spa, tennis courts and—of course—the ocean.

The occasion? My Morning Jacket’s very own destination festival, One Big Holiday, held at the Hard Rock Hotel in the Riviera Maya. It’s the heart of Quintana Roo, “spring break territory.”

The trip wasn’t cheap or easy, but there was nary a complaint by any of the attendees. Their days were spent as they pleased, and many chose to lazily fill their afternoons lounging with their feet dangling in one of the resort’s many pools and making friends with their neighbors while servers brought them bottomless piña coladas. And their nights were given to rock-and-roll music, as they bopped and bounced in a courtyard at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, as My Morning Jacket thrashed around onstage, dangling their metaphorical feet over the very edge of transcendence. If that sounds lofty or hyperbolic, then so be it. I know what I saw.

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Though a few other well- curated bands—including The War on Drugs and Dr. Dog—filled out the lineup, the fact is that all 2,500 people at One Big Holiday came for one band and one band alone. Whether they were accountants from San Diego or social workers from New York, sisters from Boston, best friends from Portland, Ore., or a community of freaks from San Francisco, there was just one force that brought them all a couple thousand miles closer to the equator—an obsession with My Morning Jacket.

As the bus trudges onward toward the airport, my face is pressed against the windowpane. The gated entrances of countless, faceless all-inclusive resorts flash by, as scenes from this commercialized tourist strip juxtapose themselves against police checkpoints—reminders that these Mexican Disneylands exist, in part, because they were built in the middle of a militarized zone. Your purse is safe on these benches, ma’am.

As we come to a halt at one such checkpoint, I look around at my fellow passengers and smile because I know something they don’t: In my earbuds is My Morning Jacket’s upcoming album. It is a remarkable collection of songs that will quickly become the album of the year for virtually all of the riders on here, when they finally get to hear it this May. If Beck can win the Grammy for Album of the Year with Morning Phase, then one can imagine My Morning Jacket receiving that same honor next time. It’s award-winningly good. But for now, the other passengers don’t even know the title (The Waterfall), or the release date (May 5).

All they know is that, until last Saturday, it had been a year since they heard from their favorite band. Before One Big Holiday 2015, the last show the Jacket played was One Big Holiday 2014. Like most things in life, it wasn’t planned that way. It just sorta happened.

For the festival’s returning vets, when the band crashed the stage on opening night this year, dropping an unexpected first-time cover of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like the Wind,” it felt a bit like a spiritual homecoming. However, for the band members, it hardly felt like a reunion. Before Mexico, they were in Nashville, Tenn., rehearsing and getting their stage legs back. Before that, they spent blocks of time in Northern California, Portland, Ore., and Louisville, Ky., preparing and recording not just one but nearly two albums worth of new material. It was a year off from touring, but it wasn’t a year off.

“Even when we’re apart, it’s not like we’re really apart,” says frontman Jim James, as he cuts into an ahi tuna filet. We’re having lunch in the open-air restaurant of an exclusive resort just a few miles down the road from One Big Holiday. It’s the type of place where you can get lost on the jungle trail between your bungalow and anything else, which is why it’s better to be escorted via golf cart. This is where the band is staying. In that sense, it’s kind of One Big Holiday’s backstage. The band members each have received impressive accommodations, but if the Jacket are impressed, they never let on. The whole band maintains that sort of affected poker face that comes standard with the premium rock-star package. As we eat lunch, the guys assume the laissez-faire air of afternoon dignitaries. They don’t look anything like most of the other esteemed guests at this property, although something about their nonchalance gives them an aura of entitlement.

But how did an outsider rock band from Kentucky end up leading thousands of followers on a pilgrimage to Mexico? And how did this band of quirky Southern gentlemen become—at the moment, at least—the most important rock band in America?

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To learn the answer, pick up the latest issue of Relix. The magazine also contains an excerpt from Bill Kreutzmann’s memoir and features on Courtney Barnett, Blues Traveler, Houndmouth, Jorma Kaukonen, The London Souls, Bruce Cockburn, Phosphorescent, Joel Cummins on Umphrey’s McGee’s new album, Elvis Perkins, Dan Deacon, JD McPherson, Sylvan Esso and much more. Subscribe using the code “MMJ” to get the new issue as well as the 2011 June issue featuring My Morning Jacket on the cover.