Jim James of My Morning Jacket stops by The Current ahead of Northrop gigs
by Mark Wheat, Leah Garaas and Jim James
June 26, 2015
Ahead of My Morning Jacket's two (two!) big Twin Cities gigs at the newly-renovated Northrop tonight and tomorrow, frontman Jim James stopped by The Current's studio to chat with host Mark Wheat live on-air.
Jim's an old friend of The Current. He's been in to chat with Jill Riley on a few couple of different occasions (with a Theft of the Dial to come) and My Morning Jacket performed at Rock the Garden back in 2011. Jim even sang karaoke with Jill at Nye's Polonaise after the show! "One of my favorite [Nye's] memories was somebody, some random customer, singing 'Moondance,'" Jim says, "And then some guy pulled a trumpet out his pocket and started playing a trumpet solo!"
Touring in support of My Morning Jacket's latest album The Waterfall (ATO), Jim tells us that he and the band had no plans going into the studio besides making music. "I had a lot of songs that I wanted to try. We did as many as we could and formed the record out of that, picking the songs that sounded best together," says Jim, "We didn't even get to get all."
As for the album's title, it was most definitely inspired by the natural beauty of Northern California where the album was recorded and mixed. "Life is this constant waterfall of stuff coming down on us," says Jim. And who knows, maybe Jim and the band will visit Minnehaha Falls while they're in town!
My Morning Jacket perform at Northrop June 26 with bouncy local rockers Hippo Campus and June 27 with indie-rapper extraordinaire Lizzo. A few tickets are still available for both shows.