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he invited me out to record one night and I was like so emotional and I like put all my heart and soul into this acoustic ballad and right when I was done he cuts over the incom he's like that was beautiful now let's try one
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let's try and record one I was like oh are you kidding me and he was just messing with me but it was amazing sorry man it was a technical Eric on this and we just need more go with that this just so obvious someone in the back was like
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I want [Music] it I had a moment Jim where I put this album on for the first time and I was walking around um Austin on the on the side of the lake and the sun was setting and I you know I'll be honest I timed it
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kind of deliberately I could see the sun was sitting from my from my hotel I was like it's a nice time to go listen to the new My Morning Jacket album and it was so beautiful it was so wonderful and it reminds me how music is uh such a generous
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companion I love that term generous companion it's just it's there for you when you uh open yourself up to it and uh I feel like your music has definitely been there for me and for many people so it's great to have you in the studio and
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thanks for saying Hi man yeah thanks for having me when was the last time that you did that when was the last time you sort of went and put something on kind of with purpose you know not not just cuz it was on the radio or whatever but
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you were feeling a certain type of way or yeah you know you get it you just wanted to put something on that kind of embellished your thinking or took you somewhere every day I mean I feel like it's always going I kind of get into this weird
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repeat mode where if I hear something well pretty much like I listen to My Sweet Lord by George Harrison that's like the only song that I listen to for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and then I'll like uh randomly come across a
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new piece of music or something and then I'll I'll listen to that for a couple days and recently I did ketamine therapy which was really uh unbelievable and there was this song in it that was just like this kind of bubbling uh synth thing that was
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instrumental and it was really really calming and I needed to be calmed and I mean I've been listening to that for weeks it's just like just just like uh helps me so much I walked into a hotel room in Melbourne once when I was on a
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tour when I was a DJ and it was a nice hotel and they had this welcoming music coming out of the TV that had these chords in it that I immediately felt Mega connected and emotional to yeah and I left that I left that welcome music on
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for eight hours wow that's amazing I didn't turn the TV on and do anything us I just kept it on and just did what I was doing with it on it was so lovely I feel like I always have the opposite reaction of the music coming out of the
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it's awful but I never found out what it was and to this day it kind of haunts me in a really lovely way um I've almost give it some more time now when I go into the hotel roomat if it's only if it moves you I mean this
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was surprisingly moved me you know almost I mean a few years later I almost called the crown in Melbourne to ask them when was that intro music they would have a CL we get so many asks about that that welcome music um I'm interested in the idea of
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you know um an enhanced therapy I I do therapy and I love therapy and I love searching for some I I love having enough a safe place to be curious about my own ways of thinking and processing things what was kidaman therapy like oh
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my god well yeah I I am uh I do uh EMDR therapy and parts work and I met a therapist in the p mic that uh just has been I've been searching for him my whole life and uh so I do regular therapy and I've tried all sorts of therapy uh and ketamine therapy to me is
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um it's one of the most profound experiences I've ever had um cuz it reminded me well it it like put me back up in the wall of God like it put me back up in the ocean of Consciousness where I feel like we're all connected in
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this ocean of Consciousness and we're each a little wave you know but we're all part of the ocean and we're all energy field right we're all in the energy field yeah and you like return to that energy field in a way that you get
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a little glimpse of uh at least for me when I meditate or when I play music or um when I make love I feel like there are these states that we get into where we forget the human component and we're God again and I feel like the um the
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ketamine experience at least for me like rocket blasts you up into that wall of God where all of this is forgotten like any sense of gym or any sense of this world or anything it's all gone and there's this presence this Consciousness where like I
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was conscious but it wasn't gim it was like my Eternal Soul and it was like that energy and I've just been thinking about that a lot like free of identity yes there no just like the most beautiful pure identity that I feel like
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we really all share yeah Shar but we're all unique but we are all the same you know it's like the oceans and the ocean waves Brahman Atman thing that I feel like there is this sense that I'm uh as I think about this more and more that
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music and love itself are like little hints from the universe that are like remember your true nature you know but we're not supposed to be able to remember it easily cuz that's why we come here and take human form to to learn more and evolve and learn these
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lessons and suffer and have victories and love and all this stuff and I think that's why music is so important cuz it's like the invisible architecture that holds up the entire universe and I think you know there's not enough value
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placed on music and when I say music I mean even the birds chirping or whatever that it holds this whole thing up it's frequency more than it is the notes and away from me now it's got to a point where I'm I recognize that the feeling I
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get from music the notes and the tools are are a way of communicating but what I'm really locking into is the frequency of feeling right right it's hitting me a lot more as I as I move through life of how I hear it in things that are we
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from this and radio and all the conventional places I would have heard music I hear it in so many different places hotel room TVs yeah yeah totally how has it not necessarily the specifics of the ketamin therapy but but going deeper into that Curiosity that desire to kind of go beyond um you know the surface of our identity and what we're given at Birth and who we become how has that kind of how has it influenced and and weaved through your
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music and your creativity because when you start you're a young person you're just kind of thrashing and it's all linear and visceral right oh my God yeah right and then you get to a point where you start searching for answers it's got
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to come through in the music I hear a beautiful open album that lets go a lot here thanks yeah I'm trying to let go I feel like that's the thing I feel like I've really really struggled in this world I've really struggled with
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depression and self-loathing and uh self-hatred and and I feel like music was my way of desperately trying to get the world to love me you know it's like please love me look what I could do look at the tricks I can perform please
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please please yeah and I realized like slowly you know only in the last four or five years have I begun to realize this stuff that uh especially in the chaos of the modern world one thing that no one can take away from me is the love that I
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cultivate for myself and no matter what happens in the world I can build this reservoir of love for myself and instead of um trying to erase JY or trying to escape from JY or trying to destroy JY like I've spent most of my life doing if
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I I was like that's not working what if we try to turn the other way and we try to love Jim and take care of Jim heal JY and The more I've been trying to do that the more I've realized that I can actually be of Greater service to the
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world rather than like trying to run from the world or escape from the world if I'm nicer to myself I can be nicer to the those around me and I can also let go in this new way that's really come through in the music because that whole
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quest for love I had to do everything with the music or it wasn't good enough I had to produce it I had to play it I had to write it I had to do the guitar solos I had to do that you know like I had to make sure the Reverb was right
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and the microphones are right every little thing and The more I've realized that like if I take my entire self-worth out of the success or failure of my music career and just try to love myself then I can realize things like did with
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this last record where we were kind of at this point where we were banging our head against a wall and we had done two full sessions just by ourselves with me producing and we had some cool stuff but it was all murky and there was like so
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many ideas and we weren't really getting anywhere and there's this idea like what if we try a producer what if we try a coach you know and and often times that's tough too cuz a lot of times um big name producers come with big egos
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you know and they drag that in there yeah but I took some meetings and met Brendan and Brendan is so funny cuz he is like all he is interested in is the music what is the temple right is the key right is the you know are the
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lyrics right you know it's like he's a sweet guy he's a hilarious guy but it's like he doesn't need to Vibe out with you it's like this really really interesting thing where he's like so laser focused on the U music and for us as a band it was really
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fascinating cuz we all like sprung to life cuz you want to play good for Coach you know you're like want to do a good job for Coach you know CU he got the playbook in his hand at all times oh my God yeah he's seen everybody play you
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know this guy's watched Bruce Springsteen play you know it's like and that kind of for us I think really uh inspired us and the beautiful thing about him was is it wasn't about his ego it wasn't about this big character that
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he's building up himself he serving at the altar of the songs absolutely and he truly was and I thought you feel that truth when you're with him and that the only thing that will ever Outlast our soul man is the music right and the
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memories that we leave behind and that is the immortality of it all I was I was talking to briano about this the other day cuz he's created this opportunity through this random generative music thing where he's taken 44 days of
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ambient music and various ideas he's made over the course of his life 10,000 plus tracks Y and the only way he could ever find where anything was was to make it random right cuz you could never order it so got just got to leave it to
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chance so he and his his friend of his have created this random generator that can just put their various components together and create something new and ultimately they can create something new in infinite like they can create a new
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combination of sounds infinitely and I said is this your mortality play and he was like not bad is it God his I mean his Thursday you know that piece Thursday that ambient music piece incredible I mean yeah his St it he really creates music you can live to
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you know like I put on Thursday and I live you know it's like just this this yeah it's unbelievable you know I understand the thinking that Brandon has that obsessive desire to want to make sure that the music ultimately exists and it's natural
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habitat and it's in its finest form um and I also responded to what you're saying and many will who are listening or watching this to the idea of control I mean it's it's something that I think uh yeah we're we're born into the desire
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to control because we're trying to make good on the things we feel we failed at as kids it's kind of like a simple way I look at it at least absolutely and you know when you finally sort of get to a point of letting go it's amazing how things improve but
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there is a difficult transition would you say the last album before this was that transitionary moment or were you still figuring that out when you were getting into this point the idea of letting go of Jim no I hadn't figured
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that out yet I was I was beginning um it really mostly it began shortly before the pandemic uh cuz I had done iasa then and uh I had this really beautiful moment um where I was holding myself in my arms and it was this real and I was
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like patting my hair back and I was Jim in 2019 and I was holding gy in 2019 oh my God this is literally the ioser exper experience that you would hope you could have oh well there's all sorts of other stuff that was oh that's what I'm saying
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there's a whole lot of other I'm sure but this is the one that's actually on the can of IA is you holding yourself and just like I want that well it was beautiful cuz I was holding myself and I was looking into my own eyes and I was
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like Jim you're too mean to yourself buddy like you got to be nicer to yourself you got to you got to take care of yourself you got to love yourself and I'm like really Jim you really mean it it's just that true can I do it and it
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like gave me this ability to see myself as another person which is so profound I'm sorry but I'm just still laughing at the idea of like someone around and going and you too can have that experience with pure I dial up now only
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$9.99 get to know your younger self and make good with yourself in fact make out with yourself if you have to yeah if that's what you need so you come out of that experience and of course some of that's going to stay with you but then the rest of the
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world is still waiting for you and you go back to the reality of what it is so it's still a discipline isn't it well yeah that's why I'm definitely not like a um do psychedelic drugs and everything is fine but I think if you include them
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as a piece of your healing with therapy you know if you establish this all and that's what happened for me is like I had that little chunk with the iasa where it gave me this gift of of seeing myself as another person and I was like
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you know I'm really I try to be really kind to like all the people that I encounter or people that I love and then I treat myself terribly you know and I'm so mean to myself and I'm so critical of myself it's called being a fixer I think
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is what they turn that in therapy I was I was one of that I would be hot on myself but always ready to fix other people's problems right right but so you having that ability to like see myself as another person was like the beginning
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of and then luckily I found the therapist that really worked for me and began my journey or whatever but um yeah I feel like most really most of my life I've been just kind of running trying to escape this world you know yeah for sure
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and I'm not surprised that you found you know an outlet in the Arts I think it's a it's a beautiful creative way of look at the beginning right I think you get to play with your identity yeah something you're probably not oh yeah
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enjoy the fruits of that cuz people like that identity they're like I like that gy yeah how do your band respond to these kind of like Adventures you know and maybe they they're with you maybe they're beside you having these things
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but you know these are real shared relationships with people bonds that you have not just in the studio and on stage but you can't you know this is this is camaraderie at a high level yeah and they see you kind of going and exploring
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these side of things and I only ask cuz sometimes you know when someone comes back from that it changes their life so profoundly it makes it hard for other people to relate to the person that they to know in the first place like am I
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going to like Jim am I going to be able to relate to this guy while he's sitting there going just let go man like not easy for me I ain't done the C totally yeah let go brother it's all going to be fine yeah yeah so I mean how's it how I
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guess it's a question about band Dynamic you know I mean we're it's just so blessed uh I mean that's why we're still around you know it's been so long um and I feel like there were times where it almost all imploded you know there's
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times where I almost walked away from it or couldn't handle it or and I think most of my life I've been a really terrible Communicator cuz I've been just too lost in in everything and I think uh I've been trying to communicate better
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and better and better and encourage them to communicate better with me so now instead of holding like smoldering resentments or things that are like you know the elephant in the room kind of energy that's not being spoken about if we are like talking to
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each other all the energy just dissipates and and the energy is clear and I feel like there's this beautiful thing happening right now where everybody's doing their own healing you know it's like everybody uh is on their
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own path and uh all the other guys have kids except me so they're experiencing what I'm sure part of what you're experiencing which I hope I get to experience someday but there's just this really beautiful sense of enhanced uh communication and this
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sense too of like real living right real living real living and destroying the myth of age you know I think when we've seen uh people like Joanie Mitchell or the Rolling Stones or Dylan in recent years you really see this thing where
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you really realize like oh man like we can keep getting better with age you know the more we learn and the more we grow you see these artists that like i' love to see it dispel the myth of of Youth you know obviously youth is
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beautiful too but our world is so fixated on it and I feel like there's thing com so much fear youth right what if this all doesn't work out and how am I even going to get to old age and am I even going to be mature and all never thought I would make it past
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whatever you know not very not very old yeah yeah I think I think with age comes a sense of um self assuredness and your own intentions and desires of to to do good work and to to sort of make add value yeah and peace I feel like peace
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is the biggest thing for me is this enhanced sense of Peace that's like really really just kind of blowing my mind this this sense of peace that I'm cultivating for myself where it's like I nothing nothing can take it away from me
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you know no matter what happens in the ex outside world nothing can take away my own love for myself if I you know keep cultivating that that would have to be a process of Separation because you can't unengaged with on a daily basis yeah
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it's intense and I feel the same way I try to separate myself from my intention to myself and my family y my friends and then how I choose to engage with the world with some form of control I hate to use that word but it's the only one I
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can think of because it's all so out of my control that the only thing I can do is how do I engage with it absorb translate and react the thing that I'm trying to do is oh absolutely I've thinking about this so much I think we
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all are and there's this great Darth Vader effect happening right now that I think everybody's forgetting about where uh it's like the Emperor or Darth Vader in Star Wars is saying to Luke yes get angry yes get angrier yes kill him kill
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him you know and that enhances the anger and it and it's so crazy and it's amplifying everything and there's this thought I keep having where it's like okay if I neutralize my anger yeah towards anybody you know because you think about all of the political stuff
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all the chaos that's going on this is all born from somebody not dealing with their problems and somebody not loving themselves you know and somebody refusing to face reality and refusing to take the truth it's all fear mechanics
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it's all fear mechanics so if we disable that at our source if I say no matter what you do to me I'm not going to respond to you with hatred or or fear and what I'm going to do is take action for the causes that I care about I'm
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going to donate to those causes I'm going to play benefit for those causes I'm going to crosss do whatever yeah do literal things rather than fighting with somebody on Instagram about it I'm going to do literal things in the world to
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support the organizations I care about to work for the organizations I care about and I'm not going to fight with anybody well cuz what you're doing by doing that and we're doing by doing that cuz I agree with you and it's amazing
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how quickly that thought came to me when I realized the system would not be at my disposal anymore right maybe it never was but it certainly isn't even from a sort of illusionary level right now for the foreseeable future I was like but I
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still want to contribute I still want to act I still want to do my bit and it was very clear to me like you the pathway which was like um you know to put it through a modern terminology I'm going to be a bit more micro about this cuz
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the macro is just is like where a lot of the base level frustration and angers and I still feel that I still have those moments absolutely but I can't let that dominate because I'm not going to get enough done yeah there absolutely yeah
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you're going to get sucked into the Darth Vader effect your anger and hatred is going to amplify it all and that's the craziest thing about all that stuff that just results in more clicks and more ad dollars and stuff and the whole
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thing is just you know it's happening in this way where it's like we got to wake up from this and I think the thing that everybody is missing myself included until just recently is like everybody's forgetting about themselves like take
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the time love yourself like check in with yourself get real with yourself get right with yourself and then you kind of see other people and all these people that you the reflection is pure yeah and you think you hate these people so much
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but if you can see them with compassion and see the people that you disagree with and be like oh man they are filled with so much self-hatred and so much fear they're trying to fill it with all this external validation you know and
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you really start to see that with people again you don't condone their actions or whatever but you you're you can at least have mercy that that I really feel like begins to spin the wheel in the direction you want it to spin well two
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things can be true you can hold people accountable for what they do and at the same time not absorb the behavior and and let it kind of sort of poison your own sense of what's possible and I think that's the thing that's most upsetting
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and where an album like this shows up at just the right time because like any great record German any great my morning Jack record there's complexities in the writing and there's lots of lots of things that people can take from it it's
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not just a singularity but there is a sense of like um searching to be free of the toxicity of things you know what I mean I get a sense of that like out in the open like just let me be free of it to be able to find out what it is I
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really feel yeah and not be influenced by all these auxiliary thingses that make sense yeah definitely and I think it's part of that I think everybody knows the feeling of uh telling the truth can be scary sometimes being your
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being your true self can be really scary you know like coming out into the open can be really scary but once you do I'm free so free such a relief you know I always think of my uh brain uh like the famous uh Apple rainbow wheel that spins
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when your computer has too much too many programs open you know it's like I've got rainbow Wheels spinning and it's like the more I get right with myself and the more false programs I start to shut down my computer is running clean
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you know and the rainbow wheel's not spinning anymore it's like you know that kind of uh that kind of feeling did you love being in the studio we talked a little bit about this before with Brandon's influence but did you love just being able to perform these songs
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that you've written with the band and not be so particular about the overall I know you love the sound design of things and you've you're responsible for the sound we' fallen in love with and what's amazing is that that how present that
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sound is here that's again another Testament to Brennan because bryndan really respected our sound and really respected my wishes and stuff but yes it was such a relief to just let go and trust that I don't have to micromanage
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everything you know it's like can be times where Brendan and Carl or Brendan and Bo or Brendan and whoever are working on something and I can trust that it's going to be fine you know I can go over here and work on my lyrics or take a walk around the block or whatever instead of being over there like where's the mic right the is the mic PR right you know it's just like jeez you know like I've been stressing myself out so much and and at the same
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time it's like I also have compassion for that old gym because I don't regret anything either and I'm so grateful for all the life I've had and all learning yeah sure but seeing that now though I'm just like it is a huge relief so what
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does the era of uh no feel like now when you're not saying no to yourself when ultimately it falls at your at at at your discretion because you're kind of across all of it you're only having a conversation with yourself you come back
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from a walk and Brandon's done something that you're unsure about some of the other guys may be excited about this is just a part of Human Experience yep how do you how do you now how is communicating changed for you now that
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you don't you actually have to learn how to communicate with someone else I'm not sure about that absolutely well one thing that I've noticed is that I I try to give things a little more time than I used to immed aat give it a beat give it
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a beat yeah let it sit there cuz it's you can change it later in half an hour quick question do you still get the fire in your belly whilst you're giving it a beat like I'll do that I'll still get the feeling yeah but rather than react
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to the feeling I'll let the feelings sit well surprisingly it was so interesting cuz I thought I would get that feeling a lot I was that was one of my biggest fears before we started started working with Brendon I was like oh man what if I
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come into the control room every day and I'm like but I don't want to say anything cuz I don't you know and ultimately we all talked about this as a band and we were like listen if this doesn't work out at the end of the day it's not going to work out and we
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whatever it'll be a huge colossal wasone yeah exactly but it's like but luckily that didn't happen that much and I realized the more and more cuz that's the funny thing too about records even when I was trying so hard to micromanage
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and force everything at the end of the day the record makes itself it always does and it always you always think song A is going to be the greatest song on the record and it doesn't even work doesn't even make the record you know
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and idea x29 or whatever that was only a 30 second idea turn into the best song on the record yeah and the more I realized that if I can just let go and just the universe will keep speaking and I'll keep showing up to serve it if I
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can keep showing up to serve every moment it's going to keep drifting through and the things that are meant to work out are going to work out and the things that aren't aren't and all I can do and it has given me so much more
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peace of mind to like show up and right now I'm going to sing I'm not going to worry about the microphone I'm not going to worry about the preamp I'm not going to worry about what's going on in the world or what I'm just going to try and
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sing or play guitar whatever it is oh there you go okay you're not you haven't got all these other things that are going on in your brain that are distracting you from that pure intention of trying to perform what you feel so if I was a bidding man I'd assume
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this was the most enjoyable why old record you've ever made because you're just tapping in without very with very little going on around you it was so enjoyable yeah I it's hard to say like more or less or whatever CU it's been
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such a wild journey of recording ever since I was a kid I love recording you know that's been my one uh true uh connection with God or the universe or whatever is is music and even when I was trying too hard or being mean to myself
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or whatever there was always that pure entry into the universe through music you know even I remember getting a a fourt track cassette recorder as a kid for the first time sitting down in my basement and like realizing I could sing
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with myself you know on this recording device you know and just like BL and you wake up and three hours are gone you know you're like whoa I transcended all of space and time you know and so but the more I feel like I can let go and
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Trust in the people that are around me too that really opens everybody else up too you know the more that we've been together now um this group of My Morning Jacket has been together for over 20 years now you know the band's been over
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25 and it's like and now I've gotten to this place where it's like like I really trust these people you know and and and yeah are we always going to agree no you know but if I trust them to like Let It All flow down the path it's all it's all
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going to work out because yeah I'll still speak my Truth at the end of the day if this particular thing isn't working for me I'll talk about it and we'll figure it out you know and it'll work itself out wow man that's called
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being present too and there's a song on here which and I'm just taking it from my through my filter um there really gets that that that that desire to be present and try not to kind of get swept up on what was and what will be which is
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beginning from the ending which to me is very much about kind of accepting and acknowledging that it's fragile yeah yeah it's everything is in that cycle you know I think about I was asked to do the a song for this movie about a couple
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that was starting a farm I forget what the movie was and I and I wrote this song for the movie and it didn't get used to the movie but I was also thinking about my sister and her husband have an organic farm in Kentucky and
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they do all the work themselves and they're they're farming and farming and I mean farming is like hard work I mean that is hard work you know but you see there's a reason why people make movies about that in the 1700s the 1800s the
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1900s and the 2020s because it is like legitimately you know era era wise the hottest oh it's unbelievable but obviously without it we wouldn't be here you know it sustains us all and seeing just that constant process of uh birth and death and birth and death
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and birth and death and for things to grow they have to come from old waste as well waste just accepting that so much effort's going to be put into something that may not even be usable yeah or transferable yeah yeah it's wild it's
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crazy I love the feeling of that song too can you just tell us a story about the recording of that to me it's got It's it's kind of a a big pot of the hot and solo the record that song thanks yeah that was an interesting I uh
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example of a song that wouldn't have been on the record if we didn't work with Brendan because for this record um I just put all my ideas into the pot so there were a lot of ideas that I had been working on as solo records or
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because I'm recording at home all the time and that song was uh I had worked on it for this film and so I had built a real song you know a real recording yeah cuz you had to submit it so it was done yeah and I had uh it was like electronic
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based I do a lot of drum programming and stuff like this and everybody really liked the song and Brendan really liked the song and and the great thing about recording somebody gave me advice a long time ago they were like stop making
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demos don't ever make demos again just start recording and that really has helped me so much cuz I'll record and like with this song we were able to use like all my drum programming and all of my sound effects and all these things i'
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spent so much time and all that beginner's magic is there is not coming into it going like um I'm bringing a level of experience that no matter what you've recorded I'm always looking to improve it he's like it feels good use
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it no exactly yeah he that's what I mean his ego does not get involved because a lot of people that I have met or worked with would do that get that oh yeah totally and actually he was amazing because sometimes he would do even if I
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didn't think we needed to do it he'd be like oh my God the snare on that crappy basement demo that you all did is amazing in its own way let's get that you know let's use that so that was really fascinating part about because I love recording and I love getting lost
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in that that void and a lot of that beginner's magic is in those songs so we were able to keep that and then come in on top of it you know put new ideas on top of it you know like it was really really beautiful oh I love that phrase
30:11
beginers Magic I've never heard that used before and it's such a perfect way to sum up that well it's that Zen beginner's mind thing you know whenever we get into a new thing yeah we're in that beginner's mind you know and I
30:22
think that's part of growing older too is like how do we keep finding that beginner's mind over and over and over again and that's one thing we've tried to do as a band is like anytime we record what can we do differently this time that will'll get us all engaged
30:34
like kids again you know like oh God this is so exciting you know and that's uh that beginner's mind thing I think about it all the time so what's being one of if not still the hardest habit to break for My Morning Jacket hard habit
30:46
to [Laughter] break they didn't make him like that anymore man and I never say that phrase yeah yeah uh God I don't know that's a really good question I'm sure we have all sorts of bad habits not even a bad one it just could be something that's that's that's
31:06
not kind of valid anymore you know this idea of like you know what something that's been a part of the fabric of the band that just doesn't well I think all trying too hard at times you know because we're all like get into that
31:17
perfectionist way and and and just I think when you try too hard you know everybody knows that phrase Things become too hot forced and hard you know it's like and if the more you can relax and be flexible and be like the grass or
31:31
be like the wind or whatever you know and you got to you got to move and I think that's those are hard habits to break because you're in the studio and there's so much pressure and you want this to be the most mind-blowing album
31:40
of all time and everyone standing through the other side and they all just like listening to it and there's brand over the desk and it was just like this sounds great and then and then this thing happens where they start someone
31:47
starts talking but you're still recording they start talking it's like you're like oh I've lost them like I've lost them it's done like we're cooked yeah and so you got to like kind of somehow yeah just stopped trying so hard
32:00
that was great buddy I wasn't recording can we just do one more like you bullshitter that's what my actually that's what my cousin John did to me the first time I ever recorded at his Studio cuz he uh used to be the guitar player
32:11
in My Morning Jacket and he had this really cool um analog studio and uh he invited me out to record one night and I was like so emotional I like put all my heart and soul into this acoustic ballad and right when I was done he cuts over
32:24
the intercom he's like that was beautiful now let's try one let's try and record one like oh are you kidding me and he was just messing with me but it was amazing I mean I've met that before studio so people have literally done
32:35
that I'm like if that was a smash like sorry man it was a technical Eric on this and we just need we go with that this just so obvious someone in the back just like that was it that wasn't it um and what was a song on there that you
32:49
think is kind of the newest territory for you the one that really you felt could be lyrically performance- wise as a band with Brandon in the environment of making this album that you were like okay this feels really fresh in a good
33:05
way for us like at least Uncharted Territory to some degree well really nothing in particular because I mean I feel like that's one thing we've always tried to do you know love or hate the band I think you could agree that we try a lot of things you
33:20
know we're open to any kind of music any style of music this or that and I think this music is kind of this album is kind of the same because there's you know a variety of different styles of songs or whatever um I think just the freshest
33:32
thing was like everybody letting go you know and also it was a simultaneous letting go and uh this whole coach thing I'm really like just have been so blown away by this um CU I was never good at sports I never I tried Sports when I was
33:46
a kid but but I always since we worked with Brendan I always have this feeling like this is what it much must feel like to play for a great coach cuz I feel like sports and music are it's all the same you know it's all that sense of God
34:00
you know when you're watching great Sports and it all comes together it's beautiful you know it's like a symphony or a show or anything else and I Human Excellence right it's beautiful yeah it's everybody entering into that flow
34:09
State becoming one with God and love and music and the world and that whole thing I think for us we had never done the coach thing before because I was trying to be the coach so I'm trying to be the singer and the coach and the guitar
34:19
player and the songwriter and the prod you know having been bad at sports when you were a kid I wasn't even good at coach yeah yeah it's so funny that whole coaching thing for us was just like it helped I get that I was always very kind
34:31
of envious when I decided to throw in my you know athletic Ambitions of my some of my friends who went on to have slightly longer Journeys than I did and I was and I and I W I was like man I wish I got to that level so I'd have
34:44
gotten that level of support and expertise from a coach that good yes cuz it's like you got to get to the best to be treated with to work with the best and I think that's kind of the thing that I was always like man you know I
34:55
wish I could have had that experience of being taught or living up to someone's expectations that you hold in such high regard yes and and I actually went on to make music a majority of the time on my own and I found that really as
35:07
satisfying as it was to get a result I found it very lonely it can be very lonely yeah at times definitely you know you obviously make music on your own as well not just with the band um do you seek that Solace though now that you
35:18
have the comfort of a band well yeah I feel like I kind of just naturally go into that Solitude and and I love recording so much and I love doing it at home so it's fun cuz I keep trying to get other Hobbies like painting or whatever you know but it's I just keep
35:32
coming back to the music and it's something I just do as if I'm painting or whatever yeah and and then when you like go to make a record or whatever that's kind of a whole different thing um cuz when I'm at home doing it alone
35:44
it's like yeah I want it to be good or whatever but I'm not like stressed about it I'm just kind of creating and and going with it um but yeah it was really interesting to see what it's like to have a coach like how inspiring cuz I had never never
35:58
given us that opportunity cuz I thought it wouldn't be good enough if I wasn't the coach too somebody gets to me and gets through to me in that way I get quite emotional it's quite an emotional experience I don't know if you felt that
36:12
when Brandon be like really saying hey man you're H to something here and it's like you've you've been the one who said to do that the whole time when you like oh my God like oh my God it was so emotional and so inspiring because I
36:20
even when I started working with them sorting through the demos we already had just that process made me begin writing more and more songs and and some of the newest songs that I wrote are some of the coolest songs on the record like
36:32
what like give us like what's an example um like time weighted and everyday magic I think those were two of the last ones that I wrote and it was hilarious because when I started working with Brennan all these songs kept coming out
36:42
and he's just so hilariously Frank about it all you know and I email him one song I'm like oh my God check this out no response and then I email him another one he's like uh oh this one's pretty good we're going to have to get rid of
36:52
something because we just don't have enough time this you know and and that kind of made me so excited did and I also realized for the very first time I don't have to take it personally just cuz he didn't like song X or song y yeah
37:04
I can still like it I can do let's be honest though you're still checking your phone for at least a few hours after totally yeah I like I wonder if you just missed the email maybe he's on the plane maybe he's just taking notes he wants to
37:14
be thoughtful like totally yeah I don't think you ever shake that right you never shake that desire no matter how much K in you do to sort of to to to sort of still want the validity of somebody you admire or you appreciate
37:31
appreciating you yeah absolutely but there was a really beautiful thing about working with him where you as you begin to understand what he loves and what he's looking for I begun to realize oh yeah all these things that he's not responding to CU
37:44
he's not a big uh like improv guy or Jam guy or you know he he's not into that kind of stuff yeah and I began to realized like a lot of the stuff or I'd write like more and more ballads or whatever it's like we don't need you
37:56
know more and more ballads for the record or whatever you know like I began to realize those things where I was like oh man this is like this is a great opportunity Jim for you to not take this personally you know like this is like it was really really
38:06
beautiful that's a big one yeah it really was that's one of the things I love about uh MMJ records is that you know you utilize the studio for what it's worth and you really try to capture the song in its Essence and then when it
38:16
comes to playing live you have no problem loosening up and and being something very very different y um has it got to the point now having done that sort of in different ways and as you pointed out rightfully so um in different more innovative ways and
38:27
interesting ways each time but that you know as you finish these songs in the studio you're like okay my brain now starts to think about what shape this will take when we actually go out and perform in front of people oh yeah we're
38:36
always talking about that and it's funny cuz you by the time you finish the record and the record actually comes out you've completely forgotten how to play all of the songs which is also how you know you were talking to God too by the
38:45
way when you're like man what was that what was that part even remember writing that yep absolutely yeah and we got to go through that we're kind of going through that now we're like okay what what were we doing you where was that
38:55
what was that yeah yeah yeah and put it all back together are you excited as you as you sort of and and I mean this as a mature individual as you mature in this in this job in this love for music um how does the kind of idea of travel fit
39:06
into your life now that is actually one thing that's gotten harder because I feel like The more I've gotten uh nicer to myself the more I realize how hard travel is it's brutal the body brutal on the psyche it's brutal on the ears it's
39:17
brutal man and I realized like we were Patrick and I our drummer were talking one morning in the bus after we had neither of us had slept well and we were trying to wake up you know and I was like we've been touring for like over 20
39:28
years didn't we used to sleep on the bus and he was like we were drunk you know and I realized oh my God yeah cuz if you like you're just passing out every night and once you get we're all uh alcohol sober now and which has felt so great
39:42
and been such a journey for me cuz I'm an alcoholic how long now uh over two and a half years amazing congrats thank you and it's been such a journey and so beautiful but it's so much harder to sleep on the bus yeah of course cuz all
39:52
the things that you know you attach to alcohol too and this is one of the things I'm scaling back too my drinking to the degree on weekends now so I'm hitting I guess I have a time but uh but um but you know what's interesting for
40:02
me is that like all the things that I used to attach alcohol to yep I'm like am I going to enjoy that am I going to actually be able to and for you it must have been very very Vivid because the idea of what's a show going to be
40:12
like well I never drank before shows so that was one thing that didn't change cuz I've got a real I'm a very very or I'm a very very high functioning alcoholic very work based for my dad that's very strong work ethic and so I
40:25
was never drinking before shows or anything but oh yeah absolutely after the show oh yeah well I recognized I was like this uh salivating dog and all I could think about was that next drink yeah you three songs before the end of the show and
40:37
you're like can't wait top that totally oh my God and when you realize that's running your life yeah when I realized that and I like and I realized that many times over my life but couldn't get over it yeah uh and then once I realized like
40:51
that I needed to address I couldn't complain about anything else in my life about any of my problems or my own Happ I'm not peaceful I don't know why if I keep drinking myself to death that's a powerful observation but was there a
41:03
singularity in involved in the thinking that made you realize that was there a moment like I can remember the exact moment I chose to stop smoking cigarettes like literally the exact second did you have that moment with drinking no it's was just more culmination I feel like it was just like one more morning that I woke up so hung over and so had to go try and function in the world and I think it had been it was great cuz I had started with
41:26
my therapist and I had been with him for a year or two before I stopped drinking and he was great about it he was never like you got to stop drinking he always treated it very neutrally you know he's like yeah that's tough you know it's you
41:37
know that's good therapy work Jim that's what that is that's good therapist right yeah it it really was because I feel like I finally got to that point where I told him one day I was like I I think I had my I'm a try you know I always
41:47
prefer preface it like that even now it's like I will never claim that I've stopped drinking forever cuz it's a lifelong you know who knows but uh I told him and he's like that's that's great man he's like like try try it you know and just remember be kind to
42:00
yourself you know if you fall off the wagon try again you know like just keep trying again don't beat yourself up about it don't make it one more thing that you have to beat yourself up again about you know what I mean that was like
42:09
I was like yeah yeah cuz that's a big part of it I think this self- sabotage is all wrapped up in that I think the idea of trying and failing really is about getting back to that comfortable space of knowing that you're not good
42:17
enough yep oh absolutely absolutely yeah that's why I drank I wanted to escape this world cuz I felt like I wasn't good enough and it was a you know one-way ticket out of the world you you drives the and then guess what you wake
42:29
up the next morning feeling you're not good enough for the world yeah ex you're even worse compounds um can we talk about writing love songs yeah um great I mean first of all I want to ask you like who are some of the great writers of love songs for you who who sets the bar for you who who does who writes a beautiful love song for you I get a little confused about the particular songwriters of different mtown songs I feel like mtown from me or
42:56
we can just do songs people can search for the figure out the right is like your precious love you know that Marvin Gay and Tammy Terell song like that oh that song I mean just sweeps me away um or like a devotional uh love song Like
43:09
My Sweet Lord you know or like uh Alice col Train's music her devotional music where she is singing to God and her I mean it is like it's away from all Earthly concerns yeah and human well it's crazy though the love you hear in her voice when you put
43:24
on uh an ALICE coltain Alice cult record and like I've got the sub turned up and there's this the latest record that they put out it's just her and the organ singing These devotional songs and you've got the stereo turned up and her organ the base
43:40
on it is just like restructuring your entire physical body and her voice is like so loving and so huge but she's singing about um Hindu names of God and stuff that that you don't necessarily know exactly what she
43:56
means but you just feel the love in this pure way where there's no English language meaning to it you know cuz I love a good love song where you understand what it's about but I've also been really into this idea of like um the force of Love through uh devotional
44:12
or religious music where for me it's easy to remove the meaning of any particular deity or uh whether it's Jesus or Krishna or whatever I can kind of forget about those uh beings or those deities and just feel the force of God
44:27
as love you know through somebody yeah well because the idea of singing about love between two two people needs to be a little bit more direct in order for people to appreciate and absorb it right it it loses some of that like um magic
44:39
of the universe that that that you can put into things that are not Earthly that are ultimately intangible got to be tangible it's got to be like I love you babe I love you babe um so how do you get past that poor impression of a Love
44:51
Song and get to a place where you know you've written a good one cuz you've written some great ones and I mean are they harder in some respects not to create a hierarchy about what's more challenging than others but going
45:00
through the motions of trying to explore a feeling of of sadness or pain um versus something of absolute Devotion to another person or to a relationship are they different rather than Challen yeah are there different challenges to each
45:12
ones it it really is but but I think it's like you owe I mean I owe it it to all of the amazing partners that I've ever had you know all the people that I've shared love with cuz those are the most profound experiences that I've uh
45:27
shared with people on this world you know other than making music you know because that's all kind of in the same vein to me but when I think about love I think about um how much I hated myself and how much my love was trying to love
45:43
other people from this place where I hated myself and I would accept things that weren't right for me or you know like this you're on this crazy path and then I feel like the more you can try to love yourself the more you can try to be open
45:57
to like uh true experiences that are probably more aligned with what you need or what you know so I have to get away from the world a lot to like write or think or whatever but then when I'm I feel like I tend to work better when I'm
46:12
actually living in the world if that makes sense it does yeah so but that's a case of absorbing and then translating right what you're saying is you know you're kind of working when you're out in the world as it is but then when it's
46:22
time to go away and figure out what your thoughts are you tend to want to remove yourself if I'm hearing you correct what is that process like what does that entail how deep does the removal go like total immers so so how deep does it sort
46:35
of go for you when it's time to kind of go away like do you go deep yeah well I kind of it's kind of more a daily thing because I I really feel like I've I've never felt at home in this world and I've never really felt like I belong in
46:49
this world and only recently have Wow since when can I ask I to interrupt since I was born I mean I think that's a deep part of our genetic code in a deep part of uh depression and I just always remembered feeling like I just don't
47:06
belong here like this feels wrong to me like there's like something is wrong about being here uh and so you know as a teenager that turns into extreme depression and teen angst and all that Stu your feelings for sure and then once
47:19
you discover alcohol once I discovered alcohol that was my main way of blotting it all out so I didn't have to feel it for a night or whatever but and and part of that for me was when I found music that was my removal from the world cuz I
47:30
was like I don't have to be in the world I can be here with my guitar I can just play music I can just um you know be here and and it was funny cuz then when I tried to use that for Acceptance in the world at first all I ever got was no
47:43
you know oh you suck the suck his band sucks you know it's like that's all I ever got for the longest time but then at a certain point though it's wild as as you learn like as we got a little bit of success I would be like somebody be
47:54
like th this band is great this record is is great and my ego be like oh my God this is amazing maybe I'm not so bad after all and then another person would be like this record's terrible these people suck and I'd be like oh maybe I
48:05
am so bad see what you probably did with that point was you were just going back to the child you were going straight back to where you felt uncomfortable in the first place and then you were getting your first taste of what it was
48:13
to be even noticed and it's like holy this feels good this feels bad this feels good this feels bad this feels good this feels bad it's a roller coaster yeah yeah but I think then once I started to learn that always going to
48:27
get everything from the universe you know whenever we put out a record it doesn't matter somebody is always going to say this record sucks these guys are terrible and then somebody's also hopefully going to be like I really like
48:37
this record this is this is really good and once I realized that it was really freeing and now when I try to remove myself from the world it's more of just kind of like a u a piece or a necessary meditation it's not so much an anger or
48:51
sadness or even a process or tool yeah I just like work on music or I meditator or whatever it's like so I feel I do spend a lot of time alone um and I really need that have you ever sort of explored what your what impression your
49:05
spirit would get from this feeling of feeling out of out of place from a very very young age like like have you explored any sort of spiritual um identified any sort of spiritual sort of reasoning behind that oh I have I've explored a lot I think
49:22
for me a big part of it was uh my great-grandfather uh committed suicide um before long before I was born and he actually committed suicide while my grandmother was pregnant with my mother and I feel like he we were raised
49:37
Catholic and when you're raised Catholic there's always this sense that he's a sinner he's gone to hell we don't talk about him you know he's he's exiled from the family there's this great sin you know and that's kind of what I was told
49:49
all the time when I was younger not for my mom cuz she was sweeter about it and she's like yeah it's a very sad thing and and your grandma really she's breaking the cycle so yeah she's trying to but I realized through him he kind of
50:01
kept cuz his name was James too and he was a musician and and I guess he was a failed musician or whatever nobody really knew the true story of his suicide or anything but I kept feeling him talking to me when I was a kid like
50:13
I kept feeling him trying to reach me so I kind of like I thought about him all the time and I used to draw this symbol on my arm which is like a guardian angel kind of in a stick Angel form and marker cuz I think about him and then I got this and that image came to
50:26
instinctively yeah I was just like thinking about him as this Angel that's kind of he's looking out for me and he's trying to get me to not go down the same path he did wow and I feel like um once I started doing EMDR with my therapist
50:38
Tim we were talking about my great-grandfather and I just had this beautiful Voyage where I found his death certificate and I and I found his grave and I went to visit his grave and I and I did all this ancestral healing with
50:51
him I did family constellation work where I found his soul and I welcomed him back into the family and I told him I was like you're not a sinner you haven't you know we love you I love you you're you're you're forgiven you're not
51:03
exiled you know and kind of brought him back into the family uh and then I did this EMDR work that was unbelievable where there's this process where you draw with crayons to kind of activate the child part of your brain and he showed me like as I was drawing like why
51:19
he had been contacting me because he really wanted me to break this cycle of like what he had experienced Ing and what I was kind of set up to experience again if I didn't deal with my depression and deal with this thing I
51:33
really felt like somehow he spoke to me through the cosmos or through the universe or whatever and I really feel like I've started to break that cycle you know I I really feel like that kind of an ancestral healing ancestral family thing
51:48
because I really think when we choose to take this form we're choosing to learn certain lessons but that field that we're all part of that Cosmic field it's like my great-grandfather's part of that too and there's something that like he
52:03
goes into this body and I go into this body and there's this thing we need to work out here you know and and it's like that um and we're not supposed to be able to understand it you know it's so huge and so so vast you know but in in
52:16
my be barely uh attempting to grasp it it's like that for me has felt so real you're never going to get be able to grasp this in your lifetime what you can do is break the cycle you can you can you can do the work which is what it
52:32
is to better understand what it means to you so that you can make peace with it and ultimately share that peace and not the Legacy as it stood before you were born yes and that is that is that's the key is it not absolutely shift the
52:45
energy yeah man like the other day I was doing acupuncture and a eye and my head opened up and I saw a whole lot of faces really old old bearded men was super strange and and when I finished I said to my acupunctur I I'm really Vivid
53:00
like some of them were photos that that clear she was like old bearded men I said yeah she's like yeah I've had that before I think it's ancestors yeah that's what I was just going to ask you feel that connection did you feel like
53:12
yeah but they were super like I knew it was old cuz they were Stern you know how like all photos used to used be like this right yeah like it's like you could be having the greatest Garden Party in the in the early 1900s like The Best
53:23
Time Ever okay photo time yep totally no one ever smiled ever for any reason the pressure can you imagine back then because that's like you you had this one chance to get your picture taken that's it and you didn't want to mess it up and you're like I'm Sor
53:37
exactly and by the way everything and everyone around you is probably going to try and kill you I feel like in the 1800s everything was dangerous oh my god dude I can't believe our time is up I feel like we're just getting started can
53:46
we do this again sometime I I know you don't sign up to do interviews you make beautiful beautiful albums and I love I love My Morning Jacket but any excuse to get a hanging again man i' love too what a joy thank you [Music] he