Jim James Talks Roger Waters, Dilla and New My Morning Jacket LP
My Morning Jacket‘s Jim James recently stopped by the Rolling Stone office to talk about the band’s next LP, his love of J Dilla’s Donuts and performing alongside Roger Waters at the Newport Folk festival, a gig James called “one of those moments that I’ll never forget.”
“It was pretty intimidating to share the stage with somebody like that who you love – it’s not like you’re just a fan or you’re just like, ‘He’s pretty good’ – you love his work so much,” James said of performing with the Pink Floyd great. “It was an honor to be there. He and I emailed about and talked about what songs he wanted to do, so we learned all those songs. And then we got together in a crazy mansion down in Newport to rehearse the day before. Such a surreal place to find yourself, in this old mansion with Roger Waters rehearsing all your favorite songs. It’s all a fragmented reality.”
James also shed some light on My Morning Jacket‘s follow-up to The Waterfall, saying that while he has a “pile” of new material, he can’t really work on it while the band endures the “havoc” of touring. “It’s this pile that I’m always mixing up, if I have a week or two off, I’m at home playing with the pile, or working on a solo record, or working on Jacket stuff, or trying other stuff,” James said. “We’ll definitely record more to make another record. There’s some things that we did for the last record that will end up getting used, I think, that I really like a lot. There’s only half the story there for the next record.”
Elsewhere in the interview, James also discussed the trials of touring and professes his love of J Dilla’s masterpiece Donuts.