Jim James

I'll only pick up my guitar if something is knocking on the door. Once the melodies have sort of been bothering me for a time, then I pick up my guitar and try to find them. But only if they want to be found.

I love the thrill of putting on a record and feeling like you got the wrong one from the factory.

It's really important to be free and be open and honest about the things you want to do. Just 'cause you want to make a solo record or another record with another band, it doesn't have to be an insult or a slight to the band you've been with for a long time.

I've always loved that, on all the Dylan and Springsteen and Marley and Neil Young reissues that they've done: It's so cool to hear alternate versions and how the song started in their mind.

If you're reissuing something, it's important to have demos and everything else from that time that wasn't used.

I love hearing old Bob Marley recordings that he did before he made the versions everybody knows.

We wanted 'At Dawn' to be what it was: kinda spaced-out.

There were lots of songs that were on 'It Still Moves' that I had written, and we had played - rehearsed, but also played live a couple of times - that could've gone on 'At Dawn', but we always knew we wanted to make a record that was more quote-unquote 'rock n' roll.'

I feel like the world gets so consumed and gobbled up by action, and the pace of life is so frantic, and people feel like, in order to move somebody, you have to do something shocking or violent or something insane and fast.

You want to make a record that stands the test of time and that people enjoy.

I really have a lot of respect for music, the art form of music. It's my whole life. I don't care about any of that other stuff. And I have always felt that way. I'll build a career on my own merits, my own hard work and nothing else.

I feel like the 'Supernova' record, those songs are very me. It's a more honest representation of me than any record I have made prior to that.

I always think of albums as the format. I think it's perfect. I don't think you can tamper with that. It's not just sound, the analog, which is so much richer. It's the format. You're constrained by just 45 minutes, and it's perfect to me. I don't want to listen to any more than, and I live and breathe music.

The whole Jacket thing is so much about us playing together and creating this circle of power.

For me, it's more powerful to hear people sing about God than love in most circumstances because I've been hearing people sing about love for most of my life.

The gospel funk soul era, that's what I'm obsessed with - pretty much all the '70s through early '80s.

When people are recording, and they're like, 'I want to get the drum sound of the Beatles,' I hate that.

All the Southerners think we're Yanks, and all the Yanks think we're Southerners, and all the Midwesterners think we're East. Everybody's always wrong about Louisville. That's kind of why I love it so much.

I just think meditation is so important because it gives you a chance to see what's going on in your brain.

Whenever we come back from another project, we're always so stoked to see each other and play with each other again. I really feel like that's been the key to why we're still together as a band. I remember a period five or six years ago feeling a little burnt out and wasn't sure whether I wanted to keep doing it.

I love playing music with people, but I also just love the art and meditation of being alone and working on stuff.

I listened to 'En la Ceremony' and had always wished it had some flamenco guitar.

While I'm working on something, every single part of me is in it. But then, once it's done, I leave that place behind. I usually don't like to revisit it. So it's almost like listening to a different person.

Our first two records are a lot quieter and more studio-based. We kind of had this feeling like we wanted to make a more quote-unquote 'rock' record. Then Patrick joined and really brought a new Herculean power to the band.

'It Still Moves' is really the only record in our catalog that I've always felt I wanted to remix. Part of the fun of that record was that we recorded it all to tape, and it was all super-duper organic.

You spend all day getting the song goo,d and you're listening to it late at night, and you're happy with it. But you should sleep on it and come back in the morning and make sure.

The band can't exist without the crowd, and the crowd wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the band, and it really is something magical that people need.

I feel like everybody's got their health issues and their battles, and yeah, mine go up and down. It's never really over.

Youth is wasted on the young. And it doesn't even matter if you sit a young person down and tell them, 'You're so healthy, take advantage of it before it's gone!' They still can't hear it.

I feel like I've paid a really heavy cost, a really heavy physical health cost, for the years of touring and how physical I've been onstage.

I've never stared out at the ocean while I've made a record before - that enhances things in a strange way.

We don't have universal health care. Education is so expensive. We have these massive problems, you know? So it makes me really happy to think that somebody could have all the music in the world for free. But at the same time, if you have enough money to pay for it, you should pay for it.

I've just had this idea pop in my head of trying to learn a new song every da, and try and play it that night. That's been fun for me because it's a little bit of a scary adventure, playing a song for the first time in front of people and letting it just be what it is.

For a lot of people, life's been pretty good. There hasn't been true terror right in your face.

It's a joy, the process itself, even instrumentally, playing and constructing music. It's just so beautiful to me.

'What's Going On' is one of the greatest albums ever made. I definitely wasn't aiming to make my 'What's Going On,' you know what I mean? That album is definitely deep in my DNA. I've probably listened to that more than maybe any other album ever in my entire life.

The thing I take great comfort in and what I think is cool about the process is that I know in my heart that I gave it everything I had back then. That helps me sleep at night. I still feel proud and happy.

When I make a record with My Morning Jacket, I love what those guys do, so I don't have a need to play bass or drums or anything, because we're doing that as a unit.

I'd write songs like 'One Big Holiday,' and we'd play it and say, 'It's too heavy for 'At Dawn.' Let's save it for the next one.' We had more time for that, but when you mix a song, the general rule of thumb for us is a song a day or usually a day and a half.

I think anyone who knows the audio process knows what mixing and mastering is.

We should always be trying to tear down the walls and say, 'I'm no different than you.'

I think we're going to look back on the Internet in 50 to 100 years as a big mistake.

Preservation Hall is the sound of joy. When they start playing, people start moving.

One thing I've learned is that the best thing a producer can do is help you be you.

If you do something, you should do it because you love it, and you should follow your heart and make it how your heart wants it to be made. But it's a difficult world, especially for musicians.

I really believe in not compromising your art. I feel like I've never compromised my art.

I think reading is one of the greatest forms of magic available to us on the planet. Reading is so important.

That's why you put out records: hoping that people will connect with them. I mean, I play music for myself, for sure, and I would still play music even if people didn't like it. But it means a lot when it connects to people and they enjoy it. But it's funny: you get criticism as much as you get praise. It kind of evens out after awhile.

I love making each record sound different.

Anyone who knows music knows that Neil is about as real as it can get, and this along with seeing him perform 'Harvest Moon' on 'SNL' was my first experience knowing what real music really felt like.