My Morning Jacket – Reverb rebels
If writers were stuck on My Morning Jacket’s admirably hirsute appearance, well, who could blame them? The band, always a little shaggy, actually seems to be getting hairier at an alarming rate. Not hairy in a lank, Dave-Grohl-in-1993 type of way, but in a frizzy, helmeted way that suggests middle-period Molly Hatchet, as well as an unfamiliarity with cream rinse. To judge from their early press photos, things started out innocently enough, the band looking moderately hairy and hopeful, like a collection of benevolent Chia pets. In the intervening years, though, they’ve grown. James in particular has cultivated a look that prompted one writer to describe him as “Manson meets the Snuggle Bear.”
This, combined with what now seems an unfortunate tendency to play a derivative of ’70s-inspired classic rock while flogging a Flying V guitar, has prompted inevitable comparisons to Ted Nugent. “Oh no! I hate that guy!” James takes strenuous exception. “Ted Nugent references are the one thing that upsets me, that people would think we were doing ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ or something. I can take the Allman Brothers references that we get, the Skynyrd references and all that, but not Nugent. We are big hairy guys, so I guess we can look like Ted Nugent when we’re swinging our hair around onstage or something. I think when you’re [an up-and-coming band], people basically need to categorize you. And since we’re big, hairy guys from Kentucky, people pull all these Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd references from their hats.”
In other words, can’t a guy look like Ted Nugent, profess his love for the Muppets, and make records in a grain silo without people thinking he’s some kind of freak? It’s certainly a problem Will Oldham never had, and one likely to get worse before it gets better, considering that My Morning Jacket recently signed a contract with ATO Records, an RCA affiliate partly owned by Dave Matthews.
Given the mainstream attention paid to the Drive-By Truckers and, more to the point, Wilco, it seems only fitting that MMJ get a shot at the same sort of semi-success. James thinks so, too. “We told our manager we wanted to tour with lots of different people, and meet lots of different labels,” he acknowledges. “We talked to everyone from the smallest indie to the biggest major.”
A major-label deal hasn’t made much difference, at least so far. The band still lives in Louisville, still records on the farm. “It helped us get a couple of new pieces of gear; other than that it hasn’t changed us much,” James says. “We’re hoping it’ll be a good thing. We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”
If there’s been very little public hand-wringing about My Morning Jacket jumping from an indie to a major, it may be because they never seemed to have much of an indie aesthetic anyway. Despite the endless noodlings and post-post-modern holiday songs, MMJ have never appeared interested in gratuitous artiness; they always seemed to come by their peculiarities honestly.
No one in the band (which now includes drummer Patrick Hallahan, James’ longtime best friend) seems adverse to the idea of getting famous, and James is more than willing to write a pop song if asked. That said, these days he’s actually been thinking about going in the opposite direction. “I’d been in a rut lately, in terms of the music I listen to; I just listened to Roy Orbison and the Band and Led Zeppelin over and over again,” he explains. “But then I heard Brian Eno for the first time for the other night. And at first I was like, is this songs or an art project? It was amazing — those sounds of zippers, and of spaceships taking off. I’m ready for my Brian Eno phase, I think.”
In the meantime, the band has begun to promote and tour behind It Still Moves. Recent dates have included a stint opening for Bob Dylan in a Louisville parking lot and several dates with the Foo Fighters, whose lead singer, Dave Grohl, has been a vocal supporter since At Dawn (“We should put him on the payroll,” James jokes).
It’s unlikely that It Still Moves will turn My Morning Jacket into the next Wilco. Comparisons to Gomez — another young, vaguely alt-country band with an affinity for blues, boogie and southern rock, and an accompanying ability to twist them into previously unrecognizable shapes — are perhaps more apt.
It Still Moves is otherwise exactly as a major-label debut should be: a faithful representation of the band’s sound, a better-groomed version of what they usually do that neither hides nor dwells upon their eccentricities. Like most of what My Morning Jacket does, it isn’t revolutionary, just expansive, jammy southern rock that’s wistful and melodic and sweet. It’s a safe bet there won’t be a major-label release this year with purer intentions, though James knows intentions might not matter much.
“I feel really, really grateful for the good press we’re getting, but we’re just trying to keep our heads down and our blinders on. We’re just going to try to be nice people and treat everyone well and make the best albums we can. And when the album comes out, everyone’s going to either love it or hate it. Nothing would surprise me. I’m just going to try to stick to the people that I love, and the people who make me feel good. And when we do get back home, we’re going to lock ourselves in the closet until it’s time to leave again.”
ND contributing editor Allison Stewart is a freelance writer living in New York City. She drinks too much coffee. Sometimes way too much coffee.