‘It’s The Universe Speaking:’ Jim James on the Making of My Morning Jacket’s New Album

“Music is the invisible architecture that holds up the universe,” says Jim James, rhythm guitarist, singer, and songwriter with rockers My Morning Jacket. As leader of the group, he’s had more than a quarter-century to develop that inspiring philosophy. It works for him, and for his band. My Morning Jacket recently completed work on the […]

Mar 24, 2025 - 15:53

‘It’s The Universe Speaking:’ Jim James on the Making of My Morning Jacket’s New Album

“Music is the invisible architecture that holds up the universe,” says Jim James, rhythm guitarist, singer, and songwriter with rockers My Morning Jacket. As leader of the group, he’s had more than a quarter-century to develop that inspiring philosophy. It works for him, and for his band. My Morning Jacket recently completed work on the idiosyncratically titled is, released March 21 from ATO Records. And the new album’s “invisible architecture” is the product of a deliberate departure from the band’s customary way of working.

My Morning Jacket’s self-titled 2021 release earned enthusiastic reviews, but that in itself was little surprise; the Louisville, Kentucky, group has long been a darling of fans and critics alike. As with every My Morning Jacket album since 2001’s At Dawn, the record was created with James in the producer’s chair. That approach suited the self-contained band well, and by all accounts, James’ skilled production work portrayed his band’s music in its best possible light. With that history behind them, there wouldn’t have seemed to be any reason to change working methods as the band began what would become is.

More from Spin:

But they did. James says that in recent times, he’s been doing a fair amount of self-work, “trying to be a more peaceful person, trying to love myself in a way that isn’t based on external validation.” What that meant in practice is that for the first time, he was open to working with someone outside the band to produce a new My Morning Jacket record.

James landed on Brendan O’Brien. The Atlanta-born producer got his start in the ’80s, producing local bands like high-concept pranksters The Coolies. He quickly earned a reputation as the go-to producer for acts on a shoestring budget. O’Brien scored his first high-profile engineering gig with Black Crowes’ 1990 debut Shake Your Money Maker; that success led to work with a dazzling array of top names including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stone Temple Pilots, Aerosmith, Paul Westerberg, Neil Young, Matthew Sweet, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, and countless more. For artists who want an authentic and honest rendering of their sound, O’Brien is a first-call choice.

In theory, My Morning Jacket working with O’Brien seemed like a good pairing. In practice, however, if and how a collaboration would actually work remained to be seen. James concedes that typically when he works with an engineer or co-producer, they’re somebody “who’s on our same level.” O’Brien, of course, is a respected heavyweight. What the group quickly discovered is that with My Morning Jacket, O’Brien would take on a role James describes as “a coach. He’s more of a mentor,” he says.

Art for "Time Waited" the first single from is — Art for “Time Waited” the first single from is

At the stage of the project in which O’Brien was brought in, a coach is exactly what the band needed. “We had already done two full sessions of songs,” James admits. “We were beating our heads against the wall, and we weren’t really happy with the way it was going.” Yet he and his bandmates were initially wary of opening the door to an outside force. “Because these people usually bring in a lot of ego,” James says.

The band was pleased to find that O’Brien didn’t fit that preconceived notion. “He’s fun to be around, and he’s a kind person,” James says. “All he cares about are the songs.”

James brought a bounty of songs to the sessions—more than 100, he says—drawing both from songs written specifically for My Morning Jacket and from a cache of tunes originally set aside for use on his own solo work. “We had a mountain of songs,” James says. “I told myself, ‘Let’s do this exercise of letting go; let’s just see which songs Brendan likes.’” James says that thanks to that previously-mentioned internal work, his self-worth isn’t dependent on the approval of others, so he was content to let O’Brien make song choices. “I thought, ‘It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t like song X or song Y; I can always work on those some other time.’”

In contrast to the jam-band side of the group’s character, the 10 songs on is are tightly structured, economical, supremely melodic pieces. Not a single one of the tracks breaks the 5-minute mark, and the music never meanders. O’Brien “is not a big improv or jam guy,” James explains. So when songs that James brought revealed themselves as “10-minute explorations,” they didn’t make the cut for what was shaping up to be a concise and sharply focused set. James nonetheless stands by those rejected songs, suggesting that they may well turn up on a future My Morning Jacket or solo album, “with another producer.”

My Morning Jacket's Is — My Morning Jacket’s Is

Some of the music on is has origins in the distant past. The composition of “Half a Lifetime” dates from My Morning Jacket’s breakthrough fourth studio album, Z. “It’s a song we had completely forgotten about because we never made a rough mix of it at the time,” James says. “I was digging through old hard drives and found it; Brendan ended up liking it and picking it.”

James says that when he’s engaged in the multitask endeavor of producing and being the artist, he sometimes “gets super-crazy about engineering and mic placement.” Working with O’Brien freed him and his bandmates to concentrate on making the songs the best they could be. “I could step back and focus on my singing, my guitar playing, whatever,” he says, “as opposed to worrying about what mic he’s putting on the snare drum.”

The vibe in the studio was convivial; at its center, is is the sound of My Morning Jacket relaxed and having fun making an album. “Brendan congealed us all in this interesting way,” James says. He likens the experience of making the new album to what he imagines it’s like to play for a professional sports team. “Everybody played better because they knew that ‘Coach’ was watching,” he says.

James believes that the new working methods even affected his songwriting. Describing O’Brien as “brutally honest” but in a good way, James says that he “kept firing new demos” at the producer. “Half the time he wouldn’t even respond,” he laughs. In those cases, James understood that a given song hadn’t passed muster. “But then I’d send another one, and he’d say, ‘Oh, man, this is better than anything we’ve got! What [song] are we gonna lose for this one?’”

Even though the final set of songs for the new album is the result of careful vetting, James doesn’t find a thread running through that links them together tonally. Instead, he suggests, “It’s the universe speaking.” He says that some of the album’s best material arrived “at the last minute. It almost felt like the universe knew that [work on the album] was coming to a close, and that it only had so long to shoot these songs into the pipeline.” In his view, “the act of creation inspires more creation.”

Some artists create “songwriter’s demos,” basic takes—sometimes only voice and a lone guitar—as references for eventual recording. James does that, too, but it’s not the only way he works. “I’ve got a home studio,” he explains. “I love engineering, and I’m always recording.” He says that some pieces of his original home demos ended up forming the basis—or adornments—of the finished tracks on is. “That’s something we’d never really done before,” he says.

“If there was a part we liked—a drum programming thing or a sample—we might use it on the album,” he says. James mentions that a ukulele riff that he recorded at home ended up finding its way into one of the songs. “That [approach] helped retain some of the fun ‘beginner’s magic’ that I had already put into the song,” he says. “We just built on it and expanded it. And by the end of the day, we’d all be in the control room, fuckin’ rocking to what we had done.”

One quality that makes is even better than it would have already been is sequencing. James acknowledges that a great deal of care and thought went into determining the song order. While it’s not a concept album, the record develops and unfolds in a deliberate fashion. There’s a gentle, acoustic-leaning flavor to the songs on its first half; around “Beginning from the Ending,” the music gets heavier and more expansive and builds in a rocking manner from there. The overall effect is almost cinematic.

“I thought about sequencing a lot,” James says. Once the tracks were completed, he put together a mix. “I took walks with it, I drove with it, trying to imagine the journey.” He would bounce ideas off O’Brien and make changes in the song order. “The guys [in the band] had some good notes, too,” James says. “I’d get to a place and then ask them to ‘take the journey.’ And they’d be like, ‘Oh, good, but how about this?’ It was a collaborative effort.”

The act of letting go is a theme that runs through James’ understanding of the process that yielded My Morning Jacket’s tenth studio album. “It’s a funny thing in life, something you hear so often that’s really true,” he observes. “If you can hit that 50% mark of letting go, then the universe can speak. And then it’s about showing up to do the work; that’s when the magic happens.”
James pauses, and then he reiterates the other ingredient that has helped make is such a creatively satisfying record. “Brendan,” he says. “He’s such a good coach.”

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.