My Morning Jacket continues to find eclectic musical styles a suitable fit
When My Morning Jacket was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame in August, the task of introducing it fell to celebrated filmmaker Cameron Crowe. Faced with the near-impossible challenge of categorizing a band whose music has been in a state of evolution for more than two decades, Crowe instead read off descriptions that others had come up with over the years. One of the most memorable, says My Morning Jacket keyboardist Bo Koster, was “a jam band for people who hate jam bands.”
“I think there’s some accuracy there,” he said with a laugh in a recent interview. “Because we’re not really a jam band, but we appeal to the aesthetic, you know. And we do improvise, and we do jam, and we do kind of, like, switch things up and be unpredictable and all that stuff.”
The comparisons pretty much end there for the band formed in Louisville, Kentucky, that will play shows Friday and Saturday at the Fox Theatre. “We’re not fully in that culture,” said Koster. “We’re not a heavy metal band either, but we do sound heavy metal sometimes. And we’re not the Allman Brothers or Neil Young, but sometimes they compare us to them. They’re just like avenues that we explore sometimes. I like to think that whatever we do, it still kind of sounds like us.”
My Morning Jacket’s signature sound, at once familiar and impossible to categorize, is a testament to the band’s origins and willingness to experiment. Bandleader Jim James began by recording in a grain tower, a setting that gave My Morning Jacket’s earliest songs their characteristic echo-washed quality.
The band’s sonic landscape began to shift, however, with the arrival of Koster and his synthesizers, which introduced a new layer of texture and experimentation on their “Z” album. Released 20 years ago, its sound also was influenced by co-producer John Leckie giving James an assist in the studio. Given Leckie’s prior credits, which included post-punk acts such as XTC and the Fall, it was an unlikely but inspired choice that hinted at the band’s eclectic tastes. A deluxe anniversary edition of the album was released in October.
Earlier this year, the band also released its 10th album, “is.” It marks another significant moment — the first time it brought a producer on board to fully guide the creative process for a complete studio album. That role was given to Brendan O’Brien, the Grammy Award-winning producer who has worked extensively with artists including Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam
“After talking and doing some pre-production with him, we quickly developed a trust in his ear, his musicality and his understanding of how to arrange a song,” Koster said. “Jim’s worked with many good producers, but he always kind of held on to a good amount of the control when it came to the vibe and what songs we’re going to use. But this time, Jim was like, ‘I’m fully letting go of control.’”
As always, the band brought an assortment of styles into the mix, a process often driven by James’ passion for digging up obscure music. This crate digger-style obsession is a product of the band members growing up in the ‘90s, the heyday of hip-hop and sampling.
A classic example was the fan favorite “Holdin on to Black Metal,” which sampled a vintage Thai garage-pop band’s track “E-Saew Tam Punha Huajai,” which translates to “Advice Column for Love Troubles.”
On the recent single “Time Waits,” the group includes a piano sample from an album by pedal steel player Buddy Emmons, looping it into what sounds more like minimalist composer Erik Satie than it does a 1960s Nashville session.
“Jim always kind of has his ear out for little snippets of things,” Koster explained. “I think he was listening to that record and was just like, ‘Oh, that’s a cool piano riff.’ So he took a chunk of it and looped it, and he wrote a song to it.”
This spirit of exploration and spontaneity extends to the band’s gigs. While a handful (including Saturday’s Fox concert) will feature My Morning Jacket playing the “Z” album to mark its 20th anniversary, the shows (including Friday’s) will maintain their tradition of unpredictability with songs billed from “across the catalog” with “no repeats.”
“It’s rare for somebody to come out and see our show for the first time at this point now,” Koster said. “So yeah, we just like to switch it up and keep it fun and fresh, and it keeps us on our toes.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
My Morning Jacket
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets start at $42.50. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. foxtheatre.org.
