Cosmic Travelers : Rolling Stone

Previous Next Page 1 2

Last summer, the band converged in a mountainside compound in Sedalia, Colorado, to work out the tunes. With James living in New York, Blankenship and Hallahan in Louisville, multi-instrumentalist Carl Broemel in Nashville and keyboardist Bo Koster in Los Angeles, they rarely hang as a group when they're not working, and each likens the experience to summer camp. "We'd get started after breakfast," says Hallahan, "and rehearse as long as weather would allow. We were so high up, there would be lightning storms, where we'd have to turn everything off and go hide in the basement. One time there was a tornado that we could actually see crawling its way over the mountains. It was definitely freaky."

Though the setting was ideal for a hallucinogenic experience, it never happened. "I'm into the power of altered states, and I've had a lot of really good drug experiences," says James. "But Miles Davis always said he played best when he was straight, and Jerry Garcia said that if he were on acid onstage, he'd rather be chasing a butterfly through a field." Instead, the band decompressed over whiskey and vodka, and took turns DJ'ing through the PA in the rehearsal space. "Tom probably had the DJ set of his life on one of those nights," says Hallahan. "It was magical." Adds Blankenship, "[I played] a Chipmunks' Christmas song, 'When You Wish Upon a Star,' John Coltrane and Michael McDonald. I think there was even some Toto in there."

Although James is pleased with his musical abilities, there are other parts of his personality that he feels are lacking. Last year, he lived in New Mexico for a stretch, learning how to build "Earthships," self-sustaining homes built into the land. He also got into a spiritual practice developed by writer Ken Wilber. James has listened to CDs of a 12-hour interview with Wilber called Kosmic Consciousness, about topics such as "the chakra system, a paradigm for the unfolding self." "It's like a map for living and understanding the human existence," says James. Part of the process is charting what practitioners call "lines." "Like, things you're good at and things you're bad at. My music line is pretty good, but there are other lines I want to develop. I'd like to be a better basketball player. And I'd like to get a good relationship going and have kids someday. I don't just want to be the guy that's a rock musician."

James' spiritual awakening followed a bout with pneumonia that landed him in a Louisville emergency room. On November 23rd, 2005, before the hometown show that closed MMJ's U.S. tour behind their breakthrough album Z, James fell ill. "I'm a big believer in mental states and their ability to affect me physically," he says. "I started feeling sick before the show, because I was exhausted, but I made it through." The next morning he felt worse. "I was watching a documentary about Metallica's Black Album, and I was like, 'Goddamnit, my chest hurts so bad.' I felt like I was having a heart attack. Pneumonia had spread to my heart, which was inflamed. I was in the hospital for a week." MMJ were forced to cancel a New Year's Eve gig opening for the Black Crowes at Madison Square Garden, but the lesson learned was more important. "I got to live life and be a normal person, get into a more human rhythm," James says. "I feel like it was some of the best life that I ever lived."

Because of residual problems with his heart, James has learned to slow down a bit. "Whenever I get off the road I go through periods of intense detox — no drinking, no smoking, no nothing," he says. "But I'm still worse than I should be." He's not going to get much rest this summer: The Jacket will tour through 2008, wrapping up with a New Year's Eve blowout at the Garden; he's recording an album with Conor Oberst and M. Ward; and, bizarrely, he's dead serious about making music as an alter ego he describes as an Asian country star named Sec Walkin (after the Evil Urges tune about walking). "It's such a great country name, like Trace Adkins," he says. "Look for us at the top of the charts." Even with all that going on, he's still most excited about playing with My Morning Jacket. "We never even thought we'd get to this point," he says. "We've worked really hard and gotten a lot back. We feel like things are cosmically justified."

[From Issue 1056-1057 — July 10, 2008]

Related Links: