New My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket frontman has begun work on album number 6

08 July 2008 - My Morning Jacket released their critically acclaimed new album Evil Urges last month (10 June) they told 6 Music that they have already set to work on new songs.

New material

Despite the album being fresh from the My Morning Jacket mill, frontman Jim James revealed that he is already preparing the follow up.

"I’m already writing songs for the new record and stuff," he said. "The process is weird because whenever we make a record, the songs come from one or two years of life that you’ve lived.

"Then by the time you get to make that record you’re in that zone but when it comes out, it’s a year or two later. So, for me personally, I’m working on the next thing."

Evil Urges’ reactions

It was the American rocker's fifth studio album, receiving successful four star reviews from various sources.

Turning to how the band feel about the reaction they’ve had to the record, frontman Jim James told us that they’ve tried to avoid reading the album’s reviews in the press.

He said: “I guess as a band you try to not hear too much of what people say because it feels good when somebody says something good but it feels bad when someone says something bad.”

He said the reaction has been a mixed bag of positive and negative feedback: “We’ve had a lot of people say some nice things about it and some that haven’t liked it so I feel like we’re always kinda in the middle. But we’re really happy with it.”

"By the time you get to make that record you’re in that zone but when it comes out, it’s a year or two later. I’m working on the next thing."
Jim James

Different countries’ reactions

As to how Evil Urges will be picked up in other places - James was unable to predict what the response will be like to the quintet’s new material, when the band tour European and American venues and festivals in the coming months.

He told 6 Music: “The States I feel is a lot like Europe - like every state is almost like a different country. And of course in the UK, the UK’s different and in Europe every country’s different.

“We’re just starting our tour so I’m curious to see how it’s gonna be when we get into different countries we haven’t been to in a while.”

Georgie Rogers