Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - JIM JAMES Did NOT See a Bear Flip Over A Car

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Happy New Year Tripsters! For the first episode of 2026, Seth and Josh welcome Jim James to the pod! Jim James is the frontman for the band “My Morning Jacket,” and their new album “Is” released in 2025. Jim talks all about growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, his fear of Astronauts and Spaceships in the water from a trip through Alabama, what it was like trying to make his first album, his parents support through the years, and so much more! Watch more Family Trips episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlqYOfxU_jQem4_NRJPM8_wLBrEEQ17B6 Support our sponsors: Shipt Download the app or order now at https://Shipt.com Fitbod Join Fitbod today to get your personalized workout plan. Get 25% off your subscription or try the app FREE for seven days at https://Fitbod.me/trips Laundry Sauce Make laundry day the best day of the week! Get 20% off your entire order @LaundrySauce with code TRIPS at https://laundrysauce.com/trips #laundrysaucepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, budgie. Hey, Suvi. So the other day, my friend Brad Paisley was on the show. Oh, yeah? And, you know, he's obviously a close family friend with Alexi and especially my father-in-law, Tom. Yeah, I've been at Tom's house on Martha's Vineyard when Brad's there.

And Tom stays up a little later and maybe we'll have like a little sniffer of whiskey that he's not normally. Sort of a drinking guy. Yeah, but if he can hang out with Brad Paisley, and when he can strum on a little guitar with Brad Paisley, he's going to do it. So he came by, Alexi came by, they brought Addy with them. Addie was on the Thanksgiving show with her brothers. Yeah.

And it's a great effect. I'm doing my warm-up for the show, and I'm talking during my warm-up, I talk about my kids, and I mention her, and then I didn't realize because she was backstage. Then she just ran out on stage. your security is good but i don't think they expect someone that small no no and so then we were just uh she just sat she just stood out there with me and like i just set her up and she told stories and she's just i mean she's not blanching at all in front of the hot lights of uh amazing of a television studio in front of a crowd but then you know end of the show like before

the last act i go into the audience and i do a q and a so i'm doing the q and a and i at this point assumed she had left and instead she walks out again and this time she's holding a ribbon that you would wrap a Christmas present with uh-huh and she's got a ribbon and she just walks up and again everybody's like oh and then she like leans me down you know she like weighs me down and I go what's up she goes can I show people my ribbon and I was like go for it and uh and what and I kept doing the Q&A and she was just walking up the steps holding the ribbon over her wrist the way you would show off like a fancy Rolex and like very serious like didn't they and she was just like showing this ribbon and people and I like just while I'm doing this Q&A I hear people being like

can I touch it she was like no well yeah you can only look at it yeah and yeah that's what I'm dealing with right now yeah yeah pretty cute little superstar you know what I'm dealing with right now what's that uh this comes out January 6th yeah you know You know what happens on January 8th. Birthday. Your baby bro turns fitty. Oh, fuck. So that's what I'm dealing with.

Oh, no. I can't believe I fell asleep on the big 50 for you. Yeah. What are you going to do? I don't know. As we're recording this, I don't know. Yeah. I'm not a big, like, come to my party kind of guy.

So we might. Sounds like you. The way you said, it sounds like the way you talk. We might, McKenzie and I might go out of town, and we might go skiing somewhere. I've looked for, like, what's a great, like, what's one of the world's great hikes you can do in January? And, like, the websites are all like, in January? None of them, man. I think it's a bad time for it.

I could go to Patagonia, but that's too far to go. I don't have that much time. So, I don't know. Maybe we don't do anything big, and then we'll do something later. because we're talking when this air is we're talking like a couple weeks beforehand so you have a little bit of time to work it out yeah 50 i can't believe my little brother's 50 that's harder than knowing that i turned 50 yeah yeah um but yeah i feel better about this one than i did about 40 uh interesting in the lead up you know what i have always said the hardest one i ever had uh was 46 what's that there was something about like being on the other like being on my late 40s was like yeah also nobody like celebrate you at 46. Yeah. Yeah.

I was at a thing last night and my neighbor was there and she was like January 9th and we're going to have a huge party in the building. It's probably going to turn into a street party for my 28th birthday. And I was like, oh, I'm 22 years and one day older than you. And you already have a plan. Yeah. She's like, come to my party. It's like, it's not.

Yeah. I don't know if I want to be with a 20th. We had our late night holiday party last night And You know, it was lovely Yeah, late night, the show, not a late night party Yeah, it's not a late night party Like I left at like 930

Okay But it's funny because like I came into work today I'm like, how's everybody feeling? Everybody's like, fine I'm like, oh right, we all Like everybody at our show Like this is a show that got, we all aged The last 10 years together Yeah

And like I guess we moved it to this barbecue place because a few, like five years ago, there wasn't enough food at the party and like somebody got so drunk and like immediately, this is how not fun late night is. It's like, we got to go to a place with more food so nobody ever gets drunk again. Well, I, you know, for 30 and for 33, I think, I did these like really epic bar crawls in downtown Los Angeles and people are like, hey, you used to do those like fun parties. Why don't you do something like that again and i would sort of go down on my own to downtown l.a and i would map

out i would like just walk around and create a map of like eight bars but it would be so sloppy by the end of the party right and we're not like that anymore like i have a lot of sober friends and i don't want to have eight drinks in a night and i don't think they yeah it's that ain't that is the thing now, you know, when you're just like, ugh, drinks. Multiple? Although I will. I mean, you know, it'll be interesting to see tonight, like, you know,

going out with two of our oldest friends, as I mentioned on the previous podcast, going out with Ike, going out with hopefully Pete Gross. Oh, yeah. And, you know, that I think, I think I get, my goal is like two cocktails. Yeah. Just to loosen it up. The problem is, you know what happens? Two cocktails, posh.

What's that? I start to snore. Yeah, and I'm not Maybe I'm telling you a little bit too much Behind the curtain here But let's just say this morning My daughter woke up in my bed And I woke up in hers

Because at some point last night My wife decided she'd rather sleep with a toddler Than old porky pig over here Snort in his way Previous episode You talked about how your daughter didn't want to sit next to you at a movie theater Oh, it's very fine

And now your wife doesn't want to sleep next to you Well, by the way, everybody learned it from my wife The modeling my wife does on like, no more of you Do you and Addie high five When you're swapping bedrooms in the middle of the night? No. Yeah, we don't. I think she came in first

And then got between us Because she said she had a cold I'm pretty sure she was lying Yeah And then Alexi realized Since there was an open slot She could banish me Yeah. By the way, you've slept in that bed. Not the worst thing in the world.

No. Yeah. I had a great night sleep. I do hate to be the reason somebody gets a bad night's sleep. Did she learn, did Addie learn her lying from your middle son, Axel? Do you think? Yeah. Well, they all now, they all feel like if they don't wake up in our bed like the other, another kid got the leg up on them. So they're all just like, they're just lying earlier and earlier into the night.

Yeah. They're like people standing too close. close to an airplane gate, like, by standing, by crowding around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait till your group is called. Yeah. Great conversation today. With Jim James.

My morning jacket. My morning jacket, sweet man. If you are excited to hear a story about him camping in a bear, it does not happen. It doesn't happen. He makes it very clear. But lovely, lovely guy. lovely conversation and yeah i mean a heck heck of a musician if you have not uh if you haven't dabbled in a listen give it a give it a listen and uh thanks everybody for being with us yeah and happy

new year everybody yeah happy new year family chips with the mice brothers family chips with a my Hello How are you, Jim? How are you? I'm glad to be in the breakout room. You're in the breakout room. You don't want, take it easy. Take it easy.

It's time for a break. I think y'all need to change the name of the podcast to the breakout room. The breakout room is actually a pretty good name for anyone who's been on Zoom would enjoy a podcast called the breakout room. Yeah, it's really the inner circle. It's behind the Velvet Road in here.

Totally. Let me just say, we have the backgrounds of people who do too many podcasts and you have the background of a rock and roller and I really respect it. It's everything I wanted it to be.

Yeah. Real quick, Jim, before we get into it all, my wife is an equestrian. Do you know your connection to the equestrian world? Are you saying that you know it and I may not?

I know it and I'm asking if you know it. Oh, okay. No, I don't. There is, One of the U.S.'s, like, best equestrians is this guy, Will Coleman, and he is a huge fan of yours, and he has several horses, which are named after Songs of Yours, and they compete at, like, the Olympics and the highest levels.

He has a horse named, off the record, Dundante, Gideon, McGita, honest man, highly suspicious, circuital, tropic, steam engine. He's a huge fan, and these horses are amazing. So if you're curious, you can look up Will Coleman Equestrian. He's a mad fan of yours and to a degree where he's named several, several horses after your material. I had no idea. That's so crazy. That dude definitely is like.

Horses are so. I bet that he's like, oh, trust me, Jim knows. He does now. Yeah, he's, I always wanted to do the, what do they call it when you do the therapy with the horses? I think just equine therapy, I think. Yeah, that looks so amazing. Yeah, yeah. That's when the horse gives you a massage.

Exactly, yeah, the horse puts its toes. Yeah, just gently. It's all about trust. They say the real hard part of equine therapy is the trust. There is some video, just because I'm in this, you know, adjacent to this horse world because of my wife, I have seen there's some dude does like horse yoga. And there's a video out there of a guy, like, with his shirt off and some big baggy pants, and he's just, like, stretching a horse out. And I can't tell who's getting more out of it.

Yeah. We were going to get to your famous jokes, but I have a question as well. Did you ever, did my morning jacket ever open for Pearl Jam? Yeah, many times. Fantastic. We, yeah, we opened for them. We did a tour of Europe with them that was unbelievable. and we did some shows in the States too

it was a while ago it was a good were you very was it very early days for your band I want to say it was like 2006 2007 somewhere in there so not super early but kind of early I do a stand-up show once a month with John Oliver

and our opener is this wonderful comedian named Brooks Wheelan who's a dear friend of ours and Brooks has a joke about just what it is like to be the opener and he's like you know I used to go see bands and i'd be mad when the opening band came out and now he goes as i'm older i realize that band has a family they have parents but his punchline is he's like he's like but guess what maybe years from now you're going to realize oh yeah we went to see pearl jam but that was my

morning jacket man they uh eddie vedder did one of the sweetest things i've ever seen anybody do he came out because you know we're playing these arenas that are like there's like a hundred people in a 30,000 seat arena to see us when we come on and he would come out and play an acoustic song before us to get all the fans excited to come in to see us it was really really really cool and he came out a couple times and sat in with us and stuff just trying to get people into their seats you know everybody come rushing in from the beer lines or whatever to it's pretty pretty amazing we're really that is really that is an extra special thing when you really I realize somebody at that level appreciates and remembers what every other level was like.

Yeah, absolutely. So you grew up in Kentucky? Yep. Siblings. What is your sibling situation? I've got twin sisters who are three years younger than me, and I've got a little brother who is 13 years younger than me. Gotcha. Is it haunting to have twin sisters?

No, no, it's very rewarding, actually. It's unbelievable to have that. We're really close. And to have that kind of connection, you know, is pretty unbelievable. I feel like whenever I encounter other people who have twins in their life in a powerful way, it's such a unique gift, despite the shining horror. Were you intimate? I mean, I guess three years old, you weren't, were you able to process like there are about to be two more people here?

It was wild. I mean, I don't know if my three-year-old mind. quite had the processing power because I'd never experienced anything else. I thought maybe two babies came at once all the time. That's just how it worked. But I remember it just being so yeah, so surreal.

You know, there's something so surreal about two people at once, you know, like that are, and they're identical twins. You know, so yeah, especially as a kid, it was pretty insane. That's fantastic. And you're still close with both of them. Yep.

But they don't speak to one another. They've completely. Yeah, they never speak. But we all hang out and I mediate between them. Oh, that's good. That's so nice to have that big brother role. And then your 13 years younger brother, was he sort of a surprise to everyone when he came? He was a surprise, yeah.

And that was really interesting because it was like we got to experience, you know, having that new energy in the house. And I've never had kids myself. So I'm kind of glad I got to experience that, you know, what it's like to have a baby around the house. And it was, yeah, it was really interesting. It brought a whole new chapter and a whole new breath of life into the family, you know, at a time when definitely wasn't, like, expected that that would come. Yeah. Were you given responsibilities for? Not like severe response.

I wasn't, like, entrusted with the baby's life or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. We tried to help the best we could. I'm sure my sister's helped more than I did. I was 13-year-old teen angst, you know. Yeah, that's great. Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors. Support comes from shipped.

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That is s-h-i-p-t-t-com. Support comes from FitBod. Hey, Bashi. Hey, Sufi. Hey, come on. It's the New Year's baby. We're going to get fit, right? These bods are going to be fit.

Let's keep some of the promises we've made to each other. Okay. Okay. So, you know what I mean? Like, you get a FitBod. Here's what it is. You don't need a personal trainer to hit your 2026 goals. All you need for a personalized workout is FitBod.

Yeah, I mean, FitBod. tracks your workouts. So if you think, you know, oh, I really, really did it today, really got into it. It's going to say like, oh, yeah, actually, last time you were lifting more weight. FitBah is going to tell you how much you need to do, how many reps. Yeah, it's encouraging. It helps you push yourself because now it's all tracked. Now you know how to do better. And you know what? My family's noticing. My friends are noticing. I walked in the other day after a workout. And I couldn't believe what my four-year-old said. Addie looked at me and she said, holy shit, what's your secret?

And I said FitBot. Yeah, FitBod's not going to let you lollygag. Sometimes if you're working out on your own without any oversight, you're going to be like, I'm just going to push around some weights today. FitBod's going to say, no, no, no, that's not it. That's not how you gain strength. And you don't want to let down FitBod after everything it's done for you. So you're there, you're working out,

might as well get something out of it. Might as well gain some strength, gain some endurance. And by the way, FitBod's not going to push you too hard. They're going to be like, hey, we're going to track your muscle recovery so you can avoid burnout, keep up your momentum. Yeah. They're going to challenge you.

You're going to see progress. That's what we're all after. That's it. We just want to be a little bit better day in and day out. Thanks to FitBod, you can be. Level up your workout in the New Year. Join FitBod today to get your personalized workout plan, get 25% off your subscription

or try the app free for seven days at FitBod.me slash trips that's F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E-S-T-Trips FitBod FitBod So when you were a kid and obviously you were close enough to your sisters that that was when you were sort of

I would assume going on family trips if you went on them what sort of things would you guys do? Well it's funny because when this came up and I was thinking about like family trips and I was like man I don't know if I have any like insane stories of this one time you know whatever a bear attacked our tent we kind of had we moved to uh Georgia when I was in second grade for a job from for my dad's uh a job that he got and we also went the only place we

ever really went was Panama City Beach Florida where a lot of people in Louisville go for vacation and my grandparents would get a condo down there and we would stay with them and we kind of just did that every summer and we but on the move to Georgia there was a lot of driving back and forth from Kentucky and so there's just a lot of memories of like being trapped in the hot sweaty car you know in the heat of the summer and uh one of my favorite memories is just like the the music that we would hear as we were going like i have a really distinct memory of hearing the uh that song night shift by the commodores yeah you know like i remember like being a young kid hearing that and just being like what is this you know like that was my favorite part about all the travel was

like the uh the music in the car i remember we would take road trips at a young age and my uh our dad would lie to us and say that you know only certain songs would only play in certain places and so i remember the first time hearing i remember hearing i remember hearing weird owls eat it and take it it was the greatest thing ever and he's like that's why it's great to be on the road you know this isn't playing everywhere else yet and i that's smart getting back to school and being like you guys cannot believe and they're like yeah no it's here yeah we've heard it we've heard it dude what did your dad do uh that brought you guys to georgia well he's an electrician and uh there was a uh he was working at like a

a nuclear power plant facility around here that was then, you know, the nuclear scares and all of the things that have gone through, you know, the society and the debates about nuclear power and stuff, that's a whole other conversation. But that that plant was shut down. So then we went to Atlanta for just another job that he had to do. We were there for a couple years and then came back to Kentucky. Were your parents both from Kentucky? Yeah, we're all from Louisville, yeah.

Gotcha. Did you come back to the same house, or was it a new house? Yeah, it was a new house, so it was a different, yeah, because I don't think we really knew how long we'd be gone, but then luckily he found, you know, it's one of those things where you leave and you're like, okay, how soon can we get back kind of thing? You know, it was a move of necessity, and luckily he found a job, so we came back. Do you have like the strong memories from those like two years away?

Because I would imagine it's also probably pretty easy to forget about it, especially when you go back to the place you came from. Yeah, I mean, I just remember how hard it was for everybody because I remember the, you know, I think they say, and again, I don't have any kids, but I've heard many people who do have kids say that like routine and structure and, you know, familiarity and stuff like that is good for kids. So I remember like just, I think all of us,

were just like thrust into this new world, you know, where nobody knew anybody. And, you know, it was kind of like, uh, it's kind of almost like a purgatory feeling, you know. I'm sure it's harder for my parents or whatever. And then, uh, but luckily it only lasted a couple years and then we, we headed back. But yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know. My experience on this earth has been one of, uh, some kind of error 404 message is constantly displaying in my consciousness, where it's like I don't really nothing things don't compute for me very often uh and I remember that that time period just being like uh I've done a lot of talking with my therapist about this

about the uh you know just what in us that works or doesn't is uh is it hormones is it chemicals is it depression is it alcoholism is it you know because I feel like there were like so many things I've been blessed with with like a great family and you know supportive people and stuff but still most of my life I feel like there's like error 404 file not found web page not loading you know it's like

so I remember those those years I'm just like yeah I bet it makes a difference too like it does seem like the vibe was even your parents were like we're going to try to get back and so that probably

as kids makes it harder to like put down roots as well, you know. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we moved, but, like, you know, when we moved, like, I think it was very much like the door was closed on the place we'd left as opposed to, like, don't worry, this is all temporary.

Don't get close. Right, right, right. Did you move around a lot? We moved twice. We moved twice. Yeah. Okay. We moved when we were both very little from Wilmet, Illinois,

to Okamus, Michigan. And then when we were like five and seven? we moved to New Hampshire and our parents are still in that house now oh that's cool oh wow that's a good long stretch

it is a good long stretch and it's also it has a little bit of a shrine feel to it it's certainly Josh's room for whatever reason like my room was immediately at office

and like Josh's room was like no nobody touch it right right yeah I like that they're still like he might be president and people are going to want to see what it looked like yeah

but you're a room and he might come back Yeah, he might move back in. That's their real dream. Right. Did you come back to Louisville to friends that you sort of had left behind? Were grandparents close by? Did you sort of fall back into that old group?

No, everything was all distra. I mean, we had tons of family and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, friendships and stuff I had to start over. But it was pretty great because when I came back, a lot of the friends I met in fourth grade when I came back to Louisville I'm still friends with

and Patrick Callahan, the drummer in my morning jacket we have been friends since fourth grade and we have the same birthday and so I met him when I came back and we're still going strong we were just listening to records last night Is that something did you guys

at what age after you met were you guys connecting on music? Was that an early part of your friendship? pretty much immediately yeah it's like i feel like i always was like drawn to music as a kid through like the muppet show and stuff like that and i think when i came back in fourth grade and we're starting to get into uh at that time like hair metal was becoming really popular and i think a lot of us really wanted to prove how tough we were by like you know i like metallico i like slayer you know it's like who's who likes the tougher metal and stuff like that so yeah we kind

started bonding over music immediately i saw something on social media somebody made a post and i'm gonna get it wrong but uh they said when they were young the maddest they ever made a friend as a friend was saying like how hardcore dockin was and he goes i can prove they're not and he goes how he goes they sat in a room and they wrote a song it's just really funny that like you know you just think of them but they're like oh at the end of the day like everybody's a musician and they have to be like like writing down stuff and making it sound right yeah not Just sacrificing animals to Satan. And like it's like, I think like even rebellious music has to come from a place of like form and, you know, function.

Oh my God. Absolutely. In practice. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And so it's just like, you know, every, it looks like they just walked on stage and like they don't care about anything. It's like, oh, no, they definitely have had arguments about every word in this song.

Dude, isn't that so weird. I mean, I feel like that's something a lot of people don't realize on the path to trying to be a musician or whatever. that's what I thought, too. I was like, I was like, man, if I'm, like, in a band, I'll just be partying and, like, smoking and snoring cocaine and all the stuff. And it's like, I feel so lucky that I also just loved recording on a four track in the basement. You know, like, that was one of the only places I found piece was, like, working on this music by myself or practicing with my friends. So I think, like, I lucked out to meet people who also wanted to work and also wanted to snort cocaine. smoke cigarettes and do the whole Motley crew thing, you know, it's like we wanted to do that too,

but we were like, we also liked to work, you know, and it was like, it was a good combination, but yeah, so many people too, I did meet though, especially as kids, you know, it's funny as you start having band practice, and the first there's like 10 kids, you know, and they're all like, yeah, but they just want to smoke and drink and stuff, and they kind of fall away, and then the people who really do also want to do the work end up coming together. Were you self-conscious singing? sort of in front of other people or did that just oh yeah i hated singing for a long time our friend's older brother sang and then uh he left he was a couple years older than us way cooler than us

and uh and then i tried and i really didn't like it but then uh one day somebody left the reverb on an amp turned up all the way and i you know you plug your mic into the amp and and i sang and all the reverb came out and i was like i was like oh my god this is like, this is what I was born to do. It was like, it all felt so natural. And from that point on, I just, I loved singing. You couldn't stop me from singing. That's so great.

That's like, that's one of those hurdles that I sort of, I just was such a stumbling block for me. And I just was at a holiday party. And there was a guy there who, like, was in the chorus. And I'm just so regretful that I didn't like, just be in the school chorus. because you're going to stand around with 40 people and you're all going to sing

and you're going to get your part and you're going to learn how to harmonize and that confidence that sort of just comes from doing. And I love that it was a situation where a couple people dropped out and then an amp was set to the right setting for you to be like, oh, this, I can, I can do this. It's so beautiful, yeah, because it is weird

because if you think about the sound of your voice right now in these microphones you're using, for a podcast, it's very deliberate. deliberately clean and dry and you know you want to hear all the words you're saying but when you sing it's like everybody knows that you sound best in the shower or in a reverberant place like a garage or a stairwell or something and i think uh that reverb accidentally being on it was like this like whoa everything sounds better with this and when it was off it was like kind of like you're in the dentist's office or you're in like a you know some kind of exam room or something i always felt like i was at the doctor's office whenever i tried to singing to a dry microphone um and also what you said about the choir too like my niece is in choir and that's the biggest difference too when you're singing like with people you know and all the emphasis isn't just on you that's so powerful to um experience singing that way with people too

is so beautiful yeah it's really great it's so funny too just about like how you have to like commit yourself to this like form and then you find out lessons like some because it's It's like the next lesson in the book and the other is you just kind of stumble upon it because of, you know, being in the craft. I know I love those happy accidents. Can I just, I do want to circle back to Panama Beach, condo. We feel like we've talked to a lot of guys

who did like the Florida condo, grandparents. Was it a trip you looked forward to? Oh, yeah, because I mean, I remember the, because we really like, my mom, my dad was traveling a lot from work. And my mom was really good about taking us to the pet store, taking us to the library, you know, taking us to the pool. But we never had any money. And we, you know, we couldn't go a lot of places.

We didn't, I didn't even get on an airplane until I was 21. And we, yeah, so to go to Panama City Beach, Florida every summer was a huge, you know, a huge thing. You know, and, you know, of course, like just the ocean alone, you know, when you walk up to that as a kid, just the power of the ocean it just takes over your entire consciousness you know and you're just so obsessed um and one year we went to uh so to ride through i've tried from louisville kentucky to panama city beach florida we had to go through huntsville alabama where they have a nassah training facility and we stopped there once and they had this huge tank of water where the side was see-throughs. and they had like a spaceship in the water

with the astronauts working on it in their suits so they're weightless in the water, you know? Oh, cool. And I developed this crazy fear of being in the water because I was afraid there's going to be a spaceship under the water. So I was like afraid that my feet would like would accidentally brush the spaceship or whatever out in the ocean or when I was in the pool.

Even if I could see there's no spaceship in there, I was like very afraid of that. And still to this day. So when they built that and they were like, Is there any downside guys? Nobody was like, I do feel like kids might be afraid of hitting their feet against a spaceship. That is an absolutely unpredictable outcome of that. I still am kind of a little bit afraid of it.

If I'm in a lake or something where I can't see the bottom, I kind of think I'm going to brush up against some kind of aircraft, some kind of spacecraft. I love that it's not a fish or like an eel that you might hit. Or like, oh, there's a shark. It's no. Always spaceship. And it really, I mean, what an impossible question to ask the local. if you're like, hey, just a, I mean, this probably sounds crazy, but any spaceships ever crash? Like, should I be, should I wear my aqua socks?

Yeah, should I be worried about any craft? And were you guys, when you were down at Panama City Beach, were you just on the beach pretty much every day? Or is there a boardwalk in that town? What do you get up to as a kid? No, it's pretty simple. I mean, it's just, you know, go down to the pool, go down to the beach, rinse off the beach, the pool go to the beach go back to the pool rinse and repeat uh there was a place that had really hot donuts like we never really got donuts in our real life so i remember when we went to the beach we

would get there's a place called thomas's donut stand and they had the donuts were like so hot and so delicious i remember we were all just like so thrilled with that uh that uh you know special treat but yeah it was pretty um yeah it's like i was thinking about that when they asked me if i want to do this podcast i was like i hope i'm not the most boring guests that ever had on the podcast because you know there was never a time that a bear flipped over the car you know like something something exploded or crazy happened but it was really i love that you think most of our guests have bear stories that seems to be your takeaway i was like yeah it was uh it was you joined the bear out room that was

originally I just had to break up did you uh I was I have a irrational confidence in how good a donut's going to be if it's at a non-chain place that only makes donuts yep and not like a Brooklyn place that makes like basically just like cake in the shape of a donut

like a real old school like we're this is an assembly line for hot donuts I'm very oh my god absolutely yeah and I'm sure these donuts were a hundred percent lard yeah they were just only crafted out of lard yeah they were this was old school legit place for sure it turns out of the donuts hot you'll overlook a lot of the ingredient we grew up going to this like ski ski mountain in michigan

when we were very little and they had a hot donut station that like they could dip it in chocolate or like in the sugar and i just to this day those remain the best donuts i feel like i've ever had in my life um and i had them when i was four years old um yeah i don't think i've had a donut since Yeah, well, I mean, it wouldn't be able to compare. Yeah, what's the point now? Also, the older you get, you can't have a cylindrical thing like lard in your stomach all day. Possible to bounce back. Hey, we're going to take a quick break and hear from some of our sponsors.

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Your laundries never smelled this good. So we can shift because obviously you're not short at all, obviously, on trips in your life. when did you start touring as a musician and was that the van life that we've all sort of grown to except as the early days of a band

of a band? Yeah, I mean we, so we were all in other bands before My Morning Jacket where you would just kind of take whoever had the biggest car and cram everything into it

and go play a gig here or there but then once My Morning Jacket signed our first little indie record deal and there was a book back then I mean this is all still the internet existed but it wasn't really useful yet you know and I feel like the this would have been in like the year 2000 or 99 there's a book that used to come out called book your own fucking life it was like a punk rock DIY tour guide you know and it had all the uh venues in every state where, like, you could call them up and try to play there or whatever.

So we would, like, just, you know, call some coffee shop in Arizona and, you know, and ask Bob if we could play, you know, and be like, yeah. So we would, like, set up these crazy little tours and, you know, all pulled our money together to buy a shitty $3,000 Dodge van, and we toured around in that van for a couple years. And luckily, the manifested, the energy just kind of kept going. you know and uh you drive to arizona and play for three people and then you drive to arizona and play for 13 people and then there's 30 people you know and you're lucky if that that even happens you know it's so hard to like get get any traction going but uh that was always a

constant uh just a thrill for us to just like again i'm so lucky that i found people that wanted to do that were like wanted to go sleep on the van floor you know and then yeah wanted to graduate into all cramming into a motel six hotel room together and you know those those kind of things that's just like there was that spirit of adventure and uh you know oh it's over dramatic to say you're willing to die for it but i feel like in a way you kind of have to be if you want to make it through because i knew a lot of people who weren't willing to do that or i had friends and other bands where they're like man i wish we could go tour but so and so so won't leave their pizza job and so so won't leave And I'm like, why are they afraid to leave these shitty jobs?

Like, you can just come back and get another shitty job, you know. Did you, do you feel like everybody on those bus, like that you all kind of, even without talking about, collectively agreed that the arrow was pointing up and like that, hey, you know, it's obviously we're not exploding, but like we're, the progression is going in the right order. We did. It was kind of cool because we would just get little signs, you know. We did a, I did a real aggressive. mailing campaign that definitely wouldn't work in today's world but like I sent out demo tapes to

people this was still like cassette era and I would put my cassette in like a giant cardboard box and spray paint it silver and put like a stuffed animal head hanging out of it or just like whatever I could to get somebody to notice it at the label so after doing that a while this label called Darla Records I sent them a package that was like wrapped like a valentine and it was like a love letter to a girl named Darla and it was like all this stuff. So that got them to even. They were like, we usually don't even open

the manila envelopes that pile up on our desk, but at least they opened mine and then they liked it. So like nobody that we knew had ever even gotten like a little indie record deal or whatever. So I think those little like getting a first record deal got everybody excited and kind of made everybody willing to risk it more than they would have if nothing was happening at all.

So little things like that. Luckily kept happening that kind of made everybody willing to take the chance and get in the van. Did your band appreciate that you were taking the extra time to do creative rapping of the demo tapes? I think they did, yeah. There was a, yeah, we had a lot of fun with it. They helped some too, yeah. My comedy partner in my early days, who's a dear friend of Josh as well, this friend of us named Jill Benjamin, like she was very much the hustler.

and it's incredible how important that is because I just don't have that hustle the way she does and that ability to know that you put yourself out there a hundred times to have that one person at that one label like open up the box and not it's a little bit like getting up and singing for the first time

you're like oh well you know if you don't get up and sing nobody's going to come and like tap you on the shoulder and be like you look like you can we need you totally we need you You need you to start a rock and roll band. The whole, yeah, the whole analog nature, that book, about booking your life and then sending

those tapes, it's so great how those were. I mean, putting that book together sounds like such a labor of love for, as a guide for people who wanted to do that. Yeah, the whole DIY hardcore scene back then and punk rock scene. And, I mean, that was just like how people did it before the internet. Luckily, they created those cool books of different club owners and, um, And it's just wild to think that's how so many bands toured back then. Yeah.

Would your sisters or parents or brother come see you on the road? Well, in early days, not usually. I mean, they wouldn't travel out to see us or anything, but they were always really supportive in Louisville. And that's the, yeah, that's kind of the cool thing, too, because, like, I think every musician knows that, like, for so many years nobody cares, you know, And everybody's kind of like, yeah, sure, you know, have fun.

You know, we'll see it subway. It's like that kind of. But then I think once we kind of started going other places, and the first place the band ever took off was in Holland and Belgium, strangely enough. That was like the first place we ever got any real traction. So I think once we got on a plane, that was the first time I ever got on a plane, was to fly over to the Netherlands to do this tour.

And we didn't know they were going to have a camera crew. the airport to film us and stuff and we were like was this going to be like the Beatles or whatever we're going to get off the plane and there's going to be thousands of screaming Dutch fans you know and so once we did that it wasn't like that you know it was very very small

but I think people then people here were like whoa what there's this band from Louisville that is going to Holland or whatever like what does that mean and then people's ears kind of perked up but that was a really

interesting thing of that whole experience of flying to the Netherlands in a pre-internet world where we really didn't know like, what does this mean? Are we playing for 200 people? Are we playing for 20,000 people? Or we're like, what is the scope of this? So Josh and I, randomly, I mean, not that randomly,

but we used to live in Amsterdam. So we got hired for a comedy theater that Americans started in Amsterdam called Boom Chicago. And that was pre, I went in 97, Josh went in 99. When was your trip to the Holland? Probably between like 2001 and 2003. That's right when Josh was there. We went all over.

How did you break through there? Have you ever been able to work backwards and figure out why you broke through there first? Well, I mean, I think so they really liked, so the band has changed a lot over the years. And the first record we put out called the Tennessee Fire is all very, for lack of a better word, kind of low-fi and kind of like slow

and there's tons of reverb and we did it all ourself and it's very moody and I think they really liked that sound a lot and obviously there's no internet I don't read or speak Dutch or whatever so I'm not like seeing the Dutch magazines and this promoter from

the amazing club that's still there They're called the Paradiso. Oh, yeah. No one of the most unbelievable venues in the world, right? Yeah. This guy, Ben, sends me an email. I forget how he got my email. And he's like, did you know that your album is number one on the murder list over here in Holland?

I was like, what? And there's like a critics list. And our album was like at the top of this list for, I don't know, weeks or months or whatever. And he sent me a picture of it. And it's like, number one, my morning jacket. Number two, R.E.M. Number three, Nick Cave, number four, radiohead. We were like, is this like some kind of joke or something?

So they really liked it, but it was hilarious because when we came over, we kind of like played like a metal band or whatever. You know, we were like very, very like so like in-your-face rock and roll that there were so many people that were like, in their honesty can be so hilarious too. Oh, I'm sure you remember this to me. They're so familiar with it. They were like, they're just like, we really like your album a lot. we do not enjoy your show.

It was like, so, so, so, it kind of all, like, it was fun, and we had a lot of fun, but I think, you know, we didn't even understand the concept of what it all meant or, like, what people won. It was really interesting, it was really interesting, because it's almost like, I don't know, yeah, I mean, it is what it is, but it was just such a, such a trip. That's so funny. Because we toured all over the Benelux region. Like, we toured all over Holland and Belgium to do this thing. And Luxembourg, if it's Benelux. That's right. Let's not forget Luxembourg.

No, definitely not. I love that you refer. It's been so long since anyone said Benelux in my presence. We used to drive around. We used to do a lot of traveling shows, and so we would drive all around. We would never go to the Bilux, but we were in the NET a lot. And it is really funny because it's, I mean, it's a beautiful. beautiful country, but it's also like, I don't know, it's like so much farm, it's like such farmland.

Like it feels like ultimately when you're on the road other than the fact that the cars are weird looking, like you could kind of be anywhere until you get into the cities. We said that so many times, especially because when our studio was out in Shelbyville, Kentucky, which is like 30 minutes outside of Louisville in the country. And there's so many drives where we're like, we could just be driving to Shelbyville right now. It's like it really is all the same. But yeah, it was such a, and I mean, but Amsterdam. Amsterdam alone is just like, what a city that is. I know. I really, I'm now just like retroactively bummed out that we didn't cross paths because that was, I mean, that was when I peaked.

That is so funny that you all were when you peaked you. Genuinely. I wish I'd be seen that. No shame in saying that. But I will tell you my best concert experience at the Paradisa was it was a double bill of Sunville and the Jayhawks. But it was weird because the sun, sorry, Sunvolt played downstairs first, and then the Jayhawks played in that bigger room. I don't quite know why they did that.

But there was some confusion. And when the Jayhawks came out, they were like three songs in. And someone's like, what is Sunvolt coming out? And they had to be like, oh, they already, their show's over. It was earlier. And it was like, six people super bummed out. Yeah. Oh, God.

I was at the parody. So when I found out that Seth got Saturday Night Live, I was at a show there and stepped out to the loading dock because he called me and it was uh yeah do you remember what show you were seeing i do not yeah uh i know i saw beck do a show there and they were just like ripping through the first set and then he did one of his beck like splits and popped up uh and he broke his wrist and that was the end of the show yeah and like i was with someone who knew someone in the band and the someone in the band came out and was like oh yeah we're we're done he's he broke his wrist. He's going to the hospital.

Oh, man. It was funny. We saw Ween at the Paradiso once, and I'll never hear. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Like, we came in kind of late. They've probably been on stage for 30 minutes, and like, you know, the place is packed, sold out. And like, all we heard was, like, feedback going on. And we, like, went up to one of the balconies. And, like, they're all on stage. And one of the guitar players, like, laying back in a chair with his leg is broken and it's up on a stool. And his guitar is just feeding back. And the drummers back there, like, hitting a sampler pad that, like, makes cricket noises or something.

There's just, like, all of this noise going. Then we talked to somebody, we're like, what is going on? And they're like, they always do this. They always get way too high. And then they just go up there and then they just, like, make these noises. It was so, it was so cool. I mean, the noise they were making was pretty great, but it was just hilarious that they were not just let it go that far. And the Paradiso is an old church.

Yeah. So beautiful. Yeah. Did you, so was that, when you went over there, that's the first time you were on a plane was to go internationally? Yeah. So were you like, oh, fuck, planes fuck up your sleep?

Or did you know that there was only red eyes? My sleep's always been fucked up. Oh, and I think we connected through New York or whatever, you know what I mean? Did your, was it the first time for most of your bandmates as well? Or were you alone? No, they had all been on trips. For some reason, we had just, my family, we'd never gone anywhere you couldn't drive. You know, we just never had the money.

to even get a plane ticket or whatever so I think the because that was another thing with touring and all of that kind of stuff is like we all just worked at subway or the coffee shop or whatever and that was fascinating that Ben the guy from the Paradiso

somehow pulled enough together to get us plane tickets to come over to do these shows you know it was really really cool did you over the years have you had a favorite other than the Benelux, was there a country you went to that was maybe more fun than you would have expected to do concerts at? You know, it's just a day-by-day thing for me, and it doesn't matter what country I'm in

or where I'm in. It's more like a mental kind of health thing, you know, because sometimes, some days you're, if I'm feeling good and it's a good day, I can have fun on the darkest day and the dreariest place, you know, or vice versa. So, you know, if I'm, like, feeling bummed or whatever, you can be whatever at a crazy thing that's supposed to be awesome or whatever, but you're like, you know, battling the demons or whatever. I always feel like, I'm like, I find there's like sort of the oppressive expectations of a beautiful day and a place that's fun. It's just not for me. Like, I know for a fact the place I would have the least amount of fun is a carnival in Rio.

It's like, you know what I mean? This is not for me. I can't get my energy up. That's a kid for a children's book. You should do a children's book called The Oppressive Expectations of a Beautiful Day. That's really just. That's a good phrase. Do you, in the band, do you ever try to build in sort of a few days at the tail end of a tour where you're somewhere in the world like, hey, we're finishing in Spain and then we're just going to like spend five days?

Yeah, anytime we end. up like whenever we go to japan or australia or something like that especially if it's a huge huge trip i always take four or five days by myself and just like travel around and uh japan is one of my favorite places to go and just like get lost there you know just like ride the subway around and uh ride the yamanote line around it's like you can switch the screen to english so easily and you can get on the circle and ride the train around and get off random places and uh i love that feeling of just being like um it's so cool when you're like able to get completely lost you know in a beautiful way where you're like i have no idea even

which restroom is the men's or women's you guys i don't don't know anything about anything i can't i can't tell what's going on and it's nice when you have the time to do that you know and just like just let yourself kind of get lost in that way Yeah. The nice thing in those Japanese toilets is they're always going to have those heated seats. Yes. Or the trough style. Or that, yeah. It's feast or win. Win, win. Do you tend to, in Japan, do you tend to stay in cities or have you gone out into the countryside or into the smaller towns? We've always usually stayed in cities. And that's one thing. Whenever we go back next, I'd love to spend some more time out in the countryside.

doing that kind of stuff but yeah usually I've stayed in Tokyo and kind of explore that area we've gone to Kyoto and

some other places but yeah it's usually been pretty metropolitan yeah yeah yeah that's still the bucket list

place I most want to go is just like three weeks in Japan have you been at all never been my wife and I were sort of

had circled that we would go to the Tokyo Olympics because of working at NBC it's always an option and then that was the COVID Olympics

and so although I have said that to people since and they've said that would have been the worst time to go you know if you want the truth so difficult yeah it's like I like to

I'm waiting to go to New Orleans until there's a Super Bowl like it's just like that's not when you want to go out yeah have your as your shows sort of as your career

progressed and you played some more international things and some bigger venues did your family would your family ever travel would you ever say like, hey, come see us and, you know, pop up? My family will travel a lot in the States. They like to come to like Red Rocks when we play Red Rocks, you know, places like that

that are a fun kind of destination place. They'll come to New York or Chicago and hang out and, you know, have some fun and see the sites and explore a little bit. Yeah, they love coming to Red Rocks especially. That's always a really great. Do they sit? Are they on the side of the stage Or are they out in the audience?

They kind of can have full rain You know, especially my parents I just, you know, I give them passes And tell them to make themselves at home Are they good? Are your parents, do you ever have any fear That your parents will embarrass you? No, they never have

And I don't think they ever would. They're pretty like, you know, they're pretty quiet people that are sweet And, you know, they're like, and we all kind of have a thing I think just the way they were raised And the way they raised me We don't ever want to be in the way.

You know, we're always like very quickly. We're like, I'll get out of here. You know, I don't want to be in your way. You know, they're very conscious of that. So, no, they're always great guests. We, uh, myself and my, our parents are guests on Seth's Thanksgiving show every year. And then our parents will come on this podcast and they will be recognized. Do your fans recognize your parents in crowds, do you know?

That's a good question. Well, sometimes I hear they do or somebody will tell them that they're my parents or whatever, you know, Or they'll be wearing a my morning jacket t-shirt or whatever, you know. And so, yeah, I know they've had some really sweet interactions with people out in the crowd and stuff. Yeah, so nice. Yeah, it is so cool. I mean, it's just like, yeah, I feel so lucky to have had such supportive parents. You know, it's like, I think that obviously is just like, you know, for a long time, I think any parents are like, what?

You know, you want to play rock and roll? Good luck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, same things with comedy, you know. Yeah, oh, God, I'm sure. Absolutely. Yeah, what are you trying to do? Yeah.

I think our parents supported it quickly because I do think they were like, what the fuck else are they going to do? They're not good at math. Yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. Same for me. Yeah. They don't feel like, oh, America's lost a great doctor.

Totally. Yeah. Jim had a promising career in accounting. Subway. He was a sandwich artist. I did love working at Subway. That was one of my favorite jobs. I went to a New England sub chain called DeAngelo's, and I loved working there as well.

Although I remember once going over to a girl I liked house afterwards, and I walked in and her whole family was like, oh, my God. You smell like onions. I'm like, oh, right, right, right. Definitely go home and shower first. Oh, yeah. This has been fantastic, and thank you for joining us. Bear stories or no bear stories. Yeah, exactly.

We're content. Yeah, I'm glad. But we would like you to go. get out in the world and try to at least meet one bear and then come back and report on how it went. I did see a bear climb into a dumpster once outside of Levan Helmshouse in upstate New York. I mean, it's incredible that you didn't think this was a story to tell. Yeah, actually, yeah, that's like, and it was so funny because the bear, they told us there would be bears. They're like, watch out for bears. They're friendly. This is a black bear, not a grizzly bear.

But we were in there, and we heard this wham, wham kind of rumb. And we looked outside and saw this black bear with his claws and head up peeking into the dumpster, you know, kind of scuttling on the dumpster. And we watched it and it wham, wham, wham, flipped over the side, fell into the dumpster. And then a couple of seconds later, its head came up and it had a whole wrapped block of, like, deli ham that had expired. That's great. And it was just the cutest picture of it holding up this deli ham. That's great.

Everything about that. I mean, I also like, I can imagine that leave on helm would be a guy who would order too much ham. Like, he would just, like, be at the butcher and he'd be like, I think it's going to be a big ham wheat for me. And then he's like, give me two blocks. Two blocks, please. Like, oh, shoot. We're not going to. I mean, that must have been pretty special to, I assume that you were friendly with leave on helm if you were at his house.

Oh, my God. Well, he had a studio. We had never met him before. And we were, that was our big question. Will we see him? Will we meet him? And we were there for like a day. and we hadn't seen him, we hadn't met him.

And I don't smoke a lot of weed, but we were recording there, and I was, like, pretty high for some reason. I went out to the bus to get something, and I came back in, and I heard this voice, and I was like, oh, my God, is that the voice I think it is? And I, like, round around the upstairs, and I came upstairs, and he's sitting there with the guys, you know, just, like, blazing a huge joint. and gave us like, I don't know how much weed, but like a huge pile of weed. He's like just like ripping and he's like, you know, reaches over to shake my hand and like hands me the joint.

You know, and I'm like a one hit max and I'm just so, so stoned. And I couldn't turn down the joint from Levant and was just so, you know, just couldn't believe that I was staring at him. And then he didn't stay long. he just said hi or whatever and left and then he kept every day he would leave a little another little pile of weed on the amp or whatever with a little note like here's some more weed in case you're all running out or whatever and it kept growing and growing it was so sweet and then we got to play with him a few times after that and he was the best he was so so sweet just unbelievable I mean that's incredible like when you get to you know one meet a hero and

two have them be even more than you could have imagined nothing quite like it Yeah, and he does elf on the shelf for you except with weed. Yeah, he's like, yeah. All right, Josh, is going to ask you our speed round questions. All right. You can only pick one of these. Is your ideal vacation relaxing, adventurous, or educational? Relaxing.

What is your favorite means of transportation? Car. If you can take a vacation with any family, alive or dead, real or fictional, other than your own family, what family would you like to take a vacation with? Wow. The Rolling Stones. Great. If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one member of your family, who would it be? That's tough. I can't pick any favorites. So I'm going to have to pick my parents' dog, Gracie. Gracie. Sounds like a wonderful companion. You are from Louisville. If you had

to get more families to come visit louisville how would you sell them on the city oh my god louisville's one of the most beautiful places you've ever seen i mean louisville the way i try to explain to people it holds a magic similar to new orleans you know it's like a very uh beautiful lush green uh place filled with like lots of spirits and lots of energy and lots of uh there's a lot of here and there's a lot of uh it's a really kind of a swirling uh it's near the ohio river and uh there's just a really interesting mix of like so many different cultures here and so many different walks of life and so many people from so many different backgrounds kind of all mixing together um and uh yeah it's a really really beautiful special place so much beautiful nature

you know Muhammad Ali's from here you know it's a really really special place yeah we've both been we love it yeah nice and then Seth has our final questions have you been to the Grand Canyon god I've only been once my first girlfriend and I drove out there from Louisville on my first road trip huge road trip as a 20 year old or whatever

and we stopped and we looked in and we were like sick and then we headed on to Las Vegas Do you feel like you've left, is there an itch unscratched? Would you go back? Absolutely. I would love to go back and really spend some time there. I would love, aren't there?

I don't know if I have the bravery to, like, ride a donkey down in there or something. But I would get, if somebody had a program where they had a helicopter that helicopters in, like a premium yurt experience, you know, that has like a deluxe bed, deluxe hot tub and accommodations, all that kind of stuff. that the helicopter me down. Jim, this feels like this isn't a fit. Yeah, this is a wish list. This is a wish list. You keep, the more you talk,

the less you're describing the Grand Canyon. Are you trying to plan a voyage to the Grand Canyon? Yeah. Well, you sound like, we certainly can't afford your void. Or like if somebody could like fill it in so it wasn't a hole. Yeah, totally. Like a walk across it. Yeah, put a Starbucks on top.

Thank you so much for your time, man. It was so cool talking. you, Jim. Thanks so much, y'all. Yeah. Let me know if you get back to Louisville sometime. We will. Yeah, we'll do. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. All right. Thank you, brother. Cheers, y'all. Bye, bye. Thanks. Jim James, Jim James, grew up in Louisville, moved out to Georgia, and quickly had his fill. Back to Kentucky again. He watched the Muppet Show

and made some lifelong friends. Met a chum who still plays the drums in the band. Early days, gigs they'd play, sleeping on the floor but I told wanted more but that time in Huntsville still haunts Jim because of that spaceship oh that spaceship it was inside a tank and Jim thought yeah no thanks it was a long dive something just didn't jive about that spaceship about that spaceship still has troubling thoughts about those astronauts on that spaceship Florida heat donuts over hot doughnuts but that spaceship oh that spaceship

he'd look out from the bee wondering what's underneath His version of seasick was worried he might kick. Kick a spaceship, underwater spaceship, even when in a lake, it's more than he can take, scared of them spaceships.