“I’m surprised I made it this far!”
Jim James talks to Keith Cameron.
You keep bursting out laughing on this album. Was that indicative of the prevailing mood in the studio? “I’m so lucky to be surrounded by some really great people. We get together and play music and have fun. That’s one of the things I wanted this record to sound like. Technology is wonderful, but is taking a lot of the soul out of things. Even the most basic organic music that you hear, like a folk record, it’s recorded on a computer and can be tuned, edited and fixed. I wanted something that was the polar opposite: really rough, something that hopefully sounds fun.”
You turned 40 this year. Are you comfortable with such calendar landmarks? “It’s wild. Forty’s a big one. I went on a silent retreat, ’cos I’ve been trying to figure out different ways to be healthy. And it was hilarious how different it was from drinking myself to oblivion when I turned 20 or 30. But I enjoyed my thirties so much more than my twenties. I feel more optimistic. I don’t mean this in a morbid way but I’m surprised I even made it this far! I’m grateful for every next birthday that happens.”
What’s the intent behind the album title? “It’s multi-levelled. On a lot of records, I have different sounds and all the songs sound different from each other. With this one, I knew I wanted them recorded exactly the same way, and every sound distorted, uniformly. Then there’s the distortion of our media and our world right now. The lack of truth and unity. The internet has distorted everything, given people this new sense of unlimited cruelty. People can be so cruel to each other now they don’t have to look at each other in the eye. I’m really struggling with it. I just want to be a force of good however I can; just try and remind people our differences are so beautiful, but at the end of the day we’re all the same.”
Your songs feel like conversations with yourself – do they help? “Well, I don’t know. At times it doesn’t feel very fruitful. But at other times… It’s funny, right now I feel really good. I don’t know if it’s turning 40, but – and I’m knocking on wood as I say this – I feel like I’ve turned a corner. I feel a lot happier than I ever have. In Just A Fool I’m saying it kinda sarcastically, but in another way, I’m like ‘Hey, I’m just another fool out here getting by, I’m just out here doing all right.’ Every day can’t be a romantic fantasy, or some kind of massive victory. Some days you have to just enjoy the fact you’re not in terrible pain, or just enjoy the fact you have a roof over your head, and that’s enough. It’s a constant process.”