Quotes from Jim James

After I wake up, I always meditate.

I just think meditation is so important because it gives you a chance to see what's going on in your brain.

'Circuital' was just so much about us as a band. We captured every song live, including the main vocal. That is probably my favorite My Morning Jacket record because it's really the essence of us being us. The solo record is just a completely different essence of just me trying to figure out stuff.

I love playing music with people, but I also just love the art and meditation of being alone and working on stuff.

I think we're going to look back on the Internet in 50 to 100 years as a big mistake.

Pilates is amazing. It makes you conscious of how you have been doing something incorrectly for so long, even something as simple as just standing there.

We should always be trying to tear down the walls and say, 'I'm no different than you.'

Ever since I got back surgery, everything in my life has been about reduction. I've got the lightest backpack I can carry and the lightest MacBook.

God forbid Donald Trump gets elected president; think about how many people are going to get f**ked over or how much harder we're going to have to fight for equality.

I'm grateful to be successful, and I'm grateful that we can make a living, and I hope we can maintain our integrity forever. That's really my only dream. The notion of bigness or smallness, I feel like that comes and goes in such waves that are kind of out of my control.

When you think about climate change, that means that we won't have an Earth to be lonely on.

Sometimes, I want to make a record that's so schizophrenic and so all over the place, and then other times, I want to make a record that's very coherent and very short and together.

I really believe in not compromising your art. I feel like I've never compromised my art.

The band can't exist without the crowd, and the crowd wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the band, and it really is something magical that people need.

When I was maybe three years old, I was obsessed with this song 'Leader of the Band' by Dan Fogelberg. My mom took me to the mall and bought me a 45 of it. We would listen to that song all the time.

I don't think about taking risks anymore because there aren't any risks to take.

Fleet Foxes are a really talented band. They make beautiful music.

I tried to score a few films with this composer Brian Reitzell here in L.A. We made a bunch of music we really loved, but we got fired from the film for being too weird.

That's why you put out records: hoping that people will connect with them. I mean, I play music for myself, for sure, and I would still play music even if people didn't like it. But it means a lot when it connects to people and they enjoy it. But it's funny: you get criticism as much as you get praise. It kind of evens out after awhile.

Preservation Hall is the sound of joy. When they start playing, people start moving.

If you're reissuing something, it's important to have demos and everything else from that time that wasn't used.

'It Still Moves' is really the only record in our catalog that I've always felt I wanted to remix. Part of the fun of that record was that we recorded it all to tape, and it was all super-duper organic.

Some things cannot be explained. This is part of the magic of life. There cannot be a word or an idea or a definition attached to everything.

One thing I've learned is that the best thing a producer can do is help you be you.