Quotes from Jim James

While I'm working on something, every single part of me is in it. But then, once it's done, I leave that place behind. I usually don't like to revisit it. So it's almost like listening to a different person.

The songs always tell you something, but always for different reasons.

It's hard to say what an album is about - because each one is usually about a lot of things to me, but then I hope it also can mean a lot of different things to someone else. That's the beautiful thing about music.

I heard the Abbey Lincoln song 'The World is Falling Down,' and it just resonated with me so deeply.

Moving and motion tends to make things pop up. But things pop up for me, really, at just odd intervals or at random times that aren't really convenient, so I'm a big fan of the voice memo recorder on my phone. That's the only way I can remember things.

For a lot of people, life's been pretty good. There hasn't been true terror right in your face.

I was talking to my publisher, Jamie Ceretta, who's one of my closest confidants and allies when I'm working on new music. I feel like I can always count on his judgement because he'll tell me if he doesn't like something. It's sometimes hard to get people to tell you if they don't like something.

If you do something, you should do it because you love it, and you should follow your heart and make it how your heart wants it to be made. But it's a difficult world, especially for musicians.

I always think of albums as the format. I think it's perfect. I don't think you can tamper with that. It's not just sound, the analog, which is so much richer. It's the format. You're constrained by just 45 minutes, and it's perfect to me. I don't want to listen to any more than, and I live and breathe music.

I think one's musical life should be free and open to new experience in order to keep expanding your mind and horizons.

Our first two records are a lot quieter and more studio-based. We kind of had this feeling like we wanted to make a more quote-unquote 'rock' record. Then Patrick joined and really brought a new Herculean power to the band.

I listened to 'En la Ceremony' and had always wished it had some flamenco guitar.

I went to college for, like, a year and a half with the intention of doing some kind of art therapy or some kind of teaching of art, because I feel like art is a more free area in school than music is. I feel like music is too mathematic for me. Music school's so hard. It's math.

The gospel funk soul era, that's what I'm obsessed with - pretty much all the '70s through early '80s.

I love the thrill of putting on a record and feeling like you got the wrong one from the factory.

Almost every time I go to the ocean, I think about throwing my phone right into it. Sometimes, you pull that thing out of your pocket, you look at it, and you're like, 'What was I just going to do with this? Was I going to take a note? Was I going to check my email? Was I going to take a picture?'

I'd write songs like 'One Big Holiday,' and we'd play it and say, 'It's too heavy for 'At Dawn.' Let's save it for the next one.' We had more time for that, but when you mix a song, the general rule of thumb for us is a song a day or usually a day and a half.

I think probably the first time I recorded anything was mid-2010.

When people are recording, and they're like, 'I want to get the drum sound of the Beatles,' I hate that.

I've got a studio at home, and I'm always recording.

Lou Reed's spirit and the way he did things was so important. Him and his music mean so much to me as the years go by.

Once all the power goes out, there will still be human beings standing together around a campfire, playing acoustic guitars.

I guess people have a hard time dealing with humour in music. But sometimes life is depressing, and sometimes life is fun, is about just laughing with your friends, and I wanted to express that as well as the darker stuff.

I feel like the 'Supernova' record, those songs are very me. It's a more honest representation of me than any record I have made prior to that.