Jan 22, 2026 · 1 hr 38 min · 15 segments
For the 20th anniversary of the fourth My Morning Jacket album, we take a detailed look at how it was made. The band originally formed in 1998 in Louisville, Kentucky by Jim James, Johnny Quaid, Tom…
Jim JamesGuest
Dan NordheimHost
And it's such a beautiful experience because we've realized, we've talked about it a lot, we still play these songs all the time.
We just feel so grateful that they're still alive in the world, that people still want to listen to them and that they still have a life and that we even can put out a 20th anniversary expanded edition with bonus tracks and demos and all this stuff.
There's this huge sense of gratitude now we all have myself mainly have just such a healthier perspective, you know, and, and the guys and I are in such a beautiful place.
And Z was the first record with Carl and Bo and we've been together now as a band for 20 years, you know, and that's like, that's insane.
So there's this beautiful sense of gratitude and amazement, you know, when we play Z from front to back and we all kind of look at it and we're just so grateful for it.
And, uh, We remastered the album with Emily Lazar, who's one of the all-time great mastering engineers.
And I was never fully happy with the original mastering, because I still didn't quite fully understand mastering at the time, and I had a very difficult time.
And I'm still, I think the album sounds fine or whatever, the original album, but getting to remaster it with Emily was unbelievable because...
We sent her all the original two-track master tapes, and she worked her magic, and I feel like she lifted a sheet of glass off of the recording, and I had this beautiful day in Milwaukee when I got the master back from her, and I was walking through the art museum in Milwaukee listening to it, and I felt like I was hearing it for the first time in this new way with her remaster of it, and I just felt like, I felt so proud of old Jim for making the record, you know, and I kind of had this beautiful moment with my old self where I gave him a hug and I was like, man, I know how depressed you were, but you did it, you know, and you did a great job and you carried us through and you didn't end your life and you didn't end the band and somehow things kept going.
And there's this beautiful healing that happened there in Milwaukee with me at the art museum with my old self and, and i felt so proud of it and it sounded so great and i was just so grateful that i could hear it in this new way and that it's hopefully still useful to people like people still want to listen to it and hopefully they always will and that we still want to play it you know 20 years later we still want to play it and we play it all the time you know all these songs we play all the time you know they're part of our thing and that's a good feeling too when you don't feel like it's some nostalgia trip you know i mean because like nostalgia trips are fun for us all but it's like it's such a great feeling when you're playing the music and you're like fuck man i mean i think this music still feels great i don't think this is just a nostalgia trip you know it's so fun and we play these songs all the time and it's like it's just such a beautiful full circle moment that i just really could not have asked for a better way to feel 20 years after making zee
And it's such a beautiful experience because we've realized, we've talked about it a lot, we still play these songs all the time.
We just feel so grateful that they're still alive in the world, that people still want to listen to them and that they still have a life and that we even can put out a 20th anniversary expanded edition with bonus tracks and demos and all this stuff.
There's this huge sense of gratitude now we all have myself mainly have just such a healthier perspective, you know, and, and the guys and I are in such a beautiful place.
And Z was the first record with Carl and Bo and we've been together now as a band for 20 years, you know, and that's like, that's insane.
So there's this beautiful sense of gratitude and amazement, you know, when we play Z from front to back and we all kind of look at it and we're just so grateful for it.
And, uh, We remastered the album with Emily Lazar, who's one of the all-time great mastering engineers.
And I was never fully happy with the original mastering, because I still didn't quite fully understand mastering at the time, and I had a very difficult time.
And I'm still, I think the album sounds fine or whatever, the original album, but getting to remaster it with Emily was unbelievable because...
We sent her all the original two-track master tapes, and she worked her magic, and I feel like she lifted a sheet of glass off of the recording, and I had this beautiful day in Milwaukee when I got the master back from her, and I was walking through the art museum in Milwaukee listening to it, and I felt like I was hearing it for the first time in this new way with her remaster of it, and I just felt like, I felt so proud of old Jim for making the record, you know, and I kind of had this beautiful moment with my old self where I gave him a hug and I was like, man, I know how depressed you were, but you did it, you know, and you did a great job and you carried us through and you didn't end your life and you didn't end the band and somehow things kept going.
And there's this beautiful healing that happened there in Milwaukee with me at the art museum with my old self and, and i felt so proud of it and it sounded so great and i was just so grateful that i could hear it in this new way and that it's hopefully still useful to people like people still want to listen to it and hopefully they always will and that we still want to play it you know 20 years later we still want to play it and we play it all the time you know all these songs we play all the time you know they're part of our thing and that's a good feeling too when you don't feel like it's some nostalgia trip you know i mean because like nostalgia trips are fun for us all but it's like it's such a great feeling when you're playing the music and you're like fuck man i mean i think this music still feels great i don't think this is just a nostalgia trip you know it's so fun and we play these songs all the time and it's like it's just such a beautiful full circle moment that i just really could not have asked for a better way to feel 20 years after making zee
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