Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

Photo: Daniel Teheney/Authentic Hendrix LLC

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Director John McDermott Talks New Jimi Hendrix Documentary, 'Music, Money, Madness … Jimi Hendrix in Maui'

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Ahead of an exclusive premiere of the film this week, presented as part of the GRAMMY Museum's COLLECTION:live programming, GRAMMY.com caught up with McDermott to discuss how the documentary continues Hendrix's lasting legacy
David McPherson
GRAMMYs
Nov 16, 2020 - 5:45 pm

Jimi Hendrix accomplished more in five years than most artists achieve in a lifetime. Songs like "Hey Joe," "Purple Haze" and "Voodoo Child" are classic rock staples. His innovation on the electric guitar influenced generations. He's responsible for seminal moments now emblazoned in the annals of rock: the time he set his axe ablaze at the Monterey Pop Festival or the time he played an instrumental version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on a Sunday morning coming down at Woodstock. In the late 1960s, Hendrix was also the pensive leader of America's counterculture movement. 

The Seattle-born musician left us far too soon. On Sept. 18, 1970, the 27-year-old died at the bohemian Samarkand Hotel in Notting Hill, England. The cause: asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates. Fortunately for fans, old and new, Hendrix left a cache of unreleased music. Now, thanks to archivist John McDermott and the Experience Hendrix family-run company, his lost music allows us to discover another untold chapter in the life of this mercurial musician. 

The new narrative: the backstory on the making of Rainbow Bridge, a bizarre and controversial independent movie released in 1971. Directed by Warhol acolyte Chuck Wein, the project was financed by a $500,000 advance from Reprise Records, with the promise of a Hendrix soundtrack. 

In his new documentary, Music, Money, Madness … Jimi Hendrix in Maui, McDermott attempts to set the record straight about this boondoggle. The feature-length film, which drops Nov. 20, includes never-before-released original footage and new interviews with those who were there. (Live In Maui, a two-CD/three-LP package that includes the free Maui concert at the foot of the Haleakalā volcano on July 30, 1970, in its entirety, arrives the same day.) 

On Wednesday (Nov. 18), the GRAMMY Museum will host an exclusive premiere of Music, Money, Madness as part of its COLLECTION:live programming. The event will also include a live panel discussion featuring some of Hendrix's closest family members and associates, including younger sister Janie Hendrix, former bassist Billy Cox, engineer Eddie Kramer and McDermott.

Ahead of the premiere, GRAMMY.com caught up with director John McDermott to discuss his personal Hendrix history, his insights on Music, Money, Madness … Jimi Hendrix in Maui, and why, 50 years on, the groundbreaking electric guitarist's music still resonates.

Before we talk about the documentary, I'm curious how you landed this dream job as "keeper of the Hendrix vault" in the first place.

In the late 1980s, I was working as a writer, producer and a director on various music projects. I was always fascinated by the Hendrix story. I had previously written about him for a major music magazine, and that opened up a friendship with Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer. From there, we worked on a book together, Hendrix: Setting The Record Straight, which came out in 1992. It was not a traditional biography. We presented Jimi through the eyes of those closest to him. 

The idea of a tribute album came next [Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix]. Released in 1993, the record featured artists like Seal, Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton. Some proceeds went to a United Negro College Fund scholarship fund created in Jimi's name. 

Shortly after, Eddie heard Jimi's father [James Al Hendrix] was involved in litigation over the ownership of his son's legacy, including the rights to Jimi's music, name and likeness. The Hendrix family asked me to help. Eventually, Al was victorious and all rights were returned to the Hendrix estate. That's when Al asked me to manage Jimi's music catalog. It's hard to believe that was 25 years ago. Since our first archival releases of unreleased Hendrix music in 1997, our mission has remained the same: keep Jimi in front of as many fans as possible. As a fan myself, I only came to truly appreciate Hendrix after his death … I never saw him live. For me, he was always this extraordinary artist with a fascinating story.

Speaking of fascinating stories, Music, Money, Madness … Jimi Hendrix in Maui certainly fits the bill. It's a captivating tale of a strange yet seminal time for the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
What makes this show so fascinating is its uniqueness. Three weeks before he was playing to 500,000 [people] at the second Atlanta International Pop Festival. Then, he arrives on Maui to play for 700 people seated by astrological order at the side of a volcano … that was something only Jimi could do.

Why did you decide to tell the story of the making of Rainbow Bridge and the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Maui sojourn in the summer of 1970?

We've told the arc of Jimi's story before: from birth to death in Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child [2010]. In other archival releases, we've examined temporal moments such as the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock. 

The Maui performance is always one fans request the most. With this film, we wanted to drill down and recalibrate what this whole thing represented. If we were going to do it, we wanted to do it in a way that provided the context for this story and share all of what exists of film—using the complete concert performance at Haleakalā to tell the real story. Rainbow Bridge was clearly not a Jimi Hendrix project, but it only could have taken the form it did with him dying. Had he lived, it never would have taken this form. Maybe it might have been just an instrumental score for a surfing documentary … no one really knows. 

Since Jimi died in September, less than two months following these concerts, the Rainbow Bridge movie and accompanying soundtrack played a larger role in Jimi's initial posthumous legacy. With this movie, we want to reframe that story.

How did you reframe the story to specifically focus more on Jimi's story and the free Haleakalā concert? 

First, we recovered original footage from Jimi's time in Maui. This documentary was more about extracting that new footage and providing fresh context. In Rainbow Bridge, there [were] only 17 minutes of performance footage that was haphazardly put in the movie. Mitch [Mitchell] had to overdub his drums at Electric Lady Studios just to save the audio. 

Read: Jimi Hendrix's 'Electric Ladyland' Turns 50

At the same time, you wanted to present an objective story, correct? How did you achieve this balance?
Definitely. You get the Hendrix side of the story listening to new interviews with surviving bandmates Mitchell and Billy Cox; Warner Bros. record executives; his engineer, Eddie Kramer; and others close to Jimi. We chatted with some of the original participants in the movie and included interview clips with [Rainbow Bridge director] Chuck Wein to tell their side. 

Fans need to understand how this chapter in Hendrix's career became blown up because of his death. To hear his bandmates talk about that time in Maui … that fascination that attracted me decades ago happens anew for kids around the world who appreciate the phenomena that was Jimi Hendrix. Take the Beatles film Eight Days A Week. Those who lived through that understand about the girls screaming at their shows—the tsunami and energy about the creation of that music—but that movie showed a new generation of global audiences what The Beatles really meant. In the same way, you can't fathom how amazing Jimi was until you see, hear and learn more about him. 

Why now? Did you plan the film's release to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Hendrix's death?

Not at all. Restoring the footage and the original audio took time. This is a project we had on the broiler for quite a while. We wanted to take time to get it right and speak to the right people. There is a temptation sometimes to get the easiest folks to speak, but often these people don't shed the greatest light on a subject. Originally, we had hoped to screen it at the Maui Film Festival this past June, but because of the pandemic, that didn't happen.

Why, a half-century since the electric guitar innovator and Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient died, is the Hendrix legacy still important to preserve?
First, Jimi alone keeps his legacy alive. He is the guy who does the heavy lifting. Why is his legacy still so important? Compare it to what people would give to hear just one more wire recording from Robert Johnson. Because Jimi died so young, he left so many questions unanswered. Every one of these projects we release is another clue to that puzzle, from both a sonic and a visual perspective. Hendrix's appeal [resonates] with young people and remains with original fans. They, along with a growing global audience, see him as an ongoing touchstone: No matter the country where they are from, their gender, their race or their age … something about Jimi cuts right through.

'Band Of Gypsys': 5 Facts About Jimi Hendrix's Final Living Release | GRAMMY Hall Of Fame

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Frank Zappa in 'Zappa,' a Magnolia Pictures release

Frank Zappa in Zappa, a Magnolia Pictures release

Photo: Roelof Kiers/Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

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Actor/Director Alex Winter Talks New Frank Zappa Documentary, 'Zappa': "It Was The Full Complexity Of The Man I Wanted To Show"

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For the film, Winter and his team combed through more than 1,000 hours of footage to capture the complicated essence of one of the most groundbreaking rock experimentalists
Jordan Blum
GRAMMYs
Dec 30, 2020 - 12:13 pm

Few 20th-century musicians have amassed as unique and influential a catalog as two-time GRAMMY winner Frank Zappa. Between the late 1960s and the early 1990s, Zappa's multifaceted artistry knew no bounds. He was a one-of-a-kind musical genius whose attitude and approach rubbed off on countless creative followers.

Of course, he was far more than that, too. As the recent documentary Zappa lays out, the singer/songwriter and composer was an adamant denouncer of censorship, which led to him morally testifying before the U.S. Senate in 1985, as well as a fearless critic of social, spiritual, and political hypocrisies. Plus, his collaborators and loved ones knew him as a highly demanding yet devoted bandleader and a flawed but loving family man.

There were many professional and personal dimensions of Zappa, and the actor-documentarian Alex Winter—best-known as the amiable, peace-loving goofball Ted Logan in the Bill & Ted film franchise—did an exceptional job capturing it all. Zappa, which arrived in theaters and on-demand last month, provides the most heartfelt and robust examination of the man on film to date.

Winter and his crew could have been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of footage available to them—more than 1,000 hours, to hear him tell it. However, his goal to spin a compelling yarn for a universal audience rather than create a footage-dump for superfans kept him focused.  "It was important for us to tell a certain story," Winter tells GRAMMY.com. "We found so much great stuff that [spoke] to his inner life. It motivated us to stay on track."

GRAMMY.com spoke with Winter about what sparked his interest in telling Zappa's story and why Zappa's legacy endures almost 30 years after his untimely death.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Let's begin by discussing how you discovered Zappa. What are your favorite songs or albums by him?

I first became aware of him on Saturday Night Live. I have an older brother [Stephen] who's a musician, so I knew the music. As I got older, I became much more appreciative of his music, especially the expansiveness of it. That fact that he wasn't just a rock guitar player or even just a rock musician.

As for specific records, [1969's] Hot Rats had the biggest impact on me, and then I came to love his orchestral music, such as [1993's] The Yellow Shark.

Those are great ones! What attracted you to making this documentary?

I was interested in who he was as an artist and his relationship to his art, his fellow artists, and the politics of the time. It was the full complexity of the man I wanted to show—more than just a standard music documentary or a standard cradle-to-grave biopic.

That's one of the best aspects of Zappa: it even appeals to people who aren't necessarily fans of his. There's a lot of pathos to it, with sadness beneath the happier aspects.

Yeah, I mean, his life was tragic in that he died so prematurely [in 1993, from prostate cancer]. He faced the consequences for living as he did, and the film tries to chart the ups and downs of his life in that way. It's not just a celebration but also an examination of what it means to be an artist.

Read: How 1970 Became The Year Of Syd Barrett

You also interviewed former Zappa musicians who express that he was a bit of a tough leader at times, but that's what was needed to get the band to perform properly.

Right. I wanted to get at the root of what was—not unfairly, but maybe superficially, a reputation he had for being a martinet. I had a suspicion that the artists I would speak to would paint a more comprehensive picture of how he was. 

I was so grateful for those interviews and for having a sense of a man who had a very specific vision, yes, but who also was extremely collaborative with his fellow musicians, with his family, and with his audience. He was very curious about a broader view and working with others.

I didn't have a problem getting to people, either, and I only wanted people I felt were able to speak vehemently about having worked with Zappa and experiencing his inner life.

Zappa is far from your first documentary. What did you learn from doing those prior films that influenced this one? How was making Zappa a different process?

There was an aspect of this far beyond anything I'd done before: the sheer amount of media that we had to work with. We had to preserve a lot of the media that was in Zappa's home. Then, we had to go through all that media [laughs] and figure out what we wanted to use.

We benefited from doing a preservation project to get that media into shape, which took us a couple of years. It allowed us to figure out exactly what to choose. I think that at least 98 percent of the archival footage we used has never been seen or heard before.

Oh, wow.

There was an exhaustive process of rebuilding things to make them coherent. Sometimes, we'd find a piece a film from one time and then search for the right sound and sync it up somehow. Some of that took years, and it was like finding the Holy Grail when we finally located the proper audio for a piece of visual that we wanted to use. It's been an extraordinary journey, to put it mildly [laughs].

From what I understand, the Zappa family—and especially his late wife, Gail—were very private and particular about who would get access to the archives, vaults, et cetera. I'm sure other people have tried to see and hear those things before but couldn't. I wonder what led to you being able to look through all of that.

Well, I pitched Gail a way of telling the story, and she just happened to like it. Many people had come to her asking to make much more standard music docs or legacy docs about Frank, sort of ignoring the broader spectrum of who he was and what he represented.

I was only interested in telling a story about him as an artist and as a man pitted against his time, dealing with the consequences of committing to living a particular life. That's what she wanted someone to tell. I didn't know that when I pitched her, so I was glad. I expected her to tell me to get lost, to be honest with you.

I guess it's all about the angle of the story.

She was notoriously a tough cookie, and I knew that going in. There was a good chance that she wasn't going to like what I wanted to do. That would've been fine. It would've been twenty minutes out of my life instead of six years.

Frank Zappa in 'Zappa,' a Magnolia Pictures release

Frank Zappa in Zappa, a Magnolia Pictures release | Photo: Roelof Kiers/Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

What were some of the most surprising things that you learned about him? What did you have to cut?

We had the mandate to tell a very specific story, and that gave us parameters. It helped us weed out the stuff that didn't fit. We had over 1,000 hours of unseen and unheard media; we could've made a 10-part series, no problem. I wasn't distracted by it, though. Mike Nichols, the editor, and I were pretty determined to craft a very coherent narrative, so we didn't worry about many of the media we had. Let it get used by the next people who come along. [Laughs].

Have you discovered any bands that are inspired by Zappa?

Oh, there are so many, from classical musicians to pop and rock musicians. Artists like Beck, “Weird Al" Yankovic and Weezer. The list could just go on and on. There aren't too many popular bands who don't have a Zappa influence, even if they don't know it. Also, a lot of avant-garde composers.

Zappa had one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in history. How has the reception been so far?

The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. It's a film that I wanted to see out in the world, and I believe that Zappa's story was extraordinary and untold. I was hopeful that others would want to see it, too.

I was never a fanatic—more just a fan. This movie is aimed at anyone who likes an interesting and compelling story. That was the gamble we took when we set out to make it, and I couldn't be happier with how it's being received. 

Director John McDermott Talks New Jimi Hendrix Documentary, 'Music, Money, Madness … Jimi Hendrix in Maui'

Grammys Newsletter

Huey Lewis & Jimmy Kimmel at the GRAMMY Museum

Huey Lewis & Jimmy Kimmel

Photo: Alison Buck/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

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Huey Lewis Talks New Album 'Weather,' Legacy Of 'Sports' & Staying Hopeful

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The leader of the legendary GRAMMY-winning band talks new music, staying positive amidst hearing loss and finding the heart of rock and roll in Cleveland
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
Feb 18, 2020 - 4:57 pm

In 1983, San Francisco blues-rock outfit Huey Lewis & The News released their third album, one the world would never forget, Sports. They hit it out of the park with six of the nine tracks landing as hits, including classic jams "The Heart Of Rock And Roll," "If This It," "Heart And Soul" and "I Want a New Drug."

Now, 37 years later, the GRAMMY-winning band has released their 10th studio album, Weather, on Feb. 14. The seven-track project is made up of jubilant songs they finished recording before Lewis suffered an intense episode of Ménière's disease—an inner-ear disorder that affects hearing and balance in varying intensity—in 2018. Because of this heath issue, Lewis hasn't been able to perform, record or even listen to music since—but he is hopeful things may improve in the future, and is grateful for his many rockin' memories.

Ahead of Weather's release, the "Hip To Be Square" singer treated GRAMMY Museum guests to a heartwarming and enlightening conversation with his celeb bestie, Jimmy Kimmel. The dynamic pair dove deep into Lewis' long musical career (all the way back to busking around Europe with his harmonica at age 16), living with hearing loss, Weather and the new "The Heart of Rock & Roll" musical.

The GRAMMY Museum event opened with a special early preview of the star-studded "Her Love Is Killin' Me" music video (which you can watch above), featuring Kimmel, S.F. Giants' former manager Bruce Bochy, legendary S.F. 49ers quarterback Joe Montana, Andy Garcia, Brandon Flowers,  June Lockhart, Topher Grace, Brad Paisley and many more. During the chat, Kimmel shared his excitement about finally fulfilling his dreams of staring in one of their videos, while Lewis revealed that his original idea for the video was for Kimmel to lip-sync the whole song. 

Before Lewis and Kimmel's conversation, Huey graciously spoke to the Recording Academy about Weather, the legacy of Sports, living with hearing loss and where the heart of rock and roll is still beating (hint: it's in Ohio).

The band's first album of new music in almost 20 years, Weather, is coming out soon. How are you feeling?

Yes. Friday, Valentine's Day. I'm very excited. I honestly think it's among our best work. I have these hearing woes, so I probably shouldn't be trying to do interviews and stuff, but I've tried to give the songs a nice sendoff. We're very proud of the record, and we're trying to make some noise with it.

"I honestly think [Weather] is among our best work…We're very proud of the record, and we're trying to make some noise with it."

Can you talk a little bit about the message behind "While We're Young"?

Yeah. It's written from the point of view of someone who's not that young, but not dead yet either. I think that's the idea. [Grins.] It's how do you handle middle age, let's say.

"We'll take a nap in the afternoon." That's just part of the fun.

I love that lyric.

So much of youth is wasted on the young.

I was just having that conversation with my coworker today—what should we be doing now that we're going to be mad we didn't do when we're 50?

See? [Grins.]

Can you talk a little about your experience living with hearing loss?

Yeah. It's something I've lived with for a long time. I lost my right ear 35 years ago, or 80 percent of it. [Points to left ear.] This just happened two years ago. Unfortunately, the left ear fluctuates. When my hearing's good—I wear hearing aids—I'm okay. I can hear speech and everything, and I might even be able to hear music enough to sing. But I haven't been able to find that out because I'm never good long enough to book a rehearsal. My hearing turns crappy again like it is now. When it's bad like this, I can't hear anything, I can barely hear the phone. I can hear you when you're 24 inches away, that's about it.

Has it been hard emotionally for you? Do you just take it day by day?

In the beginning, it was very, very hard. I spent my first two months in bed really, just fasting and taking steroids and trying everything, hydrating galore. I lost 18 pounds, but my hearing never got better. I was really depressed.

My kids are great and helped me through this all. It turns out you can kind of get used to almost anything. I have to realize that there are lots of people worse off than I am. I have to be grateful for what I have. It's hard sometimes, but it's only right. That's what I try to do, try to look on the bright side.

That's important.

Not always easy, but I try.

"Our dream is to play music for a living, period. That was it, to be able to do nothing else but play music. And so, Sports was the record that proved to us that we could do that."

What did the success of Sports feel like to you at the time?

Well, it was a relief for us because our dream is to play music for a living, period. That was it, to be able to do nothing else but play music. And so, Sports was the record that proved to us that we could do that.

But it's an interesting record because it was a record of its time, it came out in 1983, but we recorded it in '82. If you think back to that time, it was completely a radio world, Contemporary Hit Radio ran the whole show. Even MTV, which had just started, its playlist exactly mirrored radio's playlist. And so, our job was to make a hit single. If you didn't have a hit single, you didn't exist.

This was our third album, and if we didn't have a hit with it, it was going to be all over. So we insisted on producing the record ourselves because if we're going to make those commercial decisions, we wanted to make them ourselves. Because you've got to live with that stuff. So our manager went to bat for us. Our label was in London, so they couldn't really control us. We were 6,000 miles away, so they allowed us to produce it ourselves.

We aimed pretty much almost all the songs at radio because we knew we needed a hit. We didn't know we were going to have six of them. Each with different styles—one was kind of a ballad, one was a rocker, one was kind of a bluesy thing, one was R&B-based, not knowing which one would work. Now, when I look back at the Sports album, I see it as a record of its time, a collection of singles because it was a singles world back then.

Read: Michael Kiwanuka On His New Anti-Alter Ego Masterpiece 'Kiwanuka,' '70s Psychedelia, Songwriting & More

As the group came together in San Francisco back in the '70s, do you feel like '70s S.F. had an influence on your music or career as a musician?

It was a great time for music. Even before that, live music was abundant when we grew up. That was the entertainment of its day. There were four or five clubs in Marin County, which had live music all the time. And so, it was a great, great place to learn your craft. I was in a band called Clover that played five nights a week for years.

And then this band, we played clubs and concerts. We've played thousands of shows probably, certainly more than a thousand. A lot of groups today don't get to do that. In fact, it's a mistake if you do. It's better to make a nice video or screen time thing, and let that work and don't go out there and blow it. And so, it was just a different time then.

In our day, the way you broke a record was you released it and then you go play the country. You started in Seattle, go to Portland, go to San Francisco, go to L.A., go to San Diego, cross Tucson, Phoenix, then Texas. And in each town, you invite the radio stations and the newspapers, and hopefully, when you leave, you get a nice review and the radio stations will be playing your song. You do that all across the country, about 50 shows. When you get to New York at the end, hopefully, the whole country is playing your record. But even if they aren't, you've just done 50 or 60 shows. So that's how we learned our craft. It was very much a live performance thing. I think today it's less of that.

A lot of cutting your teeth, hustling that music.

Yeah, a lot of cutting your teeth. We weren't playing with machines, so we're ad-libbing more. It was a different deal.

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Where do you think now the heart of rock and roll lives now?

Well, it's probably still beating in Cleveland. Cleveland is a cool place. I wrote that song because we had played a gig there and, you know, we're from San Francisco, and we'd always heard that Cleveland is a great rock and roll town. I thought to myself, "How could Cleveland be a great [city]—we're from San Francisco!" We had the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly & the Family Stone. [Jimi] Hendrix played the Fillmore [West]. Then we played the gig and it was amazing. The audience was amazing. It was really one of our best gigs when we were first coming up.

Driving out of town on the bus, somebody had a T-shirt on with the smoky skyline of Cleveland that said, "Cleveland, you got to be tough," or something. I looked at the shirt and, mindful of the great gig, I said to the guys, "Hey, you know what fellas? The heart of rock and roll really is in Cleveland." I said, "Wow that could be a song." And the guys went, "The heart of rock and roll is in Cleveland? I'm sorry, that's not very good." I changed it to make "the heart of rock and roll is still beating," but that was the inspiration.

I think it's probably still beating in Cleveland. It's beating in a lot of places, but just not as loudly as it once was.

What gives you the most hope right now?

Wow. My kids, my family. [Grins.] My kids are so positive. I get notes from my daughter, like just now [points to phone], she says, "Love you dad, and I know you're looking at an upturn any minute." They're just so positive and so wonderful. It's really wonderful to have a great family.

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Foo Fighters Announce 25th Anniversary "Van Tour"

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

Photo: Taylor Hill/Getty Images

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New Bruce Springsteen Live! Exhibit To Debut At GRAMMY Museum Experience In Newark, New Jersey

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The brand-new, interactive Bruce Springsteen exhibition will debut at the GRAMMY Museum Experience Prudential Center in Newark on Oct. 1, after which it will travel to the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles in fall 2022
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMY Museum
Sep 15, 2021 - 2:37 pm

Over the years, 20-time GRAMMY-winning rock great Bruce Springsteen has meant a whole lot to so many people. For example, the deep impact of his music on journalist Sarfraz Manzoor as a young Pakistani-British teen was beautifully captured in the moving 2019 film Blinded by the Light.

Now with the brand-new Bruce Springsteen Live! exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum Experience Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, fans of the Boss can come together and explore his creative process and rise to superstardom, admire his famous Born To Run Fender guitar up close, and much more.

The exhibit was curated by the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles and the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music and will debut in Newark on Oct. 1. It will be on display until March 20, 2022, after which it will travel to the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles in fall 2022.

Read: It's The One: 45 Years Of Bruce Springsteen's 'Born To Run'

Bruce Springsteen Live! will feature memorabilia including the aforementioned modified Fender guitar, the late Clarence Clemons' saxophone, a signed itinerary from the 1988 Human Rights World Tour, and plenty of denim from the stage outfits of Springsteen and his talented E Street Band. Other exciting pieces include the 1988 Tunnel of Love Tour ticket booth stage prop and an interactive kiosk that invites visitors to view the "Dancing In the Dark" singer's handwritten set lists and create their own encores to close the show.

"As we reopen the doors to our museum and so many of us return to the workplace, it only seemed fitting that we would look to 'The Boss' to lead the way," Mark Conklin, Director of Artist Relations and Programming at GRAMMY Museum Experience Prudential Center, said in the press release. "No musical artist has captured the spirit and resiliency of New Jerseyans in song better than Bruce Springsteen, so we couldn't imagine a more appropriate exhibit at this moment." 

"Few performers embody the soul and excitement of live rock and roll like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band," co-curator Robert Santelli, Founding Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum, and a longtime New Jersey music journalist added. "This exhibit will undoubtedly get fans excited about seeing Springsteen again in concert, hopefully soon."

You can get tickets for Bruce Springsteen Live! here. The GRAMMY Museum Experience Prudential Center reopens tomorrow, Sept. 16, and will be open Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on non-event days and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on event days.

My Morning Jacket's Jim James On Nature, Love & Existential New Self-Titled Album

Jim James

Jim James

Photo: Erika Goldring/WireImage via Getty Images

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My Morning Jacket's Jim James On Nature, Love & Existential New Self-Titled Album

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Singer/songwriter Jim James talks about how My Morning Jacket's hiatus and 2019 reunion led to the band's new self-titled new album—plus how we should stop living so much in the digital world and embrace nature and love
Joshua M. Miller
GRAMMYs
Sep 14, 2021 - 1:00 pm

Sometimes a little self-love can go a long way to connecting with the world around us. That's one of the key messages of My Morning Jacket's latest single "Love Love Love," from the band's new self-titled album due out Oct. 22.

"'Love Love Love' is just about trying to spread as much love as you can, but that it starts with you standing up for and loving yourself," singer/songwriter Jim James tells GRAMMY.com. "I want to try and spread as much positivity as I or we can, which obviously isn't always easy."

The new album is the band's first collection of new music since they recorded The Waterfall and The Waterfall II, released in 2015 and 2020, respectively, but recorded during the same sessions.

It finds the band rediscovering and embracing their passion for playing together after time apart doing their own projects. The band decided to self-produce, which allowed them total freedom to let the songs breathe and develop over two multi-week sessions at Los Angeles-based studio 64 Sound.

"It was a beautiful experience, and we were so fortunate to get to spend some time together just the five of us reconnecting with each other as friends and making music together," he says. "We had been apart for a while as a band and were not sure what the future held and so it was such magic to find ourselves together again and laughing and sharing and creating."

GRAMMY.com caught up with James to talk about the importance of breaking free from technology and embracing the natural world, how the band found complete freedom in self-producing the album, and more.

How have you grown the most as a songwriter and individual during the past year and a half?

At least for me, it has just reinforced my love of nature, my desire to really focus my time with the people that mean the most to me. I really tried to stop doing things that I felt like I was obligated to do. I feel like just so much in life we run around almost in an unconscious way.

The pandemic has, at least for me, introduced this new level of consciousness, of trying to be super aware of how I'm spending my time. It kind of brought this new awareness that we don't have forever, and the future is not guaranteed. And that we really need to make every day count, and really spend it with people that we love, and doing things that we love.

Speaking of love, the new single on the new album is "Love Love Love," which is about positivity and love for one another. Why is it important to keep a level of hope and positivity?

"Love Love Love" is just about trying to spread as much love as you can, but that it starts with you standing up for and loving yourself. I want to try and spread as much positivity as I or we can, which obviously isn't always easy. I tend to write a lot about feeling lost or sad or like I don't fit in. But I also want to weave messages of hope or positivity in there which I hope could maybe get through to someone else who may be feeling lost or sad and let them know there is a way out of the sadness…that things can and do change.

Life can be so hard, and it can be easier to dwell on the tough times, but I feel like it's also our sacred duty to celebrate when things are good, to name those feelings and those moments and speak them out loud. Like, "Wow this is such a beautiful moment!" or being sure to tell our loved ones how much we love them and how special they are.

I think also along with this, we need to all start meeting each other in the middle more. [We need to] turn off the cable news channels and listen to each other more and recognize our shared humanity and resonance with all the other beings and this beautiful planet before it's too late.

The sentiment lyrically is just to stand up for yourself, learn to love yourself and then use that to spread as much love to others as possible.

How would you describe the song's development?

It started in two different directions. One was a sort of moody psychedelic thing and the other was this propulsive electronic beat I was working on. Somewhere along the way I decided to merge the two in the demo I sent to the band. We ended up making it a more live organic electric hybrid thing by performing around the drum programming I had created originally.

There was a point where you and the band weren't sure if you'd ever release another album. However, reuniting for a few shows in 2019 including a couple at Red Rocks helped reignite the spark. How did all that help convince everyone to get back into the studio?

I think it just really showed us that balance is so important to life. I feel like life just got so out of balance for so long that I had to find a way to create that balance. I was really bad at saying yes to too many things, and then getting just too beaten down by life.

I didn't have the energy I needed for the things I loved, because I was saying yes to too many different things. So, I think once we had taken some time away, and weren't so beaten down by the schedule of the band, we were able to feel the energy again and feel the essence of playing together.

The band made a concerted effort to capture the raw energy from the band's live performance in the recordings. Why was that important?

We just kind of went in with no pressure on ourselves. And no goal, really, other than to have fun and just try things. Also, it was just the five of us together, which was really special, too. It just enabled us to kind of focus on our friendship and the energy between us in this really special way that kind of just removed all the pressure.

And we got to spend some nice time [together], just letting things fly and trying out ideas. And just enjoying the gift of friendship, and the gift to being able to play, create music together. I think that resulted in a lot of moments that were really beautiful, that just felt really spontaneous.

And there were live moments where we're having fun performing for each other as if we were performing live in front of a crowd. Because sometimes I feel like in the studio, some of that can get lost. You can get nervous, or you can get too hyper-focused on things. We tried to have a really laid-back atmosphere, which I think really helped.

I imagine that helped the songs develop naturally, without any pressure.

Yeah, I think it really did. I had a ton of different ideas that we tried. So many different things. And seeing things work, or just some things don't work. That's kind of the fun thing, also, about it just being the five of us, is that it was fine if something didn't work. Because it was only us analyzing it, and not feeling the pressure or really feeling disappointed if something didn't work. We were able to just move on and to the next thing.

Why did the band pick the 64 Sound studio to record the album?

It felt like a classic, real homemade kind of feel to it. They've got some great gear in there. They really let us be in there and helped us set up and get going and stuff, and then left us alone, which was what we really wanted and needed.

We kind of need a room that's big enough where we can all sit in it and see each other. And the room was kind of the perfect size because it's not giant. It's a really nice-sized room we can fit a band in, and all band gear, and just have enough options to be able to get great sounds, and all play together in this really cool way.

At what point did you realize it would be such an existential album lyrically and thematically? Do you think you're better able to articulate your thoughts on these types of topics compared to past albums?

I'm not sure. it all just flows, or it doesn't, and I try not to question it. It just flows and then I have to spend time with it and nurture it and bring it into the real world and then let it flow some more. I'm not the kind of songwriter who can sit down and deliberately make something happen or change. It just has to be nurtured and then it will flow, or it will stop flowing. [Laughs.]

I have piles of really cool song ideas that I love where, for whatever reason, it just stopped flowing. But that's also the cool thing is that sometimes I'll pick up an old idea from ten years ago and it will start to flow again. Magic. Or not. [Laughs.]

The album starts with "Regularly Scheduled Programming," which is about becoming numb to reality through technology. Why was that topic important to explore?

I just feel like we've all gotten swept away in this tidal wave of technology, and that we're all drowning. Drowning in social media, in streaming content and all this stuff that's supposed to make our lives better. I feel like social media is tearing us apart. And people forget their own dreams, and their own creativity, because they wash it all away each night, binge watching streaming and stuff like that. And I write that from being washed away myself. I found this moment where I saw how washed away I was getting.

I was missing out on so many great things and life. Missing out on nature, missing out on connecting with people that I love, and missing out on sitting and playing the guitar. Or meditating or reading a book. All these things that I feel like really connect us to our own souls, and to the soul of the planet and the universe, and the souls of each other, kind of reminding us that we're all one. And I feel like all of this technology is really separating us, and really making us all greedier. To lust for more followers, for more devices.

There is this illusion that social media makes us all more connected, when in fact it is ripping us and the planet apart, which is a shame, because social media could be a very helpful tool—if we could all learn to use it like a tool—literally check it out for five minutes a day or whatever. [We could use it] just to see what events, music, etcetera are happening or spread good messages for equality and progress and peace and love.

Instead, it becomes this terrible addiction designed to make as much money as it can off of you by making you feel as bad as possible and like you need the products they are pushing to make you feel better.

I think that is the problem at the heart of most of this new tech, which could be really great for us. Like music streaming—brilliant idea and a wonderful service but they still cannot pay artists fairly for their work. At the heart of all of this is greed.

I think in general a lot of what I am trying to say in my lyrics is really about trying to get folks to get off their devices and spend more time in nature and spend more time connecting with real people.

At least for me, spending more time in nature, meditating, and being with the people I love makes me feel like a healthier more creative person. And in "Regularly Scheduled Programming" I am just trying to say wake up to love before it is too late.

I really like the ["Regularly Scheduled Programming"] lyrics "Diamonds are growing in the garden / Raindrops are filling up the sea" and "One shot at redemption: a mighty and sacred love." Why did you pick those nature images?

I was trying to illustrate what folks were missing in the real world and out in nature while they were busy staring at their phones or devices. Like look at these beautiful dew drops in the garden! Or look at those same drops filling up the sea and keeping us all alive—the miracle of water!

I am trying to say in that song: "Look up! Look out! Look to nature and look within yourself! learn to love yourself! Look to love before it's too late!" There is also the message and a wish that we could be more responsible as we evolve. It is so sad to me that all of this tech could even be powered by nature—the sun, the wind and the water—but instead we are still chained to the greed of the fossil fuel industries and other destructive energetic methods.

With "Complex" you talk about the anxiety of feeling you're missing a piece of the puzzle. What about puzzles as a metaphor do you find appealing and fitting of recent times?

I think everyone can agree we live in complex times. The divide and conquer methods of this sort of extreme capitalism are working too well on people and we are being torn apart. People are taught to care more about the dollar than their fellow human being. We have all these bots and misinformation swirling on these social media platforms that folks spend hours a day on. How do we get out of this complex web we have found ourselves caught up in?

I am not saying I have it all figured out by any means. I struggle with it all too on a daily basis. But I do think one of the answers to the riddle for us all, no matter what side you may think you are on, is for us all to turn off the device and get out into nature. Or if for some reason you cannot get out into nature, turn off the device and just sit there. Just be and listen to what your soul and the universe really have to say.

"I do think one of the answers to the riddle for us all, no matter what side you may think you are on, is for us all to turn off the device and get out into nature… Just be and listen to what your soul and the universe really have to say." Jim James

"In Color" talks about the importance of everyone coming together no matter where they come from. Why is that important? What are some ways people can get to that goal?

"In Color" is just about celebrating our differences. The fact that there are so many wonderful beings of every shape, size, color, and belief should be seen as a great thing! And I think it really is. We should all be so happy that there are so many wondrous and amazing people of all walks of life that we can learn from and love. But instead, because of this classic divide and conquer B.S. that works so well, we end up with hate and division.

Again, I think it's time we start listening to real people more and get off the social media opinion streams and misinformation fountains of filth and hatred that spew forth from this monster called the internet that we have created.

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