My Morning Jacket’s ‘Evil Urges’ are growing

For the CD "Z," the band worked with producer John Leckie, whose credits include Radiohead, and recorded the CD in picturesque upstate New York. The result: an album that was a critical triumph and a commercial breakthrough.

But to change things up this time around, My Morning Jacket not only went with another producer but decided to record the CD in Manhattan — in an uncomfortable, cramped studio, as the band describes it, which kept them focused on the job at hand.

"It was really a hard record. Parts of it were fun, but it wasn't a fun record: We weren't sitting around laughing," James says, as they all laugh as if on a private joke. "It was like we went in everyday for 12-hour shifts ... it was much different from any other record in that all the other records were spaced out."

"It wasn't pretty all the time (but) it was beautiful in hindsight," says Hallahan.

It was quite different from how they wrote the music for the record — in scenic Colorado, where the group communed for a month not only to get inspired about music, but to get closer together as a unit.

"I think it was special because we go on tour together and that's just a constant moving thing, whereas in Colorado we stayed in one place and just marinated in that place, literally," says Broemer. "We cooked a lot, we played a lot of basketball ... and we made music together. More importantly, because we were so secluded, I think the isolation forced us to realize why we're still in this band together, why we're on this quest."

And that quest, in Chiccarelli's eyes, doesn't include plans to become a commercial band with radio-ready hits.

"(The goal is) not to make the songs disposable or slight or pop songs," Chiccarelli says. "I don't think the band is capable of making that. I just don't think it's in them, and I think if that's what they wanted to do they could do that because they are kind of fans of a lot of different music."

Besides, as the band sees it, their career has been gaining momentum with each album — slow and steady, always on the rise. And they're hoping that trajectory continues.

"We've been pretty lucky to continually go up," James says. "I feel like there's peaks and valleys in everyone's career and the goal is to keep being honest and make hit records and let the chips fall where they may."

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