Jim James didn’t plan to drop The Waterfall II like it was some surprise Beyoncé album, but hey, 2020 was weird. What started as an overstuffed triple album turned into a decade-long slow burn, with The Waterfall II finally emerging from the archives because—what else do you do during a global pandemic?
“We did so many songs,” James says, half-laughing at his own past ambitions. “We thought we’d make a triple record or whatever, but it was just way too much to release.” Instead, they shelved half of it, with no idea when the rest would see the light of day. Enter: global existential crisis. “I stumbled upon ‘Spinning My Wheels’ on shuffle during a walk,” he says, “and thought, maybe this is the time.”
Because if the world needed anything in 2020, it was a reflective, healing batch of songs from a band known as much for its live shows as its studio output. And here’s the kicker: James didn’t touch a thing. “I’m a big fan of leaving things alone,” he says. “It’s like a time machine. It’s a different me, a different set of people.” He even re-recorded one song for Fallon and realized how much had changed—mostly him. “It’s so interesting to play it as the me now.”
If you’re wondering whether these songs still resonate, spoiler alert: they do, maybe too much. “When we put out ‘Magic Bullet’ back in 2016, it was about gun violence,” James says. “And now, I can’t even remember which shooting it was written about. How sad is that?” He pauses, letting the weight of that settle. “These bullets never solve anything. They just create more mess.”
James, of course, isn’t just pontificating from a soapbox in some indie rock bunker. He’s been out protesting, reading, trying to figure out how the hell we all ended up here. The murder of Breonna Taylor, right in his Louisville hometown, hit him hard. “It’s just crushing,” he says, voice breaking. “How can someone be murdered in their own home and there still be no justice?”
Not that he’s giving up on music—or My Morning Jacket, for that matter. Despite the band’s “hiatus” status, The Waterfall II isn’t just a relic. “We did four shows in 2019 that really re-energized us,” James reveals. “We’ve got a whole new record done. Just the five of us. No one else.” So is the hiatus over? “We want to play shows, but obviously, the pandemic...”
Meanwhile, James hasn’t gone full hermit. He’s still producing, still championing new voices like S.G. Goodman. “She’s got such a special twist on everything,” he says, genuinely hyped. “It’s something people really need to hear.”
Back to the water metaphor that threads through the record—yes, it’s intentional. “Everybody knows that feeling of wanting to get to the river,” James says. “Water heals. And right now, the world isn’t flowing—it’s clashing. We’ve got to stop fighting and find the flow again.”
Which sounds nice, until you remember we’re all stuck in our respective deserts, figurative or literal, waiting for the next wave. But at least James is trying to keep it fluid, one archival record at a time.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
