In Manhattan’s Chelsea district, a block or so from where 27th Street meets the West Side Highway, there’s an address that, if you’re to believe a certain cunning website, plays hosts to the remains of one of New York’s most fabled hotels, the ill-fated McKittrick. “Condemned” at the dawn of World War II – just weeks before its opening – the luxury hotel was, until recently, “sealed from the public” for generations. In reality, the space has changed hands countless times since its fictional condemnation. And, today, it exists as the anti-Hotel California: Not only can you not check in, you’re expected to leave in two or three hours max.

The cavernous and beguiling space has, for the past 20 months, played host to a brilliant way-off-Broadway performance called “Sleep No More,” where instead of being handed a program and shown to their seats, attendees wander around five floors and a 100 rooms spread out over 100,000 square feet as actors perform in their midst, sometimes darting off to different rooms or other floors. Audience members, who must remain silent and required to wear masks, are free to chase after them or simply amble from room to room and enjoy one of the various performances, all happening concurrently.

Considering how the press has fawned over “Sleep No More” for its ingenuity and brazen, out-of-the box creativity, it’s a fitting place to encounter My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, who has been hailed for all the above. We’re here because James is a huge fan of “Sleep No More,” which he calls “un-believable.”

“It’s so fuckin’ psychedelic,” James enthuses from behind his famous reddish mane. “The audience has to wear masks, but the performers don’t. The place is giant and you can basically do whatever you want. You could walk around or just sit on this couch and watch different performers come in and out of scenes. You just kind of follow your mind. It’s wild.”

James has chosen the “Sleep No More” venue to talk about his own latest burst of creativity, Regions of Light and Sound of God, his first full-length solo album. If he’s spent much of his downtime in recent years recording and touring with collaborative side projects such as Monsters of Folk and New Multitudes, then the enchanting and low-key Regions is wholly James.

Tracking at his leisure, he recorded the album’s nine songs in his Louisville, Ky. home, playing a variety of instruments himself. In fact, the biggest helping hand comes from his old friend Dave Givan, the drummer in his first band Month of Sundays, who appears on five songs. He recruited others to add percussion and strings.

“In the Jacket, we have this core thing that happens when it’s us playing,” says James. “And because I love playing with them so much, there’s never a need for me to play keyboard, drums or bass or anything like that, but I love playing all those things. So this record was a chance for me to play all those things whenever I wanted. I didn’t have any pressure or time limit and I was able to work on it whenever I had the time.”

While his 2009 EP Tribute To was a strictly acoustic guitar-and-vocals collection of George Harrison covers, Regions is more of what one might expect from an LP of James originals – it’s a 360-degree tour of his various musical identities: There are hints of the soulman who’s rocked Bonnaroo and Madison Square Garden in the funky basslines dancing through “Dear One” and “Actress,” the caped and whimsical master of ceremonies that we might see onstage dancing in the dark and leading us through songs like “Victory Dance” opens the album with the slow-burning “State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.),” and the acoustic troubadour of “Golden” returns for the lovely and earnest “New Life.”

Its kaleidoscope of sounds and styles – from almost shimmering pop to near waltzes, all varied and tuneful – is an aural testament of the 34-year-old James having a blast at home and building ideas that began as voice messages on his iPhone into living, breathing songs. It’s a pretty album, replete with gigabytes of ear candy, guitar tracks that dance and sing, and basslines worthy of a Bill Withers album.

James likens making the album to finishing a “giant jigsaw puzzle.” Some songs were built off of mostly live tracks and finished with a few overdubs, while others were meticulously constructed. “On those,” he says, “It was like, ‘how do I craft all these things, pull things out, put things in, fuck with things, flip the beat around.’ The whole [album] is about me loving the studio and loving the accidents that happen while recording.”

He cites the song “State of the Art” as a prime example. Givan was playing drums in the basement while James played piano and sang above in the living room. With both of them playing at high volume, the microphone James was singing into sporadically shorted out. “It sounded super cool [in the song], because I was singing about the power going out, as the microphone was literally being overloaded by power,” he marvels. “I love those kinds of mistakes, because they just add depth to the record.”

James says that he’s obsessed with studio and production techniques because it allows one to take a rather ordinary idea and transform it something entirely new through various mic’ing or recording techniques – that simple ideas or concepts can be reinvented countless ways.

“He’s like an architect,” says Givan of James’ penchant for sonic construction. “He has the blueprints in his mind. He knows what he wants and where he wants it.”

The comfort in and love for the studio that James demonstrates with the self-produced and self-engineered Regions is as much an indicator as anything of just how far he’s evolved as a musician since his teen years playing in Month of Sundays with Givan and the late Aaron Todovich.

After that band ran its course in 1999, James (born James Edward Olliges Jr.) spent about a year and a half at the University of Louisville before dropping out to concentrate on music full time. His electrician father and sculptor mother, while encouraging, were also concerned.

“While in college, I was sending out demos and trying to take it more seriously,” James says. “Once I dropped out and proved to them, like, ‘I’m gonna work at Subway forever if I have to. I’m not gonna ask you for any more money. I’m on my own and I’m doing fine.’ Once they saw that, they let go of the whole back up thing and were really supportive. I’m lucky in that regard.”

My Morning Jacket began more than a decade ago as only James and a four-track. He added his guitarist cousin Johnny Quaid, and in a relatively quick fashion, saw his ambitions and dreams begin to snowball. By 2004, he cemented the definitive (and current) lineup of MMJ with the arrival of keyboardist Bo Koster and guitarist Carl Broemel (Quaid’s replacement) joining drummer Patrick Hallahan and bassist Tom Blakenship.

What’s astonishing is that James and the previous incarnation of the group had already released three of their most treasured albums, The Tennessee Fire, At Dawn and It Still Moves, each containing some of the band’s best songs to date. With each subsequent record – Z, Evil Urges and Circuital – James has continued to evolve into one of the greatest singer/songwriters of his generation, a unique and emotive singer, adventurous and uninhibited writer, and enchanting and electrifying performer. And the group, as a whole, has become one of America’s greatest bands, able to produce hit records in the studio while continually delivering epic-filled roller coasters of emotion each night on tour.

“We’ve had various people come and go over the years, who’ve all been important to the growth of the band,” says James. “But as it is now, we’ve got this real power center that we all share. And I feel like this is the band, this is My Morning Jacket. If somebody leaves, I don’t think it would be the same – I don’t think it would recover.”

James has reaped many of the opportunities that come with such esteem and success. Recording and touring with Monsters of Folk – James, M. Ward and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis – gave him a chance to collaborate with some of his favorite peers. This year saw the release of New Multitudes, a collection of Woody Guthrie lyrics set to music by James, Jay Farrar (Son Volt/Uncle Tupelo), Anders Parker (Varnaline) and Will Johnson (Centro-matic). He’s appeared in the avant Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There and collaborated with fellow Kentucky musicians Daniel Martin Moore and Ben Sollee, producing their 2010 Dear Companion album. He’s even stumped for President Obama, alongside Broemel.

Aside from maybe rubbing elbows with the President, it’s the sort of success that was somewhat “expected” of James from an early age, according to Givan, with whom the singer hosts the Louisville-based radio show Sir Microcosm on 91.9 WFPK. “It’s not surprising because I always knew he had a special gift, even when he was younger. I’ve never seen him do something that’s not good. Even the songs that he was writing as a kid were really good.”

Photo by Dino Perrucci

Lest James get too confident, there’s always someone there to keep things in perspective for him, he says, laughing about attending a recent humbling performance by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Louisville’s Yum Center. “It was so inspiring, it made me feel like a fuckin’ total amateur, like the worst goddamn excuse for a musician.”

Twelve years earlier, James caught The Boss in Cincinnati, sitting in the nosebleeds. He says that while he’s always admired him – particularly the album Nebraska – he’s never been a hardcore fan. And while there was a palpable excitement in town surrounding the sold-out Louisville show – Springsteen rarely plays there – James almost felt reluctant in going. ( “Yeah, I’ll go see him and it’ll be fun. But I don’t feel like I’m going to see Marvin Gaye or something,” he thought.)

“But, man, it was un-believable! he says. "From the second they started, his energy was so fucking positive. And his interaction with the crowd – motherfucker had a wireless mic and crowd-surfed, this 60-year-old man with the energy of a 20 year old! He’s proving that age is nothing but a number.
“And he’s such a good example of connecting with your crowd and making the crowd feel equal, making the whole fucking place feel touched,” he continues. “I felt like there wasn’t one person in the place that didn’t feel like Bruce Springsteen gave a shit about us, because you see Dylan, you see Neil, and sometimes you feel like those guys don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care if you’re there or not. They’re bummed, they’re fuckin’ dark. It’s like this big dark thing. But with Bruce, it’s like this giant celebration and everybody is welcome and equal. And he’s always championing progressive causes, and fighting for the president and fighting to help the common man. It was a huge eye-opener. I was like, ‘How can I walk that path? How can I be positive, healthy and hopefully, play forever, ‘til I die?’ Because that’s what Bruce does – he’s gonna play until he dies, and he does it well. And he’s never compromised. It’s amazing.”

Down the street from the fictitious McKittrick Hotel, there’s a restaurant in a real hotel, where James, having given us the low down on Regions, is now eliciting belly laughs for his impersonation of Garth Hudson, the bearded pianist, keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist of The Band who, in some circles, is known as much for his introverted, enigma-like personality as his musical virtuosity. The two first met a few months ago at the “Love for Levon” concert celebrating the late Band singer-drummer Levon Helm.

“That was a thrill,” says James of the event that saw My Morning Jacket play with Hudson and back Roger Waters toward the end of star-studded evening. “I got to watch him play the intro to ‘Chest Fever’ and we played with him on ‘The Weight.’ We were talking about playing and he said to me” – James begins smiling, before twisting his voice into a perfect impersonation of Hudson’s, which is part introverted ‘60s savant, part creepy woodsman, all delivered in something of a whispery, glacial cadence – "‘We should play together sometime. I play some things that you might not know about, like turkey call and bass melodica.’
“It was so awesome!” James laughs, eyes wide. “It’s like, ‘You would say that, you wizard.’”

The fact that James and My Morning Jacket have been fortunate enough to blaze a similar path as Hudson and Helm – not necessarily stylistically, but in terms of accolades and sheer fan devotion – isn’t lost on him. It’s not a stretch to imagine future generations of musicians speaking with equal reverence and awe about MMJ. When it’s half-jokingly suggested that keyboardist Bo Koster is cultivating a Hudson-like mystique, James smiles. “He’d probably love to hear you say that. He’s a brilliant man.”

Photo by Ryan Mastro

James is clear to point out that despite all his many extracurricular endeavors, there isn’t a Last Waltz on the horizon for the Jacket. Instead, over a near two-hour chat, he repeatedly mentions how much love and respect he has for his bandmates. Like James, all five members of MMJ have musical lives outside of the band. Koster has recorded with Young the Giant, the Watson Twins, VHS or Beta, etc., and recently produced Delta Spirit; Broemel recently issued his second solo album; Blakenship and Hallahan have recorded with Bobby Bare Jr., and the drummer has also performed in Black Key Dan Auerbach’s solo band, and backed Vanessa Carlton, America, and more in the studio.

According to James, it all strengthens their bond: “I think we all understand by now that we encourage each other to do these things. Our bond is strong enough where we’re not threatened by that. It’s like the old cliché, ‘if you love somebody, set them free,’ because they’ll feel free and want to come back. When we get back together, it’s like, ‘Fuck, I’m so glad to see you, I’m so glad to be here in this circle with you guys.’”

Apart from his affection for MMJ, casual mentions of past lives also pop up as James speaks. One of the biggest influences, if not the biggest influence on Regions is Lynd Ward’s 1929 graphic novel God’s Man, gifted to him by artist Gary Burden as they were working on the design of Evil Urges.

“I remember opening it for the first time and just being blown away by every page,” James recalls. “It’s just a bunch of woodcuttings from page to page, and you read the whole book without a single word ever. But it’s very cinematic. For me, it was this striking piece of art and almost a déjà vu thing. I don’t know if the past life me really liked that book in 1929, but it struck with some familiarity.”

God’s Man is a five-part novel in which a penniless, but good-hearted artist unwittingly enters into a deal with the devil (more accurately, the Grim Reaper). He briefly enjoys fame and fortune, before being betrayed and going slightly mad. Just when he’s found love and happiness, Death returns for full payment.

When James got the book, he was still shaken from an Oct. 2008 stage fall in Iowa City, Iowa. “I was really down and out and thought it might be the end for me. But I fell in love, and was rescued and had this series of really dramatic events that kind of paralleled a lot of what was happening in the book.”

The more he read the book, the more he noticed parallels between its story and his own. As he began writing for Regions, it was as if he was “scoring the book,” experiencing some form of intense “past life recognition.”

In one of the most intimate and touching exchanges ever between an artist and his audience, James spoke of the afterlives and past lives during My Morning Jacket’s taping of VH1 Storytellers last year, when he revealed that the inspiration behind “Dondante” was the 2003 suicide of his childhood friend (and Month of Sundays bandmate) Aaron Todovich, whose presence he feels each time MMJ plays the song.

“We dreamed big dreams,” James said, struggling to hold back tears. “We would see shows like Storytellers and say, ‘Some day maybe we can do that.‘…But no matter how much you told him how special he was, he couldn’t hear it…He didn’t get to live out his ability to chase his dreams, so I wanted him to get a chance to play Storytellers with us.” With that, in the pin-drop quiet of the studio, James struck his guitar, signaling the start of the song about Todovich’s ghost.

At “Sleep No More,” when that performance is mentioned, it takes James by surprise slightly. He sits up; his eyes get serious. It’s a sensitive subject. He raves about the awesome kindness and encouragement of the staff at the taping, presumably to explain how he found himself in such a vulnerable moment. Later at lunch, he opens up a bit more: “There was a period of time where three of our friends killed themselves within the same year. They were all around 24. At that age in your life, what the fuck do you know? You don’t know shit. I still don’t know shit. It just makes me so sad to think of all the things they missed. But some people carry a heavy debt, a heavy weight from a past life or something fucked up that happened to them as a kid.”

The soul-searching James has done in the wake of those deaths is part of what catalyzed his attempt in recent years to try to generate a little more positivity with his recorded output – songs of hope “with mystery and melancholy.” It’s something that he figures he achieved with at least portions of Regions.

“Growing up, I feel like during the grunge era, we got sold the biggest load of bullshit,” he bemoans. "We got fucked having Kurt Cobain as our guy. I love Nirvana, but it’s like you’re watching this miserable dude who’s always bitching and always in all this pain. It’s like everybody is fed this lie that if you’re going to be a musician, you’ve got to be in pain, and you’ve got to be shooting heroin and everything’s got to be fucked. And that’s the only way your art can be real.
“But then you listen to Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield or Aretha Franklin, and it’s like, ‘Wait a minute. This is joy,’” he affirms. “You can have a life filled with joy and still make beautiful music. I really want to always try to project that.”