Today we look back to our October 2009 cover story on Jim James, Conor Oberst, Matt “M.” Ward and Mike Mogism: the Monsters of Folk, as interviewed by Norah Jones_

The Monsters of Folk have a dry sense of humor. From the name – one gets the sense that the origin is about as tongue in cheek as Christopher Guest’s fictitious folk group from A Mighty Wind – to the interpersonal relations of the foursome, this band operates on loving sarcasm, a playful attitude and a truckload of talent.

Comprised of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Matt “M.” Ward and producer/musician Mike Mogis, the Monsters of Folk have delivered a 15-song album that hears equal contribution from all three principle songwriters (Mogis, while playing on most tracks, assumed a producer-like role). It’s hard to imagine that of any artists, these three would have the time to cut a truly collaborative album.

Since the musicians first toured together in 2004 – though had not yet fully employed their moniker – the recorded output for their “regular” gigs has been nothing short of impressive as each put out a minimum of two full-length albums (to say nothing of the critical praise the records received). So why, between the albums and the touring, would they want to take on another project? What were these Monsters of Folk all about? For the answers, we asked singer/songwriter Norah Jones to investigate.

No slouch herself, Jones is also an artist in perpetual motion. An acclaimed songstress that leads her own well-heeled band in support of the 16 million albums she’s sold, she’s equally comfortable as a member of The Little Willies, a classic country cover band, as she is El Madmo, a garage rock trio that released an album in May including song like “Rock Yr Balls Off” and “Head in a Vice” (it was released on Oberst’s record label, Team Love). She also starred in her first major motion picture, Blueberry Nights, opposite Jude Law in 2008.

Jones agreed to interview The Monsters of Folk while completing her latest album, which is due out at the end of this year. Produced by Jacquire King, whose recent work includes Kings of Leon, Tom Waits and Modest Mouse, the album promises to deliver a different sound for Jones.

Lastly, Jones isn’t just a fan of Conor Oberst, Jim James and M. Ward, she’s also a friend. Having shared the stage with each – particularly Ward who opened a number of shows for her in 2007 – she offers unique perspective on the collaboration.

So with everyone finally together after five-way scheduling, we let the tape roll.

Conor, Jim and Matt, you’ve been playing together ever since I’ve known you – well two of you at least. How did you guys meet? I don’t think I really know that story. Or is there a story? You can make one up if you want.

Conor Oberst: I met Matt because I was a fan. I had his record End of Amnesia and I really liked it. My booking agent Eric Dimenstein was also booking for him, and through this weird twist of events I ended up knocking on his door in Portland and he got in my van and drove to San Francisco and we played a show together. When was that, Matt, 2001?

Matt Ward: That sounds right.

Wow, it’s been a long time.

Ward: Old homies.

Conor: I met Jim kind of the same way – just that I love the Jacket and we finally got introduced and played a show together. It was true love right off the bat.

[Jim James chuckles]

Did you introduce Matt and Jim or did they already know each other?

Conor: I don’t know how that happened.

Jim James: We met in Conor’s basement. Conor had an S&M rig set up.

[collective laughter]

Jim: He had us blindfolded and we just wound up down there. It was just the two of us.

[ongoing laughter from everyone]

Jim: It was kind of awkward.

How come I’ve never been invited, Conor?

Conor: Open invitation.

[more group laughter]

So where was your first actual gig as Monsters of Folk? Or did you do gigs before you named the band?

Matt: I think our first show was in Omaha, right?

Mike Mogis: We practiced for the first time in Omaha.

Conor: The first tour wasn’t billed as Monsters of Folk. It was just billed as Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Jim James…together at last.

[laughter from Conor’s fellow Monsters]

Conor: I guess our first Monsters of Folk show will be the first show of this upcoming tour, technically.

Who came up with the name?

Matt: Not sure.

Mike: We don’t know.

Conor: It was the joke from the first tour. Someone started saying it and I think Jim repeated it onstage a few times with a lot of delay on his voice.

Matt: It’s wrapped in an enigma.

When did you guys make the album? I remember talk about it sometime last year. Has it been even longer in the making?

Mike: I generally screw up the dates every time, but I think I’ve got it pretty good now. We started in February of 2007. It’s been a slightly over a year and a half in the making. That first session was about 10 days long, about eight days of tracking, roughly. We had momentum at the end of the session to wrap it up, to finish it up that year. It basically took us another year to get together.

How many more sessions did you do?

Mike: We did one more tracking session and that was the now infamous Shangri-La session. Not infamous at all.

[general laughter from his fellow Monsters]

Mike: Just in my brain though, it really is.

Jim: Highly controversial. [laughs]

Mike: We went to Malibu for six days of sheer enjoyment in the studio and we tracked another six songs. That concluded all of the chunks of song recording. We had one final session that was at me and Conor’s studio in Omaha.

The first one was in Omaha, too?

Mike: Yeah, same spot. The final sessions took about two weeks and that was just a mixing session where we did overdubs. Adding little parts, making sure we were happy with the arrangements of the songs.

When did you start thinking that you were going to record? Was it much earlier than that first session that you did in 2007 with Mogis or was it around then?

Conor: Starting from the first tour in 2004, we talked about it a lot. Obviously a lot of procrastination went into the making of this record.

Jim: I can see that quote highlighted in black.

[collective group laughter ensues]

Jim: That’ll be the header of the whole thing.

That’s going to be cover the quote.

Conor: [still laughing] …procrastination went into making this record.

[more laughter]

Conor: It seems like [the problem was] mostly scheduling. We talked about it for a long time but I think right after that tour it was an idea that just took forever to actually do.

You guys are all great songwriters, musicians and singers. I know all of your music very well because I’m a fan of all three of you. It’s so funny because on this record I hear all three of you peeking out. You all have strong personalities, musically, which is nice because it all comes together really well. I don’t expect that happens all that often – where it actually works, you know?

Mike: Observing the process, being in the control room more at times or during the mix – that’s the one thing I thought made this band interesting. You can hear each of their unique personalities, but together they’ve made something – new sounding even though you hear a strong presence of Matt or Jim or When the three of those writing styles and tones come together, it makes something all new – which I found to be one of the exciting things.

It_is_ exciting! I was wondering about the songs. Did you guys all bring songs in? Did you write them all together from start to finish? Is every song different?

Jim: For the first session, we didn’t have any demos or anything beforehand. It was just kind of a big mystery. One person would play a song and then we’d all sit around and talk about it and then jump on different instruments. It’s been fun because it felt like we were back in high school starting our first band and learning how to play music again. To me, that was really fun – being able to go back on the drum kit and feel like I was 12 years old. It’s that Zen beginner’s mind that I think is important to keep coming back to in your life. We typecast ourselves in the same role that we think we have to play over and over again. It’s nice to remind yourself that you can be a different person whenever you want.

For the Shangri-La sessions, we had all traded demos together beforehand so that was more of a known variable. We all met up and just kind of played the songs. It was all bizarrely effortless and fun. We worked hard on it, but it’s just like somebody would show somebody a song and then we’d all fall in line and play some parts and talk about it and before you know it, it’s done.

That’s great. That’s the way to do it – fun with friends. Would you tweak songs together or you each wrote the songs individually?

Jim: We all pretty much wrote them individually, but there were some that were maybe less finished than others where we would work on the lyrics together. But even with the ones that were more finished, we’d still talk about the lyrics or talk about lengths of parts, structures – all that kind of stuff. Like what Mogis was saying: even if a song was finished, everybody’s energy coming into it made it feel different.

My ears are trying to tell me who wrote which song because I know a lot of you guys’ songs already. So I wrote down, “Mmm, I think Conor wrote this one. This sounds like a Matt song.” It’s fun as a listener who’s [also] a fan.

Matt: I think that’s a good place for the listener to be – like, “What exactly is going on here?” [laughs]

The first song on the album, “Dear God.” Is that one you guys wrote in the studio together? Or who brought that one in?

Jim: I brought that one in as one that I thought would be really cool for everybody to tag team on finishing the lyrics and finishing the vocals. I had the sample worked out and the instrumentation, kind of. I only had a little bit of a theme and one verse written. So we all drove around and really worked on that one as a group and everybody came up with their own verse. We all worked on the chorus. I pick that one and “Say Please” as two of the biggest ones where we all traded verses and worked on the lyrics.

It’s a good opener for the record. Do you use a loop drum?

Jim: It’s a sample from this ‘70s gospel song. Have you heard of the Numero Group?

No.

Jim: It’s this brilliant label out of Chicago that releases old undiscovered R&B and funk and soul records from the ‘60s and ‘70s. They put out this gospel funk compilation and it’s a sample from one of the songs on there.

It started out with the loop and I was in my rent-a-car in L.A. I didn’t how to work anything. I didn’t think [the album] was playing – I thought it was the radio. The sound of the first song surprised me coming from the three of you.

Mike: That’s what I like about it. That first song is an R&B song, almost hip-hop.

I love The Bee Gees chorus in the best way. [laughs] It’s beautiful. It took a while but then I was like, that’s Jim! Oh, there’s Matt – this is my CD, it’s not my radio. I remember thinking, “Oh, I’ll just wait till this song is over to put the CD in because I really like this.” And then when the next song came on, I [thought], “Ok, I get it.” I was at my mom’s house and I put it on and it felt great. It’s just a great listen all the way through.

Mike: What did your mom think?

She liked it. She’s pretty tough to please. I’ll give you her notes later. So when you guys tour, is it just the four of you?

Conor: We’re going to have a drummer for this next tour and then [it will be] just the four of us.

That’s nice. You guys can pretty much cover everything between you.

Conor: Hopefully, yeah.

[general chuckles from the Monsters].

Matt: I think the world should know that Conor, Mike and Jim are very good drummers. That comes off on the record because they played all the drums.

You’re all friends, so I assume there’s not a bunch of diva-ness or egos when you’re out on the road. Do you find that you all fall into different rolls whenever you’re playing together in the studio or live? Does somebody keep the ball rolling? Does somebody write the setlist? Do you find that you do things differently when you’re in this band?

Conor: It helps that we all have our own bus.

[general laughter from the Monsters]

Just like the Dave Matthews Band.

[more laughter]

Jim: That’s key.

Mike: A lot of things seem more like a group effort. I can’t really recall making setlists but I imagine when we do, it will be something we’ll all talk about.

Conor: It’s a democracy, for sure.

Well that’s good but sometimes people fall into different strengths and it just depends, I guess. Do you ever fight about your democracy? You guys have ever have issues?

Jim: Bitter, bitter fights. [laughs]

Conor: I think at least with the recording, everyone was so excited about what the other people were going to bring to it. Like when somebody had an idea, it was something to celebrate instead of be worried about. I don’t think anybody had an intense vision of what they thought it should be. It was more like pooling of thoughts and everyone contributing, I guess. That was the whole point.

That’s great. That’s the most fun way to do something.

Mike: It wasn’t really that defined of a recording session, either. It felt fairly improvisational just from a recording perspective. There weren’t really any definitive roles, though I guess I fell into an engineering role.

Jim: That was part of the fun of it. It wasn’t like we were a tight band coming in to nail shit in the studio. It all fell together in the studio, which I think contributed to the fun, high school atmosphere of the newness of the whole thing. Because there wasn’t any pressure like we gotta fuckin’ nail this one boys.

Mike: We didn’t even have a set bass player or a drummer. We just switched it up. There were no real roles. Everybody did everything essentially. It was fun that way.