Alley Cats Making Love: My Morning Jacket

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IT'S BEEN A banner year for My Morning Jacket.

In March, the band played two high-profile showcases at the annual South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. On June 10, the group released its fifth studio album, "Evil Urges" (ATO Records), a stylistic shift that features a few disco beats and Prince-like falsettos alongside the group's usual Southern-soaked Neil Young-like rockers. Three nights later, My Morning Jacket played arguably the greatest show of its career — a discography-spanning, 35-song, four-hour, late-night set at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn.

Now, the Louisville, Ky.-based band is in the midst of a U.S. headlining tour, which stops at DAR Constitution Hall on Sept. 3. But what might be the group's biggest show of 2008 has yet to come: My Morning Jacket headlines the world's greatest arena, Madison Square Garden in New York City, on New Year's Eve. Considering that the last time the band played a New Year's Eve show — in 2006 at the Fillmore in San Francisco — there was an Oregon Trail theme, anything is possible when they hit the Big Apple to ring in the new year.

Express corresponded with drummer Patrick Hallahan via e-mail, about My Morning Jacket's epic Bonnaroo set, Erykah Badu, the album after "Evil Urges" and frontman Jim James' mustache.

» EXPRESS: Nice job getting Erykah Badu to sit in with you guys for "Tyrone" in Dallas on Aug. 23. How did you guys set that up? I heard that she was actually a fan of the band's cover from Bonnaroo?
» HALLAHAN: I think it was the combined forces of good karma and circumstance that led to such a crazy evening. We've been super fans of hers for a long time, and some journalist asked Jim why we covered "Tyrone." He professed his love for her, she read about it, listened to the version we did at Bonnaroo, and wanted to come see the show. Her people got in touch with ours, and we were told to keep a wireless mic handy in case she felt like singing — not knowing whether she was going to or not was BRUTAL.

She popped backstage after the first set and couldn't have been any sweeter. The next thing I knew, that amazing voice was coming through my monitors. What a night.

» EXPRESS: Speaking of the famed Bonnaroo performance, did you guys come in with a game plan of: "OK, here we're going to play 35 songs over 4 hours," or did the show's vast length happen on the fly?
» HALLAHAN: We were given a four-hour slot ahead of time, and planned how we wanted to fill it. Some bands do stuff on the fly all of the time, but we like to mold our set.

» EXPRESS: Any chance we'll see an official release of the show?
» HALLAHAN: Not any time soon.

» EXPRESS: No one could have predicted 2005's "Z" after 2003's "It Still Moves" — or "Evil Urges" after "Z." All are so different in their approaches. What do you think the next My Morning Jacket record will sound like?
» HALLAHAN: It'll probably sound like cars crashing, alley cats making love and syrup.

» EXPRESS: Jim James was recently interviewed by the American Mustache Institute about his spectacular 'stache. He said that "having only a mustache is a feeling unlike any other. A feeling of deep pride and sophistication." (http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/MustacheInterviews.aspx). Seeing as you have your own full beard and long locks, do you have anything you'd like to say about the art of the 'stache?
» HALLAHAN: I think all mustaches are incomplete beards. If I could say anything about the "art of the 'stache," it would be: STOP SHAVING YOUR CHIN.

Written by Express contributor Rudi Greenberg

Photos by Autumn DeWilde