Jim James leads My Morning Jacket on new journey

Don’t get James wrong. He understands he’s living the life millions dream of as the head of an increasingly important and influential rock band. That part of his life is great. James is looking for solace in other places as well, however. He jokingly calls himself a recovering Catholic and says he’s given up on organized religion. He’s now seeking comfort from other sources.

“There’s so much stuff that you just don’t need in your brain that they hammered there so young and you’re trying to deal with it,’’ James said. “I don’t consider myself any faith. I just try to listen to all faiths and all ideas and sift out what I believe and what I don’t.’’

Increasingly James is finding answers in music. Long a rock `n’ roll fan, he started to grow uninterested and turned to different forms of music to feed his need for new sounds. His discovery of soul music has influenced his own music over the last five years. More important, it’s opened his mind about the possibilities of life.

“I’ll never forget hearing (Marvin Gaye’s) `What’s Going On’ for the first time and being like, `Oh, my god,’’’ James said. “All this rock music is beautiful and serves a purpose, but so much of it is about pain and darkness. And when I hear `What’s Going On’ or when I hear some of Sam Cooke’s religious work, I hear all the mystery and passion that I loved about my rock music, but I also hear hope and praise and all this glory that I feel like I don’t hear in all this sad stuff growing up, listening to Nirvana. When I put on Nirvana now, it’s like nails shooting into my ears.’’

Like Gaye, Pastor T.L. Barrett also blew his mind, and helped set the stage for the recording of “Circuital,’’ My Morning Jacket’s first album since 2008’s “Evil Urges,’’ out Tuesday. Barrett’s little-known “Like a Ship … (Without a Sail)’’ was a gospel funk masterpiece that all but disappeared after a small pressing decades ago. Boutique label Numero Group reissued the album, which Barrett recorded with his Chicago church’s youth choir.