My Morning Jacket 'Sad' Over Scrapped 'Muppets' Tour

MMJ were tapped to tour as real-life Electric Mayhem band, a dream trek that was cut at the last minute.
By James Montgomery

My Morning Jacket's Patrick Hallahan and Tommy Blankenship
Photo: MTV News

My Morning Jacket embarked on a rather remarkable run of shows late last year, beginning with a five-night stand at New York's Terminal 5, where they played their entire studio discography. That momentum continued with a spate of festival gigs, most notably a triumphant mainstage set earlier this month at Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee.

But for all of their onstage success, it's the one tour they didn't embark on that haunts them to this day ... a planned series of shows where they would have doubled as Dr. Teeth's backing band, Electric Mayhem.

For those not in the know, Mayhem is, of course, the rock band made famous on "The Muppet Show," a ragtag bunch of musicians — lippy Janice on lead guitar, Sgt. Floyd Pepper on bass, the mysterious Zoot on sax, and noted smasher Animal behind the drum kit — fronted by the irrepressible Dr. Teeth (who, it should be noted, is probably not an actual M.D.). And in the lead-up to MMJ's new Circuital album, the band was in very real negotiations with the folks at the Walt Disney Company (who acquired rights to the Muppet brand in 2004) to record new music for Electric Mayhem, with a full-blown tour to follow.

"It all started when we were working on a Muppets project. ... We were going to be the band behind the Electric Mayhem band," bassist "Two Tone" Tommy Blankenship told MTV News. "And so we had started demoing songs at [frontman] Jim [James'] house; two of them ended up on the record, that were kind of Muppet-y, a little wacky. 'Wonderful,' 'Out of My System' and 'Friends Again.' But then that project fell through. And, man, that was a shame."

Of course, My Morning Jacket eventually compartmentalized their disappointment, and finished Circuital instead. And though they're currently on the road in support of the album (and will be for the foreseeable future), they'll truly never forgive Disney for killing the tour of their dreams.

"It's so sad though ... they were going to release an Electric Mayhem album, and they wanted us to be the band, and then we would go on tour, and they would have all these animatronic Muppets, and we would, like, be behind the stage playing," drummer Patrick Hallahan explained. "As much as I love Disney's history, cutting that project — and it doesn't have to be us, it could've been any band — that visual would've been amazing."

Should Disney revive MMJ's Electric Mayhem tour dream? Tell us in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1666057/my-morning-jacket-muppets-tour.jhtml

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