My Morning Jacket Open Up about Scrapped Muppets Tour

BY Alex HudsonPublished Jun 20, 2011

My Morning Jacket are currently in the midst of a North American tour in support of their newly released album, Circuital. Things almost turned out very differently for the shaggy Kentucky rockers, however, as they were almost hired by Disney to play as the band Electric Mayhem, made famous on The Muppet Show.

As MTV reports, this would have involved a full tour and even an album as the fictional band, fronted by Dr. Teeth and with Animal behind the drum kit.

"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," explained drummer Patrick Hallahan to MTV.

Apparently, the band even began writing material for the project. "We had started demoing songs at [frontman] Jim [James's] house," revealed bassist Tom Blankenship. "But then that project fell through. And, man, that was a shame."

When the Muppets plans were scrapped, the band opted to finish Circuital and go on a tour of their own. Nevertheless, Hallahan is still disappointed that the project didn't pan out. "It's so sad, though," he said. "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."

Perhaps this project got axed in favour of the Muppets movie that's due to come out later this year. This will feature musical contributions from Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords) and Dave Grohl.

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