Tim Booth (behind mirrorball) and James.

Manchester’s James have to have one of the worst band names out there as far as SEO goes, but you’ll have to forgive them for that: when they first started in 1980, Walter Cronkite was still on the air. And besides, it’s better than the band’s original name, Venereal and the Diseases. Tim Booth joined the band in early 1982, and later that year they would open for New Order at the Hacienda. Since then, the band have had a career filled with ups and downs that culminated with Booth’s departure in 2001.

After a much needed cooling-off period (more on that in a moment), the band reunited in 2007 and began working on new music. In 2008, the band released one of the strongest albums of their career and began touring abroad again, including a stop at the 9:30 Club which was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen at the storied venue.

Armed with a new double album, The Morning After The Night Before, James are back on these shores yet again and playing the 9:30 Club tonight. We spoke to a very talkative Booth ahead of the show and discussed a wide range of topics including touring with The Smiths, opening for KoRn at Lollapalooza and a range of other topics.

How did the whole reunion come about?

I left in 2001. Jim and Larry had started working together and rang me in 2005 and I just said no, I wasn’t interested. Then in 2006, Larry was really persuasive that time. He kind of said things had changed. I left really because there were lots of addiction problems within James. So communication got really bad. The last few years had really gotten fraught with internal, dysfunctional family strife. Basically, it was like, if we can work through the stuff we need to work through and our communication can get better and we can relate to each other…I knew the music was not going to be a problem.