Five Records With… Rhett Miller
Posted on | October 16, 2009 | No Comments
I had the chance to talk to Rhett Miller the other day before his show with Salim Nourallah at the House of Blues. The always exuberant front man of the Old 97’s released his third, self titled solo record last summer, and it is not to be missed. Five Records is an occasional feature of artists talking about the music that inspires them. Read more of these posts here.
“My parents were into the Kingston Trio, and I got into it as a young kid. I think about what I love about playing – so much of it is the energy, to be able to translate a song into this thing that gets everyone in the room. This was recorded at this little folk club in San Francisco, all acoustic instruments, and they just ROCK, just really high energy. The between song banter is so funny – I quote this line all the time — they come back from their encore and he says “You can tell by the speed of our return that that exit was fraudulent.” I just love that.”
“I love Willie, I’ve gone on his bus several times and gotten to be good friends with Mickey Raphael, his harp player. I admire him so much because he is a writer first — he could easily stay home and live off the royalties from any one of his hits, much less all of them. He does lots of weird stuff, but at this point, he’s earned it. He is a great interpreter, he does other people’s stuff and it doesn’t seem like a cash grab.”
“Making this last record with Salim Nourallah, we listened to London Calling a lot. I thought my new record was going to be quiet, and it ended up being very rock and roll. We were torn about the sequencing, something I love to do but something that usually ends up being pretty difficult. This album is a masterpiece, and so is the title track that opens it, which goes into “Brand New Cadillac”, so you have back-to-back rockers. We ended up putting “Nobody Says I Love You Anymore” as the opening track, and it goes into “Like Love”, and they are similar, with the big drum things happening, and it felt so right.”
“Thinking of songs I wish I had written, its easy to say something like “Waterloo Sunset”, which is just genius. Lately, I’ve gotten familiar with several Okkervil River songs that have had that effect on me. It’s really high energy, but so simple at the same time.”
“I really love Telegraph Canyon, from Fort Worth. Their new record is great, really big, very cool. I watched them sound check the other day and they were like “We’re getting some feedback from the tiny dog piano”, like its a completely normal instrument that everyone has. A great big orchestrated adventurous sound.”
Rhett Miller – I Need To Know Where I Stand