|
|
Home  Archive music profiles Southern-Fried Fun
|
Southern-Fried Fun |
|
|
|
Written by Ross Todd
|
|
Friday, 16 December 2005 |
|
Scott Miller and the Commonwealth Get Set to Rock Twangfest 7 Into the History Books
Singer. Songwriter. Fighter of Floods?
Clearly, Scott Miller is a
modern-day renaissance man. As we talked, Miller sopped up the
temporary well also known as his basement in Knoxville (pronounced
knocks-vul in East Tennessee).
“Yeah, we had about six inches
of rain in 36 hours. They said all our reservoirs are full, so I
decided to keep as much as I could in my fuckin’ basement,” said Miller
in his playful Southern drawl.
St. Louis can see Miller at work sopping up the last moments of this year’s Twangfest on June 7, at midnight at Blueberry Hill.
Wise Guy
Miller is equal parts jester and genius. Before graduating from William
and Mary with a degree in Russian and history, Miller put his college’s
career services department to the test. “I walked in there a few weeks
before I graduated and I was like ‘Hey, how do I get a job with the
post office?’” Miller said with a chuckle.
At the onset of
his musical career, Miller put this gruff wit to use delighting
audiences on the singer/songwriter circuit across the Mid-South. Early
in his career, Miller joined forces with a talented group of Knoxville
musicians to form the V-Roys. Critics and radio programmers struggled
to find a category for the band. Equal parts bang and twang, the V-Roys
found their home in the alt-country bins like countless other bands
that defied labels. (Let the record state, Scott Miller does not own a
single Uncle Tupelo album.)
The band eventually signed to
Steve Earle’s E-Squared label and produced two solid LP efforts, Just
Add Ice and All About Town, and a live swan song, Are You Through Yet?
The band faded into Knoxville’s collective memory with a marathon
farewell concert at the turn of the millennium.
Miller
considers the whole V-Roys experience a time of learning. “That was the
first rock ’n’ roll band I was in. Before that, I was solo, the
obnoxious singer/songwriter guy. I learned how to plug in the guitar,”
said Miller. “A lot of how the business is screwy was pretty quickly
learned. Didn’t faze me, though.”
A Commonwealth of Knowledge
Since his time with the V-Roys, Miller has progressed as a songwriter
and frontman. He now records and tours as Scott Miller and the
Commonwealth. “It’s all on my shoulders now,” Miller says. The
Commonwealth’s latest incarnation consists of Miller on guitar and
vocals, Shaun McWilliams on drums, Eric Fritsch on keyboards, and Clark
Chisholm on bass. Upside Downside finds the ensemble creating a body of
songs that, Miller said, “sound more like me than anything I’ve ever
done.”
Miller continues to grow more comfortable with his
niche. “I didn’t make it for radio; I tried to make a record you can
sit down and put your third eye on, listen to and it’ll take care of
you,” said Miller “It’s an album you can let go in the background and
make spaghetti to.”
The album features a guest appearance by
singer/songwriter Patty Griffin. “She can still write better than
anybody,” Miller said. “Then she can sing it better than anybody.”
In addition, Miller got legendary fiddle player Tim O’Brien into the
studio again. “You know, I worked with Tim on my last record,” Miller
added. “For years I was a pure knucklehead about him, bumper sticker
and all. Still, I’m always like, ‘Gaw, you’re so good.’”
After
yielding some creative control to producers in the past, Miller took a
seat alongside bandmate Eric Fritsch in the producer’s chair for this
latest recording session. “This was finally a chance for me to show my
limitations right out there in front of everybody,” says Miller. “I
tried to model it after my two favorite Neil Young records: On the
Beach and American Stars and Bars. It’s as analog as it can be in this
day and age.” Miller later poked fun at himself, noting, “Here I model
after albums that are Neil Young’s lowest-selling.”
The
album should provide enough sad songs to fill beer mugs and enough
rockers to peel paint in the Duck Room. “Can we turn our guitars up
loud and have a good time there?” Miller asked. When he found out
Blueberry Hill is a regular home to Chuck Berry, Miller quipped,
“Fuckin’ A. Then we’ll be fine.”
The Road Ahead
In spite
of the bumps in the road, Miller is hopeful for the future and excited
to tour behind the new record. He admitted, “I still don’t think I’ve
written my best songs, and I still think there are better ways to
produce me, and I am hoping that I get a chance.”
Miller
admits if, given his druthers, he would have the career of Shakira. “I
would just stare at my own ass,” he joked. But he’s quick to ask, “She
writes her own songs, doesn’t she?”
Miller also has an
ingenious recipe for an artist who would make it to the mainstream.
Take one unnamed part of Shakira, add one part Avril Lavigne for
attitude, and a little Jerry Lee Lewis to “keep it real.” The result is
a new subgenre Miller dubbed “pure-ass porn rock.”
“Forget alt-country,” he said, laughing. “I wanna be porn rock.”
“I’d like to think it’s all about good songs,” Miller later conceded, “no matter what genre.”
Labels aside, Scott Miller and the Commonwealth will close out
Twangfest 7 on Saturday, June 7, at midnight in Blueberry Hill’s Duck
Room. The new album from Scott Miller and the Commonwealth, Upside
Downside, is due out June 10.
|
|
|
