Q&A: Rhett Miller On The Old 97’s Current Tour, Thirty-Year Anniversary And Much More

Rhett Miller will lead The Old 97’s into Los Angeles’s Bourbon Room tomorrow (June 5) as part of a two-week tour. As Miller says it’s the band’s longest tour since 2019, or pre-COVID lockdown, as well as their first L.A. appearance since 2018.

For a band celebrating their thirtieth anniversary as a group, that kind of gap, as Miller pointed out when we spoke this week, is a lifetime. But one that has given Miller a new appreciation for being on the road and time to think about what he wants touring for the band to be going forward.

Miller also kept busy this time writing a solo album and his second children’s book. I spoke to him about all of this and much more.

Steve Baltin: Are you on tour with Old 97’s or just doing these one-off shows?

Rhett Miller: So I flew in to Salt Lake City. The crew is meeting the bus in Denver with all of our gear. And then the band members are all flying into Salt Lake City today. And we’ll get on the bus tonight. And we will ride overnight to the middle of nowhere in Nevada to play at a festival called Schellraiser Festival. And then we go through and play in Vegas. And then we come through The Boubon Room on Sunday night, and on and on through back through the Southwest and then all the way up Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota on some shows with Steve Earle and the Turnpike Troubadours.

Baltin: So this is a full tour.

Miller: Oh yeah, in a tour bus, full tour. We’ve done a few dates. But this little like two-week run is the longest thing we’ve done since pre-COVID.

Baltin: You say pre-COVID. But cases are through the roof again. So how are you feeling being on the road?

Miller: Can I pretend that it’s not happening? I’m terrified in a way. Because it’s all been feeling so good and so easy and so optimistic. The idea that somebody in our camp could get it and shut it down is really scary. I had it in January. And then Murray had it most recently. But we’ve all had it in the last six months, which I know doesn’t mean that we’re immune. But I think the fact that we all vaxed and boosted and within a six month window of having had it make it less likely. The Old 97’s just participated in this giant Hollywood production that I’m literally not allowed to tell you what it is. But I’m sure soon enough it’ll be public knowledge. But it’s a big Hollywood production, the type where they are constantly testing you. And so we were all getting constantly tested. Of course, that was a few…

Baltin: I know you can’t talk about it. But did you perform in it or did you act in it?

Miller: Yes, our SAG cards were invoked. Yeah.

Baltin: I was supposed to go see Jack White and Afghan Whigs last night. Afghan Whigs happen to be just one of my five favorite bands of all time. And they had to cancel ’cause of COVID.

Miller: I love [Greg] Dulli. I love Afghan Whigs. We were briefly Elektra label mates. They’re great. And he’s great. And he’s kept going for all these years. There’s not many people that I know from the early ’90s when we were all making music that kept doing it and kept being good at it.

Baltin: As you’re out on the longest run pre-first run of COVID, do you feel like it’s something that you’re excited to be back out there and you missed touring?

Miller: Yeah, it is weird though. Because I get what you’re saying. COVID was that thing where a lot of marriages didn’t survive. A lot of people’s professions didn’t survive. People wanted to do something else. I was able to be home because of COVID for the need of my kids’ teenage years. My son is graduating high school next week to go to college. My daughter is gonna be a junior in high school. So I’ve been able to be around in a way I never was before. And that was invaluable. But I also missed my job. But now that I’m going back on my job, the schlepping and the level of discomfort involved that I always just rolled with because it was part of a deal, now I’m feeling it in a way I never felt it before. Believe me, to complain about the things that I have to do for my job is insane. Because I get to do a really cool job. And so what? So I have to go to airports and stuff? Big deal. But I am thinking like, “God, do I really want to do this like I was before?” And it’s making me think that I’m gonna tour less/smarter, differently.

Baltin: Where do you see The Old 97’s role in 2022?

Miller: It’s funny, earlier you mentioned the idea of being in hungry. And I think the fact that the Old 97’s will turn 30 next year, the fact that we’ve consistently made records and toured all three of those decades, it was constant production and touring, is that we’ve always been hungry. And so now when I’m facing the idea of going back to work and realizing that being home is sometimes preferable and that maybe my humanity has at times been undermined by my rock and roll figurehead status. The Old 97’s are a medium-size industrial situation, there’s people that depend on us for their livelihoods, and I don’t want to let anybody down and I’ve gotta feed my family. But at the same time, I don’t want to go out and be stupid about it. But I still feel the hunger, like I just want to keep being a part of the artistic conversation. I want to keep making albums because I’m still fascinated by the process, that I still love the idea of putting something into the world and making the world, if not a more beautiful place at least a more interesting place, a richer artistic place. And so I want to keep doing it and I still have the hunger for it, but yeah, it makes me realize that I want to be a lot smarter about it.

Baltin: When was the last time you played L.A.?

Miller: It has been a while, man. I have so many L.A. friends, it’s been crazy, like I’m texting dozens of people and then I’m turning in a guest list and getting in trouble for it, but even those people are bringing up what you’re bringing up, like, “You know, COVID is not over yet.” [But] I’m excited about Bourbon Room because it’s booked by an old friend of ours, Adam Spriggs, who has been in a few different venues and festivals over the years. He’s a fan of our band, and it’s a kind of thing that the Old 97’s are lucky to have people who have been fans for decades and have grown to positions of power. I trusted him, and since I’ve been reaching out to friends in the LA area, inviting them to the show, a bunch of people had hit me back saying, “Yeah, I’ve been to that venue, and it’s great, and they really put a ton of money into it, the sound system is great.” So yeah, I’m stoked, it’s rare to go into a new thing, having been doing the same sort of circuit now across the United States for all these decades. Whenever you get the opportunity to be in a new venue, especially one that sounds like it’s pretty cool, it’s exciting. I hope my friends show up, and I hope they’re not too scared off.

Baltin: It looks like the last time you played L.A. was 2018 at the Troubadour.

Miller: That’s crazy. When I think about a four-year window in our band, a four-year window was basically the entire time we were on Elektra during which time we put out three band albums with one solo album. A four-year window, so much happens in that amount of time normally in a career, certainly early in a career, but even decades, we do a lot in four years and now the fact is this is gonna be our first time back in LA in four years, this is mind boggling.

Baltin: What is coming up for you?

Miller: I made a solo album during the pandemic that’s gonna come out in September. And the sounds on that and the songs on that, I let myself get weird in a way that I never would have done if I had not been able to get off the conveyor belt. It was just the stepping off, doing these really quiet, intimate performances in front of the high def camera in my office, like being able to be quiet, being able to get weird, being able to try out these weird sounds. I went in with my friend, Sam Cohen, who’s a producer and musician who just did the new Kevin Morby record that’s really great. But Sam and I had wrote all these songs in the room and recorded them right then. And it was these tons of weird sounds. In addition to more traditional stuff, there’s synth-y stuff and 808 drum machine stuff. It’s the kind of stuff that if I had never had a forced reset, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to try that stuff. ‘Cause I would have thought, “Nobody will go along for the ride with me if I do this.” And now I just feel like, “There’s no rules anymore. Let’s just all do whatever the hell we want to do. Because we’re not here forever.”

Baltin: Tell me about the children’s books you wrote.

Miller: I always had this idea that musicians who did anything in the world of kids, like kids’ music or kids’ literature, that it signaled that their rock and roll career was over. And I haven’t completely made peace with the idea of doing children’s music. To me, that still feels like a bridge too far. Although, after having talked to Walter [Martin] from The Walkmen and seeing the kind of kids’ music that he’s made and how cool he still is, I’m thinking like, “Alright, okay, maybe cool people can still make kids’ music without having to turn in their credibility card.” But as far as the books, I started doing them when my kids were younger. The second book is coming out in August of this year. And it’s just so fun. To me, it just really feels like this muscle that is adjacent to the songwriting muscle, where I get to do things that are silly and clever. And I get to really think about rhyme scheme and meter, and the kind of more just logistical writer stuff. It’s poetry, it’s songs, it’s got all the rules that go along with songs. But it’s so sweet. And then for me to get to go out and do appearances in front of an audience of all kids, it’s such a distillation of that experience. They’re so honest in their immediate feedback. And when you do the Q&As at the end, the questions that they ask are so insane, like, “How much money do you make every year?” Some of them is like, “What’s the biggest number you can think of?” “That much.” And it’s really sweet. It’s great. And it makes me so happy. My kids are older now. And I miss that, the real little, bright-eyed childhood thing. But yeah, I love it. I feel like I’ve got too much in my artistic brain for any one discipline to be enough.