Pure Country

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Dean Miller

"Country is not just music. It is not the way you dress. It is not the way you act. It is a culture --something you are or you aren't," says Dean Miller. "My standard line is that there are some people who are Irish, or German or Japanese. I'm Country. That's my heritage. That's who I am."

And that's what translates into his music. Listen to the debut album, Dean Miller and there is not an inch of uncertainty -- this is country music. Miller's voice and phrasing, the classic structure of the honky-tonkers, waltzes and shuffles, and the use of steel guitar and fiddle emphasize that. But it's not traditional country or retro country, because it looks forward rather than backward- stretching boundaries but not breaking them.

Miller can take that step because he is so deeply grounded in country music. His father is the late Roger Miller, one of the genre's best-known songwriters and performers. "He's my hero," says Dean, "plain and simple." That sentiment extends to the kind of music his father wrote. Dean grew up with an appreciation for a well-crafted country song, and saw the work involved in putting one together. For that reason, he rails against so many others in his generation who dismiss country music as "twang" and nothing else. "It is my mission in life to make people realize that country music has dignity and honor," he says.

Despite those feelings, Dean originally avoided pursuing a career in the field. He wrote songs, and performed at clubs, but he shied away from declaring music as his life's work. Still he knew he wanted to perform. His solution was to enter the acting field.

After graduating from high school in New Mexico, Miller studied acting in college, did plays, did a few commercials, scrounged for work in Los Angeles. All the while he played music on the side. He had been playing guitar and writing songs since he was just a kid, and as a teenager he made $60.00 a night singing in a restaurant, "while people were eating," he laughs. "It was dismal and depressing, but I sang my own songs and the money was great." In Los Angeles, he started going to a club called The Palomino, where you could sing with the band if you paid $4.

"More and more, acting seemed like work and music was so much fun. It completely took me over, so I didn't have much interest in acting anymore," Miller recalls. He decided to go to Nashville, but wanted to perfect his songwriting and performing skills. His dad, though supportive, thought the best way to learn about the music business was to get in and work at it. He thought it would be harmful rather than helpful to use his influence to make things easier for Dean. So the young Miller dug in and went through the same circuit, pounded on the same doors and made the same mistakes as any other struggling songwriter. "When I thought I was ready, I came to Nashville," says Dean. "I just loaded up my car and moved here. I thought I was really good, but looking back, I realize I was really terrible. I wasn't as ready as I thought I was. But I learned a lot, and I had to come here to do that."

Once in Nashville, Miller went through the usual rounds of club dates and showcases, and of finding a song publishing deal and a record deal. The publishing deal came first, but eventually his spirited songs and energetic performances caught the eye of Capitol Nashville.

An accomplished writer with more than 300 songs under his belt, Miller wrote all but one of the eleven songs on his debut album. Four of those songs ("Long Way Home," "Missing You," "If I Was Your Man" and "The Running Side of Me") were written with his good friend Stacy Dean Campbell, another New Mexico native with a talent for making music. "Long Way Home" (with Daniel Keyes Tashian as third co-writer) and "Missing You" both grapple with the emotions that come to the surface after a relationship has ended, whether it's missing the lover or missing the fact of being in love. "If I Was Your Man," is an offer of stability to a broken-hearted woman. "The Running Side of Me," which Miller refers to as the "esoteric" cut on the album, delves into the conflicting feelings of a man who fights the impulse to break away from a relationship. Unlike so many songs that romanticize the no-strings-attached approach to love, this song explains the urge to be free but sees it overwhelmed by the desire for commitment.
"I try first and foremost to remove myself to be objective," he says of choosing his material. "You listen out of the corner of your ear, while you're doing the dishes or reading a magazine. I listen without paying attention, and if a song reaches out and grabs you while you're doing something else, then that's probably a good song."

Miller worked closely with producer Gregg Brown, whose credits include albums by Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt and Chris LeDoux. "It was hard for me to pick a producer because I had produced myself on my demos before. I needed to work with someone who was willing to listen to me and to let me do my stuff," says Miller. "I've known Gregg for about five years and I always got along with him personally. When the opportunity to work with him as a producer came up I knew he was a great choice. His records tend to be really aggressive and that's what I wanted for this album. In the studio, I'd always tell him, 'Put more anger on this track.' It was a great balance, because I know exactly what I want, but don't always know how to do it technically. He knows how to accomplish those goals."

The result of their collaboration is Dean Miller, a collection of eleven songs that are bold, aggressive and wide-ranging. Miller brings a nostalgic tenderness to "Nowhere USA," a celebration of small-town life, inspired by his father's hometown. "That's an extremely personal song," Miller says. "I wrote it during the time when my dad was really sick. Every one of the images in the song comes from his hometown in western Oklahoma, which had a population of about 800 people." The classic weeper, "Dreams" literally came straight from the heart. Miller, having just gone through a painful break-up, sat down and wrote down everything he was thinking and feeling. He didn't allow himself to edit any of the words that tumbled out, and the song remains just as he wrote it that first time.

While he's not hesitant about drawing-lyrics from his own life, Miller also calls upon his imagination in writing songs. He didn't have to roll out of bed and pour a shot of booze to get into the spirit of "Wake Up And Smell The Whiskey" for example. The song, which he co-wrote with Brett James, came from a line one of them spouted while writing another song. They loved the phrase, built a story around it and had a song. "I Used To Know Her," a bitter lament from a man who's stunned that the woman in his life is leaving, also started with a catchy phrase, as did the shruggingly angry "My Heart's Broke Down," co-written with Sarah Majors. "Broke Down In Birmingham," is the one song on Dean Miller that the singer did not have a hand in writing. He heard it when a friend played a demo tape of a singer, asking Miller for his opinion. "He played the tape and I just said, 'what is that song?' Miller recalls. It made such an impression on him that he knew he wanted to include it on the album. Its searing tale of a traveling salesman who loses his wife because of the time he spends working fits in well with the other ten songs on the album.

Miller's songs reach for the feeling beyond the words, examining the complexities of love and life. "Singers are storytellers," he says. "You don't always have to be positive because the human experience is much broader than that. Think about Loretta Lynn's songs. They were about cheating, drinking and abuse. You heard anger in songs by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and even Buck Owens, sometimes."

A serious songwriter with an innate flair for entertainment; a definitively country singer who approaches his music with rock's aggressiveness, a man who counts Loretta Lynn and Steve Earle as strong influences- Dean Miller displays all his strengths in his debut effort.



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