'Too Punk for the Country People, Too Country for the Punks' - A Conversation with Rhett Miller of the Old 97's

North Bay & Napa Valley! One of the greatest Alt-Country Americana bands to ever come out of Texas, The Old 97's, are coming your way on Tuesday August 4 at the Napa Music Hall Ballroom in downtown Napa. 

Based out of Dallas, Texas, The Old 97’s have been touring for over 30 years. Their music is a combination of high energy- Texas style rock n roll with the sound of the late 80s early 90s alternative and punk scenes.

They’ve never had a hit single. You might not immediately recognize the band’s name, but you’ve more than likely encountered one of their songs which have appeared in a number of high profile television shows and films.

The band was recently featured in the 2022 Guardians Of The Galaxy Christmas Special that was exclusive to Disney+. The band performs a song for Peter Quill, played by Chris Pratt called, “I Don't Know What Christmas Is (But Christmastime Is Here),” while dressed in full blown alien costumes. They also have a brief cameo in the follow up Guardians of the Galaxy 3 film.

Personally, I discovered The Old 97’s and their frontman Rhett Miller from their many needle drops on the television show Scrubs, with many of their songs highlighting key moments for the show. 

When he is not on the road with the band, Rhett Miller currently lives in Upstate New York and works as a songwriting teacher at the New School in Manhattan. He’s written a handful of children’s books and is currently working on a How-To songwriting book. 

Its there in upstate New York that we are able to catch up with Rhett Miller as he sits in the parking lot of the DMV, where he was finishing up errands before hitting the road with the band. 

I’ve always believed that Americana and Alt-country shows would work really well in Napa. I used to wander the halls of the Napa Music Hall when it was still called the Blue Note, and dream of bringing more and more of those kinds of bands to town. Number one on my list was always The Old 97’s. 

The Old 97’s have this raucous rock n roll shitkicker sound that I think folks in Napa will eat right up. We talk a bit in the chat about the ornery-ness of his home state, and I think that same ornery-ness can be found in the hills of the Napa Valley. There’s the good old boys who grew up on farms and rock n roll here, and folks looking to dance and feel alive. Old 97’s will bring all of that and more to the Napa Valley Opera house on August 4. 

Among the many other things we chatted about, we talked a bit about the current ‘90s revival, Miller becoming a teacher, and the great state of Texas and how it never really leaves you. All of this and more in the chat below!

The Old 97's are playing live at the Napa Music Hall on Tuesday August 4 with River Shook. The show is 6+ and older. Tickets can be purchased from the Napa Music Hall Website.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Dammit Damian: I’m going to go see the Gin Blossoms tonight and the ‘90s are on my mind. The Old 97s started in the 90s, but you guys never quite reached some of the level of success that some of those bands did. Is the band at all affected by the current wave of ‘90s nostalgia? 

Rhett Miller: You know, one thing that's funny for us is that we did come up with a lot of the bands that were having hits in the 90s. In fact, a lot of our label mates on Elektra records had those big moments where they flashed and rose to prominence in the 90s. And because we never did, we've never been sort of categorically lumped in with the 90s music.

And the nice thing for us is that now we don't go out on the kind of those nostalgia tours, like a lot of those bands do now, where it's like, “remember when?” You know, “the greatest summer of your life,” like that kind of vibe. 

The nice thing about not having a hit is that you don't have an audience waiting to hear that one song that they like, and nobody [in the audience] cares about the new record you put out.

So for us, you know, it's the double-edged sword. We never had a hit, which is a bummer because nobody got rich [Laughs], but we also never got tied to one moment in time and became immediately nostalgic. So it's been great for us because we can put out new records and people care about them.

Still, the majority of the set lists I make focus on those Elektra Records years. Those were three records that I'm really proud of and they are the most beloved by the fans, 

But we still play songs off every record in our catalog and people still get as excited about some of those songs as they do the ones from our sort of major label heyday.

During my research I noticed a number of writers have a hard time describing the band. They have a hard time putting the Old 97’s into a box. But the band makes complete sense to me. I mentioned the band in a column of mine a few weeks back and wrote, ”The Old 97s are a fantastic mix of 90s alternative pop melodies with a heavy Texas style Southern rock heart. Think Gin Blossoms meets Willie Nelson and Tom Petty.” 

That's great. I feel like it's been both our superpower and our undoing. The fact that we're not easy to describe or categorize.

It's kind of like we look at a town like Nashville. We've never historically done well in Nashville because we're always too punk rock for the country people and too country for the punk rock people. 

[I think] that's why we do well in major markets. People are a little more savvy and they can handle more nuance. Whereas some of the smaller markets, they're like, “what is this?” And I'm like, “I don't know, this is what we like to do!” 

We recently received an Americana Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award. And Rosanne Cash wrote a really beautiful induction speech. (Click here to watch the speech on Miller's instagram page)

And it was sweet because it really just addressed that. She's like, “it's as if Waylon Jennings had an illegitimate love child with Joe Strummer.” I'm paraphrasing, but that's sort of what she said. In fact, when we started our band we used to tell people it's Johnny Cash meets The Clash.

Yeah, that's perfect.

But it's funny. So we got this Americana Lifetime Achievement Award last year, and this year we're making a new record and it couldn't be less Americana. It's like a rock and roll record.

We've never taken the easy way. [Laughter]

I was born in Dallas, but grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. I spent a lot of my time driving on I-20 to Dallas to Deep Ellum (Dallas’ entertainment district) in my teens and early twenties to see concerts. Were those still your stomping grounds back then?

For me, it was the late eighties all the way through the mid 90s. I moved out in the late nineties - 99, but Dallas is our hometown. So we still play there a lot.

I moved out of the South a long time ago, but lately I’ve been watching a lot of Richard Linklater films that take place in Texas and I'm surprised at how timeless they feel. There are so many other great writers and artists from Texas who are timeless in a way that can only come from Texas. I think the Old 97’s fit that mold as well. 

I've thought a lot about that because I often marvel at how much great art Texas has produced and how it's got a thread of ornery-ness running through all of it. Like there’s something about it… like how the Old 97’s refusal to be categorized. 

I'm a seventh generation Texan. I had relatives at the Battle of San Jacinto. I had relatives on the last supply train to leave the Alamo. I've got people going back through multiple iterations of Texas .

There were six different countries that Texas was a part of, that’s where the amusement park Six Flags Over Texas gets its name. Texas was its own country for a while. 

So there's an independent streak that runs throughout Texans. And you see it in Willie, and you see it in The Old 97’s. I just think we're difficult and proud to uphold that.

You're in New York State these days?

I followed a girl out to Los Angeles at the end of the nineties, and I enjoyed my time there. But when my wife and I ended up expecting our first kid, we looked around LA and realized we didn't want to raise a kid there. So we moved up to where her brother had a place in the Hudson Valley, just north of Manhattan.

So we've been there for 22, almost 23 years. It's been great. We're in the country on three acres, and I can be in New York City in 90 minutes.

I grew up sort of idealizing New York City and dreaming of being like a cigarette smoking poet in the Lower East Side or something. Now I kind of get to do that a little bit, but without having to really smoke cigarettes or live in the Lower East Side.

I hated Louisiana so much growing up, but now I find that I actively carry it with me in ways I don't realize. Do you ever stop and think about that and be like, oh man, this is such a Texas thing I'm doing. Does that carry with you places?

Yeah, in fact, it's funny the way I raised my kids, even though we're in New York and they are New Yorker kids. They both do this stuff all the time that's so Texan. Anything from something as small as using y'all, which is an incredibly useful word and both my kids say it all the time, to being… I don't know…difficult and like sort of speaking truth to power on both smaller and bigger levels. Not being afraid to say something that may be gross or weird or whatever.

We kind of speak our mind in a way that's not always popular. I'm proud of the fact that my kids grew up with a little bit of Texan in them despite not growing up in Texas.

You’re teaching music in New York City these days now?

I teach songwriting at the New School in Manhattan. My daughter goes to Parsons School of Design and the New School owns Parsons. So I took a job teaching songwriting there so she can get free tuition, which is such a hack.

That's funny. But I get a sense that you actually probably really love teaching. I get a sense that you are kind of something of a natural teacher. How do you feel about it?

Thank you. And that was the sort of unintended consequence of taking this job was realizing how much I love teaching, especially this undergraduate level of 19 to 22 year old songwriters. It's just such a beautiful time to watch an artist come into their own.

It's a real gift to get to usher someone- to help someone find their voice. I love it. I'm currently at work on a how-to songwriting book and I've got my songwriting retreat that I do every year in the Catskills, which is all ages. Yeah, I love it. I really believe in the power of songwriting.

What do you learn from your students?

I learn a lot from them and not just about current music, although that's definitely a fun bonus. There are a lot of music students. They know music theory in a way that I never learned it. 

So they're teaching me things. For instance, I always thought harmony just referred to a background vocal part. Whereas harmony actually is a reference to everything that's happening musically at any given moment during the song.

I had no idea. And I had to have some fricking 20 year old kid explain it to me. But that kind of stuff happens constantly and I love it. It makes me feel young.

Are you finding students wanting to put themselves in musical boxes? Are people more open-minded or are you helping them see beyond the box?

They do wonder about genres a lot. They have a lot of questions about, “if I do this, am I also allowed to do that?” Of course I tell them that there's no rules.

But at the same time, we live in an era where everything bleeds into everything else. In other words, there are these kids that are as influenced by Lana Del Rey, as they are by Radiohead, as they are unfortunately by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.[Laughs] They take all of these things equally.

They think everything is equally valid. Whereas, I grew up Gen X feeling like there's a list of things that I just hate. You know, “Never mix your Red Hot Chili Peppers with my non-shitty music because it'll ruin everything.” [Laughs]

Napa is a small town, but with a solid music community. Do you have any scholarly advice for musicians in a small town who think they might have to move to a big city to “make it?”

If you're coming up in Brooklyn, there's this sort of validation that comes from being in that scene. But I do feel more and more like there's value being given to folks coming out of [small towns]. I mean, Bob Dylan is from Hibbings, Minnesota or whatever.

I do think that the idea that you have to be in a big major market to be real is.. I don't think it's such a thing anymore. Though I'm teaching a lot of kids that are in New York City. So they're clearly, like me, they thought, “Oh man, if I want to do this for real, I have to be in the big city!”

I always felt a little bit of shame that we were from Dallas because Dallas isn't as cool as Austin or whatever. We did think about moving to Austin, but to be fair, coming up in Dallas let us be the biggest fish in this small pond.

It was really nurturing. We were fighting against the prevailing commercial aesthetic that is Dallas, Texas. It wound up being really useful for us because it gave us that hunger and the drive. We refused to just play the game and be cheesy and like the Dallas thing. So I felt like it was good for us.

I think that if you are from a small town, lean into it and make it a part of your story. Own it. 

The Old 97's will appear at the Napa Music Hall on August 4. Doors at 7pm. Show at 8pm. River Shook will open. Tickets will run $40 for standing room floor and $53 for the balcony. Tickets are available at the Napa Music Hall website.

More information on Old 97's please visit: https://old97s.com/