Town Mountain, John R. Miller

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Thomas Crabtree

A close-up of John R. Miller.

John R. Miller

This worthy double bill features a band that blurs alt-country, bluegrass and honky-tonk (with pinches of rock) and a singer-songwriter whose intimate material sounds warm and familiar from the get-go. There’s an added poignancy to Town Mountain shows these days. The band formed nearly 20 years ago in Asheville, N.C. — which was ravaged by Hurricane Helene in September — and played an Election Day benefit for communities in the Appalachian region before heading to the upper Midwest. Town Mountain’s performances also often include unlikely but compelling Dire Straits and Bruce Springsteen covers. Nashville-based John R. Miller, meanwhile, released Heat Comes Down last year, on which he delivers cosmic country, laid-back honky-tonk and plenty in between. These two artists are perfectly paired for a late-fall Madison evening.

media release: John R. Miller belongs to the rare breed of songwriters whose expansive introspection uncovers so many truths about the state of the human condition. On his new album Heat Comes Down, the West Virginia-raised, Nashville-based artist intimately narrates his sleepless nights and nostalgic daydreams, existential dread, and nuanced observations of the troubled world around him. But while a number of its songs convey a certain unease, Miller endlessly imparts the kind of lovely reassurance that can only come from shared catharsis. “Whenever I’ve got a lot of thoughts bouncing around my head, alchemizing that energy into something creative helps take the gravity out of them and quiets them down for a while,” says Miller. “For me this album is largely about anxiety in many forms: the things that cause it, what it causes in turn, and the moments of clarity in between. Listening back to it now, most of the songs seem like they’re trying to answer the questions I’ve been asking myself.”

The follow-up to his 2021 Rounder Records debut Depreciated—an album hailed by SPIN for its “refreshingly raw honesty, reflectiveness, and the undeniable beauty in discovery and growth”—Heat Comes Down finds Miller teaming up with producers Andrija Tokic and John James Tourville (both known for their work with artists like Sunny War and The Deslondes). Over a three day session at The Bomb Shelter (Tokic’s Nashville studio), Miller joined forces with several members of his longtime live band (drummer John Clay Burchett, guitarist J. Tom Hnatow, fiddle player Chloe Edmonstone) as well as bassist Craig Burletic and Jeff Taylor (a multi-instrumentalist whose credits include Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello). With its understated but gorgeously detailed convergence of country and folk-rock, Heat Comes Down hits with a potent impact despite its exquisite intricacy—a dynamic suited to an artist whose background includes playing in punk bands in high school and touring as a member of an old-time string band in his 20s. “I think the feeling in the room heavily contributes to the feeling of a record, and that room was full of people I love very much,” Miller points out. “We all felt free to open up and fool around and experiment with different ideas, which helped us create something that hopefully feels warm and inviting to everyone.” 

On the album-opening “Nobody Has to Know Your Mind,” Miller immediately draws the audience deep into his inner world, offering up a gently swinging cosmic-country tune etched with his self-aware humor (from the second verse: “Give me a mile, I’ll take an inch/Give me a shovel, I can dig my own ditch”). “In my more socially anxious moments, it’s easy to feel like my thoughts are written all over me,” he says. "That song is essentially a reminder to get out of my own head and be more present with whatever's going on in the room."

Composed after a head-clearing walk in a nearby park, “Nobody Has to Know Your Mind” unfolds in lush pedal-steel tones and luminous fiddle melodies as Miller takes in the more extraordinary elements of his surroundings (singing frogs, low-flying passenger planes), slowly transforming the song’s title into a soul-soothing mantra. By the time the track closes out, Miller has made an unequivocal case for enchantment as an antidote to anxiety, all while casting his own strange spell on the listener.

That spell endures all throughout Heat Comes Down, thanks in large part to Miller’s lived-in yet poetic storytelling and naturalistic vocal work. On “Ditcher,” he delivers a disarming piece of self-reflection owning up to his avoidant tendencies, including the sweetly sardonic bit of confession that lent the album its title (“When the pressure’s on and the heat comes down/You won’t find me hangin’ around/Gone lookin’ for higher ground/From which to fall”). “I’d been awake about 36 hours when that one came about,” Miller reveals. “I was demoing some songs in the basement, and once I start digging into a project like that I lose all track of time. The song came to me quickly and I recorded it right away and left it mostly unchanged, which is definitely an anomaly for me.”

Later, on “Conspiracies, Cults, and UFOs,” Heat Comes Down turns sublimely frenetic as Miller unleashes a feverish diatribe he sums up as “part road ode, part yelling into the void about the things people will believe just because they’re told to.” “I’m not a conspiracy-theorist myself, but I’ve always been fascinated by what people get into their heads and obsess over,” he says. “It used to seem funny to me, but now I mostly find it alarming—especially as it’s becoming more and more difficult for people to discern what’s true and what isn’t.” Fueled by Miller’s motormouth vocal delivery and a glorious triple-guitar attack (courtesy of Hnatow, Tourville, and Miller himself), “Conspiracies, Cults, and UFOs” reaches a hair-raising peak at the bridge, when Taylor lays down the most explosive piano solo this side of Jerry Lee Lewis. “We did most of the album live to tape, but with that one we needed a second take with just the band,” Miller recalls. “I got to sit in the control room and watch, and when Jeff did that piano part I involuntarily shouted.”

The most unabashedly autobiographical track on Heat Comes Down, “Basements” emerged as Miller looked back on his life as a working musician and occasionally unearthed fragments of insight (“We were unrepentant trouble, cynical and self-righteous/Black Labels in the moonlight underneath the ancient cypress/They make off with what you sow/But you can’t reap what you still owe”). “I started touring when I was 20 and did it for so long that being transient became the default mode,” he says. “When everything shut down, I had to take a look at what I’d been doing with my life, and that song helped me compartmentalize all the different phases I’d been through.” Originally written as an attempt at self-understanding, “Basements” sets that unfiltered reminiscence against a hypnotic sonic backdrop layered with otherworldly details (the dreamy chime of glockenspiel, the shadowy tones of a ’70s-era electronic keyboard known as the Optigan). “It was really more of a journal entry, but people encouraged me to put it on the album even though I’m uncomfortable with how naked the lyrics feel,” says Miller. “I guess sometimes you just have to live with your discomfort.”

Raised in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, Miller first started honing his singular songwriting voice as a teenager, in between playing gigs at local church halls with his various garage bands. In his late teens, he crossed paths with a group of musicians who introduced him to traditional fiddle music, which proved to be pivotal in his growth as an artist. “There was a whole world I didn’t know about, and I got to learning about all these folk tunes that had been passed down orally for generations,” he says. “My first touring group was a string band; we drove around in a Dodge Caravan for quite a few years, playing square dances and bluegrass festivals and a whole lot of bars. Part of the beauty of that music is it’s not easily commercialized—it’s about sharing tunes and knowledge, and it made me realize that music is meant to be a communal act.” During that same era, Miller had another major breakthrough upon discovering the music of John Prine. “Hearing John Prine for the first time made me rethink what a song could be, and showed me how you could have a profound impact on someone just by virtue of sharing a simple story or experience they might relate to,” he says. “The life I’m living now started then—it was a real awakening moment.”

For the closing track to Heat Comes Down, Miller selected the very first song he’d written for the album. Lit up in bright rhythms and radiant harmonies (supplied by an all-female trio of backing vocalists), “Press On” imparts a spirited message of perseverance despite its weary undercurrent. “I wrote ‘Press On’ in summer 2020 after not writing all year,” he says. “I was just trying to get back into a routine, which in a way is what the song is about: that need to continually relearn how to tie your own shoes. It felt like an optimistic way to close the album, and that was important to me.” To that end, Miller hopes that Heat Comes Down might ultimately provide his audience with something of a salve. “As much as this record is about anxiety and fear and trepidation, I think it’s also about love,” he says. "My hope is that there's some universality in the specifics of the songs, and that people find comfort in knowing that someone else feels just the same way they do.”

Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, Town Mountain is the sum of all its vast and intricate influences — this bastion of alt-country rebellion and honky-tonk attitude pushed through the hardscrabble Southern Appalachian lens of its origin.

“For us, it’s all about the interaction between the audience and the band — doing whatever we can onstage to facilitate that two-way street of energy and emotion,” says mandolinist Phil Barker. “Whether it’s a danceable groove or a particular lyric in a song, we’re projecting what we’re going through in our daily lives, and we feel that other people can attest to that, as well — it’s all about making that connection.”

Amid a renewed sense of self is the group’s latest album, “Lines in the Levee,” a collage of sound and scope running the gamut of the musical spectrum in the same template of freedom and focus found in the round-robin fashion of the musical institution that is The Band — a solidarity also found in the incendiary live shows Town Mountain is now revered for from coast-to-coast, this devil-may-care gang of strings and swagger.

“This is the sound we’ve been working towards since the inception of the band,” says guitarist Robert Greer. “We realized we needed to do what’s best for us. We’re being true to ourselves. It isn’t a departure, it’s an evolution — the gate is wide open right now.”

“We’ve always had such a reverence and respect for those first and second-generation bluegrass bands, and it was that sound that initially inspired all of us to get together,” Barker adds. “And that will always be part of our sound. But, we also need to grow as artists, and as individuals — for us, that means bringing in a wider palette of sonic influences.”

Formed by Greer and banjoist Jesse Langlais over 15 years ago on a ridge high above the Asheville skyline, the sturdy foundation of Town Mountain came into play with the addition of Barker not long into the band’s tenure. From there, the group pulled in fiddle virtuoso Bobby Britt and bassist Zach Smith. And though the road has been long, it’s also been bountiful.

“It’s definitely been a slow climb. But, it’s been a climb nonetheless, where each new opportunity is filled with a sense of gratitude — to be able to make music, to be able to play music with your friends,” Barker says. “And to be able to bring music to the people, and have them want to show up and listen to it? Well, we’re thankful for that every single day.”                                  

“Lines in the Levee” also marks the band’s debut album release for famed Nashville label, New West Records. Well-known and championed as a fiercely independent act, the members of Town Mountain felt an immediate kinship with the record label — this genuine bond of creative fulfillment and sustained artistic growth to ensure the long game for the ensemble.

“We’ve always wanted to have a relationship with a label that felt right, and New West felt right,” Langlais says. “New West came to some of our shows and the ball started rolling. They knew they wanted to work with us, and we knew we wanted to work with them. New West lets the artist steer the ship and that’s what we were looking for — to have the autonomy to do what we want, but also have a great label behind us.”

Recorded at Ronnie’s Place (part of the Sound Stage Studios) on Music Row in the heart of Nashville, “Lines in the Levee” is a bona fide workshop in the seamless blend of Americana, country, bluegrass and folk roots — this crossroads of deep influences and cultivated visions each member of Town Mountain brings to the table.

“The studio has been part of Nashville for over 50 years, and there’s a certain mojo that comes from a space like that — you’re literally stepping into history and that history is in the air when you hit the record button,” Langlais says.

The album also cements the standing of drummer Miles Miller (of Sturgill Simpson musical lore) a creative force of nature, one who throws several more logs of ideas and inspiration onto the fire that burns brightly within the group — onstage and in the studio.

“When we were looking to add percussion to our sound, Miles was the guy we wanted. We’ve been good friends for a long time, and it just seemed like the natural fit to have him join us,” Greer says. “He’s a fantastic drummer who really elevates the music so high. And he truly understands how to bring drums into a string band setting, something not a lot of people can do.”

“Lines in the Levee” is also a moment in time for Town Mountain to take pause and glance over its shoulder at the road to the here and now. It’s this whirlwind blur of people, places and things that fly by, especially when your hardscrabble existence is spent along that lost highway — bouncing from town to town, show to show, all in an effort to turn long-held dreams into a daily reality.

“Right from the beginning, it’s always been about camaraderie and the creation of something unique, where we haven’t let any of the bumps on the music business road get us down too much,” Langlais says. “And I think we feel really comfortable with where the Town Mountain sound is right now — that’s a damn good feeling.”For more information, please visit Town Mountain's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.