Ozark Stomp with the Cool Kids: An Interview with the Ben Miller Band

Joplin, Missouri-based Ben Miller Band’s sound is a hard-driving blend of bluegrass, delta blues and Appalachian mountain music delivered with a punk rock punch. The trio uses lo-tech and largely self-built instruments to achieve its sound, everything from a cigar box guitar and electric spoons to a washtub bass made of a single string of nylon stretched on a wooden pole. The band formed in 2004, and has toured the world with Texas rock legends ZZ Top in addition to headlining its own tours.

Lead vocalist Ben Miller says the band’s unusual array of instruments is the result of wanting just the right sound. “I think it’s more a byproduct of just any means necessary to get a sound. It wasn’t like ‘I’m going to get a cigar box and it’s going to sound like this, or spoons and they’re going to do this.’ To me, it seems more like, ‘the spoons sound like this. Should we throw it away, or should we keep it,’” he explained, laughing.

“These are old instruments,” percussionist and horn player, Doug Dicharry commented. “We saw somebody do it from the past, and we were like ‘that’s amazing. They’re just playing junk and the sound is phenomenal.’”

BMB’s Scott Leeper plays a homemade, one-string washtub bass, from which he coaxes an amazing range of sound. Leeper started his musical life as a drummer, and he still pitches in on percussion during shows when Dicharry is off playing horns or any number of other items from his instrument arsenal. “I saw one [washtub bass] that had a weed eater sting on it, and I noticed that it has a really good tone,” Leeper says of his conversion to bass player. “So, I went home and made one.”

When the band hears something they like, they bring it into the mix. “I think we’re almost at capacity in the van,” Dicharry noted. “But I love sounds, so if there’s room to get it there…,” he laughed. “Like I’d love to bring out a tuba. We have a cello. It’s just there for whoever wants to learn to play it first.”

When he’s not singing, Miller wails on harmonica. His banjo riffs and guitar add to the band’s high-energy performance. Originally a visual artist, Miller came to music later in life. “I didn’t pick up music when I was young.” It was his interest in the songs themselves that eventually drew him in. “I just really liked music. I had probably 100 songs just memorized in my head, and all the words. I had a guitar, so I just started to imitate them as best I could figure out and get a little more insight into what the people that made that music were feeling. Just trying to get closer in touch with what I really loved, which was like this old American mountain music, delta blues stuff that just blew me away.”

Miller basically learned to play the instruments on his own, without the benefit of lessons. “I think I’m probably below average as far as learning how to do that stuff,” he laughed. “But it wasn’t like work. Even if I didn’t sound like them, I kind of felt like I was learning, in some way, their footsteps, in a little bit closer contact to who these people were. It informed the music to struggle with it.”

According to Miller, music, like art, has more meaning when you know the story. “I think that any art is so much more powerful that way. Like van Gogh’s paintings. If you know his story, it has so much more weight when you see him paint himself with his bandaged up ear. That same thing is important with music. I wanted to learn these people’s stories and the songs’ stories, as well. These songs have been passed down and handed around for so long and have gone through so many permutations. It really informed the music, and in an instinctual way, touched me.”

While the bandmembers themselves find it hard to articulate exactly what their music is, the band’s DIY approach, it’s finely crafted songs, and its raucous live shows have won it a very loyal following that continues to grow show by show. “I usually just highlight some of the more interesting instruments we play, so that they’re intrigued,” Dicharry said. “I tell them we call it ‘Ozark Stomp’, and then I tell them to tell me after the show what they think. We’re kind of inside doing it, so it’s hard to really play and reflect at the same time. There’s no time for it. You’re on to the next note. Just a flow, a stream of consciousness.”

Miller agreed. “It’s like looking at yourself in the mirror every day. You just forget. If someone asked, ‘what do you look like,” you could say how tall you are and what color hair you have, but you can’t really describe yourself. It’s a really hard thing to put across.”

BMB’s 2014 release, Any Way, Shape or Form, like the band itself, is a seamless, heady blend of old and new. From the opening banjo chords of “Outsider”, an intense, hypnotic, bluegrass anthem, to the jazzy “23 Skidoo” and the waltzing “Prettiest Girl”, the album is packed with unique, beautifully fashioned songs and skillful musicianship. The band seems to put a premium on authenticity, both in its instruments and its lyrics, and the “outsider” theme runs through several of the album’s tracks.

“I think it’s sort of an anxiety about not wanting to be compromised,” Miller commented. “What you should be aiming for isn’t acceptance into something.” According to Miller, it’s often this desire to fit in that leads people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. “I think it happens in country clubs; it happens all over the place. It happens in music all the time. People subvert their pure human drive to fit in with the group, and it ends up tasting like a group. I don’t feel like there’s a human behind it. I feel like it’s a committee. I can’t relate to a committee. I relate to the insecurities and vulnerabilities and the great things about a person, but a committee, it’s almost a machine.” For more information on BMB and a tour schedule, check out the band’s website.

*Photo credit Paul Moore