When Miles Miller kicked off a fall tour as a bandleader and frontman singing from behind a drum kit, he was breaking new ground for himself, so he came up with a simple measure for the audiences’ response. “If girls start shakin’ their asses, you’re doing something right,” Miller deadpans. He’s talking to me in late September, days after he premiered music from his album Mr. Runaway during a set at the behemoth Bourbon and Beyond festival in Louisville.
Miller had been close to this position before, with an important distinction. The 11-track Mr. Runaway marks the second solo project for the Kentucky native — whose job playing drums for Sturgill Simpson often casts a shadow over Miller’s own career. He recorded and released Solid Gold in 2023 with a solo tour that included dates opening for Tyler Childers and featured Miller in a traditional frontman spot, playing guitar and singing at the center of the stage. However, Mr. Runaway is full of musical and melodic curveballs. Miller decided any shows in the wake of the record needed to be full-band experiences led by him from behind the drums.
“The only thing I really had to compare all of this to was — well, it was a couple of things,” Miller says. “One was Sturgill’s world, but the other one was my first record and touring off it. I was out front with a guitar, which is all well and good. That’s the way you sing a song. But I struggled to find a groove with all that. This time around, I was singing and playing drums. I don’t know why I put that off forever.
“Just immediately, I think the fans’ perspective was, ‘Oh, wow! How can he do that? It’s incredible.’ I think that when I see some shit like that, too. You’ve got the wow factor. You have to sing completely different. You have to play completely different. I don’t even really get to enjoy it because I’m just working so damn hard to play the show.”
When Miller released Solid Gold, Simpson was on a hiatus. He’d taken a break from touring in 2021 and Miller considered pivoting to a solo career. But when Simpson returned in 2024 as Johnny Blue Skies, Miller remained behind the kit. It was a blessing for Miller. He and Simpson are close friends, and Simpson produced both Mr. Runaway and Solid Gold.
Miller played drums on Simpson’s 2024 Passage du Desir record as Johnny Blue Skies. Around that time, he started writing a series of his own tunes, heavily focused on a recent breakup. Simpson took interest.
“He was the one that kind of pulled all of this out of me in the beginning,” Miller tells Rolling Stone. “He knew I wrote some songs, and he was always asking me what my notebook was looking like. He kind of got the train rolling.”
The result was a record drawing heavily on funk and rock sounds and country lyrics alternating between processing breakup and solitude.
“I’d been kind of all by myself for years,” Miller says. “I’d moved back home to Kentucky for the winter, because I was kind of in between places. I’d been in Texas for a little bit. I’ve lived in Nashville for most of my adult life. The feeling was just like, ‘I’m back home. I’m all alone. I’ve run away from all these things that were kind of in my past life, and I’m moving on.’ A lot of it was just that — holed up in a house. As cliche as it is, you think about all the shit that you just went through, and put it to words. There’s some moments of ‘Fuck you,’ and there’s some moments of ‘I miss you,’ and all that’s in between. It’s smiling and dancing through the pain.”
Miller describes the record as edgier and funkier than his previous work. He and Simpson drew heavily upon the late J.J. Cale’s influence during the production process, often featuring the double vocals that Cale embraced in his own music. Miller says that technique helped create a headspace for Mr. Runaway that matched the album’s rambling vibe.
This is clear from the first song, which is also the title track and finds Miller reckoning with loneliness and his tendency to avoid conflict.
“Let’s see if I can not get myself in trouble or have my ex-girlfriend come after me,” he says. “I had that riff written when I was ending my marriage, and then I had another relationship end. And I went, ‘I’m just running away from all this. If I don’t like something, I’m just running away from it.’ And I gave myself that nickname: Mr. Runaway. But it also just has this cockiness to it, about this guy who’s a rambler and he’s gotta keep on truckin’. No matter how much someone begs him to stay, running away is what makes him feel alive. It is definitely autobiographical.”
Aside from debuting the record at Bourbon and Beyond — during a set he described as starting with maybe 60 people in the crowd, “and I probably knew 50 of them,” and ending with a few hundred — Miller toured this fall as an opener for JJ Grey & Mofro. He grew into his frontman role behind the drums and intends to build upon the experience. But this time, unlike 2023, he’s not angling to leave Simpson’s outfit and set out on his own. Of course, if that happens, he’s not going to fight it, but Miller is expecting to live dual musical lives.
“In today’s world, it’s fucking chaos to feel like you’re getting anywhere,” he says. “I think this record was perceived better than the first in different ways. I want to do this as my own thing. I understand people think of me, if they ever do, as Sturgill’s drummer. That’s great, and that’s what I am. But I have a whole other side that needs to get out whether I want it to or not.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.