FORMED in Joplin, Missouri about 2005, The Ben Miller Band grew out of an open-mic night hosted by Washington born Miller. The guitarist and banjo player began playing with musicians Doug Dicharry (percussion) and Scott Leeper (bass). The Ben Miller Band call their music ‘Ozark Stomp’, a gritty version of blues, bluegrass, folk and country.
The “gritty” comes from Ben Miller using a telephone microphone beside his conventional mic and Doug Dicharry’s array of distortion pedals that invigorate his sound on washboard and electric spoons.
To fully appreciate what The Ben Miller Band do, they have to be witnessed live.
On scoring a tour support slot in 2013 with 80s’ rockers ZZ Top, the band received rave reviews including this nugget from ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons: “I don’t remember having stood through an opening act’s show in quite sometime but I couldn’t seem to leave, they were that engaging.”
The current album from The Ben Miller Band is ‘Any Way, Shape or Form’. It has raised the band’s profile, combining the urgency of rock and roll, frenetic energy of bluegrass and the haunted spirit of Appalachian mountain music into a unique musical stew. It was produced by Vance Powell (Jack White, Kings of Leon, Wanda Jackson) at Sputnik Studios in Nashville.
The Ben Miller Band play Kasbah Social Club, Dolan’s this Wednesday July 29.
