“Things are much, much better for me now,” says Steve Miller in his light Texan drawl.

Miller sips coffee and doesn’t smoke. Record company promo men hover in the background. The bluesrock sounds of Miller’s new album, Book Of Dreams, plays through a cheap hi-fi set up in this hotel room laid aside for a bout of interviews.

After all, the ball has to be kept rolling.

For, as Miller himself is perfectly aware, the San Francisco (Miller might have been born in Dallas, but his music is definitely West Coast San Francisco) singer-guitarist is now, after years of critical acclaim and cult status but only moderate commercial success, the apple of his record company’s eye with a triple platinum album and three hit singles Stateside behind him in the past year.

Says Miller:

“These days I’m in a position of power with Capitol. I can go in and talk to anybody at anytime about any sum of money, any kind of promo campaign I want.”

Big shot.

• “I’m the greatest guy in the world,” he adds with the realistic proviso, “until I stop selling records.”

He continues:

“You’d like to think your record company would see you through some of the thin times, but basically the way it works is if you’re successful, you’re terrific. If you’re not, you’re not.

“Somebody else is selling the rec? ords and they’re more interested in doing that. It’s business. So I try to take care of my business,”

Miller, 34 this October, is shrewd with a capital S. He manages himself and is proud of the fact that he spent a year renegotiating his recording deal with Capitol after the success of “The Joker” single and album had taken him completely by surprise in late 1973.

The Joker was Miller’s eighth album for Capitol in five years, ninth if you include a compilation album, Anthology.

Fronting a band that at various times included Boz Scaggs (who coincidently has only recently made it in the big seller stakes), bass supremo Lonnie Turner (the only musician who has stayed with Miller throughout his career) and keyboard marvel Nicky Hopkins, Steve Miller was one of the names who put San Francisco on the map during those acid crazed days of the late ’60s.^

With album titles like Children Of The Future and Brave New World, Miller’s music was a hybrid of clean SF psychedelia and crisp white blues, R&B and the occasional whiff of country, economic and characterized by Miller’s fondness for sound effects, a good sense of melody and a perfect white blues vocal—nasal and smooth as fine bourbon.

There were tlmes...when I was threatened by everything. I was just a rat like everybody else trying to get through.

Such music was certain to elicit the cult following it quickly did, but unlike his peers The Jefferson Airplane, Miller didn’t meet with a good deal of commercial success until 1973 when the entire “movement” had long since vanished.

Miller himself had only just recovered from a severe bout of hepatitis. He’d spent the previous seven years trekking around America playing the kind of touring schedules likely to turn men into morons and which often do. A hundred and fifty gigs a year, that kind of thing.

And it wasn’t unknown for Miller to lay awake at night wondering what the hell he was going to put on the next album. “All that hysterical pressure can really get to you,” he recalls.

As an album The Joker was by no means great, being more than a little on the unsubstantial side and hardly comparable with some of Miller’s previous triumphs, but the song itself was a certain smash—a good vocal hook and a bass riff almost as memorable as, say, Jack Bruce’s on Cream’s “Badge.”

And once Capitol had “Got on the case”—bingo—Steve Miller was now a commercial force to be reckoned with.

“It was a struggle for years with my record company,” Miller tells me. “Man, I spent seven years just going, ‘Hey man, c’mon, how about buying a radio ad? I’m gonna be in town at a’ sold-out concert.’ ‘Oh really?’ ” he mimics.

Miller wears upmarket chic army fatigues and a well-polished pair of deep brown cowboy boots. He has a moustache which looks as if it’s yet to make up its mind whether it’s coming or going.

This and the air of being perfectly in control/of his house and his notslight build puts me in mind of a slightly decadent but successful U.S. Army General. He’s also loquacious without being boring and admits to enjoying being interviewed.

In what other situation, he reasons, can a man come out with all this bullshit and not be told to shut up.

Indeed.

Moreover, Miller wears his success without a trace of conceit. There is nothing big time about Steve Miller, yet he is not a humble man. He also gives the impression of deriving a lot of satisfaction' from his life which seems to be remarkably in order.

He carries on with how Capitol. eventually stopped neglecting him.

“They thought I was an underground psychedelic weirdo for the first seven years I was there. They were sitting around complaining how they didn’t have anybody and this girl said—she was an assistant to an A&R man—‘You’ve got Steve Miller. Why don’t you work on him?’

“Capitol are great ones for signing English actswho’ve already broken up. They’d sign Flash. Everybody in the United States and England knew that the guitar player was leaving and the drummer was crazy or whatever and Capitol would announce that they’d just signed Flash, given them a three hundred thousand dollar advance and bought them two hundred dollars worth of this. They’d get into town, do four gigs and they’d be gone.

“The first time Capitol promoted me they got a platinum album.”

Miller wasn’t about to ignore the opportunity The Joker presented him with and put the word out that he wasn’t happy with his long-standing record company. He had meetings with several record company presidents in his search for a better deal.

Says Miller:

“Very few of those guys know anything about music. They’re accountants. They know how to take a box, put it in a truck, have it go to New York, have somebody pick it up...

“I was talking to Mo Astin (head of Warners in America) and I said to Mo, ‘Hey, you’re a big shot and you run a big record company, how do you find out who you should sign? I know why you want to sign me—because I’m visible. You know who I am.’

“He said, ‘Well, we hire ears.’ I asked him why he didn’t pay some guy 150,000 dollars a year to really find some talent. Just the thought of that kind of salary made him get really weak in the knees because corporations don’t deal that way.”

He mimics: “ ‘What? Pay somebody to work? You lost your mind?’

“These guys are responsible for bringing in 60 million dollars a year and they’re making 35 grand a year. It’s the corporate greed system. There are exceptions. Guys like David Geffen and Clive Davis who know the difference between shit and shineola, man.

“But a lot of these guys they get their jobs and their expense accounts and they live in L.A. or New York and their idea of having a good time is having dinner at the Cha Cha Cafe with a newly signed artiste. But as far as going out and finding new people...

“They don’t know.

“They prefer to deal with a set group of managers ’cause they’re easy to deal with. There’s nothing harder than finding a great group of musicians who has just a raving asshole for a manager,” he says with heavy sarcasm. “ ‘Who cares about the music? We can’t do business with these people.’ I just wonder how we got through from playing in little clubs to making records.

I'm the greatest guy In the world..Mnttl I stop selling records.

“It was a real struggle for us. I know that.”

There was a two-and-a-half year gap between the release of The Joker and Fly Like An Eagle, sales of which are now in the region of 3,800,000 worldwide; Eagle also sired three top ten hit singles: the title cut, “Take The Money And Run,” and “Rockin’ Me Baby.” To date Miller has earned between three and four million dollars from it.

The gap was because of Miller being exhausted from a hectic touring bout to promote The Joker and time taken up while he secured an improved deal from Capitol. In the interim he ditched Capitol for Europe and Australia and got himself a contract from Phonogram, who released Eagle a year ago in Britain.

And apart from an appearance at 1975’s Knebworth Festival in Britain Miller kept right away from gigging all year long. Prior to playing Knebworth he did some interviews. When I talked to him I was dismayed at the man’s disinterest, disinterest to the point of lethargy, in playing music. He seemed much more interested in playing golf than getting up onstage to play rock ’n’ roll.

When I put it to Miller that maybe he was doing the festival solely for the money, he disagreed outright. This time his rejection of that theory isn’t so adamant, even if he doesn’t come right out and say he played Knebworth so/e/y for the money, he does say it played a considerable part in persuading him to come to Britain and play.

“We didn’t even want to do it but Pink Floyd were so willing to pay us to come and do it. The idea was that when we told them how much money we wanted, they would refuse us ’cause I didn’t even have a band together.

“We brought all our friends along and our uncles and cousins. It was like a vacation. I went to Scotland and played golf. It was terrific. Probably of all the people who played Knebworth, I had more idea of what that show was about than anybody else. That’s why I did it the way I did it.

“When I heard about Knebworth I thought, right, it’s going to be cold, the sun’s going to be going down, the Pink Floyd’s going to totally control the PA. I’m gonna play nine rock ’n’ roll songs. I’m not going to come out with my acoustic guitar and play ‘Children Of The Future’.

“All I’m here for is to warm the joint up and do a rock ’n’ roll show. And it made it completely easy for me. I know that it was all I was going to be able to do.

“And true, while I was doing the show, the guy running the PA system was reading a book. What does he care? They’re making 300,000 dollars that night. This is one of the warm-up bands. That was the technical attitude.

“The way I see it, what groups like Pink Floyd are doing is like the Fourth of July. So much of their stuff is just effects. It’s a big event. They’re not there to hear music. They’re there to get stoned and buy dope and find girlfriends and be at the event and watch the fireworks go off and the film and the aeroplane fly overhead.

“Hell, I can’t compete with that. I’m a guitar player and a singer.”

The band Miller took with him to Knebworth was strictly a one-off affair and prior to plugging in had rehearsed for a mammoth three hours. On leaving the stage they disbanded —though the ubiquitous (at least when it comes to Miller’s music) Lonnie Turner is still a member of Miller’s combo.

Knebworth did rekindle his desire to get back to making music and Fly Like An Eagle followed a year later. He also met the girl he now lives with at Knebworth, working for promoter Fred Bannister. And the two of them run Miller’s recently purchased farm in Oregon where he is about to finish work on a 24-track studio and rehearsal hall.

TURN TO PAGE 69.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 50

Last year the Miller band played 26 dates, all of them American and most of them in small (5,000 seater) theatres.

Thirty tracks were laid down during the Eagle sessions (completed in just six weeks) and a follow-up album, compiled of those cuts which weren’t included on Eagle, was scheduled for release last autumn. However, the record was put back due to the continued success of Eagle; it remained in the top ten American album charts for over 40 weeks.

Despite this gargantuan success, Miller reckons record companies are still only discovering how to sell their records in vast quantities.

He reason?: “My album had sold a million by the fall. Then Capitol did some TV ads and sold another million albums in three months. I don’t see why 14 million albums shouldn’t be out of the question. Records are a very cheap form of entertainment.

“You consider what a hamburger and a glass of beer costs. You can almost buy an album for that*

“I’m really curious to see what would happen if they really got on it and advertised it.”

Unlike the success of The Joker, Eagle's success didn’t surprise him. On the contrary, he was surprised at the accuracy of his opinion of which songs would make the hit singles.

He says: “I feel I have a pretty good understanding of what a lot of people will like. Basically what I try to do when I make records is to make a record that I think people will really enjoy.”

And he says he-does this without compromising his integrity.

“I love making records. I love going into The studio and having an idea in my head and listening to it on a record later. Then after that I lose all interest in it. I haven’t listened to my new album once in the last .month.

“I have no idea whether my new album is better than the last one or not. I’ve lived with it for so long. I’ve gone through periods of hating it.”

From what I’ve heard of Book Of Dreams, it not surprisingly sounds very similar to F/y Like; An Eagle, an excellent if not classic record. As Miller says himself, he’s a craftsman.

“I know how to make records, produce records, sing lots of parts, and make this little thing that’s music.”

Miller knows how to fuse simplistic devices to maximum effect and isn’t happy just to continue making the same record year in and year out. For instance, on F/y Like An Eagle he. seemed at pains to avoid lead guitar overkill, instead mixing the rhythm guitar right up front, almost to the extent where it comes on like a solo instrument at times.

“I got really tired of playing lead guitar. My old hero Eric Clapton pretty much made most of those statements. Now it’s one size fits all. It’s your obligation to play lead guitar

in harmony now because your licks aren’t good enough by themselves. It’s all been done. It’s like the trumpet in the Forties.

“On F/y Like An Eagle I was more interested in using a synthesizer than a guitar and I found a real simple one that. I could operate that had stops on it instead of wires and that I didn’t need ai degree to work out how to turn it on.”

Part of the reason for Miller’s visit to Britain is to find a suitable place to come and play. He visited Hammersmith Odeon but wasn’t impressed and after his experience at the Rainbow a few years back when his PA blew up (“The roadies were having seizures,” he chuckles) is less than keen to return there. “I don’t want to play anywhere unless it sounds good. I don’t want nobody paying six bucks to see me play unless it sounds good. This time I play Britain I’ve got to bring my gear in and show you people what I do, what I’ve got up my way, so I figure I’m talking about between sixty and a hundred thousand dollars to come over here and do it and I’ll be damned if I’ll spend that kind of money and come to The Rainbow.

“I have to get my production together. I can’t just say,, ‘Sure I’ll go to New York and play Madison Square Garden, I’ve got my Music Man amp and gee, I hope the PA works,’ which is pretty much the way we always did it before.

“You have to understand when I go and play a concert I’m competing with Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Frampton, Pink Floyd, ELP. That’s like Walt Disney Productions.”

He raises his voice like a barker at a fair:

“Send over two million dollars of lasers!

“I’ll probably be taking my first real production out in the fall.” .

Surely you’re not going to come on with the old dry ice, I grin.

“Yeah, I’m really tempted to bring back the strobe light,” he says with irony. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, man.”

He chuckles.

Finally, Steve. You’re obviously very business conscious. Would you do it if the business wasn’t there?

“You can’t pull it off for 20 years unless you’re into it. If it was a totally socialist state and I had the choice of playing my guitar and making records for my dinner, sure.”

And now in his early thirties, he doesn’t feel threatened by younger guys?

“I know 11 chords on the guitar, man. I can’t read or write music. If I was going to feel threatened, I’j be threatened all the time.

“I have a lot of confidence in my ability to make records, to write songs, to put a band together, my taste. And I developed that over a period of years. There were times in my life when I was threatened by everything. I was just a rat like everybody else trying to get through.

“There are a lot of other big groups that feel threatened. I feel like I can make music for the rest of my life. I might not sell three million albums and be the sweetheart of all the 14year-olds in the world, you know, or whatever it is.

“I’ve been doing it for 22 years now [Miller is fond of these kinds of raps, but they’re good copy]. Most guys you meet started playing lead guitar when they were 17 years old and they’re 23 and they’re making a million dollars and they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.

“They think they’re rock ’n’ roll stars.

“I guess I’m a rock ’n’ roll star in the eyes of America right now because my name is everywhere. But you know, man, I live on a farm. I go fishing. J ride a horse. I don’t function very good when I’m going to bed at four o’clock and getting up at one. When I’m at home I get up early and I sleep about six hours.

“That’s not the most glamorous life in the world. I go through periods when I don’t feel like doing anything.

I get so sick of record contracts, of touring.

“The idea is to organize it so I enjoy doing what I’m doing. I work probably five times harder than anyone I know. My projects are just unending...” ¶|^ Reprint courtesy of New Musical Express.