Howlin Rain

Rooted in the relaxed yet potent rhythms of 1970s West Coast rock, Howlin Rain marked a shift for guitarist and vocalist Ethan Miller after his time leading the psychedelic noise rock group Comets on Fire. Drawing from 1960s and 1970s classic rock, vintage prog, and the Grateful Dead, the band built a devoted following through its richly hallucinatory textures and Miller’s introspective songwriting. Their breakthrough arrived with the second album, Magnificent Fiend, in 2008; the first of three LPs meant to trace an artistic progression came with Mansion Songs in 2015, and the sequence concluded with the expansive The Dharma Wheel in 2021.

Following the 2006 recording of Comets on Fire’s final album Avatar, Miller sought to pursue the melodic leanings the band had started to develop. Teaming with bassist Ian Gradek, a high-school acquaintance, and drummer John Moloney of Sunburned Hand of the Man, he launched Howlin Rain. The group has tracked material intermittently amid an ever-shifting roster; Miller also plays in Heron Oblivion, Feral Ohms, and the Odyssey Cult.

Birdman Records issued the self-titled debut in 2006, after which the band toured as support for Queens of the Stone Age with guitarist Mike Jackson augmenting the live lineup. Once that album’s touring ended, Moloney rejoined Sunburned Hand of the Man. While preparing songs for the next Howlin Rain record, Miller assembled a revised lineup that included Jackson and Gradek alongside Joel Robinow, formerly of Drunk Horse, handling keyboards, horns, guitar, and backing vocals; Eli Eckert, also from Drunk Horse, on guitar and bass; and Garrett Goddard of Cuts and Colossal Yes on drums.

Impressed by the songs for the second album, Rick Rubin—known for his affinity with classic 1970s rock—oversaw its joint release on Birdman and his American Recordings label as Magnificent Fiend in 2008. The digital-only 12-inch “The Good Life” followed in 2010, with a limited vinyl edition appearing the next year. In 2010 Belle & Sebastian invited the band to play the second Bowlie Weekender in the U.K., an All Tomorrow’s Parties event. Howlin Rain then cut their third album, The Russian Wilds, co-produced with Tim Green and issued by American Recordings/Birdman in early 2012; live recordings from that tour surfaced in 2014 as Live Rain. At that point Miller was already developing a trilogy. Mansion Songs, its opening chapter, arrived in January 2015.

After nearly two years of steady touring, Miller formed yet another configuration—Daniel Cervantes on bottleneck slide guitar, Jeff McElroy on bass, and Justin Smith on drums—for the trilogy’s second installment, The Alligator Bride. Eric “King Riff” Bauer recorded the sessions live to tape in one or two takes without overdubs, aiming to evoke the atmosphere of the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72, Mountain Bus’ Sundance, and Free’s 1969 album Fire and Water. Miller described the record’s style as “Neal Casady Rock,” nodding to the Beat Generation’s unofficial patron saint. Silver Current Records, Miller’s own imprint, released The Alligator Bride in June 2018.

While fans waited for the trilogy’s finale, the band issued several archival sets between 2019 and 2021: Under the Wheels: Live from the Coasts, Vol. 1 in 2019 and Under the Wheels, Vol. 2 in 2020, both drawn from road recordings; Lost at Sea in 2020, a collection of rare and unreleased studio tracks; and 2021’s S/T Demos, featuring Miller’s original cassette sketches for the first album’s songs. The Mansion Songs series reached completion in November 2021 with The Dharma Wheel.