Biography
The Ben Miller Band originated around 2005 after an open-mic night in Joplin, Missouri, yielded an enduring creative partnership. Raised in rural Washington before studying art in Philadelphia, Miller had settled into hosting those weekly gatherings in his adopted Missouri town when he connected with percussionist Doug Dicharry and bassist Scott Leeper. Onstage Miller handles guitar in both slide and fingerstyle approaches, along with banjo, harmonica, and lead vocals while also supplying the group’s original material. Dicharry concentrates on drums, washboard, and electric spoons yet also contributes trombone and mandolin, and both he and Leeper supply harmony vocals. Leeper anchors the low end on a custom single-string washtub bass built from a weed-eater line stretched between an inverted tub and a pole; the instrument’s resonant tone is amplified by an internal pickup system. He occasionally strikes an antique fire bell converted into a drum instead.
Their music fuses gritty contemporary takes on blues, bluegrass, folk, and country traditions. Early on the members labeled the hybrid “Ozark Stomp” to honor local roots, but later adopted “Mudstomp” once they aligned with the similarly focused Mudstomp label. In 2010 the group issued two fourteen-track collections on that imprint—1 Ton on 10 June and 2 Ton on 5 August—drawn from an extensive backlog of songs that continued to evolve in the studio; despite the proximity of their release dates and matching lengths, the albums diverge sharply and illustrate the band’s range.
Miller and his bandmates also experiment with unconventional gear. Miller routes his voice through both a conventional microphone and the handset of an old landline telephone, the latter feeding into a trunk he strikes with a drum pedal while a tambourine attached to his opposite foot provides additional percussion. Dicharry carries a collection of distortion pedals that reshape the sounds of his washboard and electric spoons. On 22 May 2011 the musicians were in Lawrence, Kansas, preparing for a show when a tornado devastated Joplin; they established a nonprofit to aid recovery and released the benefit album Record for Joplin, followed in 2012 by Heavy Load on CD Baby.
After touring in support of that record, the band earned an opening slot with ZZ Top during summer 2013. Strong notices from those dates led to a late-year signing with New West. Recorded in Nashville under producer Vance Powell—whose prior credits include sessions with Jack White, Kings of Leon, Wanda Jackson, and Buddy Guy—Any Way, Shape or Form appeared in early August 2014. In January 2018 the group returned with its second New West album, Choke Cherry Tree, now featuring a revised lineup that replaced Dicharry with multi-instrumentalists Rachel Ammons and Smilin’ Bob Lewis, previously of Tyrannosaurus Chicken.
Their music fuses gritty contemporary takes on blues, bluegrass, folk, and country traditions. Early on the members labeled the hybrid “Ozark Stomp” to honor local roots, but later adopted “Mudstomp” once they aligned with the similarly focused Mudstomp label. In 2010 the group issued two fourteen-track collections on that imprint—1 Ton on 10 June and 2 Ton on 5 August—drawn from an extensive backlog of songs that continued to evolve in the studio; despite the proximity of their release dates and matching lengths, the albums diverge sharply and illustrate the band’s range.
Miller and his bandmates also experiment with unconventional gear. Miller routes his voice through both a conventional microphone and the handset of an old landline telephone, the latter feeding into a trunk he strikes with a drum pedal while a tambourine attached to his opposite foot provides additional percussion. Dicharry carries a collection of distortion pedals that reshape the sounds of his washboard and electric spoons. On 22 May 2011 the musicians were in Lawrence, Kansas, preparing for a show when a tornado devastated Joplin; they established a nonprofit to aid recovery and released the benefit album Record for Joplin, followed in 2012 by Heavy Load on CD Baby.
After touring in support of that record, the band earned an opening slot with ZZ Top during summer 2013. Strong notices from those dates led to a late-year signing with New West. Recorded in Nashville under producer Vance Powell—whose prior credits include sessions with Jack White, Kings of Leon, Wanda Jackson, and Buddy Guy—Any Way, Shape or Form appeared in early August 2014. In January 2018 the group returned with its second New West album, Choke Cherry Tree, now featuring a revised lineup that replaced Dicharry with multi-instrumentalists Rachel Ammons and Smilin’ Bob Lewis, previously of Tyrannosaurus Chicken.
Albums