Next Wave #674: Tor Miller

Songwriting with a real sense of ambition...

There's a certain romance to the Jersey shore area that time and reality television can't quite diminish.

It's a place of dreams, of fables, of late night Frank Sinatra escapades. It's also where Tor Miller made his bones, a fresh-faced high school musician eager to learn his trade. “I started playing in bands around the Jersey shore area, throughout high school and whatnot – putting out EPs and playing around,” he says, simply. “And then it wasn't until college time, when everyone split up that I decided I would do my own thing. I moved to New York again, for college. I did that for a couple of years, I was playing bars and burlesque places in the city for a long time, and then now, recently, I've formed a band again – ready to do on tour, and whatnot.”

Coming full circle has enabled Tor Miller to take full advantage of his experience. “Well, live music is where I came from, it's my upbringing and everything and so, I've always found that variety is the key to a great set, so I implement that throughout my music and my Eps and albums that I work on. I don't want anything to ever be streamlined or samey, I need the peaks and the low points.”

Snapped up by Glassnote, Tor Miller's material has enabled him to open for the likes of James Bay and George Ezra during high profile Stateside shows. It's a sign of his ambition – these are songs, designed to be heard, to be savoured by a big audience. “David Bowie was huge for me, Elton John was huge for me. Those were the guys who got me to start writing music. It was a world I could partake in.”

“There's a cinematic quality to those things, and I've always been drawn to that,” he says. “On this record I think a lot of the strings, the horns, the arrangements were written for those songs, so it's just become this otherworldly thing. It takes on its own vibe. I hope that my music can have that affect on people. I think we've created a great storyline, and it's very much about New York City and my experiences in it. Hopefully, you could be transported into that mindset.”

Set to release his debut album later this year, each track Tor Miller puts his name to comes attached with some intense personal feeling. “There's always a piece of me in every song, there's always a story that comes through, mixed with a bit of fiction, and the experiences that the people around me have lived, so it all comes together in one. Which is what I like.”

“I think that when you really have a connection with a piece of music… in my case, it's the lyrics that have really brought you in,” he continues. “That's that final connection that you have, and it's the most important. When someone feels that a songwriter is speaking from their own perspective and their experience then you can develop this para-personal relationship and I think that's the strongest connection you have.”

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Photo Credit: Andre Wagner

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