Interview With TJ Miller of Still Remains
September 28th, 2007 by Stephanie Stevens
“It’s been a lot of hard work, but was worth every minute” confesses guitarists Jordan Whelan of the Grand Rapids, MI. band STILL REMAINS. THE SERPENT, is what was worth all the hard work. The band’s sophomore disc for Roadrunner Records has brought out not only a growth musically for the band in which has a full unit the members collaborating on pretty much every track on this disc. But with music comes songwriter and vocals and T.J. Miller, the bands frontman has grown as a writer and was able to give a good push to evolving as a vocalist as well. You can hear it on songs like the new single STAY CAPTIVE or SLEEPLESS NIGHTS ALONE. If you want to hear diversity look into tracks like DANCING WITH THE ENEMY or the moody and darker MARIA. STILL REMAINS have maintained the foundation they worked so hard to create but have improved in all the right areas.
So, finally I got to meet in person T.J. Miller when he and his band dropped into Worcester, Ma. on the Aiden Tour. T.J. was a bit broken from an exciting night onstage in Chicago where he badly hurt his foot, so Mr. T.J. “Cane” Miller and I hobbled to his van to discuss his personal lyrics, how he approaches his career as a singer and got some incite on the new album THE SERPENT.
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I REREAD OUR LAST INTERVIEW TOGETHER AND WE CHATTED ABOUT WHAT YOU GUYS WERE WORKING ON FOR THIS NEW ALBUM. LETS GO THROUGH THE ASPECTS AND SEE IF YOU CHANGED OR STAYED TRUE TO WHAT YOU WERE FEELING BACK IN MARCH 06
TJ: OK
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DIFFERENT TEMPOS?
TJ: Yeah, we definitely used a lot of different tempos
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DRUM LOOPS?
TJ: Well, we did not use drum loops and I wanted to do some different types of like industrial things on the album with like some really cool fake drums. We didn’t get to do that but we talk about it all the time, we might do it on the next record, we don’t know.
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EXOTIC SOUNDS? I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU WERE GOING WITH THAT, BUT
TJ: I don’t know either but I think maybe I was thinking more in terms of more beautiful sounds, harmonies, vocal harmonies, I think we did that with a couple of the songs.
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DO YOU THINK YOU MADE YOUR SOUND IN THE LIKES OF DARKEST HOUR AND NINE INCH NAILS LIKE YOU HAD MENTIONED?
TJ: I think that we were very influenced by both of those bands, they both played a good part, I think.
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OK. NOW, THE MARVELOUS BONE, YOUR DRUMMER WAS IN THE WRITING PROCESS FOR THE FIRST TIME, WHAT DO YOU THINK HE BROUGHT TO THE TABLE AS A DRUMMER?
TJ: Bone, no offense to any previous drummer in STILL REMAINS, but Bone is definitely more creative and he has energy and he hits hard. There’s a lot of emotion just behind the drums because Bone, I don’t know, it’s just Bone. Watch any updates we do with our youtube page and get to know Bone a little bit, you’ll understand.
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HE’S STILL A LITTLE CRAZY, BUT IN A GOOD WAY
TJ: A little bit. Yeah, a lot bit. We love him though, he’s amazing to have around
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JORDON TOO WORKED WITH THE ROADRUNNER ALL STAR PROJECT
TJ: Yeah
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DO YOU THINK HE WALKED AWAY FROM THAT PROJECT WITH MORE INFLUENCE OR EXPERIENCE TO BRING BACK TO THE BAND?
TJ: Yeah, maybe not necessarily influence, but definitely experience. I think him doing that was just good for him, and it was great for the band too. But it was good for him as a guitar player, it might have inspired him to get to know his instrument better, things like that.
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WAS HE IN SHOCK WHEN THEY ASKED HIM?
TJ: Oh, he was honored, all of us were, oh yeah.
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ON THE SERPENT TOO VOCALLY, NOT A DRASTIC CHANGE BUT I’M SEEING MORE SINGING BROUGHT TO THE FOREFRONT, MORE THAN SCREAMING. DO YOU FEEL FROM SONG TO SONG OR ALBUM TO ALBUM, YOU NEED TO EXPERIMENT TO FIND WHO YOU ARE OR DO YOU THINK IT IS WHAT IT IS?
TJ: Both, I think that with this album it was more figuring out who we are but at the same time, instead of us saying we want to change this, we want to change that, it wasn’t like that, it was just us growing as musicians and singers. So, it’s one of those things where I’ve sang my whole life and I’m very passionate about singing but I’ve never had the opportunity to sing a lot with STILL REMAINS. This is my only band, I don’t have any side projects at all, so it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, in the past we haven’t really written the music where I could really experiment. This time around, the things that they were writing were more melodic and more suggestive that I could sing, so I saw a great opportunity for myself and I went for it.
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DID YOU TAKE VOCAL LESSONS ?
TJ: I have
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BUT NOT FOR THE ALBUM?
TJ: Hmm….not necessarily for the album. I did take them before I did a tour last year, Mike and I both did but I’ve had a lot of vocal training, I was in honors choir all the way up from junior high and all the way up through high school. Then I started playing metal and I started screaming a lot. I worked with Melissa Cross out of New York for a little bit and now there’s a woman back home, her name is Kathy Wagner, I haven’t gone to her in awhile but she taught me some great stuff about posture and confidence and breathing, all that stuff that’s really important while your singing.
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SO YOU THINK IT’S HARDER TO TRAIN YOUR VOICE TO KEEP UP THE SCREAMING OR IS IT HARDER TO TRAIN YOUR VOICE TO KEEP THAT MELODY AND SINGING AND RANGE?
TJ: It’s all rolled into one. It’s just hard in general because if your not…..(laughing)….how do I explain this (laughing) If your not screaming right, screaming is going to take your singing range and make it a lot smaller. The thing is like, not screaming right to a lot of people means fake screaming and I don’t do that because I think it’s passionless, there are a lot of bands that do, I’m not going to sit here and call them out but there are a lot of bands that are on stage who make scream like sounds instead of actually screaming and it’s passionless. It’s hard to still do it with passion and to maintain your range, ya know. I’ve gotten to the point, I’m still learning after screaming for the past eight, nine years, I’m still learning about what’s right for my voice and what I can do to sing well, ya know, going from screaming, like really brutally and then going into singing just fine. I’m learning how to do it and it’s taking a long time.
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ALL RIGHT, NOW, ON DOWN TIME, I KNOW LIKE GUITAR PLAYERS IF THEY PLAY METAL, THEY’LL PICK UP THEIR GUITAR AND PLAY LIKE JAZZ OR CLASSICAL OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT.
TJ: Yep
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ON YOUR DOWN TIME, DO YOU GO TO DIFFERENT AVENUES VOCALLY?
TJ: Yeah, whether it’s just like me being in my car and singing, I listen to a lot of I guess rock music, not so much a whole lot of metal. Sometimes Mike and I will go and sing like an open mic night with acoustic guitars, I’ll do it myself or whatever, it happens every once in a while. It’s very important when your off the road to be constantly singing, whether your in the shower, whether you are just hanging out at your house or driving, it’s always working on your range, you always have to challenge yourself and it makes it slightly that much easier singing on tour.
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NOW LYRICALLY, I TOLD YOU BEFORE I LOVE YOUR LYRICS
TJ: Thank you very much. That’s very flattering.
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ON THE FIRST ALBUM YOUR LYRICS WERE VERY INSPIRATIONAL, THIS NEW ALBUM LOOKS LIKE YOU WENT MORE PERSONALLY INTO STUFF, DO YOU FEEL THAT A GOOD PERCENTAGE OF THESE SONGS ARE ABOUT YOUR LIFE?
TJ: Yes
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DO YOU FIND IT HARD TO GET SOMETHING THAT PERSONAL OUT ON PAPER OR IS IT EASY FOR YOU?
TJ: It’s easy but some times it’s hard to know how to say it right. it’s like OK am I singing this song….do I want this song to hurt somebody, of course I don’t, regardless of whatever experience hurt you, you still don’t want to hurt anybody, so you have to write in a way to where….it’s about you getting the things out you need to get out, rather than like targeting somebody, ya know, like
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MALICIOUS!
TJ: Exactly
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IF SOMEONE WROTE SOMETHING ABOUT YOU, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE THAT?
TJ: It depends on the situation. I think if someone wrote a negative song about me, I would be hurt but I definitely take into consideration people’s feelings. There are songs on the album that I wrote about my mother but actually I called her and I told her. I said hey, your going to read this and I don’t want you to be hurt, I want you to understand that this is what happened and I need to get it out of me and she was like hey, more power to ya. She was like I understand. I hope to God, I could never hurt somebody in that sort of way to where they would want to write a song about me, ya know.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST DIVERSE SONG ON THE ALBUM AND WHY?
TJ: Probably, MARIA, it’s just so melodic, we’ve never done anything that deep or slow.
(JORDON POPS INTO THE VAN TO GET READY SO I GOT HIM TO ANSWER SOME MUSICAL ANSWERS FOR ME WHILE HE GOT READY FOR THE SHOW)
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IS THAT ONE OF YOUR FIRST SONGS WRITTEN OR NO?
TJ:Hmmm….Jordan what was it, like the fifth one
JORDON: The sixth song I think, pretty early on for us
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WHAT SONG DO YOU THINK HAS THE BIGGEST BAND COLLABORATION AND HOW DID IT FEEL WORKING AS A UNIT?
TJ: Wow! Ya know, for a lot of the album, I was at home writing lyrics while they were jamming, I mean, I was there some times but not nearly as often as Jordan
JORDAN: Pretty much the whole record though. The whole record was group, there wasn’t one song that I completely did myself, There wasn’t any song where it wasn’t like the whole group
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BECAUSE THE FIRST RECORD, WASN’T IT LIKE MAINLY YOU WRITING?
JORDAN: Yeah, this record was mainly, as far as certain parts go were mainly from my guitar playing as far as the music goes, as far as vocals go It was all TJ, that’s why there is so much more variety in the record because Mike’s writing guitar stuff from what he heard before and he’s also writing vocal melodies too
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THE HARDEST SONG TO RECORD AND WHY?
TJ: The hardest song to record….for me vocally, it’s probably one of the B sides
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THAT WE WILL NEVER HEAR!
TJ: No, you’ll hear it eventually, we’ll probably do like a re release or a B sides thing, ya know. There’s a song that’s called I COULD NEVER BE YOUR LOVER and it wasn’t necessarily like a hard song to sing at all but it’s a hard song to kind of get into and that’s probably the reason why it didn’t make the album and ya know, Mike and I weren’t really set on which melodies we were happy with, so it was just going in there and doing everything and experimenting, try to make it right but it was a kind of song that everybody else was just like nah about, not so much into it.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE HARDEST LYRICALLY SONG WAS TO WRITE AND WHY?
TJ: Lyrical…..hmmm probably DROPPED FROM THE CHERRY TREE, about going back to writing things about other people, that’s always hard, ya know, I was really afraid that my mother would read those lyrics and I don’t know what she would do. So, I don’t know, I went to my grandfather whose a pastor and I asked him hey there’s a song that I’m writing about my Mom, I don’t want to hurt her like should I write it. It’s kind of a really brutally honest song and I was like I just don’t want to hurt her, that’s not my goal and he was like write it, you need to get it out, just write it, if your intentions are good, just write it, so I said all right, It was still hard, it was hard for me to record it, I went back and forth with our producer, I was like what is she going to think if she hears it. Eventually, I called her and told her, so that was the hardest one to write lyrically, finding the best way to say what I wanted to say without hurting her.
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THE SONG YOU STILL LIKE TO HEAR ON YOUR LAST CD AND WHY?
TJ: IN PLACE OF HOPE and STARE AND WONDER. Those two songs were kind of going toward what we’re doing here. IN PLACE OF HOPE, I love the keyboards in that song and that’s also like a deeply rooted song, both of those songs are deeply rooted, like lyrically songs that are more personal as well like the rest of the new album. I don’t know, there is something about those kinds of songs that I love playing live. We have not even played STARE AND WONDER live, never, so I love hearing it just because I don’t have to hear it every night. When it comes on, I’m like yeah this song is great.
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IF YOU COULD DESCRIBE YOUR PRODUCER IN THREE WORDS, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?
TJ: Passionate……..Three words for a producer..Experience, I’m not good at words, those are to big cliche words. Smart, he records the way they should be recorded.
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WORKING WITH LOGAN, MIXING IT, I MEAN, THE MIXING GUY, ISN’T HE LIKE THE MAIN MAN?
TJ: Not necessarily, the producer, I would say is more of the main guy. I mean he has more to do with like, he gets into sound structures and some tempos, he throws out ideas at you, gives you advice, he’s pushing you the whole time your recording, trying to get that raw emotion out, ya know. Mixing is just balancing all the levels
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HE HAS AN EASY JOB!
TJ: Probably not, I mean working with us, we’re a six piece band so you have to hear everything at the right level at all times. Logan’s cool, we didn’t work with him like head on, ya know, it was more like following over e-mails, but it was cool, he’s cool.
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YEAH, I REMEMBER HIM IN THE MACHINEHEAD DAYS!
TJ: Yeah, yeah, we actually got to just meet him and then we did the STAY CAPTIVE video he came out for the video shoot
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YOU SAID YOU MIGHT DO LIKE A “B” SIDE RELEASE FOR………..YOU DON’T REALLY KNOW?
TJ: I don’t know, yeah, it’s something that we always talk about, I mean we’ve got
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ANYTHING GOING UP ON MYSPACE?
TJ: No plans yet. We’re talking about doing more acoustic things
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YOU SHOULD DO AN ACOUSTIC RECORD!
TJ: Yeah, who knows, I don’t know. We recorded a cover of STP’s CREEP. (singing) I’m half the man I used to be, ya know that song We did that one and we redid DANCING WITH THE ENEMY, STAY CAPTIVE and AN UNDESIRED REUNION
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THAT’S MY FAVORITE SONG! DANCING
Yeah, that’s cool, we play tonight
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ACOUSTICALLY (laughing)
TJ: No
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(laughing) YOU COULD, YOUR BROKEN
TJ: I know, it would be cool.
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YOU SHOULD DO AN ACOUSTIC EP WITH A DVD ATTACHED!
TJ: That would be cool.When we recorded those songs, we did film it
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SEE, IT’S ALREADY PACKAGED, IT’S READY TO GO!
TJ: Yeah
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WHEN I WAS ON LINE TODAY, I SAW A VIDEO INTERVIEW THAT YOU GUYS TALKED ABOUT BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE WHEN YOU TOURED WITH THEM AND YOU TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY WERE GREAT GUYS AND YOU SAW THEM AS PERFORMERS, HAVE YOU EVER WALKED AWAY FROM A TOUR WITH A BAND THAT MADE YOU REALLY GROW NOT ONLY AS MUSICIANS BUT AS PEOPLE IN THIS BUSINESS, IS THERE ONE BAND THAT HAS TAUGHT YOU ANYTHING?
TJ: There’s a lot of bands that have. Like a band like Shadows Fall have given us a lot of inspiration because it’s taking them a long time to get off their feet, it’s taking us quite a while to get off our feet in America, especially, we’re having no problem anywhere else, something’s wrong with America, anyway (laughing) But they took us under their wing and they showed us how to treat bands too. We like to hang out with everybody on the road. Bands like Haste The Day too, they’re good to hang out because they’re just such good people and they’re always down to talk to you about anything or pray with you about anything. We are spiritual guys so it always helps to have people like that on the road with us.
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ANY OTHER TOURING PLANS AFTER THIS AIDEN TOUR?
TJ: Right after this, we’re going to Japan for a couple of days, right after that we’re going to Europe and the UK with Atreyu, we’re going to be direct support which is amazing, see we’re a lot bigger over there
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ANY LAST COMMENTS, ANYTHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD?FAMOUS LAST WORDS?
TJ: It’s better to burn out then fade away
MIKE: Kurt Cobain (laughing)
TJ: man. I don’t think any other comments, check out our youtube page and we’ve got some sweet stuff we’re doing with pure volume right now
MIKE: THE SERPENT, It’s the best album out there
TJ: Yeah, you can take that, right there. Pick it up, the new album, it will be your album of the year
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THERE YA GO. YEAH, SEE THAT WAS HARMLESS.
TJ: No, it’s harmless
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WE HAD FUN!
TJ: Yeah
More:
Still Remains on Myspace
Still Remains music videos & live performances on UVTV
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Gotta love this band. They’ve come so far yet they’ve still got so far to go. Good luck to them. Can’t wait to see them with Atreyu.
~X~