On her new record with her trio, Molly Miller executes a live-feeling work of structural harmony that mirrors her busy life.
Miller has a lot on her plate. In addition to gigs leading the Molly Miller Trio, she also plays guitar in Jason Mraz’s band, and teaches at her alma mater, the University of Southern California (USC), where, after a nine-year stint, she earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in music. In 2022, she became a professor of studio guitar at USC. Prior to that, she was the chair of the guitar department at the Los Angeles College of Music.
Molly Miller's Gear
Miller plays a fair bit of jazz, but considers herself simply a guitarist first: “Why do I love the guitar? Because I discovered Jimi Hendrix.”
Photo by Anna Azarov
Guitars
- 1978 Gibson ES-335
- Fender 1952 Telecaster reissue with a different neck and a bad relic job (purchased from Craigslist)
- Gibson Les Paul goldtop with P-90s
Amps
- Benson Nathan Junior
- Benson Monarch
- Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue (modified to “widen sound”)
Effects
- Chase Bliss Audio Dark World
- Chase Bliss Audio Warped Vinyl
- EarthQuaker Devices Dispatch Master
- EarthQuaker Devices Dunes
- EarthQuaker Devices Special Cranker
- JAM Pedals Wahcko
- JAM Pedals Ripply Fall
- Strymon Flint
- Fulltone Clyde Wah
- Line 6 Helix (for touring)
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball .011s for ES-335 and Les Paul
- Ernie Ball .0105s for Telecaster
- Fender Celluloid Confetti 351 Heavy Picks
To get things done, Miller has had to rely on a laser-focused approach to time management. “I’ve always kind of been juggling different aspects of my career. I was in grad school, getting a doctorate, TA-ing full time—so, teaching probably 20 hours a week, and then also doing probably four or five gigs a week, and getting a degree,” explains Miller. “I had to figure out how to create habits of, ‘I really want to play a lot of guitar, and gig a lot, but I also need to finish my degree and make extra money teaching, and I also want to practice.’ There’s a certain level of organization and thinking ahead that I always feel like I have to be doing.”
“The concept of the Molly Miller Trio—and also a part of my playing—is we are playing songs, we are bringing back the instrumental, we are thinking about the arrangement.”
The Molly Miller Trio’s latest release, The Battle of Hotspur, had its origins during the pandemic. Miller and bassist Jennifer Condos started writing the songs in March 2020, sending files back and forth to each other. They finally finished writing the album’s last song, “Head Out,” in December 2021, and four months later, recorded the album in just two days. The 12-song collection is subtle and cool, meandering like a warm, sparkling country river through a backwoods county. The arrangements feel spacious and distinctly Western—Miller’s guitar lines are clean and clear and dripped with just the right level of reverb, trem, and chorus, while Jay Bellerose’s brush-led percussion trots alongside like a trusty steed.
The Battle of Hotspur has a live feel, and that aspect was 100-percent deliberate. Miller says, “That’s the exact intention of our records—we want to create a record that we can play live. Jason Wormer, the recording and mixing engineer that did our record, came to a show of ours and was like, ‘This is incredible.’ He’s recorded so many records and was like, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever recorded a record that sounds the same live.’ And that was our exact intention. Because I feel like [the goal of] the trio itself was to be full. It’s not supposed to be like, ‘Oh, let’s put saxophone and let’s put keys and other guitars on it.’ The concept of the record is a full trio like the way Booker T. & the M.G.’s were. It’s not, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you added another instrument?’ No, we’re an instrumental trio.”
Musicality is what separates Miller from the rest of the pack. She has prodigious chops but uses them appropriately, when it makes musical sense, and her ability to honor a song’s written melody and bring it to life is one of her strong suits. “That’s a huge part of what we do,” she says. “The concept of the Molly Miller Trio—and also a part of my playing—is we are playing songs, we are bringing back the instrumental, we are thinking about the arrangement. The solo is a vehicle to further the story, to further the song, not just for me to shred. So often, you play a song, and you could be playing the solo over any song. There’s not enough time spent talking about how to play a melody convincingly, and then play a solo that’s connected to the melody.... Whether it’s a pop song, an original, or a standard, how you’re playing it is everything, and not just how you’re shredding over it.”
Miller still gets pigeonholed by expectations in the music industry, including the assumption that she’s a singer-songwriter: “I don’t sing. I’m a fucking guitar player.”
Photo by Anna Azarov
Miller’s strong sense of melody can be traced to her diverse palette of influences. Even though she’s a “jazzer” by definition, she’ll cover pop songs like the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do is Dream” and the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Miller says, “I spent nine years in jazz school. I practice ‘Giant Steps’ still for fun because I think it’s good for my guitar playing. But it was a release to be like, ‘I am not just a jazz guitar player at all!’ Why do I love the guitar? Because I discovered Jimi Hendrix, right? What made me feel things in high school? Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and No Doubt. It’s like, Grant Green’s not why I play the guitar.
“I play jazz guitar, but I’m a guitar player that loves jazz. What do I put on my playlist? It’s not like I just listen to Wes Montgomery. I go from Wes Montgomery to the Beach Boys to freakin’ Big Thief to Bob Dylan to Dave Brubeck. The musicians I love are people who tell stories and have something to say—Brian Wilson, Cat Stevens.... They’re amazing songwriters.”
“Whether it’s a pop song, an original, or a standard, how you’re playing it is everything, and not just how you’re shredding over it.”
Despite a successful career, Miller continually faces sexism in the industry. “I went to a guitar hang two days ago. It was a big company, and they invited me to come and check out guitars. And I’m playing—I clearly know how to play the instrument—and this photographer there is like, ‘Oh, so are you a singer?’ And I’m just like, ‘No, I don’t sing. Fuck you,’” recalls Miller. “It’s such an internal struggle because of the interactions I have with the world. This kind of gets this thing in me where I feel like I need to prove to people, like, I am a guitar player. And at this point, I know I’m established enough. I play the guitar, and I know how to play it. I’m good, whatever. There still is this ego portion that I’m constantly fighting, and it comes from random people walking up to me and asking about me playing acoustic guitar and my singer-songwriter career or whatever. And I’m like, ‘I don’t sing. I’m a fucking guitar player.’”
YouTube It
Molly Miller gets to both tour with and open up for Jason Mraz’s band. Here’s a taste of Miller leading into Mraz’s set with some adeptly and intuitively performed riffs from a show in July 2022.
Adding to the company’s established line of studio furniture designs, RAB Audio has unveiled a new line of products specifically designed for guitarists.
ProRak SRS is designed to make it easy to organize your amp heads, pedals, and rack gear in a sturdy, stable, and ready-to-use fashion – with space-efficient options for studios of all sizes, big and small. You can begin your custom-designed studio with the X3 rack for amps, pedals, and effects; the PD48 deluxe pedal/ampstation; or the X4 amp/rackmount station. Using one of these racks as the centerpiece you can customize your studio with S2 expansion racks and various shelving options.
Features
- Modular design is completely customizable to suit your studio’s needs
- Cable management access holes throughout for easy cable routing
- 150 lbs per shelf rating will safely accommodate virtually any type of guitar gear
- Made of heavy-duty ¾” plywood laminated with Thermofused Black Laminate with high-impact PVC bumper molded edge treatment
- Assembled with heavy-duty fasteners
- 3U rack bay and side shelf on select models
- Made in the USA
NEW! ProRak Guitar Studio Racking Systems
Many guitarists will find that the $439.99 single-section X3 system provides the perfect starting point for customizing their studio space. Pricing ranges from $329.99 for the System 1 storage rack for three amp heads; to $1199.99 for The Workstation, a three-section turnkey solution for storing your studio’s DAW, monitors, amps, and effects – and it even has an adjustable height pullout guitar maintenance station with a MusicNomad premium instrument work mat and Cradle Cube.
For more information, please visit rabaudio.com.
RAB Audio ProRak SRS1 Guitar Studio Racking System
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard started out as a “joke” band. As guitarist/songwriter Joey Walker says with a grin, “Now the joke’s on us.”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Le Risque (Official Video)
On the day that I connect with King Gizzard's guitarists and songwriters Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie, they're settling into their hotel in Paris, after arriving on their tour bus that morning. As two of six bandmates of the psychedelic, maniacally chimerical Australian band, their work is rambunctiously genre-agnostic—with records falling into garage rock, prog-rock, folk, heavy-metal, and jazz-fusion categories. Celebrated in part for their unfaltering output of releases since their inception 14 years ago, they have 25 studio and 15 live albums to their name. We’re meeting to talk about the release of their 26th studio album, Flight b741.
In my conversation with Walker, who I speak with one-on-one a few hours before I have my call with Mackenzie, I comment, “You guys are known for putting music out like crazy. And you have this whole fun energy about your sound that could be misleading to fans—as if you’re just goofing off and succeeding—but you must have an incredible work ethic.”
“When I’m not in the studio, I’m making music as well. The beauty is that we really love each other’s company and just enjoy doing it.” —Joey Walker
“Gizzard is an example of a band where we just work really hard,” he reflects back. “There’s no other answer. People are like, ‘How the fuck do you put out so much music?’ We just go to the studio heaps, and make heaps of music together, and when I’m not in the studio, I’m making music as well. The beauty is that we really love each other’s company and just enjoy doing it.”
Of course, like most of King Gizzard’s catalog, on Flight b741 all you can hear is the fun. The album rings like an amusement park of classic rock and Americana, knitted together with full-band vocal harmonies appearing throughout—like a family choir—and chords echoing in the many familiar furrows of folk tradition. And yet, the band perhaps takes a page from the Kinks’ library, where the words underpinning that joyful music can often get a bit grim. For one, “Antarctica” is about climate change, with the lyrics, “Take me away / I wanna feel them frost flakes on my face again / Take me away / Where the temperature stays below 25/78,” and “I know this ain’t gonna go well / Snowball’s chance in hell.” The title track is a tale sung in first person by a forlorn pilot: “This plane is going down with me on / The splatter of the engine and the creaking of the skeleton, composing a requiem / I’m frightened.”
Joey Walker's Gear
Joey Walker says the band puts out as much music as they do through sheer dedication, motivated by the joy it brings them to create together.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
Guitars
- 2002 Gibson Flying V
- 2011 Gibson Explorer
- Godin Richmond Dorchester modded “Dickhead” microtonal guitar
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 1x12
- Hiwatt DR504 combo
Effects
- Boss TU-3
- Dunlop Cry Baby Wah
- Strymon Sunset Dual Overdrive
- Wampler Faux AnalogEcho
- Electro-Harmonix Flatiron Fuzz
Strings
- Ernie Ball Strings
As for the vocal parts, they indeed include every member of the band. As Walker explains, “We rely heavily on a conceptual thing to get going with a record. It makes it easier for us to cauterize an idea if there’s a limitation we impose. [For this record, we thought,] ‘What if, at multiple times throughout each song, there was a shift in who was the lead singer?’ So we’ve got our drummer Michael Cavanagh singing for the first time. Our bass player Lucas [Harwood] is singing on his first Gizzard song as well, and we all just had a big week of doing harmonies.”
When I connect with Mackenzie later in the day, he tells me, “It was all six of us standing around two microphones. We printed out all the lyrics and just stood there—it took us like four days—until the vocals were done.”
I mention that the album reminds me specifically of the spirit of Pink Floyd’s Meddle(but supercharged), and Walker obliges that there’s plenty of ’60s and ’70s rock influence present on Flight b741, adding that the trap they could have fallen into in is writing “some horrible, derivative” Rolling Stones-knockoff material. “But the thing with King Gizzard is trying to find whatever little angle you can slot into something that might be cliché or corny, and then subvert it,” he says. “And we have faith, since we’ve been doing it for so long and we know each other so well, that it’ll end up being a King Gizzard album.”
Both Mackenzie and Walker mention the band name frequently in their interviews, using a small assortment of nicknames: King Gizzard, King Gizz, Gizzard, Gizz … as if it’s a living and breathing creature who gobbles up musical ideas and births offspring in the form of spotlessly effusive, cheeky records. Maybe it feels that way to them, like how writers of narrative fiction often find that the more they visualize their characters, the more the characters seem to start acting out a plot on their own.
When King Gizzard’s characters met, they were students at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. “We all lived in share houses around Melbourne and were in more ‘serious’ bands, and then King Gizzard was the joke party band, hence the name,” Walker shares, smiling. “And … now the joke’s on us.”
King Gizzard’s 26th studio album, Flight b741dips into folk, classic rock, and Americana territory.
As we cover ground on the topic of creative flow and how it relates to King Gizzard’s productivity, Walker and I get to talking about what it means to grapple with fears as an amateur artist, and what it’s like when you’re starting out and no one’s really paying attention to you.
“That’s where we started,” he says. “So many artists—broad term, ‘artists’—are crippled by their inability to let go of how stuff will be perceived, when most likely there won’t be anyone to perceive it, so they just don’t do anything. I get it, your song isn’t finished yet. It’s never going to be finished. You have to make stuff that necessarily might not be your best work; you have to feel like that to make your best work. Don’t be paralyzed by perception or fears.”
It’s clear in our conversation that King Gizzard’s output is fueled by the bandmates’ pure joy in making music together. So, is their love for one another essentially what’s at the heart of it all?
“Love, and perpetually being inspired by each other, as well,” Walker shares. “Stu kind of operates on a different strata of consciousness or something, just in terms of his approach to making music and stuff. If I hadn’t met him, I would have probably succumbed to that [state of being a] person that couldn’t finish that first song and never do anything. He’s completely unbridled or unbound by how things are perceived. There’s been a lot of teaching. We teach each other a lot, and we just kind of take little parts—and the amorphous whole of us becomes King Gizzard.”
When I share Walker’s comments with Mackenzie later in the day, he doesn’t seem fazed by his friend’s sentiments; my guess is that’s because he already knows how much Walker values their bond, and vice versa.
Stu Mackenzie's Gear
Mackenzie—pictured here making a whimsical “blep”—says the lessons he learned during the time he spent teaching as a teenager largely inform his guitar playing today.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Guitars
- Yamaha SVG The Flying Samurai
- Gibson SG-3
- Custom-built Flying Microtonal Banana with additional microtonal frets
Amps
- Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 1x12
Effects
- Boss TU-3
- Boss DD-3
- Devi Ever FX Torn’s Peaker
- Fender Tread-Light Wah
- Strymon blueSky
- VVco Pedals Time Box
Strings & Accessories
Ernie Ball Strings- Divine Noise Cables
“That’s nice of him [laughs],” he says. “I think we all have spurred each other on in lovely ways and have been really inspired by each other in different, changing ways over the years, too.
“The six of us; they are my best friends, so I love them all and care for them all so, so deeply,” he continues. “And there really is just a lot of respect for each other, but that’s not to say that it’s always easy. My role has always been to be that kind of middle person and to mediate those incredible, creative minds, and make sure everyone feels heard, and ideas are being listened to even if they’re not used. It’s honestly a really, really challenging balance to keep a lot of the time.”
But, he adds, “I know this is a very privileged position to be in, to be artists full-time. The moment I feel like we take our foot off the gas, I will start to feel … guilty, like I don’t deserve to be here anymore. But we’re all workin’ our butts off. I’m here for it.”
The Lizard Wizard’s magic wands include an oddball array of guitars, including one set up for microtonal playing.
Photo by Maclay Heriot
Historically, there are actually three guitarists in King Gizzard—Walker, Mackenzie, and Cook Craig—but for Flight b741 Craig (or, as he’s called, “Cookie”) stuck to organ, Mellotron, vocals, and bass (for one song). Yet, neither Walker nor Mackenzie care much about analyzing their guitars or guitar playing. (Perhaps, King Gizzard hasn’t gotten this far in life by preoccupying themselves with analytics.)
“I’m always down to do stuff like this with guitar-based publications,” says Walker, at the beginning of our conversation. “But I feel like, if they want to get granular about guitar.... I play guitar, I love guitar, but I don’t think about guitar a huge amount, you know what I mean?”
When I ask Mackenzie asked about what informs his guitar playing, he rewinds the clock a bit. He explains that he began teaching guitar as a teenager, where he spent most of his time breaking down classic rock songs for his students to learn. “In hindsight, I was sitting down with a guitar for sometimes five straight hours, just deconstructing songs. And, learning the construction of songs and the way that comes together; I still think about guitar in that same way when we’re playing.
“For instance, the King Gizzard show has gotten quite improvised,” he elaborates. “And I’m still thinking about structure when we’re jamming. I’m trying to take things away from being linear. Linear’s great—we’ve made linear songs, too; that’s totally fine. But I’m kind of an old-fashioned guy when it comes to song structure. I do like songs to come back and for things to repeat and to have structure you can kind of grab onto.”
“How do you make a record that still feels like a whole, still feels like a universe in itself, but doesn’t sound like anything that you’ve done before?” —Stu Mackenzie
As a young teenager, Mackenzie loved bands like Slayer and Rammstein, and soon after discovered Tool, which led him “backwards” into King Crimson and other ’70s prog artists. But later in his adolescence, he grew into the belief that “all of the best music” was made between 1964 and 1969. “I would say there was a two, maybe three-year period where I didn’t listen to anything that was outside of those years, which is kind of crazy,” he says. In particular, he was fascinated with the “post-Beatles, post-Beach Boys era of amateur American garage rock.” Immersing himself in that world, he dug into obscure compilations like Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era (released on Elektra/Sire), thePebblesseries (AIP/Mastercharge/BFD/ESD), and the Back from the Grave series (Crypt).
My first thought when he mentioned that particular span of years, however, was the Beatles. How did he feel about them? “I do actually like all of the Beatles records,” he says. “I don’t think there are any bad ones. But when I was in that period of time, I wouldn’t have even listened to Abbey Road; The White Album was maybe on the cusp; I probably would have listened to Sgt. Pepper’s but I would have been like, ‘This is a bit too psychedelic.’ That’s where my head was at. I was like, ‘Help is the pinnacle of songwriting in the Beatles catalog.’ Teenagers are weird,” he comments, smiling.
So, when Mackenzie began making music with King Gizzard, his self-indoctrination in garage rock naturally nurtured the young beast of a band. Of course, by their fourth studio LP, the psychedelic, folky Oddments, they started taking a bit of a detour. “As we evolved, I think we wanted to try and pick apart and understand other ways of making music,” says Mackenzie. “How do you make a record that still feels like a whole, still feels like a universe in itself, but doesn’t sound like anything that you’ve done before? And that’s always kind of been the MO of making records with Gizz. I mean … that’s my life story at this point.”
YouTube It
Performing “Astroturf” from their 2022 album, Changes, King Gizzard conjures a blend of smooth jazz, prog, and nothing but strange, whimsical, waves of limitless creative energy.
When entering the world of audio interfaces, Blackstar wanted to offer a solution to musicians that answered many of the much-requested improvements they wanted when using audio interfaces. Through extensive research, we consistently pinpointed three primary challenges encountered by music creators when recording guitar directly through an interface.
- Poor feel and response
- Setting guitar input levels
- Ease of use
The POLAR 2 interface answers all of these challenges and excels beyond those hurdles to provide an incredible all-in-one solution to recording guitar.
Firstly, Polar features FET instrument inputs. The FET inputs give ultra-low noise and high headroom, which gives the recording musician the best sonic foundation for guitar tone, but we didn’t just include FET inputs, we took itone step further with the addition of the “Enhance” switch. When Enhance is switched on the instrument input, it engages a unique circuit that’s been meticulously designed to mimic the input stage of real valve amplifiers—including all its non-linear behaviors and characteristics. The “Enhance” switch restores the touch, the feel, and the response of playing through a real amp.
Secondly, Polar solves the issue with setting levels. Other interfaces often digital clipping due to the dynamic nature of guitar DI signals. With “Enhance” on, POLAR’s innovative input stage will never digitally clip. No more ruined recording takes, no more hassle or confusion around setting the ‘correct’ levels. POLAR allows the musician to drive the interface like the preamp section on a real valve amp.
Recording is made easy with Polar 2. By engaging the “Enhance” feature on the microphone inputs gently lifts the top end of your signal to add just the right amount of air and clarity that sounds great on vocals, acoustic guitars, and more. The microphone preamp has been based off one of the most renowned vintage studio preamps.
POLAR 2’s ultra-low noise and high headroom accommodates for a wide range of microphone and instrument types, empowering the musician to achieve studio-quality recordings in any environment. Included with all POLAR2 units is the POLAR Control app, which allows for fine-tuning of levels, panning, routing. The FET inputs combined with the Enhance switch make it really easy to get an amazing guitar tone. You don’t have to worry about any external hardware, no fancy DI’s—all of that is built right into POLAR.
With its innovative features, impressive headroom (24V), incredibly low noise floor (115db), powerful headphone amps, bus-powered capability, and approachable design, Blackstar’s POLAR 2 is easily the go-to audio interface for anyone that wants to play and record guitar. The POLAR 2 interface was created through the processes of Human-Centred Design, to help create a user-friendly solution to get musicians back to focusing on the most important part: the music.
MAP: $199.99
For more information, please visit blackstaramps.com.
