On Friday, September 16th, The Low Anthem performed in the turn-of-the-century, fully restored Pocahontas County Opera House in rural mountain West Virginia. I was able to catch up with Ben Knox Miller after sound-check to discuss things like the historical aspect of the venue in which they played, the musical heritage of the area, and his plethora of musical influences.
So this is your last tour for a while, right?
Yeah, it’s our last tour for a while, because we’re taking a break to record a couple records that we’ve written but haven’t had any time at home [in Rhode Island], so it’s kind of the last tour for the material we’ve been touring with for about two and a half years now. We’ve been playing these sets that go chronologically, playing all the material in the order it was sequenced on the records, which has a nice, natural arc to it. We’ve never tried to do a set list like that way, so it’s been pretty fun.
I think William Elliott Whitmore is a pretty damned near perfect fit for support on your tour. How’d that come to be?
I saw him play in Providence, like, five years ago—and he says it’s the only time he’s ever been there—and it was just in this bar, and I was a friend of a friend of the band that was headlining, and he was supporting them at the time, and I bought all his records that he had [smiles], and I’ve been listening to him for a long time. I don’t think anybody had heard of him then. This was before he was on Anti-. He was working with some indie record company at the time. He’s just… He’s just so good, and he’s so consistent. Every night he shows up, he’s a gentleman and gives a great performance.
As you may or may not know, there’s a lot of musical heritage here in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, specifically bluegrass. One of the biggest local musical families is the Hammons, who had a profound influence on the musical and story-telling traditions of Pocahontas County and central Appalachia. Did that have any influence on your decision to play here?
It’s not the music that’s my roots, but I love the Stanley Brothers. They’re one of my favorite live shows I’ve ever seen. Well, it was just Ralph, but he came to play in a local arts center near Rhode Island in Massachussetts, and he was playing with his son and his grandson, so there were three generations of Stanleys. And there’s a lot of roots music in our music, but it’s more Old Time than bluegrass in terms of what we play and also blues. Two of the guys [in the Low Anthem] are real jazz-heads, so they come from jazz and blues, and then I’m more raised on folk music and song writing, and Jocie is a classical musician.
Between all of you, how many instruments do you think you play collectively?
We had 26 on Oh My God Charlie Darwin, and then we had 27 on Smart Flesh. We wanted to beat it, so… [laughs].
Who are your musical influences? Who do you love listening to?
Well, one of them is a song-writer named Ivor Cutler, and he’s a Scottish humorist. He writes these very funny songs, and he plays a pump organ like the one that we have except his says “sewer” on it [laughs]. I think he’s also famous for wearing really high socks. He was a school teacher. He didn’t start writing songs until he was in his forties, and he’s just, like, so whimsical and hilarious. Another guy that I listen to all the time is Captain Beefheart. He’s this whimsical, psychedelic hybrid of Delta Blues and weird art music. He’s pretty out there. Both of them [Cutler and Beefheart] have such levity and a freedom that I’m really attracted to and something that I need an injection of.
And there’s an artist by the name of Mark Mandeville who’s a song-writer in a band called The Accident That Led Me to the World, which I love, but it’s this whole band that as a concept ends in the third record. The records are a narrative, and they go in order, and he hasn’t written the third one yet. It’ll be strange when he does. The arc will be complete. I think that’s a beautiful idea. I love his records, and he just did a solo record with a new band called Old Constitution, which is a straight-ahead country record.
I also love The Felice Brothers. You should check out The Felice Brothers. They’re a really good band.
I’m curious—what made you choose to play the Pocahontas County Opera House here in Marlinton, West Virginia, which happens to be a really small town compared to the cities in which you usually play?
Yeah, it is really small, but I thought the name of the venue was the most beautiful name, “Pocahontas County Opera House.” It just sounded too good to be true, so it had to be beautiful. Then I saw pictures, and it was beautiful. And I just really loved that name, “Pocahontas….”
Photo Credit: Drew Tanner
