Part 1

Name: Adam Charles Miller
Nationality: American
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer
Current release: Adam Miller's Illusion Pool EP, featuring Mikal Oor, Lol Tolhurst, Heidi Saperstein, and Hannah Lew, is out November 10th 2023. 

If you enjoyed this Adam Miller interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit him on Instagram, Substack, Threads, and twitter.

For Adam's recommendation about pure vocal music, check out our dedicated feature here.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in your voice and singing? How and when did you start singing?

I have been obsessed with music ever since I was a child and it probably started with the Monkees.

As little kids in the 80’s, my brother and I were Monkees maniacs. Later as a teenager I discovered American underground music from cities like Olympia and Washington D.C. I think artists like Beat Happening, Lois, The Softies, helped to illuminate a path for me.

I loved how d.i.y. those groups were but they made pretty, melodic music. They existed in the underground yet they weren’t loud and macho like a lot of the underground music I didn’t relate to as much.



I have always had a fraught relationship with singing and my voice. In the early days of Chromatics I would scream and shout because it was more comfortable for me to hide behind layers of volume and aggression. But eventually that started to feel like I was constructing a wall around myself. It took me awhile to find a new path because it can be scary to sing without a veil to hide behind or distract people with.



As I experimented with moving away from the aggressive approach, I developed a falsetto influenced from singing along to my Curtis Mayfield and Junior Murvin records but also from wishing I had a woman’s voice as I really love female vocalists and prefer to listen to a female voice. Most of the vocal-based music I listen to is by female vocalists.

That falsetto style eventually morphed into the heavily processed auto-tuned vocals of mine you started to hear on our records like Kill For Love.



I still do occasionally record vocals in that style because I find that if it fits the mood of the song, then it can bring out a higher level of emotion. But if overused, it can also feel like another barrier between my voice and the listener. Like a tease. Like I’m only going to allow you to be this close to me.

So I’ve finally learned to appreciate and accept my own untreated, unaffected voice. It’s the only voice I have, so I respect it. The best I can do is aim to be as open and honest as possible with it because those are the traits I’m always looking for in vocalists.

If you're also playing other instruments, how does the expressive potential of these compare to your own voice?

I think any other instrument can be just as expressive. Musical instruments can each sing in their own unique way but the voice is originally the first instrument for humans. A powerful vocal performance can leave a listener feeling like the singer just led you through a raw, transcendental experience. I think it all just comes down to how vulnerable and honest someone is willing to allow themselves to be as an artist.

Most of the artists I really love and admire are technically amateur. I view myself as an amateur. I am self-taught and enjoy the exploration of finding my own way. The few times I’ve tried to expand by learning via taking lessons, I quickly grew bored and disheartened.

I’m looking for a feeling first, the rest can fall into place after that with the right amount of energy, gratitude, and a little bit of luck.

Singing is an integral part of all cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from – and why?

I draw from all the music that I’ve ever been exposed to, up until the present, and everything that’s happened to me in my life. I’ve been on a lifelong quest to find music I’ve never heard before that moves me ever since I was a teenager digging through the endless bins of the same Herb Alpert, Sade, and Peter Frampton albums at thrift stores in Minneapolis in the early 90s, scouring for anything that looked unique or that piqued my interest.

As I’ve gotten older, that has expanded with the internet. But I still operate with the same intentions as I did when I was a teenager. The sense of joy I feel today when I discover a song that really makes me feel something remains identical to the way it made me feel discovering Unwound’s New Plastic Ideas in 1994.



I hope that never changes for me.

What were some of the main challenges in your development as a singer / vocalist? Which practices, exercises, or experiences were most helpful in reaching your goals – were there also “harmful” ones?

I think originally coming from a more punk background, it instilled this idea in me that I had to physically push myself and project loudly as a singer. I had this problem with my guitar and bass playing, too. I thought that if I wasn’t coming at it from an aggressive approach, then somehow it made what I was creating less valid or urgent. Once I was able to unlearn this, then new horizons became visible.

I think this can be one of the most difficult parts of creating music, art etc. We can become mired in these pre-conceived ideas we might have of what might work, of what worked before, and it can be difficult to let go of those ideas. Not only difficult, but even scary because it’s often intertwined with our own sense of self-identity. Once I am able to abandon all of that and reach a more open, flowing state of exploration and inspiration, a conversation with my surroundings, then that’s where magic can occur.

You probably have heard other artists talk about learning to get out of the way of the song and I believe that to be true. Anything I create that I’m happy with always occurs in those moments where I abandoned any plans I had for it, where I stopped thinking about it and just allowed things to happen on their own.

I don’t even feel comfortable claiming ownership of anything I create. For me, it’s about cracking myself open wide enough to be a channel for the songs and ideas to be transmitted through because they come from somewhere else. My goal is to get those songs inside the bottle, toss it out to sea and hope that whoever finds that message in a bottle feels less alone in this world once they’ve discovered what’s inside it.

What is the relationship between harmony, rhythm and melody? Do you feel that honing your sense of rhythm and groove has an effect on your singing skills?

Oh yes, certainly all of those things have an effect on my singing. Much of the music I listen to around the house is by groups like Chic, Change, War, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Funkadelic.

I especially love how Chic and Change construct their vocal parts. They’re like little chants that are so minimal and strong on their own. They weave around the rhythm so immaculately that I could listen to them without the other elements of the song and they would still feel just as impactful. I think that’s so cool!



That’s always a goal of mine of which I take a lot of influence from those groups.

I also tend to naturally write vocals with a lot of space around them, so the rhythm and melody of the vocals need to land in just the right way in order for them to work for my ears.