A Good Story: Rhett Miller of Old 97’s (Part II)

Crossing paths with Tommy Stinson, Brandi Carlisle, Fred Armisen, Jason Isbell, Peter Buck

Old 97’s in 2020 (Photo by Alysse Gafkjen)

Drag It Up (2004)

Was Drag It Up intended to be your most atmospheric album?

Drag It Up as an album was even harder to make than Fight Songs, just as an experience from the inside of the band. Because the fact that the band had given me their blessing to go and make a solo album was fine in theory, but then all of the promotion around it, all of the fan handwringing about whether or not the band would survive it, it reached the band. So by the time we finally got back in to make Drag It Up, we really had to find a new way to be together. And I really had to find a way to just show these guys that I loved them and that I wanted our band to stay together. Part of that was me really stepping back from trying to be as bossy as I was when I was younger.

I realized that for the band to continue, I had to just shut up a little bit more because, especially when I was younger, I can be very, I don't know, pushy with my ideas. Maybe it's lead singer-itis or whatever. But I let Murry choose the producer and he chose a friend of his, and the producer and I didn't see eye to eye on that record. He's sort of a famously difficult producer anyway, but I know for me, and for maybe other band members, it was a really hard record to make.