"I ain't first
class and I ain't white trash -
that's who I am, and who our fans are..
They're somewhere in Middle America, the people who shop at Wal-Mart
-- and we're proud that we are those people.
...I mean, I'm a father, a husband, an extremely hard worker, a true
believer
and an eternal optimist!
I believe in people, that we're here to love each other & ourselves.
We're here to share everything: ourselves, talents, ideas, truths,
knowledge lives.
That's why our music connects. And it's where the songs come from."
-- Mark Miller
The
world of Sawyer Brown is filled with dirt roads, small towns, little
thrills, tiny moments and intimate connections... but mostly, it's
about recognition of how major those things really can be: every day
people seeing themselves in each other, the 5 men onstage and their
songs. For the Apopka, Florida-bred band, these are songs of the
common man delivered without mercy, only a relentless commitment to
the freedom and fun that only a night out among good friends can
allow.
"We got some tall tales that we
love to tell
May not be true, but we sure do remember'em well
We work real hard to have a little fun
Roll up our sleeves & get the job done..."
-- "The Boys & Me"
"We
came out of the notion we were there to entertain people, to make
sure everybody had a good time," concedes creative catalyst Miller,
known as much for his hyperkinetic performances as for writing "Some
Girls Do," "The Dirt Road," "Hard To Say," "Step That Step," "This
Time," "The Boys & Me," "Thank God For You" and "The Walk." "You're
looking at a bunch of blue collar people here, who were raised to
put the work in, to make sure the people are satisfied and who
really love being on that stage and seeing the people letting it all
go. Somebody once told me ..If you can't have fun at a Sawyer Brown
show, you can't have fun...' I don't know, but it would sure be nice
if it was true."
After
23 years, 3500+ shows, gold and platinum albums, a smattering of
awards and more long odds than any act you can think of, Sawyer
Brown remains a band you can count on. Never ones to get above their
raising, they have a deep appreciation for the heart of small towns,
rural realities, lives lived in common places and truths so basic
they go unnoticed.
But along the way, while all kinds of
acts were racing by and then falling by the by, Mark Miller and
company were amassing a string of hits that defined the worldview of
regular people living between the coasts - people ignored by the
media mongers and tastemakers. Along with the aforementioned
Miller-penned hits, there were plenty of other big records "Betty's
Being Bad," "The Café On the Corner," "All These Years," "Used To
Blue," "Heart Don't Fall Now," "This Thing Called Wanting (And
Having It All)," "This Night Won't Last Forever," "Leona" and "Treat
Her Right" as well as fearless attacks on classics like George
Jones' "The Race Is On" and Dave Dudley's truckers' rallying cry "6
Days On The Road." where they bounce up and down on the mainframe
like a trampoline -- tattooing their trademark high energy, utterly
committed performances onto country radio's somewhat conservative
sound.
"It
was a different time," remembers bassist Jim Scholten. "People
thought we were too different, too outside the box... and it took a
lot to get us happening. But we were about playing, 5 sets a night
anywhere they'd let us, until ..Star Search' happened. Even then, we
were signed out of L.A. But we knew one thing: we knew that the
people, especially the country music fans, loved what we were
doing."
"It's hard and heavy, Lord, day
and night
It's the way we love and that's the way we fight
We can't stay together, can't be alone
We can go for good, but we can't stay gone..."
-- "This Time"
Whether the little band who
auditioned for "Star Search" solely to get the videotape to send to
prospective buyers, but then went on to win the whole thing -
becoming the original "American Idols" in the process -- were
unlikely country stars or not, they had a lot of heart and they
never gave up. It's been one of the defining truths of a career
that's always been about taking it to the people... and not getting
caught up in the popularity contests on Music Row.
"I believe, this is the best band in
the whole world," says semi-pro basketballer Miller, getting his
game on. "I mean, okay, except for the Stones. I'll put these guys
onstage against anybody - and I know who's gonna walk off with the
crowd."
"It's
true," continues drummer Joe Smyth with a laugh, describing their
unique connection between band and audience. "The energy onstage is
what keeps the fans coming back - and their energy is part of what
keeps us rocking so hard... and we only rock harder as the night
goes on. For us, it's like the more we play, the harder they push us
and the better it feels. After an hour and a half, we're slamming
harder than when we hit the stage, and it just feels incredible."
The seeds for this unlikely intensity
were sown in some equally unlikely places. Mark Miller was raised
Pentecostal, where the music in church threw down every bit as hard
as what they do onstage - and that combustive sense of musical
eruptions fired an intense immersion in all kinds of music.
"You have no idea," says the
soft-spoken frontman. "People look at me offstage, and think it's an
act. But that's how me and my brother were raised. Be good, do
right, but when you get to church, you let it go. People talk about
my dancing...well, where we went to church, that's what people did
when the music was pumping. And lemme tell you: that music got goin'
."
"You hold your head up high, like
you're gonna fly
You take the bitter ..til you find the sweet
When you got that crowd and they're screamin' loud
Leave'em sittin' on the edge of their seat..."
-- "Step That Step"
The seeming contradiction - serious
young man, athletic merry prankster, fireball onstage - is part of
what allows Miller to move from those ballads that examine life's
simple but defining realities with the same ease that he blows up a
raver that's basically spontaneous combustion with a guitar solo.
Music wasn't an obvious companion for
the boy jock, being the man of a tightly knit family; but what was
set ablaze in a largely black grade school through the sounds of the
Jackson 5 would reignite through the complex arrangements of the
Beatles, the lush harmonies of the Beachboys and whatever he found
on his radio dial. For Miller, music sparkled like diamonds across a
too dark sky as the 15 ½ year old hunkered down in his solitary
refuge, driving back and forth to his job trick skiing at
Disneyworld - a job he lied to get, feigning way more experience
than he had - from the teeny rural way town of Apopka.
Even classmate Greg "Hobie" Hubbard
was surprised to hear about Miller's musical aspirations. "I was
working in the Pizza Hut in Apopka when Mark came in and said that
he'd written some songs, then asked if I'd be willing to come over
and play piano on them. I was completely unprepared for what it was
..cause not only did he write them, which I had no idea about, but he
was going to sing them...
"Of course, once I heard him, I never
had a doubt that Mark would make it."
Not long after, Miller decided to
give up life on the University of Central Florida basketball team -
and strike out for Nashville. Hubbard decided to join him. Living on
dreams - and the extra large portions Emma English, the cook at the
Harding Mall Walgreen's would give her counter help and his buddy -
the pair soon found another Florida boy in Smyth, who'd even taught
at the University of Miami's prestigious School of Music. A rocker
from Michigan named Jim Scholten brought the rumble to the bottom
end and original guitarist Bobby Randall filled out the band,
originally named Savanah - and renamed for Sawyer Brown Road.
"We figured it was easier to get work
if people thought we were a person," Miller concedes with a laugh.
"And we wanted to work."
Work they did. Every honky tonk,
Holiday Inn, roadhouse and Elks Lodge in the southeast. Five sets a
night, 6 nights a week. Turned down by every label in Nashville -
the only glimmer was Lyn Shults, working at Capitol, who also
spotted Garth Brooks, who advised, "You're different, but you've got
something. Different is hard, but when it hits, it sticks."
And so it has. With the longest
uninterrupted run as a band currently in country music, Sawyer
Brown's songs are an integral thread in the fabric of radio over the
past 20 years. They didn't do it on pomp and circumstances, flash
and sizzle - in spite of what the singer might've been wearing - but
solid music, strong support and remembering to give their fans their
best.
"We've been through a lot together,"
Hubbard admits. "And that really brings you together. In 1986,
things were terrible - and to the outside world, it probably looked
like it was all gonna fall apart. But we were all so hard-headed in
our determination to do what we were here to do, we would NOT be
stopped.
"I learned a lot about loyalty and
what friendship was all about... we all did."
"Daddy worked hard for his money/
He said some folks don't, but that's okay
They won't know which road to follow
Because an easy street might lead you astray..."
-- "The Dirt Road"
Along
the way, they have consistently worked with the best producers and
writers Nashville and Muscle Shoals can offer: Grammy-winner
Randy Scruggs for 5 albums, acclaimed songwriter Mac
MacAnally for 4 more - and embraced topshelf writers from
Bill Labounty and Dave Loggins to envelope-pushing
rockers Marshall Chapman, Jaime Hartford and Steve Earle.
And in terms of special guest help, it's run the gamut - from new
wave icon
Elvis
Costello, who remixed a couple singles to the legendary
Jordinaires, who sang on their "My Babys Gone," and sacred steel
sensation Robert Randolph, who came straight from Eric
Clapton's world tour to help ignite "Mission Temple Fireworks
Stand," the lead single from their upcoming
Mission Temple Fireworks Stand.
They've survived the departure of
Randall. The arrival of acclaimed guitarist Duncan Cameron, who has
since departed to follow a second dream of a lifetime: flying for a
living as a pilot at Southwest Airlines - and the newest
guitarslinger Shayne Hill, who is quick to say "It's strange to look
out at those crowds and realize I AM part of one of the truly
rocking, but most fun bands making music. I've ALWAYS loved these
songs, always - and it's like being the kid who wakes up in the
middle of his own dream."
It is its own kind of fairy tale...
and if there is such a thing as happily ever after, for the new kid
and his four compadres, it's one where the road goes on forever. For
Miller, who wrote the zen-est thought perhaps ever in country music
- "Is this fate or just a bad day?" - in "Hard To Say," it's about
making music. Keeping it vital, fluid, creating songs that spoke
from their heart to the heartland and inspired enough of a kick
inside his band that Sawyer Brown could rely upon audible set-lists
(meaning the next song is called onstage rather than working off a
set-in-stone list of songs) to make their shows respond to what the
crowd gives them on any given night..
And these songs have helped clarify
the phases and stages of life as it came to Miller & Company.
"I took this walk you're walking
now
I've been in your shoes
You can't hold back the hands of time
It's just something you've got to do..."
-- "The Walk"
"Our music hits all the people who
couldn't maybe verbalize these things," says Hubbard, who co-wrote
"The Dirt Road" among others. "You have people tell us all these
stories about what these songs mean to them in terms of their life,
their families. You realize how much they care about their families,
too - and those experiences we all have in common.
"Moments like that, it's just a
reminder that I'm not alone out there in the world. Music was my
lifeline a lot of times, and it's their's, too."
"Around the time of ..The Dirt Road,'
..The Walk,' those songs... it was a real change for us, and for me,"
Miller says. "It was stuff that was happening in my life, and it's
serious. You're just dealing with it, trying to have decency and
honor - but it can't help but seep into the songs. I was a
30-something, which is a whole different view. When you leave your
20s, you start to look around... there are exceptions, true poets...
but the rest of us, it takes time.
"Writing from your head and writing
from your heart are very different, writing what you witnessed
versus what you thought up. It takes courage... I can say ..The Walk'
might've been the first true gut-wrenching reality check. I was
losing my Grandfather, who'd raised me, and I was adamant it wasn't
going on the record because it was too personal to me.
"My brother Frank convinced me to put
it on the album. But I said that it couldn't be a single ..cause I
didn't want it to be judged - because if you laughed at it, I might
just have to come down to your office for a little meeting. Of
course, it was a single, went to ..1... and people tell us stories
about the song every day."
Every day. That's the whole point
with Sawyer Brown. Doesn't matter where or when or how, they're good
to go. Plug in and play, whip up a cloud of dust, leave'em dancing
in the aisles.
"When we went out to do ..Star
Search,' it was surreal... The car meets us at the airport with the
sign with our name and everything," the lead singer with the
quicksilver smile recalls. "But at the meeting for the performers,
people were saying stuff like, ..So, where'd you boys leave your
tractors?' Just intimidating us...We were hanging back, trying not
to look stupid, but even then, we were getting ready to stand up for
ourselves and everybody like us.
"Our audience KNOWS that... they know
we're all about carrying the flag for them, because we are like they
are. They just wanna have a good time - and why not? We do, too.
When we're on that stage, for that two hours - or however long
they'll let us play - that audience knows we're really glad to be
there, and that means something.
"It took me a little while to totally
let go onstage - and there was a time when I thought about not being
so wild out there - but I saw how much the crowd wanted to do that
thing, too. So we do it together; we give America a license to let
their hair down, scream a little, dance if they want to.
"And you know, it's funny because
over the years, I've come to expect the same thing out of them they
expect out of me: EVERYTHING! I want everything they got. I'm goin'
for it every night on that stage, goin' in and gettin' it and not
leaving anything behind."
Taking no prisoners and laying waste
to the country fans who show up has given Sawyer Brown the
reputation of being a band the other acts don't want to follow, but
it's also built them a fan-base that shows up no matter what. "It's
crazy," Miller says. "It's almost like Jimmy Buffett's fans who come
not because of the new record or the new song, but because they know
they're gonna have fun. We've got kids who grew up listening to
their parents' records coming now - and they're totally into it. But
that's what you wanna do: maintain what you've created. When it's
showing people a good time, well, that's a pretty great thing to
have to keep up."
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