By ROBIN STANTON GERROW
BG Independent News
With a mix of blues, rock, gospel and soul, David Miller and the Other Sinners are returning to the Main Stage at this year’s Black Swamp Arts Festival (BASF).
In addition to their headline performance closing out the festival on Sunday, they’ll be the featured band at the After Hours at Howard’s Club H show on Saturday, and kicking off Sunday’s music schedule on the Family Stage. For Sunday’s Main Stage show, they will be joined by local favorite Nikki D and members of the Sisters of Thunder.
The band’s big sound started small in 2014, when Miller decided it was time to take the chance to take a few songs and turn them into an album.
“At the time, it was just having some songs and feeling like I needed to therapeutically get them out,” he said. “So, I went in the studio and started recording. I saw this as the chance to take this music and try to get it out there.
“There was no Miller in the Other Sinners, it was just David Michael Miller,” he said. “But everyone involved encouraged me, someone gave it to a promoter and we got airplay on about 300 stations across 30 some countries, and a bunch of reviews. It showed me that somebody digs it and maybe we should do some more of this. It was time to put a band together.”
Collaboration with other musicians in the Buffalo, New York, area was key to developing the sound they have now.
“At first it was just me, and whoever I could get to come out and play music,” he said. “In the process of putting the band together, we put out a live album called Three Nights at the Strand. It was a collection of other musicians I’d been working with, and it was the first album as Miller and the Other Sinners.”
These days that band includes Steve Davis on keyboard/bass/vocals, Isaiah Griffin on drums, Dalton Sharp on saxophone, and Bryan Sibbitt on trombone and trumpet.
“We’re writing collectively as a band for the next album,” Miller said. “We’re taking it slow because I really feel like the band has evolved and everybody has such great ideas. It seems instead of it just being guys that take my songs and make them better, we should make songs together.”
Much like his band, David Miller’s introduction to Bowling Green and started small. He first heard about the BSAF when he was in town for a house concert.
“The way that we got introduced to this festival is so organic,” he said. “Some of my favorite shows are house concerts. You just connect to people because they’re there for the music. It’s a communal event, and we always almost always seem to make our best fans at house concerts because they’re more family and friends.”
Miller stressed the importance of fans getting involved and advocating for their favorite artists.
“If they get behind it, that means everything,” he said. “For me to just approach Black Swamp cold, it would have been very, very difficult for me to get in. Not because we’re not a good band—I feel great about the music that we play. But a million great bands all want to play Black Swamp Festival. It’s just difficult to get in. But when people dig what you do and get behind you, that makes the difference for musicians. It helps artists get their music out there and get into spaces that they could never have without fan support. If you love it get behind it, share it, help it grow. It all comes down to the fans.”
