Rhett Miller

alternative country

Rhett Miller is an American singer-songwriter from Texas and the lead singer of the alternative country band Old 97's. Born Stewart Ransom Miller II in Austin on September 6, 1970, he grew up in the Highland Park area of Dallas, began guitar lessons at twelve and started writing songs at thirteen, and released a first album, Mythologies, in 1989 while still at St. Mark's School of Texas. He briefly attended Sarah Lawrence College on a creative writing scholarship before returning to Texas, where in 1993 he co-founded Old 97's with bassist Murry Hammond, an earlier bandmate in Sleepy Heroes, and guitarist Ken Bethea. A sold-out SXSW showcase in 1995 led to a deal with Elektra Records and the 1997 album Too Far to Care, followed by Fight Songs and Satellite Rides. Miller also records and tours on his own, with The Instigator (2002, Elektra), made with producer Jon Brion; The Believer (2006, Verve Forecast); a self-titled album in 2009; The Dreamer (2012); The Traveler (2015, ATO Records), cut with the Portland string band Black Prairie plus Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey; The Messenger (2018); The Misfit (2022); and A Lifetime of Riding by Night (2025). He is also a prose writer whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Salon, Sports Illustrated and McSweeney's, and he published the children's verse collection No More Poems! A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse in 2019. That same year he launched Wheels Off, an interview podcast about the working lives of creative people. Miller has spoken publicly about a suicide attempt at fourteen and about therapy and mental health, and in 2006 he and his brother started the Breathe Easy Concert Series to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Old 97's received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association in 2025. Miller lives in New York's Hudson Valley and plays The Hamilton Live in Washington, D.C.

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