Retro Music Snob News: Old 97's Rhett Miller Discusses Being Branded Alt-Country.

Miami Times and LHB Report:

I hope you crash your momma's car," Rhett Miller sang back in 1994. "I hope you pass out in some bar/I hope you catch some kinda flu/Let's say I wish the worst for you."

The lyrics to "Wish the Worst" — a highlight from Hitchhike to Rhome, the debut album by Miller's band, the Old 97's — don't get much cheerier. "I guess I'm a loser," he tells his ex-lover, "but I like being miserable, swimming in sin."

A dozen years later Miller is miles away, literally and figuratively, from his woebegone musical alter-ego. When we speak by phone, he's relaxing at his home in Gardner, New York, in the Hudson Valley. A former resident of both New York and Los Angeles, he fled city life after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Now he's happily ensconced on three acres of countryside with his wife of three years, Erica; his son Max, three; and his daughter, Soleil, nine months. Max babbles and laughs in the background, as Miller talks wistfully about foal season.

Click here to read the full Rhett Miller article.

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