Old 97's: Three Decades and Counting

The long-running Old 97’s hit Bend’s Domino Room on Wednesday, April 9. Credit: Old 97's

Tony Bennett once said, “Fame comes and goes. Longevity is the thing to aim for.”

Apparently, Rhett Miller and the rest of the Old 97’s were paying attention to Mr. Bennett. This year marks the 33rd anniversary of the Dallas quartet, which formed in 1992 when Miller joined forces with guitarist Ken Bethea, bassist Murry Hammond and drummer Philip Peeples. Miller proudly wears this badge of honor, particularly with the arrival of the band’s 13th studio album, “American Primitive.”

“When we started working on this album, I started thinking what are the strengths of the Old 97’s?” Miller shared in a mid-March interview. “It’s sort of the shorthand/ESP kind of communication we have with each other after 32 years. We know what each of us are going to do, we know how to play off each other and we know what to expect. I felt like that was really strong and one of the things that makes us really special. It’s easy to think: What does the market want? What do the radio programmers want? And then try and retroactively build your band into the thing they want. But I just feel like that’s such a recipe for disaster.”

For “American Primitive,” the Old 97’s decamped to Portland, and producer Tucker Martine’s studio. With virtually no preproduction involved (a first for the group), the sessions were done by the seat of the band’s pants. A relatively painless process, the basic recording took a couple of weeks and included guest appearances by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey of The Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5. It was quite a homey experience for the Old 97’s.

“It was really all off the cuff,” Miller explained. “We would sit down, I would teach the band a song. Over the course of a few hours, we would feel our way until we landed on what you hear on the album essentially. There are a few overdubs. I would sweeten the vocals a little bit. But it’s almost all off the floor. Then later, we obviously had Peter Buck come in and play some guitar on it as well as Scott McCaughey. They were so great.”

“It was great working with Peter,” Miller added. “We’d go and have dinner at his house, where we’d hang out with Scott in Peter’s basement with all his vintage guitars and hear all his stories. It was really inspiring.”

The baker’s dozen of tunes that make up “American Primitive” resonate with the kind of roots-rock manna music lovers have come to expect from the Old 97’s. From the reverb-soaked opener “Falling Down,” which finds guitarist Bethea channeling Link Wray, the aforementioned band chemistry Miller referenced is in full evidence. Gems range from “Where The Road Goes,” with its gentle jangle that frames a message of wanderlust, to the singalong stomp of “Somebody” to the rambunctious snappiness of “This World.” Capping it all off is “Estuviera Cayendo” (which translates to falling down), a beautiful instrumental piece played by guest flamenco guitarist Jeff Trapp of Silverton. While the quality of the new material has got Miller jazzed about hitting the road, this go-round is all the more special given how the 54-year-old singer/songwriter is coming off a major surgical procedure.

“Going back on the road now is sort of a triumphant element for me because I’m at the end of a four-month, forced hiatus after vocal cord surgery,” he said. “I’ve got all my vocal range back after having lost large swaths of it. I can sing all of those notes again. It’s crazy, having grown up singing my whole life, you take for granted that you can hit any note you want to hit within a certain range. I lost that for the last couple of years and it was incredibly frustrating. When I did the vocal cord surgery, I found that the cyst on my vocal cord was even larger than they anticipated. Any surgery on anything that small, delicate and essential to my livelihood is scary. There was a part of me subconsciously really worried that I might never sing again or get onstage again, because that kind of thing happens.”

The live shows present a unique challenge. Given the Old 97’s longevity, the band has to strike a balance between hitting all the high points of the back catalog while not ending up playing shows of Springsteenian length.

“I kind of know what the tentpoles are for the set list,” Miller said. “As the set list maker, I’m going to sneak in a few deep cuts and surprise songs every night, which totally change from night to night. Then we have to kind of hit the main songs. We’ve got ‘Good With God,’ which is a duet I recorded with Brandi Carlile off our 2017 album “Graveyard Whistling.” We kind of do that every night. And then there is the obvious stuff from [the 1997 album] “Too Far to Care,” which was considered the highwater mark of our band. We have to play five or six songs off that album every night.”

Miller admitted, “I don’t think our audience would want us to do three-hour sets.” He elaborated, “We generally keep it to around two hours. If it’s a weeknight, it might be one hour and 45 minutes. There are young people that show up night after night. We’ve been handed to the next generation in a lot of ways. But the core audience is still getting older. We can’t play three hours and expect people to be excited about it.”

When you ask the Texas native about his band’s longevity, Miller will tell you that it always comes back to making music while maintaining the kind of rare chemistry most groups don’t achieve even over a lengthy stretch of time, never mind three decades-plus and counting.

“You don’t get to claim the unbroken status unless you continually put out records,” he said. “That’s part of our contract with our fans, ourselves and, literally, our record label. We continue to make and release albums. For me, it’s great, because I’m going to be writing songs regardless, so I need albums on which to place those songs. I did sort of have to cajole Ken, our guitarist, to go back into the studio. And I’m glad I did because I feel like this album is a real showpiece for his specific talent. I feel like it shines through on this record so strong.”

Old 97’s
With Grey DeLisle
Wed., April 9
Domino Room
51 NW Greenwood Ave., Bend
Doors 7pm, show 8pm; all ages
$25
ticketweb.com/event/old-97s-grey-delisle-domino-room-tickets/14065603

This article appears in The Source Weekly April 3, 2025.