If it seems like Steve Miller Band’s “Space Cowboy” or “The Joker” is playing every time you turn on the radio, it’s because they really are.
Miller hasn’t released an album of new material since 1993’s “Wide River,” but thanks to radio ubiquity he continues to tour successfully to ever-younger crowds.
“You have to be smart about what you do,” Miller, 63, said last week. “I’m one of the kings of classic rock radio, but it’s not by my design.”
Miller’s pop culture status sometimes obscures his history as a world-class blues guitarist and confidant to some of the most innovative musicians in rock, from Les Paul and Chuck Berry to Buddy Guy and Boz Scaggs.
We talked to Miller in advance of his Thursday concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre about his longevity, history and how he approaches the relentless touring.
Q: How do you keep your radio hits fresh when you tour an average of 45 cities per year?
A: I loved all the songs when I wrote them, and I still love performing them. “Fly Like an Eagle” can be 18 minutes long if we want. But only part of the set is the hits, so we can do Buddy Guy, Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy,” hillbilly music, whatever we want.
Q: Do you feel pressure to play certain songs?
A: We pace it. When the audience comes in, we don’t tease them. We give them a lot of what they paid their money and five hours of time to see. We want them to have a great time, so we start our concert off on a high note with a bunch of hits, and then all of a sudden we’re going to the blues side of things.
Q: Do you still feel like you’re learning on each tour?
A: Sure, I’m practicing guitar every day, and I’m getting better. I just love to play. I can’t wait to get … out of the studio this week and get back on the road.
Q: What’s going on in the studio right now?
A: We’re in the middle of editing two nights we shot in Chicago from July 13-14. I’m selecting takes and we’re assembling a music bed for a DVD from 15 hi-def cameras.
Q: You’re not shy about your feelings on the failing state of the music industry. Where do you see it going?
A: I see it as you’ll go to the Steve Miller website and there will be a concert I did with the Doobie Brothers in 1993 at Red Rocks, or my blues album, or my jazz album, and you can get it all there.
Q: Are you still recording new material?
A: We’ve never stopped recording, it’s just that as you mature you realize you’re working in a marketplace that’s so splintered. It’s really difficult to release something new and make it worth the effort.
Q: Do you mean the marketing effort?
A: Well, if everybody at the record company has a mohawk and safety pins in their noses, they’re not going to dig a new blues album, which is how it was for me in the ’90s.
A: But you’ve also sold more than 20 million albums and continue to dominate a lot of FM radio stations.
Q: Radio has just imploded on itself. It’s so bad now nobody listens to it. Everybody has an iPod and can go online and get everything for free. No plastic jewel box, no CD creating a truckload of packaging and trash.
Q: You’ve really been around music all your life, haven’t you? Your dad used to have people like Les Paul, Charles Mingus and T-Bone Walker over to the house all the time, and you formed your first band with Boz Scaggs when you were 12 years old.
A: Les and his wife, Mary, were rehearsing their act at this nightclub in Milwaukee in 1949, and I went to see them play every night. That’s where I fell in love with this idea of music. Les and Mary taught me my first chords, and pitch and phrasing, when I was 5 years old. He has been my godfather. In fact, I just played with him last night.
Q: That’s an impressive history.
A: I’ve really been playing since 1956. When I was about 40, I sort or remember this epiphany I had. I don’t know why it took that long, but up to that point I was just doing it. But I thought, “My God, I’ve played with Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf, I played rhythm guitar in Buddy Guy’s band in 1963.” It just sort of all added up and I said “Wow, what a charmed life.”
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
Steve Miller
CLASSIC ROCK | Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 7:30 p.m., Aug. 23| $49.50-$64.50 | Ticketmaster
