Change of Keys

Comets on Fire frontman ETHAN MILLER finds rock ‘n’ roll through the keyboard on his new album as Howlin’ Rain.

Seventies style jam rock from the King of Northern California Psychedelia?
It’s the last thing everyone expected from Comets on Fire mastermind Ethan Miller. Surely his passion project, Howlin’ Rain, would provide something evenmore abstract than the four spaced-out Comets records Miller has made. But Magnificent Fiend, Howlin’s second full-length, is a giddy playground of swirling keyboards, steely guitars, and bluesed-out vocals that combined form a screaming ode to the Gods of Rock. It’s the earthy antidote to the celestial albums Miller has made with Comets on Fire that proves, once again, that defying expectations is what Miller loves to do best.

You guys are going to take off on a really big tour soon?
We’re kind of on a constant tour, flitting out and coming and going for two or three weeks at a time. Come back home for a week and a half then head back out, instead of the full on, five straight months in a row. We’re going down to the South and playing Bonnaroo then heading over to Europe, and then we’re heading out with the Black Crowes for some East Coast/West Coast gigs.

How did you come to the sound of Magnificent Fiend?
I originally started writing a folk-ier album, and at the same time I wanted some of the rock elements in there. I started listening to a lot of later 60s-70s jazz fusion and some of the classic 70s pop stuff, like Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac. Between the jazz and the jazz fusion and the Dan and the Mac, in all those classic records, the keys and their different incarnations are such an integral part of the sound that we identify with those songs. Maybe that was part of the gravity moving me toward the sound that becameMagnificent Fiend.Where our first record was a really guitar-oriented record, this one is very keys-oriented.

And it takes you right to that 70s rock ‘n roll era. People who are writing nostalgia-rock, they add keys to things, but no one’s really committing to it like you are.
When you’re writing these big, riffy rock songs that burst in the 70s and are still on the radio, it comes from the root of Super Powerful Rock Music. But there’s a certain whole other majesty when you bring in the mathematics and genetics of the keyboard and piano. It’s an instrument that vastly complicates the landscape of rock ‘n roll because of its multiplicity. You’ve got your bar chords on the guitar, but on the piano you got a lot of different things you can do with a single chord and its variations, and you end up working in a sort of exponential residence.

Are you doing a lot of fifteen minute jams when you play live?
We do sometimes, it depends where we are and what’s happening. I really love improvising, especially onstage, because it’s so do or die. The potential for disaster is so great in improvisational playing. That’s why the climax and the unity when it all comes together right is so incredibly high. You’re making fireworks over a pretty big, dark chasm.

Who, for you, epitomizes a great live show?
The Boredoms. When I saw them in 94-95 it was the tail end of the Pop Tatari era. They were still more of a wild rock band doing weird things. And it was dangerous and unhinged. The Jesus Lizard were a great live band. Same thing, the band could be so tight, and David Yow was just so natural and dangerous and crazy. These bands are popping into my head because there’re these elements of danger and violence, but that’s not necessarily what defines a great live band. I saw Crosby Stills Nash and Young and there was something profoundly powerful in seeing the intensities and dynamics of their relationships in the harmonies. It can’t be hidden on stage

Are you planning to go back and do more with Comets on Fire?
Yeah, we’ve got some shows coming up very soon. And then there’s always talk and desire on the horizon about making a record.

Are you getting any kind of response fromyour Comets fan, in terms of what you’re doing with Howlin’ Rain?
Yeah, there’re probably a lot of people that don’t like it, and then a lot of others that do. I think Comets always tested the imagination of each fan with each record. And Iwanted tomake an extension of that with Howlin’ Rain. I wanted to write poppier songs for Magnificent Fiend, or to make the album a little more mellowed out. And I think you set that stuff up, if you’re a band like the Ramones, or AC/DC, you made a temple of sound, and your fans probably don’t want to hear the Ramones’ jazz fusion album or the Ramones’ experimental drone record.

Right, but Comets on Fire fans are expecting to be played around with a little bit.
Yeah, we’re on this ride together and we got to keep moving. It’s guaranteed to get to a different destination every time.

— Lavinia Jones Wright