About Rhett Miller
Stewart Ransom "Rhett" Miller II is the lead singer of the alternative country rock band Old 97's. He also records and performs as a solo musician, and has been published as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction.
Miller, a seventh-generation Texan, was born in Austin, Texas. Miller's parents divorced when he was 17 years old. Miller, the oldest of three children, has a younger brother and sister. Rhett's paternal grandfather, Giles E. Miller, was a young millionaire scion of a successful textile family who, in 1952 owned the first NFL football team in the south, the Dallas Texans. The Texans folded after seven games, marking the last time an NFL franchise would go bankrupt.
Miller's family lived in Highland Park, Texas, where he went to Armstrong Elementary School. In 4th grade, Miller was hospitalized for several months due to a severe inner-ear problem. In 6th grade, he began attending St. Mark's School of Texas, a private boys' school in North Dallas. He started taking guitar lessons when he was 12 years old and writing songs when he was 13. Miller has said that his time at St. Mark's was very difficult, and that he was ostracized and bullied, leading to depression which culminated in a suicide attempt at the age of 14. The following year in April 1985 Miller played his first gig at 500 Cafe in downtown Dallas. Through high school Miller played in bands, becoming a local folk performer and headlining small venues and opening for such nationally touring artists as Rosanne Cash, Chris Isaak, and The Lords of the New Church. Also in high school, Miller edited St. Mark’s literary magazine and helped start an alternative literary magazine called The Rag, for which he wrote poetry.
In 1989, Miller graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas. He briefly attended Sarah Lawrence College on a creative writing scholarship before deciding to move back to Texas to pursue a music career.
In 1989, while still in high school, Miller released an album called Mythologies. The album title was taken from a book of essays by the French media philosopher Roland Barthes. Only 1,000 copies of the CD exist. Miller signed and numbered each one.
In 1990, when Miller returned to Dallas after his semester at college, Miller formed a band called Sleepy Heroes with childhood friend and future Old 97’s bassist Murry Hammond. Sleepy Heroes was a power-pop three piece. They released one album, Under a Radio Sun, before they broke up. The Old 97's song, "Victoria," was written during the last few months of Sleepy Heroes.
Miller was the lead singer of various bands in Dallas between 1990 and 1993: Rhett Miller's Third Eye, Buzz, Rhett's Exploding, and Retablo, for which Miller self-recorded an unreleased record on cassette which included some early Old 97's songs.
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