NEW ARTIST JACOB MILLER HAS NO CLASS

Newcomer Jacob Miller is a talented multi-instrumentalist raised in Miami, Florida, who has independently released Who We Are via Dogleg Records. Miller admitted that in high school he had no class, and his parents were cool with that. Miller was given the go-ahead by his parents to cut school, but he wasn’t exactly sitting on the couch watching TV.

Miller told us he grew up in a musical household, and it was a rare time that he actually stopped working on his music long enough to go to school every once in a while.

“Well, I was a chronic school skipper, and I was voted most absent in my senior class, and it was so strange because I left Junior High School where everyone knew I was infamously the absent one, and I came into High School and I remember the first day I missed school. I came back and everyone was like, ‘Where were you? Are you OK? Were you sick?,” and then I realized these people don’t know me at all. That was definitely a lot of music time was when I was at home just writing and just listening to music and unfortunately for my teachers missing their classes, but I think they understood (laughs).”

Miller, who looks to Bob Dylan as an influence, explains what it is about the folk-rocker’s music that appeals most to him.

“That’s hard to say because he’s like the embodiment of the word intrigue or mystique, but I think when you have someone that was as prolific as he was at that time to release Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde in two years or whatever insane amount time that was — three masterpieces in contemporary music — you just, you wonder where that comes from. And he describes it as he was in some sort of pantheon of artistic experience unprecedented, I heard him say one time. I believe that he was just experiencing something on a level that people don’t tap into everyday.”

Jacob Miller is signed to Dogleg Music, the record label run by producer/ engineer Richard Serotta. The mantra of the label is to get the music out by any means necessary and to embrace technology while most majors fear it.

“I think just being in the business as long as someone like him, you just pick up, you get the insider knowledge that someone, a veteran like him has. He’s also put people around him that aren’t afraid of change, that aren’t afraid of the changes that are happening in the music industry. It seems like a lot of people are waiting to take the first step. We don’t have that fear of exploring something that hasn’t been used in the past, alternate routes, round about ways of getting somewhere. That’s why the label is called dogleg.”

Serotta was an engineer and worked on recordings by Jonathan Richman, Ricky Martin, Cameo and various latin artists in the Miami, Florida area.