After years as a regular fixture on the Northeast jam scene, Mike Miz found just what he was seeking when he moved to Nashville in pursuit of the highest level of song-craft and guitar playing 3 years ago. Hailing from Northeast Pennsylvania, Mike spent the better part of the last decade playing festivals, clubs, and songwriter joints from Philadelphia to Asbury Park to NYC. Highlights from more than 200 shows per year include opening for Jakob Dylan, Jason Isbell, Lukas Nelson, Derek Trucks, America, Shawn Colvin, Blues Traveler, Railroad Earth, Jackie Greene, Southside Johnny, and sharing the stage with many more.
Shortly after his arrival to the Nashville scene, Mike’s unique talent garnered the attraction of industry pillars Ted Pecchio, Laur Joamets, Jon Radford and engineer/producer Brook Sutton, who assembled a top-notch band around Mike. This collaboration resulted in the recording of 11 new, original songs tracked live to tape in 3 days at the Wood Brother’s studio in West Nashville. The new album, Only Human (due out April 14th) tells the story of a 15-year battle with heroin addiction, love lost, years wasted, troubles with the law, and more, unrolls an autobiographical journey that culminates with optimistic redemption of a man who never gave up.
Only Human exemplifies the serendipitous result of a talented artist connecting with the right producer and players to amplify his art and create a work that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Mike’s new album is a songwriter’s champion and an audiophile’s delight. At times desperate and dark, Only Human is true to its title, proving through its mere existence that hope can persist, and that our struggles and setbacks are part, but not the whole, of our story.
Today Glide is excited to premiere “Only Human,” the album’s title track that was born out of inspiration from listening to Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, fans of the Straits will find plenty to love in the guitar stylings of Mike. With the vocals and guitar, not to mention the piano, there is definitely a groovy Fleetwood Mac-esque 70s rock vibe in play that veers off its path in the best kind of way with a bluesy guitar solo from the 400 Unit’s Sadler Vaden. Mike also shows off considerable vocal chops and lyricism, which he lets soar over the band’s groove-laden sound that definitely feels like it has jam potential. If this tune is any indication, the new album marks an exciting new direction for this accomplished musician.
Mike describes the inspiration and process behind the tune:
“I came up with the idea for this song during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. I often used to sit on the front porch of my old house on Shelby Ave in East Nashville and that’s where I came up with the riff. Shortly after I relocated to Madison, and it turned out my good pal and songwriting friend, Bob Lewis had just moved right up the street. We began to start writing songs on the front porch of that house and that’s where the song was mostly penned. This was also the first song that we recorded the first day of sessions. I was feeling a little, shaky and nervous being in the studio with such a high level of musicianship. But as soon as we broke into the first take everything just fell into place. I was lucky enough to have Laur Joamets who is one of my favorite guitar players play on the whole record. I had asked him if he had ever played or recorded with Sadler Vaden (another one of my favs) and he said that he hadn’t but would like to, so we decided to email Sadler to see if he would be down to play a guitar solo on the track. When I got the email back from Sadler, a few days later, he had sent me several takes, six in total. Three were labeled Sadler Buckingham, and three were labeled Sadler Knopfler. We ended up keeping take one of Sadler Buckingham, but someday I think it might be cool to release another one of the takes because everyone of them was awesome.”
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One Response
He ROCKS!!! I’ve been a fan from the first time I heard him Roughly 20 yrs ago!!