Bill Miller aka Billy Miller
60 minute chat with Australian, songwriter, guitar player, singer, producer, arranger, character, Bill Miller.
I spoke with Bill Miller over a wide ranging period. 60 minutes of quality talk.
Billy Miller talks about his life in music as a young man in a pop moment in the 70s in the Ferretts. Before that with Buster Brown and in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
Touring Australia with Blondie in 1977. Working in the studio with Tony Cohen and Ian “Molly” Meldrum. Songwriting with Paul Kelly.
Contains rugged attitudes, stories and scenes. On buses, in cars and planes and on stages and in studios.
Many characters and times skirting close with “desperates” and “borderline criminality”.
I am sorry to say I laughed at inappropriate times. Its like chatting with a pirate.
Many times Bill refers to his monster Australian pop moment with the Ferretts, Don’t Fall In Love. A band that contained, among others, Bills sisters Jane and Pam. In this performance on ABC pop show Coutdown you see a Gordon st street sign, the actual location of the old ABC studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne.
Another clip from their album Dreams Of A Love. Shot inside a Melbourne tram.
Billy Miller and the Great Blokes. 1982. Billy Miller with KD from the Ferretts on bass.
Billy Miller live at RMIT studio in 2018. John Annas on percussion and Eddie Miller on guitar and vocal.
I first met Billy one day on the street in the early 90s. He was working with Andrew Duffield in at AAV studios in South Melbourne. I lived nearby and often used to drop in as I didn’t have much on and loved the ambience of working studios. I saw them working on different advertising jingles and projects including the soundtrack to the kids tv series Around The Twist.
Later in 1997 we were asked “where’s the single?” when we presented the Devil Drives to our label, Universal. We recorded a song called Feelin Kinda Sporty and then had to get it mixed. (The whole album had been recorded in Melbourne and then taken to London to be mixed so it was all approached in a very mid 90s “remix” style way. Record companies found it much easier to talk with remix producers as opposed to artists. They were more clinical and business like). We were in Melbourne and tried a couple of people to horrible effects so I suggested we get Andrew Duffield and his partner Phil Kenihan and Bill Miller to do it. They mixed the single which had Billy singing and perhaps even adding guitar touches on it. Then Dave Graney and the Coral Snakes folded and we mixed all of the next album, The Dave Graney Show with the same team.
The Dave Graney Show was a four piece - myself, Clare Moore, Stuart Perera and Adele Pickvance but after a while Billy started appearing live with us as well and continued for the next three albums, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Heroic Blues and The Brother Who Lived.
Bill has always been a St Kilda Football Club fan. We went to a roast for their legendary full forward Tony “Plugger” Lockett at the KEG in South Melbourne in 1992 and Billy did his party trick of the last five minutes of the 1966 Grand Final (their one and only Premiership) set to music. Sadly there is no clip of it that I could find but this is close.
The song which Bill wrote with Paul Kelly which won APRA song of the year in 2018, being performed by Tim Minchin.
Bill is a great guy to play with, to have on your side or in your team. He THROWS himself into the situation and the moments. Thanks for everything, Bill!