The tenth solo album from Rhett Miller, A lifetime of riding by night is a study in surrender. Days before undergoing potentially damaging surgery on his vocal cords, the Texas-born singer/songwriter headed into the studio with his Old 97’s bandmate Murry Hammond and recorded a batch of songs, then handed them off for Hammond to complete as he recovered. Threaded with his lived-in reflection on mortality and love in all forms, the album contains some of Miller’s most unguarded material yet—an achievement he attributes to revelations gleaned through his recent work in teaching songwriting at The New School in Manhattan, as well as the open-hearted nature of his collaborations with an eclectic lineup of co-writers (e.g., Turnpike Troubadours frontman Evan Felker, singer/songwriters Caitlin Rose and Nicole Atkins, former New Yorker editor Ben Greenman). Rooted in Miller’s soul-baring vocal work, A lifetime of riding by night ultimately proves the immense power in releasing all attempts to control the creative impulse. Mainly recorded at Dave’s Room in Los Angeles, A lifetime of riding by night marks Miller’s first time enlisting Hammond as a producer since his solo debut album Mythologies (a 1989 LP created when he was 17-years-old). “Murry was a mentor to me when we made that first record all those decades ago, and this album felt like the right time to work with him in that capacity again,” he says. “I gave him carte blanche in a way I never have with any other producer—we went in and recorded 20 songs, and I flew home to New York without even knowing which songs he’d end up using or what the finished versions would sound like. I just let go and trusted Murry completely.” His first solo effort since 2022’s The Misfit (an extravagant collision of dream-pop and psychedelia), A lifetime of riding by night centers on a gorgeously sparse form of folk/indie-rock that reveals every nuance and idiosyncrasy of Miller’s vocal performance. “There’s a lot of terrifying stories about the type of surgery I received, and I wanted to record the album first because I knew the worst outcomes were on the table,” he says. “I was in a lot of physical pain as I was singing these songs; there are moments when you can hear me really struggling. But as much as I thought about going back and re-recording the vocals once I’d recovered, I knew those imperfections were part of the DNA of the record. To me there’s something very human about a singer trying to sing the best he can despite being compromised.” While Miller has long embraced a certain candor in his songwriting, A lifetime of riding by night reaches an entirely new level of emotional truth thanks to a deliberate shedding of self-consciousness. “Through my experience in teaching, I’ve watched all these young songwriters feel scared to death about bringing their songs in and sharing them with the class,” says Miller, who also leads songwriting retreats in upstate New York. “It’s reminded me to forgive myself for my own anxieties about the vulnerability that’s required for songwriting, and over time that’s made me less fearful.”  A shining example of the album’s raw sincerity, A lifetime of riding by night’s lead single “Come As You Are” finds Miller joining forces with Felker for a heavy-hearted but quietly triumphant portrait of distance and longing. “That song came together at a time when Evan and I were both wrestling with the difficulty of leaving our loved ones behind to go on tour,” says Miller. “It’s a sweet song but there’s a sadness to it, which feels reflective of the true human condition.” Penned with Jesse Valenzuela of Gin Blossoms, “All For You” emerges as a playfully self-effacing yet emphatic statement of devotion. “When we wrote that song I thought it was for Jesse’s album, so I felt free to speak about love and gratitude with an earnestness I might not usually allow myself,” says Miller. “By the time we were finished I wondered why I’ve placed so many rules and constrictions on my writing in the past, rather than being the most earnest and authentic version of myself.” Another turning point for Miller, “All Over Again” embodies a luminous urgency in its heartfelt message of idealism and hope. “Nicole Atkins and I started that song backstage before a gig, and the idea was to write a ’60s-style song that encourages the audience toward positivity,” he says. “It’s a sentiment I’d probably never feel comfortable expressing without being goaded on by an artist I hugely respect, but it turned into something wonderful.” Lending another dimension of enchantment to Miller’s tender ruminations on the passing of time, A lifetime of riding by night abounds in songs that unfold in short-story-like vignettes. To that end, the LP’s moody title track inhabits the rugged mystique of a classic Western tale, inspired by an offhand observation made before an Old 97’s gig in Pioneertown, California. “Our dressing room was a cabin and I was watching my bandmates, thinking about all we’ve survived in our 32 years together,” Miller recalls. “I was probably reading an Elmore Leonard book at the time, and started writing this spaghetti-western type of song that imagines us as cowboys out on the prairie.” One of the album’s most heart-shattering moments, “Be Mine” follows a romance from the euphoria of infatuation to the discord and disappointments of deep familiarity, encompassing a lifelong love story in just over three minutes. And on “The Bells of St. Mike’s,” Miller presents a lovely and devastating piece of memoir from early adulthood. “When I was 23 I went to live at my grandmother’s house after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s,” he explains. “I was smoking a pack a day and drinking a lot and missing my grandma, but at the same time I was on the precipice of all these exciting things happening with the band—my life was on that knife’s edge of happiness and despair, which in a way feels like a microcosm of this whole record.”  After recovering from surgery, Miller headed out on tour with Old 97’s and finally experienced his first listen of A lifetime of riding by night in its completed form. “We were on the West Coast and I sat on a bench looking out onto the ocean, put my headphones on and played the album from start to finish,” he remembers. “It was very moving, partly because I could really feel that the songs were emotional in a way that I might not usually have the bravery to go through with.” For Miller, that moment also brought a heightened awareness of the rarity and magic of lasting creative connection. “It’s very much a love relationship when people work together the way that Murry and I have since I was a teenager recording my first demos,” he says. “So many people who were once our contemporaries are gone now or haven’t survived this business, but we’re somehow still here and able to create something that feels new and vital and unexpected. I think that’s an incredibly beautiful and special thing.”

Murry here, and a little about me and the band you hear on my records. I was born & raised in Texas, where in my 20's I co-founded alt-country legends Old 97s. Over the years the 97s have released more than a dozen studio albums and have appeared in films, television and had the pleasure of working with some of our musical heroes like X's John Doe & Exene, Waylon Jennings, and REM's Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey. I've written plenty within the group, both by myself and with my long time music partner Rhett Miller, but it was a few years living and writing as an Old 97 before I felt like my writing voice was unique enough to strike out on my own. The result was my first solo, I Don't Know Where I'm Going But I'm On My Way in 2008. I got a lot of wonderful response to it, one of the proudest of which was the inclusion of my version of the Carter Family's "In The Shadow of Clinch Mountain" in The Winding Stream, the acclaimed documentary film on the legendary Carters. Despite all this nice attention, the demands of the 97s and just life in general delayed recording a true follow up. I finally got in that mood in 2020, and I went happily overboard, as is my habit. I began working with friends and musical soulmates pianist Annie Crawford, North Carolina drummer Richard Hewett, and Austin's upright bassist Faith Shippey. Mix and mastering engineer Todd Burke (Ben Harper, Belle & Sebastian, many other cool groups) became my other producer-half, and has proven indispensable for helping me get to what you hear on these new records. Between the lot of us, we completed a large body of new work, the first of which we just released on Fluff & Gravy Records, the 10-song Trail Songs of the Deep. Another 10-songer, Another Idle Day is completed and scheduled for early 2026. Black Keys and Charley Crockett producer pal Mark Neill, who truly helped me figure out my “sound” when he produced my first solo, describes me as "a Southern Gothic Nick Drake experience", and I won't disagree. Though I must add Syd Barrett, Opal, Johnny Cash and most things 60's as things that continue to inspire. That's me. As a songwriter my output can be like a windy old house attic - disheveled, sometimes spooky, sometimes too blue, but also punctuated with warmth and light, hopefully. Enjoy, and see you all soon, be it with the Old 97s, my travels with The Long Ryders, or just me and my solo pals. Murry PS! - I just finished production on Rhett Miller's upcoming 2025 album A Lifetime Of Riding By Night and I couldn't be more proud of it, and of him. It's absolutely fab and vibey and psychedelic and everything I get excited about in an album. Annie, Richard, Faith and I are the band, with a guest appearance from Turnpike Troubador's Evan Felker. If you dig the sonics on Trail Songs, you're going to love Lifetime'. Out October 10. :)