Still the 'Gangster of Love': Steve Miller at 80

Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Steve Miller didn't have to think twice about collaborating with rapper and fellow Rock Hall inductee Eminem, whose recent chart-topping song, "Houdini," heavily interpolates Miller's 1982 hit "Abracadabra" and was streamed more than 48 million times in the first week following its May 30 release.But when Miller was first approached to join Def Leppard and Journey for a 2024 summer stadium tour, he didn't hesitate to turn it down.Never mind that the offer came directly from Journey guitarist Neal Schon, who was still in his teens when he and Miller became friends in San Francisco in the early 1970s. And never mind that Schon made a very lucrative offer for Miller and his band to come on board."It was just Neal and me talking, no managers," Miller said, speaking from a tour stop last month in Houston. "He said, 'We're going to do 23 stadium dates with Journey and Def Leppard, and we really want you to open for us. Will you do that?'"And then he told me how much he was willing to pay, which was really generous. I said: 'I really appreciate that, but I can't do that." Because I had already confirmed my own tour, and if I accepted Neal's offer, I was gonna have to be on the road for 70 days or something."Miller, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016, laughed."Then, the business people got together and they basically came back and said, 'Well, how about if we paid you more, and you just picked the cities on the tour you want to do?' And I said, 'That sounds better!'"Because the two years I had off from touring during the pandemic (shutdown) made me really enjoy being home in New York. I was able to do a lot of art, writing and practicing. Sometimes, being on the road makes you feel like you're in the penalty box."Like, I'm sitting here in the Four Seasons, or the Ritz, or whatever the hell hotel it is in Houston I'm in right now, and it just feels like a cheap apartment or something and I just want to get out of here. I've always said that they pay me for traveling, and then I get to perform two hours of music a day — and that's for free and for fun — and that's still the way it feels."Now 80, Miller speaks about singing, playing guitar, writing songs and leading band with the same combination of dedication, gratitude and delight he had when his first chart-topping single, 1973's "The Joker," helped propel him to international stardom.The song's opening verse is one many fans still know word-for-word, 51 years later: "Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah / Some call me the gangster of love / Some people call me Maurice / 'Cause I speak of the pompatus of love."Released two weeks after his 30th birthday, "The Joker" was the title track of the 10th album by his Steve Miller Band. A succession of equally engaging and well-crafted hit singles followed, including 1974's "Take the Money and Run," 1976's "Rock'n Me," "Fly Like and Eagle" and "Jet Liner," and 1977's "Swingtown" and "Jungle Love."The five Steve Miller Band albums released between 1973 and 1982 sold 9 million copies in the U.S. alone, while 1978's "Greatest Hits 1974-78" sold 15 million copies in the U.S. "Abracadabra," released in 1982, topped the charts and the title track was a No. 1 single.Three more studio albums followed between 1984 and 1988, none of them hits. Miller has put out only two more studio albums since 1993, along with a number of compilations and live collections. His most recent, last year's "J50: The Evolution of The Joker," is a multi-disc box set with eight previously unreleased songs and 27 demo recordings. It follows "Welcome to the Vault," a 2019 archival that — like "J50" — was compiled from archival Miller recordings unearthed by his musicologist wife, Janice.Listening to more than a half-century of his recorded work was ear-opening for the Texas-born Miller."I was surprised. Listening to myself play guitar when I was 23, I played some really good stuff!" he said with a chuckle."I didn't think it was that good when I was doing it, because I was always trying to do better than I had before. I was one of those unfortunate types that would go into the studio and try and do something better than I had ever done in my life, because 'I was making a record!'"And then later, you learn and you relax. Now, when I play, I'm not really looking for speed on the guitar; I'm looking to create a musical conversation. We've all heard this a million times, but the spaces you leave between the notes are what make the notes sound really good."Miller spoke to the Union-Tribune for more than an hour. Here are excerpts from that conversation, edited for clarity and length.Q: When you play "Abracadabra," do you tell the audience about Eminem sampling it for his song "Houdini"?A: Yeah. I tell a little story about putting the song together, we vamp a bit and then go into it. I feel really great that Eminem used "Abracadabra." It's a good use of it!Q: How did that come about?A: He called that he'd like to use "Abracadabra." He said, "I've written a bunch of verses and we've done a track. I'll send it to you." I listened to it, called him back, and said, "Yeah, that's fine, man. It's great! And if you want, I'll send you the stems (individual audio files)." So, I sent him my actual recorded stems for "Abracadabra" so he could work with them.Then, I got a lesson about what social media has done to the record business. When I put out "Abracadabra" in 1982, it became the No. 1 record in the world, and that took about 12 months. With Eminem, two days after we signed our agreement, he released "Houdini" at 12:01 a.m. on a Friday. Within 30 minutes, 60,000 people had watched the video on YouTube. By 10 a.m., it was 3 million. Nearly 50 million people streamed it worldwide in just the first week.I'd never seen anything like that. It was crazy, just instantly. So, that was a real lesson. And Eminem was very cool. I put out a little release (saying) I appreciated that it was legit. It feels good that a whole other group of people are listening to my music (through Eminem) and digging it.Q: You've never been credited as a godfather of gangsta rap, but the hip-hop group N.W.A. sampled "Take the Money and Run" for their 1988 song, "Gangsta Gangsta," and the Ghetto Boys sampled your version of Johnny "Guitar" Watson's "Gangster of Love" for their 1989 song, "Gangsta of Love." Other songs of yours have been sampled by Public Enemy, OutKast, and the list goes on. How surprised were you that you were a favorite of a lot of major hip-hop artists?A: I love it when people use my music and credit it. But the first one I became aware of was the Ghetto Boys, and I was extremely (ticked) off. They didn't get my permission and there was my voice (on their song), which was pretty raunchy, misogynistic and ugly …But it was kind of funny how I found out about it. We were in Cincinnati on tour, and my nephew — who was about 14 years old — called me up. He said, "Hey, Uncle Steve, have you heard the Ghetto Boys?" And I went, "Who are the Ghetto Boys?" My nephew said, "Well, you better check it out." I did, and then I got into it with them. I called up their record company, and said, "Hey, I'm sitting here listening to your record, and I know what you've done (with my song)." I had put it into Pro Tools and then printed out their version, and my version on transparent materials so I could lay them over each other. I mean, I just, I just had all the proof; I didn't need a musical expert or anything.I had a new lawyer at the time in New York. I called him, and he said he'd get right on it. He didn't tell me that he also represented the Ghetto Boys! After I found out, I had to get a new lawyer … I couldn't imagine going to court. But after about three or four years, somebody with the Ghetto Boys sent me a check for about $50,000. I think they said they sold 400,000 copies. Anyhow, that was the beginning of me getting sampled.It wasn't much longer after that until Napster showed up, and my record sales — I had been selling, like, a million and a half records a year of my back catalog — and in about 18 months after Napster appeared, my sales went down to, like, 110,000 copies a year. It really was a serious challenge, a legal challenge, to intellectual property rights.Q: When we spoke in 2010, you told me, "I don't feel like a cranky old man. I feel like an intelligent man with wisdom and experience. If they shut down the internet, these people are finished. They won't know what to do." What do you know now, 14 years later, that you didn't know then?A: Like many people, I just didn't understand then how addictive the internet was and how cellphones were going to change their lives. I didn't really understand the scope of what was happening. I still feel like that when I talk to young people now. It's like, "Young people! Could you show me how I can find that on my computer?"Q: You were a comparative literature and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin. What was your goal before you decided to do music full time?A: I thought I'd be a novelist and a teacher. Saul Bellow was a pretty cool guy and he was from Chicago. I was sort of a little hipster and I wasn't interested in science, or medicine, or any of those things like my father and all my uncles were. They were all doctors and musicians. Oddly enough, you know, I had three uncles that were great musicians, and one of them played in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Then, during the Great Depression, they all went to medical school and became doctors …As time went on, I just got more and more interested in writing. I loved history and I loved literature, and I thought I'd be a writer.Q: What made you turn away from that to music?A: I went to school in Copenhagen for a semester and came back. At the end of the year, when I was supposed to graduate, the university said, "Those credits you got in Copenhagen? Those don't count." I was sitting there getting ready to talk to my adviser, and I saw two guys who were about 35 years old in the English department, and they were arguing over their desk positions!And, by that time, I was not really in school very much. I was more in Chicago playing blues. I was in the blues scene and was coming back into my last year at University of Wisconsin. I basically just came in and took my exams, my finals, and I was doing great; I was making great grades.I may have told this story before, but my parents said to me, "What are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going to go to Chicago and play blues," you know, what every father wants to hear after his kid's been in college for four years! My mom said, "You know what? That's a great idea. You're young, you don't really have any responsibilities right now. Why don't you go see if you can make it doing music?" She gave me 100 bucks, and said, "Go to Chicago tomorrow." I was like, "Wow." And that was that. I was outta there!Q: You are 80 and on the road touring. What do you do to keep your voice and fingers in good shape? And do you still hang upside down from an inversion table after every show?A: Absolutely, I do. I was lucky; my mom had a great voice and I got her pipes. Back in the early 1980s, I started doing these vocal warm-ups with my band that had been created for Broadway singers to hit high-Cs while they are running across the stage. Now, I do it while I'm on a treadmill, and I do it much harder than I used to do. I work at it harder, and I'm more careful. I do it all the time and it seems to be working just fine.I use 15-pound dumbbells, and before each show and I do about three hours of warm-ups. playing guitar, doing hand exercises, stretching, lifting the weights, hitting the treadmill. Then, the band comes in and we do the vocal exercises again. At this age, you just don't know.But I'm still learning, I'm still working, still practicing. I think the band is as good as it's ever been right now. And we're real serious about what we're doing, and we're having fun, so that part is all really good. Then, you just look at the state this world is in. Here we are, we're out here touring, playing in stadiums, and it's too hot to play outdoors. I mean, it's really hot and feels different than (in the past). The future is really cloudy and pretty scary. Who knows what's gonna happen?