Meet Craig Miller

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Craig Miller a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Craig, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

Honestly, I don’t have a great work ethic when it comes to things I’m not interested in. But when it comes to things I’m passionate about, I just want to do the work. I want things to be as good as they can possibly be, because I care so much about it. Thankfully, Blueburst is something I feel that way about. And I have a creative day job that I’m also passionate about.

People talk about working crazy hours being bad, and how everyone needs work/life balance. And if you’re miserable at y our job, I get it. Make sure you get plenty of time off.

But if you’re crazy passionate about something and working your tail off at it to make it great, you won’t want the time off.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Blueburst is a very special project in many ways. Firstly, it’s the first music I’ve made in 20 years after a long period where I lost my confidence, drank a bit too much, and just couldn’t bring myself to finish any songs. So it’s a redemption story for me of sorts, as I thought my musical ambitions might be over. But they’ve come roaring back.

Blueburst is also a story of the value of mentorship. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have recruited one of my favorite musicians of all time, Marty Willson-Piper (The Church), to serve as my musical Yoda. He contributed to the record with his normal stellar guitar work. But he’s also contributed in a huge way in getting me unstuck and confident again by giving me his honest feedback and advice. I sometimes don’t react well to criticism, but when it’s coming from a seasoned pro who’s made some of your favorite albums, you listen!

I’m also very proud of how the album “Significance” came together kind of magically coalesced around a common theme of trying to define what a “significant’ life is. I didn’t start out with that in mind, but it just happened that way through serendipity or my subconscious or something like that. Most of the songs are written from the POV of a character in my head dealing with this issue in one way or another. With Vanish, it’s two people who give up on making any significant change in the world and just decide to go off and live their lives to the fullest. i.e. ‘I hope that hope prevails at last. But this all moves too fast to lose another day.” Executioner’s Song is written from the POV of Gary Gilmore, a man who asked to be executed by the state of Utah, because he wanted his death to be more significant than his life. Kick My Tires is about those times when you put someone up on a pedestal and let their opinion become the only significant thing.

I hope people get that.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I think optimism is key. I may have imposter syndrome sometimes. And I may beat myself up for not being good enough. But I’m generally optimistic that I can make good things happen.

I’m also willing to put myself out there and take risks. I’m not afraid to get onstage and tell jokes or play music or give a presentation. If people don’t like it, well, I’d rather they did. But it’s OK.

My advice to anyone is to try anything and everything that strikes your fancy. If you think you might want to learn to play guitar, get a guitar. If you think you might want to drive race cars, get race car driving lessons. Whatever it is, you’ll be glad you gave it a go, no matter how it turns out.

That’s a theme in one of the songs on our album that I didn’t write, Bravado, originally by Rush with lyrics from Neil Peart. “If the dream is won, but everything is lost, we will pay the price. But we will not count the cost.” To me that means you will not regret the dreams you pursued, no matter how that pursuit ends.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

I’m a huge fan of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.” I think that’s absolutely essential to make anything unique or surprising or amazing. There’s also a website and book for graphic designers, GFDA.co, which stands for Good Fucking Design Advice. It’s basically about pushing through doubts, laziness, procrastination and all the things that we put in our own way.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Photos of Craig by Gus Schmiege
Photo of Marty by Nocturna Photography

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