Old 97’s frontman Rhett Miller spoke to PopMatters’ Drew Fortune recently about his fourth solo album and his struggle over the years to shake the Dallas Observer’s “pretty boy teen folkie” label. Miller, 38, insists that he demanded his face be blurred on the first Old 97’s album Hitchhike to Rome and he “wore huge glasses” to downplay his good looks, but that wasn’t enough.
“I mean, am I really so debilitating good looking [Laughs]?” Miller asked. “I had a guy walk up to me one time at a gig and say, ‘God, I wish you looked like Jeff Tweedy, because it would be a lot easier to like your band!’ I think it was a really weird thing to say, because I think Jeff is a pretty good looking guy. I was thinking, ‘Wow, you are fucking shallow dude … I mean, that’s your criteria for liking a band, and thinking they’re honest?’ I always thought Jeff Tweedy was such a boyish-looking cutie pie…”
For more from Miller, including how he’s come around to liking Ryan Adams and more, click here.