Blanche
Ol' Fashioned Hick'ry Smoked Tunes


An awful lot of interesting and unusual musical concoctions have been cooked up in the Motor City over the years, but who in their right mind would have ever expected it to serve up the best hillbilly band in recent memory? Well, believe it, mister! Detroit band Blanche comes off as a bit of a twisted Carter Family for the 21st century, with the old-time country sincerity tempered by a healthy dose of modern-day doubt and skepticism, with a little dash of paranoia tossed in for good measure.

The band's debut album, "If We Can't Trust The Doctors…," is as entertaining as an old-time traveling medicine show. And its dark, funny, strange and touching little songs that float along on a dusty bed of pedal steel guitar, banjo and autoharp are darned-near guaranteed to cure whatever ails you.

The album was initially released on Detroit's Cass Records in the spring of 2004, but its positive reception by critics and roots-music lovers earned it a fall re-release on the much larger V2 Records label. The band, fronted by husband and wife team Dan and Tracee Miller, whose interplay both onstage and on record forms the foundation of the band, has some interesting roots of its own.

When I first crossed paths with Blanche's leading man Dan Miller back in the mid-'90s, he was serving as the ringleader of colorful Detroit cowpunks Goober & The Peas. At the time, the lanky lead singer cut quite an entertaining figure in his big cowboy hat and white suit with appliqué musical notes adorning the jacket. The band, which was anchored by front man Miller and guitarist Tom "Junior" Hendrickson, developed a bit of a cult following, releasing two albums and touring the United States and Europe with acts like Morphine. The group went through its fair share of lineup changes, but the final version of the band--which broke up in 1995--included a quiet, mild-mannered drummer by the name of Jack "Doc" Gillis, who would later go on to become better known as a certain candy-cane-colored lad by the name of Jack White.

After Goober & The Peas split, Goober/Dan and Doc/Jack reshuffled the musical deck and came up with an eclectic little act known as Two-Star Tabernacle. The dynamic duo were soon joined by Dan's new wife Tracee, whom the smitten Miller had proposed to onstage at a bluegrass festival in Michigan. "I had arranged with the band that was playing to go up and sing a Webb Pierce song to her. And then I proposed to her onstage, so she had to say 'yes.' So I basically tricked her into marrying me!"

Dan and Jack shared the singing and songwriting duties in Two-Star Tabernacle. Though the pair shared the same basic musical instincts and orientation, after bouncing around Detroit for a couple of years, it started to become apparent that their interests were headed in different directions--with Dan's gaze drifting back to the simple, pastoral musical past and Jack's eye firmly fixed on the brave (and much louder) new musical future. What do you know? It turned out one was a little bit country, and the other was a little bit rock & roll!

As Miller recalls, "I was writing songs, and Jack was writing songs too. Jack's songs were much more revved up and aggressive. And at that point, I was going through some kind of sad parts of my life and I was starting to veer towards writing more like Carter Family kind of stuff. It was just kind of a weird mixture of those two things that never really connected exactly, but it was always interesting. Sometimes our live shows were really great, and sometimes it was really horrible. Then he started working on the White Stripes stuff. And then with Two-Star Tabernacle, it became something that we just played around with once in a while. Then it just got to a point where it didn't feel like it was something that was worth continuing with."

And so the two former musical compadres ended up shuffling down their separate paths. But many of the songs that were originally written and performed under the Two-Star Tabernacle banner later turned out to be staples of both the Blanche and White Stripes repertoires. Blanche's "Who's To Say?" and "So Long Cruel World," as well as the Stripes' "The Big Three Killed My Baby," "The Same Boy You've Always Known," "Hotel Yorba" and "The Union Forever" all had their genesis in the fertile ground of the Tabernacle. And the Miller-penned composition "Who's To Say?," which kicks off Blanche's debut disc, also ended up being covered by the Stripes on the B-side of their single, "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself."

With White off single-handedly resurrecting the spirit of garage rock, Miller had his own garage to return to--one that seemed to be in a decidedly more rustic and somewhat creepy part of the country. He returned to the simple and haunting country music of the past that he'd always loved.

And like the music of the hills that inspired them, Blanche seemed to spring up naturally out of the surrounding environment, with the Millers attracting a group of friends and acquaintances around them who seemed to share their musical interests and who would come to form Blanche's initial lineup: Dave Feeny on pedal steel guitar, Patch Boyle on banjo and autoharp, and Lisa "Jaybird" Jannon on drums.

But surprisingly, Blanche may have more in common with the likes of the Ramones and the Sex Pistols than you might imagine. As was the case with most of punk's founding fathers back in the day before every snot-nosed kid grew up with a guitar in his hand, when they started out, most of Blanche's players were relatively unacquainted with their instruments.

"It was a really natural, odd thing that happened. We were just hanging out with friends in our living room. Lisa, our drummer, had never been in a band before. It was like, 'Here, just play this old snare drum and just kind of keep the beat.' And Patch, our first banjo player, had never played anything. But he was like, 'I'd love playing banjo.' And I had an old pedal steel guitar around, and Feeny just started figuring that out. He'd been in a lot of bands playing guitar but had never played pedal steel. In Goober & The Peas, I sang but I didn't play guitar. And Tracee was still learning about the bass, and then we kind of threw her in the water and said 'All right, you've got to sing some songs and help out.'"

But, as was the case with punk, this had the effect of simplifying the musical presentation and stripping things down to their bare essentials, where the real heart and power of the music lies.

"That is kind of what a garage band is supposed to be. It's supposed to be something that's not perfect. Whereas now you've got these bands that look and dress and sound just like the Stooges, but everything's right out of a playbook or something. There's nothing that's very real or very inspiring about it. But for us, I think it's just kind of about embracing that simplicity. One inspiration, among others, is the Carter Family--and definitely the Velvet Underground--because there's just this beautiful simplicity to their music. I just never get sick of listening to it, even though there's not this really textured production."  

But don't think for a moment that Blanche is the kind of band that would discard any high-falutin' concern for visual presentation in the name of authenticity. No sirree, you won't find any baggy-jeaned shoe-gazers here! The group has a unique sartorial style that makes them appear as if they just stepped out of some strange, alternate version of the familiar, rustic past--a little like country gothic refugees from a Coen Brothers movie!

"There definitely is effort. I mean, we really think about the way we present ourselves. I've always loved entertainers who do put effort into that. But it is a really naturally inspired thing by our music. And I think as long as it's inspired by the music, and the music comes first, then everything else can be a really cool accoutrement. But that is just kind of the way we all dress. We all like to get a little dolled up if we go out to a bar to have a drink or something. So it wasn't like there was some big band meeting before the first show. We do feel like a little bit of an odd family. We've all known each other for such a long time, and everything just kind of fits together in a weird way. It feels a little bit like one of those old country bands traveling around where you've got an uncle, and some kind of cousin or nephew playing banjo."

The Blanche pseudo-family spent some time touring with kindred spirits the Handsome Family late last year and then opening for old friends the White Stripes on a number of European dates earlier this year. Because of the bands' musical and stylistic differences, Miller wasn't entirely sure how Blanche would be greeted by the Stripes' fans. But, as it turned out, he was pleasantly surprised.

"Jack was saying, 'I don't know how you guys are going to go over. Just be ready because we’ve had a lot of opening bands where people can get really aggressive and be a little abusive.' But I think it's probably a credit to their audience, because they've been exposed through the songs and the sounds that Jack and Meg do, that they were more open to something that was a little bit different. And it went really well. And then the next thing you know, we've suddenly got fan sites that two 15-year-old girls from Wales have started!"

The band also made some new converts playing the European festival circuit this summer, sharing the bill with an interesting range of diverse acts. "There'd be us, and then Peaches, and then the New York Dolls and the White Stripes. And I thought that was just great. It was all over the place. Especially for a festival, I think it's great to see a variety of different musical styles. And we didn't get bottled off at Reading and Leeds either!"

Another interesting adventure the affiliation with White led Miller on was the mission to resurrect the career of country queen Loretta Lynn. Knowing that Miller shared his affection for the ol' genuine-article version of Miss Loretta, White invited his former bandmate along to lend a hand on his production of Lynn's return-to-grace album, "Van Lear Rose."

"Loretta had heard that the White Stripes had dedicated "White Blood Cells" to her and I think she wanted to meet Jack and Meg. So Jack was just going down there to meet her, and he and Meg asked me if I wanted to go with them, and I was like, 'God dang, yeah!' So the three of us went down there, and she made us chicken and dumplings and just was the nicest person and everything you could hope for."

"And then Jack just got a bunch of friends he knew like me and (Dave) Feeny from Blanche to go down there when they were going to record. I thought I was just going to be hanging out, that it'd be fun to watch. But he ended up putting me to work too! There was such a really great dynamic between Loretta and Jack. And it was so great to see her in a real, stripped-down, raw environment."  

Miller ended up contributing some guitar-playing and backing vocals to the Lynn album. And to cap off the experience, Blanche was asked to serve as the opening act for Loretta when she visited Detroit last summer. "It was really cool. And I was shocked that her crowd really liked us!"

And now Miller's laying claim to another hunk of country music history by portraying Johnny Cash's legendary guitarist Luther Perkins in "Walk The Line," the big-screen biopic of the man in black, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Johnny and June that's due to turn up in theatres next spring.

So how did a mild-mannered guy from Detroit who once answered to the name of "Goober" end up becoming a big-time Hollywood movie star? Apparently roots music patron saint T-Bone Burnett, who had encountered Blanche a few months earlier, recommended Miller to the casting director for the film.

"T-Bone Burnett must have remembered that I was a fellow tall, odd-looking guy. I think I was the first person who was tall and gaunt and a little bit deathly-looking and looked a little bit like Luther and played guitar. But it was great because they shot it in Memphis, and I was happy about that. It was just a really, really wonderful experience."

But enough about the past--what does the future look like for the decidedly backward-looking Blanche?

"We really haven't toured much of America yet. So starting in February, we'll do a tour of the U.S. We've got a couple of videos for "Do You Trust Me?" and "Someday." And then hopefully we'll start working on the new album next summer." 

"We're still just kind of surprised that people have responded to our music. We thought it would just be a real small kind of niche audience that might relate to it. But one of the things that you do with a band, you ask yourself, 'What would I like to listen to? What would I like to go see from a band?' And ever since I was a kid, my parents played a lot of country music, and that's just kind of my thing for life that I'm always going to be infected with. And I think I've realized it's always much easier to just follow what's in your head and what's in your heart."