Colin Miller is finding inspiration at home

His second album, Losin’, is a testament to his evolving creative process and ability to find inspiration in the midst of personal change. The journey of Losin’ began in October 2022, just a few months on from the death of Miller’s longtime friend and landlord, Gary King. With songs mentioning Gary’s favourite pastime, watching NASCAR and titled after his favourite cars [“Cadillac”], his presence and the space he left behind are central to the record.

“At that time [I began writing], Gary passed away, and so a lot of the songs reference him. It became this overarching theme of having to leave this house that I'd lived in for half my life. My sense of home was just getting completely rocked.” Miller explains, “I only moved out of that place last May [2024], even though Gary had been dead for two years. So, the album encapsulated that long goodbye, the time and the different facets when you lose a person and the repercussions that that comes with it”

Not only King but the house and property itself are a big part of the story of the album. “I was initially told that we would have to be out of the house in most likely a year, and it ended up being two. So it was kind of like a constant thing on my mind. But by the time we had to move it felt like time. I wanted a fresh start,” Miller tells me.

The timing being right was compounded by the devastating hurricane in September 2024, changing the physical landscape of Haw Creek: “The entrance to Haw Creek was a bridge, and the hurricane literally washed that bridge away, so there's no way up there. Trees have fallen on some of the houses, so yeah, it would have been getting pretty dire at this point if we had stayed.”

The post-hurricane landscape added a layer of surrealness to Miller's connection to the place. "It feels haunted, you know? I go over there because I lived there for so long that I still get random mail." The physical changes, juxtaposed with the lingering memories, create a sense of temporal dissonance. "In some ways everything's kind of frozen in time over there. And in other ways not; every single time I go over there, a different tree that was there standing and was part of the usual things that I would see, it's fallen and literally broken into pieces," Miller reflects.

In the time following King's death, the songs that would form Losin’ were primarily instrumental ideas, a departure from how Miller created Haw Creek, his previous album, where his grounding as an engineer steered his creative process. Miller describes his work this time as collecting fragments that later coalesced. "My lyrics kind of end up being puzzle pieces," he explains. "I write them at different times and then I think, oh, I wrote this three months ago, but it really applies to where I’m at right now."

Miller sought to contrast to the longer creation cycle of Haw Creek when making Losin’. "I was kind of trying to expedite the process because my last album had been songs that I had been working on for a really long time, and I loved them, but I wanted to mess with my process and speed it up a little bit for my own sake," he states.

Reflecting on the accelerated creative process, the Asheville native has a generally positive take. "I think when you give yourself a deadline in some way, even if it doesn't really have a date attached to it, [it gives you some sense] of urgency that you apply to a project." he states. While acknowledging the value of allowing ideas to mature over time, Miller also appreciates the unique character that each project develops through different creative approaches. "It's gotten to the point where I just I enjoy letting each project have its own personality," he says.

Haw Creek had a distinct character that was shaped by his work as an engineer, where the recording process is deeply intertwined with the writing process. In contrast, making Losin’ separated those two things. "I love recording, For me, this is the first time I really separated them because usually I write by recording. I write with a computer in front of me," he explains, an approach is driven by a desire to capture ideas immediately. "I have this functional anxiety… I better [write] it down immediately or else I'm gonna lose it, and I'm going to be frustrated that it's gone."

Having worked before with producer Alex Farrar – on Merce Lemon’s album Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild and MJ Lenderman’s acclaimed Manning Fireworks, both from 2024 – brought an intentional shift of emphasis away from the technical aspects of recording. "I deferred a lot of the technical stuff to Alex, just so I wouldn't have to think about it," he explains. "It felt like I was able to think more about the small details the song could have on it." While he relinquished control over the engineering, Miller remained involved in mastering, “because I’m a control freak” and because he “hates spending money I don't have to.”

The decision to collaborate with Farrar was crucial to Miller's comfort level with this new approach. "If I hadn't had [Alex], I probably would have been more apprehensive," he admits. The recording process was intensive, with the core tracks recorded in less than a week. The songs were built from skeletal forms, with bass and drum parts from those initial sessions often retained in the final recordings. The pre-existing relationships and mutual understanding between Miller, Farrar, and the other musicians facilitated a smooth and efficient experience. "There just wasn't having a lot of having to figure each other out," Miller notes.

This time around the process was also different in another way, it involved collaboration and shared experiences. "All my friends who play on the record know me very well and they share the experience of living at Haw Creek and being around Gary," Miller explains "I feel that makes Losin’ ultimately the most it can be.

That spirit of collaboration extended beyond the recording process, deeply influencing the album's outcome with Miller leaning on the talent and versatility of the musicians involved, many of whom are part of a close-knit musical community. "Everybody who played on it is so talented, both at the instrument that they usually play and the instruments that they've played on the record, as well as so many other instruments," he says. “They’re such good friends and musical confidants in my life, away from this record, and so I was just so happy bringing them in.” It’s all part of the wider North Carolina scene that Miller and his peers are percolating together: “We have this kind of rotating cast of people are who are in in MJ [Lenderman] and in Wednesday, and had, formerly been in Indigo [de Souza]'s band. I had been working to support other people's projects for the most part and so it felt really cool to perceive that helped.”

The physical influence of that scene also played a role in shaping the album as Miller was living in such close proximity to fellow musicians. "It was kind of this constant source of inspiration, you know. If any of us were burnt out or needing a new thing to listen to all we had to do was go into the living room and see what was someone was watching on YouTube," he recalls. The ability to readily share ideas and receive feedback was invaluable and while hesitant to share his work in its early stages, Miller valued the input of his peers. "I wanted my demos to be really good before I showed my friends because I just wanted it to be as fleshed out as possible," he explains.

The supportive environment fostered a sense of motivation and camaraderie, allowing Miller to write even more honestly. Parallel to his honesty, Miller aimed to create songs that resonated beyond his personal experiences. "I worked to make them apply to other situations in life," he says, believing in the importance of open-endedness in songwriting. "I think if you tell people how to feel, even if it's a really good song, if you're telling people how to feel they won't want to come back to it because it won't allow growth with the song," Miller explains. "For me, that's the accomplishment, writing from a really heartfelt space and allowing people to feel different things with a single song,"

While writing very much from his own perspective and songs like “Cadillac” and “Thunder Road” directly inspired by Gary King and about his life at Haw Creek, Miller views each song as a unique entity, with its own distinct character. "What makes a good song is that ability to let it walk on its own and have its own life." Ultimately though, the story of Losin’, is of time and place, of grief and its ongoing impact. “The songs are pretty linked to my time at my house in Haw Creek and the feelings that I had. Especially the end period, it’s what the record’s about really.”