When Chapman Radio AMD Morgan Wages tells you that there’s an extra This Is Lorelei  ticket with your name on it, you really only have one path to travel down.

 

Driving into the city from OC on Wednesday, October 14th, Morgan and I mused on our mutual discomfort being in SoCal. Not that it’s a terrible place or what have you, but we both seemed to hold similar sentiments that we were two East Coast fish out of water. 

 

After figuring out a quick Venmo complication with The Roxy’s valet, we waltzed inside. With a quick stop at a photo booth, we took our place amongst the then-sparse crowd. Everyone was dressed casually, mostly in greens or grays. The crowd skewed older, too, which surprised and kind of delighted me. As the night progressed, a wide range of ages filled the floor. I even spotted the star of the ill-fated and legendary “Manther” Dodge thesis film from several years back (no, I didn’t approach him for a photo).

 

Still, the room oozed of that typical LA coolness - you know the one. The earnest nonchalance. That practiced and genuine bop-and-sway to the music. The woman shaking around to “Oh No Now My” in front of me had very strong, floral scented hair. 

 

I felt insurmountable luck, then, to find that Lorelei’s opening act (the wonderfully talented Colin Miller) was from the Southeast. Still oozing with coolness, but a more familiar coolness. 

 

It makes a lot of sense why Colin was chosen to open for Amos and his crew; his songwriting lays bare a deep emotionality coupled with a honed-in sureness and supported by twangy guitar chords and smooth, sparse bass and drum lines. I found myself nearly brought to tears by a line about a “butterfly / lower back tat,” that I cannot, for the life of me, find anywhere online.

 

I realized soon after the show ended that Miller played quite a few unreleased tracks. What you can find available for streaming, though, should be plenty to tide all of us over until his next release. If you have an extra half-hour this week, take a listen to his 2026 album Losin'. If you only have three-and-a-half minutes, add “Thunder Road” to your queue.

 

Miller’s band, made up of Landon George, Mike Henry Johnson and Will Cole was kind enough to answer a few of my and Morgan’s questions after the show.

Disclaimer: This interview has been edited for clarity. 

Chapman Radio: I’m Morgan. I’m Iris. 

Mike Henry Johnson: I’m Mike.

Landon George: I’m Landon.

Will Cole: Will.

CR: Our first question for you guys is: How did you meet?

Mike: As a band? Many different ways. I met Colin through playing in another band together. Will met Colin kind of through high school, ‘cause they’re both from Asheville, and I’m from Nashville, Tennessee.

Will: Originally, yeah, in high school. When [Colin] was on some early tours, he would crash at my house in Nashville, and then we started making some music together.

Mike: I don’t really remember, but I think our buddy Lewis was the one that was our connection.

Landon: Lewis actually introduced Colin and I originally, way back in the day. Me and Lewis worked at a venue together in Asheville called The Mothlight, and he was like, you should come over to my house and we can grill out. And I went to grill out and Colin and a couple of other homies [were there], and we all ended up playing music together. So really just chilling by proxy is how we all kind of met. And I think I met Mike in a similar way. Mike and I have worked a lot together on other music, as well. I think we’re all operating in a lot of different musical capacities outside of just the Colin Miller band.

CR: Do you guys have other projects you want to plug real quick?

Landon: I play bass in MJ Lenderman and I have my own music under my name, which is Landon George. (Gesturing to Will) This guy’s got a fuckin’ sick band.

Will: Oh, yeah, I’ve got a band called One Wheel Fireworks Show. Colin and I just finished up our third record, it’s kind of a DIY thing.

Mike: I like to just play music with my friends, so I’m gonna plug my brother’s project, Slow Packer, and I’m gonna plug my girlfriend’s project, Lavender Blue. There you go.

CR: Awesome, we’ll definitely be listening. What are you guys listening to right now? Artists, albums, songs…

Mike: I listen to a lot of things. I go to ambient music a lot of times. I like Kara-Lis Coverdale.

CR: Do you like North Americans?

Mike: I love North Americans, yeah.

CR: Hayden Pedigo  too. Ah! My faves.

Mike: Hayden Pedigo is fantastic.

Landon: I got off of streaming completely not long ago because it’s morally incomprehensible to participate in streaming when all that money goes to the destruction of the Earth and people through war campaigns, through… Eck, the Spotify CEO. He privately funds drone companies for AI drone technology – to probably be used on poor people, ultimately – to “defend” Europe, which is basically a White Nationalist agenda, in my opinion. I got away from Spotify, and I just use Bandcamp straight up.

CR: Yes, Bandcamp!

Landon: I’ve been listening to this awesome bassist and composer Dion Curve*, who originally is from Florida, but lives in New York now. And also my homie’s band Lion Country Ferrari. It’s a sick egg punk band in Asheville.

Will: I’ve been listening to a lot of my friend Andrew Newman’s band, Lo Noom out of Mississippi. He’s the most British man from Mississippi that’s ever existed. And my buddy Hal’s band, Swimming Sisters, which is like the most insane jangle pop you’ve ever heard. Just awesome stuff. And, I feel like on tour, we’ve been – please forgive me, what’s the…

Landon: We’ve been listening to David Gray a lot on tour. He’s an English songwriter who kind of got popular in 1999. Check out his song “Please Forgive Me” off the album White Ladder.**

CR: We have a long drive home, so.

Landon: It’s a really good nighttime driving song, especially in the city.

CR: What are your three biggest influences from back home?

Landon: I’m really inspired by work that has nothing to do with music or creativity. Specifically, I work on a farm when I’m home, so working with chickens, pigs, cows, the earth, tractors, machines. That’s a huge influence on me. Another huge influence is my son. I have a seven month-old baby.

CR: Congratulations!

Landon: Seeing the life in his eyes when I pull down the fiddle, or when I pull down the guitar and we just play and he lights up. The third would probably be going to an abandoned parking lot where there once was a Big Lots, and then you sit in your car, think about nothing and try to clear your mind. You really breathe in the liminality of the space. That’s essential to my creative process. 

Will: I don’t know, I think a lot of music about kind of off-beat topics, kind of like mundane stuff. There’s this rapper from Chicago called Serengeti, he’s got like a million albums. It’s just the tiniest little slices of life that really inspire me. Finding big moments in little things. I’ve been reading a lot of Turkish literature, this guy Orhan Pamuk. I think he’s like, kind of their guy, but it’s back to that slice of life, the daily struggle and what you can find there. There’s an infinite little hole if you get down there and dig.

CR: That’s what’s so awesome about the South, is that, growing up there, you really just appreciate everything. I found that coming out here for school, I ended up appreciating home so much more, and I wish I would’ve appreciated it a little more when I was back there, and didn’t resent being stuck in a small town. But, I mean, I wouldn’t have met the people that I know now if I hadn't been there, wouldn’t have learned the lessons that I did, so…

Mike: That’s a good point. I live in this amazing spot, where all my best friends live in the houses nearby on the same street, so I get a lot out of just being nearby with my close friends. Feeling that connection with neighbors and whatnot. I don’t know, I get a lot out of the natural world. We live in Asheville, which I think it’s the most beautiful spot in the East. I get a lot out of just going outside and trying to connect with the place. Cooking, I would say, is the other thing I also get inspired by. I feel like there’s a huge crossover between food and music. So I like to put my heart into that and share meals with my girlfriend and kind of have that analog – or maybe not even analog…

CR: Working with your hands…

Mike: There’s a real connection in how the two work.

CR: Last question. If you were to play in any other genre, what would you play in?

Landon: I play in a ton of genres. I make solo death metal music. I play in a Cumbia band in Asheville – psychedelic music from Peru – I play classical music, I play jazz, I play country, I play this indie music…

CR: Did any of you guys study music in primary school, high school, etc.?

Landon: I’d always played tuba in school, and then when I got to college, there was no tuba program, so I started playing bass there. I have a music minor from a small liberal arts college, but if there’s one genre that I’ve never touched that I want to get into it’s, like, nightcore. Like hyperpop, techno, but specifically Bruce Springsteen covers of nightcore songs.

Will: I grew up around the Moog Store in Asheville. I think my first musical experience was through all, like, pretty electronic-heavy. I’ve kind of gotten away from that for the past, probably almost a decade. I feel like, getting back into that world, of a lot more, like, random chants and creating little worlds to exist in. That’s what I try to do with any group that I make, but getting back towards that would be nice. Maybe in more of a composition-heavy way, too – that’s what I studied in college. But it’s kind of been cowboy chords and indie rock for a while, which feels good.

CR: Awesome.

Will: Or be able to rap.

Mike: I don’t know, I’m down for whatever. I like to play a lot of different kinds of music, but looking back, looking into the past is a really interesting thing, so I would probably just pick some interesting folk tradition and try to get into that and see what that’s like.

CR: Thanks so much for letting us talk to you!

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As Morgan and I walked out, we spotted Missy from Mannequin Pussy sitting in a booth near the exit. We went up to her - mostly to fangirl. She was there to see her friend Colin play, she said. 

On our drive home, Morgan and I talked about the curse of networking, and the seeming commodification of friendship in the entertainment industry that the two of us are trying to break into. I’m happy to report that, in a world of incessant “networking opportunities,” there seemed to be a lot of bonafide, genuine friendship at the Roxy this Wednesday. 

‘Till next time,

Iris

 

*I’m not entirely sure what artist he said here. Could be Dion Curve, could be Dion Cure. Any guesses?

**Can confirm that “Please Forgive Me” is an amazing nighttime city drive song.