Ian Miller (Roman Cities)
SPB: How important to the band’s concept was playing “era-appropriate instrumentation”?
Miller: Man, what a great question. When I was imagining this project, I had visions of headless basses and chorus pedals. But the gear ended up not really mattering. Bradley plays a Tele into a Fender combo; Dan used his giant Early Graves metal kit; and I played a P bass. Ryan has some cool modeling keyboards including a Nord, but he played an old Wurlitzer electric piano on a number of songs.
Ultimately it ended up being about the sounds and the songs. It's really easy to fetishize old gear -- I mean, look at any old Cars video and Ric Ocasek is likely playing a pink Dean Cadillac. It's outrageous and awesome. But the songs and performances are paramount -- those guys were all monster players. Hawkes and Easton had studied at Berklee, and all of those dudes could flat-out play.
So I guess that's a long way of saying "not important at all." That said, I did end up buying a headless bass, and I'm not afraid to use it ...
