Lisa Miller

by Linda Seida Today, Lisa Miller and her band, the Trailer Park Honeys, play music that makes you want to swig your beer, get up out of your seat, stomp around the dancefloor, maybe get in a barroom brawl and throw a punch or two. It's fun music that real hardworking, hard-living people listen to, especially in the band's home base of Portland, OR. Years ago, however, the guitar-playing Miller wasn't able to make any music at all, let alone throw a punch in a bar. A car crash left her with a serious back injury. Her doctor predicted that she would never again be able to hold an instrument as heavy as a guitar, let alone play one. A lot of work on Miller's part proved the dire prediction wrong. Now, after raising a family, she's back and ready to make some more honky tonk music. It should come as no surprise that Miller struggled and fought to make a place for music in her life again, considering that it has always been an important facet of her home life. Her mom knew how to play an instrument, and her dad was an enthusiastic record collector. Her brother, too, got in on the act when he took up the guitar before he'd hit his teens. Miller followed in his footsteps and started playing, too. While the brother and sister had plans to play in a group together, their tastes in music were miles apart. Miller gravitated to country and folk, while her brother listened to Santana and Jimi Hendrix. After living in the San Francisco region for a while with her family, Lisa Miller headed home with them to Oregon, where she continued her education by studying theater arts and music. She and her brother formed a punk group, but it disbanded when their drummer dropped out. Her brother, too, bailed out to establish another band. Before Miller could get her bearings, she was involved in the collision. Prior to the Trailer Park Honeys, in 1990, she pulled together a group that she named Bop Girl Goes Calypso. She formed a new rockabilly group, Raisin' a Ruckus, three years later. Miller went on to work in the all-female trio In Cahoots. When she pulled together the Trailer Park Honeys, Miller took over guitar and lead vocals. The other band members are bassist Bob Wadle, drummer Steve Aubrey, and guitarists Nick Sonies and Billy Kennedy. Sometimes the band is joined by piano player and accordionist Mike Danner, fiddler Marilee Horde, pedal steel guitarist Paul Brainard, and piano player Hank Rasco.