American Mile Is A Band Of Brothers Ready To Give L.A. Some Killer Country Rock With A Modern Twist

What it’s like having three brothers in the same group? Is it pretty easy going or what?

Ryan Rice: It’s an interesting dynamic. We say things to each other and act in ways that are different from an average “band-mate” relationship. It’s great because we get to share moments together and will always have the reliability of each other. However, criticism can be taken a little more personally. We’re very direct with each other which creates a genuine creative process and results in music that we all believe in.

Yeah, haha. I can imagine it’s easier to get on your brother when he gets shit done.

Ryan: This has always been a work in progress for us in terms of learning to work with each other. With any band dynamic, a lot of the time it takes a lot of trust to change a lot of ideas and being open to that. So, again, as Jacob said, we’re all in it for the better of the project. At this point, we’re all really open to at least trying ideas, whether it works or not. We always call ourselves, we always have the original version, you know, so we can always go back to that. But yeah definitely being family, you know we’re always genuine with each other in the way we feel, and that can definitely cause some tension but, it’s good in the sense that we’re never beating around the bush, you know.

When it comes to writing music, how does that process go?

Jacob Rice: Since we are a family and we’re all in this together, and the process for our songwriting is pretty unique. Usually one person, whoever, I guess, gives birth to the idea of the song, would bring that to the table, and then that song then transforms with all three or four of us, including our producer on the EP, just becomes, sometimes it doesn’t change, sometimes it becomes a whole different song. So it really is a case-by-case deal for our songwriting, but usually everybody has a hand in it.

Ryan: The creative process is extremely collaborative. We’re all songwriters. Sometimes one of us will bring an idea to the table and we’ll all finish it. Other times, we’ll all write a song together and even collaborate with other songwriters like Keith Nelson for instance, who helped us write and produce our Debut EP which will be available in early 2019. There’s no shortage of material from this band. The hardest part is deciding what songs to work on first!

Jacob: We’ve been doing this for about three years, and working together, the three of us, whether that be in different projects or songwriting in general, and I think one of the biggest breakthroughs we ever had with songwriting is that, eventually being brothers and being family, like Ryan said, there’s a lot of honesty and a lot of … like, lot of things that shouldn’t be said that gets said in the room ‘cause we’re a family. So, the other thing that we kind of, the big breakthrough that we had we eventually were like no one was ever trying to sabotage what was going on. We’re all trying to make it better. Many groups before us had used every head in the room to really make the song better and best as can be, and that’s kind of what we’re going for. We always just take whatever somebody had to bring to the table and run with it as long as we can until they’re just like alright this isn’t working anymore, or hey this is good glad you brought it.

Ryan: It’s just self-titled, as of right now.

Is there an overarching theme or is it just an exploration of different musical facets of the band?

Jacob: Pretty much. I don’t want to speak for the other guys, but I’ve noticed there’s this feeling that this EP is kind of the … like we said we’ve been trying to find our identity, and this is like our presentation of who we are. There’s really no theme besides an introduction to our fans, all the people who’ve supported us over the past three years and this is what we’re doing now and this is what you can expect. That country with a side of rock and three-part harmonies.

Ryan: Yeah. the single we’re leading off with is more of a kind of pop, country kind of song. And the whole EP is kind of littered with different genres, but it all kind of blends together in that country, kind of rock.

Jacob: You got a little Allman Brothers style in there, a little Bruce Springsteen, a little pop-country that pretty much all under the same umbrella.

So, what is this Idaho Potato Drop event?

Laughter

Ryan:  Our brother Eugene … he made friends with the promoter who puts it on, Dylan, a great guy, and Dylan got to see us perform. Funny enough, he came to my older brother’s wedding and just absolutely loved what we did and he ended up booking us on the event. He does the event every year. It basically is one of the biggest New Year’s festivals in the U.S. What they do is they drop a 400-lb. paper mache potato. It literally glows too. They basically do the ball drop, like New York City, with a potato

Laughers

Ryan: We’’ll be playing at the capital building there. It’s gonna be a huge show dude, it’s gonna be a lot of people. It’ll be the biggest show we’ve ever played, pretty big milestone for us.

That sounds like a great way to break in the New Year.

Ryan: Yeah! Hahaha. Absolutely.

Jacob: Our single drops on Friday.

Just like the paper mache potato.

Laughter.