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Miles Davis Ricketts has tried to immerse himself into as many genres as possible over the years. After smacking pots, pans and Pringles cans with chopsticks, he eventually picked up a guitar at age 11. Since then he has played many shows and recorded multiple songs with all sorts of fellow musicians. Exploring genres from Screamo to Hip Hop to instrumental, he finds joy and solace in making sound.
I caught up with Miles to talk about his early musical experiences, how he started playing instruments and the making of his new record “Acrostic Ablation”.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
Miles-As a child, music was constantly playing. Both of my parents were DJs in the 70’s in the Bay Area. Their tastes were vastly different for the most part but they found common ground in acts like Led Zeppelin, Free, and other such “bluesy” rock. My father is the biggest Jazz fan I know, (hence my being named after THE Miles Davis), and his taste in Jazz is anything but mainstream. My mother can’t stand it. However, she loves a bit of everything and I was raised with a lot of Celtic music. Lots of instrumental music was always in the background, whether it was John Coltrane or Enya & Ray Lynch, along with plenty of soundtracks of movies and plays/musicals.
It’s hard to decipher the very first music I enjoyed on my own accord but I do know that Hanson had just come out with “Middle of Nowhere” and, being a 9 year old, I was inspired by their success at such young ages. I felt for the first time, “Hey! I can do that too if I want to!” At first I wanted to be a drummer, but after my Dad showed me a live performance of Santana, and the owner of a local music store showing me old footage of Jimi Hendrix, I knew that guitar was my future. All this aside, once the “boyband” stage faded, I grew obsessed with bands like Third Eye Blind, followed closely by a passionate period of nu-metal. KoRn and Mudvayne got me two start playing my guitar differently. Then the real songwriting began when I first heard Dashboard Confessional’s “Places You Have Come to Fear the Most”. I knew then, I don’t even need a band. I can write this shit myself.
CMM-When did you start playing music and writing songs?
Miles-I began playing guitar when I was 11. I started writing my own songs when I was 12-13, (after a year or so of learning covers of course). My first, (and only) guitar teacher, Skip Woodstock, had the best approach to teaching. He asked the class what WE wanted to learn to play and then brought us printed out tablature of our individual choices. I picked “Purple Haze”-Hendrix, “All the Small Things”- Blink, and “All-star”-Smashmouth. Honestly, some pretty good stepping stones to start out with.
CMM-You recently released an E.P. called “Acrostic Ablation”. What was the writing and recording process for those songs like and what gear and instruments did you use during the sessions?
Miles-“Acrostic Ablation” was an idea that had been floating around in my head for quite a while. I have always loved eclectic music from all different cultures. As I mentioned, my Mom used to have a lot of new agey shit playing and I felt so in tune with the rhythmic nature of hand drums, flutes, symphony orchestras etc. I always want to take a whack at it myself and yet I didn’t know where to start. I felt that there was no possible way to accomplish that “full” sound by myself. I tried it with my old band, “Nancy Plays Nurse” and somewhat succeeded, having up to 7 members at one point. But we broke up in 2011. I’m getting carried away here, apologies.
This EP was inspired originally by the cover art I had made. I’m a graphic designer and I always have random ideas that I put together that sort of “wait around” to be used. This was one of them and I finally set to work on these four tracks. I wanted the sound to resemble something akin to trip-hop, downtempo, folktronica, with minimal electronics. I own a lot of physical instruments, (most of them cheap/shoddy), and I absolutely adore using things that aren’t instruments at all in my songs. The writing and recording process happened 90% simultaneously, which has been the recurring theme with NANCYs DEAD since the beginning. Almost like I’m just jamming with myself. My best friend has been dating a wonderful Persian woman for about 7 years now and, loving other languages, I had a candid recording of her on the phone speaking Farsi with her mother. I decided to throw that snippet into the first track and the idea expanded from there to include Farsi in one way or another in the rest of the EP. Unexpectedly, my thoughts were brought to the subject of war. War throughout our history as human beings and the connection that never wavers with organized religion. I went on to include two additional recordings of “Azan’s” (calls to prayer) in two of the other tracks. I could go further but I feel like that gets the point across.
As for the gear & instruments I used during recording goes, there was a 100 year old mandolin — a child-sized classical guitar made by Lotus that was given to me when I was homeless and had my guitar stolen — an Ibanez bass — very old, hand-me-down drums/cymbals with no brand names to be seen — Yamaha midi keyboard — various percussion I made myself out of pistachio shells, branches from my yard, paper plates etc. — a kalimba — a Jay Terser semi-hollow electric guitar — banjo — pan flutes — mouth harp — and more.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Miles-This question is hard as hell. I’m a huge cinephile and listen to scores on their own constantly. I feel as though any director I look up to would be better off picking someone who actually has classical training to score their shit. So I guess it would have to be “Where do I think I would fit?”.
I try to create something new with each release, a different sound/approach, so it would really depend, but I’ll just say that I love the atmosphere of a film like ”Life of Pi” so we’ll go with Ang Lee.
It would be set in Iceland, which is my favorite place on earth, and would have some sort of story combining slight technology(sci-fi) with the beauty and power of nature and the elements. I dunno.
CMM-What do you have coming up next? Any new recordings or live performances?
Miles-Up next is up in the air. I started ND in 2021 with a 3 track ep. Then I took a break tending to a relationship destined for failure before jumping back in last year in November. Since then I have been an animal. I’ve released 6 albums, 5 EPs, & 3 singles, with no slowing down in sight. I currently have at least three new projects in my psyche, waiting patiently to be let loose. It seems as though, after years of letting my creativity lie dormant, it was actually building, waiting to be unleashed again, and in fear of another dry spell of writer’s block hitting me, I’m going to record anything and everything I can think of.
