TERRY MILES

                      

                          

Terence Andrew (Terry) Miles (born 1 February 1966) is an English keyboard player, pianist and song-writer, who has been playing professionally since the early 1980s. Throughout his career, he has played in a number of different bands, been a session player, a solo artist and is now heavily involved as the presenter of his own highly successful YouTube channel. Miles has played with the likes of Duffy, Dodgy, Bernard Butler, McAlmont & Butler, Death in Vegas, The Jacobites and Denim.

Miles resides in Hackney, London and currently plays keyboards with the indie pop band Go-Kart Mozart,for whom he composes most of the music, with their singer Lawrence writing the lyrics. He is also currently playing for socialite Daphne Guinness, who is produced by the legendary producer Tony Visconti. On the piano, he is best known as a champion of the Boogie-Woogie genre, but also for his love of travelling the country and spontaneously playing the piano in pubs and churches.

Miles prefers to play the traditional analog style of electronic synthesizer keyboards from the 1970s and 1980s. These include the Wurlitzer electric piano, Moog Prodigy, Roland Juno-106 and Roland VP-770 Vocoder, with which many of the classic hits from those eras were recorded.

When playing the piano, whilst playing many different genres of music, his favourite style is Boogie-Woogie. Amongst his influences, he cites Jerry Lee Lewis and Floyd Cramer. Miles has also developed his own style of ‘urban’ Boogie Woogie playing, which he describes as “Hackney Boogie”.

Miles has proved himself to be an extremely versatile musician, having played professionally in rock, pop, electronic, hip hop, soul and reggae bands.

Early life

Growing up in Birmingham

Miles grew up in Selly Park, Birmingham, coming from a very musical family. His father Kevin R Miles, is a professional musician, who at one time had his own band called The Milestone Express; and Miles’ grandfather started his own musical career as a pianist playing the accompaniment to silent movies in local cinemas. Miles’ mother, Margaret Mary O’Flynn, who came to England in the 1960s, was an Irish Romany traveller. Miles has a sister Deborah, a brother Anthony and is married to Eileen McEwan. He also has a daughter, Elsie.

Miles left school in 1982 at the age of 16, after a Roman Catholic education. But by then, he was already a professional keyboard player, in his father’s band, The Milestone Express. They played around the Birmingham and West Midlands area in Working Men’s Clubs, pubs and at Weddings etc.

In 1985, Miles spent six months touring Switzerland with Chester Simon’s band Superlove, during which time he is said to have learned a lot about the professional music business. And In 1992, Miles joined the local Birmingham band Rumblefish, playing piano and keyboards on their album of the same name.

Move to london

Later In the same year, after passing an audition for the London group Airstream, an electronic Indie rock band on the One Little Indian record label, Miles left Birmingham and relocated to the capital. Although Miles did not record with Airstream, he toured extensively and played many live shows with them. Johnny Male from Airstream, went on to form the band Sensation and in 1993, Miles played on a track on their album ‘Burger Habit’, called “High on the Grass”.

Shortly afterwards, Miles met Nikki Sudden and Dave Kusworth and joined their band, The Jacobites. He played the piano and Hammond organ on their 1993 album ‘Howling Good Times’ and went on to tour Germany, France and Czechoslovakia with them.[Miles also went on to record a further three albums with The Jacobites.

By 1996, Nikki Sudden and Dave Kusworth were pursuing individual solo careers and over the succeeding years, Miles played keyboards and recorded on a number of albums for both of them. This included Kusworth’s 1996 album, ‘Princess Thousand Beauty’, which Miles also produced and engineered, recording it on his own eight-track reel-to-reel system in his home studio in Birmingham.

Around the same time, Miles met the ex-Felt vocalist Lawrence, who by this time had a band called Denim.Miles played piano and synthesizers on their 1996 album ‘Denim on Ice’ and also went on to play on their 1996 UK arena tour, supporting Pulp.

Miles went on to co-write a number of Denim’s songs with Lawrence. This included a 1997 single called ‘Summer Smash’, which was ‘single of the week’ on the BBC Radio 1 Mark and Lard show. Unfortunately, the day before the record’s official release, Princess Diana was involved in her tragic car accident and due to the name of the single, its release was cancelled.[

In 1998, Miles was offered the job of playing piano and synthesizers for Bernard Butler, the gifted guitarist who had recently left Suede.Throughout 1998 and 1999, they toured Europe, Japan and the USA. Miles also played on Butler’s 1999 album, ‘Friends And Lovers’. This relationship also lead to a number of TV appearances and performing live at the Glastonbury Festival in 1998.

In 1999, Terry Miles recorded a solo electropop ten-inch vinyl instrumental single, released by the Danish record company JEL. There were four tracks on the record called ‘Motorways in Space’, ‘Motorways in Space - Quant Remix’ which was remixed by Jonas Quant, ‘Warspite’ and ‘Motorways in Space - 360° Remix’ which was remixed by Morten Remmer.

Later work, 2000 - Present

In 2000, Miles joined American artist Shea Seger’s band.Although he did not record with her, Miles toured with Seger to countries including the UK, Japan and the USA. This included tours supporting the likes of David Grey and John Mayer. Whilst in the USA, Seger and Miles played a charity concert with The Dixie Chicks called ‘Women Rock! Girls and Guitars’. A track from the concert called ‘Love Me Like a Man’ was broadcast live on the American Lifetime television channel.Seger, with Miles also played live in May 2001 on the American late night talk show Late Night with Conan O’Brien, playing a track from Seger’s debut album ‘The May Street Project’, called ‘The Last Time’. There were two further television performances resulting from their association. In October 2000, they performed live together, recording two tracks for the American pay television network VH1. The tracks were ‘Clutch’ and ‘The Last Time’

Later in 2001, Miles joined Death in Vegas, the English electronic rock band founded by frontman Richard Fearless.Miles toured the world with them up until 2005 and also played keyboards and synthesizers on their 2004 album, ‘Satan’s Circus’.

In 2002, Miles renewed his association with Bernard Butler, touring with him on Butler’s new project McAlmont & Butler, which included David McAlmont, the English vocalist and song-writer. This also lead to Miles playing with them on a number of television shows, including Top of the Pops, playing songs from their album ‘Bring It Back’.

In 2004, Miles played with Fried, comprising of US soul singer Jonte short and the ex-Beat and Fine Young Cannibals guitarist David Steele. Miles appeared live with them on the UK television show Later... with Jools Holland. He also appeared with them at the London V Festival in the same year.And in 2006, Miles played a number of live shows with Amy Studt, the English singer, songwriter and musician.

In 2007 and 2008, Miles played on two singles by the band Deep Cut called ‘Commodity’ and ‘Time to Kill’. Miles had earlier worked with their drummer Ian Button, and bass guitarist Mat Flint, when the three of them played together with Death in Vegas; although Button had actually played the guitar for Death in Vegas, rather than the drums. Miles went on to play on Deep Cut’s 2009 album ‘’My Thoughts Light Fires’.

In 2008, Miles played on the ‘Wonky Pop’ live tour with FrankMusik, supporting the Danish band Alphabeat. And in 2009, Miles played on the indie rock band Cornershop’s track called ‘The Turned On Truth (The Truth is Turned On)’.

Later, between 2009 and 2013, Miles toured the UK a number of times with the UK rock band Dodgy. They also played a number of live festivals together during this time, including playing at the Whatfest festival in 2009.

In 2010, Miles toured the UK with Daisy Dares You,supporting the rap artists Chipmunk and Tinie Tempah. Miles also appeared on the UK television show GMTV with Daisy, playing her hit record ‘Number One Enemy’.

In 2011, Miles played on a track called ‘Blip on a Screen’, which was on the album ‘Computers and Blues’ by the English rap project The Streets. And in the same year, Miles appeared in the Heavenly Films film documentary called ’Lawrence of Belgravia’, which was directed by Paul Kelly, the English film director, musician, photographer and designer. The film was an intimate documentary portrait of Lawrence.

In 2015, Miles did a UK tour with McAlmont & Butler on their 21st anniversary tour. And in 2016, Miles played piano for a television advertisement for a Burberry fragrance. It was produced by Bernard Butler with Duffy providing the vocals. The song for the advert was a new version of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ notorious blues song ‘I Put a Spell on You’.

In 2018, Miles played piano on the album ‘Outstairs Instairs’ by Papernut Cambridge. This was yet another collaboration with Ian Button, the English guitarist formerly of The Thrashing Doves and Death in Vegas

With daphne guinness

Also since 2018, Miles has been playing keyboards for Daphne Guinness, a direct descendant of the Irish Brewer Arthur Guinness, who founded the Guinness brewery. Daphne Guinness has had a varied career, which has involved fashion, art, acting, charity work and music. Miles worked on her 2018 album ‘Daphne and the Golden Chord’,[49] which was produced by the legendary Tony Visconti and recorded at the British Grove Studios in Chiswick, owned by Mark Knopfler. Other band members included Malcolm Doherty, Gary Liedeman (of Thin Lizzy), James Stevenson (of Generation X) and Andy Mackay (of Roxy Music).

The album was showcased with live performances in London and Paris and also lead to Miles joining Guinness in a live television performance of her song ‘But I’m Not’ on the French France 5 show ‘C à vous’. Miles also performs on a number of official videos of tracks from the album.

Daphne Guinness has a brand new album called ‘Revelations’, which is due to be released on 14th August 2020. The album was again produced by Tony Visconti, with Miles again playing piano and keyboards. The band consists of Daphne Guinness, Malcolm Doherty, Terry Miles, Roger Manning Jr (of ‘Air’ & ‘Beck’) and Rod Melvin (of Brian Eno).

Go-Kart Mozart

For many years, as well as playing with all of the artists and bands listed above, Miles has been a committed member of Go-Kart Mozart, the English indie pop band founded by Lawrence, formerly of the bands Felt and Denim. Miles and Lawrence previously worked together in the band Denim. Miles composes most of Go-Kart Mozart’s music and provides backing vocals, with Lawrence being the main vocalist and writing the lyrics. The other members of the band are Rusty Stone (bass), Ralph Phillips (drums) and occasionally featuring Tony Barber, the former bassist of the English punk band The Buzzcocks on guitar. Lawrence described Go-Kart Mozart as “The world's first B-side band”. Lawrence said that it simply meant that it takes away the pressure of having to write a hit single, or a top-ten album.

Go-Kart Mozart got their name from the Bruce Springsteen song Blinded by the Light, also recorded in 1976 by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. One of the lines from the song reads ‘And Go-Kart Mozart was checking out the weather chart’.Go-Kart Mozart have so far released four albums and two singles. They have two more unreleased albums, which were due to be released in 2020 on West Midlands Records, through Cherry Red Records. However, due to the Covid-19 crisis, the release of both of these albums have been postponed to 2021.

Go-Kart Mozart have toured through the UK, France, Sweden and Germany. They have also performed several gigs in Tokyo, Japan. In 2006, they played as the support act for The Magic Numbers and Vic Godard for a concert in London. Later in that same year, Jarvis Cocker was the DJ at one of their concerts in Paris, France. In 2009, Go-Kart Mozart toured with the indie dance band Saint Ettienne on their Foxbase Alpha tour, which included playing at the Bloomsbury Ballroom in London. And in 2013, Dr Robert from The Blow Monkeys supported Go-Kart Mozart at the 35th Anniversary party of their record label Cherry Red, at Dingwalls in Camden, London. Go-Kart Mozart’s performance was described as a “dark-humoured pop set”.

Online presence

Miles started his own YouTube channel in 2009,[62] at first to teach people how to play his be-loved Boogie-Woogie style of piano playing. His channel has amassed some 230,000 YouTube subscribers and his videos and live streams have attracted over one hundred million views.

Miles is good friends with, and also occasionally works with Brendan Kavanagh, another YouTube Boogie-Woogie piano player from the London area, otherwise known as Dr K. When they get together, they play and record duets and sometimes even free concerts on the London Underground’s public pianos. Another popular part of Miles’ channel are his visits to pubs and churches, where if they have a piano, he may spontaneously start playing, to see how the public reacts.

In 2020, from the start of the Lockdown resulting from the Covid-19 crisis, Miles broadcast a daily YouTube live stream of music, competitions and chat, with the help of his daughter, Elsie Miles. This included a Sunday Service and resulted in over 100 daily episodes without a break. Thanks to his enthusiastic and charismatic manner, Miles has developed a loyal world-wide audience. He continues to record the livestreams, but now limits them to three-times per week, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Alongside Terry, during lockdown, Elsie Miles also broadcasts her own livestream, six days a week on her own YouTube channel. And with their encouragement, two other members of the Miles family are also broadcasting their own ‘lockdown’ live streams on their own YouTube channels as well. They are Terry’s brother Anthony Miles (Acoustic Milestone) who also broadcasts live, six days a weekand his father, Kevin R Miles, who broadcasts live, once a week on Sundays.

Television and radio appearances

Terry Miles has appeared on National television in the UK, France and the USA a total of thirteen times playing keyboards on various projects, with celebrities such as Bernard Butler, McAlmont & Butler, Shea Seger and Daphne Guinness. He has appeared on shows such as TFI Friday, Later... with Jools Holland, Top of the Pops, V Graham Norton, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and C à vous. He has also performed on the American pay television network VH1.