By Alexander Shedd
Country rock band Miller Holler of Nashville, Tennessee, just started a new tour at venues across Tennessee and southwest Virginia. The band will play at Old Town Fields in Shawsville, Va. on Saturday, May 14 at 6 p.m.
Miller Holler is led by frontman Pat Pollifrone, who grew up in Salem before moving to West Virginia then Tennessee in the course of his music career.
“Always good to be back in Salem, see friends and family, just reminisce about all the old good times,” he said. Recalling his journey from Salem to Nashville, he continued, “I started out playing in a church band in Salem… My dad was a musician, so I played my first professional gig when I was 15 with him, then moved to West Virginia and started a band. Then we took that band to Nashville, and since then we’ve formed Miller Holler, and it’s been a real ride. We’ve done all kinds of stuff, we’ve been on TV shows, music videos… opened for some of the biggest names in the industry.”
Miller Holler began recording and playing in 2020, just before the first COVID-19 lockdown. Their second paid show was cancelled due to the March 2020 public health mandates that permanently changed everyday life around the world.
“We took that time to write and record,” said Pollifrone. “We would find bars on the outskirts of town, other towns that maybe weren’t as strict on the lockdown, and we would play for pennies on the dollar to what we make now… I’m grateful to those guys who stuck it out with me and helped me build this band up. It was a rough time, not gonna lie, but we knew the only guarantee was we wouldn’t go anywhere if we quit.”
Embracing an energetic blend of classic country and rock, Miller Holler currently has four singles available on all major music platforms, as well as Youtube and their official website, millerholler.com. Their latest release, “Stuck,” is an upbeat love song that challenges the idea of feeling trapped in a relationship.
“It’s about how relationships are pretty volatile in this day and age, and nobody wants to be ‘stuck,’ or everybody feels so ‘stuck’ with their partner,” Pollifrone explained. “And I said, hey, in this song, we should write how we actually feel, because we love our wives and girlfriends, and we can’t wait to get stuck, you know? That’s what that’s all about.”
He went on to say that he owes much of his success and wellbeing to his wife, Amy. “We’ve been together almost 10 years, and she’s been my biggest supporter and number one fan aside from my mama,” he said. “I have to give a lot of credit to her. She deals with a lot of late nights… she’s the manager over at the hospital here in Hendersonville, and just watching her work through the pandemic and still find a way to succeed and thrive, it’s motivating to me. I love my wife more than anything.”
In addition to the Old Town Fields show, Miller Holler will continue to do shows in Tennessee through June, then two shows in Indiana in July and August before returning to Christiansburg on Oct. 8 for the Rockin Main Festival. Partial proceeds from the Christiansburg show will go to the AWS1 James Buriak Foundation in honor of James P. Buriak of Salem, a Naval officer who perished in a fatal accident last year and a friend of the Pollifrone family.
Pat and his fellow bandmates are excited to finally be free to tour around their home state. “Everything we do is for the people we play for, and we wanna put on the best show possible,” Pollifrone stated. “We want to interact and have a good time, and we want them to have a good time. Forget about whatever it is they’re worried about all day long. When you’re with Miller Holler, don’t worry about it for those three or four hours.”
More information on tour dates, merchandise and music videos can be found at www.millerholler.com. For those interested in supporting the AWS1 James Buriak Foundation, more information is available at www.theaws1jamesburiakfoundation.org.
