Miguel began writing songs at 16, already a confident guitar player in his teenage band Ruprecht, he had a decent musical understanding but the mystery of songwriting seemed an entirely different world which, had all of a sudden opened up to him. Already strongly interested in poetry and literary classics Miguel continued writing songs but his main focus remained in emulating and learning from the guitar greats, John Fahey, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Skip James, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, and the writing styles of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash.
At a younger age still Miguel started playing around in the home built recording studio on the rural alternative community he was raised in far northern Queensland, getting interested in the recording process as well as the world of filmmaking and experimenting with both. He remembers his first 'big' studio experience around 19.
'A place had opened up in Cairns, a professional studio, before that if you wanted to record properly you needed to go to Townsville or Brisbane. I remember thinking that having a studio in Cairns would change everything for me, the circus had come to town. Opportunities had opened up. I moved away a year later, played around the traps in Brisbane, long before acoustic music was cool, grunge was god at the time but I had started to move away from playing electric guitar songs, we would be playing this peace utopian stuff that no one really cared for much at the time. Broke, living in Brisbane, recording songs onto a tape deck through the onboard mic, even having bootlegs of the material sold at local universities, there was an appetite for lyrically driven songs. Miguels focus had always been to move to Melbourne to further pursue a life in music. He made the move with his band in '99, which lasted a few years of solid gigging and some recording before breaking up. Miguel played around Melbourne with other bands such as The Black Hills and Foxes Wedding as well as continuing to write and home record his songs, performing them mostly with long time collaborator Ash Jones on fiddle.
Slaughterhouse Road, his first solo album was released in 2021 which was well received. In a quote from Chris Lambie from Rhythms Magazine about the album:
“Rios' earnest musings never assume the 'high road' but arrive as credible and unpretentious in delivery as Kev Carmody or Jonny Cash. The analogue recording capture the sound of a compellingly intamate and authentic performance. What you hear is what you'll hear live - up close and personal”.
Miguel is due to release his second album, Running Blue in June 2023. The album was recorded by Craig Pilkington at Audrey Studios and mixed by Hugo Race. Craig, Hugo and Miguel all co produced the album.
Take a listen to some of Miguel Rios below:
Miguel Rios _ NARCISSIST - YouTube
The World Is Spinning Faster - YouTube
Accompanied by a band of great Melbourne musicians Miguel will be performing songs from his new album as well as songs from Slaughterhouse Road.
Doors open at 7pm with support by ‘Valley Road Duo’. Tickets can be purchased below:
See you there :)