IT'S been two and a half years since the pandemic forced Newcastle jazz guitar master Adam Miller to pack up his six-strings, pedals and amps along with plans to return to the US full-time.
Finally next week Miller will touch down on American soil to play his first shows there since February 2020.
The four-week tour will feature gigs in Denver, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Boston and provide the chance for Miller to perform tracks from his 2020 album Unify, plus a host of new material from his forthcoming eighth album.
"So many venues have shut down over there, so it's been a mission to get into different venues and dealing with the backlog," Miller said.
"A lot of the shows happening now in the US are the ones that were booked three years ago, so it's bit of a nightmare. It's slowly coming together even though I leave next week."
Miller will unveil the first single, Ageing, on August 5, before releasing the new album later this year. The pandemic and Ben Folds-inspired track, features Miller's first backing vocals.
In true pandemic fashion, the album was recorded on either side of the Pacific.
Miller's guitar was recorded in Newcastle and then sent to bassist Joel Gottschalk and drummer Justin Glasco, who played on Unify.
"Essentially I recorded first, sent it to them, and they recorded to what I'd recorded, so we had that live band feeling," he said.
"We set up in this funny triangle where I was on a laptop screen in front of them. So once we worked out the couple of seconds lag, I could guide them through things in the moment and direct them on the laptop screen.
"It was actually a lot more interactive than I thought it would work out."
