Canadian Music Pioneer, Glenn Miller, Says The Narconon Detoxification Program Gave Him A “Second Chance” In Life
In the world of professional music Glenn Miller has done it all. First with the internationally-renowned Collectors and then with Canadian music sensation Chilliwack he’s toured North America, enjoyed numerous hits and played on the same stage with legendary bands like The Doors and the Grateful Dead. In this interview, Miller talks about his extensive career, his role as an industry pioneer and how the Narconon drug detoxification program gave him a “second chance” in life.
1 – QUESTION: You’ve had a career that almost any aspiring musician would dream of. How did you get started?
I first got involved in music when I was about 9 years old when my mother signed me up for steel guitar lessons. Although she didn’t even know what a steel guitar was, she bought me lessons from a door-to-door salesman and I started taking them. I didn’t really enjoy it all that much, to be honest, because I wanted to get out and play yet I was being forced to practice, so I kept it up for a few years and then dropped it.
When Rock and Roll really hit big, I was really excited so I grabbed by dad’s guitar – I didn’t really know how to play it of course – and started bashing around on it trying to make some music. My mother went down to a local music store and picked up a little pamphlet called “Play Guitar Like The Cowboys Do,” which had some songs and simple little chord charts, on how you place your finger to play the chords. That’s really when I first learned how to play a bit of guitar.
Early photograph of The Collectors showing Glenn Miller on the far right, holding a bass guitar
2 – QUESTION: You were really a beginner as a musician, yet you ended up on stage with a band. What happened there?
I continued to play in high school and teamed up with a buddy of mine and we started playing guitar together. After I finished school (I was 21 years old), my friend had gotten into a band and they needed a bass player so he told them I knew how to play bass. The truth is that I knew nothing about electric bass at all!
So they bought me a bass for $100, which was a considerable amount of money in 1961, and I showed up for rehearsal for this band and faked my way through the night: They didn’t know any different and I didn’t either! I took the bass home and practiced and by our next rehearsal, I could play somewhat. That’s how I started learning. Later on I got some music instruction on theory and started playing around town, getting into bands and playing gigs.
I eventually became successful but it took a lot of work. I started by playing community centre dances, a lot of pop and rhythm and blues. We played different centers every weekend, practically anywhere we could get a gig. Even though were not making much money, I took the plunge and decided to play full time. I got into a band playing in a nightclub, six nights a week in Vancouver. It was really a low-class joint but it was always steady work. It was then that I started getting known as a decent bass player that could play anything that was in front of me. I started getting other jobs and worked with jazz musicians where I learned how to play more advanced music than rock and roll.
The Collectors arrive in Los Angeles, publicity photo, Glenn Miller second from the left wearing a scarf
3 – QUESTION: Did you receive any media exposure, such as radio or television?
I got recording work and ended up playing with a band that was doing a television show. This was the first rock series on national television in Canada, called “Music Hop.” They went to a different city every day of the week and ours, the most popular of the series, was on Friday night and was called “Let’s Go.”
At the time our band was called The Classics. We were one of the most talented bands in Vancouver as we could read music. This was a major reason we were picked for the show. It was a lot of fun; we made good money and were on it for a couple of years. One time major executives from CBC came out to see why the show was so popular and when they came to rehearsal, they were shocked that we had long hair (for that time). They wanted us all in suits, ties and crew cuts. That’s what musicians looked like around 1966. Ours was a different type of show than what they were used to.
4 – QUESTION: Your group became famous in the Canadian music scene because you were the first to break into the American market, from the “inside out” so to speak; how did that come about?
After The Classics broke up – we had a lot of work and had made attempts at recording but couldn’t get a record released – I talked with a drummer I knew and he asked me to join his band. Afterwards we pulled in a few other guys to complete the band. We didn’t call ourselves anything at the time but were very popular in the club we were playing: About every three months the owner would go through the books and seeing how business was constantly getting better would give us a raise.
At the time we were writing a lot of our own material but we couldn’t play it because nobody knew it. So we made a demo tape of a dozen songs we had written and gave it to a promoter from Los Angeles. We didn’t really think anything would come of it, but much to our surprise three weeks later a call came in that we had been signed for a record contract! They wanted us to come down and record two singles. They sent us some airplane tickets and we flew to L.A. and signed with a small company called Valiant Records. At the time they represented The Association, which was just becoming a big group.
5 – QUESTION: What did your band have to offer, what made you attractive to them?
They liked our stuff and thought we had great writing ability. When we arrived, we rehearsed for a day with one of their record arrangers, went in and knocked off two singles in six hours of work. That was considered fast work in those days, for a rock group, although real studio musicians did it all the time.
Valiant Records
Afterwards when we returned to Vancouver they asked that we come up with a name for the band. We had spent many times arguing for hours and couldn’t come up with one, so the record company decided for us (they were in a hurry because they had to print the record labels). They offered to call us “The Collectors” or “The Connection.” We chose The Collectors. When the first single came out it was a fair-sized hit, with a lot of airplay in the United States, making the Top 40. It was also a hit in Canada. That was 1967 and the song was called “Looking at a Baby.”
6 – QUESTION: You were considered trend setters: What was so ground-breaking about what you did?
Back then there were no Canadian bands that were signed with an American company that we knew of, we were the first. Some bands were signed with a Canadian company and had U.S. distribution, but no Canadian band had gone to the U.S. and signed with an American company. That was a big market and just about every band wanted to hit the U.S. because you just couldn’t sell enough records in Canada. We were the first to do that.
7 – QUESTION: The Collectors became an internationally-recognized band. How did you achieve that with a small record company like Valiant Records?
Right after that The Association, which was also with Valiant records, has their monster hit “Never My Love” and Warner Brothers came in and bought the company. This would have meant the end of recording contracts for bands with Valiant that didn’t sell a lot of records. They only took two bands, The Association and us.
Warner Brothers assigned us a producer, a famous sound engineer who was one of the guys who recorded one of the first Rolling Stones U.S. albums. We convinced them we wanted to do an album, which was tough because in those days it was unheard of to do an album with a group unless it had a string of about a dozen singles. Typically that’s how it was done, bands put out numerous hit singles until they had enough for an album.
When our first album was released it received quite a bit of fanfare as we were starting to play across Canada and got introduced into the U.S., where we played some famous locations. This was during the psychedelic “flower power” days and there were a lot of bands in the industry. One person who helped us with introductions was Steve Miller of The Steve Miller Band. He heard us play in Vancouver and got us in touch with the right person and we started touring on the West Coast of the U.S. and eventually went right across the country.
8 – QUESTION: Is this how The Collectors became known in Europe?
Yes, but we didn’t know it at the time. Warner Brothers had a significant international presence and had licensed our album to different European companies. So we were being played in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, England and Germany and built up quite a following. Communications being poorer in those days we didn’t know this, because if we had we would have gone over there and toured.
9 – QUESTION: Would it be fair so say that you were an inspiration to other bands?
We were the first Canadian band to go to the U.S. and sign with an American label. Nobody else had done it that way before: They tried to make it first in Canada and then make their way into the U.S. and this almost never worked. We did it the other way around. I recall seeing a television interview one time with two members of one of the most successful Canadian bands, and they credited us as their inspiration. It was like “My God! Here is a Canadian band with an album out and a billboard up the Sunset Strip in L.A. and were touring the United States!” After that a lot of Canadian groups did it the same way.
10 – QUESTION: With The Collectors you played with some of the top acts in the world, tell us about that…
We played with many bands at concerts such as Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and The Doors, who came along later. We did a number of shows with Styx and played with just about everybody who was touring, including such bands as Cream, which was huge at the time (we did a couple of concerts with them). We also did a couple of shows with Janice Joplin, we played with Jimi Hendrix and others.
I was used to the pressure because with The Classics, when it was too expensive for acts to take their band on tour, they would hire local musicians to back them up when they were in town. We backed up acts like Roy Orbison and Frankie Avalon – who was in many Hollywood films, what I call “teen movies.” We also backed up The Coasters (which were huge) and other acts as The Classics.
11 – QUESTION: What experience from that time stands out in your mind?
South California University
At the University of Southern California, Santa Monica, there was a large music festival attended by 50,000 people. Anyone who was anyone was there and I remember looking out from the stage at this huge sea of people. Later we got used to crowds that large but at the time of the concert this was a totally new and electrifying experience. We were playing well, at the top of our game. In fact, it was not unusual for us to outplay other bands. This was mostly because we had some musical training, played with many professional musicians and used to record our own music on records. This was rare because many famous bands did not use their own musicians for recording, they would use top professionals in the studio.
12 – QUESTION: Chilliwack was a major Canadian band and you played with them, how did that happen?
When the psychedelic movement started going in a different direction and pop was becoming more popular, we decided that it was time for a change. So we reformed the band and we became Chilliwack. The word is Native Indian and means “valley of many streams.” We felt this as an apt name because we had a variety of influences in the band with various types of music. We put out a number of albums some of which were major hits.
13 – QUESTION: What turn of events led you to discovering the Narconon program?
LSD Drugs
There were a lot of drugs in those days and some groups did them to ridiculous excess. There was also a lot of alcohol in the clubs and various places we played. It was one the hazards of the music business – you get into drinking and you drink a lot! Then with the whole psychedelic scene drugs really came into the picture, such as LSD which started being used a lot, and then speed – which band members started taking to stay alert so they could play. It became quite a habit. I was drinking a lot back then and using drugs and eventually it started to take a toll on me – not only physically and mentally but also as a musician I was suffering. It was not getting better, and it started to hurt my playing. When I stopped touring I knew I had to change my life because I just didn’t have any drive left, I didn’t want to do anything. The problem was that if I stopped drinking and doing drugs, what pleasure did I have in life? This was my thinking. I was emotionally dead, and that was from the drugs and the alcohol.
Someone told me about the Narconon program and it made sense to me. This is how I traveled to Toronto in 1985, to do the program. I remember it clearly because, coming from Vancouver, the Ontario winter was quite a shock.
14 – QUESTION: What was your experience with the Narconon program?
I did the program and started feeling a lot better. The Detoxification part of the program really made a difference, sweating all those drugs out of my system. I started having emotions again and got rid of the “dead” feeling. I started experiencing pleasure in life once more and this was a very welcome improvement. I didn’t have to just go around in a dull “funk” all the time, now I could be happy or sad or whatever. I started waking up and did the rest of the program and it was remarkable.
15 – QUESTION: You started working for Narconon, how did that come about?
After I finished I realized that I could return to Vancouver and get into the music scene again but I thought, why bother? They offered me a job at Narconon and they offered to train me to deliver the program and help other guys get off drugs. I had experienced a lot of gains on the program and the idea of helping others very much appealed to me. So I put music aside, left all my instruments and other gear in Vancouver, and started working in Narconon.
I traveled to the United States to the Narconon training centre there and became the first person in North America to be trained in the new, improved Narconon Program in 1990. This was an improved program which was even more effective. It was initially done as pilot program and then became the new standard when everybody realized that this was the best way to deliver the Narconon program. I really enjoyed working at Narconon and spent about 12 years helping people get off drugs.
16 – QUESTION: At 66 years old are you still playing music?
I sure am! The way that came about is that after working in Narconon for around four years, I knew what I was doing. And that’s saying something because when you work in drug rehabilitation you deal with some pretty rough cases. I was having a lot of fun but realized that I also missed playing music. One of the guys on the program was a bass player and asked me to fix it up for him. He also loaned it to me for about a week and I got the bug again for music. I went out, bought a new bass and amplifier, hooked up with some musicians in Toronto and started playing at clubs and various gigs around town. I was getting a lot of work again and also started teaching music, which I really like. To date I’ve been working as a professional musician for 44 years, which is to say I made my living completely in music.
17 – QUESTION: Over the years you’ve helped numerous people through the program; could you share some of your experiences?
I’ve gotten a lot of people through the program including a fair number of musicians. It’s always the same kind of thing: They are kind of beaten down by the drugs and alcohol and they are experiencing almost a complete loss of creativity, because the drugs tend to kill any creativity. You have to be alive, you have to feel emotions, and you have to be able to feel things in order to create good music or quality art of any kind.
And that’s the thing that the Narconon program does with artists that I saw, it rejuvenates them. After doing the program they get interested in life again, and when someone is interested in life they want to create. When you’re “dead” it’s the opposite, you don’t want to create. You spend time thinking about death and dying.
18 – QUESTION: You’ve described the program as a “second chance,” why is that?
The program gives someone a second chance in life, and it is not only for artists but anybody working in any field. It is a second chance in truth: It makes you alive again and you can face the future because the Narconon program gives you the tools to be able to do this. You can face your future and handle your life.
There’s no other drug program, and I’ve studied a lot of them and seen their results, and none of them (from what I saw) gave you any tools to handle life later on. In this respect the Narconon program is unique because it gives you the information and tools you need to deal with life – without drugs. It’s really quite amazing. I also had many people come through the Narconon program who had already been through other programs without success and when they came to Narconon they made it.
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