The perpetual nearly-man of the singer-songwriter scene, in middle-age Sean Millar has made peace with his peripathetic status – and recorded perhaps his best record in the process.
When the young Sean Millar graduated from UCD and took the precarious path of a professional musician rather than look for a steady, pensionable job, his parents were less than impressed. “They were very unhappy,” the now 49-year-old Dubliner recalls. “To be honest it’s never really been resolved. My mother’s fantastic and does her absolute best to support me. However, from my parents’ point of view, what I was doing – throwing away a good education and all that kind of stuff – was madness. To be honest, they were right.”
He laughs at the memory. “Basically to pursue, you know, a career where there was no money, and people wanted to pay you in alcohol and hash. Which, of course, also has its advantages.”
Like many a struggling Irish guitar-slinger, Millar drank, smoked and bummed his way through the early years of his career. Being the last guy to leave every party wasn’t a sustainable lifestyle. “Like, I’m married and have kids now,” he shrugs. “About 14 years ago – I’ll be 50 next year – I basically changed the way I run my life. My daughter was two, and I just lost all desire for that lifestyle.”
Happily enough, as things turned out, Millar now makes a reasonably comfortable living. “I’m really proud that I’m making a living out of music,” he declares, “because it’s incredibly hard. Mostly, the public have no idea about the way it actually works, and how little money most musicians get paid, and how practically impossible it is for them to survive on it. I’m very lucky in that I have another career as a composer for the theatre. It’s completely different to what I do as a singer-songwriter. It’s really disciplined.
“I’ve kind of pioneered a different way of working with music within theatre, and very successfully. When I say ‘very successfully’, I mean in terms of Dunnes Stores managers, not very successfully in terms of rock stars, you know? So I make a living, and everybody has shoes and everybody eats and we have a nice place to live, so…all good.”
Although his recorded output as ‘Doctor Millar’ has always been widely-acclaimed, he’s never hit the big-time. However, his just-released sixth studio album C48 - so named because it’s both the exact length of the 12-song collection, and the age he was when the recording began – could well change that.
The songs are definitely informed by his hand-to-mouth past, with touches of Cohen, MacGowan and Bukowski in his beautifully bruised lyrics. “I suppose, basically, I feel I have a very strong identity with struggling artists and with the people who are in society, but are sometimes excluded from it. I feel that’s my community.”
While he’s never been one to aggressively push himself in the past, Millar has high hopes for C48.
“I’m more ambitious with this than I’ve been with any other record that I’ve put out. The response so far has been universally positive. Everybody seems to love it, even people who didn’t seem to get my other stuff. I’m doing it in partnership with a small Dutch label. They love it, too, and they’re getting a fantastic response over there.”
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Doctor Millar plays The Project Arts Centre, Dublin on November 30th. C48 is out now on Mass Market Recordings and available from www.doctormillar.com
