Lisa Miller

Lisa Miller fronts the Trailer Park Honeys, whose high-energy sets prompt Portland, Oregon crowds to lift a beer, rise from their chairs, stomp across the dancefloor, and occasionally trade blows in a bar fight. The rowdy sound draws devoted blue-collar listeners who embrace a fast-paced lifestyle, finding particular favor in the group’s Pacific Northwest hometown.

Long before those performances, Miller could not play guitar at all after an automobile collision caused a severe back injury. Physicians at the time warned she would never again lift or perform on an instrument of that weight. Determined rehabilitation efforts ultimately disproved the prognosis.

Now, following years spent raising children, the guitarist has returned to recording fresh honky-tonk material. Music’s central place in her upbringing makes that persistence unsurprising. Her mother played an instrument, her father collected records with passion, and her brother began studying guitar before entering his teens. She soon followed suit.

Although the siblings once planned to form a band, contrasting tastes kept them apart: Miller favored country and folk while her brother preferred Santana and Jimi Hendrix.

After several years living with her family in the San Francisco area, they returned to Oregon, where Miller studied theater arts and music. She and her brother started a punk band that collapsed when the drummer quit; he then departed to launch another group. The car crash struck before she could regain her footing.

In 1990, prior to forming the Trailer Park Honeys, Miller assembled Bop Girl Goes Calypso. Three years later she created the rockabilly outfit Raisin’ a Ruckus. She subsequently joined the all-female trio In Cahoots.

Within the Trailer Park Honeys, Miller handles guitar and lead vocals alongside bassist Bob Wadle, drummer Steve Aubrey, and guitarists Nick Sonies and Billy Kennedy. Guest musicians sometimes augment the lineup, among them Mike Danner on piano and accordion, fiddler Marilee Horde, pedal steel guitarist Paul Brainard, and pianist Hank Rasco.