Pop singer Jake Miller brings new EP, tour to Tucson's The Rock

Jake Miller is bringing his spring tour to The Rock.

Back in mid-November, Jake Miller uploaded his uptempo single “Wait For You” onto the crowdsourcing music site Spotify.

Two weeks later, the song had soared; a quarter million Americans had streamed it and that number was nearly double worldwide — at 400,000.

Miller can pat himself on the back. The pop singer wrote and produced the song, the first single off his just released six-song EP “Based On A True Story.”

“Everyday I’m experimenting and I’m learning and I’m messing with new sounds,” said Miller, who brings his “Wait For You” Tour to The Rock on Saturday, April 13. “I study other artists. I do my research of other artists and I kind of take little things from here and there. I pick up on other people’s stuff I like and I try to apply it to my music.”

His crash-course in producing was born out of a desire to regain the reins of creative control over his music, something he felt had gotten lost when he was part of Warner Bros. Records’ big label machine.

Miller left Warner Bros. in 2016 after three years and a few recording projects in which he felt like he was only half-vested in his music.

“I would have to walk into recording sessions with producers and I would come with 50 percent of the lyrics and melodies and I would have to rely on them to deliver the other 50 percent with their beats. And sometimes they wouldn’t be on the same wavelength,” the 26-year-old recalled. “Being able to do everything by myself has always been in my head, I just needed to figure out how to actually play and put it down.”

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Miller said he learned by trial and error and listening to music that inspired him, including the 1980s sound that sneaks into “Based On A True Story.” The record has nods to 1980s drum riffs and bass lines, with saxophone and a choir at the end of “What If You Fell In Love.”

“I’ve really been trying to push myself to do things I haven’t done in previous albums,” Miller explained during a phone call last month. “We have choirs, saxophones; ‘80s sounds infused with 2019 sounds. I think I’ve got a little bit of everything for everybody.”

Miller recorded “True Story” in his converted bedroom studio of a house he shares with four roommates. He has the master bedroom, where the bed has become an afterthought, shoved against one wall. Instead, a piano and guitars mounted on the wall along with a saxophone take up most of the space. He composes beats and records vocals and live instruments on his computer and after mixing and mastering, uploads the songs to Spotify.

“There’s nobody to tell me anything. Nobody to tell me I can’t write about this or I can’t do this,” he said.

“True Story” was released by Sony Red, an imprint of the behemoth Sony Records. Miller said being on the smaller label that is aligned with the major label gives him marketing and promotional muscle while allowing him to retain independent creative control.

“Everything you hear comes straight from my heart and my brain. I think it’s easier for me to do this,” he said. “Now that I’ve learned how to (produce), there’s no stopping me in terms of making music. If I hear it in my head, I can easily put it down. And I don’t have to rely on anybody to mix this and interpret my message. It’s been great. And just walking into a studio with other people, I can hold my own and I can compete with some of the best producers in the game.”

Miller’s “Wait For You” Tour will hit 21 cities over the next two months as he plays mostly small venues like Tucson’s The Rock, which can fit about 300. He said it is by design — “I kinda want people knocking on the door trying to get in,” he said — part of his plan to build up his fan base to the point that he will be big enough to fill larger venues. (That won’t be hard; he already has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and through his so-called Millertary fan club.)

No matter how big or small the venue, Miller said that once he steps on stage, and the mostly female audience starts screaming his name and singing along, “I’m the best version of myself.”

“These are songs that I wrote in my bedroom and now they are all over the world and people are connecting with them,” he said. “I am very blessed to be able to do this for a living.”