Taryn Miller is a musician from Winfield, Kansas, who plays under the moniker Your Friend. She was signed to Domino Records, home of Animal Collective and Blood Orange, in 2014, and the label re-released Miller's first self-produced EP, Jekyl/Hyde. After graduating from the University of Kansas, she jumped straight into working on a full-length album and touring internationally.
Taryn Miller spoke with Ghost Notes, a Kansas City-based podcast KCUR is collaborating with this summer, about dealing with the positive change she's experienced in the last few years and the nagging feeling she may not deserve it.
Some highlights:
"I feel lucky I got to walk down the hill [at KU] into this. I’m like, ‘What am I going to do after I graduate?’ And someone answered that for me. And I feel really lucky. But I’m also having to backtrack to have the existential moments in my downtime, or just the responsibility that comes with it."
"I’m finding more and more of this over the past few years. I feel like there’s some level of me that doesn’t feel like I deserve good things. It’s really strange. It’s not masochistic, like saboteur in this way. Things will be fine and that makes me uneasy."
"I had to quit drinking. It sent me down this depressed tunnel. I would be fine and then I would wake up. It was the day after always that I would feel awful. It’s a depressant. Some people can handle it better than others. I was in its grip. I felt like I was stuck or in limbo. I couldn’t make anything. I was numbing out feelings. It didn’t feel destructive until the end of it. You kind of wake up and you look around and you’re like, ‘What happened? What did I do?’"
Subscribe to Ghost Notes on iTunes to hear why Miller is protective of her lyrics, which incorporate her feelings of change and disorientation.
Hannah Copeland is the host of Ghost Notes and an announcer and reporter for KCUR 89.3. Reach her on Twitter @hannahecopeland.
