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Turns out, the Dinosaur Jr. frontman was there to join John R. Miller for a guitar-shredding performance of “Steering Wheel Drums”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n\tWhen John R. Miller<\/a> made his second appearance at the Grand Ole Opry on Thursday night, he didn\u2019t do it alone. The Appalachian-born singer-songwriter was joined by Dinosaur Jr.<\/a> frontman J Mascis<\/a>, for a guitar-heavy rendition of \u201cSteering Wheel Drums,\u201d from Miller\u2019s excellent new album The Great Unknowing<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSo incredibly cool and surreal to get to see J Mascis rip on the hallowed stage of the Grand Ole Opry,\u201d Miller tells Rolling Stone<\/em> about the experience. \u201cI\u2019m super grateful to the wonderful folks who run the Opry show, not only for having me back, but for giving me the opportunity to honor one of my all-time guitar heroes in an especially unlikely fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIt was Mascis\u2019 first time at the country music institution, and though he might not exactly fit in with some of the mainstream acts who populate the stage, his music has undoubtably had influence on scores of artists in the folk and Americana-adjacent worlds, from Miller and MJ Lenderman to Waxahatchee. Dinosaur Jr. have actually described their distortion and fuzz-heavy sound as \u201cear-bleeding country\u201d \u2014 in fact, it\u2019s the title of their greatest hits compilation.<\/p>\n \n\tMiller takes influence from Mascis in both his fluid approach to the guitar and his songwriting, which doesn\u2019t worry as much about a genre as the strength of the story. \u00a0On songs like \u201cTollbooth,\u201d which Miller also played last night at the Opry, he tells of road-worn, midlife desolation in vibrant detail. \u201cI think the tollbooth operator\u2019s high,\u201d he sings. \u201cI don\u2019t wonder why.\u201d<\/p>\n