Jason Reed Milner
Jason Reed Milner at Irene & Reed's Concert Debut at Birdy's, 12-1-10. Photo by Nikki Arnold.
Jason Reed Milner
Sometime in 1993 — the same year Sarah McLachlan released Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, Cracker released Kerosene Hat and Peter Gabriel released Us, a classically trained pianist, fresh out of high school, began his music career. After having played piano since 1986, Jason Reed Milner, a Terre Haute, Ind. native, finally knew what he wanted to do with his life.
“The first time I saw a keyboard, I knew I must have one,” Milner says. “So, at age 10, I begged my parents for a keyboard and piano lessons.” Thus, a lifelong friendship formed with the emotive instrument. Four years earlier, when Nine Inch Nails debuted Pretty Hate Machine, Milner’s affinity toward all things electronic took over, inspiring him to form his first industrial band, Nimbus, in 1993, with his friends, Von Stultz and Greg Rader. The group launched a debut album on cassette tape, Cut and Paste, followed by a sophomore effort, Debasement Session.
“When we started, Von and I had two keyboards. Back then it was all four-tack machines on cassette tape. This is when no one really knew anything about MIDI and how it works,” Milner says. “We programmed the songs into both synthesizers and had to match all of the beats. Multi-track software started getting more popular around the mid-’90s, but unless you had a top-of-the-line computer, the tracking never synced up right with the MIDI.”
In 1994, Stultz left Nimbus to deejay in Seattle under the moniker vexp, and Milner found a new home in Indianapolis, Ind. “It took about a year for me to get down to business again, form a new band and learn how to sing,” he says. “After changing my major in college from art to mechanical engineering, I filled the artistic void by creating more music.”
In 1998, Milner’s brother, Brad, joined the band as drummer. The following year, when the band’s guitarist moved to California, Milner was again forced to adapt his musical skills — this time for an upcoming gig, opening for Attrition and The Last Dance. “With only about two weeks before the show, I learned how to play guitar well enough to make it through the set,” he says.
In 2000, Nimbus released its first full-length, self-titled CD. Complications that ensued when trying to push band promotion nationwide lead to a name change for the group. “When we went ‘dot-com’ and started getting ourselves out there seriously, we found out that there were 27 other bands in the U.S. with the name Nimbus,” Milner says. In 2002, Nimbus evolved into Form 30, with a lineup that included Milner on vocals, keyboards and guitar, Dave Alusik on bass, and Jamie Vitro, who later went on to launch solo EBM project, Danz Poeta, on drums.
“Our first show as Form 30 was a music festival called Smallapalooza,” Milner recalls. “They heard our demo and instantly put us as headliners. It was a great honor. I think that there were around 600 people. Later during the gig, they had to call security to calm down the audience. I think some guy broke his nose. A couple other people got injured in the mosh pit — a few broken ribs here and there…. It was a good time!”
In 2005, Form 30 released Ignited, a polished industrial album blending pop and electronic influences — even covering Placebo’s “Every You Every Me.” The band played shows all over the U.S. with industrial rock staples such as Razed in Black, Slick Idiot and others.
“I eventually got the software that Trent Reznor uses,” Milner says. “It is just an amazing piece of programming, but still, my favorite synthesizer is my Yamaha Motif ES8.” With the new technology, Milner continued to hone his songwriting skills and abilities as a music producer, even remixing “Fairtytale the Storm” for The Last Dance.
Milner and Alusik stuck out several more years with Form 30, switching out various guest drummers, keyboardists and bassists over time. In 2008, Milner caught back up with his childhood best friend, Stultz, who still shared his musical vision. Form 30 soon split, and Milner stepped away from the mic as frontman, devoting his time to keys, as Stultz became the lead vocalist and beat mixer for their new artistic collaboration, Seven Mile Radius.
Early in 2009, Seven Mile Radius released its debut album, Your So Perfect. The project experimented with the industrial sound of the 1990s Milner had been searching for since he began his music career. Filled with darker themes and emotion, the album sparked theatrical live concerts by the band throughout the Midwest. It was apparent Seven Mile Radius was drawing from its earlier industrial influences, including Skinny Puppy, My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult and KMFDM, which set the stage for their album’s fictional “psych ward serial killer” character basis. The duo dabbled in more experimental, atmospheric electronic songwriting during the next few months until fizzling out, while in the late spring of 2009, Milner and his journalist friend Leslie Benson, the former singer-songwriter of Dayton, Ohio-based folk-rock band Burning Veda, teamed up to form Irene & Reed, a musical project focusing on ethereal rock, blues and American folk music, stemming from their mutual interests in the styles of Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan and others.
