Mona Miluski

By Carl Begai

Vocalist Mona Miluski never had any intention of fronting German stoner rock band High Fighter. She’s not complaining about doing just that, but two years ago she was poised to conquer the world with metal bashers A Million Miles and the press folks locked into the band’s debut album, What’s Left behind, were set to give them the push they needed. Nothing ever goes as planned, of course, and thanks to issues and assorted bullshit on both professional and personal levels A Million Miles tragically crashed and burned far too early into their flight. Miluski freely admits she was devastated by the turn of events, but 2015 finds her back in business on a new and improved and – as recent experience has taught her – a rock solid foundation.

“I can say that 2013 sucked for everyone involved in A Million Miles,” Miluski begins. “Ten days after the release of our debut album we went on the road, and ten days later the band parted ways. Like you said, it was a tragedy for me because the band was my life, it was the ground I stood on, I breathed for the band. I totally lost my ground when we split up. There are several personal reasons why we broke up and it was a tragedy for all of us. The album got really great press so it was a shame things fell apart, but shit happens.”

“We parted ways in April 2013 and I talked to Shi (ex-A Million Miles guitarist Christian Pappas) again at the end of 2013 because we’ve always been best friends and we can’t stop making music together. It took me almost a year to get back on my feet and for us to put things back together and start searching for other musicians.” Continue reading BraveWords Interview: HIGH FIGHTER – A Million Miles Away

By Carl Begai

A Million Miles is a band out of Germany that grabbed my attention several months back thanks to the efforts of vocalist Mona Miluski. Rather than flooding my inbox with drivel about how awesome her band is and how they’re poised to dominate every plane of metal existence, her approach was limited to “This is what we’re up to; your opinion would be appreciated.” Subtle but effective, particularly when the invite to see the band live supporting The New Black – ultimately delivering a scorching show – came down as a build-up to the release of their debut album, What’s Left Behind. That performance was the icing on an already enticing cake, putting A Million Miles well beyond the “nice try” threshold in my book.

As for the new album itself, call it one of the biggest surprises to come across my desk in 2012.

“We can’t wait to release the album,” says Miluski. “We’ve been heavily and constantly touring all over Europe in the past few years, and played all of the songs that are going to be on the record live, so it means a lot to us to finally share this album. It represents an important chapter of being on tour all these years, and where we are going in the future.”

Seeing the band in action, it’s easy to imagine the music being far more chaotic and frayed around the edges when they first started compared to the material earmarked for the debut album. Like any band worth the price of their gear A Million Miles was built for the stage, and they’ve finally locked into that needed balance of skin-flaying heavy and refined musical performance.

“When A Million Miles started back in 2005, the guys were writing songs without a vocalist,” offers Miluski. “When I joined the band in 2008, all of the songs were written without vocals and I had to find my space in all these riff monsters my bandmates had created and packed into the songs. But, we grew into each other and started to write new songs with vocals. We worked on each song all together, so we became more musical in the way we felt we wanted to go. Our songs became more structured, and we found our own way and style.” Continue reading A MILLION MILES – Going The Distance