In 2025, roots-rock road warriors American Mile played at least 200 shows. But that wasn’t the case, obviously, five years ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic wiped everyone’s calendars and canceled everyone’s big plans. However, it was during lockdown, particularly during the holiday season, that the band found the inspiration to write much of their debut album. And that album, American Dream, finally came out this year during an equally fraught and crazy time.

“Me and [American Mile frontman] Eugene [Rice] lived across the street from each other, so there was nothing to do [in 2020]. So, we would just party and write music every day,” guitarist Joe Perez tells LPTV, sitting at Studio City’s Licorice Pizza Records, where American Mile playing one of their many raucous, roof-raising 2025 gigs. “We kind of went down the hole. But I want to say we wrote 40 songs, maybe more.”

“I got yelled at one time for being at [Joe’s] house,” Rice jokes. “I forgot it was New Year’s Eve, to be fair! We were writing music, and my lady at the time was like, ‘Where are you?’ And I was like, ‘I’m at Joe’s house. I’m literally across the street writing music.’ I didn’t even realize it was New Year’s Eve —  it was the pandemic, you know what I mean? It kind of just all blended together at some point.”

“We did one show in 2020, and it was a drive-in show,” Perez recalls of that surreal time. “Everyone sat in their cars and honked at us in between songs — to applaud, they would honk at us. It was just so weird.”

However, the band did spend three straight, solid months during the pandemic rehearsing to get “super-tight,” so by the time COVID restrictions started to ease up, they were “very prepared” to return to an actual stage. And American Mile’s first post-lockdown show was at the illustrious Rolling Hills Resort and Casino, in Northern California’s Tehama County.

“Literally, we would be like 30 feet from the audience, with plexiglass in front of the stage. Literal plexiglass,” Rice says. “[The sound] would just bounce off the plexiglass, right back into your face. You’d be playing a guitar and it was just so, so loud inside. You’re like a fish in an aquarium, and some 12-year-old’s there just smacking on the glass. That’s why they say don’t smack on the glass at the aquarium, by the way! I’ve been that fish. I understand it now. The signs are there for a reason.”

American Mile were able to adapt perhaps better than most bands, because, as Perez notes, they’d “always had this mentality: If there’s five people in the audience, it’s Madison Square Garden. Flip some tables, throw up some fingers, and just have a good-ass time.”

“That’s the reality of it. You have to understand that there are going to be a lot of times where you walk into a venue and you’re playing to the bartender and one other person,” says Rice of life on the road. “But you have to understand that when you do that, you’re giving them the greatest show of their life, regardless of who’s there. Because one person turns into two people, turns into four people, turns into eight. That’s always how it goes. That is the fucking music business in a nutshell. There’s no quick way to the top. It just doesn’t exist.”

So, now American Mile are back to their regular grind, and while life is still far from easy, they’re still undeterredly pursuing their own American dream. “We work so hard,” stresses Rice, who like many dreamers came to Los Angeles to pursue music (because he was “so fucking miserable swinging a hammer” as a carpenter in his hometown of Wallingford, Vermont). Despite failing to graduate from Hollywood’s Musicians Institute (“Who needs a diploma to be a musician?”), the move turned out to be a good decision for Rice, because it was in L.A. that he met Perez, American Mile’s other constant, core member. And he’s never regretted his decision, even though being in a “totally independent” band can often be a real slog.

“We’re like $30,000 in debt right now. … Cut up those credit cards, kids!” jokes Rice. “Yeah, I look in the mirror and I cry a little bit! … But I don’t think any of us would be here if we didn’t have real passion for music. … When it’s like your sixth gig in a row and you’ve traveled eight hours and then you get back onstage, you’re like, ‘I remember, every single time, why I’m here and what I’m doing.’”

Rice, Perez, bassist Dezmond Saunders, and drummer Colton Miller would no doubt rather focus on just those euphoric onstage moments. But as a completely self-contained operation (the band recently scored two nominations at the Hollywood Independent Music Awards), they have to run American Mile like a “mean and lean” business to make it work.

“You don’t get into [music] so that you’re like, ‘Oh man, I can’t wait to do the backend business stuff!’” quips Saunders. “It’s fun to play music — that’s everything that we want to do. Get good at doing that, because it doesn’t matter if you can’t do that. … But as soon as it starts to grow, you’re like, ‘Oh, I need to do this to be able to fucking survive.’ ‘ So, you have to buckle down and do the shit that’s not fun.”

“You’ve got to really have your business practices strong. You have to know that going into this, while it is a passion project, it’s not an overnight success. … You have to put the business aspect of whatever your project is in front of your goals as an artist. And I know that that feels weird,” admits Rice. “But you have to look at it business-structure-wise: How can I make this model work in today’s America and take four dudes around the country and play, and still end at the end of the month I can pay rent, I can pay my credit card, I can buy groceries, and have a little bit of money I can throw into my savings?”

All this ties into the title of the new album by American Mile, survivors who “come from meager standings, very middle-class to lower-middle-class kind of income” and in their early days would “go to the Mexican grocery store and buy the cheapest beer we could afford.” Says Rice: “American Dream, to me personally, as difficult as it has become in America to chase one dream… you think back at the people who came to America during the Great Depression, or when when people were coming to Ellis Island, and we complain that life is hard now. And it is, but life was a hell of a lot harder then. And I still think that the American dream is completely possible for your random fucking [small-town] boy coming out to Los Angeles trying to make a career out of music. You just gotta put your fucking feet to the ground and work and work and work.

“I still think with enough hard work you can make whatever your ambition and dream is; the universe will provide it, if you push hard enough for it and you believe in it enough,” Rice continues with almost evangelical zeal. “If you don’t believe in it, if you don’t believe in yourself and what you’re doing and you’re not willing to give 110 percent, it’s never going to happen — it’s not a reality, and you should do something else. And I wholeheartedly believe that that’s how it’s always been. All dreams, that’s how they baseline. If you don’t believe in yourself to the point where you’re going to war for whatever you are doing, you don’t believe in it.”

Despite the fact that American Dream tackles some “real-life shit” of American nightmares — immigration, poverty and inequal wealth distribution, the opioid epidemic (Perez grew up in Williamstown, New Jersey, where the heroin death rate was once nearly 25 times the national average) — and that American Mile spend a good portion of their LPTV interview discussing the pandemic and the numbers-crunching/bookkeeping/credit-card-maxing that comes with being a struggling indie band, they are a ton of fun. Their LPTV interview is also peppered with Spinal Tap references, geeky mentions of the recently announced Rush reunion and Aerosmith deep cuts, and Morrissey jokes, and of course, they are an absolute blast in concert. So, how do American Mile stay so positive?

“Oh, you wanna know our secret sauce?” chuckles Rice. “You’ve got to keep the party alive in a record. … I think there’s just a balance of keeping it authentic and singing about what you know, but also keeping the listener engaged so they don’t want to turn off the vinyl. You gotta keep it interesting. You’ve got to make people want to dance the whole time. And that’s what we learned from doing 200 shows a year.”

“Here’s the cheesy part, right here: Life’s too short  to not do what you want to do, ladies and gentlemen,” Saunders sums up of the band’s ethos. “So, just fucking do it. And that way, you don’t have to live with the what-ifs.”