Months after graduating high school, mass communication freshman Walter Miller has an album coming out toward the beginning of next year, has sung the national anthem more than 100 times and has sung for audiences as big as 71,000.
Miller sang the national anthem at an LSU women’s soccer game against the University of Central Florida on Sunday.
Miller has sung the national anthem at different venues since he was in fifth grade. A few years ago, Miller tried out at LSU to perform the national anthem and was selected to sing at different games. He eventually worked his way up to bigger sporting events, and even sang the anthem in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans his junior year of high school.
He sang for his high school, St. Thomas More Catholic High School when its football team had made it to the championships. Miller has also sung the national anthem at Alex Box Stadium and the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Miller said he took a break from singing at University events for a while to allow himself the chance to sing around his hometown, Lafayette. He said he started singing at LSU events at the end of his senior year of high school so that when he came to campus, it would be a smooth transition.
“I really, really loved getting to perform some of my original music this past year,” Miller said. “This past summer, I did a bunch of performances in Lafayette at Warehouse 535. Giving audiences an early listen to what’s going to be on my album because I never really got into singing my own work.”
Miller has sung his whole life but said he never really got to sing his own words and thoughts to crowds before. He received positive reactions and said the crowd seemed to love it. Miller has been working on the album for more than four years now and said it seemed like his hard work was paying off now.
Miller said though he has been singing for around 12 years, he still gets nervous the day before and the morning of his performances.
“I try before my performance to not think about it, and when I perform, I shut my brain off,” Miller said. “If I overthink anything, I’m not going to do well and I just have to make sure I practice enough so that it is second nature, like a reflex. Leading up to the performance, I get really, really nervous, but during I just go into autopilot mode.”
Miller has an album coming out at the beginning of 2018. Miller said that the album is “an honest account of [his] entire high school experience.” His freshman year of high school he started writing songs and melodies and didn’t know it was going to turn into an album.
“It was more of just a way to spend the time and deal with the everyday struggles of being a teenager,” Miller said. “It just turned into its own thing. For four and half years now I’ve been writing and revising.”
