13 Questions: Daniel Johnston

by Ouch Team

4th November 2009

Daniel Johnston is an American singer, songwriter and artist whose raw and melodic songs have been covered by Beck, Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips.

In the 1980s he distributed homemade cassette albums around the local music scene in Austin, Texas. As a result of this, he made it on to MTV, but as mainstream popularity seemed imminent his manic depression (bipolar disorder) worsened. Consequently, Daniel spent a number of periods in state psychiatric hospitals.

Since the late 1990s, Daniel's career has seen a revival. The 2006 documentary film about his life, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, won the Director's Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

He's recently been touring the UK, and we managed to catch up with him and get answers to our 13 Questions.

Uppermost in my mind today is ...

Daniel Johnston - photograph courtesy Tim Broddin

I was just watching a movie. I can't remember what movie it was, though. Let me think... no, I can't remember. It was only a few minutes ago too. I guess it's true that I have a bad memory now, and if someone is talking to me I'll be focussing in and out.

Not a lot of people know that I ...

Am planning to release another new album very soon after this one, in November. It's by Danny and the Nightmares - that's the name of a band I've been playing with for a few years. Our music's more punk rock, but we play a lot of different kinds of songs. The album's called The Death Of Satan, and I'm very excited about it.

The best piece of advice I would pass on is ...

Don't trust everybody. Don't trust strangers. You have to be careful.

I want to ban...

Nothing. If you ban one thing, then they'll try to ban something else. You ban me, then I'll ban you.

My ideal dinner guest(s) would be ...

The Beatles. They would always be welcome to stop by. See, I feel like I know them already, like they're my older brothers, because I've been listening to them for so many years. Their music has brought me up since high school. I was a nerd who didn't talk too much, and I didn't really have any friends.

I started listening to The Beatles and then I was talking to the girls in my pretend English accent. I was coming out of myself and acting like I was popular. It was thanks to The Beatles that I started writing songs, and that's how it all began.

I couldn't live without ...

My life. The whole thing. I'm so lucky now. I have my own house, really good friends, and my new cat, Spunky. I have a lot of fun and live a good life. I wouldn't want to take any of that away or even add to it with any other ingredients because of how well things are going. I'm very happy - happier than I used to be - and I'm grateful for that.

My first job was...

At an oil refinery in West Virginia. After three years working there, earning money to put myself through college at the same time, I asked my dad if I could take a year off and just concentrate on my songs, and he let me do it.

So, for the whole of 1983 I worked on my music, thinking that maybe someday I'd be famous. It took a long time to get there, but I'm glad my dad let me do that, because I could have just been lost with everybody else working at the refinery.

I excel at...

Music and art. I get asked if I prefer one to the other, but it's too hard to say. I'll be drawing and listening to albums, and then I'll go and watch a movie, then write some songs. I just kind of walk round in circles in my house doing one or the other, music or art. I try to keep busy and fill my time.

Daniel doodles - photograph courtesy Tim Broddin

I struggle with ...

The depression. I take pills for it now, and usually they keep me pretty stable, but that's not how it was in the past. As a manic depressive, I would be completely out to the world. I had to lock myself away, and I'd really have a bad time of it. But now, because of the drugs, I'm doing much better.

Where do you spend most of your time?

At my house. I live next door to my folks. It's a little place all my own. I don't have a phone or anything – any calls come in next door and dad lets me know about them using an intercom.

What hasn't been invented yet, but should be?

I think most of the inventions we saw in the 1950s and 60s future movies have happened, but I'd like some kind of spaceship. Not one of those expensive passenger ones where you travel up with other people. I want a space machine of my own so that I could go up to the moon - it would be so great to see that and then go wherever else I wanted in the universe.

To me, music means ...

The Beatles. It's got to be Beatles music or I won't play it. That's mostly all I listen to. What I love about my current album is how it all sounds very Beatle-y, (it's been produced by Paul McCartney's current guitarist). When I heard the final versions of the songs I was like "This is unreal! Everything sounds like a hit!"

Being seen as a musical influence is...

Very cool. I'm still in the underground, though - I'd hoped to be more famous above ground someday and have a hit album, but most of the recordings I sold were home produced or bootlegged. Now that people cover my songs it makes me feel like I've got something to do - like I have an audience. When I go to do a show and step out on stage, it's like... there I am, a hundred pounds overweight, but they still clap and cheer.

• Daniel's latest album is called 'Is and Always Was': check out Daniel's recordings on his artist page.

• Watch Daniel perform Speeding Motorcycle on YouTube.

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