“Well, I get letters all the time, you know, and it goes like this: 'Dear Daniel, I love your music. I am also mentally ill.'”

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By B. Davin Stengel  |  Send to Friend

Daniel Johnston is a legend in sweatpants. An inimitable lyricist and a prolific artist, at 47 years old he only recently moved out of his parents’ house in a small Texas farming town -- into the house next door. Boosted by the success of the award-winning 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston, the underground icon is experiencing an improbable mid-life comeback, with recent exploits including forays into the Manhattan art scene and high-profile gigs at All Tomorrow’s Parties and David Bowie’s High Line Festival. Johnston just wrapped a short east coast tour and will hit the road again in April.


BDS: I imagine it must be weird to have strangers like me calling you up and asking you about your life. What’s the question you’re most tired of being asked?

DJ: Well, I get letters all the time, you know, and it goes like this, “Dear Daniel, I love your music. I am also mentally ill.” [laughs] It’s hilarious. I have manic depression. I finally got the cure after all these years. I mean, I’ve really had some bad depressions, and some outrageous manic states. I finally got the medication that put me right about in the middle, and I’m a lot happier now because of it. I don’t get as depressed. I take some antidepressants. It’s better than marijuana, really. It’s good stuff.

BDS: Over the course of your career you’ve talked a lot about being preoccupied with fame and celebrity status, and the past few years have been big for you in terms of media exposure. Do you still want to be more famous than you already are?

DJ: It’s really not that bad. I spend most of my time by myself. I’ve had a movie, a four-page article in Spin, but I’m still pretty humble. I’m doing better than I ever have. I’m able to make a living now. I haven’t worked since I worked at McDonald’s in 1986. It’s pretty luxurious, really. I just spend my time working on songs and drawing pictures and watching movies and just, you know, taking it easy. I feel real good, but I hope that someday I could become like a super-millionaire or something, have a hit or something.

BDS: In a sense you're a “fringe artist” -- I mean, you’re not selling millions of records -- but you're also an artist’s artist. People like David Bowie and Kurt Cobain have talked about how much they like you -- and bands like Yo La Tengo, Bright Eyes, and Death Cab for Cutie have all covered your material. What are some of your favorite covers of your own songs?

DJ: Well, my one friend -- his name is Don Goede -- I don’t know if you’ve heard of him; he’s the one who put the book together, Hi, How Are You? He started a collection of people singing my songs, and it was really my favorite so far. I don’t know if he plans to put that out soon, or what’s going to come of it, but we used to listen to it all the time when we were both on tour. I really enjoyed it.

BDS: I want to ask you about your visual artwork, too. Have things changed since being in the Whitney Museum’s 2006 Biennial, in terms of who’s interested in you?

DJ: Yeah, there’s more people than ever, and we’re doing a lot better than we ever did. My brother is taking me along on these tours and everything, and I’m having a really great time. You know, eating out, buying comic books and stuff -- it’s great.

BDS: You've talked about doing your own comics before. What ideas do you have, or have you been tossing around, in terms of doing a comic book?

DJ: I wanted to do Captain America, but now Marvel Comics says Captain America’s dead, so I don’t know what to do about it. I had all these stories made up, because I thought that someday I’d be able to do Captain America/Marvel team-up with Casper the Friendly Ghost, and I worked on it a lot, so I don’t know -- I figure if they say he’s dead now, they should do his adventures during World War II or something like that. You know, like his “lost adventures” or something.

BDS: “Life in Vain” is one of my favorites of all of your songs. I like the line, “It’s so tough just to be alive/When I feel like the living dead -- ”

DJ: I like, “Everybody wearing a frown/Waiting for Santa to come to town.” Like Christmas is the only day they could be happy.

BDS: Right. I was going to segue into something about zombies, but I’ll just cut to the chase. You’re known to be a monster movie buff -- what are your favorite monster movies?

DJ: I love the Frankenstein series of Universal Films -- Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, House of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, of course. I love the Dracula Bela Lugosi movies. I love the Wolfman movies, you know, and I love Hammer films too -- with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. These are my favorites that I watch the most. I like a good war movie, too, but mostly I like horror movies.

BDS: Do you keep up with the films that are coming out today, like 28 Days Later?

DJ: I might be able to get it when it comes out on DVD, but I don’t really go to the movies that much, so I don’t really know what it’s like now. I don’t really like the splatter films. I like scary movies, but not scary like that. I don’t appreciate that kind of thing. It’s too gross sometimes. With the special effects, it’s a little bit too real.

BDS: You were quoted in a piece about the last show you played in Washington D.C. as saying you don’t pay much attention to politics, so I won’t ask if you’re endorsing anyone, but let’s just say -- hypothetically -- that you had a private audience with the next president of the United States. What would you talk to them about?

DJ: I’d say, “How about legalizing marijuana?” [laughs] I don’t know. That would be pretty stupid to do, because he’d probably lock me up somewhere. I always had a dream that if I became president, I would legalize marijuana, and you could buy it, like, in packs at the 7-Eleven. It’d be so cool.

 

B. Davin Stengel is a freelance writer who feels safest at miniature golf courses and aquariums. Illustrator Jason R. Robinson is using his middle initial. (jasonrrobinson.com)

 

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