Rooting for the right side

>> Virtue and villainy duke it out in the art and music of bipolar underground icon Daniel Johnston

FINE, THANKS: Daniel Johnston at work

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Listening to Daniel Johnston’s music, you can almost picture him dashing off his innocent pop ditties on a lazy Sunday afternoon while leafing through comic books and Famous Monsters magazines. His childlike naïveté is dripping with sincerity, but there’s something in his off-kilter vocals and ham-fisted musicianship that remains unsettling, revealing a deep pain at their root. Johnston is one of the most honest, raw-nerved and talented songwriters out there right now, and is considered by many to be a genius—just ask Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, David Bowie or the late Kurt Cobain, to name a few.

Although Johnston’s music is definitely celebrated in the 2006 Jeff Feuerzeig documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston, the film also delves deeply into the dark side of Johnston’s life, and the source of his creative fire. Johnston has struggled with bipolar disorder for the better part of his 45 years, resulting in repeated run-ins with the law and frightening episodes of violence. Johnston has led a hard life, and recently has had to watch his head get opened up all over again as his often sordid past spilled out onto the silver screen.

“It was embarrassing because I looked so stupid,” says Johnston of the documentary, over the phone from his parents’ home in Waller, Texas. “That movie was like watching that show Hard Copy, but I was in it. I felt like I was being treated like a criminal. Sometimes I thought it was pretty funny, though, like they should have put a laugh track on it or something. I was so fat in that movie.

“When I started to get known, people would want to come over and interview me, and when they would get here, I would always say, ‘Hey, let’s eat some Mexican,’ so I got kind of fat. Since that movie came out, people in the grocery store have started saying, ‘Hey, there’s that guy from the movie.”

GOOD WINS OUT: Art by Johnston

Ghost of goodness

Compared to the subject under the microscope in the movie, Johnston seems like a very different person today. It’s obvious that a restructured medication regimen and a new doctor have made him more lucid. His delusions have retreated further into his subconscious and he insists that he is watching his behaviour more closely now, as well as keeping tabs on his medication.

Although Johnston is sick of talking about the movie, he really lights up when the discussion moves to his first love, the Beatles. Johnston is now one of the biggest Beatles bootleg collectors in the world. “I mean, they were the best! Who doesn’t love the Beatles?”

Metallica are also on his radar. “They are one of the scariest groups around. They’re too much. I was going to be on their label [Elektra tried signing Johnston in 1993 but he declined], but I was Hi, How Are You and they are like Master of Puppets, so they kind of scared me.”

Outside of his music, Johnston is just as prolific with his artwork, which has now become his main source of income. Johnston makes drawings every day, which his father and brother buy off him for a dollar so he can have spending money. The art is then sold online or through gallery shows, with all profits going into a savings account set up for him. Johnston’s doodles harken back to what seems to be a less complicated time, with renderings of his childhood heroes like Captain America and Casper the Friendly Ghost fighting the good fight.

Like his music, the drawings seem innocent enough at first glance, rendered in a childlike scrawl, but again, the distorted figures and his distinctive, disproportionate sense of perspective reveal a skewed but unique artistic vision.

“I guess I like to draw Casper because I kind of identify with him, and I really like Harvey comic books. I also really like Jack Kirby, I think he is the best there ever was. I still buy those comics whenever I get a chance because I just can’t get into new comic books. I’m going to start working on a whole comic book of my drawings soon. So far I only have the idea in my head, but it will be with Casper and Captain America.

“Most of my songs and art are really about the battle between good and evil, and always hoping that good will win out. I really think my music and art are getting better and I think I’m going to have some really good records coming out soon. Things are really going alright for me now.”

With Michael Gira and Brian Seeger at la Sala Rossa
on Saturday, May 5, 9 p.m., $20. Johnston’s art is at
le Kopshop (111 Roy E.) from May 5–29 (vernissage
Friday, May 5, 7 p.m., free)