Daniel Johnston, Unlikely Rock Star
Daniel Johnston’s origin story is the stuff of legend. In his early twenties, he worked as a cashier at a Houston-area McDonald’s. He gave out cassette copies of his home-produced songs for free to customers and strangers. The songs were deceptively simple, written on a cheap chord organ and recorded on a $59 Sanyo boombox. The quality was primitive with tape hiss and distortion. But there was a childlike purity to the music as if Mister Rogers was channeling Tom Waits.
Johnston was raised a fundamentalist Christian in West Virginia. He was obsessed with comic book figures like Captain America, the Incredible Hulk and Casper the Friendly Ghost. In his teens, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, psychoactive disorder and manic depression. He spent months in psychiatric institutions telling everyone he met that one day he would be famous.
He suffered from depression in high school and was a loner who lived in his parents’ basement. He drew his own comic books including a surfing superhero rat named “Ratzoid.” He idolized the Beatles, the Plastic Ono Band, Bob Dylan, Queen and Neil Young. After John Lennon was killed, Johnston was convinced the rocker was still alive in a parallel universe.
