Austinist Interview: The Devil and Daniel Johnston Director, Jeff Feuerzeig
You are a self-professed Daniel Johnston obsessive. Can you remember when you first heard about Daniel Johnston?
I was a college radio DJ [in New Jersey], and word was trickling up from Austin, Texas, through this underground network of people--before there was an internet—through fanzine culture. I was reading a lot of fanzines, which was an underground publishing network. Word was trickling up through this network of a few hundred people around the country from the Austin scene. [Daniel] had made a huge splash here. He was a carnie, and he arrived here accidentally, actually.
But Daniel’s life is like serendipity, basically. As he arrives here accidentally as a carnie, the Austin music scene is at its height. Like Bob Dylan in the sixties showing up in Greenwich Village, Daniel captured the entire Austin scene’s imagination, literally in a matter of weeks. He was working at McDonald’s, and as legend has it—because it’s true, and I have met many people who have had this happen to them actually—if you were a hip Austin musician, or a pretty girl, you would find a surprise in your sack with your hamburger and fries. He invented the Happy Meal. What was in that sack was a cassette of his. Perhaps it was, Hi, How Are You?, his Meet The Beatles album--his greeting album. Those people went home and they played those tapes and what they heard was so singular and unprecedented in music history it did not sound anything like the music of Austin at the time, or the music of anything going on in the world at the time--it was otherly. To my ears it sounded like. . . . it sounded like he had this voice that was like Billie Holliday combined with John Coltrane on a saxophone reaching for God. That’s what it sounded like. I really believe that.
[Jeff Tartakov] was managing Daniel and put out his records on a cassette label, called Stress Records, which still exists to this day. You know, I had read about Dan Johnston, and I had heard that there were all these songs of unrequited love, and that is an incredible theme--it touches all of us. What’s better than unrequited love? It’s certainly better than a falling-in-love song. I just had to hear this. So, I sent my five dollars off to Stress World Wide Communications, which was a post office box in Austin, Texas. I waited by my mailbox for like five days. I think I ordered two tapes the first time. I ordered, Hi, How Are You? and Yip/Jump Music. I popped it on and in between these achingly beautiful songs of unrequited love, as well as songs about his own mental illness, he had put snippets of his life--audio verite of his mom yelling at him between the songs.
I never really heard anything quite like it. It wasn’t just an album of songs. It was so much more than, because of the conceptual element of it. The title, Hi, How Are You? was recorded while he was having a nervous breakdown. Because of his manic depression, because of his mental illness, his lyrics were unfiltered. There was no keeping something private for yourself and public for other people. Those barriers were just broken down, and it is a byproduct of his manic depression.
How do you think Daniel’s mental illness has been an asset to his genius?
His mental illness is a curse and a gift, like it is for all great artists that also suffer from manic depression. I read a book by a woman named, Kay Redfield Jamison, called Touched with Fire. She chronicles the history of manic depression throughout all of the great artists, writers, poets, musicians, composers and painters throughout history. I don’t know why it is, but they all suffered from the same thing that Daniel suffered from. In their manic states, they would create their master works. In their lowest of lows, they would either commit suicide, or do what Daniel did: Self medicate. Back in those days, we didn’t have the pills and things that we have today from drug companies, but they would self-medicate with alcohol, heroin, absinthe, because that’s what they had back then.
They weren’t using those drugs necessarily for recreational value. They were trying to kill the pain. Well, Daniel chronicled that. Of his first two albums, his first one is called Songs of Pain, the second album is called More Songs of Pain, and they’re beautiful albums. He turned his pain into beauty. He wrote about his pain so openly. I was just floored, and that’s an understatement. His songs touched me in a way I have never been touched before. His piano playing is so brilliant, it is so beautiful and so complex on those early records. He doesn’t get credit for that now. His interpretation is very raw, but it is singular sounding and his voice is so achingly beautiful. That’s why I listen to music or look at art. I want to have an emotional experience. Well, he gave it to me and hundreds and hundreds of people around the world--now thousands in spades--delivering an emotional experience.
Do you think that’s why so many other artists (Kurt Cobain, Tom Waites, David Bowie, to name a few) appreciate his ability--his interpretation of that pain--and that’s part of why he has such a following with people who are considered great artists in their own right?
Not necessarily just pain, because he expresses so much else. He really actually expresses a message of love and hope, because his message song, True Love Will Find You In The End, which is in the film, is really one of his many masterpieces, maybe his ultimate message. He sends a message of hope and love, and it is tragic, sad and ironic that this person that is so insightful on the subject of love, and can offer it to all of us cannot experience the physical love for himself. It’s a Chinese box, because you can love his art, and you can love his music, but it is tough to love the man. Manic depression, as you see in The Devil and Daniel Johnston, affects all of us: Families, friends, loved ones. It really, truly does and it leaves behind a wake of destruction.
Has Daniel Johnston met his potential? Has he done what he was set on earth to do? Or do you think his manic depression kept him from doing something more? Do you see him doing something more later in life?
It’s not so simple to answer, but I will say this. His whole life, since he was a little, tiny boy has been devoted to being a serious fine artist. He studied art. He is not an outsider artist. He studied the history of art. He went to art school. He has manic depression, like other great artists. That’s not unique, actually. Van Gogh had the same exact thing. All he can do is create art. That’s all he does do. He does the same thing he does now as he did when he was 13. He has arrested development. He just draws hundreds and hundreds of pictures and writes hundreds and hundreds of songs and creates. That’s it. He has no life outside of art.
In essence then, he has met, and is continuing to meet his potential?
Yeah, and as far as music goes, he has also done his greatest work already. I am celebrating a living ghost. It is amazing that he has lived to see this film come out and to see his art at the Whitney Biennial and to see galleries all over the world now showing his art in their galleries. Van Gogh never had a painting sold in his lifetime. Daniel Johnston has. I made this film to share with people, everybody--about someone who touched me, who I believe if you open your heart, and your eyes, and your ears will also touch you. I have wept to his songs, and I know everyone else in the world, who I’ve met, who’ve seen the film and listened to his music has had the same response. That’s very real. It’s something we don’t get anymore in our commodified, corporate, pasteurized culture.
The Daniel Johnstons of the world--and there’s not many--are kept from us. The fact that his music and art has spread since the early eighties from Austin, with no corporate agenda whatsoever, all on its own—there’s just no reason that we’re talking about him today, except for the fact that his music has touched people, and his art has touched people. I really, truly believe that he is one of the great artists of all time. He worked in so many mediums. He made those incredible Super8 films. The self-documentation of his whole life is unprecedented. It is an unprecedented archeological find in art history. We cannot make a film about Van Gogh like The Devil and Daniel Johnston. The material does not exist. We can make a film about John Lennon like this film.
Whether you like his music or art is totally subjective, but the journey is the same and this is a rare treat to go on that journey—and what a journey it was. Against all odds, he chased his dream. His family are fundamentalist right-wing Christians; they didn’t believe in his art and his career. They wanted him to get a job and maybe that should just be a hobby. I don’t fault them for that. A lot of parents have told their kids that, who wanted to be artists and musicians, and he didn’t go for it. He believed in himself. He went out there with this incredible handicap and came up with the most unique ways of disseminating his art and music to the world. He’s done it. He’s achieved it.
He’s literally a living legend at this time, all over the world. You can Google him, and there’s hundreds of pages about this guy. This has been going on for years. This is not like a little footnote. This is a major note for people to recognize now.
One of the very poignant aspects of the film is the examination of the two unrequited loves of his life in juxtaposition to what turned out to be his greatest loss in the realm of personal relationships. That is, his untimely falling out with Jeff Tartakov, his manager.
True. I made the film as much to honor Jeff Tartakov, as I made it for Daniel. This is the Dream Team. Literally, [Jeff] is the Brian Epstein to The Beatles. There’s never been a manager in history that has lived up to the love and devotion, and dedication of [Jeff]. Not only did [he] bring Daniel Johnston to Hoboken, New Jersey, to Sonic Youth, to New York, to all over the world—he did that years ago—but he then for five years launched Daniel’s biggest act in life. He launched the international art career. It is Jeff Tartakov, as you seen in the film. He did this. And continues. Jeff is a hero.
After seeing your documentary, it’s unmistakable the influence of Daniel Johnston in Austin.
I’ve got to tell you, the town of Austin: Louis Black, the publisher/editor of the Austin Chronicle; Kathy McCarty, a wonderful artist, who not only was Daniel’s girlfriend, but was the first to do a tribute album of him (Dead Dog’s Eyeball) before Beck and Tom Waites, and The Flaming Lips.
And so much so by accident (Kathy) encouraged him in the very beginning.
It was serendipity that they met through an eyeball. She was in Glass Eye. Anyway, a huge chapter of the film took place in Austin. It was Austin that discovered Daniel’s genius first. The film is a love letter to Austin. There are so many uniquely Austin people in the film, and this was their story. Daniel Johnston is Austin’s favorite son, there’s just a lot of people in Austin who don’t know it yet. They need to know this. It’s important.
This is a wonderful chapter of Austin music and art history, that I assure you is going to be remembered way beyond Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar virtuosity. This is an artist that worked in more mediums than just playing a guitar. There’s no question about that when you put the music, and the art, and the films and the self documentation. If you put that all together, history is going to be very kind to Dan Johnston and Austin. Austin should rally behind this. They should be very, very proud of this story, because they nurtured it—this happened here. It happened here first. We adopted him later in Hoboken and in New York. We were the second wave. It would be a shame for people to miss this story. If they want to know what is really going on here, this is what was going on. This is really an equivalent to the Dylan story.
The film is very polished for a documentary. It reflects your professional experience as a director, melding the new footage with the beautiful archival footage. Did you do anything to the archival footage?
[Everything archival is] Super8, but I didn’t do anything to it. This was literally an archeological dig that uncovered this material. This was Super8 film that was being eaten by mold in a damp closet in Waller, Texas. So, the star effect that looks like snowflakes? There’s no effect. That’s mold. It’s a metaphor for what’s eating Daniel’s brain. I didn’t do a thing to that film. That film’s been rescued, because the mold continues to grow.
You’ve been a director since 1988. Would you consider this project to be your opus?
This is my life’s work. I have spent 4-1/2 years making the film. I have been obsessed—and I mean obsessed, with a capital “O”—since 1985 and I conceived the idea for the film in 1990, when Daniel was broadcasting the legendary radio broadcast from the mental hospital, [which] is much scarier than the Orson Welles’ broadcast. I think it’s really important for people to understand that this is a portrait of an artist, like Crumb and also a film which uses self-documentation like Capturing The Friedmans. It is not a music documentary. Although it is about a musician, it is a portrait of an artist, and that is what is important for you to understand.
