The death of Daniel Johnston: The star among the outsiders

Sometimes, small coincidences lead to big pop moments: in the 1980s, pop manager Phill Savidge sent shirts to editorships designed by the esteemed but not famous artist Daniel Johnston; an action to promote Johnston's album "Hi, How Are You". A journalist took the shirt to Seattle, where in 1989 he was to portray the emerging grunge scene. There he became friends with the young singer of one of the local bands, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, to whom he finally donated the T-shirt.

In 1992, Cobain found a brilliant opportunity to wear Daniel-Johnston. Under an open shirt, the "Hi, How Are You" frog appeared on the stage when Kurt Cobain appeared on the MTV Video Music Awards to award Nirvana the prize as the best newcomer to accept. In the months before, Nirvana, the grunge band from Seattle, became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to Smells Like Teen Spirit.

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Kurt Cobain (r., With Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) comes with Daniel Johnston T-shirt to the 1992 MTV Awards

In the atmosphere of that time, the fact that the star of the moment wore a particular T-shirt made large record companies feel challenged to a bidding contest for Daniel Johnston. It was a sign of the uncertainty of the music industry: the success of Nirvana came for the industry, which had built up major pop stars until then, so surprising that it was believed that everything that sounded similar or had something to do with Kurt Cobain, under To have to contract.

And even if it was someone like Daniel Johnston, who spent a lot of time in psychiatry at this stage. Johnston was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He had already sung on the "Hi, How Are You" album, "I guess I'm leaning towards the excessive / But that's just the way it is / When you're a manic depressive".

During a maniacal episode, Daniel Johnston shut down the engine with his father in a private plane in 1990 and threw the key out of the machine. With luck and skill, the former military pilot Bill Johnston managed to keep the crash agile - both survived, but the son was admitted.

Learned from the Beatles

Shortly before Johnston had released on the album "1990" one of those songs that have been repeatedly covered by other musicians, because they bring complex feelings to the point: "True Love Will Find You in the End". But exactly this ingenious simplicity is also a characteristic that has always been considered a strength of pop music. And just as much as the unadulterated, Pure was celebrated on Daniel Johnston's songs, they always tell them what he has learned everything from the Beatles, whom he deeply admired.

On the early albums, which he recorded at the piano in his parents' home or lonely in his brother's garage in the improvised home studio with Heimorgel, there are always moments of staging, of pop star playing; he announces himself as a star, obsessed with the idea of ​​fame. In 1985 he made his first appearance on an MTV show: "I Live My Broken Dreams" he sings, shyly peering into the camera.

With Kurt Cobain's T-Shirt appearance on MTV, new, optimistic songs like "My Life Is Starting Over" and the clarified contract situation at Atlantic Records (at Elektra Johnston did not want to sign, because there also the loud Johnston owned by the devil Metallica under contract the way to glory seemed ready.

The indie scene of the late 80's had a heart for outsiders, some of them came in the early nineties to amazing fame. Kurt Cobain saw himself almost as a symbolic figure for the homeless, but at the same time was overwhelmed by the role as a representative. But of course Johnston was again the outsider among the outsiders: bands like Sonic Youth, Pavement or Fugazi still had a rocking, rebellious core in the sound. Daniel Johnston's self-made Beatles reconstructions did not fit into the last rebellion because they were much too fragile.

Admirers Bowie

In addition, live performances by Daniel Johnston were always an ambiguous thing. The first appearance of Germany in the Berlin Volksbühne in 1999 was acclaimed (and published as a live album "Why Me?" By Trikont), but watching the man shaking with medication and fast food had always something voyeuristic about him - so deep the songs and the lecture touched the audience at the same time.

Of course, with the Atlantic album "Fun" (1994), Johnston did not become a pop star. Nevertheless - or for that very reason - his fame grew as someone whose songs opposed commodityism. Even David Bowie used to cherish this myth when he said in the SPIEGEL interview in 2002, "A man like Daniel Johnston records his songs only for himself, and it's precisely this almost primitive integrity of his work that I consider true." It makes him realize what he once loved about art, said Bowie. In 2005, an award-winning documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston."

In addition to the ever-fragile mental health, Daniel Johnston was also increasingly physically attacked over the years. In 2017, he toured the US for the last time, accompanied by a kind of indie supergroup of members from Wilco, Built To Spill and Fugazi.

On September 10, 2019, Daniel Johnston died of a heart attack. He was 58 years old.