Duquette Johnston
By his own admission Duquette Johnston has lived a "wild, incredible life," but even that might be underselling the three-act 25-year journey that's led to the Alabama musician's new album The Social Animals; out February 25 on Single Lock Records. A founding member of the breakout 90s indie band Verbena, Johnston toured with other ascendant acts of the era like The Strokes and Foo Fighters before leaving the band somewhere around their first major label deal (instead joining Juliana Hatfield in a reunited Blake Babies). In the years that followed, remembering "I thought I had to live in misery to create great art," a drug charge began Johnston's treacherous cycle through a prison system more focused on "zero tolerance" than recovery and rehabilitation. Emerging against the odds with a resolute optimism and renewed focus on community, Duquette returned to Birmingham to help bring the arts back to a historic part of town that had seen better days...and he did that so impactfully that the New York Times took note of his clothing store-art gallery-performance venue Club Duquette. Seemingly insurmountable challenges would hit Duquette again, but this time he would be ready.
The Social Animals came together over the course of an eight year period, during which Duquette's wife Morgan developed a life-threatening condition after giving birth to the couple's first child through a complicated pregnancy. It took everything the family had to pick up the pieces...emotionally, financially, spiritually...but leaning on the lessons of past adversities, Duquette had what he calls “a radical break from the old way of living and looking at life.” It was at that moment he returned to music, and came up with the idea for Club Duquette and further dedicated his life to service in his beloved Birmingham community. Reverberating with an unwavering hopefulness, The Social Animals feels more urgent at this moment than it ever could have when Johnston began writing the album nearly a decade ago.
In bringing the new album to life, Johnston drew from his indie rock past to unite a remarkable group of collaborators. This team included producer John Agnello - known for his work with Dinosaur Jr as well as recent albums from Hop Along, Waxahatchee, Twin Peaks and Kurt Vile - and a band anchored by longtime Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. Through their spiraling guitars and cavernous beats, Johnston shares deeply-learned messages on the common theme that "we can lift each other up. We can change things, if we keep our hearts in the right place.” Ultimately, The Social Animals is a way for Duquette to bring as much good for others as he can out of that "wild, incredible life" he's lived. "If my story and my experiences can open other people's eyes, then everything I've done is worth it.”
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ABOUT THIS RECORD:
For more than twenty years, Duquette Johnston has been amongst the vanguard of Alabama music. From the founding of the seminal indie-rock band Verbena, his work in Cutgrass and the Gum Creek Killers, to his acclaimed solo releases "Etowah" and "Rabbit Runs a Destiny", Johnston has consistently pushed the boundaries of what Southern American music can sound-- and feel-- like. On his latest, The Social Animals, Johnston partnered with producer John Agnello and an all-star cast of players including Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley to create his boldest and most powerful music to date.
In a career that's taken him from stages with Pavement, Foo Fighters and The Strokes, to the Etowah County Correctional Facility, and then into the world of fashion with his Birmingham-based company Club Duquette, Duquette Johnston has gone to the edge and survived. Throughout that, he's won acclaim from NPR's World Cafe, Paste Magazine and Rolling Stone.
On The Social Animals, he opens the door into that experience with eleven songs that shake off the typical Southern Americana sound and present a lush, loud, and eloquent meditation on the human experience.
Tracklisting:
Year to Run
Whiskey and the Wine
Baby Loves a Mystery
Holy Child
Motorcycles
To My Daughters
Forgive Me
Mystics
Run With the Bulls
Fortunate Ride
Tonight