Daniel Johnstone

On September 11, 2019, Johnston was found dead from a suspected heart attack at his home in Waller, Texas, a day after he was released from the hospital for unspecified kidney problems. It is believed that he died overnight.

In July 2017, Johnston announced that he would be retiring from live performance and would embark on a final five-date tour that fall. Each stop on the tour featured Johnston backed by a group that had been influenced by his music: The Preservation All-Stars in New Orleans, The Districts and Modern Baseball in Philadelphia, Jeff Tweedy in Chicago, and Built to Spill for the final two dates in Portland and Vancouver.

In November 2015, Hi, How Are You Daniel Johnston?, a short documentary about Johnston's life, was released featuring Johnston as his 2015 self and Gabriel Sunday of Archie's Final Project as Johnston's 1983 self. The executive producers for the film included Lana Del Rey and Mac Miller.

On March 13, 2012, Johnston released his first comic book, Space Ducks – An Infinite Comic Book of Musical Greatness at SXSW, published by BOOM! Studios. The comic book ties-in with the Space Ducks album and an iOS app. Johnston collaborated with skateboarding and clothing company Supreme on numerous collections (consisting of clothing and various accessories) showcasing his artwork.

After graduating in 2009, Daniel worked for his fathers company for the next 2 and half years to save up money to finally move over to Los Angeles and pursue his acting dream.

In 2006, Jeff Feuerzeig released a documentary about Johnston, The Devil and Daniel Johnston; the film, four years in the making, collated some of the vast amount of recorded material Johnston (and in some case, others) had produced over the years to portray his life and music. The film won high praise, receiving the Director's Award at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. The film also inspired more interest in Johnston's work, and increased his prestige as a touring artist. In 2006, Johnston's label, Eternal Yip Eye Music, released his first greatest-hits compilation, Welcome to My World.

Beyond music, Johnston was accomplished as a visual artist, with his illustrations exhibited at various galleries around the world. His struggles with mental illness were the subject of the 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He died in 2019 of what is suspected to have been a heart attack.

In 2004, he released The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered, a two-disc compilation. The first disc featured covers of his songs by artists including Tom Waits, Beck, TV on the Radio, Jad Fair, Eels, Bright Eyes, Calvin Johnson, Death Cab for Cutie, Sparklehorse, Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips and Starlight Mints, with the second disc featuring Johnston's original recordings of the songs. In 2005, Texas-based theater company Infernal Bridegroom Productions received a Multi-Arts Production/MAP Fund grant to work with Johnston to create a rock opera based on his music, titled Speeding Motorcycle.

1995). Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Daniel and his family moved to Orange County, California when he was 5. There, he and his older sister Laura went to Rancho Canada Elementary School where he learned kindergarten. After 2 years of residing in the US, Daniel and his family moved back to Sydney where he completed his schooling at Saint Mary, Saint Joseph Primary School and then finally at Marcellin College Randwick. Apart from a school play in the 6th grade where Daniel played Harry Potter in the "Philosophers Stone", from a young age, sports were always Daniels gift. By the time he hit high school, Daniel had been included in several various schooling sports teams including: rugby league, rugby union, basketball, soccer, volleyball and athletics. When he was 16, Daniel got a job at a local movie theatre and this is where he really began to take interest in the entertainment industry again. He would see 2-3 movies a week and mimic and impersonate the characters in movies and scenes.

1994) and Scott (b.

Interest in Johnston increased when Kurt Cobain was frequently photographed wearing a T-shirt featuring the cover image of Johnston's album Hi, How Are You that music journalist Everett True gave him. Cobain listed Yip/Jump Music as one of his favorite albums in his journal in 1993. In spite of Johnston being resident in a mental hospital at the time, there was a bidding war to sign him. He refused to sign a multi-album deal with Elektra Records because Metallica was on the label's roster and he was convinced that they were Satanic and would hurt him, also dropping his longtime manager, Jeff Tartakov, in the process. Ultimately he signed with Atlantic Records in February 1994 and that September released Fun, produced by Paul Leary of Butthole Surfers. It was a commercial failure. In June 1996, Atlantic dropped Johnston from the label.

His father, Stephen, is a business owner and his mother, Tania, is an AUSLAN interpreter. Daniel has 3 siblings: Laura (b. 1990), Brooke (b.

In 1988, Johnston visited New York City and recorded 1990 with producer Mark Kramer at his Noise New York studio. This was Johnston's first experience in a professional recording environment after a decade of releasing home-made cassette recordings. His mental health further deteriorated during the making of 1990. In 1989, Johnston released the album It's Spooky in collaboration with singer Jad Fair of the band Half Japanese.

When Johnston moved to Austin, Texas, he began to attract the attention of the local press and gained a following augmented in numbers by his habit of handing out tapes to people he met. Live performances were well-attended and hotly anticipated. His local standing led to him being featured in a 1985 episode of the MTV program The Cutting Edge featuring performers from Austin's "New Sincerity" music scene.

Johnston spent extended periods in psychiatric institutions and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He gathered a local following in the 1980s by passing out tapes of his music while working at a McDonald's in Austin, Texas. His cult status was propelled when Nirvana's Kurt Cobain was seen wearing a T-shirt that featured artwork from Johnston's 1983 album Hi, How Are You.

Daniel Dale Johnston (January 22, 1961 – c. September 11, 2019) was an American singer-songwriter and visual artist regarded as a significant figure in outsider, lo-fi, and alternative music scenes. Most of his work consisted of cassettes recorded alone in his home, and his music was frequently cited for its "pure" and "childlike" qualities.

Johnston was born in Sacramento, California, and grew up in New Cumberland, West Virginia. He was the youngest of five children of William Dale "Bill" Johnston (1922–2017) and Mabel Ruth Voyles Johnston (1923–2010). He began recording music in the late 1970s on a $59 Sanyo monaural boombox, singing and playing piano as well as the chord organ. Following graduation from Oak Glen High School, Johnston spent a few weeks at Abilene Christian University in West Texas before dropping out. He later attended the art program at Kent State University, East Liverpool, during which he recorded Songs of Pain and More Songs of Pain.