Duquette Johnston

Wheels Off with Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller

Arts, Performing Arts, Music

5.0 • 596 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Duquette Johnston, a founding member of the breakout 90s indie band Verbena and now an acclaimed solo artist, joins Rhett from Birmingham, AL. to talk about his new album, Social Animals, and the road to his creative life. Duq explains the evolution of his creative process, why he’s never had a Plan B, and how he eventually worked through the fear of success that was holding him back. 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. 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.” Be sure to listen to Rhett’s interview with David Wax, the other half of David Wax Museum. Wheels Off is brought to you by Osiris Media. Hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Co-produced by Kirsten Cluthe in partnership with Nick Ruffini (Revoice Media). Editing by Justin Thomas. Production Assistance by Matt Bavuso. Music by OLD 97’s. Episode artwork by Katherine Boils. Show logo by Tim Skirven. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Please leave us a rating or review on iTunes. Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Will Forte, Lydia Loveless, Allison Moorer, Ted Leo, Paul F. Tompkins, Jen Kirkman, and more. Visit SunsetlakeCBD.com and use the promo code WHEELSOFF for 20% off premium CBD products. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	O'SIMUS
0:02.0	Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.
0:08.0	I'm Rhett Miller.
0:10.0	That's when it got wheels off.
0:13.0	We started ugly and ain't gonna stop.
0:16.0	Oh, she made me feel like a good car.
0:19.0	That's when it got wheels off.
0:22.9	Duquette Johnston has a crazy story.
0:25.9	And we don't really get into it during this upcoming episode of Wheels Off that you're about to hear.
0:32.1	His new album just dropped.
0:35.4	It's fantastic.
0:36.8	It's called The Social Animals. It's got an all-star band backing him up. It's a very cool rock and roll album. He was in a band called Verbena that started around the same time as the 97s. They were on Merge Records. And they did really well. They signed a capital in the late 90s and he from there went
0:59.1	into this he described it as a roller coaster. He was in and out of jail, drug problems,
1:07.6	quitting bands, breaking bands up. He went through a lot, and in the last decade has found himself, I think it's safe to say, in a pretty good place, in a better place.
1:19.6	His new album captures a lot of what he's gone through. It's really cool. I mean, he describes it as a very personal album.
1:29.3	And listening to it, you can imagine that this guy has been through a lot.
1:35.3	He runs what sounds like a really cool community center, art gallery, music venue, clothing store,
1:43.3	down in Birmingham, Alabamaabama club duket
1:47.4	he's a cool guy man he's got a lot going on he's got a lot of thoughts he's he's been through a
1:53.0	lot i i've probably just said that five different times but that's sort of that's sort of duke's
1:58.4	bullet point and i'm really grateful that I got to get his perspective for
2:04.6	Wheels Off. I think you're going to love this conversation. I know I drop a big F-bomb. We
	...

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