Making it in the music business is hard. When you suffer from chronic mental illness, making it through the day is harder.
Daniel Johnston is a songwriter with a real feel for classic pop and a severe manic-depressive disorder. Now 47, he has spent long stretches institutionalized and enjoys periods of relative stability. Johnston's battle with a mysterious assortment of demons, documented in the 2005 documentary "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," has had a complex ripple effect: contributing to his creativity, threatening his life and the lives of others, and fueling a legend.
"I thought it was hilarious and pretty weird," Johnston says of the film. "That's the way it went a long time ago. I freaked out on an acid trip and I drew a lot of pictures with devils and it was a nightmare, but I never meant for it to be printed up in Spin magazine and then in the movie. It was scary, and it didn't have enough music in it. If they ever make a movie again, I'm gonna say, 'please play the whole song.' "
Johnston is on the phone from the home in Waller, Texas, that he shares with his 84-year-old mother, Mabel, and his 85-year-old father, Bill, who acts as his son's manager. When a reporter calls to arrange an interview and inquire about Daniel's health, Bill Johnston says that Daniel is "perfectly all right. He just has a lot of bad habits, a bad memory, and poor judgment."
Some see Johnston, who performs at the Roxy tonight, as a gifted savant, a guileless craftsman whose raw, simple tunes are pure expressions of love and pain. Among the musical cognoscenti who covered their favorite Daniel Johnston songs on a 2004 tribute album are Tom Waits, the Flaming Lips, Death Cab for Cutie, and Beck. Others look at Johnston's music and career and see a tangled web of talent and exploitation.
The youngest child in a Christian fundamentalist family, Johnston was a difficult boy who wouldn't be diagnosed or treated until well into adulthood. He made up songs for imaginary monster movies on the family's piano - watching horror films is still a favorite activity - and began composing in earnest and recording his music on cassette tapes while attending a branch of Kent State University near home in New Cumberland, W.Va..
Johnston's early songs centered on his unrequited affection for a classmate named Laurie, who married an undertaker and inspired a rash of songs about love and funeral homes. Laurie remains his muse to this day.
"I like to write about this girl I liked a lot," Johnston says. "She was in that documentary about me, and when they showed the film at the theater, she was there as a surprise for me. It was great. She looked more beautiful than ever."
When he was 22, Johnston went to Texas, drifting from his brother's house to a traveling carnival where he sold corndogs and finally to Austin, where he became an iconoclastic figure in the town's burgeoning music scene. Johnston handed out crudely made tapes decorated with his own artwork: drawings of a boxer with his head cut off or Casper the Friendly Ghost. He was featured in a 1985 episode of the MTV show "Cutting Edge." In the 1990s Kurt Cobain was frequently seen wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with one of Johnston's drawings and the title of his best-known tape, "Hi, How Are You?," and Johnston's profile exploded.
A deal with Atlantic Records came next, but the album sold poorly and Johnston was soon dropped.
"A lot of people can't get over the lo-fi-ness of it, or the squeaky sound of his voice," says Mark Linkous of the experimental folk-rock band Sparklehorse, who produced Johnston's uncharacteristically polished 2003 album, "Fear Yourself," as well as "The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered," the tribute album. Linkous, by the way, has struggled with clinical depression and substance abuse.
"Maybe because he's been to hell and back - and literally in his mind he thinks he's faced Satan personally - his songs are totally innocent and unpretentious," Linkous says. "Like his drawings, they're not trying to be clever. They're not gratuitous. And they carry so much power."
Johnston has continued to record and perform live, health permitting. Accompanying him on his current tour is guitarist Brett Hartenbach, a friend from college who now lives in Rollinsford, N.H. He says that the shows are largely filled with devoted followers who know every word to every song.
"I've never seen such hero worship," says Hartenbach. But he concedes "there are also the curiosity seekers, people drawn to the back story. And I don't think it diminishes his music to say that they might not have discovered it otherwise. People need that entryway."
Linkous shares the perspective that whatever it takes to bring fans to Johnston's music - even using his mental illness as a selling point - is worth the dubious marketing.
"I know for sure that being active and working and feeling popular is the healthiest thing for Daniel right now," Linkous says. "He's not healthy, and his body's been through a lot. I just want him to shine in this glory."
The documentary kick-started a prolific period for Johnston. He says he has five albums worth of material yet to be recorded, and despite his mixed feelings about the filmed version of his life, Johnston seems to enjoy the attention it has brought. Girls approach him in the grocery store to ask if he's that guy from the movie. Asked if there's a down side to fame, Johnston is eager to point to the problem.
"It's not enough, " he says. "I want to be rich and famous. In the meantime I'm doing quite well. But I need to get back to work."
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. For more on music, go to boston.com/ae/music/blog.
