Episode Four

(Excerpt from Daniel Johnston interview, 2010)

What made you want to move away from West Virginia?

“Well, I got into some trouble with the law. They told us we couldn’t stay in West Virginia so we had to move so we came down to Texas.”

And why did you choose Texas?

“Well because all my relatives are down in Texas—my sister, two sisters, three sisters really and my brother too.”

So you moved in with your brother to start off with?

“Right, yeah.”

So how was that? You recorded at least one album there didn’t you?

“Yeah, I had done a lot of studio albums by this time.”

Where you trying to figure out ways out of doing work?

“Yeah ah-ha.”

[Laughs] Trying to figure out how not to work!

“How about it.”

Yeah I think it’s pretty sensible. So what kind of jobs did you take back then?

“What kind of jokes?”

Jobs.

“Well I worked at Pizza Hut; I worked at McDonalds – a hundred and one different places. When I first started to work I couldn’t keep a job except for like one time you know.”

Well why was that? Just because you were bored?

“Yeah. I had a nervous breakdown and I couldn’t play anymore because I was recording all the time and then I couldn’t get any more music going. I was going mad. My parents found out about it, that I wasn’t being able to keep a job so I thought, it seemed to me from a letter that I found of my Mom’s to my sister was that they might think of putting me away in a mental home so I thought about joining a travelling carnival so that’s what I did and got out of town and worked for about almost a year. When I got to Austin it’s where I wanted to be because I wanted to do underground comics. Then I found a real music scene and all these really cool guys with a lot of great music, got some girls and I started playing up and then we were all on MTV.” 

You know when you joined the carnival which is like every child’s dream isn’t it – you know join a carnival or join a circus – were you recording music then? Were you still writing songs?

“You mean after I broke down?”

Yeah.

“I was so depressed. If I got enough money from my job I even went to whorehouses. Anything just to try to sparkle my life. That’s how desperate I was.”