Piano-rock/alt-rock band Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards is coming to Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco on 03/31. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview Johnny to chat about music, their new single “Already Over (Smile, Honey),” and touring life as the band embarks on their latest North American tour.
Micah: As I was doing my research about your band and listening to your music, I was wondering what genre you identify yourself with. Do you believe in labels and boxes?
Johnny Manchild: No, I’m not a huge genre believer [chuckles]. I know genre is important to, like, pitch yourself, and give people an idea of what you are. If I’m trying to do that, I might say piano rock or alternative rock, but I play a lot of different genres or styles depending on how I’m feeling. I don’t have a premeditated disposition towards one genre.
Micah: I totally get you. This leads me to my next question, who would you consider to be your musical influences? Do you mostly listen to artists that make similar music to yours?
Johnny: I like a lot of stuff, I listen to everything. I grew up listening to punk and metal, Queens of the Stone Age and a lot of grunge and stuff, but I listen to a lot of jazz. I like Regina Spektor and Fiona Apple, I’m a big fan of singer-songwriters like Sufjan Stevens. That all plays into it. I like the pretty stuff, but I also like the heavy stuff. I don’t go in trying to steal too directly from one thing, but I absolutely steal influences from things I like.
Micah: Moving on to your new single, “Already Over,” what prompted you to write it, and what’s it about, in your words?
Johnny: Songs take on a life of their own when they’re out there, but I guess there’s two meanings to the song for me. There’s the grandiose, thematic metaphorical take, which is that as artists, people don’t really know you, and they expect these things from you because they don’t know you. But it’s also about, well, when I wrote it, I had this really big falling out with somebody in the public eye, but for the sake of everyone, I had to pretend it was all fine, so the song is also about that.
Micah: I won’t keep you much longer, I know you must be very busy with the shows coming up, so I’ll keep these last questions brief. What is your favorite part about going on tour?
Johnny: Oh, man, everything I guess. I really love driving, getting between places, even when I’m tired. I just love it.
Micah: What do you regard to be your proudest moment? It doesn’t have to be music related, it could be a fifth-grade paper.
Johnny: I have two. One was when I was in Germany, I was playing with a symphony, and we’d been working with David Maslanka. He was supposed to go with us, but he died before we left. So, we were in this place in Germany, we’d just been playing his fifth symphony, and it was already very emotional for us. We just wanted to nail it, and we got a standing ovation. You had this room full of non-English speakers, giving us this standing ovation for his piece, and we just felt like we fucking nailed it. It felt really important.
My second one was when we had our first album come out, and a friend of mine lent me 2500 bucks to be a quote-unquote “executive producer,” just to be involved, y’know. We didn’t have any money, so I used that to get our first line of merch. We played the show, packed the place, sold everything, and I paid him back that night. That was the first tangible success as a band for me, even though it was small, it was really good.
Micah: My last question may seem a little bit cliché, but I am writing for a music magazine, and a lot of the people around me are musicians. Do you have any advice for someone getting started as an independent musician, getting started in the music industry, as someone who has been playing music for so long?
Johnny: Pick up as many skills as you can. Learn different instruments, learn how to arrange, learn recording engineering, learn production, management skills… If there’s something that needs to be done and you don’t know how to do it, learn how to do it and do it. There are so many things that you’re gonna run into, and if you rely on other people to tell you how it should be done, either it’s not gonna be done well, or you’re gonna get screwed over. Dig into it and do it all. If you’re not up to that and you don’t really love the challenge of it, a career in music might not be for you. And that’s not to say that you can’t be a musician, they’re two totally different things. But, well, for anyone really interested in pursuing that, I’ll just say: just keep learning.
Micah: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me! It’s been so great, it’s really been an honor.
If the interview wasn’t enough to get you interested in what Johnny Manchild has to say, the Poor Bastards will also be opened by post-punk band Volores and indie-pop group 37 Houses. I know I’m looking forward to going to the show, I hope to see some familiar faces while I’m there! Tickets are still available on the Bottom of the Hill website.
Interview and preview by Micah Petyt
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