lead singer of the mountain goats
His latest novel, Wolf In White Van, is out in paperback. GROSS: Since Satan is a kind of prominent figure in some heavy metal music, GROSS: And certainly interpreted as being a prominent figure in heavy metal music by Christian groups. We finished Getting into Knives just as things with the virus were getting gnarly. With a book, there is a much more patient, extended relationship you go through where it changes so much over the course of writing it. If you set your sights on any place and start to learn more, it opens up just how ignorant you are about so many things. There are a lot of people who couldnt maintain that distance. I spoke with Darnielle on the phone from his home in Durham, N.C. about creating art amid the chaos of the pandemic, being off the road for so long, unraveling his complicated truths while writing Devil House, and making it through this year without it killing him. What stories did you need to get through these indoor years? DARNIELLE: So that was the jumping off part because one of them survived the pact. The band is currently based in Durham, North Carolina. GROSS: So you have - your first novel is on that series of short books called "33 1/3," in which somebody writes a tribute to their favorite album. Well, this is a very loud music. No way of knowing. And after the - you know, I mean AC/DC still sort of counted as heavy metal at that time. John Darnielle, the lead singer of indie rock outfit The Mountain Goats, confirmed as much during a recent phone interview with WWE.com. If it's the last thing that I do. The guy who. Courtesy of the artist GROSS: Stepfather, thank you for correcting me. But there was no touring for over a year. Devil House is John Darnielle's most ambitious work yet, a book that blurs the line between fact and fiction, that combines daring formal experimentation with a spellbinding tale of crime, writing, memory, and artistic obsession. No, you have to - if you believe in Satan, then you believe in God. And it was when I first started to notice sort of cracks in the edifice of the new home. Touring is the main thing. The singer-songwriter's parents divorced when he was 5 years old, and he was abused by his stepfather. GROSS: Well, the artist is sometimes a messenger of Satan, aren't they? The Hold Steady The Hold Steady is an American rock band originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, now based in Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2003. This is FRESH AIR. I know a lot of people who survived suicide attempts, but nobody who - whose attempt is sort of advertised to the world. His latest, "Wolf In White Van," is out in paperback. I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats Night Vale Presents But for me - I mean, this is hard to explain if you're pain averse. And that's when I got the idea to trace backwards to that moment. DARNIELLE: Yes, yes, yes - on behalf of Satan (laughter). Many of the songs are about professional wrestling. Recorded . On his desire to be in control as a teenager, and the self-destructive behavior that resulted from it. It's like - but I know because they tell me that what I do is useful to them, and this is an honor so profound that I don't know how to talk about it. Lalitree Darnielle Her mom had discovered our stuff and called the police, which is the right thing to do, I want to say, in retrospect. You might have recently encountered the album's most famous song, "No Children," however, which inexplicably sparked a huge TikTok dance trend in 2021, surprising even the band's lead singer. One was named Cyrus and the other was Jeff. [1] If you survive, if you manage to make rent off it, then you have a vast freedom to really explore all the stuff you've learned and then to try and find the things you still don't know. But when you're writing a book, you return to the same text over and over again over a period of months or years. So this is, like, a mail - by-mail game, where people mail in their next move, and he mails in what they're supposed to do next. But then Delta started to rise and it was not looking good for us to continue. I have all these movies that I want to watch, they sit there stacked waiting for me to actually make time for them. It feels like simultaneously I've got too much to do and also that I'm doing nothing. "This Year" was my pandemic songis still my pandemic song, because the pandemic isn't over. I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats on Apple Podcasts I hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us. Why did you want to make your main character someone who, as a teenager, survived a self-inflicted gunshot in the face and has to live with the physical and psychological consequences, including pain and a face so disfigured he rarely ventures out in public? NPR SOAK's Grim Town is on our short list of the best new albums out on April 26. What does returning to the world mean for you? The Hold Steady - Wikipedia And they have to go from one place to another through these ordeals, seeking shelter. And I also had this fear of going too far every time. And I hope the junkyard a few blocks from here someday burns down. They feel no distance from you. And I hope the rising black smoke carries me far away and I never come back to this town again. But theres an intensity in some Mountain Goats fans' relationship with you that feels a little like what youre talking about. And so, yeah, it was infinitely appealing to me. But there were, of course, James Vance and Ray Belknap, the two teenagers who shot themselves after listening to Judas Priest a lot. Cause by then I was reading - you know, I was reading poetry that liked to talk about the devil. hide caption. The band is currently based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Its normal to have a job and to have to blow off steam about the parts that are getting on your nerves. How is writing a book different than a song? Lukas Schulze/Bongarts/Getty Images Well hear more after a break. It was like, you know, if this comes out, it will level cities, you know? In Episode 4 of the Peacock mystery drama, streaming today . It's like - 'cause I think I'm not the only person who writes music that's so useful to people and that people are able to use in times of severe trial. I mean, because you're smart enough to know how dangerous it is. I have a much bigger toolbox now. And I hope you blink before I do. Darnielle writes literary lyrics for his band, often telling stories about fictional characters or stories from his life, and he has expanded beyond lyrics into novels. I used to really resist this idea, but I think it's true. And that was very refreshing to me, that metal is very much about expressing something that seems awesome to you, even if at the time, much of the world was going to mock and reject it. The Mountain Goats are an indie folk rock band from Claremont, California who have been based in Durham, North Carolina since the early 2000s. And they practiced twice a week in Jeff's bedroom. GROSS: So you say you decided you didn't want to die. And then their parents sued Judas Priest. There is no sign of land. And then, the thing that happens happened. Watch on. But you did yours as fiction. "How often does a person get to feel like, 'Well, this was worth living for.' John Darnielle Writes the Stories He Needs. And that was the sort of idea, that as a young man, I couldn't get my head entirely around or understand the concept of the devil as a principle rather than a being. The world has undergone a shift. As A Lyricist And Novelist, The Mountain Goats' Lead Man Writes About Pain. As A Lyricist And Novelist, The Mountain Goats' Lead Man Writes - NPR You know, I was like - and think about - when you'd hear about devil worshippers right? So the kind of shelter that you found in music when you were young and very unhappy, do you have fans who find that kind of shelter in your music now? And also, I think there's a moment where he talks about he and his parents settling on the word, the accident, in order to refer to it. Would you introduce it for us? DARNIELLE: My girlfriend did. I like to stay busy, so I'm always doing stuff. And I hope we hang on past the last exit. But the top three contenders, after weeks of debate, were "Satan's Fingers" and "The Killers" and "The Hospital Bombers.". Coming up, David Edelstein reviews the new film Sleeping With Other People. This is FRESH AIR. GROSS: And called the police. He says he likes helping young people find shelter through his music because music helped him as a young person. I think when you decide to profit off of a truly genuine organic upswell of interest in your song, then you agree to dehumanize yourself like that, and I don't want to do that. ", Clockwise from upper left: Shakey Graves, Trio Mediaeval, The Mountain Goats, Mr. Mitch, The War On Drugs, Elliot Moss, GAS The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle Loves Amy Grant, Rich Mullins, and July 12, 2022 All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen's favorite new tracks of the week include a stirring collaboration with Margo Price, Mavis Staples and Adia Victoria, a "training montage" from The Mountain Goats and more. And the other thing is I feel a duty, you know? - 2005. The reality is that Ive spent the last two years feeling like Im a mess. Well, I think there's devils in other DARNIELLE: But the idea of this single, malevolent, radical, personified force of Satan - right? Don't ascribe perfection to anybody, you know? Devil House caps the end of two remarkably productive plague years for Darnielle. And it wasn't going anywhere in particular. If you share - William Blake talks about this. I understand a little, the social dictate to not stare at misshapen people. He survived but has to live with chronic pain and a disfigured face. new bullseye Words like pretty and ugly exist in a different vocabulary from the one you might invent to describe a face that had to be put back together by a team of surgeons. But also messes seem like where you thrive as a storyteller, so maybe its OK. John Darnielle, the lead singer of the Mountain Goats, has a famously devoted following, and the band's new album, The Life of the World to Come, is teeming with religious references: Every song. That elusive, literary home for John Darniellethe lead singer and songwriter of the Mountain Goats for 26 yearshas been a theme in his writing lately. The band consists of Craig Finn (vocals, guitar), Tad Kubler (guitar), Galen Polivka (bass), Bobby Drake (drums), Franz Nicolay (keyboards) and Steve Selvidge (guitar). I try not to be overdramatic about it because yes, it's a change, but it's only a change, you know? So that's what was going on is sort of there's this moment after - I mean, you get - when you're taking a lot of drugs, you go through these periods of feeling like you're golden and nothing can touch you, and the police are stupid and they can't catch you and all this kind of stuff. And I know since you worked at a mental health facility and worked with teenagers there, did you find that in some of the teenagers that Satanic imagery really connected to them for whatever reason? And my friends would, you know - I had some who were saying, you know, no - it's - you can't do that. So this is The Mountain Goats. And then youas the reader, as the listeneryou did all the heavy lifting. And he had his own share of trouble and alienation when he was a teenager, as we'll soon hear. What does he wear? January 26, 2022 Novelist John Darnielle also singer-songwriter with the Mountain Goats has a hero who wants to honor the victims he's writing about but doesn't much like them. But a lot of that stuff, the having to move around a lot, feeling uprooted when stability is so important for children, I mean, I think some of that is also - maybe weighs just as heavily. It merits a little staring. So it's like I wanted to destroy myself - it's hard. Its a rogues gallery struck through with loss and heartbreak but ultimately held together by hope. But, I mean, I want to - for one thing, I kind of have this feeling like, I can handle this, you know? You hear about the evil things. I don't go out that much. Darnielle writes more than songs, however. DARNIELLE: Sure, it was music for me. John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats on His Bible-Inspired - Vulture But there's always that - it's so pretentious to quote Baudelaire - but the shimmer of evil, right? March 12, 2018 Taking the Mountain Stage for the second time, The Mountain Goats bring a fresh set of songs from its recent album, Goths. GROSS: Well, that's what I was wondering. It wasn't the demonic stuff that attracted me then, because by then I was reading poetry that [talked] about the devil. I think I had become violent under the influence of the opiate antagonist they put in me, which I think was Narcan, but I'm not sure. Brian Blauser/Mountain Stage Returning to that meant getting back into clubs. You might also know John Darnielle for his other gig as a singer, songwriter and frontman of the folk rock band the Mountain Goats. It's like every single time you do it, you're jabbing something into your vein, you know. Want to read Esquire in print? But at the time we were pretty angry. I mean, it feels presumptuous to say yes. Spence Kelly/Courtesy of the artist And that was something that as a child I was really curious about to an almost morbid point. Am I talented? DARNIELLE: We didn't have anything in the car, so they couldn't do anything. And that was very refreshing to me. His hundreds of songs are populated with brooding teens and bloodied pro wrestlers, bitter divorcees and desperate people far from home. And the next one - the second half of the song, I'm a teenager, and I'm sort of exploring my own ways of wrecking myself (laughter). For John Darnielle, the acclaimed lead singer of The Mountain Goats and a 2014 National Book Award nominee, wondering "Why not Piper?" is exactly the kind of question he asks when deciding what it will take to perform another great rock show. It's like there's also - I'm becoming a person who, owing to the last 10 years or so of experience, has really learned to internalize stuff and is taking stuff out on himself. Hosted by Joseph Fink, creator of Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn't Dead, and one of his artistic heroes, John Darnielle, lead singer of the Mountain Goats, Season Two of the podcast explores the process of writing, recording, and releasing the Mountain Goats' latest album, In League With Dragons, out April 26 on Merge Records. I hope I never get sober. 2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. And he spoke in the third person about himself in a very charming way to me. And then The Incredible Hulk is that just made flesh. The Mountain Goats perform on Mountain Stage. The Mountain Goats Lyrics, Songs, and Albums | Genius My dude was the Incredible Hulk that was my hero. So it's an accident. Darnielle says he had the feeling of "being uprooted a lot and not being able to make friends . So I was reading a lot of poetry when I was 21. But it wasn't what I naturally gravitated to. The band is currently based in Durham, North Carolina. This one was unexpected, but we can adapt, it's in our nature. And you have those moments of contact with it, where it feels - and this is illusory, of course. DARNIELLE: So I'd always try to keep myself out of it. This one is called The Legend Of Chavo Guerrero. Im Dave Davies. I listen to dance music, dance music. But the self who needs help and the self who needs to be healed and repaired, that's the guy you need to leave in the car when you pull in the parking lot of the facility because those patients have their own problems. April 22, 2019 On his 18th album as the animating force behind The Mountain Goats, singer-songwriter John Darnielle . Hail Satan. Even before we started recording, John was talking about how much he misses touring with . DARNIELLE: Oh, I was a huge comic book fan. Was it therapeutic for you to be with them and to be the older person and to be, you know, more of the authority figure, more of the adult, more of the person who was there to help and guide them as the person as opposed to the person who was in danger of giving in to that kind of urge themselves? What if this happens, then what? It was a lot more nostalgic music, a lot more TV comedy, a lot more foreign shows. But I mean it a lot. They try not to let their eyes stop wandering when they look over in my direction. He survives with chronic pain and a face so disfigured he seldom ventures into public, but he always preferred to live in his head anyway. 19. What I did is I made a thing, and somebody who needed to find something found mine and chose to meet me out on that ground. If you just let it go, if you say, this is how I feel, it dissipates, you know? Lalitree Darnielle/Courtesy of the artist, Ryan Russell, DL Andersoni/Courtesy of the artists, NPR's favorite music of August, from rocking goats to swamp pop, New Mix: Margo Price, renforshort, The Mountain Goats, Tianna Esperanza, more, A true crime writer struggles with his responsibility to the victims in 'Devil House', New Music Friday: Our Top 6 Albums For April 26, The Mountain Goats' 'In League With Dragons' Ventures Beyond The Dungeon, The Mountain Goats Announces Dungeons & Dragons-Inspired Album, I Hope We Both Die: How The Mountain Goats Wrote The Ultimate Anthem To Dysfunction, Hear The Mountain Goats' New Surprise EP, 'Hex Of Infinite Binding', Hear The Mountain Goats' Ode To WWE's 'Legit Boss,' Sasha Banks, Watch Live Performances By Joe Henry, Nellie McKay, The Mountain Goats And More, Hear The Mountain Goats' Surprise EP About Ozzy Osbourne, Laura Jane Grace Covers The Mountain Goats' 'Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton', The Mountain Goats On Growing Up, And Growing Older, In Goth, New Mix: Shakey Graves, The War On Drugs, The Mountain Goats, More, In 'Universal Harvester,' Mountain Goats Lyricist Reaps A Creepy Crop, Review: The Mountain Goats, 'Beat The Champ'. I'm a books guy, that's my big thing. I hope it stays dark forever. It's a practice I've cultivated. I go to a therapist for that. This is John Darnielle (laughing) performing "The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out f Denton. I have a skill set I've been working on for a very long time, so hopefully I'm good at it. Im Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. DARNIELLE: The police. And I hope when you think of me years down the line, you can't find one good thing to say. It's about remaining in control. And it's what, you know - it's what can carry you through the hard times. It's about remaining in control. There was a time when we could have sold a bunch of physical media to pay the bills, but you can't do that now, so touring is where all the action is. DARNIELLE: Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. DARNIELLE: Well, I started without that idea. But at the time we were pretty angry. GROSS: And did people know you were doing that? And his new novel "Wolf In White Van" has just been published. hide caption. There's a lot of it that has nothing to do with me, you know? That was amazing to watch, but I also wanted to keep a respectful distance because I feel like TikTok belongs to the kids, you know? Jeremy Lange/Courtesy of the artist The Mountain Goats - Sax Rohmer #1 Lyrics | Genius Lyrics I mean, I didn't want to stop using drugs, and I didn't stop using drugs. hide caption. And I was carrying Nietzsche around my junior high. I think the relationship that most people have thats intense is with my work. GROSS: So that's "Dance Music" by my guest John Darnielle. They don't need to be helping you. The Mountain Goats have just released a new single titled "Clean Slate," which features their signature sound. You can't speak monolithically about why people do that. The Mountain Goats' plans for touring in 2020 were scuttled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; in response, to help the group's crew and accompanists recover some of their lost income, Darnielle wrote and released Songs for Pierre Chuvin in March 2020. In the weeks since the tragic death of John Darnielle, lead singer of The Mountain Goats, revealing new details have come to light about the circumstances surrounding his fatal accident. But you had a really interesting thing happen last year where your songs suddenly blew up on TikTok and suddenly a whole different audience discovered you. Jeff and Cyrus believed in their hearts they were headed for stage lights and Lear jets and fortune and fame. And this was why Jeff in the letters he'd write to his friend helped develop a plan to get even. What does he wish he was? GROSS: And this is from an album thats pretty autobiographical, and a lot of the songs on this album relate to the abuse that your father meted out. DARNIELLE: Well, it's an honor, you know? I mean, I think when you first start to discover which music is yours and which speaks to you, you know, I think whatever your life is like, you experience that very, very deeply, you know? Learn more about your subscription packages. The Mountain Goats' new album, Goths, is out May 19 DARNIELLE: (Singing) All right. The Mountain Goats' In League With Dragons is out April 26 on Merge. hide caption. The groups latest album is Beat The Champ. Darnielles also a novelist. DARNIELLE: Then we kept right on at it. "Im pretty much a hermit," john darnielle says. GROSS: Or teenagers who had flirted with the idea of suicide. Thats not the teacher to you as a 12-year-old. His novel Wolf In White Van is now out in paperback. This was how Cyrus got sent to the school where they told him he'd never be famous. He's also a novelist. It's like - it can be very heavy, you know? I really wanted to get high and stay high, you know? It's a lot. Were you, like, doing drugs? Originally broadcast Sept. 17, 2014, This is FRESH AIR. It was weird. When The Mountain Goats' founder John Darnielle was a teenager, he went through a self-destructive phase. The Mountain Goats are an American, Durham, North Carolina-based band, led by American singer-songwriter John Darnielle.Darnielle began recording in 1991, and is known for his highly literate lyrics and (until 2002) his lo-fi recording style. On his writing process for Wolf in White Van. GROSS: OK. I would put them on, and you could disappear into, you know - Lou Reed's "Rock 'n' Roll Animal" was a big one I would I go under, or early Genesis records, I confess with a little chagrin (laughter). Like, what did Satanic imagery mean to you? It's this sort of area of communication that's unique to music, I think. And that's when all their problems start to collapse on them. When I'm done writing it, I'm done. GROSS: And I presume that that was in part because you had a stepfather who abused you and your mother? Leslie West, Frontman for '60s/'70s Rock Band Mountain, Dead at 75 I'm pretty much a hermit. I Wish I Made That is a segment where we invite some of our favorite voices in pop culture to dive deep into a work of art they did not make but they really wish they did.
