John Darnielle

Early life

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Darnielle grew up in Southern California with an abusive stepfather (as referenced frequently in The Sunset Tree). He attended Claremont High School. He lived in Portland, Oregon for a short time after high school, where he developed an addiction to intravenous methamphetamine and other hard drugs (as referenced in We Shall All Be Healed). Afterwards, he returned to California and went to work as a psychiatric nurse at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, California. For a couple of years, he lived on the Metropolitan State grounds, writing songs and playing his guitar when he wasn't working. During this time he began recording some of his songs onto cassette tapes using a Panasonic boombox. Shortly after working at the hospital, Darnielle attended Pitzer College from 1991 to 1995, earning a degree in English.

Throughout his college education he continued to record music. In 1992, Dennis Callaci, a friend of Darnielle's and owner of Shrimper Records, released a tape of Darnielle’s songs called Taboo VI: The Homecoming. Around that time, the Mountain Goats were born and began touring with just Darnielle on guitar and a bassist, first Rachel Ware and then Peter Hughes.

Musical career

Darnielle is best known for his role in the band the Mountain Goats. Since starting the band in 1991, he has gained a cult following. Despite being dubbed a low fidelity artist, Darnielle has always dubbed his work "bi-fi", pointing out that recordings such as his couldn't be made without modern technology. He is known for his prolific output and literary lyrics. Sasha Frere-Jones, writing in The New Yorker, referred to him as "America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist". In its June 2006 issue, Paste magazine named Darnielle one of the "100 Best Living Songwriters".

Darnielle has several series of songs with similar titles or storylines. A series entitled "Going To..." features small stories about various places and includes songs such as "Going to Cleveland", "Going to Maryland", "Going to Georgia", and "Going to Queens". This series explores the futility of running away from one's problems in stark and cryptic detail. His "Alpha" series is about a distressed couple's marriage and history, with such song titles as "Alpha Incipiens", "Alphabetizing", and "Alpha Rats Nest". The band's 2002 album Tallahassee was exclusively about the couple; there have subsequently been no more "Alpha" songs.

Darnielle has stated that all songs written up to and including those on Tallahassee are fictional, but that We Shall All Be Healed, The Sunset Tree, and other more recent work are partially autobiographical.

Collaborations

Darnielle is featured on Aesop Rock's song "Coffee" (from the hip-hop artist's 2007 album None Shall Pass) and appears in the corresponding music video. Additionally, Aesop Rock remixed the Mountain Goats' "Lovecraft in Brooklyn".

He collaborated with John Vanderslice on lyrics for the 2005 album Pixel Revolt, and in 2009, Darnielle released a collaborative recording titled Moon Colony Bloodbath, after a shared tour with Vanderslice. They toured under the collective name The Comedians, though their recording is attributed to "the Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice".

In 2008, Darnielle released a tour-exclusive EP entitled Black Pear Tree EP, the result of a collaboration with tourmate Kaki King.

On September 20, 2010, Darnielle appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with the band Superchunk (whose drummer, Jon Wurster, is also in the Mountain Goats). They performed the song "Digging for Something" with a positive reception.

Darnielle appeared on Kimya Dawson's 2011 album Thunder Thighs, featured on the song "Walk Like Thunder."

In 2012, Darnielle guest starred in John Hodgman's podcast Judge John Hodgman serving as an expert witness and musical guest.

Writing

Darnielle's first book, Black Sabbath: Master of Reality, was published in April 2008 as part of the 33⅓ series. Unlike other entries in the series, which are non-fiction books that focus on an album's production or legacy, Darnielle's book on Master of Reality was instead a fictional narrative in the form of a novella, centering around a young man held in a psychiatric facility in the mid-1980s who is attempting to retrieve his confiscated Walkman and tape of the album.

Darnielle's first novel, titled Wolf in White Van was released on September 16, 2014. On September 18, 2014, it was among ten books nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Darnielle's second novel, Universal Harvester, was released on February 7, 2017.

Darnielle created and wrote the webzine Last Plane To Jakarta from 2004 to 2011, citing other projects as the reason for its abandonment. He writes the "South Pole Dispatch" feature in Decibel Magazine every month. Darnielle also guest edited the poetry section of The Mays, an anthology of the best creative work coming out of Oxford and Cambridge..

Podcasting

On 22 June 2017 it was announced that Darnielle would be co-cohosting a podcast, titled "I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats" along with Joseph Fink. Each episode of the podcast will be a deep dive on one Mountain Goats song.

Personal life

Darnielle has lived in Grinnell, Iowa; Colo, Iowa; Ames, Iowa; Chicago, Illinois; Portland, Oregon; and Milpitas, California. He currently resides in Durham, North Carolina with his wife Lalitree Darnielle, a botanist and photographer (who was featured playing the banjo in the band's 1998 EP New Asian Cinema), and sons Roman and Moses.

Activism

Darnielle became a vegetarian in 1996. In a 2007 interview with Vegan Radio, he said that he was vegan. In the same year, he performed at a benefit for the animal welfare organization Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, New York. He performed again at Farm Sanctuary in 2009.

In 2011, Darnielle performed solo in support of Planned Parenthood, at the Stand Up for Women's Health Rally in New York City. In an interview with BuzzFeed, Darnielle identified himself as a feminist, and was described as a "frequent Twitter commentator on women's issues, social justice, and heavy metal."

Bands in which Darnielle has played

Darnielle is also a member or former member of the following bands: