Culture
Seattle ‘hidden gem’ Dean Johnson plays Nelsonville Wednesday
By: Emily Votaw
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NELSONVILLE, Ohio (WOUB) – The “music industry” is an “industry” indeed, and no one buys music they don’t know exists. Self-promotion is a truly necessary “evil” for most artists – especially independent ones.
Dean Johnson is the exception. He’s just never been one for self promotion.
So much so, in fact, that while his reputation as a skilled songwriter has grown over the course of decades, it’s grown mostly by word of mouth – spread almost exclusively from one music obsessive lucky enough to see one of Johnson’s rare performances to another.
Although this makes Johnson an outlier in the world of “independent music,” it also wins him major points in the hearts of many. Few things are as charming and noble in the eyes of a person from the American Midwest than a distaste for self promotion underlined by abilities that would never require it anyway.
Technically speaking, however, Johnson is not from the land where ranch is a sauce, not a dressing; where one might drink “a pop,” but never “a soda.” He’s from the state of Washington, and for most of his life he lived and worked in Seattle.
Last year he released his highly anticipated debut album, Nothing For Me, Please, right around his 50th birthday. On Wednesday, he brings those songs to the Creekside Stage at the Snow Fork Event Center (5685 Happy Hollow Road).
Find more information on that show at this link, and read a Q&A with Johnson below.
What is your first musical memory? The first time you remember music making an impact on you that felt special?
Dean Johnson: My first musical memory is hearing my mom sing lullabies as she put me and my younger brother to bed. “Go to sleep, go to sleep,” in a soft, gentle voice.
My first musical memory that felt really special was being with two friends who took me into their cousin’s bedroom without her knowing and we pushed play on her boombox tape player and the Violent Femmes first album started playing. I was in the seventh grade. The sound of that grabbed me like nothing ever had before. It definitely felt special.
Also playing music for the first time with friends toward the end of high school. I never got to jamming with people too much but that always gave momentum.
I know that you didn’t actively push promoting your music much prior to the release of your first album, Nothing For Me, Please, last year. So, I’m curious: what has it been like to be more active in pushing and promoting your music? Does it still sort of make you uncomfortable, or have you found a way to frame it that doesn’t make it that way?
Johnson: Because the album has been received well by a wide variety of people age-wise and genre-wise, I feel a little more at ease suggesting anybody give it a listen or come to a show, but I still don’t like the pressure of getting people to come see me play. It would be great to develop a creative joy and artfulness for creating social media posts, but I haven’t got there yet. I still suffer working on them. I’m really slow.
In general though I’ve had it pretty easy. The album has had its own momentum having had good help from WesternAF and influential music friends (see my recent Stranger article for a little more depth with this). And now I have a great booking agency and management doing what they can to help me.
My biggest challenges are yet to come. Next April I’ll be trying to sell out the Showbox in Seattle. That’s 1100 capacity. I definitely have anxiety about it.
You started writing songs a little later in life. Can you tell me what those first songwriting experiences were like?
Johnson: I was given a guitar at 14 years old by my older brother. He showed me the basic chords. Unlike most kids with a guitar, I didn’t learn other people’s songs, I just made up my own little guitar compositions. So over the years I got better at forming song structures and putting melodies to them was instinctual.
My first several songs with lyrics were humor based. I still rarely finish any lyrics. I don’t consider myself a writer. I’ve been thinking I would turn myself into one for decades now, but it hasn’t happened. I do, on the other hand, have a lot of song compositions with melody and partial lyrics that I like a lot. May you all hear them finished someday.
So, you recorded Nothing For Me, Please, back in 2018, and it wasn’t released until just last year. From your perspective as an artist, what was that wait like?
Johnson: It was easy to be patient. Or passive, as I’ve been so all my life. I let most of these songs lay around for years and having them recorded didn’t create much urgency in me. My label and I didn’t hurry quickly enough to get the album out before the pandemic and putting the album out during the pandemic was too questionable. While I didn’t have expectations to become a career musician, I did want to be able to tour for at least a period of time so waiting til the pandemic was over seemed like the right thing to do and it has proven to be fine timing.
The lead single from your record, Far Away Skies, was featured in an episode of Reservation Dogs last year. From your POV, is that sort of when you started “taking off” or was it the Western AF episode you were featured on? Or something else entirely?
Johnson: WesternAF has done far more than any other single entity in getting people to find my music. Their video of true love had maybe close to 100,000 views before my album came out. The most common answer to the question, “How did you find my music?” is WesternAF. Mike Vanata from WesternAF is the reason Sterlin Harjo heard my song Far Away Skies, so all the good that’s come from Reservation Dogs originated from WesternAF. I’m very grateful to both. I’ve had lots of good press and radio play, especially from KEXP in Seattle (please see my IG story highlights for good press and 2023 best lists etc).
What are you listening to right now? Any particular albums or artists?