Johnny Manchild revisits KOSU’s music podcast Songwriters & Tour Riders. He was previously on the 4th episode and since then, he has put out two more albums, moved to Los Angeles and back, and even married.
Matthew Viriyapah catches up with Johnny about the years since, how L.A. compares to OKC, and the new book club he’s starting at Commonplace Books.
I wasn’t in a scene when I was in L.A. I did try to go out. I tried really hard to dig in and get what I could.
But a lot of the music scene in L.A. it doesn’t seem like it has one itself — like there’s no soul of Los Angeles.
It borrows. Everything was borrowing from something from somewhere else. That’s what it seemed like. So if something was happening in Atlanta or like Chicago or Omaha or wherever, and that was popping off, suddenly you had all these bands doing that thing.
There was some singer songwriters like in the cracks and throughout, but it’s brutal. That’s all I’ll say. The scene there — musically and creatively and artistically — is brutal.
I wasn’t feeling any genuine music where I was, but I might have missed it. I just wasn’t there that long, and I wasn’t in the scene the way I would have liked to be.
I moved back because I realized, you know, if I kept doing what I was doing, this band was going to cease to exist. And I did not want to do that.
But it wasn’t exactly a reunion when I got back. This band has changed a lot over the years, but like when I got back, I had to find a new bassist and a new guitarist, and I ended up not finding a guitarist and becoming the guitarist, playing guitar and piano myself.
It ended up being the trio with me, Alex Coleman and Ethan Neel.
I will say from touring, I’ve noticed there’s something called, like, the Midwest effect. When we get to the coast, shows go off and the crowd is good, and the energy is as well.
But as we start edging closer towards the Midwest, there’s this reserved thing where people almost feel like afraid to do that, like they don’t want to look silly or something.
I don’t know, show culture in Oklahoma and the Midwest in general is strange. I haven’t quite figured it out yet, and I’m guilty of it, too. I’m from here. So I sometimes have a problem letting loose going to a show. It’s why I like playing so much, just because it’s the only time I can do it.
That’s one thing I’ve learned from performing and doing stuff, is like, everybody wants to do it.
Some people are more apt to do it themselves.
You have to tell them, like, this is a space where it is not only okay, but absolutely encouraged.
That’s something I’ve definitely learned. And even in the Midwest, you can get people to do it. You just got to push a little harder.
Commonplace is a bookstore I really like, and I ended up getting into a conversation with the people working there. I was looking for more books, like music books, but their selection was kind of small.
It ended up becoming this whole conversation, and they asked, like, ‚Would you be interested in doing a music literature book club?‘
I was just like, sure. Like, yeah, that sounds fun. I thought, like, this is a great way to read more books. And, you know, I can get free copies for the ones they choose. Like, this is a win, win.
I’m starting to do that once a month, provided I’m not gone on tour.
The first book is by Peter Carlin. Peter Inge Carlin, and it’s called Sonic Boom. And it’s literally about the history of how Warner Brothers Records started.
And it’s just really interesting.
I’m down for whatever. It really depends on what people want to do.
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