John Darnielle

John Darnielle (born March 16, 1967) is an American musician and novelist best known as the primary, and originally sole, member of the American band the Mountain Goats, for which he is the writer, composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist.

Darnielle attended Pitzer College from 1991 to 1995, graduating as a double major in Classics and English.

Throughout his college education, he continued to record music.

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 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.

Darnielle is best known for his role in the band the Mountain Goats.

There is no reoccurring main character or strong thematic subject linking these similarly titled tracks, and in a 1997 interview with KJHK-Lawrence, Darnielle has described the series as "real loose, though. it's real loose".

His "Alpha" series predates his musical career and began as a collection of poems called 'Songs from Alpha Primitive'.

It 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.

"Their broader story", Darnielle writes, "involved an alcohol-soaked trek from California through Nevada and then bottom-crawling across the country until they wound up in northern Florida".

Unless otherwise specified in the lyrics, the songs are intended to be sung by either member of the couple.

There are a number of songs, not all containing the word 'alpha', that are generally considered to be part of the series, and are explored in more detail on Kyle Barbour's site 'The Annotated Mountain Goats.

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 works are partially autobiographical.

They have released two albums: 2002's Martial Arts Weekend and 2010's Undercard.

The Mountain Goats' 2005 album The Sunset Tree is dedicated to his stepfather and frequently references the dysfunction of his upbringing.

Darnielle often attended professional wrestling matches with his stepfather at the Grand Olympic Auditorium.

There, he developed a passion for the sport and local wrestlers like Chavo Guerrero Sr.. His childhood love of wrestling would go on to inspire the Mountain Goats' album Beat the Champ.

Darnielle attended Claremont High School, located in the Pomona Valley region of Southern California.

For a short time after high school, he lived in Portland, Oregon, where he developed an addiction to intravenous methamphetamine and other hard drugs (as referenced in We Shall All Be Healed).

Darnielle worked in the psychiatric ward at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, California.

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".

With Franklin Bruno, Darnielle formed The Extra Lens, originally named The Extra Glenns.

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.

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".

In 2008, Darnielle collaborated with Kaki King on a six-track EP entitled Black Pear Tree.

The project was jointly released under King's name, and the Mountain Goats moniker.

The Mountain Goats and Kaki King subsequently embarked on a co-headlining tour, billed as the Last Happy Night of Your Life Tour, with the EP being sold as a tour-exclusive release throughout.

He has written three novels: Wolf in White Van (2014), Universal Harvester (2017), and Devil House (2022).

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Darnielle grew up in San Luis Obispo and then Claremont, California with an abusive stepfather.