Duquette Johnston

For more than twenty years, Duquette Johnston has been amongst the vanguard of Alabama music. From the founding of the seminal indie-rock band Verbena, his work in Cutgrass and the Gum Creek Killers, to his acclaimed solo releases "Etowah" and "Rabbit Runs a Destiny", Johnston has consistently pushed the boundaries of what Southern American music can sound-- and feel-- like. On his latest, "The Social Animals", Johnston partnered with producer John Agnello (Waxahatchee, Hop Along, Dinosaur Jr.)and an all-star cast of players including Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley to create his boldest and most powerful music to date.

In a career that's taken him from stages with Pavement, Foo Fighters and The Strokes, to the Etowah County Correctional Facility, and then into the world of fashion with his Birmingham-based company Club Duquette, Johnston has gone to the edge and survived. On "The Social Animals", he opens the door into that experience with eleven songs that present a lush, loud, and eloquent meditation on the human experience.