Former Verbena bassist Duquette Johnston creates music that hails from the bucolic backroads and low-country of the south. Bringing together aspects of roots rock, singer-songwriter aesthetics, and an appreciation for the casual nature of the landscape, Johnston’s rustic musings touch on subjects ranging from love and loss to the fear and desperation of determined people. His rough-spun tales feel lived-in and warm – though there is an acidic bite that occasionally creeps into his music. On his past records, he has covered a lot of ground, from acoustic ruminations to thicker, more psych-influenced sounds, but he’s never strayed from the earnest and earned emotions that fill his songs. He veered closer toward a more muscular sound on his latest record, Rabbit Runs A Destiny (out now via Communicating Vessels).
For the video to single, “Dancing Song,” Duquette made a trip to his East Lake, Alabama neighborhood and had some local children, his pregnant wife, and artist Scotty Lee – not to mention a fairly large rabbit stowaway and a late 60’s Chevy – all make appearances. Juxtaposing the denser instrumentation against Johnston’s whiskey-etched voice, the song posits the singer in the role of storyteller, casting out his wide net of guitars, percussion, and pastoral flourishes against the reality of the world. Over the course of the video, he receives a fairly extensive hair cut (an interesting note: Duquette is a barber himself who cuts many of his friends’ hair), drinks some lemonade, and watches as some children play in their own cloistered world.
As a bonus for those people in the vicinity, Duquette will play a free show in Nashville at The Basement on the 25th of November. He’ll be playing with a band and full string section for this one show. The show starts at 7 PM, and space will probably disappear quickly.
Beats Per Minute is pleased to premiere the video for “Dancing Song” taken from Duquette Johnston’s latest album, Rabbit Runs A Destiny.
