Danny Garcia

Danny Garcia is a writer and director, whose excellent documentary Looking For Johnny (about the late New York Doll and Heartbreaker Johnny Thunders) should cement his status as a bona fide filmmaker who gets to the heart of punk ‘n’ roll.

Music-News’ Claudia A. recently reviewed Looking For Johnny and now caught up with Danny for this follow-up interview.

Music-News:
Danny, you’re obviously a huge Johnny Thunders fan, having put up with all the hard work and obstacles to come up with Looking For Johnny. What is it that fascinates you so much about Johnny?

Danny Garcia:
He had a huge impact on me when I was a teenager, there was something in his music, in the sound of his guitar, his voice, his lyrics, everything made sense to me. So I started collecting all his records, videos, even those ROIR cassettes (‘Too Much Junkie Business’ and ‘Stations of the Cross’), which were great by the way and not that easy to find in Barcelona back then. Johnny Thunders is a key artist in the history of R&R, but of course most people are oblivious to that fact, so hopefully this film will help them understand where all that Punk Rock explosion comes from and whose guitar sound was copied by all those guys in London and in NY back in the mid 70's.

MN:
Once you had decided on paying tribute to Johnny via this documentary, did you have an initial outline/concept in mind, or did the project evolve as you went along?

DG:
I knew what I wanted to do from the start. I wanted to talk about his life, where he came from and what he did in his career. Basically, I wanted to make a documentary that I would want to watch as a fan, a film about the man and his music.

MN:
How many times were you close to giving up on the project, and what prompted you to carry on regardless and finish it?

DG:
I wasn't gonna give up, it was a matter of having more or less music in the film and more or less footage and photography but there was nothing that was going to stop me from making this film and interviewing everybody I could. Of course there were many sleepless nights wondering how I was gonna get things done but thanks to the help of the fans and Johnny's friends and family we got this film made.

MN:
How did you select the contributors/cast of characters for your docu, and did you get all the characters that you wanted to have in your docu?

DG:
Being so familiar with his life and career, I knew exactly who I needed to talk to. A couple of years before I started shooting I made a list of 25 people I wanted to interview, some of them didn't happen like Richard Hell, David Johansen or Michael Monroe but most of them did. In the end I interviewed over 50 people that covered most of Johnny's life and career.

MN:
Your film attempts to crawl under the skin of Johnny and establish not only his wild and troubled rock ‘n’ roll side (which a lot are acquainted with), but you also went to great length to show the vulnerable and human side of him… was it difficult to get people to open up about it?

DG:
Not really, most of the interviewees were his personal friends and after all these years they wanted to talk about Johnny, or John as they call him. Everybody involved knew we were making an honest tribute to the man and that means talking about the good and the bad but I can tell you that most of the time we spoke about the positive stuff about him: his music, his sense of humor, his style, etc. You wouldn't believe how much they all still miss him to this day.

MN:
Would Johnny still be alive today, at what point – in your opinion – would he be with regards to his career?

DG:
He would be bigger than ever that's for sure, same with The Ramones. He'd still be playing all over the world and making records. I just came back from Brazil where we did a promotional screening and it was packed of fans singing along to the songs and cheering up throughout the film. I was amazed but at the same time I thought, of course, Johnny's music is still as fresh and direct today as it was back then. That's why I'm really glad Jungle Records is putting out the soundtrack album (coming out on Black Friday/Record Store Day), because it's another official Johnny Thunders album released that will help keep his music alive.

MN:
Looking For Johnny was made thanks to crowd-funding and Indiegogo… Would you have persevered with the project without crowd-funding?

DG:
Of course, but I remember going to the first interviews with Leee Black Childers and Marcia Resnick thinking “how the f**k am I gonna do this?” But I just kept going because my instincts told me to stick with it. We were in the Lower East Side, in some pot dealer's apartment shooting the first batch of interviews and it was Johnny Thunders' birthday by the way. And then Luigi Scorcia showed up for another interview and he told me the greatest advice Johnny had ever given him was: “Don't worry, things will take care themselves.” So I thought to myself: if that was Johnny's best advice then I really shouldn't worry.

MN:
You already wrote/filmed the insightful docu The Rise and Fall of The Clash, followed by the recently released Looking For Johnny, and a currently filming the docu Sad Vacation which, I take it, has once again an appearance by former NY glam punksters like Sylvain Sylvain, Walter Lure, as well as the late Leee Black Childers. What is Sad Vacation about?

DG:
It's about Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. I'm still shooting interviews so it's gonna take me a while to finish this one. I'm talking a bunch of people and some of them have never been interviewed for a Sid and Nancy film, so there's a few anecdotes I'd never heard before and also it's interesting to hear about Nancy and how she manipulated the press giving them exclusive interviews in exchange for cash and other funny stuff.

MN:
You seem to specialize in music-docus, why is that?

DG:
I've been listening to music all my life, I used to play bass in bands too so I'm familiar with the music industry and everything around it. I also wrote in the Spanish music press and started shooting documentaries in the late 90's so it's very natural for me to do this. And you know, talking to interesting people and travelling to pretty cool places is never a bad thing.

MN:
Somewhat out of character, you also co-wrote and even acted in the Western Six Bullets To Hell. Tell me about this film and the character you play in it, called ‘Son of a Bitch’…

DG:
I love writing and I love Spaghetti Westerns amongst other things, so we had this script and we decided to co-produce this film with (directors/actors) Tanner Beard and Russell Cummings and a great cast that includes Crispian Belfrage, Ken Luckey, Magda Rodríguez and Antonio Mayans and we shot an amazing action western feature film. Of course, 6 Bullets to Hell includes a bunch of references to the Rock & Roll world, great music and even Tymon Dogg (collaborator of The Clash, Mescaleros, etc) appears in a brief cameo.
My role of Son of a Bitch 1 was meant to be played by Nick Reynolds from Alabama 3 but he was busy and there was nobody else on set that could speak English that we hadn't used yet but me, so I had to do it. It was hilarious though and I loved playing a crazy son of a gun for a couple of days, I want to do it again soon!

MN:
Many thanks for the interview, Danny, and I’m sure our readers are looking forward to Sad Vacation.