Rising Stars: Meet Patricio Johnson

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Patricio Johnson.

Hi Patricio, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am a songwriter and performer who never thought he would wind up in Nashville. In addition to my recording activities and club dates, I’ve had a weekly radio program for five years called Music Monarchs on WXNA-FM, where I play rare soul and blues records. I also produce a podcast called Produtron Rex Podcast, where I just sort of loosely try to engage people in the joys of random 45 rpm records. Lately, my favorite projects have been recording with Wellsprings LTD, which includes myself, Mike Therieau of Austin, TX, and John Kent of Sacramento.

We used to play together all the time when we lived in the same town (San Francisco), so it was pretty special when they flew out to Nashville around Christmas 2021 and we knocked together an LP full of old school r&b and 60s soul. We are in the middle of finishing the next album. They’ve just reformed their ’90s band, The Loved Ones, so it might be a little while before the Wellsprings LTD gets full attention again. But it’s some pretty great stuff.

Okay, backstory. But first, important note, I was born Patricio Johnson Sintes in Madrid, Spain. Of course when we arrived in the US, I became “Pat” like any kid, and that was my musician name, Pat Johnson. No problem UNTIL digital music distribution and the proliferation of other “Pat Johnsons,” – so I took the opportunity to disambiguate and re-brand as Patricio when I moved to Nashville. So, in all the following events, I was known as Pat in case there was any need to corroborate.

I’ve been a musician and songwriter my entire adult life. I started playing in bands in Rapid City, SD when I was a teenager around 1980. I dropped out of the University of Minnesota to check out the DC scene around 1984 and got to know some of the bands there, including my housemates Neil Haggerty and Jennifer Herrema, who would invite me to play in their band Royal Trux a few years later. I spent about a year on the road with Charlie Pickett, playing guitar and seeing the country, and really getting into the swim as an artist.

When that was over, around 1987, I moved to San Francisco and met Penelope Houston, who had formerly been the leader of one of the original West Coast punk bands, The Avengers. I had been writing songs for a few years by then, but that was the first chance I had to record and release them with her new acoustic folk project called Birdboys.

I got impatient with the project though, didn’t seem to get off the ground despite some pretty great reviews, so I packed up for Atlanta and joined a band there. I was hanging out in Athens at the REM offices, and they showed me a letter from Sid Griffin of the Long Ryders, who was forming a new band in LA, so I came back to California. Sid’s band wasn’t really happening, so I moved back to San Francisco and was joined by the Royal Trux folks, and we cut a couple of records for the label Drag City – it was the first single they ever released.

Around that same time, I started a band called Wellsprings of Hope and recorded an album that got – as usual – some great reviews but sold nothing. We did a tour of the south around SXSW in 1993 which coincided with this giant blizzard that crippled the freeways and set us back financially. The band pretty much dissolved just about then.

Thankfully there was this sort of this folk resurgence in San Francisco and Penelope had been doing pretty well, and that whole scene was adopted by the German press as a sort of new cause, and all these bands got invited to tour and release records in Germany. I was busy for a couple of years playing in Europe, not just with her, but also with a guy called Pat Thomas who had actually moved to Bonn. I got a record deal with a Hamburg label and decided I might as well move there as well, so I expatriated and stayed busy writing and touring through 1994. I finally came back to San Francisco when the fickle German press decided that American songwriters weren’t as cool as Frankfurt based electronic dance music.

I had a bunch of bands in the Bay Area and stayed busy for a solid ten years, just writing, recording, and playing West Coast gigs. I also worked for a small label and a music publisher and was getting a real education that way, especially realizing that the publishing I had signed away to Warner Chappell in Germany wasn’t doing me any favors in the US. I didn’t release anything for a few years until I had regained legal claim to my copyrights.

I moved to Nashville in 2012 when my wife and I realized that we were going to have a baby and have to try and raise her in a very expensive city that we couldn’t really afford anymore. I had had my eye on Nashville for a while, but mainly for the music publishing industry, less for my personal artistic goals.

I am not a “Nashville” songwriter.

I have however found a great community of musicians and artists here and am regularly astounded when I get to perform with these world class players who believe in my work and are willing to play for beer sometimes. After 12 years, it feels like home anyway.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve definitely hit bottom a couple of times, sometimes with drugs and alcohol, but more severely with mental health. It’s taken most of my life to learn that I have treatable issues. Unfortunately, in 2019, I began to really suffer and wound up in the hospital for a few months.

Right after that my marriage failed and I pretty much was ready to give up. And I did, sort of, but it was COVID lockdown, so I didn’t really miss much. I really feel like it’s important for people to know that nobody should try to face mental health issues alone. I was very lucky to have a couple of close friends who helped me back onto my feet.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar with what you do, what can you tell them about what you do?
Look, I have a discography that stretches back to 1988. I played a lot of guitar and sang a lot of songs. I still record and release music on a regular basis, largely unheard of course, but always the stuff I want to do. I am a professional songwriter if anybody asks, but I’m not a “Nashville” songwriter. The last record I put out was recorded almost entirely in my one bedroom apartment.

I work with no budget. I’m very pleased when someone walks up to me or even leaves a Facebook comment that they liked what they heard. I’m a little bit older than my peer group around my scene, so they often ask me for advice, and I like to give encouragement. I helped Matt Killough with his record last year, and it’s a world-class folk masterpiece. He just played at the 30A festival, and he’s on his way. He’s not like an elder statesman but more like a wizened uncle.

When I was growing up, the coolest possible job was to be a rock and roll singer. I stand in front of small audiences and give them what I have gathered together over 40 years of practice. Sometimes it’s not pretty, but it’s always real. I have no intention of stepping down from this role.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Two: Persistence and authenticity. And incidentally, my success isn’t of the financial type. Quite the opposite, I am a hunger artist. But I can’t imagine stopping because of that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://patriciojohnson.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/patriciocaster/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC08oyQGjFuRKIx7aW4kBcsQ?si=FpzBSaOMU4q1iwXk

Image Credits
Courtney Cheek, Emily York, Neil Motteram, Robert Carter, and Liz Litz