David Johansen - Vox Humana

In the early 1970s David Johansen made waves as the singer of the formative punk band The New York Dolls. Their raw, explosive expression of rock and roll verve laid the ground for punk music, and influenced bands from the Ramones, to the Talking Heads, and Guns n' Roses. Today, besides continuing to sing and make music for the Dolls, Johansen has his own six-hour Sirius radio program where he doesn't just spin tunes, but addresses another areas of personal interest, like the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and the Integral philosophy of Ken Wilber. In this exclusive EnlightenNext interview, Johansen describes his life as a singer, his abiding spiritual interests, and why—after all these years—performing rock 'n' roll is still a “celebration of life.”

BIO

David Johansen (born January 9, 1950, Staten Island, NY) is an American rock, punk, blues and pop singer, songwriter, and actor.

Originally influenced by Mick Jagger and by Rob Tyner of MC5, Johansen began his career as the singer of the protopunk band, the New York Dolls, in the early 1970s. The bulk of the material was written by Johansen and guitarist Johnny Thunders, who left in 1975.

After the dissolution of the final Dolls lineup in early 1977, Johansen embarked on a solo career. His first two albums, "David Johansen" and "In Style," featured original songs and were performed with bravado and wit in the live shows that followed. His fellow ex-Doll Sylvain Sylvain frequently performed with him, and his band covered many Dolls' tunes. A number of Johansen-Sylvain standards which are now identified with the Dolls (e.g., "Frenchette" and "Funky But Chic") actually first appeared on vinyl on Johansen's solo albums.

In the late 1980s belated commercial success came Johansen's way under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter, appearing as part of the house band on the television program Saturday Night Live. As Poindexter he scored his first hit song, "Hot Hot Hot" which, in an interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air, he called "the bane of my life," owing to its pervasive popularity. One of his more memorable on-screen roles is as the wisecracking ghost of Christmas Past in "Scrooged." He is currently touring with a re-formed version of the New York Dolls. They have recently released One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This. He also hosts a weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio called "David Johansen’s Mansion of Fun,” which airs every Friday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.