Every state has a Podunk Nowhere…it’s that little one horse town on the outskirts of nothing, where you’re lucky to find a gas station let alone a place to get a cold beer and a burger. Growing up amid the cornfields of Indiana for one and the steel mills of upstate New York for the other, Heather & Johnny are all too familiar with places such as this…Podunk Nowhere is the very place where they originated.
Johnny managed to free himself from the black cloud of small town monotony back in 1993, when he hopped in a car full of long-haired electric guitar wielding metal heads who were heading for the land of golden musical opportunity – California. The dice rolled well for him, too…he wound up living in a million dollar home with a bunch of his cronies a block away from the Pacific in a free-loving, joint smokin’, dred-lockin’ beach town called Ocean Beach.
He joined a punk band, releasing mountains of youthful angst and creativity…venturing back and forth from San Diego to LA, wowing crowds on every dark and dingy stage he played. If you ask him the best compliment he ever received he’ll tell you it came from a nameless young beauty who told him after a show one evening “When I watch you play guitar it’s so intimate that I feel like I’m watching you have sex.” Nice one, Johnny.
Heather unbound herself from the creatively oppressing heartland ten years later…after a failed marriage to a local Indiana rocker who she had shared the stage with for five years, touring the entire Midwest circuit from as far North as the Upper Peninsula to as far South as Tennessee. Indiana deemed to be too small a town to be playing music with an unfriendly “ex” looming about…so after swearing to never get intimately involved with a band member ever again she, like Johnny, hopped the next ride as far as way as possible. One cross-country trip later she found herself settling into a little studio apartment in the beautiful, yet easy-going, Ocean Beach.
Heather and Johnny’s paths crossed there on the sidewalks of Ocean Beach, they were both headed in different directions, or so it seemed. As it turned out, they were headed in the very same direction and would soon be joining forces to become the enigmatic music making power duo that they are today.
Heather describes the details of their first encounter as such: “We met by sheer coincidence while passing each other on the street. I was walking with a friend, and so was he, and it just so happened that our friends knew each other. My friend had just heard me sing and was raving about the performance – she told them I was going to be famous. When Johnny heard this he looked at me and said, ‘So, you’re gonna be famous, huh?’ Normally humble – if not downright bashful, I looked at him with the utmost confidence and said ‘Yes.’ This is how it all began. From there we determined that we were both musicians, and went back to his apartment and started writing songs that night. We’ve been playing music together ever since – going on four years now.”
Heather and Johnny began to showcase their material on the local San Diego music circuit, starting with a popular open mic held at Lestat’s coffee shop in Normal Heights. It was there an up-and-coming filmmaker, Horacio Jones, first found them. Out of hundreds of people that were interviewed, Heather and Johnny were two out of four people selected to be featured in “Live at Open Mic,” a documentary by Horacio Jones which depicted the lives of four musicians on and off of the music circuit. This documentary was quite successful, airing twice on KPBS in spring/summer of 2005 and receiving nomination for “Best Documentary” in the FAIF-AICAA International Film Festival in Hollywood fall of 2005.
It didn’t take long for Heather and Johnny, who began performing as Podunk Nowhere in 2005, to start getting attention from the local music buffs. They quickly shot out of the open mic circuit, and began a rampant touring schedule around the bars and coffee shops of greater San Diego. They began playing Los Angeles regularly – at the legendary Rainbow Room and also at Zen Sushi. Even without a CD available, people were showing up at shows who new every word to their songs.
With the knowledge that their product was high in demand, they began recording their debut CD in December of 2005. After a long year of scheduling conflicts and other miscellaneous deterrents that popped up along the way, they finally had something to show for the music they created together.
It seemed appropriate to have the CD release right where it all started. So, on February 14th at Winston’s Beach Club in Ocean Beach, they opened the doors to a couple hundred people who were all anxiously awaiting a copy of their debut release.
Now, with CD in hand and an itching to venture across state lines, Podunk Nowhere is road-ready. They are currently planning a West Coast tour for summer/fall of 2007.
They look forward to stopping by as many “Podunk Nowhere” towns as possible…leaving behind a little bit of their music along every step of the way.
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