Success for an artist is rarely a static or stable finish line.
For most creatives – especially those working toward a life and career in artistic performance – success is a destination that’s constantly getting a little further away, always offering new goals, new learning experiences, and if you’re lucky, new opportunities to explore different outlets or expressions of your creativity.
As surely one of the more successful bands to break out of the Oklahoma scene in recent years, no one seems to know that better than Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards.
With a string of cross-country tours, regular new albums and singles, some high level collaborations and opening slots, and a fanbase of streaming listeners in the tens of thousands, the theatrically-tinged indie-rockers have been enjoying the kind of national breakout that most local upstarts only dream of.
But contrary to the usual expectations, Johnny’s done it all to this point without a record label or music industry support, instead riding on a wave of single-minded work, ground-level goodwill, and a mutually supportive audience that’s helped him discover himself through his connection with his fans.
Johnny Manchild: We got lucky in that we found, like, an online community.
For whatever reason, I think it has to do with just like what I talk about in songs, topics of like mental health and just what the songs center around, I kind of realized more about myself naturally.
It's an interesting dynamic here, because I'm the one on the stage, like, presenting this thing, but the community that I'm in front of is actually influencing me almost more, because I'm realizing how comfortable I am with these things.
Brett Fieldcamp: That kind of connection and acceptance has been a long time coming for Johnny.
At just 29 years old, he’s been pursuing music for as long as he can remember, playing his first instruments at age five, joining his first band at just ten, running with the city’s punk community through his teens, and even focusing on band and music education when a period of personal confusion and instability resulted in an unexpected stint in the military.
Since launching Johnny Manchild and The Poor Bastards now more than eight years ago, he’s seen frequent lineup changes, shifting tastes and scenes, and even a short time living in Los Angeles before returning to OKC.
But his guiding principles throughout it all have been a desire to relate emotionally to audiences through his music and an iron-willed insistence on remaining independent and authentic to himself.
Johnny Manchild: I guess, really, it's like a classic thing, like it feels good to relate, but like, it only matters if it's honest, because if I'm myself and that is accepted, and that's actually something that's working, that feels good.
Brett Fieldcamp: That stubbornly individual mindset eventually served him well when the band was struggling to find tour support or management in early 2023, resulting in Johnny taking the reins himself and organizing a mammoth cross-country trek with no industry backing or professional support.
Johnny Manchild: So I put out a thing online: “I'm gonna go on a tour as a duo, and if you want me to play a show in your house, you can pay me 300 bucks and I will come play a show in your house.”
And we had 52 people sign up in three days. And so we got everything signed. We got locations, and, like, it was six and a half weeks, 48 locations, all the way across the East Coast and Midwest through Canada.
It ended up being really cool. It was, like, really hard, and six and a half weeks is a long time to be doing that, but it went well, and that got us a booking agent.
Brett Fieldcamp: With that indie tenacity paying off in better resources and support, he’s been turning his time between tours toward the other side of music creation, producing and engineering records for like-minded independent acts from across the scene at Wasted Space, the OKC recording studio that he manages and helped to build, offering him a deeper and more collaborative, sustainable connection to the community.
Johnny Manchild: My wish of how to be involved here is this. Like, I love working on songs with other people and producing other people's stuff, like that's what I really want to do.
And like the idea of, like, working with other artists here and helping them get a good product and do all that. Like, I love doing that. I want to do it more.
Brett Fieldcamp: But even with production credits on countless local releases and his own exploding tours, albums, and streaming counts, the man known as Manchild says his own insatiable work ethic – and his own lingering self-doubt – still make it tough to really see the success.
Johnny Manchild: It's always hard. That's for sure.
The topic of, like, success is tough because I don't feel terribly successful. I guess the reason that I don't feel like an overwhelming sense of success is because I still don't totally know what I'm even doing.
So like saying “successful” is, like, successful was yesterday. That doesn't mean today.
Brett Fieldcamp: You can follow news and updates about tours, new releases, and more at manchild.band and by following @johnnymanchild on Instagram.
For On the Scene, I’m Brett Fieldcamp, now here’s Johnny Manchild and The Poor Bastards with “Voluntary Animals.”
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