Damien
Youth…. (The unedited interview for OVERTURE magazine) |
| At a time when music seems more manufactured and heartless than ever, there is a scene developing in the backwoods of Louisiana that brings heart and soul back to the forefront. The scene I speak about is happening in the mind of Damien Youth. He questions, comments on, and sometimes attacks human nature as he watches the developments inside people. Don’t be surprised if when you hear one of his songs, you feel he may have been looking at you without you knowing. He has spotted the hypocrite in all of us. Up until the time he was 13, he was raised to be a preacher in the Seventh Day Adventist church. He chose a different path soon after learning about the inside of the operation, and has never looked back. Damien is the songwriter today that is (because of the direction of commercial radio) most likely to become this generation's Nick Drake, who stands as an idol to just about every songwriter or band these days, but ignored while he was alive, never fitting in to the commercial side. Damien knows that music is every bit as important whether heard or not heard. No one can take away the emotional release of the creation of a song. He will write and record constantly, regardless of whether the record deal is offered... but Damien will be heard. In the vanilla wasteland that music has become, lacking all personality and heart, Damien cannot, not be noticed. |
Tell me about your upbringing in Hammond, Louisiana, and your time as a child preacher in the church. |
| My mother was big on the “END OF TIME” style religion and my father was obsessed with tragic news. Being brought up in a 7th Day Adventist church instilled the separatist in me. We were like Jews for Jesus. All old law. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday was our Sabbath, this meant no TV, no shopping malls, it was a time set aside to keep holy. My father, who didn’t even believe in god until his first prostate examination, just liked that time because we kept our mouths shut and he could read the obituaries and watch the news with out interruption. As far as the child preacher part, that is where I learned how to work people up from the stage. I learned from the best! I eventually was asked to leave after they gave me a bible class and we decided to read the whole bible from beginning to end. We got up to the part where they were explaining how the Nephilem were a product of god’s angels taking human women for sex and that was it. I was out! |