When Will Johnson (’97) first arrived on campus in the late 1980s, Denton was lined with clubs like The Library, Dr. Smith’s and, later, Rubber Gloves and the original Dan’s Bar, with the sounds of Ten Hands and Billy Goat emerging from their stages.

“I don’t think I realized how much I was taking it in subconsciously,” Johnson says. “And how much just being around that kind of energy was informing me as to who I might become.”

Decades later, the Austin-based Johnson has become one of the top singer-songwriters and guitarists in the independent music scene, playing with numerous bands, including his own Centro-matic, and now with Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band. He is so well-regarded that Isbell and other musicians have written essays about him in the book Patience for the Ride: The Art and Life of Will Johnson, released this spring.

His path began at UNT, where he says soaking up the live music scene, writing songs and studying English “were tributaries to why I wanted to start performing music and making recordings. The pursuit of my degree and the crossroads I was at in my personal and creative life, and the energy of the Denton scene, all just fueled my energy and my desire to make music.”

Johnson’s first stint at UNT was from 1989 to 1991. An English major, he played drums in several bands before he moved to Dallas to focus on music when his band, Funland, took off. He returned to campus in 1995 at age 24, aspiring to be a college professor. He also was starting to play the guitar and, that spring, he formed Centro-matic as a side project. The Argo had just opened, and the Good/Bad Art Collective organized visual art shows with performances.

“The energy of that collective inspired me as much as anything,” he says. “But also, it was a time in Denton where you would go to an open mic night, maybe at the Argo or at J&J’s Pizza down on the square, and you didn’t know who or what you were going to see. There was a fearlessness about the scene back then. If you were just starting to write songs, the attitude was, ‘Get up on stage and play them, let’s see how it goes.’”

The week he moved back to Denton, he borrowed a four-track Tascam recorder from Funland. “I sat in my little room on Hickory Street and just started trying to hammer out songs with lyrics. The first few came out right along that time that I had moved back and that turned into the very first Centro-matic cassette release later that fall.”

In between studying for classes, he hand-dubbed these 8-song cassettes and sold them for $5 a piece around town. He didn’t play his first solo show until a friend booked him for a gig at the Argo in March 1996.

“I was terrified when he told me that,” he says. “My response was, ‘Absolutely not, there’s no way, man, I’m not ready yet.’ And he said, ‘You have three weeks, and I’ve already made the posters.’

“It was a pretty full room, and I knew I had to get out and play those songs live sooner or later. And fortunately, the show went really well. I think I played a whole nine songs, just with a distorted electric guitar, but I did take my glasses off just so as not to see the detailed expressions on people’s faces if they didn’t like it.”

Johnson still thought about becoming a professor. But he kept on making records and going on tours with various bands.

“It felt like the writing was on the wall that I was bound for a life of music. I couldn’t stay away from it.”

As he’s grown older, he’s found more creative outlets. In 2008, he took up painting portraits of his favorite baseball players. He also released his first novel, If or When I Call, in 2021. Johnson’s most prominent current project is as a member of Isbell’s 400 Unit band. The friendship began 25 years ago when Isbell was playing with his band at the time, the Drive-By Truckers, at a pre-Homecoming game party near Fouts Field.

“And outside, there’s bounce houses and face painting and snow cones,” Johnson says. “But then there’s this tent where I can hear electric guitars starting to crank up, and we stick our heads in the tent, and it’s the Drive-By Truckers on stage. And that was the day that Jason and I met.”

Johnson took the band out to Steve’s Bar-B-Q, and he opened for them when they played a show at Dan’s Bar later that night.

“I’ve always been into the idea of making a good racket with close friends that I trust and love. Some of those close friends are not full-time musicians. They just love music as something to supplement their happiness. Some of those close friends are Grammy Award-winning musicians. But the point is to make something with people that you love.”