If you’ve spent much time around the Birmingham music scene, you’re bound to have run into a local favorite - Duquette Johnston and The Rebel Kings - who play venues like The Bottletree fairly often.

But for those unfamiliar with the story of Duquette Johnston: he was once a member of another great Alabama group, Verbena, (alongside A.A. Bondy) which released records with Merge and Capital Records in the late ‘90s/early 2000’s. After leaving Verbena, Johnston founded Cutgrass and played the greater Birmingham area before getting busted on a drug related charge and thrown in the Etowah County Detention Center. Upon his release he began recording songs of redemption and began work on his solo album, “Etowah.”

Today, Johnston’s tunes have brought him quite a bit of notoriety locally and nationally and he has shared the stage with some of the biggest stars in indie rock – Ryan Adams, Superchunk, The Foo Fighters, and The Strokes. Besides releasing amazing music, Johnston also works hard as a philanthropist, recording and performing at various benefit concerts.

As an accomplished songwriter, Johnston’s tunes can sometimes be hard to pin down, and can resemble the loud, electric chugging of a group like Pavement (on tracks like “Oh 19”), or the delicate-to-the-point-of-breaking like some material by Bonnie Prince Billy, both of which he has toured with in the past.
Duquette Johnston and The Rebel Kings will be playing The Independent on Friday, May 28. Check out their myspace.com/duquettejohnston for more details and tunes.