P

While Johnny Depp built an enormous worldwide audience through his performances on screen, most prominently after Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl reached theaters, music had already shaped his life for decades as both player and devotee. His first guitar arrived at age twelve when his mother handed him a used acoustic, and he learned chords from a Mel Bay chord book without formal instruction. By his late teens he was performing regularly with several groups in his home state of Florida, ultimately leaving high school to concentrate fully on music. Among those early outfits, the hard-edged new-wave band the Kids drew the largest local crowd and shared bills with touring headliners, including Iggy Pop, who later crossed paths with Depp again both on film sets and as composer for the actor’s directorial debut, The Brave. After cutting a four-song demo, the Kids became Six Gun Method and relocated to California in search of a contract. No deal materialized, so Depp departed; bassist Bruce Witkin later played with Adam Ant and now leads Supremium. Depp met makeup artist Lori Anne Allison, his first wife, through the band’s drummer. He next joined Rock City Angels, yet in 1984, following advice from Nicholas Cage, a friend of Allison’s, he accepted a role in A Nightmare on Elm Street and stepped away from music to act full-time. One track he co-wrote for Rock City Angels, “Mary,” later surfaced on the group’s Geffen debut album in 1989. While filming What’s Eating Gilbert Grape in Texas in 1993, Depp and longtime friend Sal Jenco, also a musician-turned-actor, connected with two Texas musicians—guitarist and songwriter Bill Carter and Gibby Haynes, the notorious frontman of psychedelic-punk provocateurs the Butthole Surfers. The quartet formed P, with Depp and Carter alternating guitar and bass, Jenco on drums, and Haynes singing. Their first appearance came at the 1993 South by Southwest Music Festival, and the band soon became the unofficial house act at the Viper Room, the Los Angeles club co-owned by Depp. Capitol Records, then home to the Butthole Surfers, issued P’s self-titled debut in 1995; guests included Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, and pianist Chuck E. Weiss. The track “Michael Stipe” received alternative-rock airplay, and sales proved solid though modest relative to the participants’ fame. The project dissolved quickly: Depp and Jenco returned to acting, Haynes resumed work with the Butthole Surfers, and Carter issued solo recordings while collaborating with Howe Gelb of Giant Sand. Depp nonetheless continued playing in private, contributing to Oasis sessions, joining longtime partner Vanessa Paradis onstage, appearing on Shane MacGowan & the Popes’ first album, and reuniting with the Kids for a 2007 memorial concert honoring Shelia Witkin, the band’s manager and a longtime figure in Miami’s underground rock scene. He has repeatedly told interviewers that he stays in touch with his P bandmates and has not ruled out making a second album together.