OKC rocker Johnny Manchild copes with anxieties of modern life on new album 'Rapture Waltz'

Johnny Manchild hasn't exactly waltzed through the past few years, but at least he knows he's not the only one.

The Oklahoma City singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontman of Johnny Manchild & the Poor Bastards frolics, bops and rages through the apprehensions of contemporary American life on his genre-defying new album "Rapture Waltz."

"I'm generally trying to figure out what the world is after COVID, still. ... It's the politics. It's the pandemic. It's the getting older," he said. "It's the 'is world going to catch on fire?' There's climate change and (expletive) Gaza. It's one thing after the other; I feel like we can't catch a breath if you actually pay attention to it all. Regardless of what the source of people's anxieties are, there's more than enough to go around. So, I know everybody's feeling it, and I know I'm not the only one who's had a hard couple of years."

Manchild — whose real name is Jonathan Garrett — is dropping March 22 "Rapture Waltz," the fourth full-length album from his continually evolving project Johnny Manchild & the Poor Bastards. It's his first album to be released via the music distribution company The Orchard.

Since he made the new album during a tumultuous time when he moved from Oklahoma to California in late 2021 and back again the following summer, it's fitting that Manchild and his band will celebrate release day with an OKC show March 22 at Beer City Music Hall. Fellow OKC rockers Swim Fan will open Manchild's hometown show ahead of his spring national tour with the Poor Bastards.

"I was getting work (in California): I got to work in a lot of cool recording studios, producing people's records. I was ... doing audio for film, doing scores. And it was cool, but it would have been at the cost of this band, which is my entire thing," said Manchild, who is also a recording engineer and producer.

"There's been a lot of lessons that I've learned, and I think, funny enough, all of it points to a very similar theme. ... I want to work with Oklahoma locals, Oklahoma artists. This is a community that I've got — and it's a great one. And I want to use it and be a part of it. So, I'm happy to be back."

Who is Johnny Manchild?

An Army brat who has lived most of his life in the OKC metro area, Manchild has been playing music professionally since he was 10 years old, when he was in a touring band that appeared on the Fox television show "The Next Great American Band." He saved up his earnings to buy recording equipment that he still owns and uses to make his albums.

After graduating from Classen School of Advanced Studies, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he joined the band. He then studied music at the University of Central Oklahoma and formed Johnny Manchild & the Poor Bastards in 2016.

"I've been doing this long enough — and it's been going a certain way for long enough — that I felt like it was time to take some risks," Manchild said.

What can listeners expect from the new album 'Rapture Waltz?'

Using the moniker Johnny Manchild & the Poor Bastards as a vehicle for his songwriting, the frontman recruited a rotating lineup of local musicians, including original drummer Ethan Neel, bassist James Thompson and horn player Ben Wood. The group released a 2017 EP titled “Valencia” and three albums — 2018’s "Insomnia," 2019’s "One Big Beautiful Sound" and 2021’s "We Did Not Ask for This Room" — leading up to "Rapture Waltz."

The new album's title comes from the atmospheric closing track, a mournful rock lament.

"That song and the the whole vibe of the record was more or less about when I was moving. ... It felt like I was trying to chase this thing, trying to accomplish something. But everybody was starting to disappear from (around) me," he said. "COVID did that; me moving did that. Just getting older, things change; people go away. I had several disruptions with close, close friends, just for life reasons. I had family members die, and I had this imagery of the rapture: It was as if everybody had gone away, and I was the only one left."

Initially envisioning it as an EP, Manchild collaborated on the new album with Grammy-nominated Oklahoma engineer/producer Wes Sharon, who has worked with the likes of the Doobie Brothers, Gregg Allman and John Fullbright. They recorded some of the songs at Prairie Sun Studios in northern California and the rest at Sharon's 115 Recording in Norman.

The 11-song collection ranges from the urgent punk cautionary tale “Oh, Songbird" and the Beatlesque piano ballad “Better Unsaid” to the angsty emo-rock banger "So Much Better" and the intensely textured album opener "Fake Me Out," a keys- and brass-driven inner monologue Manchild penned about his lifelong battle with bipolar disorder.

His openness about his mental health struggles — through his music and his interactions with followers — has resonated with his growing fan base.

"My only intention ever was I had songs and I wanted to play them. As it goes, that's the thing that people seem to relate to. ... It's nothing intentional, but I understand its significance. It has caused me, I guess, to be more open and transparent," Manchild said.

"The person that I was — and the way that I was — was so different at the start of this band. This band has influenced me as a person in the same way that I have it. It's entwined so that it's inseparable. ... It is my own therapy, and I think it, in return, offers something for other people."

Johnny Manchild & the Poor Bastards album release show

When: 8 p.m. March 22. Doors at 7 p.m.

Where: Beer City Music Hall, 1141 NW 2.

Tickets: https://beercitymusichall.com.

Information: https://www.manchild.band.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC rocker Johnny Manchild plays through struggles in 'Rapture Waltz'