After doing a show in Waller, Texas, in the late '90s, Johnston was approached by Jason, a fan and guitarist/keyboardist who wanted to collaborate with him. With Jason's wife, Bridget, on drums, the trio began expressing the louder side of Johnston's sound. Danny & the Nightmares was released by Johnston's own Eternal Yip Eye Music imprint in 1999. Although he was also busy with his artwork and recording Daniel Johnston albums like the Mark Linkous collaboration Fear Yourself, Johnston returned to the Nightmares for the 2002 EP The End Is Near Again, which the zine/label Cool Beans! released in 2002. Freak Brain, Danny & the Nightmares' second full-length, arrived in 2005 courtesy of Sympathy for the Record Industry; like the group's other work, it boasted unapologetically raw, straight-to-four-track sound quality and songs about monsters, the Devil, and girls. The next Nightmares album took over five years to be completed, as Johnston stayed busy working on other projects, but Death of Satan was finally issued in the summer of 2013 by Munster Records. ~ Heather Phares