Biography

Johnny Depp gained fame as an actor, parlaying his status as a revered cult figure into a place as one of the most bankable stars in the business. The pivot point for Depp's celebrity was Pirates of the Caribbean, a 2003 theatrical adaptation of the Disney theme park ride where he starred as Captain Jack Sparrow. He patterned his slurring, charming pirate persona on Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, a sign of how deeply the actor valued music. In addition to his success as an actor, he continued to play guitar -- an instrument he picked up when he was a tween -- and developed relationships with rockers, appearing in music videos and records while also playing guitar on the soundtracks of several of his own films. He also directly pursued a musical career by forming P with Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers in 1993, turning the Sunset Strip legends Hollywood Vampires into an actual band in 2012, and recording 18, a duet album with Jeff Beck, in 2022. Born in Owensboro, Kentucky, on June 9, 1963, Johnny Depp settled in Miramar, Florida, with his family in 1970. When he was 12, his mother gave him a guitar. Soon, it became the center of his world. He cycled through several bands, taking it so seriously he dropped out of school at the age of 16 so he could focus on a group called the Kids. The band headed to Los Angeles, adopting the new moniker Six Gun Method, and started looking for a record contract that never came. Depp started playing with Rock City Angels -- they cut "Mary," a song he co-wrote, on their 1988 debut Young Man's Blues -- but his rock & roll dreams were put on the back burner once he stumbled into acting. Lori Allison, a makeup artist who was Depp's wife in the early '80s, introduced the rocker to Nicolas Cage. The pair became close, with Cage suggesting Depp try his hand at acting. Cage secured his friend an audition for Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street. Depp was cast and soon became a sought-after actor, building his reputation through a starring role on the Fox television series 21 Jump Street and his roles in Tim Burton movies. Depp and his 21 Jump Street castmate Sal Jenco opened the Viper Room, a dark and seedy nightclub on the Sunset Strip, in 1993. That same year, Depp and Jenco formed P with Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes and Bill Carter. P were playing a gig at the Viper Room on October 30, 1993, when actor River Phoenix suffered a fatal drug overdose at the venue. Despite this cloud looming over the band, P continued, releasing an eponymous album on Capitol Records in 1995. They broke up shortly afterward. Throughout the mid-'90s, Depp started popping up on records by other musicians. He played guitar on The Snake, the album Shane MacGowan released with the Popes after leaving the Pogues in 1994, then played on a re-recording of Oasis' "Fade Away" for the 1995 HELP charity compilation. He also played slide guitar on "Fade In-Out," a track on Oasis' overblown 1997 album Be Here Now and featured on a B-side from Iggy Pop's Avenue B album. Depp contributed greatly to Bliss, the 2000 album by his then-lover Vanessa Paradis. During the early 2000s, Depp's musical outlet came via film soundtracks. He played guitar on the soundtrack to both his 2000 film Chocolat and 2003's Once Upon a Time in Mexico, then he played the title role in Tim Burton's 2007 theatrical adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He once again began cameoing on records in 2008, appearing on Glenn Tilbrook's Pandemonium Ensues and two records from British pop eccentric Babybird. In 2012, he contributed background vocals to Aerosmith's Music from Another Dimension! and played on Marilyn Manson's cover of "You're So Vain," while also contributing to the soundtrack to the documentary West of Memphis. Over the next few years, Depp continued to pop up on interesting projects, such as the Hal Wilner-produced 2013 multi-artist album Son of Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys -- he played "The Mermaid" with Patti Smith -- and The New Basement Tapes, a 2015 album by T Bone Burnett that added music to unfinished Bob Dylan songs from the late '60s. By 2015, his musical energy was directed toward Hollywood Vampires, a supergroup that took its name from a 1970s drinking club featuring Alice Cooper, Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon, and Ringo Starr. Cooper, Depp, and Aerosmith's Joe Perry formed the core of this new variation on Hollywood Vampires, who released a guest star-laden eponymous debut in 2015. A second album called Rise followed in 2019. Depp struck up a friendship with Jeff Beck in the late 2010s. By 2019, the pair decided to cut a record together. Their cover of John Lennon's "Isolation" appeared in 2020, followed by a full album called 18 in June 2022. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi