John Davis of Superdrag

John Davis is the leader singer and guitarist for the power pop band, Superdrag. I was lucky enough to see them play at The Galaxy Club in Dallas around 1995. A friend had dragged me to see an industrial metal band but all I can remember from that nite is Superdrag who opened the show. They dressed and sounded very much like a heavy Beatles and the lead guitarist looked like Roy Obison's little brother. The audience consisted only of apathetic goth kids who Davis berated and finally stomped off the stage in disgust because of lack of participation. To be honest he came off looking like a fool more than cool. I have no idea why they were on the bill and wonder if that show inspired Davis to write "Do the Vampire" for the next Superdrag album.

A year later I would borrow their first album "Regretfully Yours" from Dan, a friend at work, and listened to it nonstop for a long period of time. It took me a while to figure out they were the band I had seen opening for the industrial metal band.



I quit following the Superdrag till 2000 when I found them on the internet and discovered that the band with a new bassist, Sam Powers, had written an incredible album, "The Valley of Dying Stars," a power pop epic. I saw them live again a couple times in Dallas at Club Clearview.

A few years later, I was surprised and pleased to hear that John Davis had become a Christian. He had grown up strict Baptist but had fallen away from the faith in his teenage years. During his Superdrag resurgence in 2002 he had been drinking quite a bit and one day while driving his car felt the Holy Spirit hit him pretty hard. So he sobered up and quit doing Superdrag. He released a self-titled album in 2005 and in 2007 Arigato! Both dealing with Christian themes. I feel a little kinship to him since I came to Christ in 2002 as well.

Currently, he's touring with Superdrag again with original bassist, Tom Pappas. When I checked his myspace page to help with the writing of this blog, I don't see any mention of Christ and I hope he hasn't chosen the coolness over proclaiming his love for Christ because I know from my own experience acting cool does not bring people to the Lord.

His web site
( ( (( superdrag.com )) ) )