Mike Doughty

Biography

Michael Ross Doughty ( DOH-tee; born June 10, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter and author. He founded the band Soul Coughing in 1992, and as of The Heart Watches While the Brain Burns (2016), has released 18 studio albums, live albums, and EPs, all since 2000.

Early life

Doughty is the son of military historian and U.S. Army officer Robert A. Doughty. He grew up on army bases throughout the United States, including Fort Knox, Fort Hood, and Fort Leavenworth, and spent his teenage years living on the grounds of the United States Military Academy at West Point where his father taught. He came to New York City at age 19 to study poetry at The New School. Singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco was one of his classmates in Sekou Sundiata's poetry course, "The Shape and Nature of Things to Come".

Soul Coughing

While a doorman at the New York club The Knitting Factory (in that era, a hotbed of avant-garde jazz), Doughty founded Soul Coughing. The band released three critically and commercially successful albums, Ruby Vroom (1994), Irresistible Bliss (1996) and El Oso (1998). The greatest hits album Lust in Phaze was released in 2002. In 2024, a reunion tour was announced, spanning from September to October 2024.

Solo career

Doughty broke up Soul Coughing in 2000 due to personal problems: He was wearying of the band, and he was addicted to opiate painkillers, heroin, and alcohol. He was promptly dropped by Warner Brothers, and began traveling in a rental car (covering 9,000 miles on his first tour) playing acoustic shows. After shows he would sit at the front of the stage and sell copies of his acoustic album Skittish×Skittish2000 · Studio albumSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1The Only Answer2:092The Pink Life2:593Real Love / It’s Only Life3:114No Peace Los Angeles3:325Where Have You Gone?3:126Thank You, Lord, for Sending Me the F Train2:437Looks2:578Shunned + Falsified2:429All the Dirt2:3410Sweet Lord in Heaven1:4411Language Barrier2:1312Rising Sign2:20 — then on CD-Rs in plain white sleeves. Warner Brothers had rejected the record in 1996. During his three-year tour, Doughty sold 20,000 copies of Skittish and gradually developed a following independent of Soul Coughing. Doughty collaborated with BT on "Never Gonna Come Back Down×Never Gonna Come Back Down29 August 2000 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 6 tracks1Never Gonna Come Back Down (single edit)3:472Never Gonna Come Back Down (Hybrid's Breaktek mix)7:463Never Gonna Come Back Down (Timo Maas vocal mix)8:034Never Gonna Come Back Down (Eric Kupper 12" mix)8:405Never Gonna Come Back Down (Hybrid's Echoplex dub)8:376Never Gonna Come Back Down (Paul DeCarli remix)6:31" providing lyrics and vocals. "Never Gonna Come Back Down" was contained on BT's album Movement in Still Life, released in 1999.
He remained without a label until, when playing the Bonnaroo music festival in 2004, Doughty bumped into Dave Matthews, a longtime Soul Coughing fan who had had the band open for him on two US tours, including shows at Madison Square Garden. When Matthews professed to be a fan of Doughty's solo record Rockity Roll and the song "27 Jennifers", Doughty gave him a CD with rough mixes of an album he had been working on in Minneapolis with singer-songwriter and producer Dan Wilson. Doughty had been introduced to Wilson through their mutual artist manager, Jim Grant. Matthews eventually released the album on his ATO label as Haughty Melodic×Haughty Melodic3 May 2005 · Studio albumSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 12 tracks1Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well3:592Unsingable Name4:183Madeline and Nine3:034Busting Up a Starbucks4:195White Lexus2:216American Car4:427Tremendous Brunettes2:468I Hear the Bells4:199Sunken-Eyed Girl3:2410Grey Ghost3:1511His Truth Is Marching On3:3612Your Misfortune3:06 (an anagram for 'Michael Doughty'.) Haughty Melodic's singles "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well×Looking at the World From the Bottom of a WellSingleSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 2 tracks1Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well2Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well (radio mix)" and "I Hear the Bells" were each featured on episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Veronica Mars, and Doughty appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, marking a return to the musical mainstream. He has since released a number of follow-up albums. Some of Doughty's albums, including Circles, Super Bon Bon and The Very Best of Soul Coughing, Live at Ken’s, and Stellar Motel, have used crowdfunding to finance their creation. He has also used Patreon to release a song every week for those paying $5 a month.
In 2012, Doughty published a memoir called The Book of Drugs, covering his formative years as a musician, what he called the "dark, abusive marriage" that was Soul Coughing, and his experiences with addiction and recovery.
In 2014, Mike Doughty created a rock opera based on the Book of Revelation called Revelation.
In 2015, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee.
In 2019, Doughty mounted a U.S. tour in honor of the 25th anniversary of Ruby Vroom in which he played the album in its entirety.
In May 2020, Doughty published his second memoir titled I Die Each Time I Hear The Sound: A Memoir, which he wrote to expound upon his musical tastes and how they came to be.
In August 2020, Doughty announced his new project Ghost of Vroom with longtime collaborator Andrew "Scrap" Livingston.

With Ghost of Vroom

In collaboration with Andrew "Scrap" Livingston.

Written work

Slanky: Poems and Songs (2012, ISBN 1-59376-504-5)
The Book of Drugs (2012, ISBN 0-30681-877-9)
I Die Each Time I Hear the Sound: A Memoir (2020, ISBN 0-30682-531-7)