Johnston is a founding member of the San Francisco house music group Mephisto Odyssey which originated in the early 1990s.

Johnston's notoriety in the major label music industry began in the late 1990s with his collaboration with Jane's Addiction on a series of remixes for their maxi single "So What" under the name Deep Red.

This eventually led to their collaboration on the crossover alternative song, "Crash" which later became a video directed by Len Wiseman that appeared on MTV and in the film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.

[citation needed] Dresden and Johnston's remixes of Lily Allen and Nadia Ali both hit #1 in the Billboard Magazine Hot Dance Club Play Chart in 2009.

[3] Other remixes by the duo include BT "The Unbreakable", JD Webb "Better Man", The Crystal Method "Black Rainbows" and Owl City "Hello Seattle".