The Manosphere Report

0:01Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

0:03The Joe Rogan Experience Showing by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day!

0:12Put your stuff on the floor It doesn't matter, you can keep it on the

0:15table It's fun There's water there too, in this metal cup Oh thanks so much,

0:23okay, yeah, he's ready to I have some notes that I'll probably never look at

0:30You got notes? Me? What's on the notes?

0:36Just stuff, like what I went through with CCR and all that Tell me something,

0:43did you read up on me or anything?

0:46I'm a huge fan, I don't have to read up on you I read up

0:50on you a little bit, just to catch up About how you got out of

0:53the, well, you did do military service But you got out by smoking a lot

0:58of weed and not eating I read that, is that true?

1:01No Is that true? They lied?

1:03There was a story about you smoking a lot of weed And getting emaciated so

1:08you can get out of the army Well, it's not quite in that sequence But

1:13those things did happen Yeah, I had determined to lose a lot of weight Right?

1:26So I was kind of really skinny by 1967, 68 I mean, like 100, I

1:35think it was 129 pounds Whoa Yeah And then I was going to go to

1:42the, I think it was the Presidio And I had to meet with the army

1:46doctor, right? And my friends gave me a couple of joints And I stuck them

1:55in, you know, I used to smoke in those cigarettes I stuck it in the

1:59cigarette and going across the Bay Bridge I smoked them That's so, I hadn't even

2:05thought about it So if you want, yeah, man, he went on a starvation diet

2:10A protest diet and then smoked a lot of weed That's what I heard Wasn't

2:13quite that way, but yeah, okay But it's essentially some truth Some truth to it

2:21You had a legendary career, my friend Legendary Thank you, still working on it It's

2:26incredible, man You are like one of the main voices of rock and roll in

2:31America If you really think about it Your songs, I mean, you have so many

2:37gigantic hits You know, when the UFC has a lot of walkout songs You know,

2:43when fighters come out and walk out A lot of guys walk out to your

2:46music I don't even know if you're aware of it But Fortunate Son is a

2:50big one Yeah Bad Moon Rising, that's another big one people walk out to Great

2:55Wow It's pretty awesome Wow, yeah, I'm not that aware of the UFC stuff But,

3:03you know, everybody, whatever floats your boat Wow, people just love your music Yeah So

3:07you went through many generations Like, you got your first record contract How old were

3:13you? I know I signed one when I was around 19 Of course, it would

3:20have been unenforceable It's not legal at the time, right?

3:25You had to be 21?

3:26Yeah The deal? I believe so Yeah Well, you're also one of the first rock

3:32and roll artists That wrote songs that became very popular About how you're getting screwed

3:38over by the record business You know what I mean?

3:41I mean, so Leonard Skitter did it Working for MCA They did that song But

3:46you had Vance Can't Dance It was actually Zance Can't Dance But you had to

3:50change it, right? Yeah, the name of the person was Zance It sold about a

3:56half a million copies as Zance But the record company, Warner Brothers In their way

4:03of settling somewhat Had me change it to Vance Because the guy's name was Zance

4:13Zance, yeah It was screwing up That's right in the middle of That whole thing

4:20was a mess I got sued for sounding like myself What?

4:26Yeah How'd that happen? I'll tell you So, and I didn't find this out And

4:33there was eventually a trial So it's not Many people think that that's funny You

4:41got sued for sounding like yourself Wow, that's funny Well, no, you're getting a legal

4:45lawsuit That's probably going to take away A lot of your money And you're going

4:54to go through Three, four years of anguish Well, anyway Ended up in a trial

5:01He was suing me for At the time was an enormous amount of money $144

5:06million For his Whatever, metal anguish or something The logistics, I guess you'd call it

5:18I had made a new song called The Old Man Down the Road It was

5:22on my album It was my comeback on Centerfield And I had finally gotten away

5:28from Fantasy Records Which is where Credence was And Saul Zance, who owned it So,

5:35you know When you finally escape And get success over somewhere else The former people

5:42tend to be jealous, I guess And so he was suing me What had happened,

5:49though I found out in the trial The bass player from Credence Was another one

5:56of those people, I guess That couldn't stand that I'd now had success In a

6:00later life He went down to Fantasy And saw Mr.

6:06Saul Zance And said John is ripping off Credence You should sue him.

6:11The irony in all of that is that I had taught Stu every single note

6:17that he ever played in Credence.

6:20It was not his own.

6:21As we talk, you'll see.

6:24I was the guy inventing the arrangements.

6:27And so to take possession of Credence was pretty ironic and pretty over the top.

6:35Anyway, he talks Saul into suing me and Saul had unlimited funds.

6:41And so it went to a trial.

6:44I prevailed at trial and got that over with.

6:50But they torture you during the process because it takes years and it costs an

6:54enormous amount of money to fight yourself.

6:56Yeah, all that stuff. That is so crazy that they can sue you for sounding

7:01like you. Well, it's a blessing to the world, I think, that I prevailed.

7:07I mean, you know, what we're really talking about is when you come into the

7:13consciousness of the world, I guess, and you have a certain style, if you're lucky.

7:17And so you start creating whatever your art is.

7:21You're an actor or you're a painter or, in my case, a musician.

7:25And people start liking the style.

7:29Well, how unfair would it be that at some point somebody takes ownership of your

7:35style and now say, you have to go back and invent some other style, be

7:40some other person? You know, it's just that would be really difficult.

7:43Imagine Dylan or Springsteen or all the other people that have their own style having

7:49to, you know, reinvent and change to something else.

7:53Well, it's just insane to even ask an artist to do that.

7:57It's insane because, look, so many artists sound like other artists anyway, and no one

8:02has a problem with that, as long as they're not ripping off the notes and

8:05the lyrics. There's a lot of people that sound like people.

8:07But the idea that you could get sued for sounding like you with new music

8:14and new lyrics is, that's one of the most insane things I've ever heard of.

8:19I can't believe that didn't get thrown out immediately.

8:21Immediately, right. Well, that shows the, I guess, the ego and the possessiveness that people

8:30want to have. You know, I had written a new song and he didn't want

8:35me to, he wanted to own the new stuff, he wanted to own me, basically.

8:39That was the idea. Well, you can never do anything unless you do it for

8:43me, you know. So I was, but not just for myself, for everyone, for all

8:50artists, it was kind of a major ruling.

8:54And thank God it went that way.

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10:47Well, thank God it also was public, like with that song and the lawsuit around

10:52the song, you having to change the name of the song.

10:55Because back then, at least at the time, like, well, this was probably, what, the

10:5980s? Yep. Most people had no idea how evil the music business can be.

11:06Unless they were told they had no idea.

11:09They bought the albums, they loved the musicians, and they just liked the music.

11:14They didn't know what was going on behind the scenes.

11:16They didn't know how these people own your catalog, they own the music, they own

11:21the publishing, they try to just get as much money out of you as humanly

11:26possible, own your name, own your likeness.

11:29Most fans had no idea.

11:32And that's probably the way it really should be.

11:35When I was young, I just cared about Elvis and his guitar player, you know?

11:39I didn't want to know all, I didn't even know there was stuff behind it

11:43to know. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God.

11:46Right, I picked a good one there, didn't I?

11:48Yeah, that's a real good one.

11:49I mean, the Colonel was evil.

11:50That's just too bad. Another similar situation.

11:53Like, there's a lot of these great artists get, like Prince, he got wrapped up

11:57to the point where he had to change his name to a symbol, because he

12:01didn't own his name anymore.

12:03Prince! Yeah, I remember going, well, if he doesn't want to use it, you know,

12:06I'll take it. Yeah, it's just the business itself.

12:13I mean, you have these creative artists that make this music that everybody loves, and

12:18then you have these hyenas that work behind the scenes that are the ones that

12:22are collecting the majority of the money.

12:24from it and they're not making any music and to the average fan like myself

12:28like that's abhorrent that's disgusting like you you see that it just it just drives

12:33you nuts well also um you know the the creative people are special and i

12:42mean you know look around there's way more of other types of people than there

12:46are creative people and to douse that you know to or own that which is

12:53what was going to happen it's just a an onerous thing um i'm i used

13:01to be a lot more angry about all this stuff i'm a lot older i

13:04can't say wiser it's more like um i came out on the good side of

13:10it i try not to worry about it too much but it's great that you

13:15came out on the good side of it but it's also great for people to

13:18know and it's really great for young artists to be aware as they're coming up

13:23especially as they're beginning their journey that this could happen to them yeah and there's

13:29all kinds of you know um bad people around just waiting for you to slip

13:35up and sign something that will give your rights away that sort of thing um

13:41i get such a joy out of music you know i mean i just i

13:48started that way when i was a little kid i mean didn't even know what

13:51i was doing i was or what that was i was hearing this sound and

13:56you know and i liked it and i just kind of went with it i

13:58didn't try to analyze it too much and of course later with all the things

14:05you know the different roads you you go through trying to get to some place

14:11um happily i still get that same joy i mean i i just i'm just

14:20so glad you know i've a lot of this of course is from the care

14:24of my wife julie uh if i hadn't met her i probably would be dead

14:30simply like that really yeah wow why do you think you'd be dead um i

14:38didn't see any way out you know um i was really abusing myself alcohol mostly

14:45i really felt bad inside i mean it's when you get like that uh joe

14:53uh you're not really operating on the same plane in the world that all the

14:59other people that you see or you know you walk into a market or something

15:03look around and probably most of the people are kind of normal you know whatever

15:07we call that but when you're when you're really hurting inside for whatever reason i

15:14mean in my case something really unjust had been done to me um but you

15:21know however you get there and then you start abusing yourself with uh drugs alcohol

15:28whatever um you just kind of it becomes a habit you just stay there right

15:34and so you're not really enjoying the sunshine and the love that's around you and

15:40all the rest of it you become kind of a um pathetic person sad certainly

15:46so that you know that was the deal that when julie met me i was

15:52that guy um there was sort of a certainly an anger i mean but a

15:59bitterness too almost like a self -fulfilling um prophecy where you look for something to

16:09go wrong and then it goes wrong and you go see i told you you

16:15know i mean it's a terrible mental place to be and i was there do

16:18you think this was a loop that you got in because of the lawsuits oh

16:22yeah it did that it really just got you that hard well there was there

16:26was more than one lawsuit but the betrayal by uh the people in my band

16:32you know uh i just told you about a very evil man right yeah and

16:37i'm the only guy from credence who's ever actually mentioned that he's an evil person

16:43to the extent that quite publicly my brother tom right during this same time was

16:51saying that saul was his best friend oh jesus it was just really hard to

16:57uh deal with and the other two guys in the bands were in the band

17:01were kind of just more cowardly about it they just never spoke up just kind

17:06of give me the money and you know how the fuck was your brother saying

17:11that guy was your best friend while he was suing you um he wanted he

17:17was signed re -signed after the break of breakup of credence he kind of shopped

17:24around and didn't have uh much success finding a label and so he went right

17:30about the time that this trial was going to happen uh he re -signed with

17:36fantasy i'm talking about the first trial which was the first trial the first trial

17:41was about uh basically the band had lost its life savings all of us in

17:48credence um the record company had gotten us into this offshore tax plan and i'm

17:58saying this with a smile because nowadays it just sounds so you know some guy

18:03comes walking up to you and got a trench coat on on a corner in

18:08new york city hey buddy you know you're probably going to avoid that guy but

18:13the record company was in this tax thing and for all we knew we were

18:21going to be paying 90 percent income tax right i mean the tax laws are

18:29pretty pretty stringent and pretty high that guy um and so they offered us or

18:35basically um and so they offered us or basically kind of Ushered us into this

18:40plan, offshore tax plan, and it would allow us to pay a lot less taxes,

18:48probably somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, something like that.

18:53So it was a huge financial savings for us.

18:58I can tell you that the name of this particular thing was a bank in

19:04the Bahamas called Castle Bank.

19:08And we had it checked out.

19:10I mean, the people on our side in the band had it checked out by

19:13our people, our own accountant.

19:19The bass player's father was an entertainment lawyer and had a big firm.

19:25They, among other people, represented the Oakland Raiders.

19:29So we thought they were pretty solid, and they checked it all out and said

19:33that it was okay, it was legit.

19:35So we did it. But time went on, and it seemed to be not legit

19:44to the point that somewhere in the 70s, the bank disappeared and all our money

19:50in it disappeared. So we sued.

19:55Oh, Jesus. Yep. So here it is.

19:59The bank was being used by the CIA to funnel money for covert military operations,

20:04including those at Andros Island, a staging area for anti -Castro activities.

20:10So they were stealing your money.

20:14How? I just found that.

20:16I don't know. I just typed it in.

20:17I went to the Wikipedia, and I was like, well, that's interesting.

20:20So insane. See, I didn't know any of that.

20:23You didn't know until now?

20:24Oh, I knew that now, or I suspect, yeah.

20:28Did you know that up until now, or did you just find it out just

20:31now? You could tell me a lot of things right now, and I'd say, oh,

20:37yeah, I guess assumed all that stuff was kind of happening.

20:40But I didn't know it at the time in the early 70s or late 60s

20:46when we got into this thing.

20:48It was actually 70s. Do you know how anti -American that is?

20:51The CIA stole from Credence Clearwater Revival.

20:55You know how fucking crazy that is?

20:57That is so wild. No, I didn't know that part.

21:04The funny thing is I had decided to get out of that plan, right, and

21:13I'd gone down to see my own people, my accountant, my attorney in Oakland, and

21:20told them, I just want out of this thing.

21:22I don't like the idea that you got to call, you know, whenever I want

21:26some money, like an allowance, you got to call up some bank account somewhere over

21:32there, and it takes, you know, some time, some few days before I actually receive

21:37my money. And it was starting to smell.

21:42It was starting to smell.

21:44Now, we're talking 1975, 76.

21:50And so I actually had the meeting, and I said, I want to be out

21:55of this plan. I don't want to – oh, I said – one of the

21:59things I said to the meeting of professionals, look, take a shoebox, put all the

22:06money I've ever earned into the shoebox, and now hand me the shoebox so I

22:12can see how much money have I earned because I didn't know.

22:16It was just going straight into this fund, right, into this castle bank.

22:20But they couldn't tell me, so I leave.

22:25I get down to the parking lot in the basement of this tall building in

22:29Oakland, and I'm with my – the guy that runs my office, and I say,

22:34shit, we're going to have to have another meeting because even though I told them

22:39I want to get out of the plan, I didn't stand up like on the

22:42table and go, I'm ordering you and you and you get me out of the

22:47plan. And I realized they could weasel some more time until I actually pointed.

22:52So the next week, I showed up and did that.

22:56I'm ordering you. Get me out – okay, out of the plan, right?

23:04Pretty quickly after that, a week or two, we hear that the bank has closed.

23:15There's a telegram that apparently was sent on Valentine's Day, and the bank president has

23:23died. He died in a sauna.

23:27Whoa. I've seen that movie, you know, where Abbott and Costello, and the mob comes

23:35in, and they're in those heat things that are up here, and the guy sticks

23:39a broom in the door so you can't get out.

23:42Yeah. I mean, except that this was serious, and there will be no more withdrawals

23:48until this thing is understood.

23:53Resolved, right. A bank president dies, you don't close the Bank of America.

23:57Right. You still can go get your money.

24:00And so pretty quick after that, it all just disappeared in a pop of smoke.

24:05They just stole the money.

24:06Done. Yep. And it was the fucking CIA.

24:09That is crazy. That is so crazy.

24:14How much money was involved with all the different people that lost their money?

24:17Like how much money was this bank holding?

24:19Do you know? Oh, well, there were other names that I never saw in those

24:25days. A lot of sort of mobby kind of sounding names.

24:30Yeah. I will tell you, after the thing closed, and we got the telegram that

24:38the president, I started, I literally started checking under my cars, looking for wires and

24:45what, you know, something funny.

24:47I did that for about three months.

24:49Whoa. I finally just, well, I was scared.

24:51Yeah, I would be too.

24:52Because I was the guy.

24:53Who said, I want to get out of this thing, and suddenly it goes, kaboom,

24:57and the president dies. Right.

24:59Right? And I just figured that I was some kind of whistleblower to them or

25:04something, and, you know, I'm in their way.

25:07Wow. I guarantee you're the reason why it happened.

25:11I don't think—no, I don't believe that's true.

25:14Well, no, I mean, you probably caused the whole thing to close down.

25:17I mean, it's not a coincidence that it closed down right after you asked for

25:20your money back. Yeah, I don't know.

25:22You're a big public name and a big voice.

25:25You get out. You take your money out.

25:28After that point in time, I really never wanted to talk too loudly about stuff

25:33anymore. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.

25:36So there eventually was our lawsuit.

25:41Well, actually, it was my lawsuit.

25:43I got with a lawyer—a tall building, I call it—and proceeded to start proceedings against

25:52this fantasy, our own attorneys and experts, the people that designed this plan, all the

26:01rest, right? But I was the only one in the band that did that.

26:05The rest of the guys kind of just went along and weren't making any waves.

26:11And I, you know, I was pretty adamant.

26:14I'm telling you this because at some point later, more than a year had passed,

26:21maybe a year and a half, my lawsuit had been rolling along a while.

26:29And then the other guys asked to join my lawsuit because the statute of limitations

26:37had run out on them being able to sue anyone because they literally tried to

26:43stay in the plan. And I was—I was willing to take the penalty, whatever it

26:52was, for being the dumbass that let himself get into some financial thing like this,

26:58right? I felt like—I used to say—I felt like Joe Lewis.

27:01I thought I was going to need an act of Congress to forgive the debt.

27:05But these experts in the meeting that I talked about who were trying to dissuade

27:12me from making a noise and trying to get out of the plan told me

27:17eventually, John, if you receive all the money at once, you will pay more than

27:22110 percent in taxes of what you have earned.

27:27In other words, I was going to go in the hole.

27:30Yeah. Yeah, for receiving it all at once, right?

27:33That sounds insane. That's why I felt like Joe Lewis.

27:36That's the most insane thing I've ever heard of him.

27:37Well, they were trying to intimidate me.

27:40Of course. Sure. Yeah. How much money were we talking about?

27:44How much money did they steal from you?

27:45When it finally was over, the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle—I mean, you're going

27:50to laugh at this. Rock band Victorious wins $8 .1 million.

27:58That was our entire take for everybody in the band.

28:02Each guy had a little bit different amount.

28:05But, you know, those numbers, I mean, I don't know.

28:10Dion once made a joke at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame about Bruce.

28:16And Dion says, well, I sold $40 million.

28:20Meaning, you know, you sue me.

28:21Well, Bruce has that on him.

28:27It was pretty funny. Yeah.

28:29I mean, $8 million was—that was it.

28:31That was our take from all the sales of Credence.

28:35So, was that the amount of money that was in the bank that they stole

28:39from you? That was what we got returned to us.

28:41So, you did get the money back?

28:43Mm -hmm. Oh, okay. Well, I figured they would just vanish.

28:50The money didn't come back from Saul's aunts or Castle Bank or any of those

28:59people. What had happened was Fantasy was let out of the lawsuit by the local

29:06judge in the Bay Area.

29:08I don't know why because they're the ones that got us into the plan.

29:11But anyway, they were let out of the whole thing.

29:13So, who was left was this guy named Burt Cantor in Chicago who designed the

29:18plan and our own accountant and lawyers.

29:24And so, what most of them did was settle for pennies on the dollar.

29:30You know, we said that you owe us a million dollars or whatever and they

29:35settled for like $10 ,000.

29:39Really? Right? Rather than go to trial.

29:41But our own accountant's legal team said, ah, we got these guys.

29:47They can never win this.

29:49So, I mean, ironically, they wanted to go to trial and put the poor accountant,

29:55you know, who was an old guy, through a whole trial.

30:00Well, and Credence got – we retained the money we had lost in that plan,

30:06the $8 million I just mentioned, from the law firm, the insurance firm.

30:13It was his insurance company's lawyers that were representing him, and they had to pay.

30:20Nobody else had to pay.

30:21Interesting. And the CIA or whoever you're talking about got away with it.

30:25Of course they did. Yeah.

30:27They know how to do that.

30:28It's kind of crazy, too, that it's only $8 million.

30:31You think about how much money you probably made the record companies.

30:33Yep. Well, there was 100 million records plus, so.

30:37Right. Do the math. How much was an album back then?

30:40Four bucks. Yeah. So, $400 million plus operating expenses, costs, all that stuff.

30:49You know, you guys got a small percentage.

30:52That's how it works, though.

30:53That's why the business is so dirty.

30:55That's what's so – you know, the idea is that they help you and they

30:58bring you up. But the reality is they sell art, and if they don't have

31:02artists, they have nothing. The artists are what fund their very existence, and they make

31:07the – majority of the money it's it's pretty dark when you really think about

31:12it yeah and joe i gotta tell you i'm i love making music and i

31:18don't do it for the money i mean i know that sounds a little naive

31:23but just the happiness in my heart from doing this is from the music i

31:30believe you joy i believe you because the only thing is when you i mean

31:34i'll say i'm not like well maybe i'm an idiot but probably not about this

31:38when you find out that there was money but somebody else got it then that

31:43kind of gets your attention right you know but um the for me at least

31:49it was it wasn't even about being famous literally if you can believe that it

31:54was the joy of of understanding you know what the the music from other people

32:02that you loved and as you grew up from a you know that little first

32:06inspiration you began to kind of understand what it was you liked about what they

32:11did and at some point then started to try and do it yourself but that

32:17was a that was a long long time after the initial joy of just enjoying

32:24what they did yes it's kind of sad that money always does kind of distort

32:29things but if you were only interested in money and only interested in fame or

32:34if that was your primary concern there's no way the music would be that good

32:38it's like that that has to come from a real place it's a real place

32:43of creativity and enjoyment a hundred percent yeah a hundred percent you know well for

32:50me i just it and also the prospect of creating something new tomorrow you know

32:58and and the what's the word you you get certain feelings well we all do

33:04but um i've learned to how can i say it sort of it's like being

33:10in a big swimming pool or something you know it's all it just surrounds you

33:15let it letting yourself enjoy that feeling and then try to figure out a way

33:21to put that into the music you know express it yeah yeah well you did

33:27it man it's just it's it's a long story with all these different artists that

33:33have had to deal with all these horrific managers and i was reading this article

33:37about um jimmy hendrix manager uh so one of his bodyguards uh wrote a book

33:43where he's blaming hendrix manager for his death and he was essentially saying that hendrix

33:49was murdered and hendrix was about to leave his manager and that's why he killed

33:53him and i don't know if you know the story about hendrix but his girlfriend

33:56fell from a roof or jumped off a roof shortly after hendrix died and apparently

34:03they were trying to get rid of her as well because they knew that she

34:05knew the whole deal behind it was this the one with kind of a funny

34:09foreign name yes yes yeah yeah i read a couple of jimmy biographies but you

34:17know it's yeah um so many of these guys had bombed up managers yeah i

34:23do know that there was some manager of his i mean jimmy owned his masters

34:28that was remarkable that's why that's why his family has the masters his estate you

34:35know they're the ones that decide because every so often a new jimmy album would

34:40come out that sort of thing um i didn't know any of this way back

34:44then i just wondered you know who was driving the bus so i mean that

34:48part was was pretty good uh he had to talk to somebody at reprise records

34:54and some of those people were reprise uh warner brothers in other words about the

35:00time i was at warner brothers it must have been a couple of them you

35:05know that decided that way back in the 60s um i guess i was a

35:10little envious because i sure didn't own my masters that's for sure how many people

35:14owned their own masters back then um nobody that's crazy how do you think he

35:18got that deal that i don't know i don't know how it how it came

35:23about that he was able to have that much influence i mean that's the part

35:29i i did i did get the inference from the at least one of the

35:36books i read about jimmy that um he had they didn't try too hard to

35:42save him you know jimmy was i guess was just really effed up for a

35:48couple of weeks there and then no one tried you know they were almost i

35:54mean i almost got the sense that somebody took a bottle of wine and just

35:58poured it in him yeah that's what i had heard yeah that's that was the

36:02what the bodyguard was inferring that they poured pills and alcohol down his mouth yeah

36:07yeah terrible well i i hope they never be in such a state that i

36:13can't protest something like that right well yeah yeah it's dark because uh apparently he

36:21was ready to leave he wanted to leave his manager and obviously jimmy was a

36:25gigantic star huge that guy saw all the money well he still is she still

36:30is to this day every single guitar survey that ever comes out you know you

36:34change all the other numbers after two right keep changing with fashion and all that

36:42but it's always number one is jimmy hendrix always yeah this episode is brought to

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39:32Kind of extraordinary when you think about it.

39:34The guy died at 27 years old, you know, and was already just from another

39:40planet. Like you'd listen to his, like you listen to Voodoo Child, Slight Letourne.

39:44You listen to that song and you're like, is this guy from earth?

39:48Like this was so different than any other guitar playing that had ever taken place

39:53before him. He was a complete revolutionary, like just a completely new creative artist, you

39:59know, and one of my favorite musicians absolutely of all time.

40:03That's why I named the podcast the Joe Rogan Experience.

40:05I wondered about that. Well, there it is.

40:08That's it. Stole it from Jimmy.

40:09Stole it from you. Yep.

40:11Yep. I should have named it the John Fogarty Experience.

40:17Instead of Credence? Yeah, well, I did create that name.

40:21What was the crazy name that the record company called one of your first bands?

40:28Well, it was the same people.

40:30Same people? Yeah. I mean, the same individual musicians.

40:35In high school, or junior high, actually, I started a band and called it the

40:42Blue Velvets. Not all that, you know, earth -shaking, but kind of a cool vibe.

40:50And we were really the Blue Velvets.

40:52But, you know, I mean, this was really a trio.

40:56But my brother was older.

40:58He was in another orbit.

41:01So we kind of went through high school, seeing each other every once in a

41:06while. It wasn't like we were all tromping around playing gig after gig.

41:10It was more like, you know, every few months there might be a sock hop

41:14or something like that. And then after high school, and Tom would come and sing.

41:23He was my older brother.

41:24He'd come and sing once in a while with us.

41:27We made a couple of recordings during that time with real record companies.

41:33But it was always kind of just haphazard.

41:36And finally, around the age of 19, I went over and knocked on Fantasy Records'

41:42door. They had done this special about Vince Giraldi.

41:46And they were in the Bay Area.

41:48So I, you know, went over there and introduced myself.

41:51Anyway, some, you know, one thing led to another.

41:54Finally, we're recording. And at that time, I think we made a record with only

42:00three of us, me and Tom and Doug, the drummer.

42:04And I overdubbed a bass part.

42:07And this is early, or this was in 1964.

42:11When they finally pressed the single, one side was called Little Girl.

42:17It's kind of a four -chord doo -wop song.

42:20The other side was sort of a English or a British invasion answer kind of

42:29thing, mod music. It was called Don't Tell Me No Lies.

42:33Anyway, we excitedly go over to San Francisco to their warehouse and open up the

42:38package and it says The Gollywogs.

42:41And we look at each other and go, what the hell?

42:45No, no, no. I think we had chosen our name to be The Visions.

42:50It was just something at the last minute because we weren't really the Blue Bellets

42:55anymore. But that was it.

42:57We thought it was going to say Visions.

43:01But the record company had decided they wanted to get in on the British invasion,

43:06mod, whatever, and named us The Gollywogs.

43:09It sounds like Pollywog. Yeah.

43:12They said, well, a gollywog, you see, is this doll that when the British soldiers

43:17were in India, the kids would have this little doll called a gollywog.

43:23And so that's all we knew about it.

43:26But as time went on, I mean, years and years later, long after I had

43:31been, we renamed the band, or I'd renamed the band Credence.

43:37Found out that gollywog was a, this was a very racial thing.

43:41This was the British soldiers calling the people wogs or gollywogs, yeah.

43:48That's a gollywog? Yeah, Sambo, right?

43:50Wow. Same sort of, yep.

43:53And they didn't know this either, obviously.

43:55There was no Wikipedia back then.

43:56I don't know, no. I don't know.

43:58I didn't know that. That's crazy that they could just change the name of your

44:02band without you having any knowledge of it at all.

44:04You open up the record and it's right there.

44:07Yep, and they kind of insisted, you know, it's that same thing that, well, we're

44:12going to own the publishing to your song.

44:14No, no, I should own it.

44:15Well, then we're not going to make any records.

44:18Oh, okay. You're 19. Yeah.

44:22Yeah. Yeah, that's how they get you.

44:23You don't know any. Well, and you kind of want to make a record.

44:27Yeah, you want to make a record.

44:28It's right there. You taste it.

44:30Oh, my God, I'm going to be signed to a record label.

44:32I'm going to be a rock star.

44:34And then they come to you with a shady contract.

44:36And that's their modus operandi.

44:39It's what they do with everybody.

44:41And for – I know they call it business.

44:47Funny term. Yeah. Most of those people – I mean, it's like lottery to them.

44:55It's like gambling. They don't have a clue what creativity is.

45:01And at that age, the young – I mean, I guess I'm looking at you

45:06and saying, if I only – no, what's that line?

45:08If I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

45:12You're a young artist. You don't even know what you got.

45:17Right. Right? You know you have feelings about music.

45:20But you don't – you know, you're less than a rookie.

45:25Right. You know, maybe you were good in junior high, but that doesn't mean you're

45:29Willie Mays. Right. You know?

45:31So that's sort of how that works.

45:33And they sign you up before any of that self -realization happens.

45:39And then you're messed. Yeah.

45:43Again, that's what happened to Prince.

45:45That's what happened to Skinner.

45:47That's what happened to most bands.

45:50I mean, they're very clever in how they do it.

45:52Yeah. They sign a bunch of people that are emerging, and some of them are

45:55going to hit. Yep. And they bankroll it, and then they make the majority of

45:59the money when those people hit.

46:02Well, in our case, Credence was the only thing that ever happened.

46:06And Fantasy became a very wealthy record company.

46:13Saul eventually went into making movies.

46:17So that money that I had made for him at the record company, you know,

46:22turned into One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

46:25Oh, wow. Some other—Sol even had, in those times, had bought the movie rights for

46:35Lord of the Rings. So, you know, his ticket got punched way up high.

46:45It's crazy. And we never got a dime, of course, of any of that.

46:48It's crazy how bad people can get ahead like that.

46:51Well, see, that's—yeah. That's what's disturbing.

46:54It's a different—that's why I had a little hesitation when you were talking about that

47:01you thought the music came from a—or creativity came from a joyful, good place.

47:06But, boy, you can sure look in different parts of entertainment or business in general

47:13and see some really bad people have made a lot of money.

47:17Well, it takes the good people to create things, though.

47:21The creative people make the things, and there's always just going to be people taking

47:25advantage of people being naive about business.

47:28I choose to believe that—at least it works for me.

47:34I choose to believe that you've got to have a good heart.

47:37You've got to try to use the golden rule, basically.

47:44You know, don't do something bad to him that you wouldn't want to have done

47:49to you. Right. So do unto others as you would have them do to you.

47:56I believe in God, and I believe God is watching me all the time, you

48:01know, all of us, so that that part helps me to feel like there's a

48:08reason, you know, to try and be a good person.

48:13The reason being, you're in God's grace if you do those things, if you try

48:22to live a good life, honest, and I guess we call it transparent nowadays.

48:27Yeah. You know, don't get me wrong.

48:30I'm not running around the world with a—thumping a Bible or something.

48:33I just think it's common sense about how ultimately you want to exist in the

48:45universe, right? Yeah. So, you know, that's how I operate.

48:52And so when I—certainly now at my age, when I see other people really getting

48:56away with stuff, I just—it isn't like I—gee, that's not fair.

49:01I should get the—I don't see it that way now.

49:04I just look at that poor sap who's being so evil and go, you know,

49:09he's going to get his comeuppance someday.

49:12Well, it's a horrible existence because nobody loves you when you're like that.

49:15If you're doing that and fucking people over, all your relationships are adversarial.

49:20It's a bad way to exist.

49:21You're on a very bad frequency, the way you exist with the people in your

49:26circle. I think that's true.

49:28I believe that. There's a lot of people that choose that life just for financial

49:33benefit. They choose to just fuck people over and be in that bad frequency all

49:38the time. But that's not a good life, and I agree with you.

49:42I think if you live your life like God exists, you'll have a much better

49:47life. And the golden rule is just—it's provable.

49:51If you're a nice person and you treat people well and it spreads a lot

49:56of good energy around you and positive momentum with all these other people, it's the

50:04butterfly effect. It carries on to other people that they encounter too.

50:07They're inspired by how kind and friendly and generous you are and it's good for

50:12everybody. It's good for you.

50:13It's good for the people that you're generous and friendly to.

50:16It's good for the other people that they encounter because they're inspired by it.

50:20It's just good for everyone.

50:21That's how people should exist.

50:23Yeah, I literally believe everything you have just said and literally have sometimes asked God

50:33for a— I never sat around and asked for money or a hit record.

50:38I always thought that's kind of poor.

50:41That's bad. I mean, that's selfish or greedy or something.

50:45But I would ask for clarity or, you know, I would ask God to help

50:50me figure something out. And amazingly, there would be through a relation, you know, somebody

51:02I was dealing with, there would be something—it was like karma, good karma coming back.

51:08And I could see the—you know, to me, it was a result of my prayer

51:14or my openness of wanting to help get a situation resolved.

51:22So for me, to me, there's evidence that it all works that way.

51:27Did you always have a belief in God?

51:29Well, yeah, I think there was times—yeah, because I was just brought up that way.

51:39Again, I don't believe my—I was just taught in a kind of nice and simple

51:46way about God. It wasn't beat over my head or anything.

51:49I was raised Catholic. So in some sense, you can't avoid having it beat over

51:54your head, I suppose. And some of that I resisted.

51:59But I went through the normal things.

52:01I did my first communion, my first confession.

52:06I did—what do you call that when you're 12 years old?

52:10Confirmation. And I chose the name for St.

52:14Jerome, basically, because there's a song by Bo Diddley called Bring It to Jerome.

52:22And Jerome was his—I think Jerome Green was his maraca player.

52:27And I really liked the vibe of that.

52:29I'm going to be Jerome.

52:30That's my confirmation name. Yeah, it was there in those ways.

52:37There was times I was—boy, you've opened a can of worms here.

52:43Because I was so invested in being a Catholic, even though my parents tried to

52:49have me go to parochial school, Catholic school.

52:54I was in the first grade, and then I want to say they kicked me

52:59out. And then I tried—my mom had me start again in ninth grade at St.

53:04Mary's High School. And they kicked me out again.

53:08But it wasn't my fault.

53:10Anyway, the one that happened is funny.

53:14I mean, it's just—the one that happened in the first grade, I had to take

53:19a bus to get there.

53:20I lived in El Cerrito, and it was the School of the Madeline in Berkeley.

53:26And, I mean, in the first grade, I'm six years old.

53:29So you had to go to the bus stop, get on a bus, get a

53:33transfer, so that then when the bus came to a certain stop over in Albany,

53:38you then got on a train.

53:40You know, transferred, in other words, got on a train, and that went another mile

53:45or so into Berkeley. And at a certain stop right behind the school, the School

53:50of the Madeline, Catholic school, you get off the train and go on down into

53:55school. Now, what happened—my mom was a—my parents had split up, so it was only

54:03my mom in the house.

54:04And she's leaving early because she's got a job as a teacher, so she's out

54:10of the house before me.

54:12And so it's up to me to get myself together and get to the bus

54:16stop on time. Many, many times I was late.

54:20I missed it. So I had to get the next bus, so I'm late.

54:24So I'm rushing to school, but I get there after they've already—they would march every

54:30morning to John Philip Sousa.

54:32And then, you know, all that, and go on into school.

54:39And I get there now.

54:41I'm late. The schoolyard is empty.

54:44I literally have to climb over the fence because they've locked the fence at, boom,

54:498 o 'clock or whatever it was.

54:51And I have to scale the fence, run in the class without going to the

54:55bathroom. This was my first great experience.

54:58I sat down in my chair.

55:01Within an hour, I really got to pee.

55:04And Sister Damien would not answer me.

55:08I got it. I got it.

55:11I got it. And so she would—one day, I peed in my seat.

55:19It happened again. It became a habit.

55:24Sister Damien, John Fogarty has a puddle under his chair.

55:29Oh, no. Right. So you became the kid that pees.

55:33That was so traumatizing to me.

55:34Yeah. But ask yourself, how is a six -year -old getting on a bus all

55:40by himself, traveling three or four miles, then getting out of the bus, going over

55:46to where the train station thing is, getting on a train, going over there?

55:51And, I mean, I certainly never let my six -year -olds do anything like that.

55:57I know. It is kind of crazy how kids were just able to just leave

56:02the house and do anything back then.

56:04I think about that. Well, I— I was a little kid.

56:06I used to just leave my house, seven years old, just leave the house, wander

56:10around. As long as you were home for dinner time.

56:12Yeah. It's kind of crazy.

56:14I mean, it's kind of amazing.

56:14We all lived, if you stop and think about it.

56:17But to have to take a bus and then a train and go to school

56:20when you're six years old, that's nuts.

56:23So I went to Catholic school, too, for first grade only.

56:28And that screwed me off a religion for a long time.

56:32Because I thought of God back when I was a little kid before I went

56:37to Catholic school as, you know, God is all knowing and God is love and

56:41God created the universe and God is looking out for you.

56:45He's just got some rules you have to follow.

56:46Made sense to me. And then when I went to Catholic school, there was a

56:49lady, and I don't remember anybody's name from back then, but I remember her, Sister

56:52Mary Josephine. She was so mean.

56:56She was just a mean lady.

56:59She did the whole thing, the whacking people with rulers, telling you you're going to

57:03have to stay overnight and you're going to have to sleep on a nail in

57:06the closet. Like, just evil.

57:08Like, wanted you to cry.

57:10And when I would cry, she'd call me a crybaby.

57:12And I remember thinking after that, like, I don't want to have nothing to do

57:15with religion ever again. Right when I left first grade.

57:19Yep. I hated it. And I was like, whatever God is, this is not God.

57:24Like, these people have nothing to do with God.

57:26There's no way this lady is the messenger of God.

57:28This lady's mean. That took a whole lifetime to figure out, to realize, well, this

57:36is just a man -made thing.

57:38You know, God's there. Right.

57:40And some man -made thing over here, you know, they became Mormons.

57:44And some man -made thing over there, they became Muslims.

57:48Right. You know, and it's just all man -made.

57:50It isn't actually God. Right.

57:53Right. And so you, and man is fallible, of course.

57:58Yeah. He's not infinite, and he's not infallible.

58:01And so all these things were, but that took a lifetime for me.

58:06I'm sure I was in my 40s still working on that, trying, that God's okay,

58:12John. You don't have to resist when somebody wants to make a prayer or something.

58:18You know, the first grade, et cetera.

58:26It's the mean nun. Yeah.

58:27Yeah. I have a similar perspective.

58:30I think all religious scriptures, they're trying to document a real thing, especially Christianity, which

58:41is the one I've paid the most attention to.

58:42I think they're trying to document a real thing.

58:46But the hand of man is clearly all over it.

58:49That's the problem. The problem with anything that's written down.

58:52And we know that just in like the religious canon, the books that were included

58:55in the Bible, human beings had a decision on what goes in and what doesn't

59:00go in. Good. You know, there was rabbis that kept the book of Enoch out

59:04of the Old Testament. There's a lot of this weird stuff to it that you

59:07go like, well, why do people have any say?

59:10Why does a human have any say in what the word of God is?

59:15That sounds crazy. And when you read the scriptures, you're like, somebody wrote that down

59:20and someone told that story for who knows how many years before it was ever

59:25written down. But I think the origins of it, there's truth to it.

59:29It's just, you have to get through all these many layers of confusion to try

59:35to decipher what God's original message was.

59:39And like, how was it received?

59:42Who got it? How did it even get relayed?

59:45Like, what was the original event that led to this oral tradition that led to

59:50it being written down? I'm smiling because this sounds exactly like a young musician has

59:59come to see this more learned person and tell him about his experience.

1:00:04And the more learned person turns into the manager or the record company and he

1:00:10says, I want to own this.

1:00:12And they take all that good intentions and faith and somebody ends up owning it.

1:00:21And you end up paying a tithe into a plate and they make a lot

1:00:27of money. In organized religion, especially when it gets to like these huge mega churches

1:00:32and preachers, like that's exactly what it is.

1:00:34It's someone taking advantage of this good thing and profiting off of it immensely.

1:00:40Yeah. But the thing, I think the point of like, if you live your life

1:00:44like God's real, it'll be a better life.

1:00:47I agree with that. But I think you also know, I think you can just...

1:00:51There's something there. It's sensible that you try to share, that you try not to

1:00:58be greedy. Yes. You know, I don't mean you have to be a fool.

1:01:01I just mean that you don't have to be overtly always taking way more than

1:01:06your share. Yeah. Just be kind.

1:01:09Be kind and be fair.

1:01:11How old were you when you first started playing music?

1:01:14You mean as an instrument?

1:01:17Messing around. Like, how did you get into it?

1:01:19Right. Well, I was actually, I was given a snare drum.

1:01:25I think I was about four years old.

1:01:28That was a really cheap paper one.

1:01:30Was your family musicians? Not really, but they were musical.

1:01:35Both of them, my mom and dad.

1:01:39One of my finest and favorite memories is there was, we lived in the Bay

1:01:47Area of the East Bay from San Francisco.

1:01:51And my parents would go up to this place in Northern California near Winters, California.

1:01:57That's up like toward Sacramento.

1:02:00And there was this creek, this body of water called the Puda Creek.

1:02:06Eventually, they dammed that up and made Lake Berryessa.

1:02:10But anyway, back then, it was just running water.

1:02:15And there was some people could camp there.

1:02:19There was at this. One place they took me reputedly was owned by a man

1:02:26named Cody, and he was a direct descendant of Buffalo Bill Cody.

1:02:32I actually met him one day when I was about four, and he was probably

1:02:36coming to collect the payment for the cabin and the space.

1:02:42Anyway, I remember looking at him and going, wow.

1:02:46So I was told that story, and he would have been about 75.

1:02:50He literally could have been a son of Buffalo Bill.

1:02:54He would have been born at that point.

1:02:56It was probably 1949, the story I'm relating, and he would have been born in

1:03:031875. I mean, it's mind -boggling to think that.

1:03:09But my favorite memory thing, other than the fact that that whole place inspired my

1:03:14song, Green River. All the little parts are in Green River.

1:03:19But one of the things, my parents had this old Ford, old green Ford, and

1:03:24they'd be driving along at night up there.

1:03:27I guess they were more happy or something there.

1:03:29And they, I remember sitting between them, you know, it was just a big couch,

1:03:35the front seat, and they were singing songs in the dark.

1:03:39And they were singing, like, By the Light of the Silvery Moon or Baby Face

1:03:45and harmonizing. One was taking the melody, and the other was harmonizing.

1:03:52The reason I know is because I'd sat there, and I'm probably three, four, five

1:03:57years old, right in there.

1:03:59I said, what are you guys doing?

1:04:01Because I knew the melody, but I hear two notes.

1:04:05What are you doing? And they explained they were harmonizing.

1:04:08And it was just the coolest thing, and it was so, such a happy time.

1:04:14I mean, I really, I felt, what's that, bonded to that, I guess?

1:04:19Like, I really like this, whatever it is.

1:04:22So that was the initial spark.

1:04:24Well, they began to notice that I was musical.

1:04:27So at some point, I know, again, at my fourth birthday, somebody gave me a,

1:04:32or I had a little toy harmonica.

1:04:35And my dad, you know, those little plastic kind of things.

1:04:38My dad picked it up, and he played O Susanna in the cowboy style.

1:04:44In other words, it was probably a C harmonica.

1:04:46He played in C, not like blues players do bending notes.

1:04:50He played that thing you see in the cowboy movies when they're sitting around the

1:04:54campfire. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, yeah, that

1:04:57sort of thing. I was just shocked.

1:04:59I'd never seen my dad do anything like that.

1:05:02Wow. And then on top of that, my mom could play piano, what we now

1:05:08call stride piano. She would hit the, boom, and then play a chord, like an

1:05:13octave of bass notes, and then a chord above it.

1:05:16Boom, da, boom, da. Keep that going as like the drummer in the thing.

1:05:20And then play melody and high notes up above.

1:05:24And it was, you know, she would, one of my favorite ones was Harvest Moon,

1:05:31Shine On, Harvest Moon, which is a great song.

1:05:35And it just was magical to me.

1:05:38So that kind of opened the door to let me know that, oh, why?

1:05:44We can do this in our own house.

1:05:48So the piano was around, and then we also, I don't know whose it was,

1:05:53but we had an old Stella acoustic guitar.

1:05:57Stella is a name going back into the 30s, 20s.

1:06:01And this thing was built like a tank.

1:06:06It was hard to play.

1:06:07The strings were like way high and all that.

1:06:09But eventually, Brother Bob told me at some point, yeah, we used to play baseball

1:06:16with that guitar. We'd hit the ball.

1:06:19That's how sturdy it was.

1:06:21But that was around so that I would every once in a while mess with

1:06:25it. But somewhere literally in the seventh grade is where I started to really try

1:06:36and learn a chord and that sort of thing.

1:06:38Is that when you thought, I'm going to be a musician?

1:06:46I think that moment was a little bit earlier.

1:06:49It was, again, up at this place, Winters.

1:06:54My dad had driven into the town from our little cabin, our little campsite.

1:07:00And I was with him, and he'd gone to this general store.

1:07:03And the general store had everything.

1:07:05It had food and stuff, but it also had fishing tackle and, you know, various

1:07:10weird things. So I'm standing there sort of near the counter, and my dad's doing

1:07:14some kind of business. I'm just looking.

1:07:17And suddenly, I hear music.

1:07:20And I'm, what the heck is that?

1:07:22Well, I didn't even know.

1:07:23They had a jukebox in this place, right?

1:07:26And somebody had started the jukebox.

1:07:28So it's playing music that I really like.

1:07:32It's rock and roll. And I'm, you know, I'm about 10 years old.

1:07:36Man, that's good. And I don't know who it is.

1:07:39It's just got a really bluesy sound, but it's fast.

1:07:44It's rock and roll. And I run over, and I finally determined, it's Elvis Presley.

1:07:49I never heard this. I knew of Elvis, of course, on TV.

1:07:53He had done Heartbreak Hotel.

1:07:55I had seen the Tommy Jimmy Dorsey show that he'd been on three times.

1:08:01He was on there, I think, five times.

1:08:04Anyway, and so, wow, Elvis did this?

1:08:07What is this? Well, it turned out it was the other side of his second

1:08:11big million seller, which was I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.

1:08:15And this was a song called My Baby Left Me.

1:08:18And this was basically classic Sun Records by, even though he was now on RCA.

1:08:26It was that thing they did on Sun Records, just that kind of country whale

1:08:33with guitar that was. More country than blues, and the guitar especially just...

1:08:38I said, what is that?

1:08:40I'm watching. And this Scotty Moore, who I didn't know his name at the time,

1:08:44but he's just playing this otherworldly stuff.

1:08:48And that was... I looked at that, and I mean, literally, my head made...

1:08:53I don't know... I said this to myself.

1:08:55I don't know what they're doing, but that's what I want to do.

1:09:00Wow. And I made up my mind right there in that three minutes of that

1:09:04song. That's amazing. Yeah. Wow.

1:09:07Well, it was transformative. It still is.

1:09:09It's just a pretty unique slice of American music.

1:09:14I don't think I'm aware of that song.

1:09:17I'm going to listen to it after the podcast.

1:09:19You probably know Elvis' song, That's All Right, Mama.

1:09:22Sure. Right. Well, this is in that vein.

1:09:25It's actually the same writer, Arthur Crudup.

1:09:31Interesting. Arthur, big boy, Crudup.

1:09:34So your family was musical, but you didn't know any musicians.

1:09:37So what did you think you were going to do?

1:09:38How did you think you were going to eventually become a musician?

1:09:41Did you have a plan?

1:09:46At some point, you know what?

1:09:52At some point, a little earlier than that, but right around that time, it was

1:09:58the era of doo -wop, right?

1:10:02This is the way, I mean, a kid can, you can just go anywhere in

1:10:06your mind, right? And I suppose the Corvette automobile, of course, had come out.

1:10:15So in a very young mind, but one of those cool, I guess we call

1:10:21them mash -ups, I was going to have a group, but it was all singing.

1:10:27I was going to have a group, and it was going to be called Johnny

1:10:31Corvette and the Corvettes. And there was four, I'm Johnny, and three other guys, and

1:10:43we're all in sparkle jackets, you know, the showbiz, right?

1:10:48And we're black, all of us.

1:10:53That was your idea? That's what I saw.

1:10:57I was referring to what I was seeing to be Johnny Corvette and the Corvettes.

1:11:04That was one of the ingredients.

1:11:06How were you going to be black?

1:11:07I don't know. I didn't have to worry about that.

1:11:12I mean, the funny thing is that's so similar here is, like, when I was

1:11:18little, I wanted to be a baseball player, right?

1:11:20But some kids dream of being in the NBA.

1:11:25But you've got to be 90, 11, 27.

1:11:28Right. You know? I mean, so how's that going to happen?

1:11:32I mean, you just said it in a really innocent way, but a kid just,

1:11:35I'll eat spinach or something, you know?

1:11:37You eat spinach and become black.

1:11:39And tall. And tall. You know, I don't know, but it worked for me.

1:11:44I mean, literally, when I, you know, one of my dreams as a kid really

1:11:48was, I wanted, I love baseball, still do.

1:11:51I wanted to, you know, okay, what do I got to do?

1:11:54And I'd start throwing, I was throwing a ball against the side of the house.

1:11:58I'd made a big, like a target, you know, bullseye.

1:12:02And I don't know why I did it that way.

1:12:04And my mom caught me.

1:12:06I was throwing an actual hard ball.

1:12:08And it was denting the clapboard, you know, the wood.

1:12:12It was, I was tearing the house down.

1:12:14So she got me a tennis ball and that was okay.

1:12:18I was no good. You know, I wasn't, I was, that dream was never going

1:12:23to happen. Is that what inspired Put Me In, Coach?

1:12:25Of course. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

1:12:28What a great anthem. Thank you.

1:12:30It's amazing. Thank you. Yeah, well.

1:12:32I mean, how many baseball games have played that song?

1:12:35My God. I mean, at least, you know, I mean, there's a lot of us

1:12:40semi -nerds, I guess, you know, wanted to play ball, wanted to be a jock

1:12:44and just really, at some point, you know, the ones that really have it pass

1:12:49you by. Right. Of course.

1:12:51And you just kind of, but in your mind, everybody got their scorecard and, you

1:12:56know, and they're following the game and all that, and that vicarious joy of watching

1:13:02Otani or Aaron Judge or whoever it is you love, you get to have that

1:13:10in your heart anyway. But, I mean, I'm the luckiest guy in the universe.

1:13:15Okay, I didn't get to play, but I wrote a song and my song's there

1:13:21all the time. And it's just the coolest feeling.

1:13:26That song's in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1:13:29That's amazing. It is amazing.

1:13:31It's ridiculous. That's so cool.

1:13:33But it's just like, that happened to me, you know?

1:13:36It's like, God, I could cry over that.

1:13:38When they had sent a letter to me and they were going to, you know,

1:13:41and put the music in the hall, I just was, God, who do I tell?

1:13:46Jeez. Yeah, it was so good.

1:13:49That's amazing. That's amazing. So when did you start writing your own songs?

1:13:54I was eight years old.

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1:14:23Do you remember your first song?

1:14:28Yes. Or at least the one I remember is, I call it the best, the

1:14:33one I can remember. It was morning.

1:14:38I was getting ready to go to school.

1:14:40I could walk to school was like two and a half blocks from my house,

1:14:46something like that. I lived on Ramona.

1:14:49We'll pass Pomona, and then the next street was Ashbury, and the school was on

1:14:57Ashbury up about two blocks, Harding School.

1:15:02It was a grammar school.

1:15:04Anyway, I'm getting ready to go to school, got my lunch.

1:15:07I'm about to turn off the radio, and this commercial comes on.

1:15:11I was listening to R &B, the Rhythm and Blues channel from Oakland, and the

1:15:17DJ suddenly says, do you have the wash day blues?

1:15:22Is this day going to be drudgery?

1:15:24Well, maybe you're using the wrong—and they went off talking about laundry soap, right?

1:15:31I don't know if there was a song involved in the commercial.

1:15:34I think it was just a red—because it was probably live, you know, right there

1:15:37on old -time radio. So I went out the door, you know, carrying my little

1:15:43sack with the lunch in it.

1:15:45I said, wash day blues, wow.

1:15:47I get kind of to the end of the street.

1:15:49I think that's Lynn. I've got to go down, you know, three streets.

1:15:53I'm walking along. I said, wow, what is— I got the wash day blues.

1:16:00I'm making that noise. It's Muddy Waters.

1:16:03It's the riff from probably Hoochie Coochie Man, you know.

1:16:07Right. And it all comes together.

1:16:11I'm just walking down the street singing about all the stuff that—because it's blues.

1:16:16Right. And I'm hearing all these guys on this, you know, channel I listen to

1:16:19singing the blues and about blues.

1:16:22So I got wash day blues.

1:16:24That's my song. You know, for years and years, I thought—I was embarrassed about that

1:16:31story. I said, God, John, why couldn't you have a great story about the sinking

1:16:36of the Titanic or something?

1:16:38Wash day blues. Because it just seemed so mundane.

1:16:43But now I kind of recognize because of the two elements I had put together,

1:16:48it's just kind of natural.

1:16:52It's really the process of writing songs.

1:16:55That's amazing. And so when you wrote songs—like, I saw this video clip where you're

1:17:02talking about—I think it was Old Man Down the Road.

1:17:05Is that the beginning riff?

1:17:08He had it. Yeah, and you were talking about how that riff just hit you.

1:17:13Yep. Is that— Well, yeah.

1:17:18I had this place. It was my studio.

1:17:21It was basically the garage of a house that I had bought to be my

1:17:28office and my place. So it was the size of a garage.

1:17:32I would go there every day.

1:17:34So in the morning I'd get in, I'd turn on my tape recorder and, you

1:17:39know, various pieces of equipment and stuff.

1:17:42That was my process, certainly every weekday morning, sometimes on Saturday, Sunday, whatever, but certainly

1:17:50the five days a week.

1:17:53And I'd walk in there and work on music.

1:17:56I did this every day for, I mean, years and years from 74 until Centerfield

1:18:03came out, basically, which was 11 years later.

1:18:08And so one morning I walk in and I haven't even turned on the stuff

1:18:13yet. I just, for some reason, I went right to the guitar and I turned

1:18:20on the amp and picked up the guitar and I'm just kind of noodling because

1:18:24I like to do that.

1:18:25A lot of my songs have started this way, but suddenly just played, and it

1:18:31really had that sound to it.

1:18:33And I got my attention because I knew that it wasn't anything else.

1:18:39And I also, I mean, this is like in a, this is how quick our

1:18:42brains can work. You know, it's taken me way longer to tell it than the

1:18:47actual thing. But, so I played the dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan,

1:18:52dan, and I realized it's not complete.

1:18:55It needs an answer. And I'm also aware that it's like being on a tightrope

1:19:01or something over Niagara Falls.

1:19:04You know, you got to have the right answer.

1:19:07And there's probably only one because all the other ones are going to kill it.

1:19:12And you'll never remember this again because that happens all the time.

1:19:15Right. You know, it'd be lame.

1:19:18There, it's precarious. It's hanging in the air.

1:19:21Dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan.

1:19:23And you got to come back with the thing to make it complete.

1:19:27And it has to be the right thing.

1:19:30Uh, uh, uh, uh, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan.

1:19:36Yeah! Yes! And so I, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan,

1:19:43dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan.

1:19:43Oh, my God, yeah. And, you know, I play it over and over probably for

1:19:47five minutes. I just tend to do that.

1:19:50That's the joy of music.

1:19:53That's the joy right there.

1:19:55Because I knew it wasn't anything else.

1:19:57There was no question in my mind that, well, is this coming from, you know,

1:20:01the Beatles or Howlin' Wolf or something, right?

1:20:06So immediately I had kept this little song book that's only about that big with

1:20:12titles in it. And I go flipping through the book, and I think I see

1:20:20something that's somewhere down the road.

1:20:24Okay. That for some reason appealed to me, and I stuck with it.

1:20:27Okay. That's what it's called.

1:20:28This song is going to be somewhere down the road.

1:20:32And that day I started.

1:20:34So now I turn on my tape recorder and all that.

1:20:36I play some, because I had to play real drums then.

1:20:40That's what took me so long, folks.

1:20:44Anyway, so I make a little thing that's just the riff and then make a

1:20:50space of just the drums playing and nothing else so I can kind of listen

1:20:55to it and improvise what's going on after this riff.

1:21:00What's somewhere down the road?

1:21:01And of course, I start talking about.

1:21:06He'd get the thunder from the mountain, he'd bring the lightning from the sky, you

1:21:11know, and all that. And these things are going on, and you've got to shoot

1:21:16forward probably a few weeks.

1:21:18I realize I'm starting to write a song, but the title somewhere down the road

1:21:24to me just seems lame.

1:21:25It seems undefined, not cool enough, not focused, and probably not going to remember it

1:21:34because it sounds like just what it is.

1:21:37You won't remember that, right?

1:21:40You know, if you say, I've got a polka dot Chevy sitting on top of

1:21:46a bull moose or whatever, and that's your title, you'd probably get a picture in

1:21:52your head. It's going to stick.

1:21:54So I'm hunting around, and I go, well, what are you doing here?

1:21:57What are you talking about in this song?

1:21:59We're talking about this guy.

1:22:01He's evil. He's the old man.

1:22:04He's the old man down the road.

1:22:07Oh, that's way better. So the song became that.

1:22:12The deal is, with my little songbook, probably two years later after that album had

1:22:20come out, I said, you know what?

1:22:22I want to check on where somewhere down the road came.

1:22:25And I went cover to cover, and it's not in there.

1:22:31There is no place where I've written somewhere down the road.

1:22:36I just thought I saw it.

1:22:39And that led me to a really cool song.

1:22:43Wow. The reason I'm telling you this is there was a time I had an

1:22:48office in Warner Brothers when I was staying down in L .A.

1:22:54And I would go in there all the time and write, had some keyboards and

1:23:00stuff. And one day I thought I needed a break.

1:23:04I took my book, and I went out and sat.

1:23:06It was Warner Brothers parking lot.

1:23:08I went out to my car and sat down because I was trying to give

1:23:13myself some, you know, get going, do something.

1:23:18And I thumbed through the book, and I saw Change in the Weather.

1:23:23And I said, man, I like that.

1:23:26And I look up, and it's kind of a cloudy, gloomy sky, you know.

1:23:32Yeah. Change in the—yeah. So I ran back in my room, and I started—I went

1:23:37off. I was inspired, and I wrote a song called Change in the Weather.

1:23:42Well, same deal. After that album came out, I decided to check my—it ain't in

1:23:49there. It's nowhere in my book where it says Change in the Weather.

1:23:54So I nowadays tell people, you know, maybe it's a shapeshifter.

1:24:00And there's stuff in there that can just kind of go— John, listen to this.

1:24:05I got an idea for you.

1:24:07Right. Well, the creative process is so mysterious.

1:24:10Yes. Because everybody that I talk to, whether it's comedians or authors or musicians, they

1:24:16say the ideas almost don't feel like they're theirs, like they're receiving them from somewhere.

1:24:20For certain. That's how you feel?

1:24:22Yep. To me, it's like tuning in a radio.

1:24:26Yeah. Right? And a lot of it, there's—I guess it's the way I was raised.

1:24:33You kind of have to be worthy.

1:24:35Right. And, you know, I mean, there's a big dose of—if you're all angry and

1:24:42treating people mean and doing all that, I'm closing the book.

1:24:47Yeah. I'm not sending you nothing.

1:24:49I think that, too. Yeah.

1:24:50I think that, too. You know, you've got to be receptive and honor this process

1:24:55that we're going through here.

1:24:56And if you are in that frame of mind and some humility about this whole

1:25:02thing, maybe I'll send you something.

1:25:05The muse. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever heard of Steven Pressfield?

1:25:09Huh? Steven Pressfield. He's an author.

1:25:11He wrote a great book called The War of Art.

1:25:15Yeah. And I give this—I have boxes of this book out front, and I give

1:25:19it to comedians and artists all the time.

1:25:21Because it's just a book about the creative process, about writing.

1:25:25Yeah. And one of the things that he talks about is the muse, about giving

1:25:28honor to the muse and sitting there and calling upon the muse for these ideas.

1:25:34That if you treat it like it's a real thing, it will provide you.

1:25:37If you show up every day and you put in the work, the muse will

1:25:40give you these ideas. Yep.

1:25:42But they do feel—like to everybody that I talk to that's really creative, they feel

1:25:46like they're coming from somewhere.

1:25:48Yeah. And it feels like it's always been there.

1:25:53Right. And it's just up to you to be able to actually be able to

1:25:57see it or hear it.

1:25:58Yeah. Right? Yeah. So I do a lot of—I get ideas in my head.

1:26:02I'm just walking around, and it'll play, to me, the same as if you're listening

1:26:07to the radio. It just gets in the head.

1:26:09Right. And you start feeling it.

1:26:11But I do believe you have to—you have to be doing it all the time.

1:26:20Like, for me, it was a process to actually sit down, be ready.

1:26:24And a lot of times, nothing happens.

1:26:26You know, you've got a blank sheet of paper, and it stays blank.

1:26:30Right, right. But if you do that enough times, at certain times, you'll get a

1:26:39really good inspiration. Yeah. You'll be—that's the way I—you'll be allowed to receive it.

1:26:44Yeah. Yeah. Right? But it really isn't you.

1:26:48Right. That's the way I think of it.

1:26:50What it is is you have talent.

1:26:52You're supposed to honor your talent.

1:26:55And so I'm going to give you something if you're worthy, and now it's up

1:27:00to you to honor, you know, use yourself.

1:27:02Don't just go, I got it.

1:27:03We're done. No. You've got to work it now.

1:27:07Right. Polish it. You know, make it.

1:27:10Yeah. Yeah. I feel the exact same way.

1:27:13I think there's truth to what you're saying.

1:27:16I want to ask you about— Fortunate Son.

1:27:19How did you write that?

1:27:21Like, how did that come about?

1:27:23That is, like, one of the greatest rebellion songs of all time.

1:27:27I appreciate that. It's an amazing song.

1:27:29I love it. It's also a fantastic workout song, by the way.

1:27:33That song gets you jazzed up.

1:27:35If you're doing, like, a treadmill or something like that, you're starting to get tired,

1:27:38crank that sucker up. Well, first of all, I think the first thing I got

1:27:45to say about it is I was drafted, so I was in the military, and

1:27:50I got in the Army Reserves, but was well and was on active duty and

1:27:57all the rest. So I well understood the position of, you might say, the military

1:28:08mindset, right? Even though I was a young person, and this is right during the

1:28:13Vietnam era, and I think I really need to say that almost no one my

1:28:19age wanted to be in the Army and go to Vietnam.

1:28:23I just, that was something, no, I don't want to do that.

1:28:28Right. So I got my draft notice, got into the Army Reserves, so I understood

1:28:37that side of the coin and that side of fate, you might say.

1:28:45The deal, I think the deal being, okay, I'm in the military, so now I

1:28:50got to play by the rules.

1:28:52I got to do everything that's, this is what I am, right?

1:28:56Yeah. So there's a little, there's a little bit of the whole idea of being

1:29:02American and serving your country.

1:29:05I'm trying not to say, oh yeah, now I'm gung -ho, and I'm John Wayne,

1:29:10and I'm going to take on Iwo Jima or something.

1:29:13You know, it was more like, yeah, but you got to do this right.

1:29:17You know, you can't just be some guy that's on AWOL all the time and

1:29:23being a mess. You know, I wanted to do it right.

1:29:25So I went through all of that, and it's another story, but eventually got my

1:29:35honorable discharge, which led to another song, but it's a different song.

1:29:41And that was just before, just as the Creedence career was getting started.

1:29:47But anyhow, during the Vietnam time, you began to, you know, there were, there was

1:29:58a lot of unrest, civil unrest in America and around the world.

1:30:02Those times were very volatile, but especially in America, there was a lot of protests

1:30:09and discussion about the war itself.

1:30:12Remember, there was a draft, so young people kind of by nature were against the

1:30:18war and against the draft because it seemed to be sort of not logical as

1:30:24that. But, and in some instances, you would see on the news, you know, some

1:30:31senator who had the political clout that he could keep his teenage son from being

1:30:38drafted or get his teenage son into some cushy job.

1:30:44And you kind of saw it a few times.

1:30:46These guys were, the fix was in, you know.

1:30:50Right. And that just, it really didn't seem fair, not just in my own case,

1:30:56but I'm more identified with the people that were protesting the war.

1:31:02No one had ever really explained why we were having that war.

1:31:07To my mind, we still don't know.

1:31:10Right. You know, it just, somebody's ego decided they wanted to have a war and

1:31:14they had a war. So, most of these things that have cropped up ever since

1:31:20have always ended kind of miserably.

1:31:24And we never, they never were won.

1:31:27They just sort of dissolved.

1:31:29Right. So, there was no marching band and all that stuff to get to, you

1:31:35know, like World War II ended with a decisive victory.

1:31:38Anyhow, that angst and anger within me about that situation was fueling my thoughts about

1:31:51the current times. This was 1969.

1:31:56So, I started showing the band, all the songs that the band learned and played

1:32:03throughout the Creedence career. They literally learned them as instrumentals.

1:32:09They didn't hear the song.

1:32:11I didn't show them the song.

1:32:14So, they, in other words, the bass player, I would show the bass player his

1:32:18part. Here's how your part goes.

1:32:20Here's how the drums will be.

1:32:22Here's the rhythm guitar part.

1:32:24And the band wouldn't actually hear the whole song until I had gone into the

1:32:29studio after that recording process and added my vocal, sang the background vocal parts.

1:32:37Oh, wow. Played the conga drum or the shakers or tambourine or piano, you know,

1:32:43all the other stuff. Then they heard how the song went.

1:32:47So, they learned their parts as instrumentals.

1:32:52And this was exactly that way.

1:32:55I showed them how to play what was the form of the song.

1:33:01And I didn't even, I don't think I had told them the name of the

1:33:04song yet. I thought I was writing a song called Favorite Son because starting in

1:33:111952 when they sent my second grade class, I think, home to watch the inauguration,

1:33:21I believe, of Eisenhower. I think that's what it was.

1:33:25And all, you know, we had a tiny little TV.

1:33:28All I saw was big black limousines.

1:33:31It's, it was. My entire impression of the presidential thing and politics.

1:33:38So after that, I kind of would watch parts of the conventions in the summer.

1:33:44You know, there'd be these gigantic, you know, I didn't know what they were then,

1:33:49but these big rooms full of smoke.

1:33:53And every once in a while, somebody, your honor, the great state of Texas would

1:34:01like to nominate her favorite son, Billy Saul Estes, or whatever, right?

1:34:08And they all said that, you know, the state of Vermont would like to nominate

1:34:13her favorite son. And so I had written that one down in my book, and

1:34:18I thought I was going to write a kind of a political song.

1:34:22So the band was getting pretty solid in the backing track.

1:34:28And that told me, you know, I was driving a career.

1:34:32I mean, there wasn't someone else telling me.

1:34:36I was the one deciding and pushing, and I think pushing pretty hard.

1:34:41I just, I wanted a new single to be ready, and this seemed like it

1:34:45might be it. So I, at one point after the band had been rehearsing the

1:34:51music for that song, Fortunate Son, for a few weeks, it was getting pretty good.

1:34:56I said, all right, I got to write the words.

1:34:58I got to get the whole song together.

1:35:01I took a little yellow tablet like that, went in my bedroom, sat on the

1:35:06bed, and instead of what I thought it was going to be, the first thing

1:35:12I said, some, you know, this idea of the red, white, and blue, and they're

1:35:17always super patriots, you know, all this stuff, and bluster and all that, right?

1:35:24And I said, how do I get that?

1:35:26How do I get that?

1:35:27Well, they're waving the flag.

1:35:29Yeah, but what's going on now?

1:35:31They're pointing the cannon at you, right?

1:35:35Yeah, but it ain't me.

1:35:37And I realized, oh, wow, that's something I can repeat.

1:35:40It ain't me. I ain't no, you know.

1:35:44And literally, I mean, I just sort of did it in front of you, almost

1:35:49the way it played out of me sitting on that bed.

1:35:53Literally walked in and 20 minutes later walked out with the whole song.

1:35:58Wow. Coming from, I didn't have anything other than Favourite Son.

1:36:03The rest was just the stuff that was boiling in my head at the time,

1:36:08of course. And basically because of well -heeled people getting out of the draft, which

1:36:17kind of pissed me off.

1:36:19Yeah. You know, I just, you know, there were a lot of guys, now that

1:36:21I was in them or had been in the military, and I knew there were

1:36:25a lot of other guys felt just like me.

1:36:27It wasn't like they, I didn't grow up that I wanted to be a soldier

1:36:31and go do that. It was just fate that made that happen.

1:36:34So the unfairness of the situation made me want to talk about that.

1:36:41Well, you nailed it. It's such a great song.

1:36:45So did you have the music all settled out when you went to the musicians

1:36:50and explained to them how the song was going to play out?

1:36:52Yeah. Did you have that before the lyrics?

1:36:54Yes. Almost always. So what did you think the song was going to be about

1:36:59when you just brought them to music?

1:37:02Well, as I said, I thought it was going to be Favourite Son.

1:37:05So you kind of still had the theme in your head of how it was

1:37:09about people in the room.

1:37:09It was something around that stuff.

1:37:11Right. I just didn't know what it would, and I also, you know, there's a

1:37:17T -shirt, the older I get, the better I was, you know, I was pretty

1:37:22good then. You know, I guess what I'm trying to say is I didn't know

1:37:26what the song was going to be.

1:37:29But, I mean, now I would certainly have a little trepidation.

1:37:32I'd go in a room with a blank.

1:37:34I'm probably going to come out of there with a, some, you know, a smiley

1:37:38face that I doodled or something that, no words, meaning somehow I was counting on

1:37:44myself to do it. But that's pretty precocious.

1:37:51Yeah, but that's also that divine intervention of the muse.

1:37:55Like you put in the work and you called.

1:37:59You called upon it for inspiration and your mind started lighting up.

1:38:03And then you started putting the pieces together.

1:38:06Yeah. Oh, that's a wonderful, Joe, that's an amazing process when, because that's what I

1:38:13do. I'm not a prize fighter, you know.

1:38:16I'm not a baseball pitcher, let's say, because there would be an evolution in his

1:38:21work. Right. You know, or something that you can, I'm not those things, but I

1:38:25am a songwriter. And that it plays out over some, it isn't just once, you

1:38:33know, it plays out over some time.

1:38:35And that incidence where you suddenly get a hook into an idea and then the

1:38:45gods, the muse, they let you continue forward with something that is way better than

1:38:53you ever dreamed was going to be it.

1:38:56And suddenly it, wow, this is really cool.

1:38:59And you're excited and you're happy and, and it's coming to be.

1:39:04And you realize, as I said, that was, by the way, by far the quickest

1:39:09I ever wrote a song.

1:39:10And that's so quick, so fast that, I mean, it's almost like instant replay.

1:39:18It was so fast that you, or at least I did, I thought, man, this

1:39:23is really good. I mean, and you just, like a minute ago, I was taking

1:39:28a breath hoping that something would happen.

1:39:31Yeah. Well, that's what's amazing about great songs sometimes.

1:39:35Like John Mellencamp was telling me a story about, I need a lover that won't

1:39:39drive me crazy. Like that song he wrote in the shower.

1:39:43Oh. Like all together. You mean in one shower?

1:39:46In one shower. He was just taking a shower and all of a sudden, I

1:39:49need a lover that won't drive me crazy.

1:39:53Right. And then, next thing you know, he's got it.

1:39:56Yep. And it's an all -time classic.

1:39:58Yep. It's amazing. Well, the songwriter, and especially when he's on his game, he knows,

1:40:10and it relates to your own personality, whatever it is you like, the stuff you

1:40:16have gravitated towards. And so, when one of those comes along, it really makes you

1:40:23smile because you're going, yeah, this sounds like me.

1:40:26This is the stuff I like.

1:40:28Right. And you go with it because, I mean, you know, I am, I would

1:40:34say, notoriously corny. You know, at least I think I am.

1:40:39You know, it's like they make all these jokes nowadays about dad bod and all

1:40:44those kind of things. Yeah.

1:40:45I mean, I literally think that's me.

1:40:48Right. And some of this, I mean, Cinefield is the corniest thing that was ever

1:40:54invented. I mean, I love it.

1:40:57I unashamedly want to be corny.

1:41:00That's who I am. I'm corny.

1:41:02Right. But it, I mean, in that song, it just, that resonates with, I'm, I'm,

1:41:08I'm glad I'm happy. I'm happy to be happy.

1:41:13I want to be happy.

1:41:15Right. In other words, I don't have to feel, because rock and roll is all

1:41:18about dark colors and leather jackets and piercing and, you know, tats and everything.

1:41:23And that scowl, you know, Elvis would, all that stuff.

1:41:28That's good. I mean, you know, but I like, you know, well, it seems to

1:41:34be me. I can just be unashamedly happy.

1:41:39And I'm glad I'm, you know, like, Cinefield is so optimistic and just great.

1:41:43It's an awesome song. Yeah.

1:41:44I don't think rock and roll is all dark.

1:41:46I think there's aspects of rock and roll that people like that are dark because

1:41:50it's mysterious. These guys are rock stars.

1:41:53But, you know, rock's everything.

1:41:55It's like, there's so many layers to it.

1:41:57There's so many different types of personality.

1:41:59And you happy to be happy is also an awesome part of rock.

1:42:03Yeah. Clearly. Yeah. Well, because actually real people, all these humans sort of have all

1:42:10those different parts, right? Yeah.

1:42:12That's why we identify with it.

1:42:14Yeah. And I think the brooding dark rock star is like, it's a fantasy idea

1:42:20that people want to, they want to believe that there's that part of them.

1:42:24You know, there's this just, you know what I mean?

1:42:26I mean, I'm going to say, it's absolutely, and, you know, Marlon Brando on the

1:42:35motorcycle in the, is it the Wild Ones, I guess?

1:42:38Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

1:42:40You know, that he's just so bad.

1:42:45Yeah. And so rock stars, well, other, I guess, but rock stars, because it was

1:42:53right in that era, they invented or gravitated to, in other words, one picture defines

1:42:58me. Yeah. This is my uniform.

1:43:01Or, you know, I sleep in this.

1:43:03Yeah. You know? I mean, and so, you know, I've got a big chain.

1:43:08Yeah. And a leather jacket.

1:43:09You know, now, I mean, it got more and more violent or dark.

1:43:13Right. You know, hoodoo, voodoo, you know, and all that.

1:43:16But, but, and it's, it's funny because it's basically, I'm all this all the time.

1:43:23Yeah. This, this one picture does it.

1:43:25And I, I kind of, my wife and I joke about it because she'll kind

1:43:29of say something like, well, you don't dress like a rock star.

1:43:34And then, of course, I'll say, cause I'm not.

1:43:36Right. I, I, I always sort of, I mean, I have a leather jacket somewhere,

1:43:43right? Or two even. And it, it, how can I say it?

1:43:51To me, it was, it was a uniform.

1:43:53To me, it was a pose.

1:43:55And so, you know, I tend to actually just put on clothes you can buy

1:43:59in the store. When I get up in the morning, I take my kids to

1:44:03school. You know, I didn't put on the whole, like, dude just got off the

1:44:08stage at, I don't know, name some place at the whiskey, you know, and now

1:44:13I'm bringing my kids to school.

1:44:15Hey, Mrs. What, how you doing?

1:44:18Flip my cigarette over into the, I guess I could be a sitcom or something.

1:44:24But that wasn't me. I just, I kind of was normal dad to my, and

1:44:29I'm glad they saw me that way.

1:44:31Tell you the truth. Yeah, absolutely.

1:44:33Look, the idea is silly, that everybody has to be one way.

1:44:37It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Yep.

1:44:39But clearly, when you look at what you produced, like, you clearly are a rock

1:44:43star, and you did it by being yourself.

1:44:47Actually, I think you nailed it there.

1:44:51Here's a real truism. When you're making something, and we talked about this, and it's

1:44:57resonating with you, it just seems like in your wheelhouse.

1:45:00It's you. That's probably going to be really good.

1:45:04Yeah. It's comfortable. Sounds like you.

1:45:07You relate. You relate. It's great.

1:45:09If you ever get yourself as a songwriter, singer, whatever, well, so -and -so is

1:45:15going to really like that I did this, and you're off on some weird thing

1:45:20trying to, you know, be a change or different or something, that's not going to

1:45:25work, absolutely not going to work, because you think somebody else sees it a certain

1:45:32way, and you're doing it for them, and God knows whatever that is, but it

1:45:38isn't you at all, you probably are just out of your element, off the rails,

1:45:44you might say. And guys do get off the rails.

1:45:47Oh, I've done it myself.

1:45:49Yeah? Oh, yeah, especially being preachy and that kind of thing.

1:45:53You know, there's some songs that, oh, God, John, shut up, John.

1:45:57Where does that come from?

1:45:59Does that come from just you have a big audience?

1:46:01and all these people look up to you and you just start feeling you're important?

1:46:08I think some of it, I don't know all the answers, who does?

1:46:13But you're in a mood or a mode, you want to get some material together,

1:46:22you want to make a record, you want to have some stuff finished, and maybe

1:46:28you're not so inspired, right?

1:46:30Okay, well, I'm going to, how about if I talk about whatever and you start

1:46:35trying, it's almost like a square peg in a round hole.

1:46:39Yeah, I've got to do something because there is some credence to that.

1:46:48Just start working, just start moving.

1:46:51Don't just sit there, do something, sorry, and keep grinding and maybe eventually it will

1:46:57get to where it's natural, the good part.

1:46:59Yeah. Because just sitting and doing nothing, which I've certainly been accused of, is, that's

1:47:05nothing for no one, right?

1:47:08So you start moving your feet and trying to get the juices to flow and

1:47:12all that. But like I said, yeah, I wrote some songs, a whole album really,

1:47:17called Eye of the Zombie.

1:47:19It was the follow -up to Centerfield.

1:47:25And I think, well, I had some other, some ulterior, not that I did it

1:47:33on purpose, but some other ingredients came into my mix.

1:47:37I'll get there in a minute.

1:47:39But anyway, the album as a whole is pretty dark and pretty, and not, doesn't

1:47:46ring true to me, I think.

1:47:49It's kind of misses the mark.

1:47:52It's off. That's a, that album and that period of my life is a really

1:47:58interesting, really interesting phenomenon. I think that I'm not the only one.

1:48:08It's just that I consider myself lucky.

1:48:11So I worked for, you know, I had this enormous band, number one in the

1:48:16world. Get screwed by the record company.

1:48:20Lose my life savings. Band breaks up.

1:48:24Bands in the, in the newspaper saying nasty things about me, et cetera.

1:48:31I'm held kind of in a dungeon by the record company, and I got to

1:48:35either give them my music or no one else, you know.

1:48:40And I somehow managed to get through all that, and it's 15 years after Credence

1:48:49breaking up, basically. Finally come out with an album called Centerfield.

1:48:54There's happy, joyful music on it.

1:48:56It goes to number one.

1:48:58It's acclaimed, which is a wonderful thing.

1:49:02And it's a hit. I think what happened, this is the story I tell about

1:49:08it. It's as if you'd been unjustly in prison, you know, convicted of a crime,

1:49:15put in the penitentiary for a long time.

1:49:18And one day they decide, oops, you're right.

1:49:22We made a mistake. You're free because you didn't commit any crimes.

1:49:28We're going to let you free.

1:49:29And you're so happy, you walk out the door.

1:49:32That's Centerfield coming out. And you come out into this big meadow where, you know,

1:49:38green grass and bluebirds, you know, it's a Disney cartoon, right?

1:49:42Right. And then you turn around and you see frickin' San Quentin, the prison that

1:49:48you were in, and now you're angry.

1:49:50You look at that and you're just, well, what the?

1:49:55That's what happened. You know, when Centerfield came out, I should have, and was a

1:50:03success. In other words, I was exonerated or vindicated.

1:50:07I should have immediately gone to therapy, right, seen a shrink.

1:50:12But that's kind of not my, I wasn't raised anywhere near any of that kind

1:50:17of stuff. So I didn't know to do that.

1:50:20Instead, all that stuff that I was repressing so that I could do Centerfield, it

1:50:27just came out like, and I was, instead of being overjoyed, I was miserable, bitter,

1:50:34and it happened all at once.

1:50:36It didn't, like, develop. It was, bam!

1:50:39And for, like, two years, it was like, you could say Saul's name, and I

1:50:46would implode like the werewolf in Werewolves of London or something.

1:50:53You know, just, or the, what's that guy?

1:50:55The Hulk. Yeah. And so I made that album, and that's all that stuff.

1:51:03I mean, I just didn't have the sense to see that it was, it was

1:51:06nothing like Centerfield. Right. Not a good, this guy's not happy.

1:51:11It was not a good follow -up.

1:51:14How did you bounce back?

1:51:16I met Julie. Oh. You know, right in the middle of that tour in 86

1:51:25for Eye of the Zombie, or I am a zombie, you know.

1:51:33I met Julie. And even though I didn't know, I thought I was in perpetual

1:51:44binge mode. And basically, okay, I'm going to go out and tour now.

1:51:49I'm just going to be a rock star on the road and be everything I

1:51:54never got to do for 20 years.

1:51:56Right. Now I'm like, I'm a little kid musician again.

1:52:01That's what I thought I was doing.

1:52:03Obviously, that comes from some anger to talk like that.

1:52:07Yeah. And so I just thought I was going to make my way through the

1:52:12Hollywood hills, you might say.

1:52:14I think I actually said that in those days.

1:52:18And one day, just suddenly met Julie, not expecting to meet the love of my

1:52:25life as the person I feel that I was destined to meet and the person

1:52:32that would, through her good graces, help me find myself and help me enjoy and

1:52:41find the joy of life again.

1:52:45And it all changed. That's awesome.

1:52:50That's awesome. It's great that you bounced out of that because a lot of people

1:52:54don't. You know, when something bad happens to them, they just go into a spiral.

1:52:58Yep. It's kind of amazing that you were joyful at first, but then you started

1:53:03getting resentful and thinking about it, which is totally understandable.

1:53:07Well, you said a spiral, and that's just what it felt like.

1:53:10You're just kind of getting—it's getting worse and worse, not better.

1:53:13Alcohol as well, right? Yep.

1:53:16Yeah. And boy, you know, they call it—it takes you a long time to figure

1:53:20out. It's a depressant. Yeah.

1:53:22You are—you're drinking. You think you're drinking to forget stuff, but you're getting more and

1:53:28more depressed. Right. Yeah. And it's weakening your resolve, your body.

1:53:34It's weakening your vitality. So you're tired and you're angry.

1:53:38That, too. Yeah. And your mindset.

1:53:40Yeah. You're just in a miserable mood.

1:53:44And it's also—that's also in the rock and roll stereotype, you know?

1:53:49The drinking, hard partying. Like, one of my favorite songs when I was a kid

1:53:54was Bad Company's Shooting Star.

1:53:57And every kid that used to listen to that thought they were Johnny.

1:54:01Like, Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song.

1:54:05It's a sad song. The guy dies young, becomes a rock star, and winds up

1:54:08dead. And everybody, like, was romanticizing this song of this terrible lifestyle that this guy

1:54:15lived. This guy was super talented and had the gift.

1:54:19Well, it's based on, you know, some reality there, of course.

1:54:22Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, yeah, we really romanticized the idea of dying young.

1:54:31Burn bright, die young. And it's all cool until they're pointing at you, and you're

1:54:39the one that's going to die.

1:54:41Yeah. I mean, at that moment in life, most people, no, I don't want to

1:54:44die. I know. Up until then, it's just sort of a vague idea out there

1:54:50somewhere. Right, right, right. But weird that it's a romantic vague idea.

1:54:55You know? Johnny died one night, died in his bed.

1:54:58Bottle of whiskey, sleeping tablets by his head.

1:55:00But, like, we just, just, like, assumed, like, this is how it goes.

1:55:05You know? Like, this is the rock and roll romantic story.

1:55:08Well, you hear those words when you're young, of course.

1:55:11Right. That actually sounds kind of positive, you know, because, rock and roll, man.

1:55:17Yeah. When you're older, you can hear the same words, and you say, yes, that's

1:55:24real. But it's not a positive thing anymore.

1:55:28No. It's just sort of a statement of fact, right?

1:55:31Yeah. I mean, there's, I'm sitting here now, you know, talking about some parts of

1:55:37me that are, I'm certainly embarrassed about and probably ashamed of.

1:55:44I've let the shame part go.

1:55:45It just happened. Right? I mean, I don't encourage anyone, and I try to tell

1:55:50them, no, stay away from, don't do what I did.

1:55:55And, but I used to beat myself up a lot with the shame part, and

1:55:58I think that might be part of the healing, part of the getting out the

1:56:03other end. Because the more and more solid you get in the resolve of the

1:56:11way you're going to really live your life, and not that, the kind of more

1:56:16the shame dissipates. Right. You're not so, it's not tenuous anymore, like, oh, I might

1:56:22fall back. You know, you're not so scared that that could happen anymore.

1:56:26I think the shame is an important element.

1:56:28Yeah. I think the shame of your past and the mistakes that you've made motivates

1:56:33you to never make them again.

1:56:34Yes. As long as you don't think you're still that person.

1:56:38Right. That's the problem. Some people, they'll do something in high school, and they carry

1:56:41that for the rest of their life.

1:56:42Like that, whatever it is, whatever stupid mistakes they made, whatever behavior, they think that's

1:56:47them forever. And that's what's crazy.

1:56:50Oh, we should be able to grow up.

1:56:52Yes. And, you know, kids, I got married the first time at 20.

1:57:00I mean, there just should be a law.

1:57:03You know, you're just too young.

1:57:06You don't know what you're doing.

1:57:09Right. You don't know what all this really means.

1:57:13Certainly by the time I met Julie, you know, you know what, though, that experience

1:57:19made me shy away for a few years there from the whole idea of a

1:57:25marriage commitment. I was committed, but the marriage part scared me.

1:57:31You know, it just, oh, my goodness.

1:57:33And then one day I realized I was sort of, well, wait a minute.

1:57:37Go back to square one.

1:57:39What's the most joyful, happy thing you can do?

1:57:43Well, I want to marry her.

1:57:44Right. And have children and have a white picket fence and a house and we

1:57:49go to kindergarten and all those things, you know.

1:57:52We bake cookies at the PTA.

1:57:53I want all that. Yeah.

1:57:55So, sure. It's crazy because that's not what anybody thinks of when you think of

1:58:01a rock and roll life.

1:58:02Uh -oh. Right? I suppose.

1:58:05See, I'm corny again. It's not corny.

1:58:08I think it's authentic. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you think

1:58:11at all. I think it's healthy.

1:58:14It's healthy. You know, I just really, even though my mom, I mean, she was

1:58:20a warrior, you know. Think of it.

1:58:23There were five boys. That was my family.

1:58:26My parents split up when I, it was kind of a long, ongoing thing.

1:58:30But so. We're around eight years old.

1:58:32And so it was my mom's job to raise these five boys.

1:58:37And I, you know, at some point, being a teenager, a little later, I said,

1:58:41it's a wonder we're not all in San Quentin.

1:58:43You know, I mean, somehow she had enough of her.

1:58:48She gave enough of her to inspire us, all of us, really, to be good

1:58:55people. I mean, you know, we all had our faults and foibles and fell down

1:58:59and all that. But yet the ideal was to try and reach up here and

1:59:04be a good person. And because our family wasn't, in some sense, to try and

1:59:11have a normal family, you know, leave it to beaver and all that sort of

1:59:16thing. Yeah. So that was a big goal to me, a big inspiration to want

1:59:23that. Well, it's a beautiful thing.

1:59:27There's nothing wrong with that idea.

1:59:29Not at all. Not at all.

1:59:30It's just the idea that there's something wrong with it.

1:59:32It's that that's the fake rock and roll vision.

1:59:36That's the vision of the dark artist, you know?

1:59:40I think, I don't know if I talk with Julie about this.

1:59:44Sometimes we show up at stuff and there'll be a lot of characters.

1:59:48I'm talking about musical things.

1:59:50A lot of characters roaming around there, you know.

1:59:53And, you know, I kind of look like Ward Cleaver, beaver's dad, you know, Mr.

2:00:02Boy Scout or something, walking around, you know.

2:00:05And she's looking at me like, well, couldn't you have worn something a little more?

2:00:09A little more rock and roll?

2:00:10Yeah, maybe. And I'm just not bothered.

2:00:14I mean, it is kind of funny, though.

2:00:17Actually, I've worn some cool clothes at some of the stuff.

2:00:20That would all be Julie's doing, of course.

2:00:26Yeah, I mean, it's almost like, you know, could you show up at a reunion

2:00:33of rock guys, you know, in their 50s or something.

2:00:38Everybody pull out their blotter, you know, their police blotter.

2:00:42Oh, yeah, I got busted for me.

2:00:44And everybody would have a...

2:00:47A rap sheet. Yeah. Yeah.

2:00:50I mean, it would be a badge of honor, but I suppose to me, I'm

2:00:54just really glad that it wasn't like that.

2:00:57Well, it's just you being authentic.

2:00:59It's a powerful thing. It's great, too, because the influence is to not.

2:01:05The influence is to create an image, you know.

2:01:08And a lot of people cultivated that image.

2:01:10Of course. And they get kind of captured by it.

2:01:12Yeah. And then you have to be that person forever.

2:01:15You can't, like, switch. Letterman.

2:01:19To Pee Wee Herman on his show.

2:01:21Just think, Pee Wee, you're going to have to dress like that for the rest

2:01:25of your life. That's true.

2:01:28Right? Right? Yeah. You become a character.

2:01:31And that's what people love.

2:01:33They don't love you. They love this fake thing that you've presented to the world.

2:01:37Well, you know, it's the cowboy thing, the motorcycle.

2:01:40Yeah. Whatever. I mean, look, I like all those, too, actually.

2:01:44Yeah. You know, I love the, I like keeping it as a fantasy.

2:01:51I watch some TV shows, and my favorites are the modern, you know, like Yellowstone

2:01:59and all the other ones.

2:02:00After that, there's probably a lot of, what do you call that, literary license, you

2:02:08know? Sure. For imagery, but I love the imagery.

2:02:11Yeah. I mean, I can sit there and watch that river flowing past those rocks

2:02:15and the pine trees forever, and some cows going over the, that's okay.

2:02:20I love it. And the stoic cowboys living this rough life.

2:02:23Yeah. I like all that.

2:02:24Of course, everybody does. It's very romantic, when you're looking at it from the outside,

2:02:28especially. Yep. I mean, how many people moved to Montana because of that show?

2:02:32They're hoping not so many.

2:02:34I bet a lot did, though.

2:02:36A lot did, and I think a lot left.

2:02:38Yeah. Yeah, I think they realized how hard the winters are, and they're like, all

2:02:41right, this ain't my romantic idea.

2:02:45Yeah, and it's a long winter up there.

2:02:47Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah. You know, music is, it's one of the most powerful things

2:02:53in American culture because a great song, like Fortunate Son, can inspire people to change

2:02:59their lives. It can inspire people to make decisions.

2:03:02It does things to people.

2:03:04It gives you fuel. Like I was saying, if I listen to that song when

2:03:08I'm working out, it's like I took an energy pill.

2:03:10Like, all of a sudden, I have more energy.

2:03:12Like, that's real. It's a powerful thing that you've created.

2:03:16It really is. It really is, you know, and the fact that you did it

2:03:20out of love and enjoyment speaks to why the music is so, resonates so much

2:03:25with people. Well, you know, especially with that song, at that point in the career

2:03:32of my band, remember, I was writing all the songs.

2:03:38I'll talk about that after this, I guess, in a minute.

2:03:41But I wanted to have just an all -out screaming rocker, which we didn't have

2:03:51yet. You know, the career was about a year and a half old.

2:03:55And so, I mean, I commissioned myself to, I want to have that absolutely loud

2:04:05screaming song with the guitars and all.

2:04:08And so that was sort of the commission I gave myself to create.

2:04:13As opposed to something like, have you ever seen The Rain?

2:04:16Yeah. Or even Down on the Corner, which is a different vibe.

2:04:19Right, right, right. You know, I wanted to, because I like that.

2:04:22I like when bands, you know, the Beatles, actually, I want to hold your hand,

2:04:28or she was just 17.

2:04:29Mm -hmm. Saw her standing there, I guess.

2:04:32You know, when, or, it's not really fast, but it certainly had that vibe, you

2:04:39know, the instrumental rumble by Link Wray.

2:04:44I see I've missed it.

2:04:45I missed you. Cool. Yeah, I don't know that song.

2:04:47Can you put that one up?

2:04:48Yeah, pull that one up.

2:04:52We'll get flagged. We'll remove it.

2:04:53Do you do that? Do you play little snippets of music?

2:04:56We can play snippets, but the problem is...

2:04:57You know everything we've just been talking about?

2:04:59Yeah. Everything, including the guy.

2:05:02If there's a clip of him playing that...

2:05:05The only problem is we can't put it on the podcast itself or we'll get

2:05:09flagged. But we can listen to it right now and then we'll just cut that

2:05:12part out. That was the musical scale right there.

2:05:16Yeah. What is that? I took so much out of that.

2:05:19But anyway, he was... The Rumble, it's the song.

2:05:22Who's the guy? Link Ray.

2:05:25Oh, God, that's so cool.

2:05:27And when you saw him, black leather jacket, skinny as a rail, probably had a...

2:05:32Yeah. Probably a motorcycle thing.

2:05:35I mean, it was the entire thing in one little two -and -a -half -minute

2:05:39song. Wow. Look at him there.

2:05:41God, is he looking cool.

2:05:42Yeah, he's a little older there, but it's...

2:05:44Yeah. He's bad. Wow. He looks cool as hell.

2:05:50Yeah. It's always fascinating to me where artists had one incredible song and then never

2:06:00made it. And you'll find out about that song and you go, this is incredible.

2:06:05How did this guy never make it?

2:06:07How am I... Do you know what Johnny Thunder is?

2:06:09I've heard the name. Okay.

2:06:11Play I'm Alive for him.

2:06:14There's a song that my friend Brian Simpson told me about, God, it must have

2:06:18been like a couple years ago now.

2:06:20And he played it for us in the Mothership, the Comedy Club, the Green Room.

2:06:24And he goes, you're going to love this song.

2:06:25And I went, who is this?

2:06:27We had to figure out who it was.

2:06:29It's a song from 1969 by this guy Johnny Thunder.

2:06:3369? 1969. 1969. Yeah. And it's fucking incredible.

2:06:37It's such a good song.

2:06:38And I'm like, this... If I didn't know any better, I'm like, oh, this guy

2:06:42must have been a huge star.

2:06:44Like if... I know. But if I heard that and someone said, this guy's a

2:06:48huge star. Have you heard this song about, oh my God, it sounds like a

2:06:50huge star. Like, this guy's fantastic.

2:06:53Listen to this. Listen to this.

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2:07:24How good is that? It's great.

2:07:26How good is that? That song's phenomenal, right?

2:07:29Yeah, did he ever, like, under a different name or anything?

2:07:32Nope. Nope. Oh my goodness.

2:07:34Nope. Isn't that crazy? Well, you know, the attitude's great, he's saying a lot of

2:07:40great stuff, the name's great.

2:07:43It's incredible. Yeah. The voice is incredible, the sound's incredible.

2:07:47We played that song on the podcast a couple years ago, and now the song's

2:07:51in commercials and all these different things.

2:07:53Oh, is that true? Yeah.

2:07:54Oh, cool. But he's dead now.

2:07:55He's dead. He died, I think he died in 2019 or something like that?

2:08:01He died in 2024. 2024.

2:08:03Wow. Oh, wow. So he probably died, like, right after we discovered him.

2:08:09Isn't that crazy? Isn't that crazy?

2:08:12Yeah. I mean, you hear that, you're like, how did that guy not be one

2:08:16of the biggest artists in the world?

2:08:18Or at least have that song be a big thing.

2:08:22That song wasn't even a big hit.

2:08:23Right. It's crazy. It's just, you realize the slippery nature of success, especially with art.

2:08:36Like, sometimes guys just catch lightning, they got that one, and that's it.

2:08:42I mean, you know, I think any artist that's been around a while.

2:08:45He had another hit? Yeah, that was his biggest hit.

2:08:47Loop de Loop. Oh, I know that song.

2:08:50Oh, Johnny Thunder featuring the Bobettes.

2:08:53When did this come out?

2:08:55That's 1963. Reach number four.

2:08:56Wow. Oh, that's the song I know.

2:08:58I know that one. Wow.

2:09:00I didn't know who the name, here we go, loop de loop.

2:09:04Isn't that crazy? Here we go, loop de loop.

2:09:05That song was Johnny Thunder's only top 40 hit.

2:09:09That's incredible. How high did it say it got?

2:09:12It said number four. Number four of the U .S.

2:09:14pop charts. Wow. Number six, the U .S.

2:09:16R &B charts. Wow. And the album in Canada reached number 14 two separate weeks.

2:09:24It's incredible because if you hear that other song, that other song, that should be

2:09:31gigantic. I'm Alive should be a huge hit.

2:09:34Right. It's weird. Meaning your statement of, you know, it's like I'm a man or

2:09:39something. I played that for so many musicians and they listened to it and they

2:09:42never heard it before. Right.

2:09:44And so many guys like, oh, oh my God.

2:09:47You hear them hit like, oh, baby.

2:09:50It just cracks. It's a perfect song.

2:09:52It's an amazing song. But it's like the slippery nature of art.

2:09:58You know, it's just like sometimes.

2:10:00Yeah, so why would something that good just, you know, there's something.

2:10:06I don't know. The week it came out was 9 -11 or something.

2:10:10Well, you know what my fear is?

2:10:12My fear is that he got trapped up in the music business side of it.

2:10:18Yeah. And they just decided not to promote him or something.

2:10:21You know, he ran afoul with the music company or something.

2:10:25It just doesn't make sense that a guy who can make a song that good.

2:10:28If you can make that song that good, you can make a ton of songs.

2:10:32You would think so. Yeah.

2:10:33You just need the right people with you.

2:10:35Yeah, because he had the voice.

2:10:36He had everything. He could always do that.

2:10:37The voice, the sound, the soul to his music, the way he sang.

2:10:43You know, that part, I'm a man.

2:10:45Yeah. Hey. Oh, my God.

2:10:46It's so good. It's so good.

2:10:49It just, it's, it is, it's a very difficult thing to capture.

2:10:57And even capture it only once.

2:10:59doesn't ensure a long career of getting it right, of finding that thing.

2:11:06Well, yeah, we were talking about that a little bit a while ago, you know,

2:11:11that first blush when you realize you can do it because you've never done it

2:11:16before. Yeah. You know, when you cross that particular threshold, that's an amazing transformation, I

2:11:26guess, in an artist, the way he grows because until you actually do it, it's

2:11:36all just a dream, you know.

2:11:39I mean, I had grown up writing songs.

2:11:43You know, they weren't great songs.

2:11:45I mean, I kind of knew it.

2:11:46I was watching all the people I loved.

2:11:49I'm talking about from being four or five years old all the way through growing

2:11:54up. And, you know, things happen, Elvis, Motown and Beatles and all these things happen

2:12:02and, wow, you really like all that.

2:12:04And meanwhile, you're having the dream of being in music somehow.

2:12:10But you never really know if you're going to be able to do that or

2:12:15not. Right. I mean, this sort of spreads out in a lot of strange ways

2:12:23in entertainment. I mean, I kind of make it similar to what if you're a

2:12:30baseball player and you dream of growing up and getting to the major leagues, right?

2:12:37And somebody becomes Willie Mays.

2:12:40Right. And a lot of people don't, you know, and there's – you just don't

2:12:47know. There's that realization. I mean, for Willie, actually, he was – it was slow

2:12:52if you read about him.

2:12:54Him and DeRocher were kind of – you know, DeRocher could see it.

2:12:57And Willie's kind of – yeah.

2:13:01So if you're lucky enough and you become Willie Mays, I mean, God bless you,

2:13:06right? But there is that, for most of us, that moment that, well, sorry, kid.

2:13:12You know, you just – you're average, but we don't need average.

2:13:17Right. Right? And that just happens a lot.

2:13:21In music, there was people like me – when the four people that became Credence

2:13:28sort of got together in 1967 after I got off active duty, and we said,

2:13:37okay, we're going to go for broke.

2:13:40Yeah, okay, we'll have a democracy.

2:13:43Yeah, we'll vote on everything.

2:13:45Yeah, we'll all write songs and everything.

2:13:48Right. Okay. So one of the things that happened going along those lines, I would

2:13:56show up at the rehearsal.

2:13:59You know, at that point, we started – we said, we got to do this

2:14:02all the time if we're ever going to get any good.

2:14:04So every day during the week, we'd meet at noon, or actually a little before

2:14:10that, maybe 11, and sit and talk.

2:14:12And then noon was rehearsal time.

2:14:17And so I'd say, okay, anybody got any songs?

2:14:21And people started looking down.

2:14:23All right, well, look, I got something, and we'd work on my song, right?

2:14:28I mean, we're just sort of getting organized.

2:14:30I've just come off active duty.

2:14:32I've been away from the world, you might say.

2:14:36And then next day, same thing, you know, at home, I'd work on some stuff.

2:14:42Anybody got any songs? I mean, it was the weirdest quiet.

2:14:48A week later, you know, same thing.

2:14:50And finally, I just – well, look, I've been – you know, I began to

2:14:53feel this thing inside that I got to push.

2:14:57I mean, I think I can do this.

2:15:01And so eventually, I got the idea – the songs I'm working on aren't quite

2:15:09there. How about if we take an old song, and I'll just trick it up,

2:15:16like, psychedelicize it? Because I'll pick a song I already know is good.

2:15:21It's got good stuff in it.

2:15:23And that's what I did with Susie Q.

2:15:25I just kind of really arranged it and had all this cool stuff going on.

2:15:30It wasn't something I wrote.

2:15:32It kind of relieved me of the pressure of having to do that.

2:15:36And was able to just, hey, just that blank page turned into a different rainbow

2:15:44full of – nobody can fault me because it's not my song, right?

2:15:48Did all this great stuff, this cool musical stuff to it.

2:15:55It got – the whole point was to get that tape on a local underground

2:16:01station that was actually playing unpublished tapes, you know, by certain bands.

2:16:08The most famous one you ever heard about, there was a tape of Janis Joplin

2:16:12singing Hesitation Blues, and Yorma's playing guitar.

2:16:17But in the background, somebody's typing their term paper.

2:16:21It was done in their kitchen.

2:16:24And so they were – it was just an amateur, unauthorized thing.

2:16:29But they played it on this one station.

2:16:31It became a hit on that station.

2:16:32People requested it. There were a couple other bands that had tapes like that.

2:16:36And you could hear the typewriter in the background?

2:16:38Yeah, going – yeah, yeah.

2:16:40She's singing Hesitation Blues. Wow.

2:16:44So that became the – let's do that.

2:16:46Let's do an end run around record companies and just bring the thing straight to

2:16:51the station. Well, they loved Suzy Q.

2:16:54They started playing it probably eight times a day.

2:16:57Each different disc jockey would play it.

2:16:59It's eight minutes and 20 seconds long or whatever, right?

2:17:03And that was really the true beginning.

2:17:08Finished that album. My songwriting was – You know, it wasn't great.

2:17:17It was competent. But somewhere right after the album came out, oh, I wanted to

2:17:29make that point, everybody had ample opportunity to write a song.

2:17:35And it just kind of wasn't coming.

2:17:37I would show up at the rehearsals.

2:17:40Well, anybody got a song, you know, and everybody got real quiet.

2:17:46And so I said, well, look, okay, let's work on this.

2:17:49And I began to realize inside that it was going to be up to me.

2:17:56It wasn't I want to control everything.

2:18:02It was I got to start rolling this boat or we're going to sink in

2:18:06the middle of the ocean.

2:18:08So I started pushing myself harder and harder.

2:18:13The first album comes out on my birthday, 1968.

2:18:18I'm 23 years old. And within sometime shortly after that, I can't really pin down

2:18:26the I'm still in the army.

2:18:28Right. But I'm working on getting released, getting out.

2:18:34Somewhere, I think in June or July, I don't exactly know, my honorable discharge shows

2:18:40up. I opened this package that's been sitting there for a couple of days because

2:18:46it said official government business.

2:18:49Who's that for? And I find it was for me.

2:18:52It was, you know, an apartment house.

2:18:54I'm overjoyed. I mean, this is the biggest struggle has been of my life.

2:18:59Wow. Wow. Wow. I turned a little cartwheel on the lawn because I want to

2:19:04remember that I turned the cartwheel and ran in the house and picked up my

2:19:09guitar and started playing these chords that are somewhat like Beethoven.

2:19:24Oh, I start strumming this beat.

2:19:28I start hearing this chorus.

2:19:33See, the first thing I said was, left a good job in the city.

2:19:37That was getting out of the army.

2:19:41Wow. Working for the man every night and day.

2:19:44Wow. What is this? Eventually, I arrive at this thing where I say, rolling, rolling.

2:19:51Oh, I like that. Rolling, rolling on the river.

2:19:58That's starting to be beyond me.

2:20:02Right. Out of me. Right?

2:20:05I look in my book because I said, what is this thing about?

2:20:08What am I doing here?

2:20:09The very first thing I had written in my little book of song, titles was

2:20:15Proud Mary. It's the actual first line, first thing.

2:20:20I looked at that and I said, wow, this is about, Proud Mary is a

2:20:26riverboat. This is a boat named Proud Mary.

2:20:30That's what we're doing here.

2:20:31And I finished the song, right?

2:20:33I mean, it was kind of Mark Twain, kind of Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, you

2:20:42know, had a little bit of kind of gospel flavor and the old south in

2:20:49it. And I said, wow.

2:20:51When I got done, which was about an hour, I was about an hour from

2:20:56when I'd opened my honorable discharge, I'm actually holding the little yellow tablet I've been

2:21:04writing on. I said, John, you've written the classic.

2:21:08I realized that this song was, I had evolved.

2:21:13It was way better than anything I'd ever done before.

2:21:17You know, and so those meetings I'd been having, going to see the band, and

2:21:21was anybody got anything and no one ever did, and I'd show my little piece

2:21:26of something I was working on, that kind of led, how can I say it,

2:21:31to the confidence to do something really great by just doing it, right?

2:21:39And the knowledge, I mean, I had, I was self -aware.

2:21:43I'm looking at this thing, Proud Mary, and it's got Americana in it, although I

2:21:48don't think I had a word then.

2:21:50It's got, I knew it was Mark Twain and the river and all this soulful

2:21:55stuff. And wow, this for sure is the best thing I'd ever done.

2:22:01I knew it was a great song.

2:22:03And then the next, God, I hope I get to do this again.

2:22:10Because you just don't know, right?

2:22:12Right, right. But that was how that came about.

2:22:15Because it came to like a bolt of lightning and inspiration, charged up from the

2:22:19discharge. Yep. Right. Yeah. But yes, and something led me to be better than I

2:22:28was. Wow. I mean, I think what my point was, it was kind of the

2:22:31Willie Mays thing. I never knew if I would be able to do that or

2:22:36not. Right? Right. You're going along, you're just plunking along clubs, whatever, learning a chord

2:22:44here and there, learning something off a record, hoping you have a career in music

2:22:49because you like music. Me, because my mother had focused, had kind of pointed out

2:22:58songwriters, it put me in that realm.

2:23:05It made me at least realize that that was one of the functions of music.

2:23:12That's another story I could tell you.

2:23:14I don't know if you want to hear that.

2:23:16I want to hear every story.

2:23:17That's a fantastic story, though, because you just getting that notice that you've been relieved

2:23:26and you're no longer in active.

2:23:28duty you've got an honorable discharge you're free and then the inspiration comes and you

2:23:35write your greatest song of all time like that yep or at least the greatest

2:23:38song to that moment and realize this can be this can happen you really have

2:23:44it you really have it because you don't know until you try and when you

2:23:48don't know till it happens yeah you don't know you know until willie mays one

2:23:53day did something on the field right he didn't know right and there was a

2:23:57point as i alluded to i've read about derosher knew when he saw him and

2:24:01willie wasn't so sure yet yeah that's crazy that's crazy bad moon rising is another

2:24:08great fantastic song another huge favorite of mine but uh also because it's in one

2:24:15of my all -time favorite movies american werewolf in london yeah that scene yeah that

2:24:20song that must have been cool to have that song play in that movie it's

2:24:26very cool to me now at i don't even know if i saw the movie

2:24:31at the time it came out um that was during the time i was still

2:24:36you know away from music and kind of angry and pissed off about my situation

2:24:44so when something would get done with my music it kind of made me mad

2:24:49because nobody asked me oh really yeah oh right because you didn't have the rights

2:24:53to it yep oh wow still phenomenal song phenomenal song did so did you write

2:25:01all the songs i wrote all the songs from credence wow until the the last

2:25:07album the seventh album that was basically a result of the guys saying we want

2:25:13to you know there was a big band meeting we want to write the songs

2:25:17and we demand that we get to write the songs and sing the songs and

2:25:21make up our own musical parts so they got resentful then resisting that because i

2:25:27just i thought it was going to really i literally thought it would be career

2:25:32suicide i you know change everything now right yeah because well here's here's another part

2:25:38of it you're you're struggling and you know the the early days of your career

2:25:43and all your life getting to that point you're trying to figure out what works

2:25:48right right i mean it's just everyone goes through that because you clearly you don't

2:25:51know what works yet i haven't figured it out and one day when some stuff

2:25:55starts happening and well that's how you do it this and this and this this

2:26:01works and i got very good at that and you had put in that work

2:26:05and they hadn't so they weren't really contributing and i must have gotten resentful that

2:26:11you were the one who wrote all these big hits and eventually they're like we

2:26:14want to try we're credence too right well especially because two of them had never

2:26:19written a song in their life oh that's crazy and then they wanted to write

2:26:23a song for credence while credence was huge yeah i mean there's a bit of

2:26:28what's the word boulder dash into that i mean it's wow but maybe you should

2:26:35you know rehearse a little first i mean i've been writing songs since i was

2:26:41eight they could have jumped in they could have jumped in when in the beginning

2:26:46yeah when you were writing all the songs and they weren't coming up with anything

2:26:50if they did you probably would have did their songs as well if they went

2:26:53on a similar path it would have been like yeah um my songs weren't that

2:26:59good at that time but they were how can i say they were maybe better

2:27:04than average they weren't great songs yet they were they were album songs or something

2:27:09right right but what i'm getting at is that the other guys there was no

2:27:13songs so um that's that's that thing in i i keep using the moolie maze

2:27:23you know metaphor if that's what it is uh you know that example at some

2:27:29point you're you're you're working with the elements in the field that you love and

2:27:35then you realize how to put it together and to make it happen if you're

2:27:42lucky and then comes the time when you actually make something that's good right and

2:27:48that i mean but that um i can't think of anyone that the first song

2:27:51they ever wrote boom was uh ave maria or something you know right i mean

2:27:57it's you know so um i i just thought it was a journey and i

2:28:04mean i have been on the journey myself and seen it come but i think

2:28:08now i look at it i was excuse me i was probably destined you know

2:28:13it was what i loved and that was what was calling me yeah i mean

2:28:18i that that was my my motivation the whole time since i was a child

2:28:25i just loved it and wanted to do that whatever it was well that's why

2:28:30it worked yeah you put in the work and you loved it and you worked

2:28:35at it and you tried to get it better and you also got inspiration you

2:28:38were also open to that inspiration it's just funny that the band members didn't contribute

2:28:44until the seventh album they wanted to jump in it's kind of crazy but understandable

2:28:50i mean it's human nature to be resentful especially if you got a huge band

2:28:54and one guy is the lead singer and that guy's also writing all the songs

2:28:58yeah i well i walked around for uh many months you know mulling over this

2:29:07whole thing because right after that meeting shortly after that my brother tom decided he

2:29:14just left he you know even though i kind of gave in to all of

2:29:18demands okay we'll do it that i could see that the band was going to

2:29:22disintegrate unless i acquiesced right i mean it was up until then i'd managed to

2:29:29keep it don't do that don't do that it's going to wreck us uh so

2:29:34when i agreed i mean it was literally a couple months later tom left and

2:29:40so now oh god what's going to happen now so i you I didn't know

2:29:44if I was just going to go, nah, call it quits, or, the image in

2:29:49my mind was of when Elvis got taken by the colonel, just kind of pulled

2:29:55out of the other guys, and they left them an alert, you might say.

2:29:59That's the way it looked to me.

2:30:01Right. It's like Elvis got all new guys, and it was readily apparent because I

2:30:08had already seen Elvis' comeback special, the part where they sat around in a circle

2:30:14and did the old songs, and he had the old guys, Scotty and Bill, or

2:30:20maybe Bill was gone by then, but J .D.

2:30:24Fontana, or J .D. Fontana.

2:30:29And it was just apparent that that was the best thing.

2:30:32Everybody loved that part of his special.

2:30:34Most people, he just forget that anything else was on that thing other than Elvis

2:30:39singing those songs. And that sort of was in the back of my, well, maybe

2:30:44they deserve a shot. Maybe they should, you know, maybe I should do this.

2:30:49And so that's kind of why I went forward with it.

2:30:52Almost like flipping a coin, like, well, the odds.

2:30:56I think my own sense tells me this isn't going to work, but maybe they

2:31:03deserve a chance. So I kind of went at it blindly that way.

2:31:07What was it like in the studio when they started bringing the songs?

2:31:12Well, I mean, that's it.

2:31:15I mean, everyone can hear that.

2:31:17All of us can, you know, you just, the album's called Mardi Gras.

2:31:22And in the press, it was murdered.

2:31:27Rolling Stones said, this is the worst album ever made by a major group.

2:31:32And I read that and I said, I know.

2:31:36I mean, I literally, I felt that it wasn't like I was trying to defend

2:31:39it. It was, you know, it was just.

2:31:43How did the band react to that?

2:31:46Here's the deal. Instead of going, yeah, that was a mistake.

2:31:51Instead, they said, he made me do it.

2:31:55And so, yeah, they said I made them do it.

2:31:59Whereas it was their idea, of course.

2:32:03I didn't want to do that.

2:32:04But, and after that, I just, you know, I think we did a, we did

2:32:12a tour. Oh, right. We did a tour.

2:32:20One by one, their songs dropped out of the set.

2:32:24The songs that they had done on Mardi Gras, the other two guys.

2:32:27Yeah, I don't want to sing that anymore.

2:32:29And so, we, of course, went back to Proud Mary and Fortunate Son and all

2:32:34that. And there was a point that I could tell that the fans were kind

2:32:40of upset with this whole premise.

2:32:44And so, I. Which whole premise?

2:32:46Of them singing songs and kind of struggling along with equal, equal time for everybody.

2:32:53Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah.

2:32:55And so, finally, it was time to, there wasn't enough, there wasn't any way to

2:33:02put it back together that I could see.

2:33:05Right. It was, it was beyond me.

2:33:08Now, in later, later, later years that, you know, I'm a much older guy.

2:33:13I mean, there were, you know, there's some decisions that I made.

2:33:18One of them was the decision to not be in the movie Woodstock.

2:33:23Woodstock, they sent a tape of the band doing Bad Moon Rising.

2:33:31It was okay. But what had happened at Woodstock was the Grateful Dead was on

2:33:37before us. Grateful Dead had all taken LSD.

2:33:42It's, we were supposed to be on at 8 o 'clock.

2:33:45But it's now 2 o 'clock, 2 .30 in the morning by the time we

2:33:49get it. Grateful Dead goes on, kind of loses their way.

2:33:54But they're on stage for an hour and a half or something with nothing going

2:33:58on. And so that poor audience that's been through rain and all the rest and

2:34:02muddy, and they just, they just crashed.

2:34:06A half a million, just boom, you know.

2:34:09And that's what I get, right?

2:34:11We come running out on stage and we're playing a few songs and all I

2:34:15see is sleeping people. And eventually, the last, I think, 20 minutes of our set,

2:34:23finally got them up. We warmed them up for Janice.

2:34:26That's the way I always say.

2:34:27You know, they got going again.

2:34:29But that was a struggle all through that.

2:34:32So I get sent, and it was a bad taste in my mouth about that

2:34:38evening. Because we'd gone to so much trouble, and at that moment, we were certainly

2:34:44the number one band in the U .S.

2:34:46and probably on our way to being number one in the world.

2:34:50And so I just, you know, here's this kind of ordinary tape of Bad Moon,

2:34:56and I just thought, I don't know, this doesn't help us.

2:34:59It doesn't further us at all.

2:35:03Nah, I'm going to pass.

2:35:05By the way, The Grateful Dead is not in Woodstock either.

2:35:09I didn't really see that until about a year ago.

2:35:13You know, I just assumed The Grateful Dead wasn't Woodstock, right?

2:35:18Well, it's probably unusable. So if there'd been an older guy around us, a manager

2:35:22that was like 50 instead of me with my bad taste about the evening, the

2:35:28older guy might have said, hey, you know, your version of Suzy Q Live, even

2:35:34though those people were sleeping, the band was cooking.

2:35:37You know, you guys played good.

2:35:40You can't hardly see anything anyway, the crappy old, he said, but that recording's good.

2:35:47Maybe we should demand that, look, you put us in the movie and give us

2:35:51eight minutes, not two minutes.

2:35:53Or by then, it was probably 15 minutes long.

2:35:56You know? Yeah. Um, I think that was a decision that could probably, I could

2:36:02reassess, you know, if it was someone else, but that's not what was on my

2:36:07plate at the time. I was only offered bad mood.

2:36:11You know, and at the time I felt I was right because we went on

2:36:15and did great. And by the way, the band broke up before Woodstock came out

2:36:21anyhow. So it kind of was a mute point.

2:36:25Did it feel better for you when you were on your own?

2:36:27Did you like that better?

2:36:29Or it was just the John Fogarty band?

2:36:32You didn't have to have all those guys and all the bullshit?

2:36:36Well, you're asking, you know, we're all human beings and we've got a lot of

2:36:40years behind us. Um, if you're asking me right now, yeah, because I play in

2:36:49a band with my sons.

2:36:50Oh, that's awesome. You know, and yep.

2:36:52That's awesome. And I don't know, there might be a picture of that somewhere.

2:36:57Um, and so, and all the other guys in the band are their age.

2:37:05Oh, wow. And so, how can I say it?

2:37:10You don't, you don't have a whole bunch of people trying to prove something like

2:37:17their record deal or, you know.

2:37:20Because you asked the question kind of caught me by surprise after, well, after Credence,

2:37:25I didn't play for a long time.

2:37:27How long? But the first band, huh?

2:37:29How long? How long did you not play for?

2:37:32I went on tour in 86 with, uh, a bunch of hired hands, they call

2:37:41it, right? Studio guys. And that was, that was, it was behind, number one, I

2:37:48didn't play any Credence era songs.

2:37:50I was so mad at my situation, I just played new songs.

2:37:58Wow. Everyone, on the left, that's Shane, that's me, that's my son Tyler, that's my

2:38:05daughter Kelsey, and then that's Jesse Wilson back there, our bass player.

2:38:11That's awesome. And so, um, yeah, and there's a, right then that might be a

2:38:17moment in Chuglin where we all do a riff together and all that, and it's

2:38:21just so cool to all be standing there.

2:38:23That's amazing. So, yeah, um, I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, the beginnings

2:38:28of Credence was magical and wonderful, right?

2:38:33I mean, it really, it truly, look, it's what you waited and planned for your

2:38:36whole life, um, and it stayed that way for about a year, I think, and

2:38:43then other stuff that I never understood.

2:38:46I, I mean, it was beyond, it was unpleasant, and I didn't understand why, right?

2:38:52So, after that, it was, it was, that was difficult.

2:38:56Then when I first started playing again, um, in 86, and also, and much more

2:39:04in 97, after Blue Moon Swamp came out, and I had a series of bands

2:39:10that were, I can say, trying to put people together, parts from here and there

2:39:17and there. So, it kind of never really was one solidified thing, and you'll, you

2:39:23would find that a lot of people had personal agendas, you might say.

2:39:31You know, they were working on their own career and all that, and there was

2:39:34sort of, believe it or not, even at that level, different jealousies and things.

2:39:39Oh, again, there I was, I could, I could sense it sometimes, people were jealous,

2:39:45you know, and I'm like, oh my God, when you see that picture, there's no

2:39:48jealous. Right. See? Right. I mean, this is really fun for me now.

2:39:53Well, that is the problem with so many bands, is the conflicting personalities.

2:39:57It's always a miracle to me that any band stays together, and that they could

2:40:01stay together like the Stones, where they're still touring now after all these years.

2:40:06The Stones are a lesson in how everyone should be, because we've all heard the

2:40:13stories about the Stones. We know there's problems here and there and everywhere and all

2:40:17that, yet they rose above that.

2:40:21Yeah. They just decided that, you know what, yeah, okay, I don't like that guy

2:40:25over there tonight, but I'm just going to do this, and they're all brothers when

2:40:30they're out there doing that.

2:40:31Yeah. And that's great. Yeah.

2:40:33You know, there's, I mean, there's times, let's say, in war or whatever, where you

2:40:38have to kind of subjugate your personal stuff for the greater good.

2:40:43Yeah. Right? And that's kind of what they do, the Stones, and God bless them.

2:40:48I just think the thing is, everybody wants to be the man, and when you've

2:40:52got so many egos, and there's one guy, like you, who's writing all the songs,

2:40:57all these other people, they're just like, they feel less, you know, and they get

2:41:01resentful. Yeah. I think that's pretty normal human nature, and then that has to be

2:41:08dealt with. Yeah. Sometimes you can't, though, you know?

2:41:13Some people can't be reasoned with.

2:41:15Some people just, they're not rational.

2:41:18They see things in a distorted lens, especially if they're not the people that created

2:41:23everything, but yet they've been along for the ride, and they don't feel like they're

2:41:26getting what they deserve. Mm -hmm.

2:41:28That's what it seems like.

2:41:29I wanted to tell you a story about how I got into this in the

2:41:32first place. Okay. I told you about my mom noticing the music coming out of

2:41:40me. One day she brought me home from nursery school where she was one of

2:41:45the helper teachers, I guess, one of the moms, you know, of the staff.

2:41:50She brought me home and sat me down on a little chair.

2:41:54Now I look back, it was a little ceremony.

2:41:57She had a little yellow record, a kid's record, and basically what she did was

2:42:04she played both sides of this little record.

2:42:07One side was Oh Susanna, and the other side was Camp Town Races.

2:42:12See you later. Do -da, do -da, you know, that one.

2:42:16And then she asked me, well, do you like this music?

2:42:19I said, yeah, Mom, these are cool songs, or whatever a kid says.

2:42:23I really like these. She says, well, I'm going to play them again, Johnny.

2:42:27She plays both songs, and she says, do you know that Stephen Foster is the

2:42:33man that wrote both of these songs?

2:42:37What do you mean, Mom?

2:42:38I said, well, Stephen Foster is a real person that wrote this music, and I

2:42:44wanted you to know that these are his wonderful songs and that people do write

2:42:50songs. And then she gave me the record.

2:42:53That kind of became my little possession, right?

2:42:56And I have reflected on that moment in my life.

2:43:00I mean, I used to tell people, why did she do that?

2:43:03What in the world was she thinking, right?

2:43:05And all through the years that I was living at home with my mom, you

2:43:11know, there'd be somebody on TV.

2:43:12There's Irving Berlin. And I'd go, yeah, Mom, hey, he's a songwriter.

2:43:16Or she'd let me know Hoagy Carmichael was one of her favorites.

2:43:21So he became one of my favorites, right?

2:43:24And, of course, on into the rock and roll era, as you notice the Beatles,

2:43:29Lennon and McCartney, were writing these songs.

2:43:31I mean, it just became a thing, a part of me.

2:43:35And it all started back there with my mom and Stephen Foster.

2:43:40And, number one, he was a great songwriter.

2:43:44So that lilt, that sort of kind of songwriting, he's also very corny.

2:43:53I mean, that voice, that personality certainly became, it got contributed, it got lent to

2:44:03me through the records, the recordings, because Stephen didn't make any records, as far as

2:44:10I know. And those songs just sort of got infiltered into my personality.

2:44:18I mean, my mom, put it this way, I think I even talked it over

2:44:22with Mom, I feel like Stephen Foster could have written Proud Mary.

2:44:27It seems like that territory.

2:44:31Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Right.

2:44:34I don't know what my, my mom was giving me a gift.

2:44:37Yeah. You know, and you just never know how powerful those little moments with your

2:44:43kids are, but that was a big one for me.

2:44:46That's awesome. That's awesome. Listen, John, it's been an honor having you on.

2:44:50Thank you very much. I'm a gigantic fan.

2:44:53Thank you, John. So for me, it was a real pleasure to get to talk

2:44:56to you. Same here. Great to be here.

2:44:56The story's fantastic. Thank you very much.

2:44:59And you're on tour. Tell everybody where they can see you.

2:45:03Oh, wow. Well, you know, we are the Legacy Tour.

2:45:06You may know I've just re -recorded a lot of my old songs from the

2:45:11Creedence time, and I'm having a ball.

2:45:14We're just all over. Look at that.

2:45:15Well, there you go. Wow.

2:45:18That's awesome. That's a picture from back in the day, of course.

2:45:21What a cool album, too.

2:45:22Does it really look like that?

2:45:23Yeah. Oh, nice. That's sick.

2:45:27I love it. Beautiful. Thank you, sir.

2:45:30Really, thank you very much.

2:45:31It was awesome. Bye, everybody.

2:45:33Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

2:45:40Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

2:45:45Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

2:45:46Bye. Thank you.

#2485 - John Fogerty