¶ Introduction, Career, and Early Contracts
Joe Rogan Winecast, check it out!
The Joe Logan Experience.
🎵 Music
It's fun. There's water there too. metal cup.
Oh thanks so much. I have some notes that I'll be able to do.
What what's on the notes?
Uh just stuff like what I went through with C C R and all that. Tell me something. Did you did you read up on me or anything?
I'm a huge fan. I don't have to read up on you. Okay. I read up on you a little bit just to catch up about how you got out of the the well, you did do military service, but you got out by smoking a lot of weed and not eating. I read that. Is that true?
No.
Is that true? They lied? There was a story about you smoking a lot of weed and uh getting emaciated so you can get out of the army.
Well it it's not quite in that sequence but Those things did happen. Yeah, I had I had determined to lose a lot of weight, right? So I was kind of really sc skinny about nineteen sixty Seven, sixty eight. Uh I mean like a hundred and I think it was a hundred and twenty nine pounds.
Whoa.
Yeah. Um And then I was gonna go uh to the I think it was the Presidio and I had to meet with the army And my Gave me a couple of joints. I stuck it in the cigarette and going across the Bay Bridge I smoked up. That's so f I hadn't even thought about it. So if you went yeah, man, he he he went on a starvation diet, a protest diet and then smoked a lot of weed. Quite that way. But yeah, okay. But it's it's essentially some
Truth. Some truth to it. Uh, you had a legendary career, my friend. Legendary.
Thank you. Still working on it.
It's incredible, man. You you are like one of the main voices of rock and roll in America, if you really think about it. Your songs, I mean, there you have so many gigantic hits. You know, when uh the UFC uh has a lot of walk out songs, you know, when fighters come out and walk out, a lot of guys walk out. I don't even know if you're aware of it.
Yeah.
Bad moon rising, that's another big one people walk out too.
Great, I'm not that aware of the UFC stuff, but it you know, everybody whatever floats your boat.
Well, people just love your music. You so you went through many generations. Like you got your first record contract. How old were
Um I know I signed one when I was around nineteen. Of course it would have been i in unenforceable
It's not legal at the time, right? You had to be twenty one.
I believe so.
Yeah. There's well you're also one of the first rock and roll artists that wrote songs uh that became very popular about how you're getting screwed over by the
Ha ha
You know what I mean? So Leonard Skidder did it working for MCA, they did that song. But you had Vans Cannes Dance.
Actually, Zance can't do it.
But you had to change it, right?
Yeah, the name of the person was a very good thing. Uh it's it sold about a half a million copies as Zance, but the record company, Warner Brothers, in their way of settling somewhat Um had me change it to advance. Yeah. That's it, yeah. Yeah. That's right in the middle of that whole thing was a mess.
¶ The Infamous "Sounding Like Myself" Lawsuit
I got sued for sounding like myself.
How'd that happen?
I'll tell ya. So and I didn't find this out and t there was eventually a trial. So it's n Many people think that that's funny. You got sued for sounding like you're so wow that's funny Well, no, you're s getting a legal lawsuit that's probably gonna take away a lot of your uh, money and you're gonna go through three, four years of anguish. Well anyway, um
ended up in a trial. He was suing me for at the time was an enormous amount of money. A hundred and forty four million dollars for his uh whatever, metal anguish or something. Um Th the the logistics, I guess you'd call it I had made a new song called The Old Man Down the Road. It was on my album, it was my comeback on Center Field. And I had finally gotten away from Fantasy Records, which is where Credence was, and Saul Sands, who owned it.
So, you know, when you finally escape and get success over somewhere else, the former people s tend to be jealous, I guess. And uh so he was suing me. What had happened though, I found out in the trial the bass player from Creden uh was another one of those people I guess that couldn't stand that I'd now had success in a later life. Um he went down to fantasy and saw Mr. Saul's ants and said, John is ripping off credence. You should sue him.
The irony in in all of that is that I had taught Stu every single note that he ever played in Credence. It was not his own creat as we talk you'll You'll see um I was the guy inventing the arrangement. And so to take possession of credence was pretty ironic and pretty over the top. Anyway, he talks Saul into suing me and that Saul had unlimited funds. And so it you know, went to a trial, I pre prevailed at trial and That that overwinn.
But they torture you during the process because it takes years and it costs
Yeah, you know what that was- Ja, all that stuff.
¶ Exposing Music Industry Evils
That is so crazy that they can sue you for sounding like you.
Well, it's a blessing to the world, I think, that I prevailed. I mean um you know, what we're really talking about is when Y you come into the consciousness of the world I guess and you have a certain style, if you're lucky. And so you start creating whatever your art is. You're an actor or you're a painter or in my case a musician. And people start liking the style.
Well, how unfair would it be that at some point somebody takes ownership of your and style and now says, You have to go back and invent some other style, be some other person, you know, it's just That would be really difficult. Imagine Dillon or Springsteen or all the other people that have their own style having to, you know, reinvent and change to something else.
Well it's just insane to even ask an artist to do It's insane because look so many artists sound like art other artists anyway and no one has a problem with that as long as they're not ripping off the notes and the lyrics. There's a lot of people that sound like But the idea that you could get sued for sounding like you with new music and new lyrics is That's one of the most insane things I've ever heard of. I can't believe that didn't get thrown out immediately.
Immediately. Right. Um well that shows the the I guess the ego and the possessiveness that people want to have. Um You know, I had written a new song and he didn't want me to he he wanted to own the the new stu he wanted to own me, basically. That was the idea. Well you can never do anything unless you do it for me, you know. Um So I was but not just for myself, for everyone, for all artists, it was kind of a major ruling and uh thank God it went that way.
This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building a website that actually looks legit and helps you stand out online. And I should know, my site, joean.com, is powered by Squarespace. They make it easy to lock down the right domain for your business or project, and they've got built-in privacy and security tools to keep everything protected. Head to squarespace.com slash Rogan to try it out for free.
And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code Rogan to save ten percent off your first purchase of a website or domain. Well thank God it also was public, like with that song and the lawsuit around the song w have you having to change the name of the song. Back then, at least at the time, like w this was probably what, the eighties? Yeah.
Most people had no idea how c evil the music business can be. Unless they were told they had no idea. What they they bought the albums, they loved the musicians. And they just liked the music. They didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. They didn't know how these people own your catalog, they own the music, they own the publishing, they try to l just Get as much money out of you as humanly possible. Own your name. Own your likeness. Most uh fans had no idea.
And that's probably the way it really should be. When I was young I just cared about Elvis and his guitar player, you know. I didn't want to know all I didn't even know there was stuff behind it to know.
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. I picked a good one here, didn't I? Oh, it's evil. That's just too bad.
Another similar situation. Like there's all a lot of these great artists get like Prince, he got wrapped up to the point where he had to change his name to a symbol. Because he didn't own his name anymore. Prince.
Yeah, I remember going, Well if he doesn't want to use it, you know, I'll I'll take it
Yeah, it's just uh the the business itself. I mean you have these creative artists that make this music that everybody loves and then you have these hyena. that work behind the scenes that are the ones that are collecting the majority of the money from it and they're not making any music. And to the average fan like myself, like that's abhorrent. That's disgusting. Like you you see that it just it just drives you nuts.
Well also um you know the the cre creative people are special. And I mean, you know, look around. There's way more of other types of people than there are creative people. And to douse that, you know, to or own that, which is what was gonna happen, is just a An onerous thing. Um I'm sh I used to be a lot more angry about all this stuff. I'm a lot older. I can't say wiser. It's more like um I came out on the good side of it and s I try not to worry about it too much.
¶ Personal Struggles and Recovery
Right.
It's great that you came out of the good side of it. But it's also great for people to know. And it's really great for young artists to be aware as they're coming up, especially as they're beginning their journey that this could happen.
Yeah, and there's all kinds of, you know, um bad people around just w waiting for you to slip up and sign something that will give your rights away, that sort of thing. Um I get such a joy out of music, you know, I mean, I just... It started that way when I was a little kid. I mean, didn't even know what I was doing. I was or what that was. I was hearing this sound and you know, and I liked it and I just kinda went with it. I didn't try to uh analyze it too much.
And of course later with all the things, you know, the different roads you g you go through trying to get to s someplace, um I mean I j I just I'm just so glad. You know, I a lot of this of course is from the care of my wife Julie. Uh if I hadn't met her, I probably would be dead. Simple as that. Really?
Why do you think he'd be dead?
Um I didn't see any way out. You know, um I was really abusing myself, alcohol mostly. I really felt bad inside. I mean it it's when you get like that, uh, Joe, uh You're not really operating on the same plane in the world that all the other people that you see are you know, you can walk into a market or something and look around and probably most of the people are kinda normal, you know, whatever we call that.
But when you're
When you're really hurting inside for whatever reason, I mean, in my case something really unjust had been done to me. Um, but you know, however you get there and then you start abusing yourself with uh drugs, alcohol, whatever, um, you just kinda It's it becomes a habit. You just stay there, right? And so you're not really enjoying the sunshine and the love that's around you and all the rest of it. You become kind of a um
Pathetic person, sad certainly. So that you know, that was the deal. That when Julie met me, I was that guy. Um there was sort of a certainly a anger, I mean, but a b a bitterness. Yeah, almost like a self fulfilling um prophecy where you look for something to go wrong and then it goes wrong. And you go, See, I told ya you know, I mean it's it's a terrible mental place to be and I was there.
¶ Band Betrayal and Early Financial Fraud
Do you think this was a loop that you got in because of the lawsuit?
Oh, yeah.
It that that it really just got you that hard.
Well there was uh there was more than one lawsuit, but The betrayal by uh the people in my band, you know. Uh I just told you about a very evil man, right? Yeah. And I'm the only guy from Credence who's ever actually mentioned that he's an evil person. To the extent that it quite publicly my brother Tom right during this same time was saying that Saul was his best friend.
Oh gee.
Jesus. It was just really hard to uh deal with. Uh, the other two guys in the bands were in the band were kind of just more cowardly about it. They just never spoke up. Just kind of give me the money and you know
How the fuck was your brother saying that guy was your best friend while he was suing
Um he won it he was signed re signed after the break of breakup of credence he kind of shopped around and didn't have uh much success finding a label, and so he went right about the time that this trial was going to happen. Uh he re signed with I'm talking about the first trial.
Which was the first truck?
The first trial was about uh basically the band had lost its life savings. All of us in Credence. Um the record company had gotten us into this offshore tax plan. And I'm saying this with a smile because nowadays it just sounds so You know, if some guy comes walking up to you and got a trench coat on on a corner in New York City Hey buddy, you w you know, you're probably gonna avoid that guy. But the l record company was in this tax
And for all we knew we were gonna be paying ninety percent income tax, right? I mean the tax laws are pretty st pretty stringent and pretty high. Um and so they offered us or basically kind of ushered us into this plan, uh ta offshore tax plan. And it would allow us to pay a lot less taxes, probably somewhere between ten and twenty percent. Uh so it was a huge financial savings for us. Uh I can tell you that the name of this particular thing that was a bank in the Bahamas called Castle Bank.
And we had it checked out I mean the uh the people on our side in the band had it checked out by our people. Our own accountant, um The bass player's father was a an entertainment lawyer and had a big firm. They among other people represented the Oakland Raiders. So we thought they were pretty solid and they checked it all out and said that it was okay, it was legit. So we did it. But time went on and it
Uh
seem to be n not legit, to the point that somewhere in the seventies The bank disappeared and all our money in it disappeared. So we
Oh gee.
Yep. So here it is. The bank was being used by the CIA to funnel money for covert military operations. Including those at Andros Island, a staging area for anti Castro activities. So you they were stealing your money.
How
I just typed it in and went to the Wikipedia and I was like, Whoa So insane.
Yeah, I didn't know any of that. Oh I knew that now, or I suspect Yeah,
Did you know that up until now or did you just find it out just now?
Um, you could tell me a lot of things right now and I'd say, Oh, yeah, I guess assumed all that stuff was kinda happening. But I didn't know it at the time in the Early seventies when we or late sixties when we got into this thing.
You know how anti American that is? The CIA stole from Credence Clear Water Revival. You know fucking crazy that is? That is so wild.
¶ Escaping the CIA's Financial Trap
No, I didn't know that part. The funny thing the the funny thing is, um I had d decided to get out of that plan, right? and I'd gone down to see m my own people, my accountant, my attorney, uh, in Oakland. And told'em, I just want out of this thing. you gotta call you know, whenever I want some money, uh like an allowance, you gotta call up some bank account somewhere o over there and it takes uh uh you know, some time, some few days before I actually receive my money.
And it was starting to just smell. It was starting to s and this now we're talking nineteen seventy five, seventy six. Um And so I actually had the meeting and I said I I wanna be out of this plan. I don't wanna oh I said uh m one of the things I said to the meeting of professionals, look. Take a shoe box and Put all the money I've ever earned into the shoe box, and now hand me the shoebox so I can see how much money have I earned. Because I didn't know.
It was just going straight into this fund, right? Into this castle bank. But they couldn't tell me. leave, I get down to the uh parking lot in the basement of this tall building in Oakland, and I'm with my uh the guy that runs my office and I say We're gonna have to have another meeting because even though I told them I want to get out of the plant, I didn't stand up like on the table and get I'm ordering you and you and you get me out of the plant. I realized they could weasel
the more time until I actually pointed. So the next week I showed up and did that. I'm ordering you. Get me out okay. Out of the plan, right? Um Pretty quickly after that, uh a week or two We hear that the bank has closed. There's a telegram that apparently was sent on Valentine's Day, and the bank president has died.
He died in a sauna. Whoa. I've seen that movie, you know, where uh Abbott and Costello they're in the and the mob comes in and they're in those uh heat things that are up here and the guy sticks the broom in the In the doors so you can't get out and you know. I mean except that this was serious and there will be no more withdrawals until until this thing is undersolved. Right. You don't a bank president dies, you don't close the Bank of America. Right. You still can go get your money.
And so pretty quick after that, it all just disappeared in a puff of smoke. Yeah.
Yep. And it was the fucking CIA. That is crazy. That is so crazy. How much money was involved with all the different people that lost their money? Like how much money was this bank holding? Do you know? Oh
Well there were other names that I never saw b in those days. Uh a lot of sort of moby kind of sounding names. Yeah. Um I will tell ya after the thing closed and I we got the telegram that the pres I started I literally Started checking under my cars.
looking for wires and what you know, something funny. I did that for about three months. Whoa. I finally just well I was scared. Yeah I would be Because I was the guy who said I wanna get out of this thing and suddenly it goes kaboom and the president died. Right. Right. And I just figured that I was some kind of whistle blower to them or something and you know, I'm I'm in their way. Uh
I guarantee you're the reason why it happened.
I don't think no, I don't believe that's true.
Well no, I mean you're you probably caused the whole thing to close down. I mean it's not a coincidence that it closed down right after you asked for your money. You're a big public name and a big voice. You get out
Take your After that point in time I really never wanted to talk too loudly about stuff anymore. Oh my goodness oh my goodness. Um so there eventually was our lawsuit. Um Well, actually it was my lawsuit. I s got with a lawyer a tall building I call it and proceeded to start proceedings against this fantasy, uh our own attorneys and experts, uh, the people that designed this plan, all the rest, right? It but I was the only one in the band that did that. The the rest of the guys kinda just
went along and weren't ma making any waves. And I you know, I was pretty adamant. Uh I'm telling you this because at some point later Um more than a year had passed, maybe a maybe a year and a half. Uh uh my pl my lawsuit had been rolling along a while. And then the other guys asked to join my lawsuit. because the statute of limitations had run out on them being able to sue anyone.'Cause they they literally tried to
Stay in the plan. I was I was I was willing to take the penalty whatever it was for being the dumb ass that let himself get into some financial thing like this. I felt like I used to say I felt like Joe Lewis. I thought I was gonna need an act of Congress to f forgive the debt. Uh um These experts in the n meeting that I talked about who were trying to dissuade me from making a noise and trying to get out of the plan told me eventually, John, if you receive all the money at once.
You will pay more than a hundred and ten percent in taxes of what you have earned. In other words, you are going to go in the hole for receiving it all at once, right? That's why I felt like Joe Louis.
That's it the most insane thing I've ever heard.
Well they were trying trying to intimidate.
Yeah.
Um
How much money are we talking about?
When it finally was over, the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle I mean you're gonna laugh at the Rock Band Victorious wins 8.1 million. That was our entire take for everybody in the band. Each guy had a little bit different amount, but you know, those numbers uh I mean I don't know. Uh Dion once made a joke at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame about Bruce. The answer is wrong. I sold forty million, meaning you know, you you sue me. Well Bruce has that on him.
It was it was pretty funny. Yeah, I mean eight million i was that was it. That was our take from all the sales of credence.
So Uh was that the amount of money that was in the bank that they stole from you?
That was what we got returned to us.
¶ Music Industry's Financial Exploitation
Mm-hmm. Well, I figured they would just vanish.
Um the money didn't come back from Saul's ants or Capital or Castle Bank or any of those people. What had happened was Fantasy was let out of the lawsuit by the local judge in the Bay Area. I don't know why,'cause they're the ones that got us into the plan. But anyway, they were let out of the whole thing. So who was left was this guy named Bert Cantor in Chicago who designed the plan and our own our own accountant and lawyer. Most of them did was settle for pennies on the dollar.
You know, we said that you owe us uh a million dollars or whatever and they settled for like ten thousand dollars.
Really?
Right. Rather than go to trial. our own accountants legal team said, Ah, we got these guys. They can never win this. So I mean, ironically They wanted to go to trial and put the poor accountant, you know, who was an old guy got we we retained the money we had lost in that plan, the eight million I just mentioned, uh, from the law firm uh or the insurance firm, it was his insurance company's lawyers that were representing him. And they had to pay.
Nobody else had to pay. Interesting. And then CIA or whoever you're talking about got away with it.
Of course they did. Yeah. They know how to do that. It's kind of crazy too that it's only eight million dollars when you think about how much money you probably made the record company.
Yep. Well there was a hundred million records plus, so
Right. Do the math. How much was an album back then? Yeah. So Four hundred million plus operating expenses, costs, all that stuff. See you know, you guys got a small percentage. That's how it works though. That's why the business is so dirty. That's what's so you know, the idea is that they help you and they bring you up. But the reality is they sell art.
And if they don't have artists, they have nothing. The artists are what fund their very existence and they make the majority of the money. It's it's pretty dark when you really think about it.
¶ The Pure Joy of Music and Jimi Hendrix
Yeah, and Joe, I gotta tell ya, um I love making music and I don't do it for the money. I mean, I know that sounds a little naive, but it just the happiness in my heart from doing this is From the music.
I believe it's not a good idea.
From the joy. The only thing is when you y I mean I'll say I'm not like well, maybe I'm an idiot, but probably not about this. When you find out that there was money but somebody else got it, then that kind of gets your attention. Right. You know? But um
The for me at least it was a it wasn't even about being famous, literally, if you could believe that. It was the joy of of understanding, you know, what the the music from other people that you loved and as you gr grew up from a you know that little first inspiration, you began to kinda understand what it was you liked about what they did. And at some point then started to try and do it yourself. But that was a that was a long, long time after the initial joy of just enjoying what they did.
Yeah, it's it's kinda sad that money always does kinda distort things. But if you were only interested in money and only interested in fame, or if that was your primary concern, there's no way the music would be that. It's like that that has to come from a real place. It's a real place of creativity and enjoyment. A hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent. You know?
Well for me it did. I just it it and also the prospect of creating something new tomorrow, you know, and and the What's the word? You you get certain feelings well we all do, but um I've learned to And I say it sort of It's like being in a big swimming pool or something. You know, it's all it just surrounds you. Let it letting yourself enjoy that feeling and then try to figure out a way to put that into the music. You know, express it and
Yeah. It's a long story with all these different artists that have had to deal with all these horrific managers and b I was reading this article about um Jimi Hendrix manager. Uh so one of his bodyguards uh wrote a book.
where he's blaming Hendrix's manager for his death and he was essentially saying that Hendrix was murdered and Hendrix was about to leave his manager and that's why he killed him. And I don't know if you know the story about Hendrix, but his girlfriend fell from a roof or jumped off a roof shortly after Hendrix died and apparently they were trying to get rid of her as well because they knew that she knew the whole deal behind it.
Was this the one with kind of a funny foreign name? Yeah. Yeah. Um
So many of these guys had mobbed up managers.
Yeah, I do know that there was some manager of his I mean Jimmy owned his master. That was remarkable. That's why that's why his family has the Masters, his estate, you know, who they're the ones that decide'cause every so often a new Jimmy album would come out, that sort of thing. Um I didn't know any of this way back then. I just wondered you know, who was driving the bus. So I mean that part was
was pretty good. Uh I he he had to talk to somebody at Reprise Records and some of those people were Reprise uh Warner Brothers. In other words About the time I was at Warner Brothers, it must have been a couple of'em, you know, that decided that way back in the sixties. Um I guess I was a little envious'cause I sure didn't own my masters, that's for sure.
How many people owned their own masters back then?
Um nobody.
That's crazy. How do you think he got that deal?
That I don't know. I don't know how it how it came about that he was able to have that much influence. I mean that's the part I d I did I did get the inference from the m at least one of the books I read about Jimmy that um he He uh th they didn't try too hard to save him. Yeah. Jimmy was I guess was just really effed up for a couple of weeks there. And n the no one tried you know, they were almost I mean, I almost got the sense that somebody took a bottle of wine and just poured it in'em.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's that was the what the bodyguard was inferring, that they poured pills and alcohol down his mouth.
Terrible. Well I I hope to never be in s uh such a state that I can't protest something like that. Right.
Right. Yeah, it's dark. Because uh apparently he was ready to leave. He wanted to leave as manager. Mm and obviously Jimmy was a gigantic star. And that guy saw the money.
Well he still is.
Still is still this day.
Every single guitar survey that ever comes out, you know, you it chang the all the other numbers after two keep changing with fashion and all that, but it's always number one is Jimi Hendrix.
Always. Yeah. Kind of extraordinary when you think about it. The guy died at twenty seven years old. Mm-hmm. You know? And was already From another planet. Is this guy from Earth? Like this was so different than any other guitar playing that had ever taken place before him. He was a complete revolutionary, like just a completely new creative artist.
¶ Early Bands and Record Company Control
Mm-hmm. You know, and one of my favorite musicians, absolutely of all time. That's why I named the podcast the Joe Rogan Experience. That's it.
Yep. I should have named it the John Pogarty experience. Ha ha ha.
Instead of credence? Yeah, well.
I did create that name. Um
What was the crazy name that the record company called your one of your first bands?
Well it was the same people.
Same people.
Yeah, same I mean the same individual musician.
Um
In high school, or junior high actually, I started a band and called it the Blue Velvets. Not all that cre you know, earthshaking, but kind of a cool vibe. Um And we were really the blue velvets by you know, the I mean this this was l really a trio, but my brother was older, he was in another orbit. Uh
So we kinda went through high school m seeing each other every once in a while. It wasn't like we were all tromping around playing gig after gig. It was more like, you know, every few months there might be a sock hop or something like that. Um and then uh after high school and Tom Tom would come and sing, he was my older brother, he would come and sing once in a while with us. We made a couple of recordings during that time with real record companies. But it was always kind of just haphazard.
Um, and finally around uh the age of nineteen I went over and knocked on Fantasy Records door. They had done this special about Vince Giraldi. and they were in the Bay area, so I you know, I went over there and introduced myself. Anyway, some you know, one thing led to another. Finally we're recording. Uh and at that time I think we made a record with only three of us, me and Tom and Doug the drummer. And I play I overdubbed a bass part. And this is early or this was in nineteen sixty four.
Uh when the they finally pressed the single, one side was called Little Girl, it's kind of a four chord doo wap song. The other side was sort of a English uh or a British invasion answer kind of thing. Maud music. It was called Don't tell me no lies. Anyway, we excitedly go over to San Francisco to their warehouse and open up the package and it says the gollywobs and we look at each other and go
What the hell? No, no, no. I think we had chosen our name to be The Visions. It was just something at the last minute because w we weren't really the blue beloved anymore, but that was it. We thought it was gonna say vision. Um but the record company had decided they wanted to get in on the British invasion mod, whatever, and named us the Gollywogs. Sounds like polywog.
Yeah.
He said, well, a galiwag, you see, is this doll that uh when the British soldiers were in India, there would the kids would have this little doll called a galiwag. And so that's all we knew about it. Um as time went on, I mean years and years later. af long after I had been we r renamed the band or I'd renamed the band Creden. found out that Gollywog was a this was a very racial thing. This was the British soldiers calling the p people
Whoa.
Wogs or gollywogs.
Yeah.
Wow.
And they didn't know this either, obviously.
I don't know, no. I don't know. I didn't know that.
That's crazy that they could just change your the name of your band without you having any knowledge of it at all. You open up the record and it's right there.
Yep. And they kind of insisted, you know, it's that same thing that, well, we're gonna own the publishing to your song. No, no, I should own it. Well then we're not gonna make any records. Uh oh, okay.
You're nineteen.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's how they get you. You don't know any.
Well and you kinda want to make a record.
You wanna make a record, it's right there. You you taste it. Oh my god, I'm gonna be signed to a record label. I'm gonna be a rock star. And then they come to you with a shady contract and that's their modus operandi. So what they do with everybody.
I know they call it business. Um
Funny term.
Yeah. Um most of those people I mean it's like lottery to them. It's like gambling. Um they don't have a clue what creativity is. And at that age the young are I mean, I I guess I'm looking at you and saying, If I only no, what's that line? If I didn't know now what I didn't know then. Um you're a young artist, you don't even know what you got. Right. Right? You know you have feelings about music and y but you don't
You know, you're less than a rookie. Right. You know, you maybe you were good in junior high, but that doesn't mean you're Willie Mays. Right. You know? So that's sorta how that works and they sign you up before any of that self realization happens and then you're messed.
¶ Fantasy Records' Wealth and Personal Philosophy
Yeah. Skinner it's what happened to most bands. I mean they're very clever in how they do it. They sign a bunch of people that are emerging and some of them are gonna hit. Yep. And they bankroll it and then they make the majority of the money when those people hit.
Well in our case, credence was the only thing that ever happened. Fantasy became a very wealthy Record company. uh Saul origin uh eventually went into making movies That money that I had made for him at The record company, you know, turned into one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Oh wow. Some other Uh uh Saul even had and in those di times had bought the movie rights for Lord of the Rings. So, you know, his he his ticket got punched way up high. And we never got a dime of course of any of that.
Crazy how bad people can get ahead like
Well that see that's yeah. That's why I had a little hesitation when you were talking about that you thought the music came from a or creativity came from a joyful good place. But boy, you can sure look in different parts of entertainment and uh or business in general and see some really bad people have made a lot of money.
Well, it takes the good people to create The creative people make the things and it there's always just gonna be people taking advantage of people being naive about
I choose to believe that at least it works for me. I I choose to believe that you've gotta have a good heart, you've gotta Try to use the golden rule basically, you know, don't do un don't do something bad to him that you wouldn't want to have done to you. So the do unto others as you would have them do to you. Yes. Um I I believe in God and I believe God is watching me all the time, uh you know, all of us, so that
That part helps me to feel like there's a a reason, you know, to try and be a good person. Um the reason being You're in God's grace if you do those things if you try to live a good life. A uh honest and I guess we call it transparent nowadays. Yeah. Um you know, uh don't get me wrong, I'm not running around the world with a thumping a Bible or something. I just think it's
¶ Karma, Prayer, and Spiritual Beliefs
common sense about uh how ultimately you want to exist in the universe, right? Yeah. Um So I you know, that that's how I operate. And so when I d certainly now at my age, when I see other people really getting away with stuff I just Ca i it isn't like I s gee, that's not fair. I should get the y I don't see it that way now. I just look at that poor sap who's being so evil and go You know, he's gonna get his come up and some day.
Well it's a horrible existence because no one loves you when you're like that. If you're if you're doing that and fucking people over, all your relationships are adversarial. It's a bad way to exist. You you're on a very bad freak. The way you you exist with the people in your circle.
I think that's true. I believe that.
Th there's a lot of people that choose that life just for financial benefit. They choose to just fuck people over and be in that bad frequency all the time. But that's not a good life. And I agree with you. I think uh if you live your life like God exists, it you'll you'll have a much better life. And the golden rules just I it's provable. Like if you're a nice person and you treat people well and y it spreads a lot of good energy around you and positive
momentum with all these other people, it it's the butterfly effect. It carries on to other people that they encounter too. They're inspired by how kind and friendly and generous you are and it it's good for everybody. It's good for you, it's good for the people that you're Generous and friendly too. It's good for the other people that they encounter because they're inspired by it. It's just good for everyone. That's how people should exist.
Yeah, I I literally b uh believe everything you have just said and literally have Sometimes ask God for a you know, I n I never sat around and asked for money or a hit record or s I I always thought that kinda poor. That's bad, you know. Yeah. I mean that's selfish or greedy or something. But I would ask for clarity or, you know, I would ask God to help me uh figure something out.
And amazingly there would be th through a relation, you know, somebody I was dealing with, there would be something it was like karma, good karma coming. And I can see that. see the uh you know, to me it was a result of my prayer or my openness of wanting to help get a situation resolved. Um So for me it y I I've to me it there's evidence that that it all works that way.
¶ Traumatic Catholic School Experience
Did you always have a belief in God?
Yeah. I think there was times um Yeah, be because I was just brought up that. Um again I don't believe my I was just I was just taught in a kind of nice and simple way about God. It it wasn't beat over my head or anything. I was raised Catholic. So in some sense you can't avoid having it lead over your head, I suppose. And and some of that I resisted. Um but I went through the normal things. I d did my first communion, my first confession. I did uh
What do you call that when you're twelve years old? The confirmation. Mm. Um I chose the name for for Saint Jerome. Basically because there's a song by Dou Bo Diddley called bring it to Jerome and uh Jerome was his I think Jerome Green was his Morocco player. And I really like the vibe of that. I'm gonna be Jerome. That's my confirmation name. Um Yeah, it was the it was there in those ways. There was times I was boy, you've opened a can of worms here.
because I was so invested in being a Catholic, even though m my parents tried to have me go to parochial school, Catholic school, um I was in i the first grade and then uh I wanna say they kicked me out and then I try she my mom had me start again in ninth grade at Saint Mary's High School and they kicked me out again. Um But it wasn't my fault. Anyway, the the one that happened i i is funny. I mean it's just
The one that happened in the first grade. Uh I had to take a bus to get there. I lived in El Cerrido and the it was the school of the Madeline in Berkeley.
I'm in the first grade, I'm six years old. So you had to go to the bus stop, get on a bus, get a transfer, so that then when the bus came to a certain stop over in Albany, you then got on a train you know, transferred in other words, got on the train and that went another mile or so into Berkeley and at a certain stop right behind the the school, the School of the Madeline, Catholic school.
You get off the train and go on down into school. Now what happened My mom was a t my my parents had split up, so it was only my mom in the house and she's leaving early'cause she's got in a job as a teacher. So she's out of the house before me. And so it's up to me to get myself together and get to the bus stop on time. Many, many times I was late. I missed it. So I had to get the next bus, so I'm late. So I'm rushing to school.
But I get there after they've already th they would march every morning to John Philip Sousa and they know all that. And go on into school and I I get there now, I'm late. the schoolyard is empty, I literally have to climb over the fence'cause they've locked the fence at boom, eight o'clock or whatever it was. and I had to scale the fence, run in the class without going to the bathroom. This was my first grade experience. Sat down in my chair,
within an hour I really got a pee. And Sister Damien would not answer me And so she would one day I peed in my It happened again. It became a habit Sister Damien, John Fogarty has a puddle under his chair.
Oh no.
¶ Joe's Catholic School Story and Man-Made Religion
That was so traumatizing to me. But ask yourself, how is a six year old Getting on a bus all by himself. Travelin' three or four miles, then getting out of the bus, going over to where the train station thing is, getting on a train, going over there and I mean I've certainly never let my six year olds do anything.
I know it is kinda crazy how kids were just able to just leave the house and do anything back then. I think about that. When I was a little kid I used to just leave my house. Seven years old.
You were home for dinner time.
It's kind of crazy. I mean it's kind of amazing we all lived. Yeah. If you stop and think about it, but the to have to take a bus and then a train and go to school when you're six years old, that's nuts. So uh I went to Catholic school too, for first grade only, and uh that screwed me off of religion for a long time.'Cause I thought of God Back when I was a little kid before I went to Catholic school, as you know, God is all knowing and God is love and God created the universe and God is
God's looking out for you. He's just got some rules you have to follow. Made sense to me. And then when I went to Catholic school there was a lady I I don't remember anybody's name for back then, but I remember her Sister Mary Joseph. She was so miserable. She was just a mean lady. She did the whole thing, the whacking people with rulers, tell you you're gonna have to stay overnight and you're gonna have to sleep on a nail in the closet like
Just evil, like wanted you to cry. And when I would cry she'd call me a cry baby. And I remember thinking after that, like, I don't wanna have nothing to do with religion ever again. Right when I left first grade. I hated it. And I was like, whatever God is, this is not God. Like, these people have nothing to do with God. This lady, there's no way this lady is the messenger of God. This lady's mean.
That took a whole lifetime. to figure out, to realise well this is just a man made thing. You know, God's there. And some man made thing over here, you know, they became Mormons and some man made thing over there, they became Muslims and you know. And it's just all man made. It isn't actually God. Right. Right? And so you and m m man is fallible, of course. Yeah. He's not infinite and he's not infallible.
And so all these things were it that but that took a lifetime for me. I d uh I'm sure I was in my forties still working on that track.
¶ Human Influence on Divine Messages
Yeah.
That God's okay, John. You don't have to resist when somebody wants to make a prayer or something. It it isn't God's fault that you peed at your desk when you were in the first grade.
the mean nun. Yeah. Yeah. I uh I have a similar perspective. I I think uh I think all religious scriptures they're trying to document a a real thing, espe especially Christianity. Which is the one I've paid the most attention to. I think they're trying to document a real
But the hand of man is clearly all over it. That's the problem. The problem with anything that's written down. And we know that just in like the religious canon, the books that were included in the Bible, human beings had a decision on what goes in and what doesn't go in. Or there was rabbis that kept the book of Enoch out of the Old Testament. There's a lot of this weird stuff to it that you go like, Well why do pe why do people have any say? Why does a human have any say in
what the word of God is. That sounds crazy. And when you read the scriptures, you're like But somebody wrote that down and someone told that story for who knows how many years before it was ever written down. But I think the origins of it, there's truth. It's just you have to get through all these many layers of confusion to try to decipher what what God's original message was. And like what
How was it received? Who got it? How did it how did it even get relayed? Like what was w was the original event that led to this oral tradition that led to it being written down?
I'm smiling because this sounds exactly like a young musician has come to see this m more learned person and tell him about his experience. And the more learned person turns into the manager or the record company and he says, I want to own this.
Right.
And you know, they take all that the all that good intentions and faith and somebody ends up Owning it. And you end up paying a tithe, you know, into a plate and they make a lot of money.
in organized religion, especially when it gets to like these huge mega churches and preachers, like that's exact what it is. Yeah. It's someone taking advantage of this good thing and profiting off of it immensely. Yeah. But the thing I think the the point of like if you live your life like God's real, it'll be a better
I agree with that. I th but I think you also know I think you can just It's sensible that you try to share, that you try not to be greedy. Yes. You know, I don't mean you have to be a fool. I just mean that y y you don't have to be overtly always taking way more than your share.
¶ Childhood Musical Awakening and Elvis's Impact
Be kind. Be kind and be fair. Um how old were you when you first started playing music?
You mean as well.
An instrument? Messing around. Like how did you get into it?
Right. I was given a snare drum uh I think I was about four years old. It was a really cheap paper one.
Was your family musicians?
Uh not really. Both of'em, my mom and dad. Um one of my One of my finest and favorite memories is uh there was we lived in the Bay Area of of uh the East Bay from San Francisco. and my parents would go up to this place in Northern California near Winters, California, that's up like toward Sacramento, and there was this uh creek, this body of water called the Puta Creek. Eventually they dammed that up and made Lake Beriesa. Uh but anyway back then it was just a
running water and uh there was some people could camp there. There is at this one place they took me uh reputedly was owned by a a man named Cody And he was a direct descendant of Buffalo Bill Cody. I actually met him one day when I was about four and he was probably coming to collect the the payment for the cabin and the you know, a little space. Anyway, um and I I remember looking at the
So I was told that story and he was he would have been about seventy five. He literally could have been a son of Buffalo Bill. He would have been born at that point it was probably nineteen forty nine. I the story I'm relating and he c you know, would have been born in eighteen seventy five. I mean it's mind boggling to think that. Um
But the the my favorite memory thing other other than the fact that that whole place inspired my song Green River. That's all the little parts are in Green River. Um but one of the things my parents had this old Ford, old Green Ford And they'd be driving along at night up there is w what I mean I guess they were more happy or something there. And they I remember sitting between them, you know, it was just a big couch the front seat.
And they were singing songs in the dark and they were singing like by the light of the silvery moon or baby phase. uh and harmonizing. W one was taking the melody and the other was harmonizing. The reason I know is'cause I'd sat there and I'm probably three, four, five years old right in there. What are you guys doing?'Cause I knew the melody but it's but I hear two notes. Wha what are you doing? And they explained they were harmonizing. And it was just the coolest
thing and it was so such a happy time. I mean I really I felt what's that bonded to that I guess? Like that I really like this, whatever. Well they began to notice that I w I was musical. So at some point I know I a again at my fourth birthday there somebody gave me a or I had a little toy harmonica. And my dad you know, those little plastic kind of things. My dad picked it up and he played O Susanna in the cowboy style.
In other words, it's probably a C harmonica. He played in C, not like blues players do bending notes. He played that thing you see in the cowboy movies when they're sitting around the campfire having that sort of thing. I was just shocked. I'd never seen my dad do anything like that. Wow. And then uh on top of that my mom could play piano, what we now call stride piano. She would hit the boom and then play a chord like
a a octave of bass notes and then a chord above it. Boom da boom ta keep that going as like the drummer in the thing and then play melody and high notes up above and it was you know, she did she would One of my favorite ones was um Harvest Moon, Shine On Harvest Moon, which is a great song. And it just was magical to me. So that That kinda opened the door to let me know that Why? We can do this in our own house.
Um so the piano was around and then we also I I don't know whose it was, but we had an old Stella acoustic guitar. Stella is a name going back into the thirties, twenties, and this thing was built like a
Um
It was hard to play, the strings were like way high and all that. Eventually uh brother Bob told me at some point. Yeah, we used to play baseball with that guitar. We'd hit ball Yeah. That's how sturdy it was. But that was around so that I would every once in a while mess with Um but somewhere literally in the grade is where I started to really try and learn a chord and that sort of thing.
Is that when you thought, I'm gonna be a musician?
🔇 Silence
I think that moment was a little bit earlier. It was again up at this place winters. Um I my dad had driven into the town from our little c cabin, our little campsite. And I was with him and he'd gone to this general store and in the the general store had everything, had food and stuff, but also had uh fishing tackle and, you know, various weird things. So I'm standing there sort of near the counter and my dad's doing some kind of business. I'm just looking and suddenly I hear music.
And I'm what the heck is that? Well, I didn't even know. They had a jukebox in this place, right? And somebody had started the jukebox. So th it's playing music That I really like. It's rock and roll. And I'm, you know, I'm about 10 years old. Man, that's good. And I don't know who it is. It's just got a really bluesy sound, but it's it's fast. It's rock and roll. I run over and I finally determine
It's Elvis Presley. I never heard this. I knew of Elvis, of course, on TV. He had done a Heartbreak Hotel. I'd I had seen the the Tommy Jimmy Dorsey show that he'd been on three times. He was on there I think five times. Anyway, um
And so wow Elvis did this? What is this? Well it turned out it was the other side of his second big million seller, which was I Want You, I Need You, I Love You. This was a song called My Baby Left Me. And this was basically classic Sun Records by even though he was now on R C A. It was that thing they did on Sun Records, that just that kind of country
whale with guitar that was more country than blues and the guitar especially just na I said, what is that? I'm watching and this Scotty Moore who I didn't know his name at the time, but he's just playing this otherworldly stuff and that was I looked at that and I s I mean literally my head made I don't know I said this to myself, I don't know what they're doing. But that's what I want to do. And I made up my mind right there in that three minutes of that
That's amazing. Yeah.
哇
Wow.
Well, it was transformative. It still is. It's just a pretty unique slice of American music.
¶ Baseball Dreams and "Centerfield" Anthem
I don't think I'm aware that I'm not sure. I I'm I'm gonna listen to it after the podcast.
You probably know his song Elvis's song, That's All Right, Mama. Sure. Right. Well this is in that vein. It's actually the same writer. Uh Arthur Credit. Arthur Big Boy cried out.
So your family was musical, but you didn't know any musicians. So what did you think you were gonna do? Like how did you think you were gonna eventually become a musician? Did you have a plan?
Um at some point You know what? At some point, a little earlier than that, but right around that time, it was the era of Dewop. Right. This is the way I mean a a kid can you can just go anywhere in your mind, right? And I suppose the Corvette automobile of course had come out. So in a very young mind, but th one of those cool m I guess we call them mashups. I was gonna have a group, but it was a s all singing. I was gonna have a group and it was gonna be called Johnny Corvette and the Corvettes.
And there was four, I'm Johnny, and three other guys, and we're all in sparkle jackets, you know, the the show biz right and we're black. Altyazı M.K.
That was your idea?
That's what I saw. I was referring to what I was seeing To be Johnny Corbett and the Corbettes, that was one of the ingredients.
How are you gonna be black?
I don't know. I didn't have to worry about that. I mean the the funny thing is that's so similar here is a very simple thing. Like when I was little I wanted to be a baseball player, right? But some kids dream of being in the NBA. Mm-hmm. But you gotta be ninety leventy seven.
Right.
You know? I mean, so how's that gonna happen? I mean you just said it in a really innocent way, but a kid just uh eat spinach or something, you know.
Yeah.
You know, I don't know, it but it worked for me. I mean literally when I you know, one of my dreams as a kid really was I wanted I love baseball, still do. I wanted the you know, okay, what do I gotta do? And I'd start throwing a I was throwing a ball against the side of the house. I'd made a big like a target, you know, bullseye and a I don't know why I did it that way.
And my mom caught me I was throwing a r actual hardball and it was denting the clapboard, you know, the wood. It was I was tearing the house down. So she got me a tennis ball and that was okay. Yeah, I was no good. You know, I wouldn't it was I was that dream was never gonna happen.
Is that what inspired put me in coach?
Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you. It's amazing.
Thank you.
I mean, how many baseball games have played that song? My m my God.
I mean at least uh you know, I mean uh there's a lot of it. semi nerds, I guess. You know, wanted to play ball, wanted to be a jock and just really at some point You know, the ones that really have it pass you by. Right.
Of course.
And you just kinda but in your mind everybody got their scorecard and you know, and they're following the game and all that and that that vicarious joy of watching Otani or Aaron Judge or whoever it is you love, uh y you get to have that in your heart anyway. What I mean, I'm the luckiest guy in the universe. Okay, I didn't get to play. But I wrote a song and my song's there all the time. It's just it's just the coolest feeling. The song my s that song's in the baseball hall of fame.
It is amazing. It's ridiculous. But it's just like that happened to me, you know, it's like God I could cry over that. When they had sent a letter to me and they were gonna you know, and put the music in the hall, I just would God, who do I tell? Jeez. Yeah, it was so good.
¶ First Song: "Wash Day Blues"
That's amazing. That's amazing. So when we when did you start writing your own song?
I was eight years old. Wow.
Do you remember your first song?
Yes. Or at least the one I remember is I call it the best the the one I can remember. It was uh morning, I was getting ready to go to school. I could walk to school was like Two and a half blocks from my house, something like that. I lived on Ramona. You go past Pomona, and then the next street was. Barry and the school was on Ashbury up about two blocks, uh Harding School. Um it was a grammar school. Anyway, I'm getting ready to go to school, got my lunch.
Commercial comes on I was listening to R and B. the rhythm and blues channel from Oakland. And the DJ suddenly says, Do you have the wash day blues? Is this day gonna be drudgery bec well maybe you're using the wrong and they went off talking about laundry soap, right? I don't know if there was a song involved in the commercial. I think it was just a red commer'cause it was probably live, you know, right there on old time radio.
So I went out the door with you know, carrying my little sack with the lunch in it. So watch the blues. Wow. I get kinda to the end of the street, I think that's Lynn. I gotta go down, you know, three streets. I'm walking along Look at the water blue I'm making that noise. It's muddy waters, it's the riff from uh Probably hoochie coochie man, you know. Uh And it all comes together and just walking down the street singing about all the stuff that
Because it's blues. Right. And I'm hearing all these guys on this, you know, channel I listen to sing the blues and about blues. So I got Wash Day blues. That's my s that's my song. You know, for years and years I thought it I thought I was a embarrassed about that story. God John, why couldn't you have a great story about the sinking of the Titanic or something. Watch des blues it'cause it just seems so mundane.
But now I kind of recognize because of the the two elements I had put together, um, it it's just kind of natural. Um it's really the process of writing songs.
That's amazing.
¶ Spontaneous Creation and Elusive Inspiration
And so when when you wrote songs, like I I I saw this uh video clip where you're talking about I think it was Old Man Down the Road. Is that the the the beginning riff? You had it. Yeah. And you were talking about how you that riff just hit you. It's out.
Yeah. Um w I had this place. Uh it was my studio. It was a convert basically the garage of a house. that I had bought to be my my office and my place. So it was a size of a garage. Uh that I would go there every day. So in the morning I'd get in I'd turn on my tape recorder and, you know, various pieces of equipment and stuff. I d that was my process certainly every weekday morning, sometimes on Saturday, Sunday, whatever, but
certainly the five days a week. Um and I'd walk in there and uh work on music. I did this every day for I mean years and years from seventy four until Center Field came out, basically. Which was eleven years later. Um And so one morning I walk in and I haven't even turned on the the stu yet. I just for some reason I went right to the guitar and I've turned on the amp and picked up the guitar and I'm just kind of noodling'cause I like to do that. A lot of my songs are started this way but
Suddenly just played and it really had that sound to it. And I I got my attention. Because I knew that it wasn't anything else. And I also I mean this is like in a n this is how quick our brains can work. You know, it's taken me way longer to tell it than the actual thing. But so I've played the And I realize it's not complete. It needs an answer. And I'm also aware that it's like being on a tight rope or something over Niagara Falls, you know.
You gotta have the right answer and there's probably only one'cause all the other ones are gonna kill it and you'll never remember this again,'cause that happens all the time. Right. You know, it'd be lame. You you You there you it's precarious, it's hanging in the air. And you gotta come back with the thing to make it complete, and it has to be the right thing. Uh uh. Yeah Yes And so it d oh my God Yeah and I've you know I play it over and over probably for five minutes. I just tend to do that.
That's the joy of music. That's the joy right there. That y'cause I knew it wasn't anything else. There was no question in my mind that well, is this coming from, you know, the Beatles or Howlin' Wolf or something, right? Um So immediately I c I had kept this little song book that's only about that big, uh, with titles in it. And I go flipping through the the book. And I think I see something that's somewhere down the road.
Okay. That for some reason appealed to me and I stuck with okay. That's what it's called. This song's gonna be somewhere down the road. And that day I start so now I turn on my tape recorder and all that. I play some dr'cause I had to play real drums then. Um, that's what took me so long, folks. Anyway, um so I make a little thing that's just the riff.
and then make a space of just the drums playing and nothing else so I can kind of listen to it and improvise w what's what's going on after this riff? What's somewhere down the road? And of course I start talking about uh get the thunder from the mountain, he bring the lightning from the sky, you know, and all that and these things are going on. And some You gotta shoot forward probably a few weeks. I realize I'm starting to write a song but
The title Somewhere Down the Road to me just seems lame. It seems undefined, not cool enough, not focused. N and probably not gonna remember it because it it sounds like w just what it is. You won't remember that. Right. Right? You know, if you say I've got a polka dot Chevy sitting on top of a Bull Moose or whatever, and that's your title, you probably get a picture in your head. You know. Right. It's gonna stick.
So I'm hunting around and say, well what are you doing here? What are you talking about in this song? We're talking about this guy. He's he's evil. He's the old man. He's the old man down the road. That's way better. So it the song became that The the deal is with my little songbook probably two years later, after the out that album had come out, I said, you know what, I wanna I wanna check on where somewhere down the road came and I went cover to cover.
And it's not in there. There is no place where I've written somewhere down the road. I just
I thought I saw.
And that led me to a really cool song. The reason I'm telling you this is there was a time I I had an office in Warner Brothers and I w when I was staying down in uh LA and I would go in there all the time and write, had some keyboards and stuff. And one day I thought I needed a break. I took my book and I went out and sat it was Warner Brothers parking lot. My car's I went out to my car and sat down'cause I was trying to give myself some And I thumbed through the book.
And I saw change in the weather. I said, man, I like that. And I look up and it's kind of a cloudy, gloomy sky, you know. Yeah. Changing the w yeah. So I ran back in my room and I started and I I went off. I was inspired and I wrote a song called Changin the Weather. Well same deal. After that album came out, I decided to check my It ain't in there. It's nowhere in my book where it says change in the weather.
So I
nowadays tell people, you know, maybe it's a shape shifter. And there's stuff in there it can just kinda go, John, listen to this, I got a idea for ya.
Right. Well the creative process is so mysterious. Yes.'Cause everybody that I talk to, whether it's comedians or authors or musicians, they say the ideas almost don't feel like they're theirs, like they're receiving'em from somewhere.
¶ The Muse, Worthiness, and Creative Discipline
For certain.
That's how you feel?
Yep. To me it's uh it's like tuning in a radio.
Yeah.
And a lot of it there's uh I guess it's the way I was raised, you kinda have to be worthy. Right. Treating people mean and doing all that, I'm closing the book. I'm not sending you nothing.
I think that too.
Yeah.
I think that's a good thing.
You gotta be receptive and and honor this process that we're going through here. And you if you're in that frame of mind and Some humility about this whole thing. And maybe I'll send you something.
The Muse. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever heard of Stephen Pressfield?
Huh?
Stephen Pressfield, he's an author. He wrote a great book called The War of Art. And uh I give this bo I have boxes of this book out front and I give it to comedians and artists all the time.'Cause it's uh just a book about the creative process about writing. Yeah. And one of the things that he talks about is the muse. about giving honor to the muse and sitting there and
and calling upon the muse for these ideas. That if you treat it like it's a real thing, it will provide you. If you show up every day and you put in the work, the muse will give you these ideas. Yep. But they do feel like to everybody that I talk to that's really creative. They feel like they're coming from someone.
Yeah, and yeah, it it feels like it's always been there.
Right.
And it's just up to you to be able to actually be able to see it or hear it.
Yeah.
So I d I do a lot of I get ideas in my head. I'm just walking around and it'll play To say to me the same as if you listened to the radio.
It just gets in the head and you start feeling it.
But uh um I d I do believe you have to You have to be doing it all the time. Like for me it was a process to actually sit down, be ready, and a lot of times nothing happens. You know, you got a blank sheet of paper and it stays blank.
Right.
Um But if you do that enough times At certain times you'll get a little Get a really good inspiration. Yeah. You'll be a that's the way I you'll be allowed to receive it. Right. But it r it really isn't you. Right. That's the way I I think of it. What it is is you have talent, you're supposed to honor your talent.
And so I'm gonna give you something if you're worthy. And now it's up to you to honor, you know, use yourself. Don't just go, I got it, we're done. No. You gotta work it now. Polish it. You know, make it.
¶ "Fortunate Son" and Vietnam War Inspiration
Yeah. Yeah, I I I feel the exact same way. I think I think there's truth to it. Um, I wanna ask you about Fortunate Son. How did you write that? Like how d how did that come about? That is like one of the greatest rebellion songs of all time.
Ha ha.
It's an amazing song. I love it. It's it's also a fantastic workout song, by the way. That song gets you jazzed up. If you're doing like a treadmill or something like that, you're starting to get tired, crank that sucker up.
Well um First of all, I think the first thing I gotta say about it is I was drafted, so I was in the military and I w I've got in the army reserves but um was well aw and w was on active duty and all the rest, so I well understood the position of I you might say the military mindset, right? Even though I was a I was a young person and this is right during the Vietnam era. And I think I I I really need to say that almost no one my age wanted to be in the army and go to Vietnam. I just
that was something you no, I don't wanna do that. Right. So m I got my draft notice. Um was uh got into the army reserves so I understood that side of the coin and that side of fate, you might say. Um The deal w I think the deal being okay, I'm in the military, so now I gotta play by the rules. I gotta do everything that's this is what I am, right? Yeah. Um there's a little There's a little bit of the whole idea of being American and serving your country.
I'm trying not to t trying not to say, Oh yeah, now I'm gung ho and I'm John Wayne and I'm gonna take take on Iwo Jima or something, you know. It was more like, Yeah, but you gotta do this right. You know, you c you can't just be uh some guy that's on AWOL all the time and being a mess, you know, I wanted to do it right. So, um, I I Went through all of that. It's another story, but eventually got my honorable discharge, which led to another song, but it's a different song. Um
And that was just before uh just that the Credence career was getting started. But anyhow, um During the Vietnam time you began to you know there were uh there was a lot of unrest, civil unrest in America and around the world. Those times were very volatile. But especially in America there was a lot of protests and discussion about the war itself. Remember there was a draft, so young people kind of by nature were against the war and against the draft'cause it seemed to be sort of
not logical. How's that? Um And in some instances you would see on the news, you know, some senator who had the political clout that he could keep his teenage son from being drafted. or get his teenage son into some cushy job. And you c you kinda saw it a few times, these guys were The fix was in, you know. Right. And that just it really didn't seem fair. No one had ever
really explain why we were having that war. To my mind, we still don't know. Right. You know, it just somebody's ego decided they wanted to have a war and they had a war. So Ever since? Have always ended kind of miserably. Um And we never th they never were won. They just sort of dissolved. Right. Um, so there was no marching band and all that stuff to get the you know, like World War Two ended with a decisive victory. Anyhow.
that angst and anger within me about that situation uh fueling my thoughts about So I started showing the band uh all the songs that the band learned and played uh throughout the co the Creden's career, they literally learned them as instrumentals. They didn't hear the song. I didn't show them the song. So they in other words a bass player I would show the bass player his part. Here's how your part goes. Here's how the drums will be. Here's the rhythm guitar part.
And the band wouldn't r actually hear the whole song until I had gone into the studio after that recording process and added my vocal Saying the background vocal parts.
哇
Uh played the conga drum or the shakers or tambourine or piano, you know, all the other stuff. Then they heard how the song went. Um so they learn their parts as instrumental.
¶ Writing "Fortunate Son" and Songwriting Evolution
And this was ex exactly that way. I showed them how the the play what was the form of the song and that I didn't even I don't think I had told them the name of the song yet. I thought I was writing a song called Favorite Sun. Because um starting in nineteen fifty two when they sent my second grade class I think home to watch um To watch the inauguration, I believe, of Eisenhower.
Uh I think that's what it was. And all the you know, we had a tiny little T V. All I saw was big black limousines. That's uh that was my entire m impression of the presidential thing right and politics. So after that I kind of would watch uh parts of the conventions in the summer. Uh you know, there'd be these gigantic you know, I didn't know what they were then, but these big rooms full of smoke and every once in a while somebody Your Honor, the great state of Texas would like to nominate
Her favorite son, Billy Solestus, or whatever. Right. Right? And they all said that, you know, the state of Vermont would like to nominate her favorite son and so that I had written that one down in my book and I thought I was gonna write a s kind of a political song.
So the band was getting pretty solid in the in the backing track and that told me, you know, I I was driving a career. I mean I There wasn't someone else telling me I was the one deciding and pushing and I think pushing pretty hard. I wanted a new single to be ready and this seemed like it might be it. So I
at one point after the band had been rehearsing the music for that song, Fortunate Son, uh for a few weeks it was getting pretty good. It's all right, I gotta write the words, I gotta I took a little yellow tablet like that, went in my bedroom and s sat on the bed. And instead of what I thought it was going to be.
The first thing I said, some you know, this idea of the red, white and blue and the pe they're always super patriots, you know, all this stuff. It's bluster and all that blah blah blah. Right? And How do I get that? How do I get that? Well they're waving the flag and yeah, but what's going on now? They're pointing the cannon at you right.
Yeah, but it ain't me and I realized oh wow that's something I can repeat. It ain't me. I ain't I ain't no you know, and w literally that I mean it j I just sort of did it in front of you, almost the way it played out of me sitting on that bed, literally walked in and twenty minutes later walked out with the whole song. Wow. Coming from the I didn't have anything other than favorite sun. The rest was just the stuff that was boiling in my head at the time of course.
well heeled people uh getting out of the draft, which kinda pissed me off. You know. I just you know, there were a lot of guys now that I was in them or had been in the military and I knew there were a lot of other guys felt just like me. It wasn't like they I didn't grow up that I wanted to be a soldier and go do that. It was just fate that made that happen. So the unfairness of the situation made me want to talk about
Well you nailed it.
It's such a great song. So did you have the music all settled out when you went to the musicians and explained to them how the song was gonna play out? Did you have that before the lyrics?
Yeah. Almost always.
So what did you think the song was gonna be about when you f when you just brought them to music?
Well I as I said, I thought it was gonna be favorite son. So you
You kind of still had the theme in your head of how
It was something around that stuff. Right. I just didn't know what it would and I also You know how there's a t shirt though. The older I get, the better I was. I didn't know what the song was gonna be But I mean now I would certainly have a little trepidation. I'd go in a room with a blank. I'm probably gonna come out of there with a Some you know, a smiley face that I doodled or something and no words, meaning somehow I was counting on myself to do it. But
That's pr that's pretty precocious. Yeah.
Yeah, but that's also that divine intervention of the muse. Like you put in the work and you call. You called upon it for inspiration and your mind started lighting up. Yeah. And then you started putting the pieces together.
Yeah. Oh that's a wonderful Joe, that's that's a an amazing process when'cause that's what I do. I'm not a prize fighter, you know. I'm not a baseball pitcher, let's say,'cause there would be an evolution in his work. Right. You know, or something that you can I'm I'm not those things but I I am a songwriter and that it plays out over some it isn't just once, you know, it plays out over some time and incidents where you suddenly get a hook into an idea and then the
the gods, the muse, they let you continue forward with something that is way better than you ever dreamed was gonna be it. And suddenly it Wow, this is really cool and you're excited and you're happy and and it's coming to be. And you realize as I said, that was the by the way, by far the quickest I ever wrote a song. And that's so quick, so fast that y I mean it's almost like instant replay. That was so fast that you you or at least I did, I thought, man, this is really good.
I mean and you just like a minute ago I was taking a breath hoping that something would happen.
¶ Authenticity Versus Rock Star Stereotypes
Yeah. Well that's what's amazing about great songs. Like John Mellencamp was telling me a story about uh uh I need a lover that won't drive me crazy. Like that song he wrote in the shower. Oh, yeah.
You mean in one shower?
Me crazy.
And then
Next thing you know, he's got it. Yep. And it's an all-time class.
Yep.
It's amazing.
Well that The the songwriter and especially when he's on his game, he He knows what It's and and it re it relates to your own personality, the kind of whatever it is you like, the stuff you have gravitated towards. And so when one of those comes along it really makes you smile'cause you're going, Yeah, this is this sounds like me. This is the stuff I like. Right. And you you go with it.'Cause I mean, you know, I I am
I I would say notoriously corny, you know. At least I think I am. You know, the it it's like they make all these jokes nowadays about dad bod and all those kind of things. Yeah. I mean I literally think that's me. Right? And some of the s I mean Cinner Field is The corniest thing that was ever invented. I mean I love it. I unashamedly wanna be corny. It it's that's who I am. I'm corny, right? But it I mean in that song it just that resonates with I'm ha I'm h I'm glad I'm happy.
I'm happy to be happy. I want to be happy. Right? In other words, I don't have to feel'cause rock and roll's all about dark colours and leather jackets and piercing and, you know, tats and everything and a scowl, you know, velvets with All that stuff. That's good. I mean, you know but I like you know, uh well it seems to be me. I can just be unashamedly happy and I'm glad I've you know, like Center Field is so optimistic and just great.
It's an awesome song. Yeah. I uh I don't think rock and roll is all dark. I think there's aspects of rock and roll that people like that are dark because it's mysterious and these guys are rock stars but You know, rock's everything. It's like there's so many layers to it. There's so many different types of personality and you happy to be happy is also an awesome part of rock. Clearly.
Yeah. Well that because actually real people, all as humans, sorta have all those different parts, right?
Yeah, that's why we identify with it. It's a fantasy idea. The people want to they w they wanna believe that there's that part of them, you know, there's this just you know what I mean?
I'm gonna say abs it's absolutely and um you know Marlon Brando on the motorcycle in the is it the Wild Ones, I guess?
Yeah, I think so.
He's just so bad. Yeah. And so rock stars in v well other g I guess, but rock star because it was right in that era, they invented or gravitated to i in other words, one picture defines me.
Yeah.
This is my uniform. Uh you know, I sleep in this.
Yeah.
You know? I mean and so, you know, I've got a big chain and a leather jacket and you know, now I mean it got more and more violent or dark. Right. Hoodoo voodoo, you know, and all that. Um but and it's it's funny because it's basically s I'm all this all the time. Yeah. This this one picture does it. And I I kinda my wife and I joke about it'cause she'll kinda say something like, Well you don't dress like a rock star and then of course I'll say,'Cause I'm not right? Um
I I I always sort of I mean I have a leather jacket somewhere. Right. Or two even. Uh How can I say it? To me it was it was a uniform. To me it was opposed. And so you know, I tend to actually just put on clothes you can buy in the store uh when I get up in the morning, I take my kids to school. You know, I didn't put on the whole like a just got off the stage at it uh I don't know, name some place.
At the whiskey. Right. You know, and now I'm bringing my kids to school and hey Mrs. How you doing? Flip my cigarette over into the I ch I guess I could be a sitcom or something. But uh that wasn't me. I just I kinda was normal dad to my and I'm glad they saw me that way, to tell you the truth.
Yeah, absolutely. Look, the the idea is silly that everybody has to be one way. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Yep. Well clearly when you look at what you produced, like you clearly are a rock. And you did it by being yourself. Like
Actu, I think you nailed it there. Um Here's a real truism. When you're making something and it's and we talked about this and it's resonating with you, it just seems like in your wheelhouse it's you, you're it's that's probably gonna be really good. It's comfortable. Sounds like the s you. You relate you relate. It's great. If you ever get yourself as a songwriter, singer, whatever, well So and so's gonna really like that I did this and you're off on some weird thing trying to, you know, be
somebody else sees it a certain way and you're doing it for them and God knows whatever that is, but it isn't you at all. You've you probably are just
Yeah. And guys do get off the road.
¶ Post-Creedence Bitterness and "Eye of Zombie"
I've done it myself. Yeah. You know, oh yeah, especially being preachy and that kind of thing. You know, there's some songs that you oh God, God. Shut up.
Where where does that come from? Does that come from just you have a big audience and you all these people look up to you and you just start feeling you're important?
Um I think uh f I think some of it I don't I don't know all the answers. Who does? But um You're in a m in a mood where you're or a mode, you're you're w you wanna get some material together. You wanna make a record. You wanna have some stuff finished. And maybe you're not so inspired, right? So okay, well I'm gonna how about if I talk about whatever and you start trying it's almost like a square peg in a round hole. Well yeah, I gotta do something because there's there is some credence to that
W just work just start working. Just start moving. You know, don't just sit there. Do something. Sorry, and keep grinding and maybe eventually it'll get to where it's natural, you know, the good part. Yeah. Because just sitting and doing nothing, which I've certainly been accused of, is that's n n nothing for no one, right? So you start moving your feet and trying to get the juices to flow and all that. Um
like I said, yeah, I wrote some songs, a whole album really, uh, called Eye of the Zombie. It was the follow up to uh Center Field. And I had some other some ulterior n not that I did it on purpose, but some other ingredients came into my mix. I I'll get there in a minute. But anyway, the album as a whole is pretty dark and pretty not doesn't ring true to me, I I think. It's kinda misses the mark, it's off. that's a that album and that period of my life is a really interesting Um
A really interesting phenomenon. I think that I'm not the only one. It's just that I consider myself lucky. So I worked for you know, I I had this enormous band, number one in the world. Um get screwed by the record company, lose my life savings, ban breaks. bands in the in the newspaper saying n nasty things about me, etcetera. Uh I'm held kind of in a dungeon by the record company and I gotta either give them my music or no one else.
You know. Um, and I somehow managed to get through all that and fifteen years after being credence breaking up basically. Finally come out with an album called Centerfield. There's happy, joyful music on it. It goes to number one. It's acclaimed, which is a w wonderful thing. Og det er så her. Yeah. I think what happened is the story I tell about it. It's as if you'd been unjustly in prison, you know, convicted of a c crime, put in the penitentiary for a long time, and one day they decide
You're right, we made a mistake. You're free because you didn't commit any crimes. We're gonna let you free. And you're so happy you walk out the door, that's sinner feel coming out. And you come out into this big meadow where you know green grass and bluebirds, uh you know, it's a Disney cartoon, right? Right. And then you turn around and you
see frickin' San Quentin, the prison that you were in, and now you're angry. You look at that and you just r well what the That's what happened. I you know, I Winnerfield came out I should have and was a success. In other words, I was exonerated or vindicated. I should have immediately gone to therapy.
Right? Cena shrink. But that k's kinda not my tha I wasn't raised anywhere near any of that kind of stuff. So I didn't know to do that. Uh instead all that stuff that I was repressing so that I could do center field, phoom it just came out like And I was instead of being overjoyed, I was miserable, bitter, and and it it happened all at once. It didn't like develop it. It was BAM and for like Two years it was like you could say Saul's name.
And I'm my I would implode like uh the werewolf in uh in uh werewolves of London or something. You know, just or the what's that guy? Uh the Hulk.
Yeah.
Um And so I made that album and that's all that stuff. I mean I just didn't have the sense to see that it was it was it was nothing like Center Field. Right. Not a good This guy's not happy. It was not a good follow up. Um
How'd you?
¶ Finding Love, Healing, and Rejecting Romanticism
I met Julie. Right in the middle of that tour in eighty six for um Eye of the Zombie or as we So I am a zombie, you know, uh, I met Julie. And even though I didn't know I I thought I was in perpetual binge mode. Uh basically, okay, I'm gonna go out on tour now. I'm just gonna be a rock star on the road. And be be everything I never got to do for twenty years, right?
Now I'm like a I'm a little kid musician again. That's what I thought I was doing. Obviously that comes from some anger to talk like that.
Yeah.
And so I just thought I was going to Make my way through the Hollywood Hills, you might say. I think I actually said One day just suddenly met Julie. not expecting to meet the love of my life uh the person I feel that was that I was destined to meet and the person that would Through her good graces and help me find myself and help me enjoy and find the the joy of life again. Um and it all it all changed.
That's all. That's awesome. It's great that you bounced out of that.'Cause a lot of people don't. You know, when something bad happens to them they they just go into a spiral. They get in It's kind of amazing that you were joyful at first, but then you started getting resentful and thinking about it. Which is totally understandable.
Well you said a spiral and that's just what it felt like. It's getting worse and worse, not better.
Alcohol as well, right?
Yep. And boy you don't you know, they call it it takes you a long time to figure out it's a depressant. Yeah. You are d you're drinking, you think you're drinking to forget Stuff. But you're getting more and more depressed.
Right. Yeah. And it's weakening your resolve, your your your body. It's weakening your vitality. So you're tired and you're angry.
That too. And your and your mindset. Yeah. You just in a in a miserable mood.
And it's also that's also in the the rock and roll stereotype, you know? The the drinking, hard partying, rock One of my favorite songs when I was a kid uh was uh Bad Company Shooting. And every kid that used to listen to that thought they were Johnny. Like Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song. It's a sad song. The guy dies young, becomes a rock star and winds up dead. And everybody like was romanticized.
This song of this terrible lifestyle that this guy lived. This guy was super talented and uh had the gift.
Well it's based on, you know, some reality there, of course.
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah. Um Unfortunately, yeah, we we really romanticize the idea of dying young, bring uh burn bright, die young. And it's it's all cool until They're pointing at you and you're the one that's gonna die. Yeah. I mean at that moment in life most people, No, I don't wanna die. You know. Up until then there it's just sort of a vague idea out there somewhere.
Right, right, right. But weird that it's a romantic vague You know, Johnny died one night, died in his bed, bottle of whiskey, sleep in tablets by his head. Like we just just like assumed like this is how it goes. You know, like this is the rock and roll romantic story.
You you hear those words when you're young of course and right. That uh actually sounds kind of positive. you know, because it rock and roll, man. Yeah. When you're older you can hear the same words and you say, Yes, that's real But it's not a p positive thing anymore. It's just sort of a statement of fact, right? Yeah. I mean there's a I'm I'm sitting here now, uh, you know, talking about some parts of me that are
I'm certainly embarrassed about and probably ashamed of. I've I've I've let the shame part go. It just happened. Right. I mean I don't encourage anyone and I try to tell'em, No, stay away from don't do what I did. Um And but I used to beat myself up a lot with the shame part. And I think that might be part of the healing, part of the getting out the other end.
Um
uh be because i the more and more solid you get in the resolve of the way you're gonna really live your life and not that. the m kind of more the shame dissipates and you you re you're not so it's not tenuous anymore like, Oh, I might ball back you know. You're not so scared that that could happen anymore.
I think the shame is an important element. Yeah. I think the shame of your your past and the mistakes that you've made motivates you to never make them again. That's the problem. Some people they'll do something in high school and they carry that for the rest of their life. Like that whatever it is, whatever stupid mistakes they made, whatever behavior they they think that's them forever. And that's what's crazy.
¶ Embracing Normal Family Life and Music's Power
Oh we should be able to grow up and and and bec I mean you know, kids I got married the first time at twenty. I mean there just should be a law. Um You know, ca you're you're just too young. You don't you don't know what you're doing. You don't know what all this really means. Right. Um certainly by the time I met Julie, you know y you know what though, that experience made me shy away for a few years there from the whole idea of of a marriage commitment. I was committed, but the marriage part
scared me, you know, it just oh my goodness. And then one day I realized I was sort of well wait a minute. Go back to square one. What's the most joyful, happy thing you can do? Well, I want to marry her. Right. And have children and have a white picket fence and a house and we go to kindergarten and all those things, you know, we bake cookies at the PTA. I want all that. Yeah. So sure.
It's crazy because that's not what anybody thinks of when you think of a rock and roll life.
Uh oh.
Right?
I suppose. See, I'm corny again.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you think at all.
You know, I I just really even though my my mom I mean she was a warrior, you know, th m think of it, there were five boys. That was my family. Uh my parents split up when I s it was kind of a long ongoing thing, but somewhere around eight years old. And so it was my mom's job to raise these five boys.
And I uh you know, at some point being a teenager or a little later, I said, It's a wonder we're not all in San Quentin You know, I mean somehow She had enough of her, she gave enough of her to inspire us, all of us, really, to be good people. I mean you know, we all had our faults and foibles and fell down and all that, but yet the ideal was to try and reach up here and be a good person and and
Because our family wasn't in a in some sense to try and have a normal family, you know, leave it to beaver and all that sort of thing. Yeah. So that was a That was a big goal to me and big inspiration to to want that.
Well it's a beautiful thing. There's nothing wrong with that idea.
That at all.
Not at all. It's just the idea that there's something wrong with it. It's that that's the fake rock and roll That's the vision of the dark artist. You know?
I think um I don't know if I talk with Julie about this. Sometimes we show up at stuff and there'll be a lot of characters I'm talking about musical things. Lot of characters roaming around there you know they're and you know, I kind of look like Um mm uh Ward Cleaver, Beaver's dad, you know, Mr uh Mr. Boy Scout or something walking around, you know. Looking at me like couldn't you have worn something a little more I don't know.
A little more rock and roll.
Yeah, maybe. And I I j I'm just not bothered. I mean I it is kind of funny though. I've actually I've worn some cool clothes at some of the stuff. That would that would all be Julie's doing, of course. Um yeah I mean it's It's almost like, you know, could you could you show up at a reunion of uh rock guys, you know, in their fifties or something, everybody pull out their blotter, you know, their p police blotter. Oh yeah, I got busted for and everybody would have a
A rap sheet.
I mean it would be a badge of honor, but I suppose to me I'm I'm just really glad that it wasn't like that.
Well, it's just you being authentic. It's a powerful thing. It's it's great too, because the influence is to not. The influence is to create an image, you know, and a lot of people cultivated that image. Of course and they get kinda captured. Yeah. You can't like switch
Letterman.
To Pee-Wee Herman on his show. Just think, Pee-wee, you're gonna have to dress like that for the rest of your life. That's true.
Right.
Right?
Yeah. And then that's what people love. They don't love you. They love this fake thing. They've
Well you know, it's the cowboy thing, the motorcycle
Yeah.
I I I but look, I like all those too, actually. Yeah. I you know, I love the I I like keeping it as a a fantasy. Um I watch some T V shows and my favorites are the s the the modern you know like Yellowstone and all the other ones after that. There's probably a lot of a lot of
What do you call that? Literary license, you know? Sure. For imagery. But I love the imagery. Yeah. I mean I can sit there and watch that river flowing ba past those rocks and the pine trees forever and some cows going over the that's okay.
The stoic cowboys living this rough life.
I like all that.
Of course. Everybody does. It's very romantic when you're looking at it from the outside, especially. Yep. I mean how many people moved to Montana because of that
They're hoping not so many.
I bet a lot did though. A lot did and I think a lot left. Yeah. Yeah, I think they realize how hard the winters are and they're like, All right. Whoa. This ain't this ain't my uh romantic idea.
Yeah, and it's a long winter up there. Yeah.
Yeah. Music is... It's one of the most powerful things in American culture'cause a great song like Fortunate Sun can inspire people to change their lives. It can inspire people to make decisions. It does it does things to people. It gives you fuel. Like I was saying, like if I listen to that song when I'm working out, it's like I took an energy pill. Like all of a sudden I have more energy.
Like that's real. It's a it's a powerful thing that you've created. It really is. You know, and the fact that you did it out of love and enjoyment speaks to why the music is so uh resonant.
¶ Music's Impact and Unsung Talent
Well, you know, especially with that song, um, at that point in uh in the career of my band, m remember I was writing all the songs. Um I'll talk about that after this, I guess, in a minute. Um but I wanted to have uh just a all out screaming rocker with We didn't have yet. You know, the career was about a year and a half old. So I mean I commissioned myself to I I I want to have that
Yeah, absolutely l loud screaming song with the guitars and all. And so that was sort of the commission I gave myself to create.
As opposed to something like Have you ever seen the rain? Yeah.
Or even down on the corner, which is a different vibe. Right.'Cause I like that. I like when bands you know, uh the Beatles actually I Wanna Hold Your Hand or She Was Just Seventeen, saw her standing there, I guess. Um You know, when or uh um it's not really fast but it certainly had that vibe, you know, the instrumental rumble by Link Ray. I see I've missed you. Cool. Can you put that one up?
Yeah, pull that one up.
Well, yeah.
We'll get flagged. We'll remove it.
You do that?
We can play snippets, but the problem
You know everything we just been talking about? Yeah. Everything, including the guy.
The the only problem is we'll we can't put it on the podcast itself or we'll get flagged. But we can listen to it right now.
Yeah, yeah. That was the musical scale right there. Yeah. What's what is that? I took so much out of that. But anyway, he was look then rumble the song, Who's the Guy? Link Ray. Oh God, that's so cool. And when you saw'em black leather jacket, skinny as a rail, probably had a si
Yeah.
Probably a motorcycle thing. I mean it was the the entire thing in one little two and a half minute saw.
Oh look at him there.
He's a little older there, but it's yeah He's bad for the Uh
He looks cool as hell.
Yeah.
It's uh it's always fascinating to me, um, where artists had like one incredible song. And then never made. Like and you'll find out about that song and you go, This is incredible. How did this guy never make it? How am I do you know what Johnny Thunder is? Okay. Play I'm alive. There's a song that my friend Brian Simpson told me about God, it must have been like a couple years ago. And uh he played it for us in the mothership, the comedy club, the green room. He goes, You're gonna love this
And I went, Who is this? We gotta figure out who it was. It's a song from nineteen sixty nine by this guy, Johnny Thunder.
Sixty nine.
1969. And it's fucking incredible. It's such a good song. And I'm like, this if if I didn't know any better, I'm like, oh, this guy must have been a huge star. I know, but if I heard that and someone said this guy's a huge star, have you heard this song about oh my god, it sounds like a huge star like this guy's fantastic. Listen to this. Listen to this.
Okay, Flights on Air Canada. Where do you want to go?
The Azores for its hot springs and volcanoes?
Hm, speaking of volcanoes, what about Japan?
You know I love sushi.
Not as much as I love tapas. Maybe Majorca. We could hit the beach, then go hiking for.
Speaking. Or how about a seaside stroll in Sicily?
Oh I do love cannolis.
Wait, what do you think?
🎵 Music
Air Canada.
Yeah, yeah.
It's
How good is that? Song's phenomenal, right?
Yeah, did he ever like under a different name or anything?
Nope.
Oh my goodness.
Nope.
Ha ha.
Isn't that crazy? Incredible.
Yeah.
The s the voice is incredible, the sound's incredible. We played that song on the podcast n uh a couple of years ago and now the song's in commercials and all these different things.
Oh is that true?
Yeah, cool. But he's dead now. He's dead. He he died I think he died in 2019 or something like that. Twenty twenty four. Wow.
Oh wow.
So he probably died like right after we discovered him. Isn't that crazy?
Yeah.
Isn't that crazy? Yeah. I mean you hear that, you're like, how did that guy not be one of the biggest artists in the world?
Or at least have that song be a big thing.
The song wasn't even a big hit.
Right.
It's crazy. It's it just you realize The slippery nature of success. Especially with art. Like sometimes guys just catch lightning. They got that one. And that's it.
I be you know, I think uh any artist that's been around a while
Another hit? De loop.
Oh I know that song.
Oh, Johnny Thunder featuring the Bobette. Nineteen sixty three.
Oh that's the song I kn uh I know that one. Wow. I didn't know who the n uh the name here we go, loop de loop.
Isn't that crazy? That song was Johnny Thunder's only top forty hit. That's incredible.
How high did it say it got?
Said number four. Number four of the US pop charts. Wow. Number six US R and B charts. Wow. And the the album uh in Canada it reached number fourteen two several It's incredible because if you hear that other song, like that other song is that should be gigantic. I'm alive. It should be a huge
Right.
And they listened to it and they never heard it before.
Right.
And so many guys like, Oh, oh my god. You hear like you hear'em hit like oh baby. It just cracks. It's a perfect song. It's an amazing song. But it's like
Yeah, so why w why would something that good Just you know, there's something
I don't...
The the week it came out was nine eleven or something?
Well you know what my fear is? My fear is that he got trapped up in the music business. send side of it. Yeah and they just decided not to promote him or something. They you know, he ran a foul with the music company or something. It just doesn't make sense that a guy who can make a song that good if you can make that song that good, you can make a ton
You would think so.
Yeah, you just need the right people with
Yeah, because he had the voice, and he could always do that.
The voice, the sound, the the the the soul to his his music, the way he sang, you know that part Oh my god, it's so good. It's so good.
It is
it's a very difficult thing to capture and even capturing it only once doesn't ensure a long career of getting it right, of finding that thing.
¶ The Artist's Journey and CCR Beginnings
Yeah, we were talking about that a little bit a while ago. You know, that that first blush when you realize you can do it because you've never done it before. Yeah. You know, when you cross that particular Threshold. That's an a that's an amazing transformation I guess in a in a artist's uh the way he grows because U until you actually do it, it's all just a dream. You know. Um I mean I
I had grown up writing songs. They you know, they weren't great songs. I mean I kinda knew it. I s I was watching all the people I loved. I'm talking about f from being four or five years old all all the way through growing up. And you're you know, things happen, Elvis and uh Motown and Beatles and all these things happen and th wow, you really like all that. And meanwhile you're having the dream of being in music somehow.
Um but you never really know if you're gonna be able to do that or not. Right. I mean this this sorta spreads out in a lot of strange ways in entertainment. I mean I I m I kind of make it similar to what what if you're a baseball player and you dream of growing up and getting to the major leagues, right? Somebody becomes Willie Mays. Right.
And
A lot of people don't. You know, and there's You just don't know. There's that realization, I mean, for Willie actually w he was it was slow if you read about him. Him and De Rocher were kinda you know, DeRosher could see it. And Woolie's kinda yeah. Um So if you're lucky enough and you become Willie Mays, I mean, God bless you, right? But there is that for most of us, that moment that well
Sorry, kid, you know, you you just you're average, but we don't need average. Right. Right? And that just happens a lot. Uh in music, there is people like me while when when the Four people that became credence sort of got together in uh nineteen sixty-seven after I got off active duty. And we say, Okay, we're gonna go for broke. Yeah, okay, we'll have a democracy. Yeah, we'll vote on everything. Yeah, we'll I'll write songs and everything. Right. Okay.
One of the things that happened going along those lines, I would show up at the rehearsal You know,'cause we at that point we started we said, We gotta do this all the time if we're ever gonna get any good. So every day during the week we'd meet at noon Or actually a little before that, maybe eleven and sit and talk, and then noon was rehearsal time. Um And so I'd say, Okay, anybody got any songs? And people start looking down, you know, All right, well look, I got something and we'd work on my
song, right? I mean we're just sorta getting organized. I've just come off active duty. I've been away from the world, you might say. Uh then next day, same thing, you know, at home I'd work on some stuff. Anybody got any songs? Kind of everybody I mean it was the weirdest quiet. A week later, you know, same thing. And finally I just well look, I've been, you know, I began to feel this thing inside that I gotta push. I mean I g I I think I can do this.
¶ "Proud Mary": A Classic Born From Freedom
And so eventually I g I got the idea The songs I'm working on aren't quite there. How about if we take an old song and I'll just trick it up, like psychedelicise it. Because I I'll pick a song I already know's good. It's got good stuff in it. And that's what I did with Suzy Key. I just kind of really arranged it and had all this cool stuff going on. It wasn't something I wrote. It kinda relieved me of the pressure of having to do that. And was able to just hey.
Just the that blank page turned into a different rainbow full of all nobody can fault mecause it's not my song. Right. Right. Did all this great stuff, this cool musical stuff to it.
Um
It got it the whole point was to get that tape on a local underground station that was actually playing unpublished tapes, you know, uh uh by certain bands. The most famous one you ever heard about w there was a tape of Janice Joplin singing Hesitation Blues and Yorma's playing guitar But in the background somebody's typing their term paper. It was done in their kitchen.
Yeah.
And so they were it was just sort of uh uh uh amateur unauthorized thing, but they played it on this one station. It became a hit on that station. People requested it. There were a couple of other bands that had tapes like that.
And you can hear the typewriter in the background.
Yeah, yeah. She's singing hesitation blues. Wow. So that became the th let's do that. Let's do an end run around record companies and just bring the thing straight to the station. Well they loved Suzy Key. They started playing it probably eight times a day. Each different disc jockey would play it. It's eight minutes and twenty seconds long or whatever, right? And that was really the true beginning. Um uh finished that album. My songwriting was mm you know, wasn't great, it was competent.
Somewhere right after uh the album came out oh well I wanted to make that point. ample opportunity to write a song. And it just kinda wasn't coming. I would show up at the at the rehearsals, well anybody got a song, you know, and and everybody got real quiet. And so I said, Well look, okay, let's work on this and I I began the realize inside that it was gonna be up to me. It wasn't it wasn't
I wanna control everything, it was I gotta start rolling this boat or we're gonna we're gonna sink in the middle of the ocean. So I started pushing myself harder and harder. Um The first album comes out on my birthday, uh, nineteen sixty-eight. I'm twenty-three years old. And Within sometime shortly after that, I can't really pin down the I'm still in the army, right? But I'm working on getting released, getting out.
Somewhere I think in June or July, I don't exactly know, my honorable discharge shows up. I opened this package that's been sitting there for a couple of days because it said official government business. Who's that for? And I find it was for me. It was a you know an apartment house. I'm overjoyed. I mean this is the biggest struggle has been of my life. Wow. Wow. Wow. I turn a little cartwheel on the lawn'cause I wanna remember that I turned the cartwheel.
And ran in the house and picked up my guitar and star Playing these chords that are still Somewhat like Beethoven Oh I start strumming this beat. I start hearing this chorus See, left the first thing I said was left a good job in the city. Well that was getting out of the army. Wow, working for the man every night and day. Wow, what is this? Eventually I arrive at this thing where I say rollin' rollin' oh I like that rollin'. Rollin' on the river. That's starting to be beyond
me. Right. Out of me. Right. I look in my book because I said, What is this thing about? What am I doing here? The very first thing I had written in my little book of song titled was Proud Mary. It's the actual first line, first thing. I looked at that and I said,
Wow, this is about Proud Mary's a river boat. This is a a boat named Proud Mary. That's what we're doing here. And I finished the song, right? I mean it was Kinda Mark Twain, uh kinda Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, you know, uh had a little bit of kind of gospel flavor and the old South in it. When I got done, which was about a hour I was about an hour from when I'd opened my honorable discharge, I'm actually holding the the yellow little yellow tablet I've been writing on.
John, you've written the classic. I realized that this song was I had evolved. It was way better than anything I'd ever done before. You know, and so those meetings I'd been having, going to see the band and was anybody got anything and no one ever did. and I'd show my little piece of something I was working on. That kinda led Can I say it, to the confidence to do something really great. Yeah. Just doing it, right?
And the knowledge I mean I had I was self aware. I'm looking at this thing, Proud Mary and it's it's got Americana in it, although I don't think I had a word then. It's got I knew it was Mark Twain and the river and all this So for stuff. Wow. This for sure is the best thing I'd ever done. I knew it was a great song and then the next rally. God, I hope I get to do this again because you just don't know. Right. Right? Right.
¶ Creedence Breakup and "Mardi Gras" Disaster
But that was how that came about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. But but yes, and and something led me to be better than I was. I mean I I think what the my point was it was kind of the Willie Mays thing. I never knew if I would be able to do that or not. Right? Right. You you're going along, you're just plunking along clubs, whatever, learning a chord here and there, learning something off a record, ho hoping you have a career in music'cause you like music.
me I because my mother had focused had kind of pointed out songwriters, um, it put me in that realm. It put it it it made me at least realize that that was one of the functions of music. That's another story I could tell you. I don't know if you want to hear that.
I wanna hear every story. That that that's an ag that's a fantastic story though. Because Th that that you just getting that notice that you've been relieved and you're no longer in active duty, you've got an honorable discharge, you're free, and then the inspiration comes. And you write your greatest song of all time like that. Yep. Or at least the greatest song to that moment. And realize
This can be this can happen. You really have it. You really have it.'Cause you don't know until you try and when
You don't know till it happens.
Yeah.
You know, until Willie Mays one day did something on the field. Right. He didn't know. Right. And there was a point I as I alluded to, I've read about DeRosher knew when he saw him, and Willie wasn't so sure yet. Yeah.
Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. Bad Moon Rising is another great fantastic song, another huge favorite of mine. But uh also because it's in one of my all time favorite movies, American Werewolf in London.
Ja.
That scene where that song's that must have been cool to have that song play in that movie.
It's very cool to me now. At the I don't even know if I saw the movie at the time it came out. Um that was during the time I was still you know a a away from music and kinda angry and uh pissed off about my situation. So when something would get done with my music, it kinda made me mad because nobody asked me.
Oh really?
Yeah.
Oh right, because you didn't have the rights to it. Yep. Oh wow. Still, phenomenal song. Phenomenal song. Did so did you write all the songs?
I wrote all the songs from credence.
Wow.
The last album, the seventh album that was Basically a result of the guys saying we wanna you know, there was a big band meeting. We wanna write the songs and we demand that we get to write the songs and sing the songs and make up our own musical partners. Then then resisting that because I just I thought It was gonna really I I literally thought it would be career suicide. I you know, change everything now. Right. Yeah,'cause well here's here's another part of it. You're
You're struggling in, you know, the the early d days of your career and the all your life getting to that point. You're trying to figure out what works. Right. Right. I mean it's just everyone goes through that'cause you uh clearly you don't know what works yet. I haven't haven't figured it out. And one day when some stuff starts happening and well that's how you do it, this and this and this. This works. And I I got very good at that.
You had put in that work and they had So they weren't really contributing. And I must have gotten resentful that you were the one who wrote all these big hits and eventually they're like, We wanna try, we're credence too.
Well especially because two of them had never written a song in their life.
That's crazy. And then they wanted to write a song for credence while credence was huge.
Yeah. m what's the word? Boulder dash into that? I mean it's wow. But maybe you should You know, rehearse a little p first. I mean I've been writing songs since I was eight. Not that they were good.
They could have jumped in when in the beginning. Yeah. When you were writing all the songs and they weren't coming up with anything, if they did, you probably would have did their songs as well if they went on a simulation.
It would have been like, yeah. Um My songs weren't that good at that time but they were Can I say they were maybe better than average? They weren't great songs yet. They were they were album songs or something, right? Right. But what I'm getting at is that the other guys were there was no songs. So um that's that's that thing in
I I keep using the Mooley Mays uh, you know, metaphor if that's what it is. Uh you know, that example uh at some point you're you're You're working with the elements in the field that you love, and then you realize how to put it together and to make it happen. If you're lucky. And then comes a time when you actually make something that's good.
Right. And that I mean but that alm I can't think of anyone that the first song they ever wrote boom was uh Ave Maria or something, you know. Right. I mean it's you know. So um I I just thought it was a journey and e I mean I have been on the journey myself and seen it come, but I think now I look at it I would Excuse me. I was probably destined, you know, it was what I loved and that was what was calling me. Yeah. I mean I
that that was my m my motivation the whole time since I I was a child. I just loved it and wanted to do that, whatever.
Well that's why it works.
Yeah.
You put in the work and you loved it. And you worked at it and you tried to get it better and you also got inspiration. You were also open to that inspiration. It's just funny that the band members didn't contribute until the seventh album and they wanted to jump in. It's kinda crazy. But understandable. I mean it's human nature to be resentful, especially if you got a a huge band and one guy is the lead singer and that guy's also writing all the songs.
Yeah, I well I walked around for many months, you know, mulling over this whole thing.'Cause right after that meeting, shortly after that, my brother Tom decided
He just laughed.
He uh you know, even though I kind of gave in to all the demands, okay, we'll do it that way. I could see that the ban was gonna disintegrate uh unless I acquiesced, right? I mean it was up until then I'd managed to Keep it th don't do that. Don't do that. It's gonna wreck us. Uh so when I agreed, I mean it was literally a couple months later Tom left.
And so now oh God, what's gonna happen now? So I I didn't know if I was just gonna go nah c call it quits or The the image in my mind was of when Elvis got taken by the colonel, just kinda pulled out of the other guys and they left them an alert, you might say. That's it's the way it looked to me. Right. It's like you know they almost got all new guys and just kinda and and it was readily apparent
Porque...
I had already seen what the Elvis Comeback special, the the part where they sat around in a circle and did the old songs and he had the old guys, Scotty and uh Bill and or I maybe Bill was gone by then, but um J. D. Fontana or D J D. Fontana. Um And it was just apparent that that was the best thing. Everybody loved that part of his special. Most people he just f forget that anything else was on that thing, other than Elvis singing those songs.
And I that sort of was in the back of my well, maybe they deserve a shot. Maybe they should you know, maybe I should do this. And so that's kind of why I went forward with it. It almost like flipping a coin like well the the odds I I think my own sense tells me this isn't gonna work, but maybe they deserve a chance, so I kinda went at it blindly that way, like that
What was it like in the studio when they started bringing the songs?
Well.
¶ Woodstock Decision and Band Dynamics
Well that's I mean that's it. I mean everyone can hear that. All of us can you know, you just it the album's called Mardi Gros. And in the press. Murdered in a uh Rolling Stones that this is the worst album ever made by a major group. And I read that and I said I know I mean I literally I felt that it wasn't like I was trying to defend it. It was you know, it was just
How did the band react to that?
But here's the deal. Instead of going, yeah, that was a mistake, instead they said, He made me do it. And so th yeah. They said I made them do it. Whereas that was their idea, of course. Oh, I didn't want to do that. Um After that I j you know I think we did a we did a tour. Right. We did a tour um Mm-hmm. One by one their songs dropped out of the set.
The songs that they had done are Mardi Gras. The other two guys yeah, they I don't want to sing that anymore. And so we of course went back to Proud Mary and Fortunate Son and all that. And there was a point that I could tell that the fans were Kind of upset with this. Yeah.
Which whole premise? What way?
Of them singing songs and kinda struggling along with equal equal time for everybody.
Oh I see. Yeah. Yeah.
And so Finally it was time to I d there there wasn't enough there wasn't any way to put it back together that I could see. Now in later, later, later years that I you know, I'm a much older guy. I mean there were you know, there's some decisions that uh uh I made. One of them was the decision to uh not be in the movie Woodstock. They sent a tape of the band doing bad moon rising,
Okay. But what had happened at Woodstock was the Grateful Dead was on before us. Grateful Dead had all taken L S D. It's we were supposed to be on at eight o'clock. W it's now two o'clock, two thirty in the morning by the time we get Grateful Dead goes on kinda loses their way. But they're on stage for an hour and a half or something with nothing going on. So that poor audience that's been through rain and all the rest and muddy and they just they just crash.
Half a million straw just boom, you know. And that's what I get. Right? We come running out on stage and we playing a few songs and all I see is sleeping people. And eventually the last I think twenty minutes of our set finally got'em up. We warmed them up for Janice. That's the way I always say, you know, they got going again. But it that was a So I get sent a and it was a
It was uh bad taste in my mouth about that evening'cause everybody we'd gone to so much trouble. And we at that moment we were certainly the number one band in the US and probably on our way to being number one in the world. And so I just you know, here's this kind of ordinary tape of bad moon and I just thought I don't know, this doesn't help us. It doesn't further us at all. Um nah, I'm gonna pass.
By the way, the Grateful Dead is not in Woodstock either. I didn't really recogn uh didn't see that until about a year ago. You know, I I mean I just assumed the Grateful Dead was in Woodstock, right?
Um
So if there'd been an older guy around us, a manager that was like fifty, instead of me, with my bad taste about the evening, the older guy might have Hey, you know. Your version of Suzy Q Live, even though those people were sleeping, the band was cooking, you know. You guys played good. You can't hardly see anything anyway, the crappy old You said but That recording's good, maybe we should demand that look, you put us in the movie and give us eight minutes, not two minutes.
Or it m by then it was probably fifteen minutes long, you know. Um, I think that was a decision that could probably I could reassess, you know, if it if it was someone else, but that's not what was on my plate at the time. Uh I was only offered bad mood I j you know, and at the time I felt I was right,'cause we went on and d did great. And by the way, the band broke up before Woodstock came out anyhow. So It kinda was a mute point.
Did it feel better for you when you were on your own? Did did you like that better? Where you it was just the John Frogadery band? You didn't have to have all those guys and all the bullshit?
Well you're asking a qu you know, we're all human beings and we've got a lot of years behind us. Um if you're asking me right now Because I play in a band with my sons.
Oh, that's awesome. Yep. That's awesome.
And I don't know, there might be a picture of that somewhere. Um And so and all the other guys in the band are their age.
Oh wow.
So How can I say it? you don't have a whole bunch of people trying to prove something like their record deal or the you know Because you asked the question kinda caught me by surprise after cr well, after credence I didn't play for a long time. But the first being
How long? How long did you not play?
I went on tour in eighty six with uh A bunch of h hired hands, they call it, right? Studio guys. And that was that was I it was behind uh number one, I didn't play any credence era songs. I was so mad at my situation, I just played new songs.
Ha ha. 哇
There we on the left that's Shane. That's me. That's my son Tyler. That's my daughter Kelsey. And then that's Jesse Wilson back there, our bass player.
Yeah.
And so um Yeah, and there's a right then that might be a moment in Chuglin where we all do a rift together and all that and it Just so cool that I'll be standing here.
That's amazing.
So yeah, um I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, the beginnings of credence was magical and wonderful. Right? I mean it really it truly uh look, it's what you waited and planned for your whole life. Um and it stayed that way for about a year, I think. And then other stuff that I never understood. I I mean it was beyond it was unpleasant and I didn't understand So after that it it was it was that was difficult. Then when I first started playing again, um
in eighty six and also and much more in uh ninety seven after Blue Moon Swamp came out. And I had a series of bands that were I I can say trying to put people together, parts from here and there and there. So it kinda never really was one solidified thing. And you'll you would find that A lot of people had personal agendas, you might say. You know, they were working on their own career and all that and there was
sort of believe it or not, even at that level, different jealousies and things. Oh again, there I was. I could I could sense it sometimes. People were jealous. You know, Oh my God. When you see that fix, there's no jealous. Right. See? I mean this is really fun for me now.
Yeah. And that they could stay together like the stones where they're still touring now after all these years.
The stones are a a lesson in how everyone should be'cause we've all heard the stories about the stones. We know there's problems here and there and everywhere and all that. Yet They rose above that. They just decided that you know what? What uh yeah, okay. What I don't like that guy over there tonight. But I'm just gonna do this and they're all brothers when they're out there doing that. Yeah. And that's great.
¶ Mother's Legacy: The Songwriter's Gift
You know there's a lot of things. times let's say in war or whatever where you have to kind of subjugate your personal stuff for the g greater good. Yeah. Right? And that kinda what they do, the stones, and uh God bless'em.
I think the thing is everybody wants to be the man. And when you got so many egos and there's one guy like you who's writing all the songs, all these other people they're just like they feel less. You know, and they get resentful.
Pretty normal human nature and then that has to be Dealt with.
Sometimes you can't though, you know? Some people can't be reasoned with. Some people just are are they're not rational. They see things in a distorted lens. Especially if they're not the people that created everything, but yet they've been along for the ride and they don't feel like they're getting what they deserve. Mm-hmm. That's what it seems like.
I wanted to tell you a story about how I got into this in the first place.
Okay.
Um, I told you about my mom noticing uh the music of anatomy. One day she brought me home from nursery school where she was one of the helper teachers, I guess, one of the moms, you know, of the staff. She brought me home and sat me down on a little chair. It was g I now I look back, it was a little ceremony. She had a little yellow record, a kid's record.
And it basically what she did was she played both sides of this little record. One side was O Susanna and the other side was Camptown Races. Do dah, do dah, you know, that one. And then she asked me, Well, do you like this music? I said, Yeah, I'm on, these are cool songs or w whatever a kid says. I I really like these. She says, Well, I'm gonna play them again, Johnny. She plays both songs and she says, Do you know that Stephen Foster is the man that wrote both of these songs?
What do you mean, Ma? He said, Well, Stephen Foster is a real person that wrote this music, and I wanted you to know that these are his wonderful songs. That people do write songs. And then she gave me the record, that kind of became my little possession, right? And I've reflected on that moment in my life for I mean, I used to tell people, Why did she do that? What in the world was she thinking, right? And all through the years
uh with that I was living at home with my mom, you know, there'd be somebody on TV, there's Irving Berlin. And I go, Yeah, mom, hey, he's a songwriter. Or she'd let me know Hoagie Carmichael was one of her favorites. So he became one of my favorites. And of course on into the rock and roll era as you notice that the Beatles, Lennon and McCartney were writing these songs. I mean it it just became a a thing, a part of me.
And it all started back there with my mom and Stephen Foster, and number one, he was a great songwriter.
So that
Lilt, that sort of kind of songwriting, he's also very corny. No. I mean that that voice, that personality certainly became uh i it got contributed and it got lent to me uh through the the records, the recording, since Stephen didn't make any records as far as I know. Um and those songs just sort of g got infiltered into my personality. I mean my mom uh put it this way, I I think I even talked it over with mom. I I feel like Stephen Foster could have written Proud Mary. It seems like Territory.
That's the same.
Right. I don't know what my my mom was giving me a gift. You know, and that you you just never know how powerful those little moments with your kids are. But that was a big one for me.
¶ Concluding Thoughts and Legacy Tour
That's awesome. Listen, John, it's been an honor having you on. Thank you very much. I'm a gigantic fan. So for me, it was a real pleasure to get a little bit of a little bit of a little
Same here.
The story's fantastic. Thank you very much. And uh you're on tour. Tell everybody where they can see you.
Oh wow, well you know we are the Legacy Tour. You may know I've just re recorded a lot of my old songs from the Credence time, and I'm having a ball. We're just all over.
Look at that.
Oh there you go.
Wow. What a cool album too. Does it really look like that?
Yeah.
Oh nice. That's sick. I love it. Beautiful. Thanks.
🎵 Music
When the frustration grows and the doubts start to creep in, we all need someone who has our back.
🎵 Music
To remind us of our ability to believe.
🎵 Music
And reminds us of all that we're capable of. We all need someone to make us believe.
🎵 Music
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