Joe Rogan Experience #2485 - John Fogerty

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Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

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The Joe Rogan Experience.

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Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

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Put your stuff on the floor.

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It doesn't matter, you can keep it on the table.

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It's fun.

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There's water there too, in this metal cup, and then there's coffee.

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Oh, thanks so much.

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Coffee in here.

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Okay, yeah, he's ready to...

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I have some notes that I'll probably never look at.

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You got notes?

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Me?

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What's on the notes?

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Just stuff like what I went through with CCR and all that.

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But tell me something.

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Did you read up on me or anything?

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I'm a huge fan.

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I don't have to read up on you.

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Okay.

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I read up on you a little bit just to catch up about how you got out of the...

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Well, you did do military service, but you got out by smoking a lot of weed

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and not eating.

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I read that.

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Is that true?

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No.

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Is that true?

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They lied?

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There was a story about you smoking a lot of weed and getting emaciated

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so you can get out of the army.

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Well, it's not quite in that sequence, but those things did happen.

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Yeah, I had determined to lose a lot of weight, right?

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So I was kind of really skinny by 1967, 68.

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I mean, like 100...

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I think it was 129 pounds.

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Whoa.

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Yeah.

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And then I was going to go to the...

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I think it was the Presidio, and I had to meet with the army doctor, right?

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And my friends gave me a couple of joints, and I stuck them in...

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You know, I used to smoke in those cigarettes.

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I stuck it in the cigarette, and going across the Bay Bridge, I smoked them.

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That's so...

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I hadn't even thought about it.

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So if you want...

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Yeah, man.

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He went on a starvation diet, a protest diet, and then smoked a lot of weed.

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That's what I heard.

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That way, but yeah, okay.

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But it's essentially some truth.

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Some truth to it.

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You had a legendary career, my friend.

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Legendary.

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Thank you.

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Still working on it.

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It's incredible, man.

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You are like one of the main voices of rock and roll in America, if you really

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think about it.

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Your songs, I mean, you have so many gigantic hits.

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You know, when the UFC has a lot of walkout songs, you know, when fighters come

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out and

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walk out, a lot of guys walk out to your music.

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I don't even know if you're aware of it.

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But Fortunate Son is a big one.

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Yeah.

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Bad Moon Rising, that's another big one people walk out to.

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Great.

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Wow.

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It's pretty awesome.

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Wow.

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Yeah, I'm not that aware of the UFC stuff, but, you know, everybody, whatever

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floats your boat.

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Well, people just love your music.

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Yeah.

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So, you went through many generations.

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Like, you got your first record contract.

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How old were you?

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I know I signed one when I was around 19.

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Of course, it would have been unenforceable.

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It's not legal at the time, right?

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You had to be 21, the deal?

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Yeah, I believe so.

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Yeah.

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Well, you're also one of the first rock and roll artists that wrote songs that

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became very

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popular about how you're getting screwed over by the record business.

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You know what I mean?

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So, Leonard Skitter did it, working for MCA, they did that song, but you had Vance

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Can't Dance.

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It was actually Zance Can't Dance.

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But you had to change it, right?

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Yeah.

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The name of the person was Zance.

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It sold about a half a million copies as Zance.

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But the record company, Warner Brothers, in their way of settling somewhat, had

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me change it

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to Vance.

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Yep.

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Because the guy's name was Zance.

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Zance, yeah.

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It was screwing you up.

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That's right in the middle of, that whole thing was a mess.

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I got sued for sounding like myself.

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What?

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Yeah.

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How'd that happen?

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I'll tell you.

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So, and I didn't find this out, and there was eventually a trial.

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So, it's not, many people think that that's funny.

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You got sued for sounding like yourself.

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Wow, that's funny.

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Well, no, you're getting a legal lawsuit.

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That's probably going to take away a lot of your money, and you're going to go

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through

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three, four years of anguish.

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Well, anyway, ended up in a trial.

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He was suing me for, at the time, was an enormous amount of money, $144 million

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for his, whatever,

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metal anguish or something.

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The logistics, I guess you'd call it, I had made a new song called The Old Man

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Down the

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Road.

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It was on my album.

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It was my comeback on Centerfield.

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And I had finally gotten away from Fantasy Records, which is where Credence was,

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and Saul Sands,

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who owned it.

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So, you know, when you finally escape and get success over somewhere else, the

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former people

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tend to be jealous, I guess.

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And so he was suing me.

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What had happened, though, I found out in the trial, the bass player from Credence

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was another

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one of those people, I guess, that couldn't stand that I'd now had success in a

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later life.

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He went down to Fantasy and saw Mr. Saul Sands and said, John is ripping off

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Credence.

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You should sue him.

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The irony in all of that is that I had taught Stu every single note that he

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ever played in

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Credence.

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It was not his own creation.

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As we talk, you'll see, I was the guy inventing the arrangements.

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

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

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And so it went to a trial.

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I prevailed at trial and got that over with.

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

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enormous amount

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of money to fight yourself.

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Yeah, all that stuff.

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That is so crazy that they can sue you for sounding like you.

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Well, it's a blessing to the world, I think, that I prevailed.

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

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consciousness of

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the world, I guess, and you have a certain style, if you're lucky.

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And so you start creating whatever your art is.

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

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And people start liking the style.

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Well, how unfair would it be that at some point somebody takes ownership of

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your style and now

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say, you have to go back and invent some other style, be some other person.

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You know, it's just that would be really difficult.

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Imagine Dylan or Springsteen or all the other people that have their own style

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having to, you

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know, reinvent and change to something else.

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

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It's insane because, look, so many artists sound like other artists anyway, and

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no one

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

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lyrics.

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There's a lot of people that sound like people.

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But the idea that you could get sued for sounding like you with new music and

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new lyrics is, that's

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one of the most insane things I've ever heard of.

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

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Immediately, right.

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Well, that shows the, I guess, the ego and the possessiveness that people want

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to have.

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You know, I had written a new song and he didn't want me to, he wanted to own

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the new stuff.

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He wanted to own me, basically.

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That was the idea.

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Well, you can never do anything unless you do it for me, you know.

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So I was, but not just for myself, for everyone, for all artists, it was kind

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of a major ruling.

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And thank God it went that way.

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

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the song,

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you having to change the name of the song.

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

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the 80s?

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Yep.

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Most people had no idea how evil the music business can be.

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Unless they were told, they had no idea.

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

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

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

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own the publishing.

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They try to just get as much money out of you as humanly possible.

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Own your name, own your likeness.

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Most fans had no idea.

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

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

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I didn't want to know all, I didn't even know there was stuff behind it.

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The Colonel.

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To know.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Oh, my God.

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

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Yeah, that's a real good one.

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I mean, the Colonel was evil.

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That's just too bad.

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Another similar situation.

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

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to the point where he had to change his name to a symbol, because he didn't own

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his name anymore.

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Prince!

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Yeah, I remember going, well, if he doesn't want to use it, I'll take it.

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Yeah, it's just the business itself.

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I mean, you have these creative artists that make this music that everybody

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loves, and then you have these hyenas that work behind the scenes that are the

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ones that are collecting the majority of the money from it.

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And they're not making any music, and to the average fan like myself, like,

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that's abhorrent.

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That's disgusting.

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Like, you see that.

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It just drives you nuts.

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Well, also, you know, the creative people are special.

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And, I mean, you know, look around.

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There's way more of other types of people than there are creative people.

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And to douse that, you know, or own that, which is what was going to happen, is

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just an onerous thing.

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I used to be a lot more angry about all this stuff.

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I'm a lot older.

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I can't say wiser.

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It's more like I came out on the good side of it.

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I try not to worry about it too much.

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It's great that you came out on the good side of it, but it's also great for

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people to know.

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And it's really great for young artists to be aware as they're coming up,

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especially as they're beginning their journey, that this could happen to them.

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Yeah, and there's all kinds of, you know, bad people around just waiting for

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you to slip up and sign something that will give you rights away, that sort of

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thing.

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I get such a joy out of music, you know.

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I mean, I just, it started that way when I was a little kid.

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I mean, didn't even know what I was doing or what that was.

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I was hearing this sound and, you know, and I liked it and I just kind of went

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with it.

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I didn't try to analyze it too much.

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And, of course, later with all the things, you know, the different roads you go

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through trying to get to some place, happily, I still get that same joy.

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I mean, I just, I'm just so glad.

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You know, a lot of this, of course, is from the care of my wife, Julie.

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If I hadn't met her, I probably would be dead.

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Simple as that.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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Wow.

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Why do you think you'd be dead?

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I didn't see any way out.

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You know, I was really abusing myself, alcohol, mostly.

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I really felt bad inside.

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I mean, when you get like that, Joe, you're not really operating on the same

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plane in the world that all the other people that you see.

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You know, you walk into a market or something, look around, and probably most

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of the people are kind of normal, you know, whatever we call that.

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But when you're really hurting inside for whatever reason, I mean, in my case,

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something really unjust had been done to me, but, you know, however you get

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there, and then you start abusing yourself with drugs, alcohol, whatever, you

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just kind of, it becomes a habit.

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You just stay there, right?

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And so you're not really enjoying the sunshine and the love that's around you

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and all the rest of it.

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You become kind of a pathetic person, sad, certainly.

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So that, you know, that was the deal.

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When Julie met me, I was that guy.

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There was sort of a, certainly an anger, I mean, but a bitterness, too.

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Almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy where you look for something to go wrong

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and then it goes wrong.

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And you go, see, I told you.

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I mean, it's a terrible mental place to be, and I was there.

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Do you think this was a loop that you got in because of the lawsuits?

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Oh, yeah.

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It did that.

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It really just got you that hard.

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Well, there was, there was more than one lawsuit, but the betrayal by the

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people in my band, you know, I just told you about a very evil man, right?

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Yeah.

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And I'm the only guy from Credence who's ever actually mentioned that he's an

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evil person, to the extent that, quite publicly, my brother Tom, right during

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this same time, was saying that Saul was his best friend.

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Oh, Jesus.

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It was just really hard to deal with.

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The other two guys in the band were kind of just more cowardly about it.

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They just never spoke up.

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It's just kind of, give me the money.

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How the fuck was your brother saying that guy was your best friend while he was

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suing you?

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He wanted, he was signed, re-signed after the breakup of Credence.

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He kind of shopped around and didn't have much success finding a label.

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And so he went, right about the time that this trial was going to happen, he re-signed

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with Fantasy.

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I'm talking about the first trial.

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Which was the first trial?

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The first trial was about, basically, the band had lost its life savings.

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All of us in Credence, the record company had gotten us into this offshore tax

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plan.

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And I'm saying this with a smile because nowadays it just sounds so, you know,

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some guy comes walking up to you and got a trench coat on a corner in New York

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City.

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Hey, buddy, you know, you're probably going to avoid that guy.

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But the record company was in this tax thing.

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And for all we knew, we were going to be paying 90% income tax, right?

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I mean, the tax laws are pretty stringent and pretty high.

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And so they offered us, or basically kind of ushered us into this plan,

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offshore tax plan, and it would allow us to pay a lot less taxes, probably

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somewhere between 10 and 20%, something like that.

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So it was a huge financial savings for us, and I can tell you that the name of

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this particular thing was a bank in the Bahamas called Castle Bank.

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And we had it checked out, I mean, the people on our side in the band had it

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checked out by our people, our own accountant.

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

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They, among other people, represented the Oakland Raiders.

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So we thought they were pretty solid, and they checked it all out and said that

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it was okay, it was legit.

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So we did it.

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But time went on, and it seemed to be not legit, to the point that somewhere in

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the 70s, the bank disappeared and all our money in it disappeared.

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So we sued.

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Oh, Jesus.

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Yep.

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So here it is.

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The bank was being used by the CIA to funnel money for covert military

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operations, including those at Andros Island, a staging area for anti-Castro

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activities.

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So they were stealing your money.

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How?

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I just found that.

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I don't know.

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I just typed it in and went to the Wikipedia, and I was like, well, that's

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interesting.

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So insane.

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See, I didn't know any of that.

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You didn't know until now?

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Oh, I knew that now.

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Or I suspect, yeah.

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Did you know that up until now, or did you just find it out just now?

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You could tell me a lot of things right now, and I'd say, oh, yeah, I guess

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assumed all that stuff was kind of happening.

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But I didn't know it at the time in the early 70s or late 60s when we got into

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this thing.

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It was actually 70s.

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Do you know how anti-American that is?

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The CIA stole from Credence Clearwater Revival.

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You know how fucking crazy that is?

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That is so wild.

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No, I didn't know that part.

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The funny thing is I had decided to get out of that plan, right?

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And I'd gone down to see my own people, my accountant, my attorney in Oakland,

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and told them, I just want out of this thing.

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I don't like the idea that whenever I want some money, like an allowance, you

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got to call up some bank account somewhere over there.

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And it takes, you know, some time, some few days before I actually receive my

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money.

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And it was starting to smell.

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It was starting to, and now we're talking 1975, 76.

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And so I actually had the meeting, and I said, I want to be out of this plan.

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I don't want to, oh, I said, one of the things I said to the meeting of

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professionals, look, take a shoebox, put all the money I've ever earned into

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the shoebox, and now hand me the shoebox so I can see how much money have I

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earned.

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Because I didn't know it was just going straight into this fund, right, into

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this castle bank, but they couldn't tell me.

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So I leave, I get down to the parking lot in the basement of this tall building

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in Oakland, and I'm with my, the guy that runs my office, and I say, shit, we're

20:44

going to have to have another meeting.

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Because even though I told him I want to get out of the plan, I didn't stand up,

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like, on the table and go, I'm ordering you and you and you get me out of the

20:56

plan.

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And I realized they could weasel some more time until I actually pointed.

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

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I'm ordering you, get me out, okay, out of the plan, right?

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

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There's a telegram that apparently was sent on Valentine's Day, and the bank

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president has died.

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He died in a sauna.

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Whoa.

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I've seen that movie, you know, where Abbott and Costello, and the mob comes in,

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and they're in those heat things that are up here, and the guy sticks a broom

21:49

in the door so you can't get out.

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Yeah.

21:52

I mean, except that this was serious, and there will be no more withdrawals

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until this thing is understood.

22:03

Resolved.

22:03

You know, a bank president dies, you don't close the Bank of America.

22:06

Right.

22:07

You still can go get your money.

22:09

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

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They just stole the money.

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Done.

22:16

Yep.

22:17

And it was the fucking CIA.

22:18

That is crazy.

22:20

That is so crazy.

22:23

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

22:27

Like, how much money was this bank holding?

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Do you know?

22:29

Oh, well, there were other names that I never saw in those days.

22:35

A lot of sort of mobby kind of sounding names.

22:39

Yeah.

22:42

I will tell you, after the thing closed, and we got the telegram that the

22:46

president—I started—I literally started checking under my cars, looking for

22:53

wires and, you know, something funny.

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I did that for about three months.

22:58

Whoa.

22:58

I finally just—well, I was scared.

23:01

Yeah, I would be too.

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Because I was the guy who said, I want to get out of this thing, and suddenly

23:05

it goes, kaboom, and the president dies.

23:07

Right.

23:08

Right?

23:08

And I just figured that I was some kind of whistleblower to them or something,

23:13

and, you know, I'm in their way.

23:15

Wow.

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I guarantee you're the reason why it happened.

23:20

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

23:23

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

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

23:29

your money back.

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Yeah, I don't know.

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You're a big public name and a big voice.

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You get out.

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You take your money out.

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I will say, after that point in time, I really never wanted to talk too loudly

23:42

about stuff anymore.

23:43

Oh, my goodness.

23:44

Oh, my goodness.

23:45

So there eventually was our lawsuit.

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Well, actually, it was my lawsuit.

23:52

I got with a lawyer—a tall building, I call it—and proceeded to start—

23:59

proceedings against this fantasy, our own attorneys and experts, the people

24:07

that designed this plan, all the rest, right?

24:11

But I was the only one in the band that did that.

24:14

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

24:20

And I, you know, I was pretty adamant.

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

24:30

maybe a year and a half,

24:33

my lawsuit had been rolling along a while.

24:37

And then the other guys asked to join my lawsuit because the statute of

24:45

limitations had run out on them being able to sue anyone.

24:51

Because they literally tried to stay in the plan.

24:54

I was—I was willing to take the penalty, whatever it was, for being the dumbass

25:02

that let himself get into some financial thing like this, right?

25:07

I felt like—I used to say—I felt like Joe Lewis.

25:10

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

25:15

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

25:21

me from making a noise and trying to get out of the plan told me eventually,

25:27

John, if you receive all the money at once, you will pay more than 110% in

25:34

taxes of what you have earned.

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In other words, I was going to go in the hole for receiving it all at once,

25:41

right?

25:42

That sounds insane.

25:43

That's why I felt like Joe Lewis.

25:44

That's the most insane thing I've ever heard.

25:47

Well, they were trying to intimidate me.

25:49

Of course.

25:50

Sure.

25:50

Yeah.

25:50

How much money were we talking about?

25:53

How much money did they steal from you?

25:54

When it finally was over, the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle—I mean,

25:59

you're going to laugh at this.

26:00

Rock band Victorious wins $8.1 million.

26:06

That was our entire take for everybody in the band.

26:11

Each guy had a little bit different amount.

26:13

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

26:19

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

26:22

And Dion says, well, I sold $40 million.

26:29

Meaning, you know, you sue me.

26:30

Well, Bruce has that on him.

26:35

It was pretty funny.

26:38

Yeah, I mean, $8 million was—that was it.

26:41

That was our take from all the sales of Credence.

26:44

So, was that the amount of money that was in the bank that they stole from you?

26:49

That was what we got returned to us.

26:51

So, you did get the money back?

26:52

Mm-hmm.

26:53

Oh, okay.

26:54

Well, I figured they would just vanish.

26:59

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

27:07

people.

27:08

What had happened was Fantasy was let out of the lawsuit by the local judge in

27:15

the Bay Area.

27:17

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

27:20

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

27:22

So, who was left was this guy named Bert Cantor in Chicago who designed the

27:28

plan.

27:28

And our own accountant and lawyers.

27:33

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

27:39

You know, we said that you owe us a million dollars or whatever.

27:45

And they settled for like $10,000.

27:47

Really?

27:48

Right?

27:49

Rather than go to trial.

27:50

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

27:56

They can never win this.

27:58

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

28:04

you know,

28:05

who was an old guy, through a whole trial.

28:10

And Credence got, we retained the money we had lost in that plan, the $8

28:16

million I just

28:16

mentioned, from the law firm, the insurance firm.

28:23

It was his insurance company's lawyers that were representing him.

28:27

And they had to pay.

28:28

Nobody else had to pay.

28:30

Interesting.

28:31

And the CIA or whoever you're talking about got away with it.

28:35

Of course they did.

28:36

Yeah.

28:36

They know how to do that.

28:37

It's kind of crazy, too, that it's only $8 million when you think about how

28:40

much money

28:41

you probably made the record companies.

28:42

Yep.

28:43

Well, there was 100 million records plus, so.

28:46

Right.

28:47

Do the math.

28:48

How much was an album back then?

28:49

Four bucks.

28:51

Yeah, so, $400 million plus operating expenses, costs, all that stuff, you know,

28:58

you guys got

29:00

a small percentage.

29:01

That's how it works, though.

29:03

That's why the business is so dirty.

29:04

That's what's so, you know, the idea is that they help you and they bring you

29:08

up, but the

29:08

reality is they sell art.

29:10

And if they don't have artists, they have nothing.

29:13

The artists are what fund their very existence and they make the majority of

29:17

the money.

29:18

It's pretty dark when you really think about it.

29:22

Yeah, and Joe, I got to tell you, I love making music and I don't do it for the

29:28

money.

29:28

I mean, I know that sounds a little naive, but just the happiness in my heart

29:35

from doing

29:36

this is from the music.

29:38

I believe you.

29:39

From the joy.

29:40

I believe you.

29:41

The only thing is when you, I mean, I'll say, I'm not like, well, maybe I'm an

29:45

idiot,

29:46

but probably not about this.

29:48

When you find out that there was money, but somebody else got it, then that

29:52

kind of gets

29:53

your attention.

29:54

Right.

29:54

You know, but for me, at least, it wasn't even about being famous, literally,

30:02

if you could

30:03

believe that.

30:03

It was the joy of understanding, you know, what the music from other people

30:10

that you

30:11

loved.

30:12

And as you grew up from, you know, that little first inspiration, you began to

30:18

kind of understand

30:19

what it was you liked about what they did.

30:22

And at some point then started to try and do it yourself.

30:26

But that was a, that was a long, long time after the initial joy of just

30:32

enjoying what

30:33

they did.

30:34

Yeah.

30:35

It's, it's kind of sad that money always does kind of distort things.

30:39

But if you were only interested in money and only interested in fame, or if

30:43

that was your

30:44

primary concern, there's no way the music would be that good.

30:48

It's like that, that has to come from a real place.

30:51

It's a real place of creativity and enjoyment.

30:54

A hundred percent.

30:55

Yeah.

30:55

A hundred percent.

30:56

You know?

30:58

Well, for me, it, I just, it, and also the prospect of creating something new

31:05

tomorrow, you know,

31:07

and, and the, what's the word?

31:10

You, you get certain feelings.

31:12

Well, we all do, but I've learned to, how can I say it?

31:18

It's sort of, it's like being in a big swimming pool or something.

31:21

You know, it's all, it just surrounds you.

31:24

Letting, letting yourself enjoy that feeling and then try to figure out a way

31:30

to put that

31:31

into the music, you know, express it.

31:34

Yeah.

31:34

Yeah.

31:36

Well, you did it, man.

31:37

It's just, it's, it's a long story with all these different artists that have

31:42

had to

31:43

deal with all these horrific managers.

31:45

And I was reading this article about, um, Jimi Hendrix's manager.

31:48

Uh, so one of his bodyguards, uh, wrote a book where he's blaming Hendrix's

31:54

manager for

31:55

his death.

31:56

And he was essentially saying that Hendrix was murdered and Hendrix was about

32:00

to leave

32:01

his manager.

32:01

And that's why he killed him.

32:03

And I don't know if you know the story about Hendrix, but his girlfriend fell

32:07

from a roof

32:08

or jumped off a roof shortly after Hendrix died.

32:11

And apparently they were trying to get rid of her as well because they knew

32:14

that she knew

32:15

the whole deal behind it.

32:16

Was this the one with kind of a funny foreign name?

32:20

Yes.

32:20

Yes.

32:21

Yeah.

32:22

Yeah.

32:22

I've read a couple of Jimi biographies, but you know, it's, yeah.

32:27

So many of these guys had mobbed up managers.

32:30

Yeah.

32:32

I do know that there was some manager of his, I mean, Jimi owned his masters.

32:38

That was remarkable.

32:39

That's why, that's why his family has the masters, his estate, you know, they're

32:45

the

32:45

ones that decide because every so often a new Jimi album would come out, that

32:50

sort of

32:50

thing.

32:51

Um, I didn't know any of this way back then.

32:54

I just wondered, you know, who was driving the bus.

32:56

So, I mean, that part was, was pretty good.

33:00

Uh, he had to talk to somebody at reprise records and some of those people were

33:05

reprise,

33:06

uh, Warner brothers.

33:08

In other words, about the time I was at Warner brothers, it must've been a

33:13

couple of them,

33:13

you know, that decided that way back in the sixties.

33:17

Um, I guess I was a little envious cause I sure didn't own my masters.

33:22

That's for sure.

33:23

How many people owned their own masters back then?

33:25

Um, nobody.

33:26

That's crazy.

33:27

How do you think he got that deal?

33:30

That, I don't know.

33:31

I don't know how it, how it came about that he was able to have that much

33:35

influence.

33:36

I mean, that's the part.

33:40

Um, I, I, I did, I did get the inference from the, at least one of the books I

33:45

read about

33:46

jimmy that, um, he had, they didn't try too hard to save him, you know, but jimmy

33:54

was, I guess,

33:55

was just really effed up for a couple of weeks there and then no one tried, you

34:01

know,

34:02

they were almost, I mean, I almost got the sense that somebody took a bottle of

34:06

wine

34:06

and just poured it in them.

34:09

Yeah.

34:09

That's what I had heard.

34:10

Yeah.

34:10

That's, that was the, what the bodyguard was inferring that they poured pills

34:14

and alcohol

34:15

down his mouth.

34:16

Yeah.

34:16

Yeah.

34:17

Terrible.

34:18

Well, I, I hope they never be in such a state that I can't protest something

34:23

like that.

34:24

Right.

34:25

Well, yeah, yeah, it's dark because, uh, apparently he was ready to leave.

34:31

He wanted to leave his manager and obviously jimmy was a gigantic star and that

34:37

guy saw all

34:37

the money.

34:38

Well, he still is.

34:39

Still is to this day.

34:40

Every single guitar survey that ever comes out, you know, you change all the

34:44

other numbers

34:45

after two, right, keep changing with fashion and all that, but it's always

34:51

number one is

34:53

jimmy hendrix.

34:53

Always.

34:54

Yeah.

34:54

Kind of extraordinary when you think about it, the guy died at 27 years old,

34:58

you know, and

35:00

was already just from another planet.

35:03

Like you'd listen to his, like you listen to voodoo child, slightly turn.

35:06

You listen to that song.

35:08

You're like, is this guy from earth?

35:10

Like this was so different than any other guitar playing that had ever taken

35:15

place before him.

35:16

He was a complete revolutionary.

35:18

He was just a completely new creative artist, you know, and one of my favorite

35:23

musicians

35:24

absolutely of all time.

35:25

That's why I named the podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience.

35:27

I wondered about that.

35:29

Well, there it is.

35:30

That's it.

35:30

Stole it from Jimmy.

35:31

Stole it from Jimmy.

35:33

Yep.

35:34

Yep.

35:35

I should have named it the John Fogarty Experience.

35:38

Instead of Credence?

35:40

Yeah, well, I did create that name.

35:43

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

35:50

Well, it was the same people.

35:52

Same people.

35:53

Yeah.

35:53

I mean, the same individual musicians.

35:56

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

36:04

Blue Velvets.

36:05

Not all that, you know, earth-shaking, but kind of a cool vibe.

36:13

And we were really the Blue Velvets, but, you know, I mean, this was really a

36:18

trio.

36:18

But my brother was older.

36:20

He was in another orbit.

36:21

So we kind of went through high school, seeing each other every once in a while.

36:29

It wasn't like we were all tromping around, playing gig after gig.

36:32

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

36:36

something like that.

36:40

And then, after high school, and Tom would come and sing.

36:45

He was my older brother.

36:46

He would come and sing once in a while with us.

36:49

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

36:55

But it was always kind of just haphazard.

36:58

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

37:04

door.

37:05

They had done this special about Vince Giraldi.

37:09

And they were in the Bay Area.

37:10

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

37:13

Anyway, some, you know, one thing led to another.

37:16

Finally, we're recording.

37:19

And at that time, I think we made a record with only three of us.

37:23

Me and Tom and Doug, the drummer.

37:26

And I overdubbed a bass part.

37:29

And this was early, or this was in 1964.

37:34

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

37:39

It was kind of a four-chord doo-wop song.

37:42

The other side was sort of a English or a British invasion answer kind of thing.

37:52

Mod music.

37:53

It was called Don't Tell Me No Lies.

37:56

Anyway, we excitedly go over to San Francisco to their warehouse and open up

38:00

the package.

38:01

And it says, The Gollywogs.

38:03

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

38:07

No, no, no.

38:08

I think we had chosen our name to be The Visions.

38:12

It was just something at the last minute because we weren't really the Blue

38:16

Bellets anymore.

38:18

But that was it.

38:19

We thought it was going to say Visions.

38:21

But the record company had decided they wanted to get in on the British

38:27

invasion mod, whatever,

38:30

and named us The Gollywogs.

38:32

It sounds like Pollywog.

38:34

Yeah.

38:34

They said, well, a gollywog, you see, is this doll that when the British

38:39

soldiers were in India,

38:41

the kids would have this little doll called a gollywog.

38:45

And so that's all we knew about it.

38:48

And as time went on, I mean, years and years later, long after I had been

38:54

renamed the band,

38:57

or I'd renamed the band Credence, found out that Gollywog was a, this was a

39:02

very racial thing.

39:03

This was the British soldiers calling the people.

39:07

Whoa.

39:08

Wogs or gollywogs.

39:10

Yeah.

39:10

That's a gollywog?

39:11

Yeah, Sambo, right?

39:12

Wow.

39:13

Same sort of, yep.

39:14

And they didn't know this either, obviously.

39:17

There was no Wikipedia back then.

39:19

I don't know, no.

39:19

I don't know.

39:20

I didn't know that.

39:21

That's crazy that they could just change the name of your band without you

39:25

having any knowledge

39:26

of it at all.

39:27

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

39:30

And they kind of insisted, you know, it's that same thing that, well, we're

39:34

going to own the publishing

39:35

to your song.

39:36

No, no, I should own it.

39:37

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

39:39

Oh, okay.

39:42

You're 19.

39:43

Yeah.

39:44

Yeah.

39:44

Yeah.

39:45

That's how they get you.

39:46

You don't know any.

39:46

Well, and you kind of want to make a record.

39:49

Yeah.

39:49

You want to make a record.

39:50

It's right there.

39:51

You taste it.

39:52

Oh, my God.

39:53

I'm going to be signed to a record label.

39:54

I'm going to be a rock star.

39:57

And then they come to you with a shady contract.

39:59

And that's their modus operandi.

40:01

That's what they do with everybody.

40:03

And for, I know they call it business.

40:08

Funny term.

40:10

Yeah.

40:11

Most of those people, I mean, it's like lottery to them.

40:18

It's like gambling.

40:18

They don't have a clue what creativity is.

40:24

And at that age, the young art, I mean, I guess I'm looking at you and saying,

40:28

if I only, no, what's that line?

40:30

If I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

40:32

You're a young artist.

40:36

You don't even know what you got.

40:39

Right.

40:40

Right?

40:40

You know you have feelings about music, but you don't, you know, you're less

40:46

than a rookie.

40:47

Right.

40:48

You know, maybe you were good in junior high, but that doesn't mean you're

40:51

Willie Mays.

40:52

Right.

40:53

You know?

40:54

So that's sort of how that works.

40:56

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

41:02

And then you're messed.

41:04

Yeah.

41:05

Again, that's what happened to Prince.

41:07

That's what happened to Skinner.

41:10

That's what happened to most bands.

41:12

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

41:14

They sign a bunch of people that are emerging.

41:16

And some of them are going to hit.

41:18

Yep.

41:19

And they bankroll it.

41:20

And then they make the majority of the money when those people hit.

41:23

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

41:28

Fantasy became a very wealthy record company.

41:34

Saul eventually went into making movies.

41:39

So that money that I had made for him at the record company, you know, turned

41:45

into One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

41:48

Oh, wow.

41:49

Saul even had, in those times, had bought the movie rights for Lord of the

41:58

Rings.

41:59

So, you know, his ticket got punched way up high.

42:08

And we never got a dime, of course, of any of that.

42:11

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

42:14

Well, see, that's, yeah.

42:15

That's what's disturbing.

42:16

It's a different.

42:17

That's why I had a little hesitation when you were talking about that you

42:23

thought the music came from a, or creativity came from a joyful, good place.

42:29

But, boy, you can sure look in different parts of entertainment or business in

42:35

general and see some really bad people have made a lot of money.

42:40

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

42:43

The creative people make the things.

42:45

And there's always just going to be people taking advantage of people being

42:49

naive about business.

42:50

I choose to believe that, at least it works for me.

42:56

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

42:59

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

43:06

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

43:12

you.

43:12

So do unto others as you would have them do to you.

43:16

Yes.

43:16

I believe in God, and I believe God is watching me all the time, you know, all

43:23

of us.

43:25

So that part helps me to feel like there's a reason, you know, to try and be a

43:32

good person.

43:35

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

43:43

live a good life, an honest and I guess we call it transparent nowadays.

43:49

Yeah.

43:49

You know, don't get me wrong.

43:52

I'm not running around the world with a thumping a Bible or something.

43:55

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

44:06

universe, right?

44:08

Yeah.

44:12

So, you know, that's how I operate.

44:14

And so when I, certainly now at my age, when I see other people really getting

44:19

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

44:23

I should get the, I don't see it that way now.

44:26

I just look at that poor sap who's being so evil and go, you know, he's going

44:31

to get his comeuppance someday.

44:33

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

44:38

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

44:42

It's a bad way to exist.

44:44

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

44:48

circle.

44:49

I think that's true.

44:50

I believe that.

44:51

There's a lot of people that choose that life just for financial benefit.

44:56

They choose to just fuck people over and be in that bad frequency all the time.

45:01

But that's not a good life.

45:03

And I agree with you.

45:05

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

45:10

And the golden rule is just, it's provable.

45:13

Like if you're a nice person and you treat people well and it spreads a lot of

45:19

good energy around you and positive momentum with all these other people, it's

45:26

the butterfly effect.

45:27

It carries on to other people that they encounter too.

45:29

They're inspired by how kind and friendly and generous you are.

45:33

And it's good for everybody.

45:35

It's good for you.

45:36

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

45:39

It's good for the other people that they encounter because they're inspired by

45:42

it.

45:42

It's just good for everyone.

45:43

That's how people should exist.

45:46

Yeah, I literally believe everything you have just said and literally have

45:52

sometimes asked God for a, you know, I never sat around and asked for money or

45:59

a hit record.

46:00

I always thought that's kind of poor.

46:03

That's bad.

46:05

I mean, selfish or greedy or something.

46:07

But I would ask for clarity or, you know, I would ask God to help me figure

46:13

something out.

46:15

And amazingly, there would be through a relation, you know, somebody I was

46:22

dealing with, there would be something, it was like karma, good karma coming

46:29

back.

46:31

And I could see the, you know, to me, it was a result of my prayer or my

46:37

openness of wanting to help get a situation resolved.

46:44

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

46:50

Did you always have a belief in God?

46:52

Yeah.

46:53

I think there was times, yeah, because I was just brought up that way.

47:00

Again, I don't believe my, I was just taught in a kind of nice and simple way

47:08

about God.

47:10

It wasn't beat over my head or anything.

47:12

I was raised Catholic, so in some sense, you can't avoid having it beat over

47:16

your head, I suppose.

47:17

And some of that I resisted.

47:20

But I went through the normal things.

47:23

I did my first communion, my first confession.

47:27

I did, what do you call that when you're 12 years old, the confirmation.

47:34

I chose the name for St. Jerome, basically, because there's a song by Bo Diddley

47:42

called Bring It To Jerome.

47:44

And Jerome was his, I think Jerome Green was his maraca player.

47:49

And I really liked the vibe of that.

47:51

I'm going to be Jerome.

47:52

That's my confirmation name.

47:57

Yeah, it was there in those ways.

47:59

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

48:04

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

48:11

have me go to parochial school, Catholic school.

48:16

I was in the first grade, and then I want to say they kicked me out.

48:21

And then I tried, my mom had me start again in ninth grade at St. Mary's High

48:26

School.

48:27

And they kicked me out again.

48:31

But it wasn't my fault.

48:32

Anyway, the one that happened is funny.

48:36

I mean, it's just, the one that happened in the first grade, I had to take a

48:41

bus to get there.

48:43

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

48:47

And I'm in the first grade, I'm six years old.

48:52

So you had to go to the bus stop, get on a bus, get a transfer, so that then

48:57

when the bus came to a certain stop over in Albany, you then got on a train,

49:02

transferred in other words, got on the train, and that went another mile or so

49:07

into Berkeley.

49:08

And at a certain stop right behind the school, the School of the Madeline,

49:14

Catholic school, you get off the train and go on down into school.

49:19

Now, what happened, my parents had split up, so it was only my mom in the house.

49:27

And she's leaving early because she's got a job as a teacher.

49:31

So she's out of the house before me.

49:34

And so it's up to me to get myself together and get to the bus stop on time.

49:40

Many, many times I was late.

49:43

I missed it.

49:43

So I had to get the next bus, so I'm late.

49:47

So I'm rushing to school, but I get there after they've already, they would

49:51

march every morning to John Philip Sousa.

49:54

And they, you know, all that.

50:00

And go on into school.

50:02

And I get there now, I'm late.

50:04

The schoolyard is empty.

50:06

I literally have to climb over the fence because they've locked the fence at,

50:11

boom, 8 o'clock or whatever it was.

50:13

And I have to scale the fence, run in the class without going to the bathroom.

50:18

This was my first great experience.

50:21

Sat down in my chair.

50:23

Within an hour, I really got to pee.

50:27

And Sister Damien would not answer me.

50:30

I got to, I got to, I got to.

50:34

And so she would, one day, I peed in my seat.

50:40

It happened again.

50:43

It became a habit.

50:44

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

50:52

Oh, no.

50:53

Right.

50:53

So you became the kid that pees.

50:54

That was so traumatizing to me.

50:57

Yeah.

50:57

But ask yourself, how is a six-year-old getting on a bus all by himself,

51:03

traveling three or four miles, then getting out of the bus, going over to where

51:09

the train station thing is, getting on a train, going over there.

51:13

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

51:20

I know it is kind of crazy how kids were just able to just leave the house and

51:25

do anything back then.

51:26

I think about that.

51:27

When I was a little kid, I used to just leave my house.

51:30

Yep.

51:30

Seven years old.

51:32

Just leave the house, wander around.

51:32

As long as you were home for dinner time.

51:34

Yeah.

51:34

It's kind of crazy.

51:36

I mean, it's kind of amazing.

51:37

We all lived.

51:38

Yeah.

51:38

If you stop and think about it.

51:40

But to have to take a bus and then a train and go to school when you're six

51:43

years old, that's nuts.

51:46

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

51:50

And that screwed me off of religion for a long time.

51:54

Because I thought of God back when I was a little kid before I went to Catholic

51:59

school as, you know, God is all-knowing and God is love and God created the

52:04

universe.

52:05

And God is looking out for you.

52:07

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

52:09

Made sense to me.

52:10

And then when I went to Catholic school, there was a lady, and I don't remember

52:13

anybody's name from back then, but I remember her, Sister Mary Josephine.

52:16

She was so mean.

52:19

She was just a mean lady.

52:21

She did the whole thing, the whacking people with rulers, telling you you're

52:25

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

52:28

the closet.

52:29

Like, just evil.

52:31

Like, wanted you to cry.

52:32

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

52:35

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

52:38

with religion ever again.

52:39

Right when I left first grade.

52:41

Yep.

52:42

I hated it.

52:44

And I was like, whatever God is, this is not God.

52:47

Like, these people have nothing to do with God.

52:48

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

52:51

This lady's mean.

52:52

That took a whole lifetime to figure out, to realize, well, this is just a man-made

52:59

thing.

53:00

You know, God's there.

53:02

Right.

53:03

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

53:06

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

53:10

Right.

53:11

You know.

53:11

And it's just all man-made.

53:13

It isn't actually God.

53:15

Right.

53:15

Right.

53:16

And so you—and man is fallible, of course.

53:20

Yeah.

53:20

He's not infinite, and he's not infallible.

53:23

And so all these things were—but that took a lifetime for me.

53:28

I'm sure I was in my 40s still working on that.

53:32

Yeah.

53:33

That God's okay, John.

53:35

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

53:39

You know, it isn't God's fault that you peed at your desk when you were in the

53:45

first grade, etc.

53:48

It's the mean nun.

53:49

Yeah.

53:50

Yeah.

53:50

I have a similar perspective.

53:52

I think all religious scriptures, they're trying to document a real thing,

54:00

especially Christianity,

54:02

which is the one I've paid the most attention to.

54:05

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

54:08

But the hand of man is clearly all over it.

54:11

That's the problem.

54:12

The problem with anything that's written down—and we know that just in, like,

54:16

the religious canon,

54:17

the books that were included in the Bible—human beings had a decision on what

54:21

goes in and what doesn't go in.

54:23

You know, there was rabbis that kept the book of Enoch out of the Old Testament.

54:27

There's a lot of this weird stuff to it that you go like, well, why do people

54:31

have any say?

54:32

Why does a human have any say in what the Word of God is?

54:38

That sounds crazy.

54:39

And when you read the scriptures, you're like, somebody wrote that down, and

54:42

someone told that story for who knows how many years before it was ever written

54:48

down.

54:48

But I think the origins of it, there's truth to it.

54:52

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

54:58

decipher what God's original message was.

55:01

And, like, how was it received?

55:04

Who got it?

55:05

How did it even get relayed?

55:08

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

55:13

it being written down?

55:15

I'm smiling because this sounds exactly like a young musician has come to see

55:22

this more learned person and tell him about his experience.

55:27

And the more learned person turns into the manager or the record company and he

55:32

says, I want to own this.

55:34

Right.

55:35

And, you know, they take all that good intentions and faith and somebody ends

55:42

up owning it.

55:44

Certainly.

55:44

And you end up paying a tithe, you know, into a plate and they make a lot of

55:49

money.

55:50

That's certainly what you see in organized religion, especially when it gets to,

55:53

like, these huge megachurches and preachers.

55:55

Like, that's exactly what it is.

55:57

Yeah.

55:57

It's someone taking advantage of this good thing and profiting off of it

56:01

immensely.

56:02

Yeah.

56:03

But the thing, I think, the point of, like, if you live your life like God's

56:07

real, it'll be a better life.

56:09

I agree with that.

56:11

Yeah.

56:11

But I think you also know.

56:12

I think you can just...

56:13

There's something there.

56:15

It's sensible that you try to share, that you try not to be greedy.

56:21

Yes.

56:21

You know, I don't mean you have to be a fool.

56:23

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

56:29

share.

56:30

Yeah.

56:30

Just be kind.

56:31

Be kind and be fair.

56:33

How old were you when you first started playing music?

56:36

You mean as an instrument?

56:39

Messing around.

56:40

Like, how did you get into it?

56:41

Right.

56:42

Well, I was, actually, I was given a snare drum.

56:47

I think I was about four years old.

56:50

That was a really cheap paper one.

56:53

Was your family musicians?

56:54

Not really.

56:56

But they were musical, both of them, my mom and dad.

57:00

One of my finest and favorite memories is, we lived in the Bay Area, the East

57:11

Bay from San Francisco.

57:13

And my parents would go up to this place in Northern California, near Winters,

57:19

California.

57:20

That's up, like, toward Sacramento.

57:22

And there was this creek, this body of water called the Puda Creek.

57:29

Eventually, they dammed that up and made Lake Berryessa.

57:32

But anyway, back then, it was just running water.

57:38

And there was some people could camp there.

57:41

There was this one place they took me, reputedly was owned by a man named Cody.

57:50

And he was a direct descendant of Buffalo Bill Cody.

57:54

I actually met him one day when I was about four.

57:57

And he was probably coming to collect the payment for the cabin and, you know,

58:02

space.

58:03

Anyway, I remember looking at him and going, wow.

58:09

So I was told that story.

58:10

And he would have been about 75.

58:12

He literally could have been a son of Buffalo Bill.

58:17

He would have been born at that point.

58:19

It was probably 1949, the story I'm relating.

58:23

And he, you know, would have been born in 1875.

58:27

I mean, it's mind-boggling to think that.

58:29

But my favorite memory thing, other than the fact that that whole place

58:36

inspired my song, Green River.

58:38

That's all the little parts are in Green River.

58:41

But one of the things, my parents had this old Ford, old green Ford.

58:46

And they'd be driving along at night up there is what I mean.

58:50

I guess they were more happy or something there.

58:52

And they, I remember sitting between them.

58:55

You know, it was just a big couch, the front seat.

58:58

And they were singing songs in the dark.

59:01

And they were singing like, By the Light of the Silvery Moon or Baby Face.

59:08

And harmonizing.

59:09

One was taking the melody and the other was harmonizing.

59:14

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

59:19

years old, right in there.

59:21

I said, what are you guys doing?

59:24

Because I knew the melody.

59:25

But I hear two notes.

59:27

What are you doing?

59:29

And they explained they were harmonizing.

59:31

And it was just the coolest thing.

59:33

And it was so, such a happy time.

59:36

I mean, I really, I felt, what's that, bonded to that, I guess?

59:41

Like, I really like this, whatever it is.

59:45

So that was the initial spark.

59:46

Well, they began to notice that I was musical.

59:49

So at some point, I know, again, at my fourth birthday, somebody gave me a, or

59:54

I had a little toy harmonica.

59:57

And my dad, you know, those little plastic kind of things.

1:00:01

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

1:00:06

In other words, it was probably a C harmonica.

1:00:08

He played in C, not like blues players do bending notes.

1:00:12

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

1:00:16

the campfire.

1:00:17

Yeah, that sort of thing.

1:00:20

I was just shocked.

1:00:22

I'd never seen my dad do anything like that.

1:00:24

Wow.

1:00:25

And then, on top of that, my mom could play piano, what we now call stride

1:00:31

piano.

1:00:32

She would hit the, boom, and then play a chord, like an octave of bass notes,

1:00:37

and then a chord above it.

1:00:38

Boom, da, boom, da.

1:00:40

Keep that going as, like, the drummer in the thing.

1:00:43

And then play melody and high notes up above.

1:00:47

And it was, you know, she did, she would, one of my favorite ones was Harvest

1:00:53

Moon, Shine On, Harvest Moon, which is a great song.

1:00:57

And it just was magical to me.

1:01:00

So that kind of opened the door to let me know that, oh, why?

1:01:07

We can do this in our own house.

1:01:08

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

1:01:15

but we had an old Stella acoustic guitar.

1:01:19

Stella is a name going back into the 30s, 20s.

1:01:23

And this thing was built like a tank.

1:01:27

It was hard to play.

1:01:30

The strings were, like, way high and all that.

1:01:32

Eventually, Brother Bob told me at some point,

1:01:36

yeah, we used to play baseball with that guitar.

1:01:39

We'd hit ball.

1:01:41

That's how sturdy it was.

1:01:43

But that was around so that I would, every once in a while, mess with it.

1:01:48

But somewhere, literally, in the seventh grade is where I started to really try

1:01:58

and learn a chord and that sort of thing.

1:02:02

Is that when you thought, I'm going to be a musician?

1:02:08

I think that moment was a little bit earlier.

1:02:11

It was, again, up at this place, Winters.

1:02:14

My dad had driven into the town from our little cabin, our little campsite.

1:02:21

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

1:02:25

And the general store had everything.

1:02:28

It had food and stuff, but it also had fishing tackle and, you know, various

1:02:32

weird things.

1:02:33

So I'm standing there sort of near the counter, and my dad's doing some kind of

1:02:37

business.

1:02:37

I'm just looking, and suddenly I hear music.

1:02:41

And I'm, what the heck is that?

1:02:44

Well, I didn't even know.

1:02:46

They had a jukebox in this place, right?

1:02:48

And somebody had started the jukebox.

1:02:51

So it's playing music that I really like.

1:02:55

It's rock and roll.

1:02:55

And I'm, you know, I'm about 10 years old.

1:02:58

Man, that's good.

1:03:00

And I don't know who it is.

1:03:01

It's just got a really bluesy sound, but it's fast.

1:03:06

It's rock and roll.

1:03:07

And I run over, and I finally determine, it's Elvis Presley.

1:03:11

I never heard this.

1:03:13

I knew of Elvis, of course, on TV.

1:03:15

He had done Heartbreak Hotel.

1:03:17

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

1:03:23

He was on there, I think, five times.

1:03:26

Anyway, and so, wow, Elvis did this?

1:03:30

What is this?

1:03:30

Well, it turned out it was the other side of his second big million seller,

1:03:35

which was

1:03:36

I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.

1:03:38

And this was a song called My Baby Left Me.

1:03:40

And this was basically classic Sun Records vibe, even though he was now on RCA.

1:03:48

It was that thing they did on Sun Records, just that kind of country wail with

1:03:56

guitar that

1:03:57

was more country than blues.

1:03:58

And the guitar especially just, I said, what is that?

1:04:02

I'm watching, and this Scotty Moore, who I didn't know his name at the time,

1:04:06

but he's

1:04:07

just playing this otherworldly stuff.

1:04:10

And that was, I looked at that, and I mean, literally, my head made, I don't

1:04:15

know, I said

1:04:16

this to myself, I don't know what they're doing, but that's what I want to do.

1:04:22

Wow.

1:04:23

And I made up my mind right there in that three minutes of that song.

1:04:27

That's amazing.

1:04:28

Yeah.

1:04:28

Wow.

1:04:29

Well, it was transformative.

1:04:31

It still is.

1:04:32

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

1:04:36

I don't think I'm aware of that song.

1:04:38

I'm going to listen to it after the podcast.

1:04:41

You probably know Elvis' song, That's All Right, Mama.

1:04:45

Sure.

1:04:45

Right.

1:04:45

Well, this is in that vein.

1:04:47

It's actually the same writer.

1:04:49

Arthur Crudup.

1:04:52

Arthur, big boy, Crudup.

1:04:55

So, your family was musical, but you didn't know any musicians.

1:04:59

So, what did you think you were going to do?

1:05:01

Like, how did you think you were going to eventually become a musician?

1:05:03

Did you have a plan?

1:05:08

Well, at some point, you know what?

1:05:14

At some point, a little earlier than that, but right around that time, it was

1:05:20

the era of

1:05:21

doo-wop, right?

1:05:23

This is the way, I mean, a kid can, you can just go anywhere in your mind,

1:05:29

right?

1:05:31

And I suppose the Corvette automobile, of course, had come out.

1:05:36

So, in a very young mind, but one of those cool, I guess we call them mashups,

1:05:44

I was going

1:05:46

to have a group, but it was all singing.

1:05:49

I was going to have a group, and it was going to be called Johnny Corvette and

1:05:55

the Corvettes.

1:05:56

Right?

1:06:00

And there was four, I'm Johnny, and three other guys, and we're all in sparkle

1:06:07

jackets,

1:06:08

you know, the showbiz, right?

1:06:10

And we're black, all of us.

1:06:14

That was your idea?

1:06:16

That's what I saw.

1:06:19

I was referring to what I was seeing to be Johnny Corvette and the Corvettes.

1:06:26

That was one of the ingredients.

1:06:29

How were you going to be black?

1:06:30

I don't know.

1:06:30

I didn't have to worry about that.

1:06:33

I mean, the funny thing is that's so similar here is, like, when I was little,

1:06:40

I wanted to

1:06:41

be a baseball player, right?

1:06:43

But some kids dream of being in the NBA.

1:06:46

But you've got to be 90, 11, to 7.

1:06:50

Right.

1:06:50

You know?

1:06:51

I mean, so how's that going to happen?

1:06:54

I mean, you just said it in a really innocent way, but a kid just, I'll eat

1:06:58

spinach or something,

1:06:59

you know?

1:07:00

You eat spinach and become black.

1:07:01

And tall.

1:07:03

And tall.

1:07:04

You know, I don't know, but it worked for me.

1:07:07

I mean, literally, when I, you know, one of my dreams as a kid really was, I

1:07:10

wanted, I love

1:07:12

baseball, still do.

1:07:13

I wanted to, you know, okay, what do I got to do?

1:07:17

And I'd start throwing a, I was throwing a ball against the side of the house.

1:07:20

I'd made a big, like a target, you know, bullseye.

1:07:24

And I don't know why I did it that way.

1:07:26

And my mom caught me.

1:07:28

I was throwing an actual hard ball.

1:07:30

And it was denting the clapboard, you know, the wood.

1:07:34

It was, I was tearing the house down.

1:07:37

So she got me a tennis ball and that was okay.

1:07:40

I was no good.

1:07:42

You know, I wasn't, I was, that dream was never going to happen.

1:07:46

Is that what inspired Put Me In, Coach?

1:07:47

Of course.

1:07:48

Yeah.

1:07:49

Oh, yeah.

1:07:50

What a great anthem.

1:07:51

Thank you.

1:07:52

It's amazing.

1:07:53

Thank you.

1:07:54

Yeah, well.

1:07:54

I mean, how many baseball games have played that song?

1:07:57

My, my God.

1:07:58

I mean, at least, you know, I mean, there's a lot of us semi-nerds, I guess,

1:08:04

you know,

1:08:04

wanted to play ball, wanted to be a jock and just really, at some point, you

1:08:09

know, the

1:08:10

ones that really have it pass you by.

1:08:12

Right.

1:08:13

Of course.

1:08:14

And you just kind of, but in your mind,

1:08:16

everybody got their scorecard and, you know, and they're following the game and

1:08:20

all that.

1:08:21

And that, that vicarious joy of watching Otani or Aaron Judge or whoever it is

1:08:26

you love,

1:08:27

you get to have that in your heart anyway.

1:08:33

But I mean, I'm the luckiest guy in the universe.

1:08:38

Okay, I didn't get to play, but I wrote a song and my song's there all the time.

1:08:45

It's just, it's just the coolest feeling.

1:08:47

The song, my, that song's in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

1:08:51

That's amazing.

1:08:52

It is amazing.

1:08:53

It's ridiculous.

1:08:54

That's so cool.

1:08:54

But it's just like, that happened to me, you know, it's like, God, I could cry

1:08:59

over that.

1:09:00

When they had sent a letter to me and they were going to, you know, and put the

1:09:04

music in the

1:09:06

hall, I just was, God, who do I tell?

1:09:08

Jeez.

1:09:10

Yeah, it was so good.

1:09:11

That's amazing.

1:09:12

That's amazing.

1:09:13

So when we, when did you start writing your own songs?

1:09:16

I was eight years old.

1:09:17

Wow.

1:09:18

Do you remember your first song?

1:09:20

Yes.

1:09:21

Or at least the one I remember is, I call it the best, the one I can remember.

1:09:26

It was morning, I was getting ready to go to school.

1:09:33

I could walk to school was like two and a half blocks from my house, something

1:09:38

like that.

1:09:39

I lived on Ramona, you go past Pomona, and then the next street was Ashbury,

1:09:47

and the school

1:09:49

was on Ashbury up about two blocks, Harding School.

1:09:53

It was a grammar school.

1:09:56

Anyway, I'm getting ready to go to school, got my lunch.

1:09:59

I'm about to turn off the radio and this commercial comes on.

1:10:03

I was listening to R&B, the Rhythm and Blues channel from Oakland.

1:10:09

And the DJ suddenly says, do you have the Wash Day Blues?

1:10:13

Is this day going to be drudgery?

1:10:16

Well, maybe you're using the wrong...

1:10:18

And they went off talking about laundry soap.

1:10:22

Right?

1:10:23

I don't know if there was a song involved in the commercial.

1:10:26

I think it was just a red commercial.

1:10:28

Because it was probably live, you know, right there on old-time radio.

1:10:32

So I went out the door, you know, carrying my little sack with the lunch in it.

1:10:37

It's a Wash Day Blues.

1:10:39

Wow.

1:10:39

I get kind of to the end of the street.

1:10:42

I think that's Lynn.

1:10:43

I got to go down, you know, three streets.

1:10:46

And I'm walking along and I said, wow, what is it?

1:10:48

Dan, dan, dan, dan, dan.

1:10:50

I got the Wash Day Blues.

1:10:52

Dan, dan, dan.

1:10:53

I'm making that noise.

1:10:54

It's Muddy Waters.

1:10:55

It's the riff from probably Hoochie Coochie Man, you know.

1:11:00

Right.

1:11:02

And it all comes together.

1:11:04

I'm just walking down the street singing about all the stuff that, because it's

1:11:07

blues.

1:11:08

Right.

1:11:09

And I'm hearing all these guys on this, you know, channel I listen to singing

1:11:13

the blues and about blues.

1:11:14

So I got Wash Day Blues.

1:11:16

That's my, that's my song.

1:11:18

You know, for years and years, I thought, I thought I was embarrassed about

1:11:23

that story.

1:11:24

God, John, why couldn't you have a great story about the sinking of the Titanic

1:11:30

or something?

1:11:31

Watch Day Blues because it just seems so mundane.

1:11:35

But now I kind of recognize because of the two elements I had put together, it's

1:11:41

just kind of natural.

1:11:44

It's really the process of writing songs.

1:11:47

That's amazing.

1:11:49

And so when you wrote songs, like I saw this video clip where you're talking

1:11:55

about, I think it was Old Man Down the Road.

1:11:57

Is that the beginning riff?

1:11:59

You got it.

1:12:02

Yeah.

1:12:02

And you were talking about how that riff just hit you.

1:12:05

Yep.

1:12:06

Is that?

1:12:07

Yeah.

1:12:09

I had this place.

1:12:12

It was my studio.

1:12:13

It was a convert, basically the garage of a house that I had bought to be my

1:12:20

office and my place.

1:12:22

So it was the size of a garage that I would go there every day.

1:12:27

So in the morning I'd get in, I'd turn on my tape recorder and, you know,

1:12:31

various pieces of equipment and stuff.

1:12:34

That was my process, certainly every weekday morning, sometimes on Saturday,

1:12:39

Sunday, whatever, but certainly the five days a week.

1:12:45

And I'd walk in there and work on music.

1:12:48

I did this every day for, I mean, years and years from 74 until Centerfield

1:12:54

came out, basically, which was 11 years later.

1:13:01

And so one morning I walk in and I haven't even turned on the stuff yet.

1:13:06

I just, for some reason, I went right to the guitar and I turned on the amp and

1:13:12

picked up the guitar and I'm just kind of noodling because I like to do that.

1:13:17

A lot of my songs have started this way, but suddenly just played and it really

1:13:24

had that sound to it.

1:13:26

And I got my attention because I knew that it wasn't anything else.

1:13:30

And I also, I mean, this is like in a, this is how quick our brains can work.

1:13:36

You know, it's taken me way longer to tell it than the actual thing.

1:13:41

But so I've played the dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, dan, and I realized it's

1:13:46

not complete.

1:13:47

It needs an answer.

1:13:49

And I'm also aware that it's like being on a tightrope or something over

1:13:54

Niagara Falls.

1:13:56

You know, you got to have the right answer.

1:14:00

And there's probably only one because all the other ones are going to kill it.

1:14:04

And you'll never remember this again because that happens all the time.

1:14:08

Right.

1:14:08

You know, it'd be lame.

1:14:09

You're there. It's precarious. It's hanging in the air. And you got to come

1:14:17

back with the thing to make it complete. And it has to be the right thing. Yeah.

1:14:27

Yes. And so. Oh, my God. Yeah.

1:14:37

And, you know, I play it over and over probably for five minutes. I just tend

1:14:41

to do that. That's the joy of music. That's the joy right there. Because I knew

1:14:47

it wasn't anything else. There was no question in my mind, well, is this coming

1:14:52

from, you know, the Beatles or Howlin' Wolf or something? Right.

1:14:56

So immediately, I had kept this little songbook. It's only about that big with

1:15:05

titles in it. And I go flipping through the book. And I think I see something

1:15:12

that's somewhere down the road.

1:15:15

Okay. That, for some reason, appealed to me. And I stuck with it. Okay. That's

1:15:20

what it's called. This song is going to be somewhere down the road.

1:15:25

And that day, so now I turn on my tape recorder and all that. I play some,

1:15:29

because I had to play real drums then. That's what took me so long, folks.

1:15:36

But anyway, so I make a little thing that's just the riff and then make a space

1:15:42

of just the drums playing and nothing else. So I can kind of listen to it and

1:15:48

improvise what's going on after this riff. What's somewhere down the road?

1:15:54

And of course, I start talking about, uh, he get the thunder from the mountain.

1:16:01

He bring the lightning from the sky, you know, and all that. And these things

1:16:05

are going on. And so you got to shoot forward, probably a few weeks.

1:16:11

I realize I'm starting to write a song, but the title somewhere down the road

1:16:16

to me just seems lame. It seems undefined, not cool enough, not focused, and

1:16:23

probably not going to remember it because it sounds like just what it is. You

1:16:30

won't remember that.

1:16:31

Right. Right? You know, if you say, I've got a polka dot Chevy sitting on top

1:16:38

of a bull moose or whatever, and that's your title, you probably get a picture

1:16:43

in your head, you know?

1:16:45

Right.

1:16:46

It's going to stick. So I'm hunting around. Well, what are you doing here? What

1:16:50

are you talking about in this song? We're talking about this guy. He's evil. He's

1:16:55

the old man. He's the old man down the road.

1:16:59

Oh, that's way better. So the song became that. The deal is, with my little

1:17:07

song book, probably two years later, after that album had come out, I said, you

1:17:13

know what, I want to check on where somewhere down the road came.

1:17:18

And I went cover to cover, and it's not in there. There is no place where I've

1:17:26

written somewhere down the road.

1:17:28

I just thought I saw it. And that led me to a really cool song.

1:17:35

Wow.

1:17:36

The reason I'm telling you this is there was a time I had an office in Warner

1:17:40

Brothers, when I was staying down in L.A., and I would go in there all the time

1:17:50

and write, had some keyboards and stuff.

1:17:53

And one day, I thought I needed a break. I took my book and I went out and sat

1:17:58

in Warner Brothers parking lot. I went out to my car and sat down because I was

1:18:03

trying to give myself some, you know, get going, do something.

1:18:10

And I thumbed through the book and I saw Change in the Weather. And I said, man,

1:18:16

I like that. And I look up and it's kind of a cloudy, gloomy sky, you know.

1:18:23

Yeah. Change in the, yeah. So I ran back in my room and I started, I went off.

1:18:30

I was inspired and I wrote a song called Change in the Weather.

1:18:33

Change in the Weather. Well, same deal. After that album came out, I decided to

1:18:39

check my, it ain't in there. It's nowhere in my book where it says Change in

1:18:45

the Weather.

1:18:46

So I nowadays tell people, you know, maybe it's a shape shifter and there's

1:18:52

stuff in there. It can just kind of go, John, listen to this. I got an idea for

1:18:58

you.

1:18:59

Right. Well, the creative process is so mysterious. Yes. Because everybody that

1:19:03

I talked to, whether it's comedians or authors or musicians, they say the ideas

1:19:09

almost don't feel like they're theirs, like they're receiving them from

1:19:12

somewhere.

1:19:12

For certain. That's how you feel? Yep. To me, it's like tuning in a radio. Yeah.

1:19:18

Right. And a lot of it, there's, I guess it's the way I was raised. You kind of

1:19:25

have to be worthy. Right.

1:19:28

You know, I mean, there's a big dose of, if you're all angry and treating

1:19:34

people mean and doing all that, I'm closing the book. Yeah. I'm not sending you

1:19:40

nothing.

1:19:41

I think that too. Yeah. I think that too. You got to be receptive and honor

1:19:46

this process that we're going through here. And if you are in that frame of

1:19:51

mind and some humility about this whole thing, maybe I'll send you something.

1:19:57

The muse. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever heard of Steven Pressfield?

1:20:01

Huh? Steven Pressfield. He's an author. He wrote a great book called The War of

1:20:06

Art. And I give this, I have boxes of this book out front and I give it to

1:20:11

comedians and artists all the time.

1:20:13

Because it's just a book about the creative process about writing. And one of

1:20:17

the things that he talks about is the muse, about giving honor to the muse and

1:20:22

sitting there and calling upon the muse for these ideas. That if you treat it

1:20:27

like it's a real thing, it will provide you. If you show up every day and you

1:20:30

put in the work, the muse will give you these ideas.

1:20:33

Yep. But they do feel, like to everybody that I talk to that's really creative,

1:20:38

they feel like they're coming from somewhere.

1:20:41

Yeah. And it feels like it's always been there. Right. And it's just up to you

1:20:46

to be able to actually be able to see it or hear it. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

1:20:51

So I do a lot of, I get ideas in my head. I'm just walking around and it'll

1:20:56

play to me the same as if you're listening to the radio.

1:21:00

It just gets in the head. Right. And you start feeling it.

1:21:03

But I do believe you have to, you have to be doing it all the time. Like for me,

1:21:13

it was a process to actually sit down, be ready. And a lot of times nothing

1:21:17

happens.

1:21:18

You know, you got a blank sheet of paper and it stays blank. Right. Right.

1:21:25

But if you do that enough times, at certain times, you'll get a really good

1:21:31

inspiration. Yeah.

1:21:33

You'll be, that's the way I, you'll be allowed to receive it. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

1:21:38

But it really isn't you. Right.

1:21:41

That's the way I think of it. What it is, is you have talent. You're supposed

1:21:46

to honor your talent.

1:21:47

And so I'm going to give you something if you're worthy. And now it's up to you

1:21:52

to honor, you know, use yourself.

1:21:54

Don't just go, I got it. We're done. No, you got to work it now. Polish it, you

1:22:00

know, make it.

1:22:01

Yeah. Yeah. I feel the exact same way. I think, I think there's truth to what

1:22:06

you're saying.

1:22:07

Um, I want to ask you about Fortunate Son. How did you write that? Like how did,

1:22:14

how did that come about?

1:22:15

That is like one of the greatest rebellion songs of all time.

1:22:19

Appreciate that. It's an amazing song. I love it. It's, it's also a fantastic

1:22:24

workout song, by the way.

1:22:25

That song gets you jazzed up. If you're doing like a treadmill or something

1:22:28

like that, you're starting to get tired, crank that sucker up.

1:22:32

Yeah. Well, um, first of all, I think the first thing I got to say about it is

1:22:38

I was drafted.

1:22:39

So I was in the military and I've gotten the army reserves, but, um, was well,

1:22:48

and was on active duty and all the rest.

1:22:50

So I well understood the position of, uh, you might say the military mindset,

1:23:01

right?

1:23:02

Even though I was a, I was a young person and this is right during the Vietnam

1:23:06

era.

1:23:07

And I think I, I, I really need to say that almost no one my age wanted to be

1:23:13

in the army and go to Vietnam.

1:23:16

I just, that was something, you know, I don't want to do that. Right.

1:23:21

So I got my draft notice, um, was, got into the army reserves.

1:23:28

So I understood that side of the coin and that side of fate.

1:23:34

You might say, um, the deal, I think the deal being, okay, I'm in the military.

1:23:41

So now I got to play by the rules.

1:23:44

I got to do everything that's, this is what I am. Right.

1:23:48

Yeah. Um, there's a little, there's a little bit of the whole idea of being

1:23:54

American and serving your country.

1:23:56

Um, I'm sure I'm trying not to try and not to say, Oh yeah, now I'm gung ho and

1:24:02

I'm John Wayne.

1:24:02

And I'm going to take, take on Iwo Jima or something.

1:24:05

You know, it was more like, yeah, but you got to do this, right.

1:24:09

You know, you, you can't just be a, some guy that's on a wall all the time and

1:24:14

being a mess.

1:24:16

You know, I wanted to do it right.

1:24:18

So, um, I, I went through all of that and it's another story, but eventually

1:24:27

got my honorable discharge,

1:24:29

which led to another song, but it's a different song.

1:24:32

Um, and that was just before, just as the Credence career was getting started.

1:24:39

But anyhow, um, during the Vietnam time, you began to, you know, there were,

1:24:49

there was a lot of unrest,

1:24:51

civil unrest in America and around the world.

1:24:54

Those times were very volatile, but especially in America, there was a lot of

1:25:00

protests and discussion about the war itself.

1:25:04

Remember there was a draft.

1:25:05

So young people kind of by nature were against the war and against the draft

1:25:12

because it seemed to be sort of not logical as that.

1:25:17

Um, and in some instances you would see on the news, you know, some Senator who

1:25:25

had the political clout that he could keep his teenage son from being drafted.

1:25:31

Or get his teenage son into some cushy job.

1:25:36

And you, you kind of saw it a few times.

1:25:38

These guys were, the fix was in, you know, and that just, it really didn't seem

1:25:44

fair.

1:25:45

Not, not just in my own case, but I, I'm more identified with the people that

1:25:52

were protesting the war.

1:25:54

No one had ever really explained why we were having that war.

1:25:59

To my mind, we still don't know.

1:26:02

Right.

1:26:03

You know, it just, somebody's ego decided they wanted to have a war and they

1:26:06

had a war.

1:26:07

So most of these things that have cropped up ever since have always ended kind

1:26:14

of miserably.

1:26:15

Um, and we never, they never were one.

1:26:19

They just sort of dissolved.

1:26:21

Right.

1:26:22

Um, so there was no marching band and all that stuff to get to, you know, like

1:26:28

world war two ended with a decisive victory.

1:26:30

Anyhow, that angst and anger within me about that situation, uh, was fueling my

1:26:42

thoughts about the current times.

1:26:46

This was 1969.

1:26:48

So I started showing the band, all the songs that the band learned and played,

1:26:55

uh, throughout the, the Creedence career.

1:26:58

They literally learned them as instrumentals.

1:27:01

They didn't hear the song.

1:27:03

I didn't show them the song.

1:27:06

So they, in other words, the bass player, I would show the bass player his part.

1:27:10

Here's how your part goes.

1:27:12

Here's how the drums will be.

1:27:15

Here's the rhythm guitar part.

1:27:17

And the band wouldn't actually hear the whole song until I had gone into the

1:27:21

studio after that recording process and added my vocal, sang the background

1:27:28

vocal parts.

1:27:29

Oh, wow.

1:27:30

Uh, played the conga drum or the shakers or tambourine or piano, you know, all

1:27:36

the other stuff.

1:27:37

Then they heard how the song went.

1:27:39

Um, so they learned their parts as instrumentals.

1:27:44

And this was exactly that way.

1:27:47

I showed them how to play what was the form of the song.

1:27:53

And that I didn't even, I don't think I had told them the name of the song yet.

1:27:57

I thought I was writing a song called "Favorite Son" because, um, starting in

1:28:03

1952 when they sent my second grade class, I think, home to watch, um, to watch

1:28:12

the inauguration, I believe, of Eisenhower.

1:28:15

Uh, I think that's what it was.

1:28:18

And all the, you know, we had a tiny little TV.

1:28:21

All I saw was big black limousines.

1:28:24

It's, that was my entire impression of the presidential thing.

1:28:29

Right.

1:28:30

So after that, I kind of would watch, uh, parts of the conventions in the

1:28:34

summer.

1:28:35

Uh, you know, there'd be these gigantic, you know, I didn't know what they were

1:28:40

then, but these big rooms full of smoke.

1:28:45

And every once in a while, somebody, your honor, the great state of Texas would

1:28:52

like to nominate her favorite son, Billy Saul Estes or whatever.

1:29:00

Right.

1:29:01

And they all said that, you know, the state of Vermont would like to nominate

1:29:05

her favorite son.

1:29:07

And so that I had written that one down in my book and I thought I was going to

1:29:11

write a kind of a political song.

1:29:14

And so the band was getting pretty solid in the, in the backing track.

1:29:20

And that told me, you know, I was driving a career.

1:29:25

I mean, I, there wasn't someone else telling me I was the one deciding and

1:29:30

pushing and I think pushing pretty hard.

1:29:33

I just, I wanted a new single to be ready.

1:29:36

And this seemed like it might be it.

1:29:39

So I, at one point after the band had been rehearsing the music for that song,

1:29:45

"Fortunate Son" for a few weeks, it was getting pretty good.

1:29:49

All right.

1:29:50

I got to write the words.

1:29:51

I got to get the whole song together.

1:29:54

I took a little yellow tablet like that, went in my bedrooms, sat on the bed.

1:29:59

And instead of what I thought it was going to be, the first thing I said, some,

1:30:05

you know, this idea of the red, white and blue.

1:30:09

And they're always super patriots, you know, all this stuff and bluster and all

1:30:13

that.

1:30:14

Right.

1:30:15

And how do I get that?

1:30:18

How do I get that?

1:30:19

Well, they're waving the flag and yeah, but what's going on now?

1:30:23

They're pointing the cannon at you, right?

1:30:26

Right.

1:30:27

Yeah, but it ain't me.

1:30:29

And I realized, oh, wow, that's something I can repeat.

1:30:32

It ain't me.

1:30:33

I ain't no, you know, and literally that, I mean, I just sort of did it in

1:30:39

front of you almost the way it played out of me sitting on that bed, literally

1:30:45

walked in and 20 minutes later walked out with the whole song.

1:30:50

Wow.

1:30:51

Coming from the, I didn't have anything other than favorite son.

1:30:55

The rest was just the stuff that was boiling in my head at the time, of course,

1:31:01

basically because well-heeled people getting out of the draft, which kind of

1:31:08

pissed me off.

1:31:10

Yeah.

1:31:11

You know, I just, you know, there were a lot of guys now that I was in them or

1:31:15

had been in the military and I knew there were a lot of other guys felt just

1:31:18

like me.

1:31:19

It wasn't like they, I didn't grow up that I wanted to be a soldier and go do

1:31:23

that.

1:31:24

It was just fate that made that happen.

1:31:26

So the unfairness of the situation made me want to talk about that.

1:31:32

Well, you nailed it.

1:31:35

It's such a great song.

1:31:37

So did you have the music all settled out when you went to the musicians and

1:31:41

explained to them how the song was going to play out?

1:31:44

Yes.

1:31:45

Did you have that before the lyrics?

1:31:46

Yes.

1:31:47

Yes.

1:31:48

Wow.

1:31:49

Almost always.

1:31:50

So what did you think the song was going to be about when you just brought them

1:31:53

to music?

1:31:54

Well, as I said, I thought it was going to be favorite son.

1:31:58

So you kind of still had the theme in your head of how it was about people in

1:32:01

the world.

1:32:02

It was something around that stuff.

1:32:03

Right.

1:32:04

I just didn't know what it would.

1:32:05

And I also, you know, there's a t-shirt though.

1:32:10

The older I get, the better I was, you know, I was pretty good then.

1:32:15

You know, I guess what I'm trying to say is I didn't know what the song was

1:32:19

going to be.

1:32:20

But, I mean, now I would certainly have a little trepidation.

1:32:25

I'd go in a room with a blank.

1:32:27

I'm probably going to come out of there with a, some, you know, a smiley face

1:32:31

that I doodled

1:32:32

or something and no words, meaning somehow I was counting on myself to do it.

1:32:39

But that's, that's pretty precocious.

1:32:43

Yeah.

1:32:44

But that's also that divine intervention of the muse.

1:32:47

Like you put in the work and you called, you called upon it for inspiration and

1:32:53

your mind

1:32:54

started lighting up.

1:32:55

Yeah.

1:32:56

And then you started putting the pieces together.

1:32:58

Yeah.

1:32:59

Oh, that's a wonderful, Joe.

1:33:00

That's, that's an amazing process when, cause that's what I do.

1:33:06

I'm not a prize fighter, you know, I'm not a baseball pitcher, let's say, cause

1:33:11

there

1:33:11

would be an evolution in his work.

1:33:13

Right.

1:33:14

You know, or something that you can, I'm, I'm not those things, but I, I am a

1:33:18

songwriter.

1:33:19

And that, that it plays out over some, it isn't just once, you know, it plays

1:33:26

out over some

1:33:27

time.

1:33:28

And that incidents where you suddenly get a hook into an idea and then the, the

1:33:40

gods, the

1:33:40

muse, they let you continue forward with something that is way better than you

1:33:45

ever dreamed was

1:33:46

going to be it.

1:33:47

And suddenly it, wow, this is really cool.

1:33:51

And you're excited and you're happy and, and it's coming to be.

1:33:56

And you realize, as I said, that was the, by the way, by far the quickest I

1:34:01

ever wrote a song.

1:34:02

And that's so quick, so fast that, I mean, it's almost like instant replay.

1:34:10

That was so fast that you, you, or at least I did it, man, this is really good.

1:34:16

I mean, and you just like a minute ago, I was taking a breath, hoping that

1:34:21

something would happen.

1:34:22

Yeah.

1:34:23

Well, that's, what's amazing about great songs sometimes.

1:34:27

Like John Mellencamp was telling me a story about, uh, I need a lover that won't

1:34:31

drive me crazy.

1:34:33

Like that song he wrote in the shower.

1:34:35

Oh, like all together.

1:34:37

You mean in one shower?

1:34:38

In one shower.

1:34:39

He was just taking a shower and all of a sudden, I need a lover that won't

1:34:43

drive me crazy.

1:34:45

Right.

1:34:46

And then next thing you know, he's got it.

1:34:48

Yep.

1:34:49

And it's an all time classic.

1:34:50

Yep.

1:34:51

It's amazing.

1:34:52

Well, that, the, the songwriter, and especially when he's on his game, he, he

1:35:01

knows it's,

1:35:03

and it, it relates to your own personality, the kind of, whatever it is you

1:35:06

like, the stuff

1:35:08

you have gravitated towards.

1:35:11

And so when one of those comes along, it really makes you smile because you're

1:35:15

going, yeah,

1:35:17

this is, this sounds like me.

1:35:19

This is the stuff I like.

1:35:20

Right.

1:35:21

And you, you go with it.

1:35:22

Cause I mean, you know, I, I am, I would say notoriously corny, you know, at

1:35:29

least I think

1:35:31

I am, you know, the, it's like, they make all these jokes nowadays about dad

1:35:34

bod and all

1:35:36

those kinds of things.

1:35:37

Yeah.

1:35:38

Yeah.

1:35:39

I mean, I literally think that's me.

1:35:41

Right.

1:35:42

And some of this, I mean, center field is the corniest thing that was ever

1:35:46

invented.

1:35:47

I mean, I love it.

1:35:49

I unashamedly want to be corny.

1:35:51

It, it's, that's who I am.

1:35:53

I'm corny.

1:35:54

Right.

1:35:55

But it, I mean, in that song, it just, that resonates with, I'm, I'm, I'm glad

1:36:02

I'm happy.

1:36:04

I'm happy to be happy.

1:36:05

I want to be happy.

1:36:06

I want to be happy.

1:36:07

Right.

1:36:08

In other words, I don't have to feel cause rock and roll is all about dark

1:36:10

colors and jackets

1:36:12

and piercing and, you know, tats and everything.

1:36:15

And that scowl, you know, Elvis would all that stuff.

1:36:20

That's good.

1:36:21

I mean, you know, but I like, you know, well, it seems to be me.

1:36:27

I can just be unashamedly happy.

1:36:30

And I'm glad I'm, you know, like center field is so optimistic and just great.

1:36:35

It's an awesome song.

1:36:36

Yeah.

1:36:37

I, I don't think rock and roll is all dark.

1:36:39

I think there's aspects of rock and roll that people like that are dark because

1:36:42

it's mysterious.

1:36:43

These guys are rock stars, but you know, rocks, everything.

1:36:47

It's like, there's so many layers to it.

1:36:49

There's so many different types of personality and you happy to be happy is

1:36:53

also an awesome

1:36:55

part of rock.

1:36:56

Yeah.

1:36:57

Clearly.

1:36:58

Yeah.

1:36:59

Well, because actually a real people, all these humans sort of have all those

1:37:03

different parts.

1:37:04

Yeah.

1:37:05

Yeah.

1:37:06

That's why we identify with it.

1:37:07

And I think the, the brooding dark rock star is like, it's a fantasy idea that

1:37:12

people want

1:37:13

to, they want to believe that there's that part of them.

1:37:17

You know, there's this just, you know what I mean?

1:37:20

I'm going to say abs, it's absolutely.

1:37:22

And, um, you know, Marlon Brando on the motorcycle in the, is it the wild ones?

1:37:30

Yes.

1:37:31

Yeah, I think so.

1:37:32

Yeah.

1:37:33

You know, that he's just so bad.

1:37:37

Yeah.

1:37:38

And so rock stars in other, I guess, but rock star, because it was right in

1:37:45

that era, they

1:37:46

invented or gravitated to, in other words, one picture defines me.

1:37:51

Yeah.

1:37:52

This is my uniform.

1:37:53

You know, I sleep in this.

1:37:55

Yeah.

1:37:56

You know?

1:37:57

I mean, and so, you know, I've got a big chain.

1:37:59

Yeah.

1:38:00

And a leather jacket.

1:38:01

And you know, now, I mean, it got more and more violent or dark.

1:38:04

Right.

1:38:05

You know, hoodoo, voodoo, you know, and all that.

1:38:08

And, um, but, and it's, it's funny because it's basically, I'm all this all the

1:38:14

time.

1:38:15

Yeah.

1:38:16

This, this one picture does it.

1:38:18

And I, I kind of, my wife and I joke about it cause she'll kind of say

1:38:22

something like,

1:38:23

well, you don't dress like a rock star.

1:38:26

And then of course I'll say, cause I'm not.

1:38:28

Right.

1:38:29

Um, I, I, I always sort of, I mean, I have a leather jacket somewhere, right?

1:38:36

Or two even.

1:38:38

Uh, and it, it, how can I say it?

1:38:43

To me, it was, it was a uniform.

1:38:45

To me, it was a pose.

1:38:47

And so, you know, I tend to actually just put on clothes you can buy in the

1:38:52

store.

1:38:53

And when I get up in the morning, I got to take my kids to school.

1:38:56

You know, I didn't put on the whole, like, dude just got off the stage.

1:39:00

Right.

1:39:01

It, uh, I don't know, name someplace at the whiskey.

1:39:04

Right.

1:39:05

You know, and now I'm bringing my kids to school.

1:39:07

Hey, Mrs.

1:39:09

What a, how you doing?

1:39:10

Flip my cigarette over into the, I guess I could be a sitcom or something.

1:39:16

But, uh, that wasn't me.

1:39:18

I just, I kind of was normal dad to my, and I'm glad they saw me that way.

1:39:23

Tell you the truth.

1:39:24

Yeah, absolutely.

1:39:25

Look, the, the idea is silly that everybody has to be one way.

1:39:28

It's ridiculous.

1:39:29

Yeah.

1:39:30

It's ridiculous.

1:39:31

Yep.

1:39:32

Well, clearly when you look at what you produced, like you clearly are a rock

1:39:35

star.

1:39:36

And you did it by being yourself.

1:39:38

Like.

1:39:39

Actually, I think you nailed it there.

1:39:41

Um, here, here's a real truism.

1:39:45

When you're making something, and it's, and we talked about this, and it's

1:39:48

resonating with you.

1:39:50

It just seems like in your wheelhouse, it's you.

1:39:53

You're, it's, that's probably going to be really good.

1:39:56

Yeah.

1:39:57

It's comfortable.

1:39:58

Sounds like the, you, or you relate, you relate.

1:40:01

It's great.

1:40:02

If you ever get yourself as a songwriter, singer, whatever.

1:40:05

Well, so-and-so is going to really like that I did this.

1:40:09

And you're off on some weird thing trying to, you know, be a change or

1:40:14

different or something.

1:40:16

That's not going to work.

1:40:18

Absolutely not going to work because you, you think somebody else sees it a

1:40:23

certain way and

1:40:25

you're doing it for them and God knows whatever that is, but it isn't you at

1:40:30

all.

1:40:31

You, you probably are just out of your element, off the rails, you might say.

1:40:37

Yeah.

1:40:38

And guys do get off the rails.

1:40:40

Oh, I've done it myself.

1:40:41

Yeah.

1:40:42

You know?

1:40:43

Oh yeah.

1:40:44

Especially being preachy and that kind of thing.

1:40:45

You know, there's some songs that, oh God, shut up.

1:40:49

Where does that come from?

1:40:51

Does that come from just, you have a big audience and you, all these people.

1:40:54

Look up to you and you just start feeling you're important.

1:40:59

Um, I think, I think some of it, I don't, I don't know all the answers.

1:41:04

Who does?

1:41:05

But, um, you're in a, in a mood where you're, or a mode you're, you're, you

1:41:11

want to get some material together.

1:41:14

You want to make a record.

1:41:15

You want to have some stuff finished and maybe you're not so inspired, right?

1:41:22

So, okay.

1:41:23

Well, I'm going to, how about if I talk about, uh, whatever.

1:41:26

And you start trying, it's almost like a square peg in a round hole.

1:41:31

Like, yeah, I got to do something because there's, there is some credence to

1:41:39

that.

1:41:40

Just work.

1:41:41

Just start working.

1:41:42

Just start moving.

1:41:43

You know?

1:41:44

Don't just sit there.

1:41:45

Do something.

1:41:46

Sorry.

1:41:47

Just start grinding and maybe eventually it'll get to where it's natural.

1:41:50

You know, the good part.

1:41:51

Yeah.

1:41:52

Because just sitting and doing nothing, which I've certainly been accused of,

1:41:57

is that's nothing

1:41:59

for no one.

1:42:00

Right?

1:42:01

So you start moving your feet and trying to get the juices to flow and all that.

1:42:06

Um, but like I said, yeah, I wrote some songs, a whole album really, uh, called

1:42:10

Eye of the

1:42:11

Zombie.

1:42:12

It was the follow up to, uh, Center Field.

1:42:16

And I think, well, I had some other, some ulterior, not that I did it on

1:42:24

purpose, but some

1:42:26

other ingredients came into my mix.

1:42:29

I'll get there in a minute.

1:42:31

But anyway, the album as a whole is pretty dark and pretty, and not, doesn't

1:42:38

ring true

1:42:39

to me, I think.

1:42:41

It's kind of, misses the mark.

1:42:44

It's off.

1:42:46

That's a, that album and that period of my life is a really interesting, um,

1:42:55

really

1:42:55

interesting phenomenon.

1:42:58

I think that I'm not the only one.

1:43:00

It's just that I consider myself lucky.

1:43:03

So I worked for, you know, I, I had this enormous band, number one in the world.

1:43:09

Um, get screwed by the record company, lose my life savings.

1:43:14

Band breaks up.

1:43:16

Bands in the, in the newspaper saying nasty things about me, et cetera.

1:43:23

Uh, I'm held kind of in a dungeon by the record company.

1:43:27

And I got to either give them my music or no one else, you know?

1:43:31

Um, and I somehow managed to get through all that.

1:43:36

And it's 15 years after Credence breaking up, basically.

1:43:42

Finally come out with an album called center field.

1:43:46

There's happy, joyful music on it.

1:43:48

It goes to number one.

1:43:50

It's acclaimed, which is a wonderful thing.

1:43:53

And it's a hit.

1:43:54

Uh, I think what happened is the story I tell about it.

1:44:01

It's as if you'd been unjustly in prison, you know, convicted of a crime, put

1:44:08

in the penitentiary

1:44:09

for a long time.

1:44:11

And one day they decide, oops, you're right.

1:44:15

We made a mistake.

1:44:17

You're free because you didn't commit any crimes.

1:44:20

We're going to let you free.

1:44:21

And you're so happy.

1:44:23

You walk out the door, that's center field coming out.

1:44:27

And you come out into this big meadow where, you know, green grass and blue

1:44:31

birds.

1:44:32

You know, it's a Disney cartoon, right?

1:44:34

Right.

1:44:35

And then you turn around and you see fricking San Quentin, the prison that you

1:44:40

were in.

1:44:41

And now you're angry.

1:44:43

You look at that and you're just, well, what the, that's what happened.

1:44:49

I, you know, I, when center field came out, I should have, and was a success.

1:44:56

In other words, I was exonerated or vindicated.

1:44:59

I should have immediately gone to therapy, right?

1:45:03

Seen a shrink.

1:45:04

But that's kind of not my, I wasn't raised anywhere near any of that kind of

1:45:09

stuff.

1:45:10

So I didn't know to do that.

1:45:12

Instead, all that stuff that I was repressing so that I could do center field.

1:45:19

It just came out like, and I was, instead of being overjoyed, I was miserable,

1:45:26

bitter.

1:45:27

And it happened all at once.

1:45:29

It didn't like develop.

1:45:30

It was bam.

1:45:32

And for like two years, it was like, you could say Saul's name.

1:45:38

And my, I would implode like the werewolf in, werewolves of London or something.

1:45:45

You know, just, or the, what's that guy?

1:45:47

The Hulk.

1:45:48

Yeah.

1:45:49

And so I made that album and that's all that stuff.

1:45:54

I mean, I just didn't have the sense to see that it was, it was, it was nothing

1:45:58

like center field.

1:46:00

Right.

1:46:01

Not a good, this guy's not happy.

1:46:03

It was not a good follow up.

1:46:05

How'd you bounce back?

1:46:09

And then I met Julie.

1:46:11

Oh.

1:46:13

You know, right in the middle of that tour in '86 for Eye of the Zombie, or as

1:46:22

we, I am a zombie, you know.

1:46:26

I met Julie.

1:46:28

And even though I didn't know, I thought I was in perpetual binge mode.

1:46:38

Basically, okay, I'm going to go out and tour now.

1:46:41

I'm just going to be a rock star on the road and be, be everything I never got

1:46:46

to do for 20 years.

1:46:48

Right.

1:46:49

Now I'm like, I'm a little kid musician again.

1:46:53

That's what I thought I was doing.

1:46:55

Obviously that comes from some anger to talk like that.

1:46:59

Yeah.

1:47:00

And so I just thought I was going to make my way through the Hollywood Hills,

1:47:05

you might say.

1:47:06

I think I actually said that in those days.

1:47:08

And one day just suddenly met Julie, not expecting to meet the love of my life.

1:47:19

As the person I feel that was, that I was destined to meet.

1:47:23

And the person that would, through her good graces, help me find myself and

1:47:31

help me enjoy and find the joy of life again.

1:47:38

And it all changed.

1:47:41

That's awesome.

1:47:42

That's awesome.

1:47:43

It's great that you bounced out of that.

1:47:45

Because a lot of people don't.

1:47:47

You know, when something bad happens to them, they just go into a spiral.

1:47:50

Yep.

1:47:51

It's kind of amazing that you were joyful at first, but then you started

1:47:55

getting resentful and thinking about it.

1:47:57

Yep.

1:47:58

It's totally understandable.

1:47:59

Well, you said a spiral and that's just what it felt like.

1:48:02

Yeah.

1:48:03

You're just kind of getting, it's getting worse and worse, not better.

1:48:06

Alcohol as well, right?

1:48:07

Yep.

1:48:08

Yep.

1:48:09

Yeah.

1:48:10

And boy, you know, they call it, it takes you a long time to figure out.

1:48:13

It's a depressant.

1:48:14

Yeah.

1:48:15

You are, you're drinking, you think you're drinking to forget stuff, but you're

1:48:19

getting more and more depressed.

1:48:21

Right.

1:48:22

Yeah.

1:48:23

And it's weakening your resolve, your, your, your body.

1:48:26

It's weakening your vitality.

1:48:28

So you're tired and you're angry.

1:48:30

That too.

1:48:31

Yeah.

1:48:32

And your, and your mindset.

1:48:33

Yeah.

1:48:34

Just in a, in a miserable mood.

1:48:37

And it's also, that's also in the rock and roll stereotype, you know, the, the

1:48:41

drinking, hard partying.

1:48:43

Like one of my favorite songs when I was a kid, uh, it was a bad company

1:48:49

shooting star.

1:48:50

And every kid that used to listen to that thought they were Johnny.

1:48:54

Like Johnny was a school boy when he heard his first Beatles song.

1:48:57

It's a sad song.

1:48:58

The guy dies young, becomes a rock star and winds up dead.

1:49:01

And everybody like was romanticizing this song of this terrible lifestyle that

1:49:06

this guy lived.

1:49:08

This guy was super talented and had the gift.

1:49:12

Well, it's based on, you know, some reality there, of course.

1:49:15

Sure.

1:49:16

Yeah.

1:49:17

Yeah.

1:49:18

Unfortunately.

1:49:19

Yeah.

1:49:20

We, we really romanticize the idea of dying young, bring a burn bright, die

1:49:25

young.

1:49:26

And it's, it's all cool until they're pointing at you and you're the one that's

1:49:32

going to die.

1:49:33

Yeah.

1:49:34

I mean, at that moment in life, most people, no, I don't want to die.

1:49:37

I know.

1:49:38

You know, up until then there, it's just sort of a vague idea out there

1:49:42

somewhere.

1:49:43

Right, right, right.

1:49:44

But weird that it's a romantic vague idea.

1:49:47

You know, Johnny died one night, died in his bed, bottle of whiskey, sleeping

1:49:51

tablets by his head.

1:49:52

Like we just, just like assumed, like this is how it goes.

1:49:56

You know, like this is the rock and roll romantic story.

1:50:00

Well, you, you hear those words when you're young, of course, and it, right.

1:50:04

That actually sounds kind of positive, you know, because it's rock and roll,

1:50:08

man.

1:50:09

Yeah.

1:50:10

When you're older, you can hear the same words and you say, yes, that's real,

1:50:16

but it's not a positive thing anymore.

1:50:19

No.

1:50:20

It's just sort of a statement of fact, right?

1:50:23

Yeah.

1:50:24

I mean, there's a, I'm sitting here now, you know, talking about some parts of

1:50:29

me that are, I'm certainly embarrassed about and probably ashamed of.

1:50:35

I've let the shame part go.

1:50:38

It just happened.

1:50:39

Right?

1:50:40

I mean, I don't encourage anyone and I try to tell them, no, stay away from,

1:50:43

don't do what I did.

1:50:45

Um, but I used to beat myself up a lot with the shame part.

1:50:50

And I think that might be part of the healing, part of the getting out the

1:50:55

other end.

1:50:56

Um, because the more and more solid you get in the resolve of the way you're

1:51:03

going to really live your life and not that, the kind of more the shame dissipates.

1:51:10

Right.

1:51:11

And you, you, you're not so, it's not tenuous anymore.

1:51:13

Like, oh, I might fall back.

1:51:15

You know, you're not so scared that that could happen anymore.

1:51:18

I think the shame is an important element.

1:51:20

Yeah.

1:51:21

I think the shame of your, your past and the mistakes that you've made

1:51:24

motivates you to never make them again.

1:51:26

Yes.

1:51:27

As long as you don't think you're still that person.

1:51:29

That's the problem with some people, they'll do something in high school and

1:51:32

they carry that for the rest of their life.

1:51:34

Like that, whatever it is, whatever stupid mistakes they made, whatever

1:51:37

behavior they, they think that's them forever.

1:51:40

And that's, what's crazy.

1:51:41

Oh, we should be able to grow up and, and, and becoming, you know, kids, I got

1:51:48

married the first time at 20.

1:51:52

I mean, there just should be a law.

1:51:55

Um, you know, you're, you're just too young.

1:51:58

You don't, you don't know what you're doing.

1:52:01

Right.

1:52:02

You don't know what all this really means.

1:52:03

Right.

1:52:04

Um, certainly by the time I met Julie, you know, you know what though, that

1:52:10

experience made me shy away for a few years there from the whole idea of a

1:52:17

marriage commitment.

1:52:19

I was committed, but the marriage part scared me, you know, it just, oh my

1:52:25

goodness.

1:52:26

And then one day I realized I was sort of, well, wait a minute, go back to

1:52:31

square one.

1:52:32

What's the most joyful, happy thing you can do?

1:52:35

Well, I want to marry her.

1:52:37

Right.

1:52:38

And have children and have a white picket fence and a house.

1:52:41

And we go to kindergarten and all those things, you know, we bake cookies at

1:52:45

the PTA.

1:52:46

I want all that.

1:52:47

Yeah.

1:52:48

So sure.

1:52:49

It's crazy because that's not what anybody thinks of when you think of a rock

1:52:53

and roll life.

1:52:54

Uh oh.

1:52:55

Right.

1:52:56

I suppose.

1:52:57

See, I'm corny again.

1:52:59

It's not corny.

1:53:00

I think it's authentic.

1:53:01

Yeah.

1:53:02

I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you think at all.

1:53:04

I think it's, it's healthy.

1:53:06

It's healthy.

1:53:07

It's healthy.

1:53:08

You know, I, I just really, even though my, my mom, I mean, she was a warrior,

1:53:12

you know,

1:53:14

think of it.

1:53:15

There were five boys.

1:53:16

That was my family.

1:53:17

Uh, my parents split up when I, it was kind of a long ongoing thing, but

1:53:22

somewhere around

1:53:23

eight years old.

1:53:24

And so it was my mom's job to raise these five boys.

1:53:29

And I, you know, at some point being a teenager a little later, I said, it's a

1:53:33

wonder we're

1:53:34

not all in San Quentin, you know, I mean, somehow she had enough of her.

1:53:40

She gave enough of her to inspire us, all of us really to be good people.

1:53:48

I mean, you know, we all had our faults and foibles and fell down and all that.

1:53:52

But yet the ideal was to try and reach up here and be a good person.

1:53:58

And, and it was because our family wasn't in a, in some sense to try and have a

1:54:05

normal

1:54:05

family, you know, leave it to beaver and all that sort of thing.

1:54:08

Yeah.

1:54:09

So that was a, that was a big goal to me and big inspiration to, to want that.

1:54:17

Well, it's a beautiful thing.

1:54:19

There's nothing wrong with that idea.

1:54:21

Not at all.

1:54:22

Not at all.

1:54:23

It's just the idea that there's something wrong with it.

1:54:24

It is that that's the fake rock and roll vision.

1:54:28

That's the vision of the dark artist, you know, I think, um, I don't know if I

1:54:35

talk with Julie

1:54:36

about this.

1:54:37

Sometimes we show up at stuff and there'll be a lot of characters.

1:54:40

I'm talking about musical things, a lot of characters roaming around there, you

1:54:44

know,

1:54:45

they're in, you know, and you know, I kind of look like, um, Ward Cleaver, beaver's

1:54:51

dad, you

1:54:52

know, Mr. Uh, Mr. Boy Scout or something walking around, you know, and she's

1:54:58

looking at me like,

1:54:59

well, couldn't you have worn something a little more, a little more rock and

1:55:02

roll?

1:55:03

Yeah, maybe.

1:55:04

And I, I, I'm just not bothered.

1:55:06

I mean, I, it, it is kind of funny though.

1:55:10

I've actually, I've worn some cool clothes at some of the stuff that would,

1:55:12

that would all

1:55:14

be Julie's doing, of course.

1:55:17

Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's almost like, you know, could you, could you show

1:55:24

up at a

1:55:25

reunion of, uh, rock guys, you know, in their fifties or something, everybody

1:55:31

pull out their

1:55:32

blotter, you know, their police blotter.

1:55:35

Oh yeah, I got busted for me.

1:55:37

And everybody would have a, a rap sheet.

1:55:41

Yeah.

1:55:42

I mean, it would be a badge of honor, but I suppose to me, I'm, I'm just really

1:55:47

glad

1:55:47

that it wasn't like that.

1:55:49

Well, it's just you being authentic.

1:55:51

It's a powerful thing.

1:55:53

It's, it's great too, because the influence is to not, the influence is to

1:55:58

create an image,

1:56:00

you know, and a lot of people cultivated that image and they get kind of

1:56:03

captured by it.

1:56:05

Yeah.

1:56:06

And then you have to be that person forever.

1:56:07

You can't like switch.

1:56:09

Letterman to Pee Wee Herman on his show.

1:56:14

Just think Pee Wee, you're going to have to dress like that for the rest of

1:56:17

your life.

1:56:19

That's true.

1:56:20

Right?

1:56:21

Right?

1:56:22

Yeah.

1:56:23

You become a character and then that's what people love.

1:56:25

They don't love you.

1:56:27

They love this fake thing that you've presented to the world.

1:56:30

Well, you know, it's the cowboy thing, the motorcycle.

1:56:32

Yeah.

1:56:33

Whatever.

1:56:34

I, I mean, look, I like all those too, actually.

1:56:36

Yeah.

1:56:37

I, you know, I love the, I like keeping it as a fantasy.

1:56:42

Um, I watch some TV shows and my favorites are the, the, the modern, you know,

1:56:50

like Yellowstone

1:56:51

and all the other ones.

1:56:52

After that, there's probably a lot of, a lot of, what do you call that literary

1:56:58

license, you know?

1:57:00

Sure.

1:57:01

For imagery.

1:57:02

But I love the imagery.

1:57:03

Yeah.

1:57:04

I mean, I can sit there and watch that river flowing back past those rocks and

1:57:07

the pine trees forever.

1:57:09

And some cows going over the, that's okay.

1:57:12

I love it.

1:57:13

And the stoic cowboys living this rough life.

1:57:15

Yeah.

1:57:16

I like all that.

1:57:17

Of course.

1:57:18

Everybody does.

1:57:19

It's very romantic when you're looking at it from the outside, especially.

1:57:21

Yep.

1:57:22

I mean, how many people moved to Montana because of that show?

1:57:25

They're hoping not so many.

1:57:27

I bet a lot did though.

1:57:28

A lot did.

1:57:29

And I think a lot left.

1:57:30

Yeah.

1:57:31

Yeah.

1:57:32

I don't realize how hard the winters are.

1:57:33

And they're like, all right.

1:57:34

Whoa.

1:57:35

This ain't, this ain't my, uh, romantic idea.

1:57:37

Yeah.

1:57:38

And it's a long winter up there.

1:57:39

Yeah.

1:57:40

Oh boy.

1:57:41

Yeah.

1:57:42

Music is, uh, it's one of the most powerful things in American culture.

1:57:47

Cause a great song like Fortunate Son can inspire people to change their lives.

1:57:52

It can inspire people to make decisions.

1:57:54

It does, it does things to people.

1:57:57

It gives you fuel.

1:57:58

Like I was saying, like if I listened to that song, when I'm working out, it's

1:58:01

like I took

1:58:02

an energy pill.

1:58:03

Like all of a sudden I have more energy.

1:58:05

Like that's real.

1:58:06

It's a, it's a powerful thing that you've created.

1:58:09

It really is.

1:58:10

You know, and the fact that you did it out of love and enjoyment speaks to why

1:58:15

the music

1:58:16

is so, it resonates so much with people.

1:58:19

Well, you know, especially with that song, um, at that point in, uh, in the

1:58:25

career of my

1:58:26

and remember I was writing all the songs.

1:58:29

Um, I'll talk about that after this, I guess, in a minute.

1:58:34

Um, but I wanted to have just an all out screaming rocker, which we didn't have

1:58:44

yet.

1:58:44

You know, the career was about a year and a half old.

1:58:47

And so, I mean, I commissioned myself to, I want to have that, that absolutely

1:58:57

loud screaming

1:58:58

song with the guitars and all.

1:59:00

And so that was sort of the commission I gave myself to create.

1:59:05

As opposed to something like, have you ever seen the rain?

1:59:08

Yeah.

1:59:09

Or even down on the corner, which is a different vibe.

1:59:11

Right.

1:59:12

Right.

1:59:13

Oh, you know, I wanted to, cause I like that.

1:59:14

I like when bands, you know, uh, the Beatles actually, I want to hold your hand

1:59:20

or she was

1:59:20

just 17 and saw her standing there, I guess.

1:59:23

Um, you know, when, or, uh, it's not really fast, but it certainly had that

1:59:29

vibe.

1:59:30

You know, the instrumental rumble by Link Wray.

1:59:36

I see I've missed you.

1:59:37

Cool.

1:59:38

Yeah.

1:59:39

I don't know what that song.

1:59:40

Can you put that one up?

1:59:41

Yeah.

1:59:42

Pull that one up.

1:59:43

Yeah.

1:59:44

We'll get, we'll get flagged.

1:59:45

We'll remove it.

1:59:46

Do you do that?

1:59:47

Do you play little snippets of music?

1:59:48

We can play snippets, but the problem is.

1:59:49

You know, everything we've just been talking about.

1:59:51

Yeah.

1:59:52

Everything, including the guy.

1:59:54

If there's a clip of him playing that.

1:59:57

The only problem is we'll, we can't put it on the podcast itself or we'll get

2:00:02

flagged,

2:00:02

but we can listen to it right now and then we'll just cut that part out.

2:00:05

That was the musical scale right there.

2:00:08

Yeah.

2:00:09

What's, what is that?

2:00:10

I took so much out of that.

2:00:11

But anyway, he was the rumble.

2:00:14

It's the song.

2:00:15

Who's the guy?

2:00:16

Link Wray.

2:00:17

Oh God.

2:00:18

That's so cool.

2:00:19

And when you saw him, black leather jacket, skinny as a rail, probably had a

2:00:24

suit.

2:00:24

Yeah.

2:00:25

Probably a motorcycle.

2:00:27

I mean, it was the entire thing in one little two and a half minutes song.

2:00:32

Wow.

2:00:33

Look at him there.

2:00:34

God.

2:00:35

He's a little older there, but it's, yeah, he's bad.

2:00:40

Wow.

2:00:41

He looks cool as hell.

2:00:43

Yeah.

2:00:44

It's, it's always fascinating to me where artists had like one incredible song

2:00:51

and then never made it.

2:00:53

Like, and you'll find out about that song and you go, this is incredible.

2:00:58

How did this guy never make it?

2:01:00

How am I?

2:01:01

Do you know who Johnny Thunder is?

2:01:02

I've heard the name.

2:01:03

Okay.

2:01:04

Play I'm Alive for him.

2:01:06

There's a song that my friend, Brian Simpson told me about, God, it must've

2:01:10

been like a couple of years ago now.

2:01:12

And he played it for us in the mothership, the comedy club, the green room.

2:01:16

And he goes, you're going to love this song.

2:01:18

And I went, who is this?

2:01:19

We had to figure out who it was.

2:01:21

It's a song from 1969 by this guy, Johnny Thunder.

2:01:25

69?

2:01:26

1969.

2:01:27

Yeah.

2:01:28

And it's fucking incredible.

2:01:29

Wow.

2:01:30

It's such a good song.

2:01:31

And I'm like, this, if, if I didn't know any better, I'm like, oh, this guy

2:01:34

must've been a huge star.

2:01:36

Like if, I know, but if I heard that and someone said, this guy's a huge star,

2:01:41

have you heard this song about, oh my God, it sounds like a huge star.

2:01:43

Like this guy's fantastic.

2:01:45

Listen to this.

2:01:46

Listen to this.

2:01:47

How good is that?

2:01:48

It's great.

2:01:49

It sounds phenomenal, right?

2:01:50

Yeah.

2:01:51

Did he ever like under a different name or anything?

2:01:54

Nope.

2:01:55

Nope.

2:01:56

Oh my goodness.

2:01:57

Nope.

2:01:58

Isn't that crazy?

2:01:59

We started playing that song.

2:02:01

The attitude's great.

2:02:02

He's saying a lot of great stuff.

2:02:03

The name's great.

2:02:04

It's incredible.

2:02:05

It's incredible.

2:02:06

Yeah.

2:02:07

The voice is incredible.

2:02:08

The sound's incredible.

2:02:09

We played that song on the podcast a couple of years ago and now the song's in

2:02:13

commercials and all these different things.

2:02:15

Oh, is that true?

2:02:16

Yeah.

2:02:17

But he's dead now.

2:02:18

He's dead.

2:02:19

I think he died in 2019 or something like that.

2:02:23

He died in 2024.

2:02:24

2024.

2:02:25

Wow.

2:02:26

Oh, wow.

2:02:27

So he probably died like right after we discovered him.

2:02:30

Isn't that crazy?

2:02:32

Yeah.

2:02:33

Isn't that crazy?

2:02:34

Yeah.

2:02:35

I mean, you hear that.

2:02:36

You're like, how did that guy not be one of the biggest artists in the world?

2:02:40

Or at least have that song be a big thing.

2:02:44

Right.

2:02:45

That song wasn't even a big hit.

2:02:46

Right.

2:02:47

Absolutely.

2:02:48

It's just you realize the slippery nature of success, especially with art.

2:02:58

Like sometimes guys just catch lightning.

2:03:00

They got that one.

2:03:01

Yep.

2:03:02

Yep.

2:03:03

And that's it.

2:03:04

I mean, you know, I think any artist has been around a while.

2:03:07

He had another hit?

2:03:08

Yeah.

2:03:09

That was his biggest hit.

2:03:10

Loop De Loop.

2:03:11

Oh, I know that song.

2:03:12

Oh.

2:03:13

Johnny Thunder featuring the Bobettes.

2:03:15

When did this come out?

2:03:16

That's 1963.

2:03:17

Reach number four.

2:03:18

Wow.

2:03:19

Oh, that's the song I know.

2:03:20

I know that one.

2:03:21

Wow.

2:03:22

I didn't know who the name, the name.

2:03:24

Here we go loop dee loo.

2:03:26

Isn't that crazy?

2:03:27

Here we go loop dee loo.

2:03:28

That song was Johnny Thunder's only top 40 hit.

2:03:31

That's incredible.

2:03:32

How high did it say it got?

2:03:34

It said number four.

2:03:35

Number four of the US pop charts.

2:03:37

Wow.

2:03:38

Number six, the US R&B charts.

2:03:40

Wow.

2:03:41

And the album in Canada reached number 14 two separate weeks.

2:03:46

It's incredible because if you hear that other song, like that other song, that

2:03:52

should be gigantic.

2:03:54

I'm alive.

2:03:55

Yeah.

2:03:56

It should be a huge hit.

2:03:57

Right.

2:03:58

Meaning your statement of, you know, it's like I'm a man or something.

2:04:01

I played that for so many musicians and they listened to it and they never

2:04:04

heard it before.

2:04:06

Right.

2:04:07

And so many guys are like, oh, oh my God.

2:04:09

You hear them like, oh baby.

2:04:12

It just cracks.

2:04:13

It's a perfect song.

2:04:15

It's an amazing song.

2:04:17

But it's like the slippery nature of art.

2:04:21

You know, it's just like sometimes.

2:04:22

Yeah.

2:04:23

So why, why would something that good just, you know, there's something.

2:04:28

I don't know.

2:04:29

The week it came out was 9/11 or something.

2:04:32

No.

2:04:33

Well, you know what my fear is?

2:04:34

My fear is that he got trapped up in the music business side of it.

2:04:40

Yeah.

2:04:41

And they just decided not to promote him or something.

2:04:43

Mm-hmm.

2:04:44

You know, he ran afoul with the music company or something.

2:04:47

I mean, it just doesn't make sense that a guy who can make a song that good.

2:04:50

Yeah.

2:04:51

If you can make that song that good, you can make a ton of songs.

2:04:54

You would think so.

2:04:55

Yeah.

2:04:56

You just need the right people with you.

2:04:57

Yeah, because he had the voice.

2:04:58

He had everything.

2:04:59

He could always do that.

2:05:00

The voice, the sound, the soul to his music, the way he sang.

2:05:05

You know, that part, I'm a man.

2:05:06

Yeah.

2:05:07

Hey.

2:05:08

Oh my God.

2:05:09

It's so good.

2:05:10

It's so good.

2:05:12

It just, it's, it is, it's a very difficult thing to capture.

2:05:20

And even capturing it only once doesn't ensure a long career of getting it

2:05:25

right.

2:05:26

Of finding that thing.

2:05:28

Well, yeah, we were talking about that a little bit a while ago.

2:05:33

You know, that, that first blush when you realize you can do it.

2:05:37

Yeah.

2:05:38

Because you've never done it before.

2:05:39

Yeah.

2:05:40

You know, when you cross that particular threshold, that's an, that's an

2:05:45

amazing transformation,

2:05:48

I guess, in an artist, the way he grows.

2:05:53

Because until you actually do it, it's all just a dream.

2:05:59

You know, I mean, I, I had grown up writing songs.

2:06:05

You know, they weren't great songs.

2:06:07

I mean, I kind of knew it.

2:06:08

I was watching all the people I loved.

2:06:12

I'm talking about from being four or five years old all the way through growing

2:06:16

up.

2:06:17

And you're, you know, things happen.

2:06:19

Elvis, Motown and Beatles and all these things happen.

2:06:24

And wow, you really like all that.

2:06:26

And meanwhile, you're having the dream of being in music somehow.

2:06:31

But you never really know if you're going to be able to do that or not.

2:06:38

Right.

2:06:39

I mean, this, this sort of spreads out in a lot of strange ways in

2:06:44

entertainment.

2:06:46

I mean, I, I kind of make it similar to what, what if you're a baseball player

2:06:53

and you dream of growing up and getting to the major leagues.

2:06:58

Right.

2:06:59

And somebody becomes Willie Mays.

2:07:02

Right.

2:07:03

And a lot of people don't, you know, and there's, you just don't know.

2:07:09

There's that realization.

2:07:10

I mean, for Willie, actually he was, it was slow.

2:07:15

If you read about him, him and DeRocher were kind of, you know, DeRocher could

2:07:18

see it.

2:07:19

And Moody's kind of, yeah.

2:07:21

Um, so if you're lucky enough and you become Willie Mays, I mean, God bless you.

2:07:28

Right.

2:07:29

But there is that for most of us, that moment that, well, sorry, kid, you know,

2:07:35

you, you just, you're average, but we don't need average.

2:07:40

Right.

2:07:41

Right.

2:07:42

And that just happens a lot.

2:07:43

Uh, in music, there was people like me.

2:07:47

Uh, when, when the four people that became Credence sort of got together in, uh,

2:07:54

1967 after I got off active duty.

2:07:58

And we said, okay, we're going to go for broke.

2:08:02

Yeah.

2:08:03

Okay.

2:08:04

We'll have a democracy.

2:08:05

Yeah.

2:08:06

We'll vote on everything.

2:08:08

Yeah.