#2438 - John Mellancamp

Summary

The Joe Rogan Experience #2438 – John Mellencamp

Release Date: January 14, 2026
Host: Joe Rogan
Guest: John Mellencamp

---

Episode Overview

This conversation dives deep into the personal history, philosophies, legacy, and life lessons of John Mellencamp, the iconic American singer-songwriter. Spanning Mellencamp’s musical journey from small-town Indiana to worldwide acclaim, the episode examines themes of luck, humility, personal reinvention, health struggles, the evolution of music and media, and the role of nostalgia and responsibility in art and life. Mellencamp's blunt storytelling and wry humor blend with Joe Rogan's curiosity, creating an engaging memoir-like journey across decades of modern American culture.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Tattoos, Aging, and the 1980s Tattoo Scene (00:14–01:13)

• Smudgy Tattoos: Mellencamp and Rogan joke about how tattoos look as they age.

  “Because you get older and they get all smudgy.” – Mellencamp (00:16)

• Mellencamp's Tattoo Parlor: In the mid-80s, Mellencamp briefly owned a tattoo parlor in Indiana when it was still illegal.
  • He recalls being left alone by authorities due to his fame, but had to close up because the tattoo artist he partnered with turned out to be a heroin addict, which connects to a larger theme about addiction.

2. Addiction, the Opioid Epidemic, and Personal Rock Bottom (01:14–07:39)

• Heroin in the Past vs. Now: Both reflect on how rare heroin addiction seemed in the past compared to today’s opioid crisis (Sackler family and pharma’s impact mentioned, 01:34).
• Mellencamp's Own Experience: Mellencamp shares his last brush with drugs and alcohol, hitting "rock bottom" after a vicious bar fight in his early twenties.

  “I just said, you know, this drug and alcohol thing is not working for you. And so I went and got all my hair cut off. … And that was it.” – Mellencamp (06:23)

3. Small Towns, Nostalgia, and the Creation of an Everyman Myth (07:58–10:46)

• Songwriting & Identity: Rogan connects Mellencamp’s songs (“Jack & Diane”) with his own sense of nostalgia and confusion as a young man.

  “You were singing from a position of … an everyman… They were great fucking songs. They had heart.” – Rogan (08:12)

• Mellencamp’s Perspective: “We're only on this earth for a few minutes. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and quit being confused and accept your responsibilities…” (10:26)

4. Early Life, Luck, and Living with Spina Bifida (12:28–17:03)

• Surviving Spina Bifida: Mellencamp recounts being born with a severe spinal defect; experimental surgery saved his life.

  “I was the only one that lived.” – Mellencamp (14:20)

• Humility and Gratitude: He repeatedly credits his survival to luck, calling himself “the luckiest guy you’ve ever interviewed” (12:28).

5. Anxiety, Panic, and Performing (17:03–22:39)

• Panic Disorder: Mellencamp discusses agoraphobia after college, severe panic attacks—even onstage—culminating in a heart attack at age 42.
• Silver Lining: His heart attack led to years at home with his sons and a new appreciation of luck:

  “You know what luck is? Thinking you’re lucky… What you think about yourself will come true.” – Mellencamp (22:35)

6. Health, Food, and America’s Diet (23:01–29:46)

• Family Health: Discussion of high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease in Mellencamp’s family.
• Bad Food in America: They critique processed food, the ubiquity of unhealthy ingredients, and controversy over cholesterol and chronic illness.

  “The human body was not meant to eat this crap.” – Mellencamp quoting a doctor (24:16)

• Supplements and Longevity: Rogan brings up nattokinase and metformin as potential heart and longevity aids (26:55–25:34).

7. Perspective on Politics, Polarization, and History (30:01–36:43)

• Mellencamp’s Political Disengagement: He expresses distrust in all politicians, regrets over polarization, and emphasizes privacy and morality in civic engagement (32:54–34:31).
• Reframing History: Mellencamp controversially argues the Civil War was primarily about port economics, not slavery, sparking a fact-check and debate (35:15–37:44).

8. Changing Technologies: Television, MTV, and Cultural Shifts (41:08–41:58, 44:02–46:47)

• Media Evolution: Stories about cable TV’s arrival, changing music industry marketing, and how MTV transformed rock stars from distant images on album covers to omnipresent celebrities.
• Early Music Career: Mellencamp played bars at age 14, balancing music with dreams of boxing and football.

9. Climbing the Ladder: Music Industry Struggles (46:52–65:16)

• No Overnight Success: His rise was slow, marked by management issues, living in England during the punk explosion, and the imposition of the “Johnny Cougar” name against his will.

  “I didn’t want to be Johnny Cougar, which is how they made me start.” (65:16)

10. Hit-Making, SoundScan, and the End of Rock’s Dominance (68:07–76:01)

• SoundScan Impact: Mellencamp’s insider peek at how new music charts and tracking tipped the balance toward urban/R&B and away from regional rock.
• Touring Woes and Evolution: Shift from stadiums to theaters in search of artistic integrity.
• On-going Career: Mellencamp discusses finding fulfillment in making his repertoire “undeniable” and reflects on how “haters” and critics motivated him to improve his craft.

11. Songwriting, Jack & Diane, and Artistic Process (83:27–94:07)

• Learning to Write: He admits he’d never written songs before his first record deal.
• Creating "Jack & Diane": Detailed backstory of how studio experimentation (accidental adoption of a drum machine intended for the Bee Gees) led to a now-iconic song.
• Record Label Rejection: The label hated “Jack & Diane,” “Hurts So Good,” and “Hand To Hold On To,” which all became massive hits.

  “They hated them. They said, john, this is. They're too rough. They're too raw.” (88:36)

12. Fame, Maturity, Family, and Loss (108:55–117:33)

• Managing Fame: The downsides of extreme recognition, his struggle with agoraphobia subsiding as he adjusted to visibility.
• Parenthood: Warm reflections on raising children, pride in his son, Hud, and the hard truth of losing friends to substance abuse.
• Mortality: Themes of aging, gratitude, and living life fully recur, especially after surviving health issues and witnessing death among loved ones.

13. Smoking, Health Choices, and Acceptance (117:59–128:08)

• Smoking as Identity: Mellencamp discusses his lifelong smoking habit, health warnings, and philosophy:

  “Find something you love and let it kill you.” (118:04, repeated 128:08)

• Failed Quit Attempts: Anecdotes about Johnny Cash, hypnotists, and the inherent difficulty of quitting long-term habits.

14. Film, Comedy, and Political Correctness (129:24–134:43)

• Old Movies: Mellencamp prefers black-and-white classics, sharing stories of friendship with Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman.
• Comedy’s Death and Rebirth: Both lament the stifling of modern comedy films by political correctness, but celebrate the resilience of stand-up.
• Comedy Greats: Praise for Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, Shane Gillis, and others.

15. Lessons, Humility, and the Brevity of Life (110:13–113:55)

• Embracing Gratitude: Both men discuss the importance of appreciating their good fortune and success.
• Perspective from Elders: Mellencamp shares his grandmother's words:

  "Life is short, even in its longest days." (112:51)

• Final Reflection: Mellencamp’s shift to embracing “greatest hits” performances and valuing family time shows an evolved, humbled approach to work and legacy.

---

Memorable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Quote/Insight | Speaker | |:----------:|:---------------------------------------------------------------|:------------------------------| | 01:14 | "I owned a tattoo parlor... And they were illegal in Indiana, but because it was me, they said, okay, leave him alone." | John Mellencamp | | 06:31 | "Well, you found your rock bottom... you need to find rock bottom." | Joe Rogan | | 12:28 | "You're looking at the luckiest fucking guy you've ever interviewed." | John Mellencamp | | 14:20 | "I was the only one that lived." (spina bifida surgery) | John Mellencamp | | 22:35 | "You know what luck is? Thinking you're lucky. What you think about yourself will come true." | John Mellencamp | | 24:16 | "The human body was not meant to eat this crap." | Mellencamp quoting a NY doctor | | 56:55 | "If you let it go long enough, it will be like skid row." | Joe Rogan | | 65:16 | "I didn’t want to be Johnny Cougar, which is how they made me start." | John Mellencamp | | 88:36 | "They hated him. They said, john, this is. They're too rough. They're too raw." (about iconic songs) | John Mellencamp | | 94:07 | "Look at your career and look at what suits have said to you and how wrong they were." | John Mellencamp | | 112:51 | "Life is short even in its longest days." (grandmother's wisdom) | John Mellencamp |

---

Noteworthy Segments & Timestamps

• Addiction, Drugs, and Rock Bottom: 03:53–07:39
• On Survival and Medical Luck: 12:28–17:03
• Family, Heart Attack, and Redefining Success: 20:09–22:39, 35:02–35:15
• Food and Health Systems in the US: 23:01–29:46
• Music Industry & the Impact of SoundScan: 68:07–76:01
• The Creation of “Jack & Diane” & Other Hits: 83:27–94:07
• Reflections on Fame and Maturity: 108:55–113:55
• Parenting and Loss in Mellencamp’s Life: 116:04–117:33
• Smoking Philosophy and Quitting Stories: 117:59–128:08
• Stand-Up as Resilient Art vs. PC Culture: 133:05–136:16

---

Closing Thoughts

The episode is suffused with Mellencamp's humility, candor, and wry humor about the hardships and blessings of his life–from addiction, poverty, and nearly dying in infancy to global stardom and creative freedom. He stresses luck and self-perception as keys to happiness, while Rogan lauds the authenticity and emotional resonance of Mellencamp’s music. Both men bond over memories from different sides of American entertainment, offering listeners wisdom about responsibility, adaptation, perseverance, and the fleeting joys of life.

---

For tour info, find John Mellencamp’s website or major ticketing platforms. “Life is short, even in its longest days.” (112:51)

Transcript

[John Mellencamp]

Joe Rogan podcast.

[Joe Rogan]

Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

[John Mellencamp]

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay, cool.

[John Mellencamp]

Why.

[Joe Rogan]

Why would I hate my tattoos?

[John Mellencamp]

Because you get older and they get all smudgy.

[Joe Rogan]

And mine are getting kind of smudgy.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Look at this one.

[Joe Rogan]

It's pretty smudgy.

[John Mellencamp]

Pretty smudgy. I owned a tattoo parlor in. I don't know what year it was. Mid-80s. And they were illegal in Indiana, but because it was me, they said, okay, leave him alone.

[Joe Rogan]

Really? I remember when they were illegal in New York, I used to. I went to Connecticut to get my first tattoo.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, I didn't know it was illegal, but I met this guy in la and he worked at Sunset, you know, where the Hyatt house is, and there was a tattoo parlor right across the street. Anyway, he was there, and so I brought him to Bloomington because he wanted to get out of la. And guess why they closed me down.

[Joe Rogan]

Why?

[John Mellencamp]

Fucking guy was a heroin addict. I know. And he did this tattoo one time and I went over. I just went over to the shop, I said, hey, let's do this little. And he was all fucked up. And it was just like, what's wrong with it? You know, Because I didn't know. I don't know anything about heroin addicts.

[Joe Rogan]

So there wasn't a lot of heroin addicts back then. That was a rare thing. Now think about how many people are because of the Sackler family. Think of how many people are hooked on opiates today. I mean, it's gotta be lots. It's off the charts in comparison to what it was like in, you know, the 1980s. There's. I mean, I knew one guy that had a friend who did heroin. That's it.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I was at a. The first time I saw somebody do heroin was I was in college and there was a place called Bull island that tried to imitate Woodstock. And me and my then wife and a kid, a little girl, and my roommate who lived with us, we're just walking down there and we see this guy shooting up. So we just thought, well, we'll watch, because he was just sitting right there. I mean, there was like 200,000 people there. And he shot and he went out and I looked at the guy I was with. God, we won't be doing this. We're not going to do this.

[Joe Rogan]

I had a friend who was a longshoreman, and he worked with this guy that every lunchtime he would go and score and sit in his truck and shoot up. And that's what he did every lunch. He was a functional heroin addict, and he would show up for work every day, and he did his job, but during lunchtime, during his hour, he would do heroin and just fucking find his happy place, and then an hour later.

[John Mellencamp]

Go back to work, and the one shot would last all day.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know. I don't know if he did heroin. I didn't ask if he did heroin after that as well. I'm assuming he probably did, but he was a functional heroin addict. Like, guy kept a full job. He was in the union, and everybody knew this guy would go on his break chewed up.

[John Mellencamp]

Last time I did drugs was 1973.

[Joe Rogan]

What was the reason you stopped?

[John Mellencamp]

You want to hear?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I used to like to smoke and drink whiskey, and then I liked to fight.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that's a problem.

[John Mellencamp]

I couldn't whip anybody. I could not. I couldn't. But I loved the contact and the rush of, like, you know, starting the fight. But. So anyway, I was in college, and my roommate and I went to this downtown bar, which we'd never been to, and I sat at the bar, and I would start these fights, you know, just a prick. And I was sitting next to this big guy, and for whatever reason, I thought it was a good idea if I spit on him. Oh, one of those guys, you know. You know those guys that get drunk?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Well, that was me. So I did, and we went out back, and he left me in the alley like a wet rag. I mean, he beat the shit out of me. Beat the shit out of me. And I was a hippie. I had hair down to here. And they. The guy, my roommate, was driving me home in an opinto, and I was leaning on the door like this. I was so fucked up from getting beat up. I mean, the oars around my face were this big. And I was leaning on the door, and all of a sudden, he went over a track. And I fell out of the car. Got my hair wrapped around the jigama flop that holds the car. And the guy that I'm with, drunk driving, he didn't even know I fell out of the car, and I'm going, stop the car. Stop. He went, oh. And so I got up the next morning, and I looked at myself, and I was unrecognizable. I had road rash on my arms. My knees were all fucked up. My face was beat up from the. And I just said, you know, this drug and alcohol thing is not working for you. And so I went and got all my Hair cut off. Not as short as yours, but not much longer. And that was it.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, you found your rock bottom. Yeah, that's what they say. They say you need to find rock bottom. I would never imagine that you would be the type of guy that would fuck with people at a bar and spit on somebody and start a fight. It just. You just don't seem like that at all.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I grew up in a small town, and there was not much to do in a small town. Uh, you know, you would either find a girl or. Or fight. Just.

[Joe Rogan]

I figured you for the find the girl type of guy.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, you know, I. I was. I did okay with that, but it didn't always work, so. Yeah. Yeah, it was like, don't forget Joe. It was like 1967. 66. You weren't. You weren't even born yet.

[Joe Rogan]

I was born in 67.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. So this is like 1967. Wow. So, you know, so from that time on until I turned 21. I was 21 when I quit using drugs and quit smoking, quit drinking.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. Nothing since then?

[John Mellencamp]

Not a drop.

[Joe Rogan]

That's impressive.

[John Mellencamp]

Not a drop. Well, you know, I think I've thought about. And I think that I didn't really like it that much, you know, as much as I thought I did.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, you certainly didn't like the results, right? One bad result. I'll set you straight.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. What do you.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, you were a big part of my high school experience. It was interesting because you. Your song sort of introduced the idea of nostalgia to me.

[John Mellencamp]

You know, I don't know what that meant.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, when you were singing songs like Jack, Diane, it's like I was kind of realizing as I was a very young guy listening to those great songs, that there's. There's gonna be a. Like, this is a weird time in life, and there's gonna be a time where you're gonna look back on this and it's probably one of the best times of your life. But even though it doesn't feel like. Felt, you know, felt confusing and weird, and I remember thinking at the time, like, my God, like, is this as good as it gets? You know, some people look back on this weird, confusing time of adolescence as the happiest moments of their life. I'm like, I can't wait to get the fuck out of this time of my life. And it's like, you know, you were singing from a position of. Like an everyman position of, you know, you were. You were singing nostalgic. They were great fucking songs. They had heart.

[John Mellencamp]

And.

[Joe Rogan]

It Was soul to them. But it was like. It was a lot of sadness, you know, a lot of, oh, yeah, life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone. And I was like, oh, Jesus Christ, life's gonna go, this is it.

[John Mellencamp]

This is it.

[Joe Rogan]

This is it.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, listen, I struggled with that. Probably like you did or he did. You know, there's a point in a man's life where he feels like there's got to be more to life than this. I mean, I had huge hit records and, you know, very, very, very, very, very lucky. Very lucky. You know, everything was. You know, it was just. Just lucky. And I would go. Go home and I would think, I'm not happy. There's got to be more to life than this. And then guess what happened? I got a little bit older, and I found out there's not. And I'm good at it. I'm good at it. So, you know, we're only on this earth for a few minutes. Quit feeling sorry for yourself and quit being confused and accept your responsibilities and. And try to, you know, maintain some humility, which was a million miles away from me spitting on people right in a bar.

[Joe Rogan]

What didn't you enjoy about being this enormous rock star in the early days of mtv? I mean, you were a rock star when it became a totally different thing, because it was like this visual thing that was in everyone's household now. It wasn't as simple as. No, you were on the Tonight show, and you would sing this musical segment, and people would have to go see you live to go see.

[John Mellencamp]

See you perform. And all you got to see of guys in rock bands were their album covers. You know, you would go to a record store and file through the records, and if you like the way a band looked, you would buy the record, at least. I would.

[Joe Rogan]

I would, too. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

And so I've got the question.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I was just saying, like, what was it? What was not good about that? I mean. I mean, what was that experience like, being this enormous rock star that left you feeling like you wanted more, that you weren't happy?

[John Mellencamp]

I think that for me, I think when that happens, it's the age you're at. And I think it's a chemical imbalance in our brain, and as we grow older, it kind of finds its way. And like I said, I just woke up one day and just went, hey, this is all there is. Accept it and try to show some humility and try to be good at it. And I never thought about it again.

[Joe Rogan]

That's interesting. Well, you're a snap out of it type of guy, Right? You snapped out of drugs and alcohol. You snapped out of feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah, that's a good trait to have.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I'm very lucky that. Listen, Joe, you're looking at the luckiest fucking guy you've ever interviewed. I don't give a shit who you've interviewed. I'm the luckiest guy you know. I was born with spina bifida. Do you know what that is?

[Joe Rogan]

I don't.

[John Mellencamp]

That's where you have a hole in your spine and the fluid and all of the. Your nerve endings, like on me.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah, that scar is huge.

[John Mellencamp]

That's 1951.

[Joe Rogan]

In 1951, you got that operation I was born with.

[John Mellencamp]

You're born with spina bifida.

[Joe Rogan]

So what do they do to what. What was that operation exactly?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, they had to. Well, here's the story. My parents were only 20 years older than me, so I was born deformed. And my parents didn't know what the fuck to do. You know, what are we gonna do with this kid? So they just went like that to my grandmother. Here, you take him. And so I was in the hospital, and there were four other kids. And there was a young doctor named Heinberger who was just a young neurosurgeon. Don't Forget, neurosurgery in 1951 was in ITS. So he just said, well, we've got to try to do something with these kids. And so he operated on all of us. I was the only one that lived.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, boy.

[John Mellencamp]

You know, the fact that. And he charged my parents a dollar for the cause. It was an experiment. I was like a guinea pig. And these other poor kids who had the same thing I did, they all died within, you know, six months. I remember seeing one girl that made it till she was 14 and she was in a wheelchair. I would see her at basketball games, and my parents would go, that's the other little girl that had the same operation you did. And then she died. So my whole life has been full of luck. I mean, I'm not supposed to be.

[Joe Rogan]

What did they do during the operation? What is the procedure?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, they have to cut your head off, for starters. You know, they had to cut my head and lay it open to get to my spine. And then they would push each individual nerve ending back down into my spine, drain the fluid off, sew it back up, and make sure that everything was working. And they told my parents, you know, look, here he is. He's probably going to die, get encephalitis, and his head's going to fill up with water. We don't anticipate him living much more than six or seven months. And I was. Fuck, I think I was in fifth grade. I didn't even know I'd had the operation. And some kid in my class said, hey, Malin Camp, what's that big scar on the back of your neck? Don't forget, now we're talking, you know, 1957, 58, 60 maybe. I didn't even know there was a scar back there, you know?

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

When, like, I was going and my parents never told me. So I came home and I asked my old man, I said, dad, what's with the scar in the back of my neck? And he goes, oh, don't worry about it. You had an operation when you were born. So I did it. I played football, I ran track, I fought, you know, I did everything that every other kid did without a thought of that. Not until I got older and I started having panic disorder that I thought. I thought maybe the panic disorder was from. From that operation.

[Joe Rogan]

How old when you started having panic disorder?

[John Mellencamp]

I was just out of college. I couldn't leave the house. I became. What they call. What's that called? Agoraphobia.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. So I had agoraphobia for about a year and a half, and then I got a record deal and I had to leave the house. I mean, I was married in high school, I got married in high school, and the girl I was married to was five years older than me, you know.

[Joe Rogan]

How old were you?

[John Mellencamp]

18.

[Joe Rogan]

18?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You had a kid, right? You had a kid real young.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, she's 50 something now.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

I. I have three girls and two boys.

[Joe Rogan]

Weren't you a grandfather when you were in your 30s?

[John Mellencamp]

Maybe.

[Joe Rogan]

I think you were right.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

NFL playoffs. Let's go. DraftKings sportsbook an official sports betting partner of the NFL makes every moment feel bigger. A running back cuts through the line. A strip sack flips the field. A tight end hauls in the kind of touc down grab you'll talk about for years. Postseason games shift Fast, and with DraftKings live betting options, you can stay right in the moment. Plus, DraftKings has your back with early exit protection. If the player in your eligible NFL prop bet goes down at any point in the first half, you still get paid in cash. New customers bet just $5, and if the bet wins, you get 300 in bonus bets instantly. DraftKings Sportsbook Every drive, every play every moment. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use the Code Rogan. That's Code rogan to turn five bucks into 300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins in partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler in New York, call 877-8-HOPE and WIRE. Text hopeny 467-369 in Connecticut, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. Pass through of tax may apply in Illinois, 21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void. In Ontario, restrictions apply. Bet must win to receive bonus bets which expire in seven days. Minimum odds required for additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG CO Audio Limited time offer.

[John Mellencamp]

Because that oldest daughter of mine got married when she was, like, 19.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

Not much to do in a small town, man. Yeah, I'm not much to do. So that's the spina bifida.

[Joe Rogan]

But it never bothered you again other than the panic. Were you performing when you were having the panic stuff?

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, man, I have been on stage in front of, like, 20,000 people and had a panic attack.

[Joe Rogan]

Oui.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. It's like. Have you ever had one?

[Joe Rogan]

No.

[John Mellencamp]

You're lucky because you feel like, I can't breathe. My chest hurts.

[Joe Rogan]

And I've seen it. I've seen people have them. It's horrific. You can't do anything for them. You're like, you think they're having a heart attack. You think they're dying.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Well, I've been on stage and I remember having to plant my feet and just power through in front of 20,000 people, and it was awful.

[Joe Rogan]

Did it pass while you were on stage?

[John Mellencamp]

I don't know if it did. I just remember it happening numerous times. And then guess what happened? I had a fucking real heart attack on stage at Jones beach, like, 30 years later.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, Jesus.

[John Mellencamp]

I know. So. But you know what that heart attack led to. I just married Elaine Irwin and we had two little boys, and I got to stay home because I said, fuck it, I'm going to die. I didn't know about heart disease. I'm going to die. So I want to spend the last couple years of my life with my boys, who are little teeny guys, which I want to tell you a story about them and you. And so I got to actually kind of not be in the music business, which pleased me.

[Joe Rogan]

How old were you when you had your heart attack?

[John Mellencamp]

42.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, geez.

[John Mellencamp]

And so I Got to stay home. I stayed home for three and a half years. Elaine didn't model. And we just, you know, we had TV shows we watched, which is unheard of in my life, you know, like, hey, it's Thursday night. Let's watch this. You know, which is where you come in. So the boys were little, and I loved your show. They loved your fucking show. And I was kind of like, I don't know if the kids should be watching this, you know?

[Joe Rogan]

You talking about Fear Factor?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what the kids should be watching. So I made a deal with them. All right, you guys, you can watch this show, but you have to watch 60 Minutes, too. So if you're gonna watch this, then you gotta watch 60 Minutes. And they obliged, which surprised the hell out of me. But it was like, Dad, 60 minutes on. Dad, Fear Factor's on. I know. So we would watch it together. I mean, how lucky is that?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it sounds like it was a blessing in disguise.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, well, that's.

[Joe Rogan]

It gave you a pause.

[John Mellencamp]

You know what luck is?

[Joe Rogan]

What?

[John Mellencamp]

Thinking you're lucky. Thinking you're lucky.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

What you think about yourself all comes true. I wrote it in a song once. What you think about yourself will come true. So if you call yourself a dumbass, guess what? You do it enough and your brain starts believing it.

[Joe Rogan]

What caused your heart attack at such a young age?

[John Mellencamp]

Me being stupid. I would go in and to get a physical, and they'd go, john, your cholesterol is off the charts. It's at 400. And I would go, am I all right now? And they'd go, well, yeah, you're all right now. Good. Because I didn't want to get on medicine, you know, and statin drugs had just become. Just were invented, you know, at that time, people started using statins, and I didn't want to take them. I didn't know what they were. But I know all about heart disease now.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you have plaque? Did you have arterial plaque?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it runs in my family. I have a sister that has. Or she used to. I don't think she does anymore. But her cholesterol was a 500. Imagine. That's like.

[Joe Rogan]

Cholesterol is a very controversial subject now because people are starting to try to sort out what is the actual cause of heart disease. And there's a lot of people that don't believe it. It's cholesterol. They think it's arterial plaque. And what is that stuff called? Nattokinesase. I don't know how to pronounce it, but there's a supplement, like an over the counter supplement that's supposed to be. Be able to eliminate arterial plaque in a very profound way that they're just starting to realize.

[John Mellencamp]

I don't know, but the clogging of it. Listen, I was in New York once with a girl and I went to the doctor with her. She was an actress and she was getting a physical and she wanted me to go, so I went with her and she went to the best doctor in New York City. And I found myself alone with that doctor. And I said, so the doctor in Bloomington just put me on Metformin. What's the side effects for Metformin? And this guy Joe was the guy, he went, longevity. And he said, if it was up to me, I'd put the entire United States on metformin and a statin. Because the fucking food we eat is terrible. Yeah, it's processed. It's this and that, you know, and he just said, you know, the human body was not meant to eat this crap.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a fact. Yeah, Yeah. I think the solution is probably eating food that you're meant to eat. But Metformin is one of those drugs that longevity doctors recommend. I've never been on it, but I know quite a few people that have, I think. Isn't it a diabetes drug? Initially?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. My mom died of diabetes, so I was always borderline, and I'm still borderline. And this.

[Joe Rogan]

Was she get type one or type two?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, she started out with two, and then she paid no attention to it. Wouldn't take her medicine. We'd drive by Krispy Kreme and she'd go, don't tell your dad. Okay. And she'd get a half a dozen, you know, Krispy Kremes and eat them.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's just like, that's where it's at. It's the food. It's a horrible thing that we've done to this country. You know, there's. I mean, this is the most controversial thing about RFK Jr. I guess. Or one of the most controversial things is the elimination of all the stuff that's already eliminated in a lot of European countries.

[John Mellencamp]

I had a friend come here for. From Europe who had not ever been United States and got sick just from eating.

[Joe Rogan]

Just eating our food. Yeah, it's crazy. Just our bread. What is that? That supplement? How do I say it?

[John Mellencamp]

How you were saying it.

[Joe Rogan]

Can you find out what it's supposed to do? Like what? Because there's a recent study. There it is. Okay. So natto. Yeah, that's it. Nanokinase supplementation can significantly reduce the size of existing arterial plaques and slow the progression of arteriosclerosis. I never say that word. Atherosclerosis. No atherosclerosis whatever. Particularly at higher doses. Nattokinase and arterial plaque reduction. Multiple clinical trials provide evidence that nattokinase, an enzyme derived from fermented Japanese food, NATO. Has a positive effect on arthritis sclerosis. Hardening and narrowing of the arteries due to plaque buildup. Yeah. So folks go take that stuff. High dose supplement shrinks arterial plaque by 36%. Very interesting stuff.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's a very common supplement. It's an easy to get supplement and you know, comes from fermented food.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, you know, if, you know, I've watched a lot of things about the food that we eat and.

[Joe Rogan]

Terrible.

[John Mellencamp]

Terrible.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, a bunch of monsters decided to make more money. And the way they make more money is to throw a bunch of preservatives and bullshit and stuff in the food so that it keeps their shelf life as long as possible.

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, yeah, you've heard those stories about taking a hamburger that you would buy at a very popular store and just putting it in a box and leaving it for five years. And five years later it's. Oh yeah. Some of my grandkids were at my house in on Daufusky and they had an ice cream sandwich and they only had half of it and it sat there for three hours and did not melt.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I've seen those. Yeah. That's not ice cream.

[John Mellencamp]

It's not ice cream.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know what the fuck's in there, but it's not regular ice cream. The Burger king or the McDonald's hamburger thing is nuts because what is the longest that. That guy. There's one guy that's had one on a shelf at his house for.

[John Mellencamp]

God.

[Joe Rogan]

I want to say it's close to 20 years or something crazy like that. It's just sitting there. And you would think that he got it five hours ago.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And we're supposed to be eating that.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And for a lot of people, that's a big portion of their diet is fast food, which is just crazy. You're just sucking down all these chemicals and preservative because if something cannot rot, can sit there and not rot. It's a quarter pound. It's 30 years old. Wow. That is insane. Yeah, that's insane.

[John Mellencamp]

That's craziness.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Our. Our food source and I don't know about RFK Jr. You know, I don't follow what he says or listened. I try not to listen to much politics.

[Joe Rogan]

Good for you. You know, that's another good way to not have a heart attack.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, you know why? Because it's all, you know, I was a hippie, and I grew up thinking, you know, that anybody over 30 was the enemy. Right. And, you know, it's kind of like. I remember when Kennedy was shot, I asked my dad, I go. I was like a kid. I go, do you really think one guy did it? And he just looked at me and went, what do you think? And that was his whole answer.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. Well, he knew it back then. That's interesting, because it took a long. It took until Dick Gregory brought the Zapruder film on the Geraldo Rivera show, which was. I think it was 12 years after Kennedy's assassination that people realized that he probably had gotten shot from the front.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Because his head went back into the left.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. And I've seen that. And I remember my dad was a young Democrat, you know, and so he was involved a lot with the Democratic Party back then. And I'd ask him questions, and he never would really give me answers. He would just give me looks. It's kind of like. And he knew the look. It was just like, What do you think, John? You really think somebody did that? You know, figure it out for yourself.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Not much has changed.

[John Mellencamp]

And that's why I don't watch. I don't. You know, I used to be very politically minded and. And cared about what politicians said. I don't give a what they say. I don't trust any of them. I don't like any of them. Not that I don't like them. Right. It's just that I don't. I. You know, it's just hard to believe anything that anybody says because everybody's spinning everything in such a way that it's just like, for their purposes, you know.

[Joe Rogan]

So, you know, and unfortunately, we're more aware of it now than ever before. There's less trust in politics now than there's ever been. And then there's more people talking about politics than there's ever been. There's more polarization. I mean, I don't know what it was like when you were a kid, but when I was a kid, there wasn't this polarization between people that were conservative and people that were liberal. Like, you could hang out and talk to each other. They didn't hate each other. They just thought the other person was a fool for having a Different opinion than them. But there wasn't hate like there is today.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, here's the way you gotta look at it. This is that when you used to vote, you would go inside a place and they would shut the curtains and you would vote, and that was your fucking business.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep.

[John Mellencamp]

It's nobody else's business. So, like, you know, it's like, you know, I'm for anybody that's doing good. If you're doing good and you're not hurting somebody, go, man. But, you know, I. I'm not for cheating. And, you know, how about a little morality and.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Integrity and what you're saying and doing.

[Joe Rogan]

That would be nice. It would be nice.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, it's never been that way.

[Joe Rogan]

No, never.

[John Mellencamp]

It's never been that way. I mean, in the 60s, when I was a hippie, I mean, people think that this is, like, really bad. No, it was really bad when fucking Russia had had missiles in Cuba. And it was really bad when kids with long hair were getting shot at Kent State. I mean, it was really the separation of adults and kids. You know, there was a change that was happening. And of course the change happened. And all my generation did was get to wear blue jeans to work. That's about all we accomplished.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, the change was because it was the first generation that realized that the war that they were being sold was bullshit.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, the people that were involved in World War I and World War II, they thought they were stopping the world from an evil dictator taking over and just ruining the world. That's what we. In World War II, the United States was fighting Hitler. You can't get a more evil person. It's leading an army that you want to fight against than that guy.

[John Mellencamp]

Right?

[Joe Rogan]

So everybody felt like that was a just war. Came back from that war victorious. America had national pride. We did it. We're the good guys. And then all of a sudden, we're in Vietnam. Like, what the fuck are we doing in Vietnam? Didn't make any sense.

[John Mellencamp]

Back up, Joe. What do you think the Civil War was fought about?

[Joe Rogan]

The Civil War?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, slavery was a big one.

[John Mellencamp]

No, no.

[Joe Rogan]

Ports, Ports.

[John Mellencamp]

They fought. It was fought over ports. The port in Savannah, Georgia, was the biggest port in America. And the ports in Boston, New York were struggling. And the north said, hey, why don't you guys send some of that our way? You guys got more than you can handle. And they said, fuck you. No, no, we're not sending you any of our stuff. And they just kind of went, well, then, fuck you. We're going to Come down and take it. But how are we going to get the American people to get behind that? Slaves? We'll say it's to free the slaves.

[Joe Rogan]

Really?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. I live. I have a house in the south. And that's what it was about. It was about the ports. Slavery was just an excuse because nobody cared about black people, north or South.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. So you think that if they had just spread the wealth a little bit, that that would not have happened and slavery would have still continued? Don't you think that. I mean, there was already a distaste of slavery because it wasn't, it wasn't ubiquitous in the north, but in the South.

[John Mellencamp]

But it was in the North.

[Joe Rogan]

It was.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. I mean, Lincoln had slaves right back.

[Joe Rogan]

Then, but not in, not in the 1860s when they were fighting the Civil War.

[John Mellencamp]

He was president. Really?

[Joe Rogan]

He had slaves when he was fighting in the war. Yeah, I wasn't aware of that.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, a lot of people in the north, so, you know, they weren't, they hadn't spun it to be so cruel as the south was, apparently.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there was more in the South, Right. Because of plantations and. Yeah. So here it is. Abraham Lincoln never personally owned slaves. This is according to Perplexity, which is our AI sponsor, which is always very accurate, either before or during his presidency. According to mainstream historical scholarship, claims that he had slaves through inheritance or marriage come from fringe or highly disputed sources and are not accepted by most professional historians.

[John Mellencamp]

That's me. I'm fine.

[Joe Rogan]

Lincoln was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana and Illinois, all as a non slave owner, working as a laborer, a lawyer and a politician. He was a really good wrestler too. Being related to slaveholders did not legally make those enslaved people his property. And the best documented homes Lincoln himself maintained in Illinois and Washington employed free servants, not slaves. Okay, where are the ideas?

[John Mellencamp]

Hold on for a second. Let me stop for a second. You can call it what you want. Free servants. Call it what you want.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they were free and they were getting paid. Like you said, you had a housekeeper.

[John Mellencamp]

It was still a minstrel show no matter how you got it.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay. Some modern writers and websites argue Lincoln inherited or ordered. This is where the idea Lincoln had slaves came from. Websites argued Lincoln inherited or ordered the sale of slaves via the Todd estate. But these claims hinge on a small number of contested documents and are rejected by most specialists in Lincoln studies.

[John Mellencamp]

There you go.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it's interesting that the, the fact.

[John Mellencamp]

That we're even talking about it.

[Joe Rogan]

What's kind of crazy how recent it was. That's what's really crazy.

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, yeah, it wasn't that long ago.

[Joe Rogan]

Two. Two people ago. You know, people live to be a hundred. Yeah. You know, 1865 is roughly two people ago. Yeah, that's crazy.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I know, I bet you when you were in school you thought World War II was ancient history.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah. Which is nuts because I, I was in high school in the 80s, right. So World War II ended in 45, which is nuts.

[John Mellencamp]

Like, yeah, I thought it was ancient history. I, I remember sitting in, in history class in eighth grade going, what do I need to know this shit for? You know, And I was born in 51, so it was only like three or four years and the war had just ended.

[Joe Rogan]

That's nuts.

[John Mellencamp]

But to me it was ancient history.

[Joe Rogan]

Isn't that crazy? Because essentially what we're talking about now is like the 1980s.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

To us, the 1980s. Like to kids today, they must be like, oh my God, fucking dinosaur days. No Internet, fucking big old tube TVs. It was a giant box. A big one was 14 inches.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember being at home once and I told my dad, I said, hey, dad, the people down the street have got like a changer and it's got a cord on it. And he goes, I got a changer too. Change it to channel four. I was the changer.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I remember we used to have pliers because the thing got script. So you had to change the channel with the plier. You didn't know what channel it was until, oh, it's cbs. All right, so we're on five. Go like this, then you're on abc. Go like that, you're on nvc. Yeah, yeah. I remember the day cable came out. I was like, this is bananas.

[John Mellencamp]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at all these channels.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I, I remember seeing a home box office. Oh yeah. It was like, what on earth? I even remember what movie it was. It was some. The Miracle man or something. I thought, what is it? It's past 11 o' clock and this movie's just starting.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Do you remember in the old days when the TV would sign off and the American flag would wave and it would just play music and then it.

[John Mellencamp]

Would just go, well, the Indian would always show up. Indian would always show up. And it had like this.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep. And then it would go to nothing. They would stop broadcasting at night.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, 11. Yeah, 11.

[Joe Rogan]

Those were wild times. Cable changed everything. Home box office changed everything. Because when HBO came around, all of a sudden you got to see stand up comedy uncensored. I remember the first time I Watched Sam Kinison on hbo. I was like, this is crazy.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, I'd never seen anything like that before. Like wild, raw comedy. No, I never met him.

[John Mellencamp]

I did.

[Joe Rogan]

What was he like?

[John Mellencamp]

Wild.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

I would imagine he was very unpredictable. Very. You know, he was Sam Kinison.

[Joe Rogan]

You know his story, how he became that way?

[John Mellencamp]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

Got hit by a truck when he was a little kid. He was real normal, like a normal kid. His brother Bill wrote about it. His brother Bill wrote a great book called My Brother Sam. And he said that Sam was just a normal kid. Got hit by a truck, got really fucked up, bad brain injury. And then from then on, wild and reckless. Just, like, impossible to control. Just a maniac.

[John Mellencamp]

You could imagine. I mean, you know, that's. I don't know about you, but if you grew up in the 80s, you know, our parents used to just tell us, go outside. Yeah, yeah, go outside and we'll see you at dark.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep.

[John Mellencamp]

And, you know, I could go. I was, I don't know, 10, 9. Riding my bike all over Seymour.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep.

[John Mellencamp]

Which is where I grew up. And just nobody kept an eye on us. No, nobody.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, and nobody had any idea of knowing where you are either. It was just your responsibility to come home. There was no way to find you.

[John Mellencamp]

It was funny they had to remind us that, Remind our parents that you have kids. There was a thing that said, it's 10 o'. Clock. Do you know where your children are?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Because a lot of people didn't.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, they didn't.

[Joe Rogan]

And people would yell. They would open up the window and yell their kid's name, Billy. You just hear it in the neighborhood. Someone, like, rolling down their window. Rolling up their window and just screaming out the kid's name to tell him to come home. And hoping the kid was in earshot.

[John Mellencamp]

I remember somebody in my neighborhood I would hear every night at dark, Henry Earl. And I'd hear it and go, I better go home. If it's time for Henry Earl to go home, I better get home.

[Joe Rogan]

What was it like when MTV rolled around?

[John Mellencamp]

I didn't. I mean, I liked it.

[Joe Rogan]

And how long had you been performing by then?

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, I was in my first band when I was 11.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

You know, a little garage band with a bunch of kids playing along with records. And then I was in a band called the Crepe Soul. Think about this, Joe. I was 14 years old, playing in bars. Wow. And my parents were cool with it. It's like, where's John? He's playing tonight. Playing what? He's in the crepes hole. Oh. And it was me and this black kid named Fred Booker. And we shared the vocals and we would do, you know, we would do songs like pull strings and I'll kiss your lips, I'm your puppet, I'm your puppet. And we had, you know, neighbor jackets on. And I was cute back then and so, you know, it was great for me. I would have done it for free because I was 14 years old making out with 18, 19 year old girls.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

I know. It was great. Are you kidding me? And then we played at every fraternity, every sorority, and I came home with maybe, you know, over the weekend, I might make 60 bucks. I was the best dressed kid in school.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

That Mallencamp kid is just a dressed up hood. That's all he is.

[Joe Rogan]

So did you know back then that you were going to be a professional musician or were you doing it for fun? Did you think it was going to be a career?

[John Mellencamp]

I thought. Here's what I thought. I'm either going to be a professional football player, a professional boxer, or a singer. That was my choices.

[Joe Rogan]

You boxed?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

I'll whip your ass right now at 74.

[Joe Rogan]

Is that why you were getting in so many fights?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, I liked it.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

I liked it. I liked the contact. Didn't like getting whipped every goddamn night. But, you know, it happens.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you have any professional boxing matches?

[John Mellencamp]

No, but my son, I'm gonna brag on. My son was national golden Gloves champ twice. Wow. And then he played football for Duke and he was. You don't mess with Hud. Want to mess with Hud. He's 31 now.

[Joe Rogan]

When did the music thing really start taking off for you?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I went to college and I got a degree in broadcasting technology, which at that time was pretty. And they would have dances at college and bands playing, and I would sit there in the audience and go, I can do this better than that. I know I can. And so as soon as I got out of college, I got into a band called the Mason Brothers, which I have. I have so many funny stories. Like I said, I'm so lucky. I got into a band called the Mason Brothers and we played every weekend. And I was a barroom singer. You know, I never wrote any songs or anything like that. You want to hear a funny story about the Mason Brothers? How the Mason Brothers ended? Yeah, this is good. The guy that ran the band, I was just a singer, and the guy that ran the band was a guy named Dave. And Dave talked to the booker and we had a gig on A riverboat up and down the Ohio river. And it was a fraternity show. And we had an old Plymouth and a U haul on the back. And we get there, and the guys in the fraternity, Joe, are so fucking mad at us. Dave failed to realize that there was a time change between Seymour and Cincinnati, which is on the Ohio River. So all these fraternity guys are going, where the hell have you guys been? Here an hour late. So it really pissed me off. I go, dave, God damn it, if you're going to run the band, you got to, like, keep track of this shit. He said, oh, don't worry about it. And as time went on and so as. And you had to do four sets back then, you know, four 45 minute sets, which was plenty of time for Dave to get drunk and he would drink, and he was the bass player, and the fraternity guys already hated us, you know, because we weren't really any good. Anyway, so Dave's playing, and it's going along really good, and he's putting on a show, and he leaned back and man overboard. He fell off the ship. And they had to stop and fish him.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, my God.

[John Mellencamp]

So I got so mad at him that he said. I said, dave, I'm going to quit. This is. This is it for me. I'm done with. And then Dave said, no, John, give us one more chance. And then the drummer quit because he went to medical school. And then the guitar player was still in high school.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

And he was my mom and dad's paper boy. And so Dave said, john, let me put the band back together. I'll get some new guys. And I'd call him up and I'd go, dave, how's the band going? And he'd go, oh, it's going great, man. It's going really great. I said, good. I said, who are these new guys? He goes, you'll see when you get there. Don't worry about it. I got it covered. I said, oh, you mean like you did with the time change? And he goes, no, no, no. These guys are good. So I show up for this gig. I haven't even rehearsed with the. These guys, not even rehearsed with them. But it was the same shit, you know, because we. We were just a cover band and I was just a bar room singer. So, you know, if you want to see Taking Care of Business, I'm your guy, you know, and Taking care of Business, you know, who can't do that? So anyway, I show up. Dave has recruited two sophomores in high school who couldn't play their instruments at all. The drummer was like. It's like, boom, boom, crack, asshole. Boom, boom, crack. That's all you got to do. And he was. The whole fucking time. And so the show was about half over. I just said. I looked at Dave and I go, you're the lead singer. And I just laughed because it was just too embarrassing. And then I got. I went. I went to New York, and I was afraid, Joe. I was afraid. I mean, I'm from a town of 18,000 people, and I'd been to Chicago once, never been on an airplane. And so I flew to New York because I came into some money. That's another funny story. I came into some money and I went there and I was afraid to come out of my hotel room for the first two days because New York in the early 70s was broke, and there were prostitutes and pimps and everything everywhere, you know, and homeless people. Which reminds me, you guys got a lot of homeless guys here?

[Joe Rogan]

There's a few. It's not as bad as la.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, that isn't. You can say that about anything, Joe.

[Joe Rogan]

That's true. Yeah. It's a lot better than it was during the pandemic. During the pandemic, they allowed them to do the camping on the street thing. So you'd go down, like, Caesar Chavez and you'd see, like, 15, 20 tents where people were just hanging out and people were trying to jog and ride their bikes past them. It was pretty bad. But former. Former mayor cleaned it up. And they have pretty good programs here to get people into housing.

[John Mellencamp]

Everybody here. Everybody here must love. I'm not putting Austin down. I'm just. I have. You know, I was. I played here about three years ago. But everybody must love graffiti here. And that's the thing about graffiti. I don't mind if you want to destroy somebody else's property, but at least do something original, because it all looks the same, you know, it's big letters and outlined in. It's done in black and outlined in yellow. And it's the same fucking shit you see in New York or Los Angeles. The same, right? If you're gonna be an artist, be an artist.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, a lot of these guys are just tagging. They're just like. It's just their gang affiliation or whatever it is, I guess.

[John Mellencamp]

I don't know. Yeah, but it wasn't that way the first time I came to Austin.

[Joe Rogan]

No, it's. Well, I think all cities have deteriorated, but I think Austin's deteriorated quite a bit less. We found out recently that skid row in LA is 50 blocks. 5, 0 right now. Right now. 50 blocks of homeless people just living on the streets and, like, almost impassable. Like, if you've ever been down Skid Row, it's fucking. I went there once accidentally, and this was in the 2000s. We were filming Fear Factor downtown in LA, and I took a wrong turn and wound up in Skid Row. And I was like. I couldn't believe it was real. It was like a zombie movie. And that's.

[John Mellencamp]

I mean, it's fraction. So you decided on Fear Factor. You go stay in here for three days and you win.

[Joe Rogan]

Three days and do no coke. Yeah. You can do three days with no meth and you win.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. It was sobering. And then we looked up the history of Skid Row and the reason why it's like that is they would take people out of Hollywood and Beverly Hills and homeless people then, and they would put them in Skid Row and force them to stay there. And they sort of built it as a place where they could deposit vagrants and homeless people.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, there is a law in this country called vagrancy.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, not very enforced.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, it would be. Let me tell you something. If you grew up in Seymour, Indiana, it was enforceable because if you stand uptown too long, which is all kids did back then.

[Joe Rogan]

Mm.

[John Mellencamp]

The cops come up and go, hey, you've been here for three hours. We've been timing you.

[Joe Rogan]

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. New Year's resolutions are great and all, but sometimes I don't want to upend my entire life to create a new and improved me. If you're feeling the same way, I've got a tip for you to let go of those big New Year's expectations and start small. Focus on one thing that's been weighing you down lately. Maybe you want to stress less about what you can control or put less pressure on yourself at work or reconnect with an old friend. Whatever goal you have, better help can help you get there. Therapy in general is a great way to discover more about yourself from an unbiased outside perspective. It can really help take a weight off your shoulders. Better help makes connecting with a therapist straightforward and simple. And with a network of thousands of fully licensed therapists, they can connect you with the right one, like they have for millions across the globe. According to Those same people, BetterHelp works great, too. Their live sessions have an average of 4.9 out of 5 rating. So do yourself a favor and try better Help. Better help makes it easy to get matched online with a qualified therapist. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] JRE that's better. H lp.com JRE yeah, move on. You want to keep a nice, clean town, that's how you do.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But if you let it go long enough, it will be like skid row. I mean, I think that what we're saying, like the documentary, what was the hotel again? That one. The Hotel Cecil. The documentary was about the Hotel Cecil, which was a beautiful hotel in downtown LA that's now a fucking disaster area, but it's in that whole area. And they just. They couldn't figure out a way to deal with the homeless problem, but they didn't want it messing up the beauty and glamour of Hollywood. So every time they would find homeless people, they would just ship them to downtown. Downtown LA is really the only downtown of any major city that I've ever been to where nobody wants to go downtown. New York is fucking downtown. Like, holy shit, we're downtown. Look at all the restaurants, look at all the shops.

[John Mellencamp]

But it wasn't that way in the 70s, right? I mean, the first time I went there, it was just like. Yeah, went to Times Square. It was frightening.

[Joe Rogan]

The first time I went to New York was to fight. I was fighting in a martial arts tournament in 1980. Oh, it had to be. I guess it was 85 or 86. And it was bad. We went through. Through Times Square and I was like, oh, my God. I couldn't believe people lived like this. I remember the first time driving through it, I couldn't believe how big it was. I was like, this is crazy. It was so. Because Boston, where I was from, was, you know, the big city, I thought it was nothing compared to New York. I'm like, this is nuts. I couldn't believe how many streets there were and how many buildings there were and how tall they were. But the. Just the seediness of it was so strange to me. You know, the peep shows and all the weird people. And I was a kid back then. I was probably, you know, 18. It was very strange.

[John Mellencamp]

It was frightening.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Like I was. I don't know, I probably got sidetracked. But the first time I went there, I didn't leave my hotel room. I had a. I was at a Holiday Inn on 57th street and I just kind of peeked through the curtains and looked, and I can't go out there. I mean, I was, you know, coming off agoraphobia, and here I'm in New York because I Have a meeting with some record company people and you know, they like to demo.

[Joe Rogan]

So let's go back to that. So you were your up drunk friend, you quit him. How do you get back on the music after that?

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, Dave.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

No, I. I got my first record deal. The first guy I called was Dave. No, he was. He was a great bass player. He was a great base.

[Joe Rogan]

Did he get his together before then?

[John Mellencamp]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

Nope. Still not.

[John Mellencamp]

No, no. I got funny stories about Dave and Max's case.

[Joe Rogan]

Is he still around?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, he's a professor now. He found God and all this stuff.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow.

[John Mellencamp]

He's a professor at Vincennes University and he teaches.

[Joe Rogan]

He's a professor. Wow. What does he teach?

[John Mellencamp]

Music. Oh, wow. And now he was really a handsome, really good bass player. Really, really, really, really good. But he just, you know. You know Dave. And we were 20 years old, 22 years old, you know. The fuck did we know about anything?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Nothing. Nothing.

[Joe Rogan]

So when you left Dave and you left that band, what. What happened next? What was like the big break for you?

[John Mellencamp]

Never really had a big break.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, something must have happened.

[John Mellencamp]

It was a slow climb. Yeah, it was a very slow climb. Yeah, I. I got a record deal and of course, being me at that age, at 22, I went out to California and I met with a guy named Mike Maitland who hated my new record but said I had great possibilities. And I told. I just stood up and I said, motherfucker, you're an old man. What do you know about rock music? He must have been 40. And of course, I got dropped immediately. I was on MCA and I got dropped immediately. But there were a couple people at MCA who believed in what I was doing and so they helped me along. And then I got introduced to Rod Stewart's manager and I moved to England for two years, made a record and, you know, lived with the whole band on Chelsea, in Chelsea. And punk was just starting, just starting. I mean, you know, the Clash and the Sex Pistols. I mean, they were brand new bands.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

And there I am with an acoustic guitar going, I Need a lover. However, that song became number one in Australia. And so Australia was ahead of us with televising rock bands and they had a whole bunch of rock shows. And I had the number one record album and single in Australia and couldn't fill up a bar in Bloomington. Wow. Couldn't. Nobody'd come to see me. So anyway, I went to Australia and then a girl covered I Need To Love her and she had a big hit with it. I mean, mine was like went to like 30 or something like that. But hers went to like 2 of that song. And that's how it all started for me. That was the very first thing.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

With some girl covering one of my songs.

[Joe Rogan]

And you were living in England.

[John Mellencamp]

I lived in England for two years and they had the National Front there at the time. I don't know if you know what that is. The National Front was, if you're not English, get out of our country. A couple guys in my band got beat up because they heard, you know, some of the National Front guys heard their accent and it was an English, so it was like dangerous to even go to the movies, really. Keep your fucking mouth shut and your head down.

[Joe Rogan]

What year was this?

[John Mellencamp]

Around 70s, 77, 76.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Yeah. The National Front was, you know, they were like all a bunch of skinhead guys and violent and did not want any. Any foreigners in their country at all. And even Americans, you know. So. Yeah, you had to keep your eye, you know, I learned real quick to keep your head down, your mouth shut.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. And so you got out of there because of that?

[John Mellencamp]

No, I got out of there because I got mad at the. I know it's hard to believe that I got mad at somebody, but I got mad at the manager because I never could get the cocksucker on the phone, you know. And then I came back to the United States and he had a. He had a record deal based on the number one record in Australia. And I used to go, well, we have a number one record in Australia. And they would look at me and go, not many Australians in the United States, John. So, you know, and then it just kind of. But see what happened, and I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I didn't give a fuck. I got to the point where it's like, I don't give a fuck. You know, do what the fuck you want. Because I. I didn't want to be Johnny Cougar, which is how they made me start.

[Joe Rogan]

Whose idea was that to turn you into John Cougar?

[John Mellencamp]

It was Johnny to start off with Johnny Cooger. Tony DeFries managed me. David Bowie, Lou Reed, Mata Hoople. You remember all these bands?

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, Lou Reed, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, David Bowie, obviously. Rod Stewart, obviously, same guy.

[John Mellencamp]

Now, Rod Stewart was different. Different manager, different man. But he was English too, so it's.

[Joe Rogan]

Hard to argue with someone that's got that kind of talent, right?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, it's hard to argue when you're 22 years old with a 45 year old man. Who has had success, Right? Yeah. Like, I signed away my publishing and stuff. This is an old story, but I mean, an old story from everybody from the Rolling Stones to, you know, you name it Prince, if you were black. You know, it was like, here's a new car and a shiny ring and some money.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

And so I remember the. I was in Getting Ready, Getting ready to leave England, and I heard that Daft had had good news for me in America. So that's the reason I went home. And the good news was, is that he just got a deal for me for. On Mercury Records. And then so I went back to the United States and we started, you know, started making records and just kept plowing away. And the critics hated me, you know, they fucking hated me because of Johnny Cougar. And Main man came up with that name, Johnny Cougar. And his excuse was his name was David Jones and I called him David Bowie. And look how well that worked out and that was. And I'm 22 and I'm going, but I don't like this name. And he'd go, well, you don't have to. You don't have to participate. You can go back to Indiana if you want. I was like, well, fuck you, then. I will. And then I walked outside and thought for. For a minute and thought, I guess I'm Johnny Cougar.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

I hated it. And they compared me to James Dean and Bruce and, you know, so the critics just hated that. It was like, you know, he's so American. He's so American, you know? Yeah, I was a fucking hillbilly.

[Joe Rogan]

Critics, they're always going to be a problem.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. But you know what? I learned stuff from some of the critics that were good.

[Joe Rogan]

Like what?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, one of my best friends was a guy named Tim White, who was the editor of Rolling Stone and the editor of Billboard magazine. And he died a few years ago. And you want to hear some inside baseball?

[Joe Rogan]

Sure.

[John Mellencamp]

Tim and I talked every day, and Tim is as different as me as you. Tim wore bow tie, white bucks, you know, blue jeans, suit jacket, every day. And he was the editor of Rolling Stone for a long time, and then he became editor of Billboard. And he called me up and he said, I'm going to have to sign a deal with Soundscan. I said, so I didn't know what that was. He goes, john, you don't understand the ramifications of signing a deal with Soundscan. I said, well, what are they? He goes, you'll be out of business. I go, why do you say that? He goes, because now the way the Billboard charts work. Is this getting too inside baseball?

[Joe Rogan]

No, not at all. No.

[John Mellencamp]

The way that the charts work is that if you get played in Indianapolis and you get played in New York, it counts as one play. New York counts as one play. Indianapolis counts as one play. A play's a play. When SoundScan came in, they changed it. So it's like the number one record of the week. So if you got a play in New York, that was worth five points. If you got a play in Indianapolis, that was worth a half a point. So what does that mean? That means that people who grew up in St. Louis and where rock took place, all of a sudden, you know, where I got played all the time, the points didn't amount to shit. But what did? Urban stations. Urban stations played what, rap. So do you remember when all of a sudden rap music took over? It wasn't because these guys were so great. And I'm not saying they were bad. I'm just saying that it was because of Soundscan. And my friend Tim knew this was going to happen as soon as I signed this deal with Soundscan. And there was a magazine called Radio and Records at the time who was rivaling Billboard.

[Joe Rogan]

And.

[John Mellencamp]

If Tim hadn't bought SoundScan, radio and records would have bought them, which would have made them the premier record company because they were the most modern. And so Soundscan changed everything. So I'm sure that you remember that there was a time when you knew every song that was number one. Then all of a sudden you woke up one day and you didn't know what the. How does this song become number one? But the way that it was before SoundScan, each song had to work its way up the charts. So if you had, like, you know, let's say 20 plays, I'm just throwing out low numbers. But if you had 20 plays that got added to the 20 plays that you got the next week. So now you have 40 plays. So you might move up from 36 to 31. But Joe Rogan in Boston was hearing the fucking songs as they move up. Oh, I heard this new song. You talked to your friends and they said, yeah, I heard that song. And then all of a sudden, the song would build and build and build and build and build and build. And Michael Jackson would be number one all or whoever. And once SoundScan took over, if you run a rock band, the record companies said, well, fuck this. We're not even going to advertise in Indianapolis anymore. The biggest. The biggest numbers are RB stations, and they're playing rap and that's what we're gonna. We're gonna service those people. Because back then, you know, there was payola and all that stuff going on, of course. So there was like no money coming into Indianapolis all of a sudden. Where there used to be, it was all going to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, to all these R and B stations. And then what was that thing called when you could like download records for nothing?

[Joe Rogan]

Napster. Yeah, yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

And then that started and then that really put us out. Put all rock guys out of it. If you check the Billboard charts right now, I bet you you'd be hard pressed to find two rock bands in the top 100.

[Joe Rogan]

Rock bands right now, just in general are almost non existent in terms of like new bands. It's really weird. There used to be so many rock bands. And rock and roll is still a very popular form of music when you listen to the older stuff.

[John Mellencamp]

That's why, that's why I've decided. I don't mean to plug myself, but I. They have been asking me because I got tired of going on tour and being a cheerleader, which is what I was. Let's do a rounding hit of small town. I was born, you know, and everybody'd stand up singing. I was playing to 20,000 people and everybody was drunk. And I was just kind of the cheerleader, you know, the human being.

[Joe Rogan]

Giving people's good time.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Giving them the opportunity. I just thought, you know, I'm here to be a musician. This is not being a musician. This is being a fucking clown. I don't want to be a clown. So I started playing in theaters, which pissed everybody off. I said, and you know when you come to one of my shows and this has been for the last 20 years, I've been doing this. You come to one of my shows in a theater that says please recognize.

[Joe Rogan]

Back, then pull that sucker up close to your face.

[John Mellencamp]

What?

[Joe Rogan]

The microphone.

[John Mellencamp]

Oh.

[Joe Rogan]

Otherwise we're barely here. You're very soft spoken already.

[John Mellencamp]

How's that?

[Joe Rogan]

There we go.

[John Mellencamp]

I am. And I. I am soft spoken.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

You know why?

[Joe Rogan]

Why?

[John Mellencamp]

Because I'm deaf.

[Joe Rogan]

Are you really? Oh, from all the singing.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

All the music. Oh, every rock star is deaf.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

No one knew about hearing protection back then.

[John Mellencamp]

No, I'm deaf. I can't hear.

[Joe Rogan]

All my friends in bands and all my friends that are hunters.

[John Mellencamp]

Deaf, can't hear.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Guns and loud music.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. My kids would love it because they could walk up and say shit behind my back. I heard that I got three girls and two boys. And how many kids you got?

[Joe Rogan]

Three. Three girl.

[John Mellencamp]

Girls are at about 12. You lose them and then about 21, they come back.

[Joe Rogan]

I haven't lost them. Yeah, no, no, I'm real close. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

I kind of lost mine. You know, it was like. But now it's kind of like. But I do have a daughter that's really sick. Not fucking fun.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that sucks. I'm sorry to hear that.

[John Mellencamp]

She's got. She's got cancer in the brain.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, Jesus.

[John Mellencamp]

And she's suffering right now. But that kid used to call me up and I'd go, teddy, you can have a thought without asking me if it's. You know. Figure it out yourself. You don't have to ask me everything, you know. But I love having kids.

[Joe Rogan]

I do, too. It has made me a much nicer person, that's for sure.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, me too.

[Joe Rogan]

But I've stayed close with them, even through the teenage years, luckily. But, you know, I worked hard at it.

[John Mellencamp]

I was on tour all the time.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, well, that's one of the things that I did when we moved to Texas almost six years ago now, is that I decided to be home a lot more. In the beginning, when here, I was still touring a lot. I would do, you know, weekends. I'd go do shows. But now I hardly ever. Now I have my own comedy club, so I'm in town all the time.

[John Mellencamp]

What do you think is stand up now?

[Joe Rogan]

I love it. It's a great time for stand up.

[John Mellencamp]

You think?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. I mean, you don't have to, like, worry about crossing the line.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, you do. Yeah. Yeah, you do. You'll cross the line, but not for. With the people that you care about. You know, you cross the line for people that are looking to be offended.

[John Mellencamp]

Well. Which is a lot of people.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. So they're gonna be mad. Let them be mad.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You just can't pay attention. That's the thing. It's like I tell all the comics, like, stay out of the comments, don't read anything about yourself, and you'll be all right. Just the audience is. What matters is the audience laughing.

[John Mellencamp]

I've never Googled myself good for you in my life.

[Joe Rogan]

Good.

[John Mellencamp]

I've never Googled myself ever, because I don't give a fuck.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's a good. That's a good practice to keep. Where were we? So we were talking about how they stuck you with the Johnny Cougar name. You're in New York City. That's kind of where we left it off. I was trying to figure out, like, what. What was the MTV days like? And when did it, like, really start cracking? Pull that microphone close up to you. When did it really start cracking?

[John Mellencamp]

But do you know John Sykes?

[Joe Rogan]

No.

[John Mellencamp]

He was one of the guys who started mtv, okay. And I remember calling him up and I didn't know him. This was like, 1981, 82. And like, I said, you know, it was. It was like all you really saw of guys in rock bands were the album covers. And, you know, maybe on Midnight Special or something like that, or Don Kirschner's Rock Concert or something like that. But then with MTV going all the time and. And not very many people made videos. But, see, I was making videos because I had a hit in Australia. And like, I said, Australia was way ahead of us. So it was the video that I just made in a club in London that was shown that made that record number one in Australia. And so when MTV started, there wasn't that many people making videos, but I was. So they had to make content. So they played me all the fucking time. Just because nobody else had videos yet, right?

[Joe Rogan]

People hadn't caught up yet, right?

[John Mellencamp]

And I remember sitting with. I can't remember the guy, some English guy, and I said, do you. What is this MTV thing? He goes, I don't know. The record company told me. I can't remember the guy's name. He was really a good songwriter, but you don't hear of him much anymore. Anyway, I had a conversation. Neither one of us knew what was going on. And then I met John, and I was the first. And John and I got along great. I was the first promotion that MTV did, and we gave away a pink house.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow.

[John Mellencamp]

You know, and you had to register and do all this stuff. And there's a funny story that goes with that. So Sykes and somebody else came to Indiana to find a house in Bloomington that they were going to buy, and then they were going to do a show, and I did an ad where I went, and you can win a house, and we're going to paint the mother pink, you know, and that's what they did. Except the house they bought Joe was on a chemical dump.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, no.

[John Mellencamp]

But I didn't know it. And they didn't know because they're from New York. And so when I found out, I called him up. I said, guys, we can't give away this house. It's on a fucking chemical dump. Because RCA was dumping chemicals out in this field that was right next to the house.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, geez.

[John Mellencamp]

That we Bought, you know. And back then in the early 80s, there wasn't much legislation about where you could dump that kind of stuff, right? So they had to buy another house, which they weren't happy about. So they had to buy two houses, couldn't sell the other one, gave it away. And Sykes, to this day, I'll tease him about it, and he'll go, oh, we took that off the books years ago.

[Joe Rogan]

Jeez.

[John Mellencamp]

But it went from walking down the street to nobody know who the fuck you are to walking down the street and everybody knew who you were. Everybody. I mean, he got the. At the height of mtv, you couldn't go any. I couldn't go anyplace.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you get the agoraphobia before that?

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, boy. So that probably just made it way worse, right?

[John Mellencamp]

No, actually, again, Joe, Lucky. It helped me get over. Helped me. And, you know, like, I believe that all growth takes place in the chemicals inside our body. So I was growing still because I grew up in public, right. You know, I grew. I mean, I literally grew up. When I got my first record deal, Joe, I had never written a song. Wow. Never written a song. They asked me, well, play some of the songs you've written. It's like, I don't write no fucking songs. I'm a barroom singer. I sing other people's songs. What do you want a song? What do you want me to write for Dylan's? Writing great songs?

[Joe Rogan]

You hadn't written anything?

[John Mellencamp]

Nothing.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. So when did you start writing? After you got a record deal?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Wow.

[Joe Rogan]

But it turns out you're a great writer. That's crazy.

[John Mellencamp]

And I have dyslexia, which means I can't read. You should see my songwriting books. It's absolutely terrible. It looks like, you know, I have to have somebody now. After I write a song, I have to give it to somebody right away and let them copy it and I'll read it to them so that we can read with, you know, what I wrote. Because songwriting is not what people think it is. But anyway, back to mtv, it just blew up. And you couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't. I would walk down the street and all I did was sign autographs and shake hands, and I didn't like it at all.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that'd be very weird.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. I mean, it was like, you know, you've been in rock bands since you were 13. Nobody gave a shit. And then all of a sudden they did. And, you know, it was the baby boomers coming of age. And, you know, I was very Fortunate but unappreciative.

[Joe Rogan]

So when you first started writing songs, what was. What was your process when you knew you had to write songs? How did you.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I figured out, because don't forget, the critics hated me already. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They hated Johnny Cougar. Fucking hated him. And I didn't like him much either because, you know, we weren't any good. You know, we just weren't. We did not write songs. We did not do anything. So I figured, how do you reach a lot of people? By being on the radio. So keep it simple, stupid. So I would write, like, I had a song called Hurts. Do you remember that song? Sure. Yeah. I was so good. I wrote that in the shower. And I came out real quick and I wrote it down, and then I had somebody write it down, and I remembered the melody and I sang it into a tape machine, and I got so many funny stories. I was down in Criteria, which was in Florida, in Miami. And, You know, it was the early 80s. And so we had this. And Criteria had five or six studios, and, you know, there were, like, I don't know, all kind of bands. The Bee Gees were over here and. And this band was over here. And. We had the studio blocked out, but we wouldn't show up. We had other things to do. There was a place called Scaramouche that had the prettiest girls you ever saw in your life. So it was like we did not have time to go to the studio because we. We had been up till daybreak at Scaramouche, you know, and so I was spending a lot of fucking money by now. And it was like maybe, you know, at the time, a half a million dollars. And I had three songs done.

[Joe Rogan]

Whoa.

[John Mellencamp]

That's exactly right. Whoa. And I'd had a couple hits. I had Idy Lover, Ain't He, Van Dun with the Night, and this Time, I think. And so those songs were, like, got into the top 20. Anyway, the record company came down and said, nolan Camp, what the. You know, you're spending all this money and. And if you don't get on with it, we're going to drop you from the label. And Ike went, you can't drop me from the label. Are you kidding me? I'm just starting. Well, we want to come down and hear what you've done. I said, well, come on down. I played him three songs. The three I had done in six weeks. Anyway, I played him the three songs. They hated him.

[Joe Rogan]

Which songs were they?

[John Mellencamp]

Jack and Diane, oh, God, Hurt so Good, oh, God, and Hand to hold on to.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, my God, they hated those.

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, they hated them. They said, oh, wow. They said, john, this is. They're too rough. They're too raw. And what is this sound in Jack and Diane is. It's not even. What is that sound? Well, the sound was. I would walk by the Bee Gee studio, and they had just invented drum machines, and the Bee Gees were using it to keep time. Because, you know, most drummers, they speed up. You know, they start the song at this tempo, and all of a sudden they're like. By the end of the song, it's like, I can't keep up with you. God damn it. Slow down. So the Beaches were using it to keep time. And I heard this sound. And so I knew the engineer. His name was Alby Gluten. And I said, albie, can I borrow that machine? He goes, yeah, because we're not going to be in the studio for a week. So we were doing a song called Jack and Diane that just was not working out because the drummer kept speeding up. And when you trying to keep it simple, stupid simple is hard because if you make a little mistake, it's a big mistake now because there's not a bunch of shit covering up your mistake, right? So I called up Mick Ronson. He was the guitar player for David Bowie. You remember, Mick?

[Joe Rogan]

No, I don't, Joe.

[John Mellencamp]

God damn it.

[Joe Rogan]

Sorry.

[John Mellencamp]

Anyway, Mick was a great guy. He was. He was Bowie's guitar player when Bowie was great, when he had Ziggy Stardust and all that stuff. And Ronson was an English guy, and he'd call me Johnny all the time. And, you know, and he said, johnny, maybe you should put those baby rattles on there. And I go, what? He goes, you know that drum machine thing that makes that noise just to keep time? And I said, okay, we'll try it. So we put on this, And it was perfect timing, perfect. So the idea was that. Take that drum machine out. When we get everything, we'll take it out. And now the drummer had to play in time because that machine did not budge. That machine was perfect. And it was. It was a prototype of a drum machine. That's how new it was. It was a prototype, and it was the only one they gave me the VGS to try it out, see how they liked it. And so we got it all together and we took the drum machine out. Sounded like shit, but it sounded great with the drum machine. So I said, fuck it, we'll just leave the drum machine in. And it worked because nobody had ever heard that sound.

[Joe Rogan]

And the record company didn't like that.

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, they hated it. They hated. They hated that sound.

[Joe Rogan]

But that song was so good.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, you know, and it's surprising to me that to this day how much. How many people still love that song. It's a great song, you know, and every.

[Joe Rogan]

What year was that?

[John Mellencamp]

1981. Wow. So how old were you at night?

[Joe Rogan]

Fourteen. Yeah. High school.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. You were there?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

That's great. See, that's great. And I love hearing, you know, guys your age talk about it, because it's just like, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. And the fact that that song. Today I had somebody tell me one of the nicest things anybody said to me was, is that John? There was Romeo and Juliet, there was Frankie and Johnny, and now there's Jack and Diane. And you've joined those two kids, have joined those people of importance in American culture.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Think about it now. Who would have fucking thought that some dumb ass like me would write a fucking song? As a child, when I first started writing songs and create those two characters that made such an impression on everybody?

[Joe Rogan]

The only other one I think about is Brenda and Eddie from Billy Joel. Scenes from An Italian Restaurant. Yeah, that's another one. Yeah. Jack and Diane was huge when I was in high school. I can't believe the record company didn't like that. They. They didn't like Hand To Hold On.

[John Mellencamp]

To God, and they didn't like me. God, and they didn't like me.

[Joe Rogan]

How could you be more wrong than Jack and Diane? Jack and Diane was fucking huge.

[John Mellencamp]

Joe, look at. I don't know that much about your career, but look at your career and look at what suits have said to you and how wrong they were.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, the most successful thing that I've ever done, nobody had any input on at all, which is this.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, there you go.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, they would. There's not a chance in hell anybody would have said, yeah, have unfiltered conversations for three hours with random people. And, you know, millions of people will listen and watch. No one would have believed it. But when we did it, we didn't do it for anybody else.

[John Mellencamp]

But you were an actor before.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, well, I was a comic first, and then because I got a development deal that gave me some money to be on a sitcom, so I did that. That sitcom got canceled. Then I did another sitcom that was kind of successful called News Radio that got canceled, and then I wound up being on Fear Factor. Yeah. Just a bunch of weird circumstances that a lot of luck. A Lot of weird stuff happened. A lot of luck. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. See, and you know what? I walk in my house sometimes and I look around and think, I get to fucking live here. Yeah, I get to fucking live here.

[Joe Rogan]

I think that all the time.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, I get to live here. And how lucky I am to have had that kind of success from such a horrible beginning as Johnny Cougar and, you know, to be able to, you know, do. I've done what I wanted to do ever since I decided you guys.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

After. After American fool came out and those songs became hits, nobody has ever said to me about anything.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they realized they were wrong.

[John Mellencamp]

Well. Well, those guys, I'm sure out of business. And I have to kind of smile about the rock critics because it got to the point where I had such so many songs on the radio that they couldn't ignore it anymore.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. You were undeniable. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

And that's. And you know what? That's the word I used to say.

[Joe Rogan]

That's the key to success.

[John Mellencamp]

That's the word I used to say to the guys in the band. We have to make the song undeniable. Yeah. If you give them an inch, they'll find a fucking reason.

[Joe Rogan]

They definitely will. And it's. There's good in that, too. There's good in those people that hate that they're valuable. They. They can fuel you to greatness. They can feel you to be better. Because if you know that there's people out there that are just gonna fucking hate on you no matter what you do. And you just gotta come up with something that, listen, this will be undeniable. And they. They'll still hate it. Look, I was watching a fucking interview yesterday where this lady was talking shit about the Beatles. She was talking about how she thinks the Beatles are terrible. And this lady was not particularly articulate. She wasn't interesting or compelling. She didn't seem very intelligent. But she was speaking with such authority about how she thought the Beatles were terrible. I was like, well, you're fucking wrong. You couldn't be more wrong. You couldn't be more wrong. They are one of the greatest bands in the history of the fucking known world.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Fact. But this lady was just going. Which shows you you cannot make everybody happy. Because some people don't want to be happy. They don't want to see good.

[John Mellencamp]

You had four really talented people in that band. And it showed because some of the songs. Hear me out. Some of the songs. It was good for my generation because we went from cartoons to rock and roll. So in A town where I was born lived a man who sailed the seas. And, you know, it was a cartoon.

[Joe Rogan]

Right, right.

[John Mellencamp]

And the guy that produced Martin, the guy that produced the. The Beatles up until that point, he made comedy records. Ah, yeah. He made comedy records and cartoons. And so that's. At least. That's my understanding. And he brought that to them, you know, and, you know, you have four guys writing songs. It's a lot better than John Mellencamp writing songs, I'll tell you that. You know, so.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but my point is, it's like you can't make everybody happy because everybody's not happy and they don't want to be happy.

[John Mellencamp]

I have said for years, I'm not for anybody. I'm not for anybody anymore.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[John Mellencamp]

If you're coming to my show, and this is when I started playing theaters. If you're coming to my show to hear all these hits, you're not going to. But that's why after 20 years, I'm gonna go back out and I'm gonna play nothing but hits for two and a half hours. That's how many hit records I have.

[Joe Rogan]

That's incredible.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, it's gonna. You know, and I'm. And now I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Because I have not played I Need a lover in 25 years on stage. I'm not.

[Joe Rogan]

So it's fresh.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. It's a brand new song.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

I'm gonna be playing it in a way that nobody's ever imagined. Wait till. If you come if you come and see me Wait till you hear Jack and Diane. I have jammed it up and it's a soul song now.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, it's. I. There's a term for smash. A smash. What do they call it? Smash something. Anyway, we turned it into a soul song. I mean, what would it be like if Jack and Diane was a soul song? So you leave the melody the same, but you put the instruments around them differently to make it interesting for you. Well, and to the audience, because when the chorus comes in, they're going to be singing that chorus. Because if I play it now.

[Joe Rogan]

He's trying to push that thing up to your face.

[John Mellencamp]

If I play it now, you know, it's just usually me and acoustic guitar. And it's good because a little ditty and I don't have to sing anymore.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[John Mellencamp]

They sing the whole song and I might go, oh, yeah. And that's it. And then the audience sings it, which is great. Which is great.

[Joe Rogan]

It's got to be really cool. I gotta come See you live. Are you in Texas at all?

[John Mellencamp]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

You don't know? When. When did you drop the cougar? Because at first you were John Cougar Mellencamp, and I remember that I was like, what is going on? Why does he have another name? Like, it was confusing to me.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I was trying to, and I think I did it successfully.

[Joe Rogan]

It was a good transition.

[John Mellencamp]

I didn't. You know, I could call up somebody and go, hey, it's John Mellencamp. They would take my call. I could call back two seconds later and go to John Cougar. And they would take my call. So I figured, this will have to be a slow change. Elvis Costello tried to do the same thing in Denmark.

[Joe Rogan]

What was his real name?

[John Mellencamp]

I don't. I don't remember. But that's not his real name. But, you know, he was tired of being Elvis Costello and he went back to his real name, and people just wouldn't accept it. But with me, it was such a slow burn thing to get over. So, you know, again, what? Lucky.

[Joe Rogan]

It was the first time that I recognized that artists were forced to change their name. Was you. I didn't know. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I had no idea.

[John Mellencamp]

Do you know, I was a kid, do you know that every movie star that we ended up watching on those black and white things, that's not any of their real names. They're all changed. Yeah, they're all changed. Yeah. You think Rock Hudson was his real name?

[Joe Rogan]

Sounds good.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, it sounds great.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Now. Yeah. Somebody decided they wanted to come up with a catch. Your name, which is interesting for a guy like Arnold Schwarzenegger, had kept his real name, as bizarre as it was and hard to pronounce.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Yeah. And I just saw him smashing the president.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he's always smashing somebody. I think he's bored.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. He needs to get back and run.

[Joe Rogan]

He was a great governor. He really was. He did a really good job with California. California's fucking mess now. When you transitioned to John Cougar Mellencamp, and then eventually, like, how long did. Were you John Cougar Mellencamp before he became John Mellencamp again?

[John Mellencamp]

I think the last John Mellon. John Cougar Mellon Camp record.

[Joe Rogan]

Was.

[John Mellencamp]

A record. It was called Scarecrow, and it had Small Town on. Had Small Town on it. It had five hit. Can you imagine? It had five fucking hit records off that one album.

[Joe Rogan]

Pretty amazing.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Lucky. And don't forget, I had never written a fucking song.

[Joe Rogan]

That's what's crazy.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Never written a Song. So I, I grew up in public and if you listen to my songs now, so much more mature than, than those young. I. I got so sick of it that I wrote a song called Pop singer in like 90, 91. Never wanted to be no pop singer. Never wanted to sing no pop song.

[Joe Rogan]

I remember that.

[John Mellencamp]

Never wanted to, you know, have a manager, hang out after the show. I just, you know, it was. I wanted to be a musician and not a clown, which, you know, if you remember back, Joe, I'm not putting anybody down. But there were a lot of clownish guys.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

From mtv.

[Joe Rogan]

Sure.

[John Mellencamp]

You know, that were like, what? Yeah, you know, and a lot of sexism and stuff from mtv. And no black people for a while, you know, they didn't play any black people. They might play Michael Jackson, but other than that. Right, but they just didn't. And I remember talking to Sykes about it. Sykes, me, Don Henley and somebody else went and did. They were going to drop MTV off a whole bunch of stations. And we got on a plane and went there, went to all these different stations that were going to drop MTV and talk to them. Why they couldn't do it. And it worked.

[Joe Rogan]

Why were they dropping mtv?

[John Mellencamp]

Too lewd. Too. I want to tell you something else, young man. I want to tell you something else. I showed that by accident in a video and MTV wasn't going to play. Wasn't going to play the video because.

[Joe Rogan]

You had a tattoo.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

That's hilarious.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, because I, you know, I had a tattoo.

[Joe Rogan]

That's hilarious.

[John Mellencamp]

I know.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh my God. It's so funny when you think about what music is like now. And then, especially like in the late 80s when hip hop really took off and then gangsta rap took off.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, and now you know why? Because what we're talking about, about Soundscan and stuff, that's how all that happened. And my deceased friend Tim White, who I love dearly, told me it was going to happen. So. And. And I just sat back and went, I can't. I can't believe that this is right.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

I can't believe that that can happen. You know, rock is too, too important to the culture. Too important, you know, and there's a lot better songwriters than me. And we all got 86. I mean, like the fucking Rolling Stones just put out a new album and I never heard it. You never heard it?

[Joe Rogan]

No. I saw them live a couple of years ago here. They played at the Circuit of the Americas. It was incredible. It was like having an out of body experience. It's like I Couldn't believe they were really there. Yeah, I remember watching Mick Jagger on stage and my friend was talking to me and I was watching him and he's like, isn't this incredible? I was like, I can't, I can't believe it's really him. It's like they are so iconic. And here he is in his fucking 80s just jamming. The guy brings two trailers, two whole trailers that are just gym equipment.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Everywhere he goes. Works out every day, every year.

[John Mellencamp]

We started farm aid in 1985. And every year, because you have at Farm Aid you have a press conference in the beginning and then I don't go on until like 9 o'. Clock. So I got all day. You know what I do half the day? Neil, can I use your fucking gym equipment? Because he's got a trailer like, you know, you would haul groceries and couches and, and it's full of gym equipment. Can I use yours? So I, I use. This is not his weight so much, but, but his, you know, his. What do you call it? I call it the lace machine where you can be lazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Elliptical.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Cross trainer.

[Joe Rogan]

Hey, listen, it's better than nothing. Yeah, but I mean, watching mick in his 80s, dancing around on stage and doing a, you know, two hour concert was full energy. It's so impressive, it's so inspirational that this guy still loves it that much. I mean, he wasn't phoning nothing in, you know, I mean, it was him dancing button yo Lip, baby. I mean, it was full on. I was like, wow, it was amazing.

[John Mellencamp]

And what I find amazing, and I don't know why I find amazing, but I find it amazing that people relate to music in that fashion. Because I didn't know that as a kid. I just thought, you know, I thought I'd make two records, that'd be done. That's why I stayed in Bloomington. I had a little bit of money. I didn't know how much more I'd have, you know, how much longer I was going to last. So let's try to like buy a little house. And I talked to, I'm good friends with Bruce and him and I both kind of just look at each other and go, can you believe it? Because he's from a real little shitty town in New Jersey. And we both just look at each other and go, can you believe it? It's unbelievable.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, gratitude's an important thing. It's kind of co opted today with a lot of like this spiritual movement. You know, people say it and it kind of sounds hollow and fake, but Real gratitude, real thankfulness for a life that you've been so lucky to have and I've been so lucky to have. It's, it's, it's very important. It's an amazing thing. I mean, how could you not look back at your life and not think, can you fucking believe it?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. And you know, the thing of it is, is that I sometimes ask my audience, I go, where are you right now? And most of you probably say, I am at a John Mellencamp concert in Austin, Texas. And my answer is yes, but also where you really are. You're on a fucking rock that's going around, the fucking sun that has been here for millions of fucking years. And so we are only here for a blink of an eye. So stop worrying about everything so fucking much. It doesn't fucking matter. Don't beep your horn because the fucking guy in front of you didn't take off right when the light turned red. It's not that important. Don't take yourself so fucking seriously and try to, try to have some humility. You know, that's what I hate about politics today. There's no fucking humility. How about some humility? I don't care what party you're with, I don't give a fuck. But show some humility and some respect for each other, which they just don't. They just don't. It's terrible.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, there's a lot of that. If we could get more people to recognize how brief and fleeting this moment alive is.

[John Mellencamp]

It's, it's, it's so. Well, I got it tattooed right here on my arm. And my grandmother told me this when she lived to be 100. And I would go over and I'd lay in bed with her when she was like 99, 98. And one day she said to me, she goes, you know, John, if you don't stop this cussing and wild living, you're not going to get into heaven. And I went, ah, grandma. She goes, she goes, yes, you, you know, you need to change your ways a little bit. And I said, yeah, well, you'll get me into heaven. Don't worry about it. And she said, no, she said, you're going to find out real soon. Now listen, life is short even in its longest days.

[Joe Rogan]

It certain feels short when you look back, right?

[John Mellencamp]

Oh yeah, but just think, just think about those words coming from a hundred year old woman.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

You know, life is short even in its longest days. Really the opposite. The end of the spectrum. Oh, yeah. Life goes on.

[Joe Rogan]

Right, right, right. Right.

[John Mellencamp]

So I wrote a song called Life Is Short, and I love playing it. I love playing it because it really hits the nail on the head of, you know, getting. How old did you say you were?

[Joe Rogan]

58.

[John Mellencamp]

58 years old. You're still a kid. You're still a kid.

[Joe Rogan]

How old are you now?

[John Mellencamp]

74.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. Well, you look great.

[John Mellencamp]

Thanks. Maybe we can go on a date tomorrow.

[Joe Rogan]

Does is singing and performing, is it different now? Do you appreciate it more now than when you were younger? Is it a different feeling because, like, you've done so much and it's. The scope of it is so big now in retrospect?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, like I said, I'm really looking forward to going out and doing a greatest hits tour. I've never done one. I can't even imagine thinking back to when I was, like, 35, that idea would be like, shut the fuck up. I'm not doing that. But now at my age, it's kind of like. And I did a thing with Sean Penn, and Sean and I were talking, and he goes, john, just go do it. Because I was on the fence about doing it. He goes, what's wrong with you? Yes, go do it. Don't you think that if I could, like, show the best parts of my movies to people that I would do it? And I go, I don't know. He goes, yeah, because you're really sharing something.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it's also. Not a whole lot of people have ever done it before, Right? Not a whole lot of people have ever had the kind of hits that you've had. So the opportunity to go out there and do two and a half hours of fucking hits.

[John Mellencamp]

I know.

[Joe Rogan]

Is amazing.

[John Mellencamp]

And I have to, like I said, I walk in my house and I go, I can't believe I get to live here. And, you know, I feel good about, you know, I'm the only father in the world that does not encourage their kids to work. It's like, what do you want to go to work for? You know, my son graduated from Duke, and it's just like, ah, fuck that work stuff. Do what you want to do. You're 31 years old. You're handsome. You're 31 years old. You could beat anybody up in the room. You know, why do you want to? But I think he's getting to the age where he wants to get a job, and I don't want him to leave because he still lives on my property. And it's nice. I love having him in there. I love having Hud live with me. He doesn't live with me. He lives in a different house, a different building, but I love having him there because I know that I can pick up the phone and go, hey, Hud. And he's there. And I'm telling you, having kids was one of the best things I ever did.

[Joe Rogan]

It's interesting, too, because having a kid when you're in high school, a lot of people think is like a death sentence for your career, you know?

[John Mellencamp]

Well, it was a death sentence for my kid. You know, I was 18 years old. I was on drugs. You know, My idea of raising a kid back then when I was in college was throwing water balloons at her. That's all I knew. This is fun, you know, but it turned out, you know. But, yeah, I really enjoy my kids. And my dad told me that. He told me, have as many kids as you can because when you get older. Because, see, I had. I don't know about you, But I had seven of my best friends die in 18. 18 months. Wow. Yeah. Because they couldn't get off the party. They just couldn't get off the party because they were drunk all the time. I mean, if you drank Crown Royal every day, yeah. It's gonna up your liver and 100%.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

And that's what they did. I mean, you know, except Tim. Tim had a heart attack. Tim White, that the guy I was telling you about? He died on an elevator ride from. In New York, from the ground floor to his office. And by the time he got up there, he was dead.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

But he would call me up every day and go, man, my chest really hurts. My back really hurts. You know? And I would go, tim, your dad died of. At like 49, from heart disease. You think you better go to the doctor? I don't want to go. That's what most guys do. They don't want to go to the fucking doctor.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

You know, but I do.

[Joe Rogan]

Does the doctor tell you to stop smoking?

[John Mellencamp]

All the time. But see, here's the thing about cigarettes. Find something you love and let it kill you. Find something you love and let it kill you.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. I don't know. It's not killing you yet.

[John Mellencamp]

And I just had a. I just had a. A heart mammogram and all that stuff. And the doctors go, because the heart is shaped like this, you know, like that. And then what happens is, is that as you. The longer you smoke, it flattens out. And that way it's full of crap. Mine's still like this. And he said last. It was two years ago. He said, well, I'D like to tell you you need to quit smoking. But if you been smoking as long as I know you have, the only thing that's really happened is that your heart looks like a teenager's and your voice sounds black. So.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you think it's because you smoke? American spirits. I talked to a doctor that said that to me, Suzanne Humphrey. She was like, I think that one of the things. Things that's killing people, cigarettes with all the additives in it, all the different.

[John Mellencamp]

Chemicals that they put 120 chemicals.

[Joe Rogan]

Crazy.

[John Mellencamp]

My girlfriend hates that I fucking smoke. Of course, she knew I was smoking when she met me. But now that we've been together for three years, and my wife of 20 years, Elaine, never smoked a cigarette in her life till she met me. And then she starts smoking. She, on one hand, just said, well, fuck it. If you can't beat him, join them. So she started smoking. But Kristen hates cigarettes. And I. I don't know what to tell her because, you know, I don't do much good, but I'm really a good smoker, really good at it.

[Joe Rogan]

What is it that you love about cigarettes so much?

[John Mellencamp]

They're part of me. I don't know how to put it. I mean, I smoked my first cigarette at 10.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. 1064 years of smoking.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy. And you're okay.

[John Mellencamp]

I was addicted in high school.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John Mellencamp]

I used to wake up in the morning, and my parents had a great big house, and I would go down in the basement, go into the fucking storm cellar and smoke, not knowing that I came out of that little area smelling like a cigarette ashtray.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[John Mellencamp]

And my parents, you know, was like, have you been smoking downstairs? Yeah. But they never said anything.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, maybe it's better than having the stress of not smoking. One of the things about smoking, and I'm not an advocate, I'm not telling people they should smoke, but maybe one of the things about it is that at least it relaxes you. I think one of the worst things for people is just stress. I was talking about a friend of mine who's going through something pretty heavy right now, and he's had a couple of heart attacks. And there's nothing wrong with him. He's had heart attacks just from stress where his fucking arteries just lock up. His whole body is just locked up just from anxiety and stress. And he's had heart attacks because that. Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, takes care of himself, and just the. The problems in his life are so overwhelming. There's got to be. There's a benefit. There's got to be a benefit to just relaxing. Just enjoying something and relaxing and not having that overwhelming.

[John Mellencamp]

It's amazing how much cigarettes take you away from. Because you've got to. You know, nowadays, if you're cigarette smokers, you know, I'm lucky to be here with you that I could smoke in your area, but most people would go.

[Joe Rogan]

Go outside. Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

But I'll tell you a funny story about Johnny Cash and me. John. John, I. John and I knew each other and I would go down and. And I would see him in Jamaica, and then he got really sick. But John quit smoking. And John and I did something for the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. And another funny story, we were standing around doing. Getting ready to do sound checking. There was a whole bunch of people playing. A whole bunch of people. And the Eagles were on sound checking. And they were taken forever because Don Henley is a perfectionist. Everything's got a beejus, right? And I was standing with John and June, and John was getting irritated because we were like 40 minutes. You know, we'd been standing there ready to sound check for 40 minutes. So while we're standing there, I was smoking, and John goes, you're going to have to quit that smoking, John. It's going to catch up with you someday. I said, well, you fucking smoke. And he goes, well, I used to, but I saw this guy from London and he. He got me to quit smoking. I go, maybe I should see that guy. He goes, okay, yeah, I will. You will. Anyway, so. So anyway, we finally get on to sound check, and John sound checked without me because I just sang one song with him. I. And then when it came time to sound check, I went, you know John, you know, like he was irritated. Yeah, I don't know if you knew Johnny Cash or not. No temper, you know, you didn't. With John Cash, you just didn't. Anyway, I said, you know, John, you know, I got this song. And we were doing Ring of Fire. I said, I know that song. It's easy. He said, you sure? And I said, yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it. He goes, okay, well, thanks, because, you know, I'm sick of fucking being here. So the next night, we get up there, and John and he introduces me to my friend John Mallingam. He started. So I fell into. I didn't realize that he had changed the fucking key from him smoking to a lower key so I couldn't hit the. The note. Cause it was. I fell into. I feel. I couldn't find a note. Because it was not the note the song was written in. I sing right along with the song. And I look over there and there's Chuck Berry going. And I look over there and there's Springsteen going. And all these people on the side of the stage, right? And they're all giving me a look like, you're fucking up, man. It was like, yeah, I know it. And so anyway, as soon as the song was over, I ran off stage. I was totally humiliated, right? So I ran off stage and got to my trailer. I just get back there and all of a sudden knock on the door and I answer and it's John. He said, can I come in? And I go, I don't know why you'd want to, but yeah, come on in. He goes, I told you we should have sound jacked. Anyway, so that conversation led on to, I know this guy who will get you to quit smoking. And so he gives me all the information and me and two other guys fly this guy over from London. And Joe, here was his solution for not smoking. He gave me a good talking too.

[Joe Rogan]

That's it.

[John Mellencamp]

That was it. I was smoking on the way back to Indiana.

[Joe Rogan]

My friend Ron White's been smoking his whole life. And he just stopped and he went to a hypnotist. Same hypnotist. He quit drinking a few years back. Went to a hypnotist, quit drinking. Easy, he said. It was so easy. And then just recently, like within last three or four weeks, quit smoking. He's almost 70. Just said the hypnotist got him and said now he doesn't have the desire. He goes. Sometimes he goes after sex. He goes after a meal. Sometimes I have like, for a brief sex.

[John Mellencamp]

I don't have to worry about that. I'm too old for sex. I don't have to worry about that anymore.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I guess Ron still gets after it because after he said just a brief second and then it goes away.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I'll tell you, I was friends with the Newman family and Paul quit smoking and died right afterwards.

[Joe Rogan]

Was the smoking contributing to his health problems?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, and it was just like he was older. It was like, you know, I mean, he was like 80s. I don't know. Can you see how old he was when he died? Anyway, so, you know, I just kind of went, find what you love and.

[Joe Rogan]

Let it kill you.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, find what you love and let it kill you.

[Joe Rogan]

83. Yeah, I fucking loved that guy. Hustler, one of my favorite movies of all time.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, I'm really good friends with Joanne, who now Is. I love Joanne. And once Paul died, I became her boyfriend, and she. And I would talk all the time on the phone. And whenever I was in New York or the town she lives in north of New York, I'd take her to plays and we'd go to plays, and we do do stuff, and I'd pinch her on the ass, and she'd look at me like. But then when she started. When I would call her and she started calling me Paul, I would have to go, joanne, it's not Paul. I'm just John. And now she. Now I still go see her all the time. Not all the time. Not as much as I should, but she. I can't remember the name of the fucking town she lives in. Anyway, she's. She can't talk. She can't. You know, she has. What do you call it?

[Joe Rogan]

Dementia.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

And she can't talk. And she. She can. You know, I take my guitar and I'll play and sing for her. God. But, you know, she's always happy to see me. I think she realizes that it's me, though. I love her. I mean, she was just. She was just great. She was a great woman. How I met her was at a Democratic thing for. Who was the guy that ran for president? John.

[Joe Rogan]

John Kerry.

[John Mellencamp]

John Kerry. And it was at Radio City, and I have a son named Hud, and Paul Newman starred in the movie Hud. And so Newman walked in to my dressing room and goes, I'm looking for Hud Mallenkamp. And he was with me, but he was running around Radio City somewhere. Have you ever been to Radio City? Yes. Have you been backstage?

[Joe Rogan]

Mm.

[John Mellencamp]

There's all kind of shit going on. You can go anywhere in that place. Anyway, so Hud was running around there, and I just let him go wherever he wants. And I'm sitting there talking to Paul, and I guess this is pretty cool. And then Joanne walked in and was like, all right, Newman. Hey. Cause she was beautiful. I mean, Joe, you cannot. She must have been in her late 50s, something like that. She was gorgeous. It's like one of the prettiest women I'd ever seen. And so I just kind of like, well, it's nice meeting you, Paul. Hey, Joanne. And that's how we became friends. And even before he died, her and I were talking on the phone and, yeah, I love Joanne. I hope she lives forever. But, you know, I know the people take care of her and. Sad.

[Joe Rogan]

It's just hard to see someone in a deteriorated state like that as they get older.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, you know, have you ever seen the movie. God, I can't think. The Fugitive kind? What is it the Fugitive kind?

[Joe Rogan]

I don't think so.

[John Mellencamp]

Rogan, you gotta watch it. Yeah, it's great. You love it. It's called the Fugitive Kind. It stars Brando and Joanne Woodward and it's just such a. Written by Tennessee Williams. Oh, really? Really good. Really good. It's one of my favorite movies ever made. The Fugitive kind.

[Joe Rogan]

I'll check it out.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Yeah. And I. I know a lot about old movies because I don't watch new movies. If it's not in black and white, I'm not watching.

[Joe Rogan]

Really?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Has it always been the case or is that a new thing?

[John Mellencamp]

No, it's always been.

[Joe Rogan]

Really?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. My girlfriend Kristen will talk to me, you know that actor, and I'll go, no, I don't. I don't know anybody in the. In the entertainment business anymore except guys my age.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, that's probably a good thing.

[John Mellencamp]

But I don't know any of them, you know, I know Sean, you know, but I. I've known Sean since he was a kid before Ridgemont High.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow.

[John Mellencamp]

That's how long I've known that guy.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow, that was a fucking great movie.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, it was.

[Joe Rogan]

They can't make a comedy like that anymore.

[John Mellencamp]

Oh, no. They couldn't even get it. They wouldn't make it again.

[Joe Rogan]

Not a chance. No, not a chance in hell. That's the thing with political correctness and then the woke movement. That's the thing that really died, was the great comedy movies, the inappropriate.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, you answer me this question.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

Why did anybody give a shit anyway? I mean, you know, 86. And what was the senator, the guy, the comedian that wrote for Saturday Night Live, who was Al Franken.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

I just said you guys.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Should have. Yeah, yeah.

[John Mellencamp]

I mean, why did he let some.

[Joe Rogan]

The climate got crazy. People lost their minds. And I think it's kind of turned around and people are kind of recognizing that it was a massive over correction.

[John Mellencamp]

It was.

[Joe Rogan]

But the problem is the comedy films. Like, if you go back and watch, you know, like Tropical Thunder or any of those kind of crazy movies that were like really outrageous and funny, like, you know, you can't make them today. Nobody wants to fund them and finance them. Nobody wants the heat. Nobody wants to deal with the criticism. They essentially killed comedy movies.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, and that's what I was asking you. How's doing stand up?

[Joe Rogan]

You can't kill stand up. The problem is stand up is like, people will come to see you and that's all that matters. People come to see you and they laugh. That's all that matters. The critics don't matter.

[John Mellencamp]

Who's your favorite stand up comedian now alive?

[Joe Rogan]

There's so many good ones right now. I mean, Chappelle's probably the greatest, if one of the greatest of all time and we're lucky we have him alive now. But, you know, Bill Burr's great. Shane Gillis, there's. It's an amazing time for stand up. David Tell is probably like the most unheralded great comic that's alive today. There's so many great comedy, so many great comedians now.

[John Mellencamp]

What about Jim Jeffries?

[Joe Rogan]

Jim Jeffries is funny. There's a new Australian guy. There's, you know, more comics now that are huge than I think have ever been alive in the history of comedy. Because of YouTube and Instagram and definitely Netflix, because there's just more comedy to see, there's more comedy to go watch. More comics right now are selling out arenas than ever in the history of stand up comedy.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, I've seen it on television.

[Joe Rogan]

You just can't worry about what the haters think. You can't worry about that. You just gotta just do what you think is funny and what you think the audience is gonna think is funny and work real hard at it. That's all you have to do. And just don't pay attention to the criticism. If you do, it'll kill you.

[John Mellencamp]

The best stand up comedian movie I ever saw was the first Richard Pryor.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, Live on the Sunset Strip. Changed my life.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, that changed my life. That was the third one.

[Joe Rogan]

Was it?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So Wanted was before that, right?

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. And that took place in New Orleans.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay. There was one he filmed in Long Beach.

[John Mellencamp]

That is the one. I'm talking.

[Joe Rogan]

Phenomenal. Phenomenal.

[John Mellencamp]

Unbelievable.

[Joe Rogan]

Phenomenal.

[John Mellencamp]

Unbelievable.

[Joe Rogan]

And while he's getting on stage, people are still coming in and sitting down. I know he's with people as they're coming in sitting down. I don't think he had an opening act. I think he just came.

[John Mellencamp]

No, he did. He had. Yeah, he had. What's the woman's name? The singer.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, he had a musical opening act.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Interesting.

[John Mellencamp]

I can't remember who it was, but he thanked him. He thanked her.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, okay.

[John Mellencamp]

But I saw that in like 19, whatever year. It was 79 when it came out, and I was in Florida and I had to go into the black part of Miami to see it. And I took a couple guys in my band with me and this one guy named Ferd in my band was just an idiot. We walk in there and there's nothing but black people. So I'm okay, except Ferd walks in like this, and I go, what the fuck are you doing? What the.

[Joe Rogan]

He walked in, grabbing his dick.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. Because he wanted to show them that he was Patti LaBelle. Yeah. That's who opened up There it is.

[Joe Rogan]

Nice.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. So anyway, he's grabbing his dick, walking in, and I'm looking at him going, are you out of your mind? Stop. Stop doing that.

[Joe Rogan]

My parents took me to see Live on the Sunset Strip when I was a kid. I was in high school, and I guess I was like, 15 at the time. Something like that. And I remember looking around at all the people laughing, and I couldn't believe how funny it was. I couldn't believe how funny it was. I couldn't believe this guy could just be on stage talking and it would be that funny. But I'd seen all these comedy movies that were really funny, but nothing ever made me laugh as hard as this one man on stage talking. I'll never forget it. I was little. I was, like, looking around the crowd, and people were just falling out of their seats, laughing, slapping each other. Couldn't. Couldn't believe how funny it was.

[John Mellencamp]

Well, you know, the backstory on that. On that.

[Joe Rogan]

What's the backstory?

[John Mellencamp]

The backstory was. That was take two.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah. He bombed the first one.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, well, he. For whatever reason. Yeah. I did hear that he decided to do the show backwards.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow.

[John Mellencamp]

So he started with, you know, how he ended and was gonna work his way forward. And I don't know why he did that, but apparently people that knew him told me that he would always do shit like that.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he was creative. I had heard that he was working it out at the Comedy Store, and then he would come in on a Monday night and it was bombing, and then by Friday night, he was destroying with the same material. He just figured out a way to tweak it, you know, that was back when he was working with Paul Mooney. Paul Mooney was one of his writers, who was a guy that I knew really well. I worked with him at the Comedy Store, and so Mooney and him would just figure out what the beats were.

[John Mellencamp]

So did you play the Comedy Store a lot?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was my home club in la.

[John Mellencamp]

And how did you go down?

[Joe Rogan]

I got in. I auditioned in 1994. You know, I came from LA. I came from New York, rather to LA to do a sitcom, and I didn't really give a Shit about the sitcom. That wasn't really that important to me. I was only doing it for money. But while I was there, I was like, God, I gotta go to the Comedy Store. Cause that. When I lived in Boston, when I first started stand up in 88, they would talk about the Comedy Store like it was a religious experience. It was like Mecca, because this was after Sam Kenison had made it, of course. Richard Pryor had come from there. Bill Hicks had come from there. David Letterman. So many people had come from there. Robin Williams. And so they just talked about it with, like, hushed tones, like, man, you gotta get to the Comedy Store. It was like a pilgrimage. Like, you had to get there. And I got there in 94 and never left, you know, until the pandemic.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. I was friends with Letterman because he's from Indianapolis, and his mom used to come down to my house in Bloomington, and we'd have. His mom and his stepdad would come down and have dinner with me at my house. And so Letterman. I did a couple things on Letterman where I cooked a cake with his mom in Indianapolis and brought the cake to David for his birthday. And I like Letterman. He's always been nice to me. And his mom told me a story. I don't know if it's true or not, but I had just released my first album, and David was still doing the weather locally in Indianapolis.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow.

[John Mellencamp]

And he said to his mom, if that kid can go out and do it, I can, too.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, wow.

[John Mellencamp]

That's what his mom said. I don't know if that's true or not. His mom told me that. I never asked Dave about it.

[Joe Rogan]

You shouldn't even ask. Let it live in legend.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah. I like the story, John.

[Joe Rogan]

Thank you so much, man. This is a lot of fun. It was a real pleasure meeting you. I really enjoyed it, man. And I've been a big fan of yours for years. So this was a real treat.

[John Mellencamp]

I'm glad. I'm glad to be here, and I hope you come and see me play.

[Joe Rogan]

I would love to. I definitely will.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Is your tours on your website? Is it johnmellencamp.com or something like that?

[John Mellencamp]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

People find it. We'll find it.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know. We'll find it. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was really fun. Thank you. All right.

[John Mellencamp]

And you're gonna hate those tattoos.

[Joe Rogan]

Nope, I don't think so. I like them.

[John Mellencamp]

Yeah, I thought I liked mine, too. Bye, everybody.