The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2438 - John Mellancamp

Jan. 14, 2026 - The Joe Rogan Experience

02:21:41

Joe Rogan Experience #2438 - John Mellancamp

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John Mellencamp recalls his chaotic 1980s Indiana tattoo parlor shut down by a heroin-addicted employee, contrasting it with today’s opioid crisis tied to the Sackler family. He details early music struggles—quitting bands like The Mason Brothers due to incompetence, surviving NYC’s 1970s grit, and being dropped by MCA after clashing with producer Mike Maitland. His stage name "Johnny Cougar" backfired, but he later thrived in Australia with I Need a Lover and faced racial attacks from England’s National Front skinheads. Now deaf from decades of loud music, he shifts focus to theater, embracing hits like Hurt So Good—initially rejected for being too raw—while criticizing SoundScan’s skewed favoritism toward rap. His life pivots around family, including a daughter battling brain cancer, and defiance of political correctness, praising Pryor and Chappelle while dismissing critics. [Automatically generated summary]
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joe rogan

39:17

john mellancamp

01:35:23

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tucker carlson

dailycaller 00:01

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Show episode speakers

Speaker	Time	Text
Heroin and Roommates 00:07:19
unidentified		Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!
unidentified		The Joe Rogan Experience.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Train by Day!
unidentified		Joe Rogan podcast by night!
unidentified		All day!
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Why would I hate my tattoos?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because you get older and they get all smudgy.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Mine are getting kind of smudgy.
unidentified		Yeah, well, look at this one.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's pretty smudgy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Pretty fucking smudgy.
		I owned a tattoo parlor in 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 went to Connecticut to get my first tattoo.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I didn't know it was illegal, but I met this guy in L.A., 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 L.A.
		And guess why they closed me down?
unidentified		Why?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 addict.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		There wasn't a lot of heroin addicts back then.
		That was a rare thing.
		Now, when you 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 got to be lots.
		It's off the charts in comparison to what it was like in, you know, the 1980s.
		I knew one guy that had a friend who did heroin.
		That's it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 my kid, my little girl, and my roommate who lived with us, we're just walking down 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, go, 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 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.
unidentified		And then an hour later, go back to work.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And the one shop 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, shoot up.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Last time I did drugs was 1973.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What was the reason you stopped?
unidentified		Right here?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I used to like to smoke and drink whiskey.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And then I liked to fight.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's a problem.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		couldn't whip anybody but i loved the contact and the 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'd spit on him.
unidentified		Oh.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		One of those guys.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, you know those guys that get drunk?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 the guy, my roommate, was driving me home in an Opento.
		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 road track.
		And I fell out of the car, got my hair wrapped around the jig-a-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.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I grew up in a small town and there was not much to do in a small town.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, you would either find a girl or fight.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I figured you for the find the girl type of guy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I did okay with that, but it didn't always work.
Snap Out of It 00:06:05
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So, yeah.
		Yeah, it was like, don't forget, Joe, it was like 1967, 66.
		You weren't even born yet.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I was born in 1967.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Nothing since then?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Not a drop.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's impressive.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Not a drop.
		Well, you know, I think I've thought about 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.
unidentified		Right.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		One bad result.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, you set you straight.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we do you and yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You were a big part of my high school experience.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It was interesting because your song sort of introduced the idea of nostalgia to me.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I don't know what that meant.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, when you were singing songs like Jack and Diane, it's like I was kind of realizing as I was a very young guy listening to those great songs that there's going to be a, like, this is a weird time in life, and there's going to be a time where you're going to look back on this, and it's probably one of the best times of your life, but even though it doesn't feel like it, it felt, you know, it 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 singing the star.
		They were great fucking songs.
		They had heart and 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 going to go this is it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		This is it.
		This is it.
		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, lucky, very lucky.
		You know, everything was just, you know, I was just lucky.
		And I would 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 fucking minutes.
		Quit feeling sorry for yourself and quit being confused and accept your responsibilities and try to, you know, maintain some humility, which was a million miles away from me spitting on people.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 you perform.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know you got to see 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 liked the way a band looked, you would buy the record.
		At least I would.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I would too.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And so I forgot the question.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was just saying, like, what was it, what was not good about that?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, except 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.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's a good trait to have.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's where you have a hole in your spine and the fluid and all of your nerve endings, like on me.
Four Kids in the Hospital 00:03:42
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Look at the back of my neck.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You see that scar.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's crazy.
		Yeah.
		That scar is huge.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's 1951.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		In 1951, you got that operation?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I was born with, you're born with spina bifida.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So what do they do to, what was that operation exactly?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, they had to, well, here's the story.
		I was, my parents are 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 going to 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.
unidentified		Oh, boy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, the fact that, and he charged my parents a dollar for the, you know, because 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?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What is the procedure?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, Mallenkamp, 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.
Can't Leave the House 00:03:46
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Went 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 maybe the panic disorder was from that operation.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		How old when you started having panic disorder?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I was just out of college.
		I couldn't leave the house.
		I became what they call, what's that called?
unidentified		Agoraphobia?
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		How old were you?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		18.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		18?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You had a kid, right?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You had a kid real young.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		She's 50-something now.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I have three girls and two boys.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Weren't you a grandfather when you were in your 30s?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Maybe.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I think you were, right?
unidentified		Yeah.
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john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because that oldest daughter of mine got married when she was like 19.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Not much to do in a small town, man.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Not much to do.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So that's the spinam bifida.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		But it never bothered you again other than the panic.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Were you performing when you were having the panic stuff?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Oh, man.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I have been on stage in front of like 20,000 people and had a panic attack.
unidentified		Oui.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's like, have you ever had one?
unidentified		No.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You're lucky.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because you feel like I can't breathe.
Heart Attack Insights 00:10:20
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		My chest hurts.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've been on stage and I remember having to plant my feet and just power through, you know, in front of 20,000 people.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And it was awful.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Did it pass while you were on stage?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Oh, Jesus.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I know.
		So, but you know what that heart attack led to?
		I just married Elaine Erwin 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		42.
unidentified		Oh, geez.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Let's watch this, you know, which is where you come in.
		So the boys were little, and they 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're talking about Fear Factor?
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 going to watch this, then you've got to 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.
unidentified		Yeah.
		Well, that's.
		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It gave you a pause.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know what luck is?
unidentified		What?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Thinking you're lucky.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Thinking you're lucky.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 to believe in it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What caused your heart attack at such a young age?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Me being stupid.
		I would go in 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?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Did you have arterial plaque?
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 is a 500.
		Imagine.
		That's like, it's crazy.
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 is cholesterol.
		They think it's arterial plaque.
		And what is this stuff called?
		Natokinesase?
		I don't know how to pronounce it.
		But there's a supplement, like an over-the-counter supplement that's supposed to be able to eliminate arterial plaque in a very profound way that they're just starting to realize.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's clogging of it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Listen, I was in New York once with a girl, and I went to the doctor with her.
		She's 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, is 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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It's processed, it's this and that, you know.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And he just said, you know, the human body was not meant to eat this crap.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's a fact.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		My mom died of diabetes.
		I was always borderline and I'm still borderline and this was she get type 1 or type 2 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 kill your dad.
		Okay.
		And she'd get a half a dozen Krispy Kremes and eat them.
unidentified		And it's just like, that's where it's at.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's the food.
		It's a horrible thing that we've done to this country.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I had a friend come here from Europe who had not ever been in the United States and got sick just from eating.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Just eating our food.
		It's crazy.
		Just our bread.
		What is that supplement?
		How do I say it?
unidentified		I think of how you were saying that.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Can you find out what it's supposed to do?
		Because there's a recent study.
		There it is.
		Okay.
		So natokinase supplementation can significantly reduce the size of existing arterial plaques and slow the progression of arteriosclerosis.
		I never say that word.
		Arthuriosclerosis.
		No.
		Atherosclerosis?
		Whatever.
		Particularly at higher doses.
		Natokinase and arterial plaque reduction.
		Multiple clinical trials provide evidence that natokinase, an enzyme derived from fermented Japanese food NATO, has a positive effect on arthuriosclerosis, 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And it's a very common supplement.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's an easy-to-get supplement, and it comes from fermented food.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, if you, you know, I've watched a lot of things about the food that we eat.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And terrible.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 into food so that it keeps their shelf life as long as possible.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Mike, some of my grandkids were at my house on Defuski, and they had an ice cream sandwich, and they only ate half of it.
		And it sat there for three hours and did not melt.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I've seen those.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's not ice cream.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That'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, God, 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.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And we're supposed to be eating that.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 preservatives.
		Because if something cannot rot, can sit there and not rot.
unidentified		A quarter pound of this 30 years old.
unidentified		It's a quarter pound and it's 30 years old.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That is insane.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's insane.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's craziness.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, our food source, and I don't know about RFK Jr.
		I, you know, I don't follow what he says or listen.
		I try not to listen to much politics.
Generations Apart 00:04:27
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Good for you.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's another good way to not have a heart attack.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, do you, you know, 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Because his head went back into the left.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and I've seen that.
		And 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.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And that's why I don't watch.
		I don't, you know, I used to be very politically minded and cared about what politicians said.
		I don't give a fuck what they say.
		I don't trust any of them.
		I don't like any of them.
		Not that I don't like them.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It's just that I don't.
		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, so, you know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, here's the way you got to 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.
		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'm not for cheating and, you know, how about a little morality and integrity and what you're saying and doing?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		No, it would be nice.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It would be nice.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's never been that way.
		No, never.
		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 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.
Change Happened 00:05:06
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 was about it.
		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.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You know, the people that were involved in World War I, 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 were.
		In World War II, the United States was fighting Hitler.
		You can't get a more evil person that's leading an army that you want to fight against than that guy, right?
		So everybody felt like that was a just war.
		Came back from that war victorious.
		America had national pride.
unidentified		We did it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		We're the good guys.
		And then all of a sudden we're in Vietnam.
		Like, what the fuck are we doing in Vietnam?
		It didn't make any sense.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Back up, Joe.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		What do you think the Civil War was fought about?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		The Civil War?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, slavery was a big one.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		No?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Ports.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Ports.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 will say it's to free the slaves.
unidentified		Really?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, 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.
unidentified		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 ubiquitous in the North.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		But it was.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		In the North it was?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I mean, Lincoln had slaves.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right, back then, but not in the 1860s when they were fighting the Civil War.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		He was president.
unidentified		Really?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Does he had slaves when he was fighting in the war?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I wasn't aware of that.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, a lot of people in the North show, you know, 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.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's me.
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.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Okay, where the idea of the people who are.
		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's like you said, you had a housekeeper.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		There you go.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's interesting that the fact that we're even talking about it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's kind of crazy how recent it was.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's what's really crazy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, it wasn't that long ago.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Two people ago.
Cable Comes to Town 00:12:55
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You know, people live to be 100.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		1865 is roughly two people ago.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's fucking crazy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 was in high school in the 80s, right?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So World War II ended in 1945, which is nuts.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		I thought it was ancient history.
		I remember sitting in history class in eighth grade going, What do I need to know this shit for?
		Know and I was born in 1951 so it was only like three or four years and the war ha had just ended.
		That's nuts.
		But to me, it was ancient history.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that crazy?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Because essentially what we're talking about now is like the 1980s.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well that that to us, the 1980s, like to kids today, that 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.
		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 a changer.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I remember we used to have a pliers because the thing got scripped.
		So you had to change the channel with the plier.
		You didn't know what channel it was until like, 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 NBC.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		I remember the day cable came out.
		I was like, this is fucking bananas.
		Look at all these channels.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I remember seeing a home box office at the time.
		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 this?
		It's past 11 o'clock and this movie's just starting.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 would just go and then well the Indian would always show up.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		The Indian would always show up and it had like this.
unidentified		Yep.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And then it would go to nothing.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		They would stop broadcasting at night.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, 11.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 Kinnison on HBO, I was like, this is fucking crazy.
		Like I had never seen anything like that before.
		Like wild, raw comedy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You ever know Sam Kinnison?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		No, I never met him.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I did.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What was he like?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Wild.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I would imagine.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		He was very unpredictable, very, you know, he was Sam Kinnison.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You know his story, how he became that way?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, you could imagine.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Go outside and we'll see you at dark.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, I could go, I was, I don't know, 10, 9, riding my bike all over Seymour.
unidentified		Yep.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Which is where I grew up.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And just, nobody kept an eye on us.
unidentified		No.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Nobody, you know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Do you know where your children are?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, because a lot of people didn't.
unidentified		They didn't.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And people would yell.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		They would open up the window and yell their kid's name.
unidentified		Billy!
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And 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 them to come home.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Hoping the kid was an earshot.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I didn't, I mean, I liked it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		How long had you been performing by then?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I was in my first band when I was 11.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And my parents were cool with it.
		It's like, where's John?
		He's playing tonight.
		Playing what?
		He's in the Crepe Soul.
		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 Pool 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.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That Mallencamp kid is just a dressed-up hood.
unidentified		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?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Did you think it was going to be a career?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 choice.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You boxed?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I'll whip your ass right now.
unidentified		At 74.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Is that why you were getting in so many fights?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I liked it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I liked it.
		I liked the contact.
		I didn't like getting whipped every goddamn night, but, you know, it happens.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Did you have any professional boxing matches?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No, but my son, I'm going to brag on my son, was National Golden Gloves champ twice.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And then he played football for Duke.
		And he was, you don't want to mess with HUD.
		Don't want to mess with HUD.
		And so he's 31 now.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		When did the music thing really start taking off for you?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 show 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 are you guys been?
		You're an hour late.
		So it really pissed me off.
		I go, Dave, goddammit, if you're going to run the band, you've got to 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 was putting on a show and he leaned back and man overboard.
		He fucking fell off the ship and they had to stop fishing.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh my God.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So I got so fucking mad at him that he said, I said, Dave, I'm going to quit.
		This is it for me.
		I'm done with this crap.
		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.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 these guys.
		Not even rehearsed with them.
		But it was the same shit, you know, because we were just a cover band and I was just a barroom singer.
		So, you know, if you want to see taking care of business, I'm your guy, you know, and take care of business.
		You know, who can't do that?
		So I show up.
		Dave has recruited two sophomores in high school who couldn't play their instruments at all.
		The drummer was like, pre-parent, prepare.
		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.
		Just said.
		I looked at Dave and I go, you're the lead singer, and I just left 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.
Homeless Havoc 00:06:24
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I'm from a fucking town of 18,000 people and I'd been to Chicago once.
		I'd 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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's not as bad as LA.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, that isn't.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You can say that about anything Joe, that's true.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 Cesar 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, it was pretty bad, but uh, former former mayor uh cleaned it up and they have pretty good programs here to get people into housing.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Everybody here, everybody here must love uh, and i'm not putting Austin down, i'm just I have.
		You know, I was, I played here about three years ago uh, but everybody must love graffiti here and that's the thing about graffiti.
		I 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, and it's done in black and outlined in yellow and it's.
		It's the same fucking shit.
		You see in New York or Los Angeles, the same right.
		If you're gonna, if you're gonna be a an artist, be an artist.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, a lot of these guys are just tagging.
		They're just like sister gang, affiliation or whatever it is.
		I guess I don't know.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but it wasn't that way 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 L A 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, like it was like a zombie movie and that's.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I mean, it's a fraction.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So you decided on Fear Factor, you go stay in here for three days and you win three days and do no coke yeah, you could do three days with no meth and you win.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah yeah, it was uh, it was sobering.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And then we looked up the history of uh 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 they sort of built it as a place where they could deposit vagrants and homeless people.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, there is a law in this country called vagrancy.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, not very enforced.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, it would be let me tell you something.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		If you grew up in Seymour, Indiana, it was enforceable.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because if you stand up town too long, which is all kids did back then, the cops come up and go, hey, you've been here for three hours.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		We've been timing you.
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unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Move on.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You want to keep a nice clean town.
		That's how you do it.
		But if you let it go long enough, it will be like Skid Row.
		I mean, and I think that what we're saying, like the documentary, what was the hotel again that won the Hotel Cecil.
		The documentary was about the Hotel Cecil, which was a beautiful hotel in downtown L.A. 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 L.A. 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		But it wasn't that way in the 70s.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		The first time I went there, it was just like...
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		If you went to Times Square, it was frightening.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		The first time I went to New York was to fight.
22 And New York City 00:15:39
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 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 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It was frightening.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		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 was at a holiday inn on 57th Street, and I just kind of peeked through the curtains and looked, and I was like, 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 fucked up drunk friend, you quit him.
		How do you get back into music after that?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Dave?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No, I got my first record deal.
		The first guy I called was Dave.
		No, he was a great bass player.
		He was a great bass player.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Did he get his shit together before then?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Nope.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Still not?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No, no.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I got funny stories about Dave and Max's case.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Is he still around?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, he's a professor now.
		He found God and all this stuff.
		He's a professor at Vince Edge University, and he teaches.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		He's a professor.
unidentified		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What does he teach?
unidentified		Music.
unidentified		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And no, he was really a handsome, really good bass player.
		Really, really, really, really good.
		But he just, you know, Dave, we were 20 years old, 22 years old.
		You know, what the fuck did we know about anything?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Nothing.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Nothing.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So when you left Dave and you left that band, what happened next?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What was like the big break for you?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I never really had a big break.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, something must have happened.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It was a slow climb.
unidentified		Yeah?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It was a very slow climb.
		Yeah, 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 him, 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Couldn't, nobody'd come and see me.
		So anyway, I went to Australia.
		And then a girl covered I Need a Lover 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 two of that song.
		And that's how it all started for me.
		That was the very first thing.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		With some girl covering on one of my songs.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And you were living in England?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		And a couple, my couple guys in my band got beat up because they heard, you know, some of the National Front guys heard their accent, and it wasn't English.
		So it was like dangerous to even go to the movies.
		Keep your fucking mouth shut and your head down.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What year was this around?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		70s?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		77, 76, 77.
unidentified		Wow.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the National Front was, you know, they were like all a bunch of skinhead guys and violent and did not want any foreigners in their country at all.
		And even Americans, you know.
		So, yeah, you had to keep it.
		You know, I learned real quick to keep your head down, your mouth shut.
unidentified		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And so you got out of there because of that?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 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 built.
		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 was like, I don't give a fuck.
		You know, do what the fuck you want.
		Because 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It was Johnny to start off with.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Johnny Cougar.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Tony DeFries managed me, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Mata Hoopel.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You remember all these bands?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, Lou Reed, for sure, yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, anyway.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		David Bowie, obviously.
		Rod Stewart, obviously.
		Same guy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No, Rod Stewart was different.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Different manager.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Different manager.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		But he was English, too.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So, it's hard to argue with someone that's got that kind of talent, right?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's hard to argue when you're 22 years old with a 45-year-old man who has had success.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And so I remember I was getting ready to leave England and I heard that Gaff 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 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 Maine 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 they go, well, you don't have to, you don't have to participate.
		You can go back to Indiana if you want.
		It was like, well, fuck you then, I will.
		And then I walked outside and thought for a minute, thought, hmm, I guess I'm Johnny Cougar.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 ▲ ● ▼		Fucking critics.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		They're always going to be a problem.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but you know what?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I learned stuff from some of the critics that were good.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Like what?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And you want to hear some inside baseball?
unidentified		Sure.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 is 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.
		And 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.
		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 what did what's 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 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 talk to your friend.
		And they said, yeah, I heard that song.
		And then all of a sudden the song would build and Michael Jackson would be number one or whoever.
		And once SoundScan took over, if you were in a rock band, the record companies said, well, fuck this.
		We're not even going to advertise in Indianapolis anymore.
		The biggest numbers are RB stations and they're playing rap.
		And that's what we're going to service those people.
		Because back then, you know, there was payola and all that stuff going on.
unidentified		Of course.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 RB stations.
		And then what was that thing called when you could like download records for nothing?
Come One, Come All 00:04:32
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Napster.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And then that started.
		And then that really put us out of it.
		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.
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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's why I've decided, I don't mean to plug myself, but 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 beings.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		People's good time.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, it says, please recognize.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Back then, pull that sucker up close to your face.
		The microphone.
		Otherwise, we're barely here.
		You're very soft-spoken already.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		How's that?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		There we go.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I am?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I am soft-spoken.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, a little bit.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know why?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Why?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because I'm deaf.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Are you really?
		Oh, from all the singing?
		All the music?
		Oh, every rock star is deaf.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I'm deaf.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		No one knew shit about hearing protection back then.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No, I'm deaf.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I can't hear.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		All my friends in bands and all my friends that are hunters.
unidentified		Deaf.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Can't hear.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Guns and loud music.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		How many kids you got?
unidentified		Three.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Three girls.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Girls are at about 12, you lose them.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And then about 21, they come back.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I haven't lost them.
		You haven't?
		No, no.
		I'm real close.
		Yeah.
unidentified		I'm 17 at 28.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		It's not fucking fun.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that sucks.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry to hear that.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		She's got cancer in the brain.
		Oh, Jesus.
		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It has made me a much nicer person, that's for sure.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, me too.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		But I've stayed close with them even through the teenage years, luckily.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, I worked hard at it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		What do you think of stand-up now?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I love it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's a great time for stand-up.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You think?
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You don't have to worry about crossing the line.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you do.
		Yeah.
		Yeah, you do.
		You'll cross the line, but not with the people that you care about.
Drummer Speeding Up 00:15:32
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You cross the line for people that are looking to be offended.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, which is a lot of people.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so they're going to be mad.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Let them be mad.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You just can't pay attention.
		That's the thing.
		It's like, I tell all the comics, stay out of the comments.
		Don't read anything about yourself, and you'll be all right.
		The audience is what matters.
		Is the audience laughing?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I've never Googled myself.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Good for you.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		In my life.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Good.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I've never Googled myself ever because I don't give a fuck.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, 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 what was the MTV days like, and when did it really start cracking?
		Pull that microphone close up to you.
		When did it really start cracking?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Do you know John Sykes?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		No.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		He was one of the guys who started MTV.
unidentified		Okay.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 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 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 made content.
		So they played me all the fucking time just because nobody else had videos yet.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right, people hadn't caught up yet.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 pig, you know.
		And that's what they did.
		Except the house they bought, Joe, was on a chemical dump.
unidentified		Oh, no.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 them 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 that we bought, you know.
		And back then, in the early 80s, there wasn't much legislation about where you can dump that kind of stuff.
		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.
unidentified		Jeez.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, it got the at the height of MTV.
		You couldn't go.
		I couldn't go anyplace.
unidentified		Did you get the agoraphobia before that?
		Oh, yeah.
		Oh, boy.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So that probably just made it way worse, right?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No, actually, again, Joe, lucky.
		It helped me get over it.
		It 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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, I grew, I mean, I literally grew up.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		When I got my first record deal, Joe, I had never written a song.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		But do you want a song?
		What do you want me to write for?
		Dylan's writing great songs.
		Shrinks.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I haven't written anything.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Nothing.
unidentified		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So when did you start writing?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		After you got a record deal?
unidentified		Yeah.
tucker carlson ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		But it turns out you're a great writer.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's crazy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And I have dyslexia.
unidentified		Which means I can't read.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 what the fucking, 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 your process when you knew how to write songs?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		How did you.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I figured out, because don't forget the critics hated me.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Already?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Oh, yeah.
		They hated Johnny Cougar.
		Fucking hated him.
		And I didn't like him much either.
		Because we weren't any good.
		We just weren't.
		We did not write songs.
		We didn't know how to 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 Hurt So Good.
		Do you remember that song?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Hurt So Good.
		I wrote that in a 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 kinds of bands.
		The PGs were over here and this band was over here and I don't remember.
		And we had we had the studio blocked out, but we wouldn't show up.
		We had other things to do.
		There was a place called Scaramouche.
		They 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 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.
		Whoa.
		That's exactly right.
		Whoa.
		And I'd had a couple hits.
		I had I De Lover, Ain't Even Done with the Nine.
		And this time, I think, and so those songs were like got into the top 20.
		Anyway, the record company came down and said, Melling camp, what the fuck?
		You know, you're spending all this money.
		And if you don't get on with it, we're going to drop you from the label.
		And I went, you can't drop me from the fucking 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 three songs.
		They hated him.
unidentified		Which songs were they?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Jack and Diane.
		Oh, God.
		Hurt So Good.
unidentified		Oh, God.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And Hand to Hold On To.
unidentified		Oh, my God.
unidentified		They hated those.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Oh, they hated him.
unidentified		They said, Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		They said, John, this is they're too rough.
		They're too raw.
		And what is this sound in Jack and Diane?
		This 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, you start the song at this tempo, and all of a sudden they're like, no, By the end of the song, it's like, I can't keep up with you.
		God damn it.
		Slow down.
		So the Bee Gees were using it to keep time.
		And I heard this sound.
		And so I knew the engineer, his name was Albie Gluten.
		And I said, Albi, 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're 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.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Joe!
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		God damn it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Sorry.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Anyway, Mick was a great guy.
		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 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 dune, doon, do, and it was perfect timing.
		Perfect.
		So the idea was, is that we'll 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 a prototype of a drum machine.
		That's how new it was.
		It was a prototype.
		And it was the only one.
		They gave them the VGs to try it out and see how they liked it.
		And so we got it all together and we took the drum machine out.
		Sounded like shit.
		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'd ever heard that sound.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And the record company didn't like that.
unidentified		Oh, they hated it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		They hated that fucking sound.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		But that song was so good.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, and it's surprising to me that to this day, how many people still love that song?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's a fucking great song.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, and every time.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What year was that?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		1981.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I was 14.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So how old were you at 19?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		14.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		See, high school.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you were there.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
Jack and Diane 00:14:13
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And now there's Jack and Diane.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And you've joined, those two kids have joined those people of importance in American culture.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And think about it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Now, who would have fucking thought that some dumbass 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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's another one.
		Yeah.
		Jack and Diane was fucking huge when I was in high school.
		I can't believe the record company didn't like that.
		They didn't like hand to hold on to.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		God.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And they didn't like me.
unidentified		God.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And they didn't like me.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		How could you be more wrong than Jack and Diane?
unidentified		Jack and Diane was fucking huge.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Which is this.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, there you go.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, 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.
unidentified		But when we did it, we didn't do it for anybody else.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		But you were an actor before.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, I was a comic first, and then because I got a development deal, they 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.
		It's just a bunch of weird circumstances that a lot of luck, a lot of weird stuff happened.
		A lot of luck.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		See, and you know what?
		I walk in my house sometimes and I look around and think, I get to fucking live here.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I get to fucking live here.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I think that all the time.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, fuck you guys.
		Yeah.
		After American Fool came out and those songs became hits, nobody has ever said shit to me about anything.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, they realized they were wrong.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, those guys, I'm sure, are out of business.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 ▲ ● ▼		You were undeniable.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And you know what?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's the word I used to say.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's the key to success.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's the word I used to say to the guys in the band.
		We have to make the song undeniable.
		Because if you give them an inch, they'll find a fucking reason not to.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		They definitely will.
		And there's good in that, too.
		There's good in those people that hate.
		They're valuable.
		They can fuel you to greatness.
		They can fuel you to be better.
		Because if you know that there's people out there that are just going to fucking hate on you no matter what you do, and you just got to come up with something that, listen, this will be undeniable.
		And 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.
		And 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Right, right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And the guy that produced Martin, the guy that produced the Beatles, up until that point, he made comedy records.
unidentified		Ah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I have said for years, I'm not for anybody.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I'm not for anybody anymore.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 going to go back out and I'm going to play nothing but hits for two and a half hours.
		That's how many hit records I've done.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's incredible.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's going to be, you know, and I'm, and now I'm looking forward to it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because I have not played I Need a Lover in 25 years on stage.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I'm not.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So it's fresh.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a brand new song.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to be playing it in a way that nobody's ever imagined.
		Wait till if you come and come and see me.
		Wait, you hear Jack and Diane?
		I have jammed it up and it's a soul song now.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's a term for it.
		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.
		You know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		To make it interesting for you.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, and to the audience, because when the chorus comes in, they're going to be singing that chorus.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because if I play it now.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		He's trying to push that thing up to your face.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		If I play it now, you know, it's just usually me and acoustic guitar.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And it's good because a little ditty, and I don't have to sing anymore.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		They sing the whole song.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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've got to come see you live.
		Are you in Texas at all?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You don't know?
unidentified		When did you drop the Cougar?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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?
		It was confusing to me.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was trying to, and I think I did it successfully.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It was a good transition.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I didn't, you know, I could call up somebody and go, hey, it's John Mellencamp.
		They wouldn't take my call.
		I could call back two seconds later and go, it's 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 and didn't work.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What was his real name?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I don't remember.
unidentified		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 with you.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I didn't know.
unidentified		Really?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I had no idea.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Do you know?
		Do you know that every fucking 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.
		They're all changed.
		You think Rock Hudson was his real name?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Sounds good.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it sounds great.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		No.
		Yeah, somebody decided they wanted to come up with a catch your name, which is interesting for a guy like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
		It kept his real name as bizarre as it was and hard to pronounce.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Yeah.
		And I just saw him smashing the president.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, he's always smashing somebody.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I think he's bored.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 a fucking mess now.
		When you transitioned to John Cougar Mellencamp, and then eventually, like, how long did you John Cougar Mellencamp before you became John Mellencamp again?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I think the last John Cougar Mellencamp record was a record called Scarecrow.
		And it had Small Town on it.
		It had Small Town on it.
		It had five hits.
		Can you imagine?
		It had five fucking hit records off that one album.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Pretty amazing.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Lucky.
		And don't forget, I had never written a fucking song.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's what's crazy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Never written a song.
		So I grew up in public.
		And if you listen to my songs, now so much more mature than those young.
		I got so sick of it that I wrote a song called Pop Singer in like 991.
		Never wanted to be no pop singer.
		Never wanted to sing no pop song.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I remember that.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Never wanted to, you know, have a manager hang out after the show.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I just, you know, it was, I wanted to be a musician and not a clown, which, you know, if you remember back, Joe, and I'm putting anybody down, but there were a lot of clownish guys from MTV.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, that were like, what?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Too lewd, too.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 the video.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Because you had a tattoo?
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's hilarious.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, because I had a tattoo.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's hilarious.
unidentified		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 gangster rap took off.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		And I just sat back and went, I can't believe that this is right.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I can't believe that that can happen.
		You know, rock is too important to the culture, too important, you know.
		And there's a lot better songwriters than me, and we all got it.
		86th.
		I mean, like the fucking Rolling Stones just put out a new album, and I never heard it.
Gym Equipment Trailers 00:02:47
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 fucking incredible.
		It was like having an out-of-body experience.
		It's like I couldn't believe they were really there.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 fucking incredible?
		I was like, 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.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Everywhere he goes, works out every day.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Every year, we started FarmAid in 1985, and every year, because you have at FarmAid, 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 shit.
		And it's full of gym equipment.
		Can I use your?
		So I use his, not his weights so much, but his, you know, his, what do you call it?
		I call it the lazy machine.
		Where you can be lazy.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Elliptical?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, elliptical cross-trainer.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Hey, listen, it's better than nothing.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		But I mean, watching Mick in his 80s dancing around on stage and doing a two-hour concert with 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.
		I mean, it was fucking him dancing, button your lid, baby.
		I mean, it was full on.
		I was like, wow.
		It was amazing.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And what I find amazing, and I don't know why I find it 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 and 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.
Gratitude's Unfading Glow 00:07:53
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So let's try to 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 fucking believe it?
		Because he's from a real little shitty town in New Jersey.
		And we both just look at each other and go, fuck, 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 and real thankfulness for a life that you've been so lucky to have and I've been so lucky to have.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, you know, respect for each other, which they just don't.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		They just don't.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It's terrible.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's a lot of that.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		If we could get more people to recognize how brief and fleeting this moment alive is.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 discussing and wild living, you're not going to get into heaven.
		And I went, ah, grandma.
		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 certainly feels short when you look back, right?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		But just think about those words coming from a 100-year-old woman.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, life is short even in its longest days.
		Really, the opposite end of the spectrum.
		Oh, yeah, life goes on.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right, right, right, right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So I wrote a song called Life is Short, and I love playing it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		58 years old.
		You're still a kid.
		You're still a kid.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		How old are you now?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		74.
unidentified		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Well, you look great.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Thanks.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Maybe we can go on a date tomorrow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		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 you've done so much and the scope of it is so big now in retrospect?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		not doing that right but now at my age it's kind of like and i i was 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 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 is amazing.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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, fuck that works off.
		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.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
		It's like, 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 months.
unidentified		Wow.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Because they couldn't get off the party.
Why Joanne Quit Smoking 00:15:21
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		They just couldn't get off the party because they were drunk all the time.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I mean, if you drink Crown Royal every fucking day, it's going to fuck up your liver.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		100%.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And that's what they did.
		I mean, you know, except Tim.
		Tim had a heart attack.
		Tim White, 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.
		Wow.
		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 at like 49 from heart disease.
		You think you better go to the doctor?
		I don't want to go.
		And that's what most guys do.
		They don't want to go to the fucking doctor.
unidentified		Yep.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know.
unidentified		But I do.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Does the doctor tell you to stop smoking?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		All the time.
		But see, here's the thing about cigarettes.
		Find something you love and let it kill you.
unidentified		Find something you love and let it kill you.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		I don't know.
		It's not killing you yet.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And I just had a I just had 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 that the longer you smoke, it flattens out, and that way it's full of crap.
		Mine's still like this.
		And he said, and this is two years ago, he said, well, I'd like to tell you you need to quit smoking, but if you've 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.
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 that's killing people is cigarettes with all the additives in it, all the different chemicals that they put.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		120 chemicals.
unidentified		Crazy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 until she met me.
		And then she started smoking.
		She, on one hand, just said, well, fuck it.
		If you can't beat them, join them.
		So she started smoking.
		But Kristen hates cigarettes.
		And I don't know what to tell her.
		Because, you know, I don't do much good, but I'm really a good smoker.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Really good ass.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What is it they love about cigarettes so much?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		They're part of me.
		I don't know how to put it.
		I mean, I smoked my first cigarette at 10.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		10.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		64 years of smoking.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's crazy.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And you're okay.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I was addicted in high school.
unidentified		Wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And my parents, you know, it was like, have you ever 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 of that.
		Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, takes care of himself.
		And just the problems in his life are so overwhelming.
		But it'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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's amazing how much cigarettes take you away from, because you've got to, you know, nowadays, if you're a cigarette smoker, you know, I'm lucky to be here with you that I could smoke in your area.
		But most people would go, go outside.
		But I'll tell you a funny story about Johnny Cash and me.
		John and I knew each other and I would go down and I would see him in Jamaica and then he got really sick.
		But John quit smoking and John and I did, did something for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and another funny story.
		We were standing around doing getting ready to do sound check and 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 John Henley is a perfectionist.
		Everything's got to be just 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 were 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 got me to quit smoking.
		I go, maybe I should see that guy.
		He goes, okay, yeah, I will.
		You will.
		Anyway, so anyway, we finally get on to sound check.
		And John sound checked without me because I just sang one song with him.
		And then when it came time to sound check, I went, you know, John, you know, because he was irritated.
		I don't know if you knew Johnny Cash or not.
		Yeah.
		Fucking temper.
		You know, you didn't fuck 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, you know, 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 comes and he introduces me to my friend John Mellingham.
		he started some I fell into I didn't realize that he had changed the fucking key from him smoking to a lower key so So I couldn't hit the note because it was I fell into, I fell, I couldn't find a fucking note because it was not the note the song was written in.
		I sang 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 offstage.
		I was totally humiliated, right?
		So I ran offstage 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.
		And 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 checked.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That was it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 second.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Because after that, he said it's just a brief second and then it goes away.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'll tell you, I was friends with the Newman family, and Paul quit smoking and died.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Right afterwards?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Was the smoking contributing to his health problems?
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Find what you love and let it kill you.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Find what you love and let it kill you.
unidentified		83?
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I fucking love that guy.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Hustler, one of my favorite movies of all time.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm really good friends with Joanne, who now is.
		I love Joanne.
		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'd do stuff and I'd pinch her on the ass.
		And she'd look at me like...
		But then 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, 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 the fucking town she lives in.
		Anyway, she can't talk.
		She can't, you know, she has, what do you call it?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Dementia.
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And she can't talk.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And she can, you know, I take my guitar and I'll play and sing for her.
unidentified		She's a little, God.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, she's always happy to see me.
		I think she realizes that it's me.
		But 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 address from him and goes, I'm looking for HUD Mellencamp.
		And he was with me, but he was running around Radio City somewhere.
		Have you ever been to Radio City?
unidentified		Yes.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever been backstage?
unidentified		Mm-hmm.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		There's all kind of shit going on.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 think this is pretty cool.
		And then Joanne walked in and was like, all right, Newman, hey.
		Because 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 not 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 I know that people take care of her.
		It's sad.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		It's just hard to see someone in a deteriorated state like that as they get older.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, have you ever seen the movie, God, I can't say The Fugitive Kind?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What is it?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		The Fugitive Kind.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I don't think so.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Rogan, you got to watch it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		It's great.
		You'll love it.
		It's called The Fugitive Kind.
		It stars Brando and Joanne Woodward.
		And it's just such a, written by Tennessee Williams.
		It's 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Yeah.
		And I know a lot about old movies because I don't watch new movies.
Letterman's Comedy Legacy 00:09:33
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		If it's not in black and white, I'm not watching it.
unidentified		Really?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Has it always been the case, or is that a new thing?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		No.
		It's always been the really.
		Yeah.
		My girlfriend Kristen will talk to me, you know that actor, and I'll go, no.
		I don't know anybody in the entertainment business anymore except guys my age.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That's probably a good thing.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		But I don't know any of them.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		You know, I know Sean, you know, but I've known Sean since he was a kid before Richmond High.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's how long I've known that guy.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		That was a fucking great movie.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it was.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		They can't make a comedy like that anymore.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Oh, no, they couldn't even get it.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		They wouldn't make it again.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Not a chance.
		No.
		Not a chance at all.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, you answer me this question.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Why did anybody give a shit anyway?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you know, 86, and what was the senator, the guy, the comedian that wrote for Saturday Night Live, who was.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Al Franken?
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I just said, fuck you guys.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, should have.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I mean, why did he let some out of it?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		The climate got crazy.
		People lost their fucking minds.
		And I think it's kind of turned around and people are kind of recognizing that it was a massive over-correction.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, and that's what I was asking you.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		How is 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Who's your favorite stand-up comedian now?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Alive?
		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.
		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		What about Jim Jeffries?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Jim Jeffries is funny.
		There's a new Australian guy.
		There's 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.
		There's more comics right now are selling out arenas than ever in the history of stand-up comedy.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 got to just do what you think is funny and what you think the audience is going to 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		The best stand-up comedian movie I ever saw was the first Richard Pryor.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, Live on the Sunsets Trip changed my life.
unidentified		Well, that changed my life.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That was the third one.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Was it?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		So Wanted was before that, right?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and that took place in New Orleans.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Okay, there was one he filmed in Long Beach.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That is the one I'm talking about.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Phenomenal.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Phenomenal.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Unbelievable.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Phenomenal.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Unbelievable.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		And while he's getting on stage, people are still coming in and sitting down.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		He's fucking with people as they're coming in and sitting down.
		I don't think he had an opening act.
		I think he just came on.
unidentified		No, he did.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		He had, yeah, he had the woman's name, the singer.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, he had a musical opening act?
unidentified		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Interesting.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		I can't remember who it was, but he thanked him.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		He thanked her.
unidentified		Oh, okay.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 fuck?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		He walked in, grabbing his dick.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		Because he wanted to show them that he was Patty De Bell.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's who opened up.
unidentified		There it is.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Nice.
unidentified		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So anyway, he's grabbing his dick, walking in, and I'm looking at him going, are you out of your fucking mind?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Stop doing that.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		My parents took me to see Live on the Sunsets Trip 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 that 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 believe how funny it was.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know the backstory on that?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		What was the backstory?
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		The backstory was that was take two.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, he bombed the first one.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Well, he, for whatever reason, He decided to do the show backwards.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So he started with, you know, how he ended and was going to work his way forward.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		So did you play the comedy store a lot?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that was my home club in L.A.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And how did you go down?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I got in, I auditioned in 1994.
		You know, I came from L.A., I came from New York rather to L.A. 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've got to go to the comedy store.
		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 Kennison 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 got to 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 mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And he said to his mom, if that kid can go out and do it, I can too.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Oh, wow.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's what his mom said.
		I don't know if that's true or not.
		His mom told me that.
		I never asked David about it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You shouldn't even ask.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Let it live in legend.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I like the story.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		John, thank you so much, man.
		This was 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 treatment for me.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		That's great.
		I'm glad to be here.
		And I hope you come and see me play.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I would love to.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		I definitely will.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Is your tour is on your website?
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Is it johnmellencamp.com or something like that?
unidentified		I don't know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		You will find it.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		We'll find it.
unidentified		Yeah, I don't know.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		We'll find it.
		Thank you.
		Thank you very much.
		It was really fun.
		Thank you.
		All right.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		And you're going to hate those fucking tattoos.
joe rogan ▲ ● ▼		Nope.
		I don't think so.
		I like them.
john mellancamp ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I thought I liked mine too.

Chapters

00:00:01 Heroin and Roommates
00:07:05 Snap Out of It
00:12:55 Four Kids in the Hospital
00:16:23 Can't Leave the House
00:19:55 Heart Attack Insights
00:30:00 Generations Apart
00:34:12 Change Happened
00:39:04 Cable Comes to Town
00:51:44 Homeless Havoc
00:57:53 22 And New York City
01:13:18 Come One, Come All
01:17:35 Drummer Speeding Up
01:32:52 Jack and Diane
01:46:50 Gym Equipment Trailers
01:49:22 Gratitude's Unfading Glow
01:57:01 Why Joanne Quit Smoking
02:12:07 Letterman's Comedy Legacy