Q&A with John Fogerty

Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, September 29, 2007

John Fogerty's solo albums have had great songs, from his early cover of Hank Williams' "Jambalaya" to his recent hit, the antiwar "Déjà Vu." But by his own admission he held back from the sound he created as leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival, fearful of new legal action in what was a vicious, decades-long battle with his former record company, Fantasy Records. He'd been sued over "Old Man Down the Road," which Fantasy said copied CCR's "Run Through the Jungle." Fogerty won, but was scarred. Fantasy was bought a few years ago by a consortium that included TV pioneer Norman Lear, a huge CCR fan. One of his first moves was a peace offering to Fogerty, giving him the chance to have a say in the songs he'd signed away long ago.



So now it has come full circle: On Tuesday, Fogerty releases "Revival," his strongest set of songs since "Cosmo's Factory." He sounds like himself again , referring to CCR not only in the album title but in one cut, "Creedence Song." A relaxed and happy Fogerty eagerly chatted with the Rocky's Mark Brown about the new album.

You and your pal Bruce Springsteen are dropping new albums on the same day. Yours is the one that hasn't leaked on the Internet yet.

"Ha! How long will that be? I just heard today that you could get the Eagles and Bruce's album online. That's the hemorrhage that record companies are dreading in fear about, is that the deal?"

Revival is easily your best solo album, and sounds very much like your Creedence work. At times your songwriting sounded so anti-Creedence that it was almost like you were trying to bury that songwriter.

"You're absolutely right. At one point I was actually sued by Fantasy for sounding like myself. That had a lot to do with me suddenly veering off in another direction. Lawsuits are not fun, that's what I'll tell you. That was about four years of a huge waste of money and an even huger waste of time and emotional energy, all wrapped up in this futility exercise. It's a misuse of the justice system, that's for sure. In my case it really affected how I did things. Quite literally I'd be in my music place over the past many years and I'd maybe get into a little guitar vamp that was sort of Creedence-like. Obviously that means it's sort of John-like. But we all know what that sound is. As I heard this little Creedence-like riff, an imaginary gremlin would pop up on my shoulder going 'No, no, no, no, you can't do that, I'm going to sue you.' It would kill me. It would be like a harpoon to the heart."

You've spent decades reclaiming your CCR work ? finally playing those songs live in '87, getting some control over your work in the past few years, and now releasing a new album of Creedence-sounding songs back on your old label, Fantasy. Is this the last chapter in it all?

"Yeah, as far as anguish you mean? Yeah, the way I've put it is ? I feel that I've finally come home. I don't mean the label. I mean the music I'm making. I feel that it's finally there. I've been kinda searching. I've made some albums. They're good. "Blue Moon Swamp" was a very nice album. But there was a point after "Déjà Vu" and I seemed to be going off on tangents. I seemed to be, as you said, noticeably not myself (laughs). I told myself when you make your next album, which turned into this album, 'John, just stay in your center. Stay in your middle. Do what you're really strong at and most comfortable with. Stay there. Don't let anything push you off on a tangent.' In the process of doing that some really cool stuff happened that there was no way I could have engineered it. it just happened naturally. I started writing for this album shortly after New Year's. We'd moved into a new house a couple years ago and finally had the music room kinda ready around New Year's. I had some equipment so I could go in there and record. I wrote songs for three to four weeks?and it's all kinda, can I say, very ordinary and sometimes even dreadful (laughs). That's the way it usually is. You have to get through all that crap before you get to the good stuff. Then one day "Broken Down Cowboy" came out of me. It just kinda floored me. I recognized right away that it was good rock 'n' roll, it had kind of a fresh perspective, it was obviously very emotionally meaningful, especially to me. That was the first one. That was the first good song."

And it opened the floodgates?

"That's exactly what happened. I guess that's what that longwinded explanation was. It started to come out after that. Since I knew I was just going to go ahead and sound like me and not worry about it ? just play, John, shut up and play. What came out was rather effortlessly really good and really familiar sounding, too. The more I was doing it the happier I was getting and the better things got. When I say effortlessly what I mean is it seems like an idea would pop out of me for a song and then I'd have a very clear idea of what I'm supposed to do. Therefore when I went to finish up the lyrics or even arrange the music, it would be very clear what to do. Whereas many times I can remember that "Blue Moon Swamp" was a very agonizing process, almost like pulling teeth. It turned out really good but it was hard. And not necessarily fun. Everything about this was just fun."

Is a burst of songwriting like this as inexplicable as a dry spell?

"Um?. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend I know. But I do feel I'm on it now and I'm going to keep it. When you don't have it, when it's as you say a dry spell, that's the most frustrating and kinda maddening thing. You don't know why. Creation in the arts is a really sort of mystical and fragile thing. I can recognize when I'm doing something good, but I can't really engineer to do something good. It sorta happens first, then I can be judgmental after it happens. I can have a sense of 'Gee, is this a really good guitar lick or a really stupid guitar lick?' Same with a song. It's something memorable or a high quality. Or you can sense when it' s dumb. It just comes out. You can't force it ? here it is and it's going to be great! I'm just going to go through it and hopefully have the sense later? I really do feel that the good stuff has come home to me and will stay with me. I think it has all to do with being happy, personally being in a very good place and making music for the right reasons. It's really fun."

"Gunslinger" was a song that grabbed me; it's an interesting political allegory. How did that come about?

"The same guitar I wrote "Broken Down Cowboy," a few days or weeks later I picked up that same guitar only for the second time?.the next time I wrote a song "Gunslinger" came out. I look at that guitar sort of specially after that. It just came out of me as I was strumming the guitar. The actual line came out (sings) 'I think we need a gunslinger.' I stopped and said 'Wow, what the heck does that mean?' This is also why I sometimes feel I'm not creating anything. I'm just putting myself in a relaxed and unhurried and unstressed state, and then things just sort of come through. I just settled down. I heard myself do the 'I think we need a gunslinger' line and I felt myself get real receptive. It's almost as if the rest of it was there, already done. It was a matter for me to be quiet enough and listen for it and let it come through. I guess somewhere in the way your mind works it's coming through your own filter. What's the story? Because it wasn't too long, we're talking a matter of a few minutes. The answer to that line is exactly what's on the record -'somebody tough to tame this town.' That was quite an allusion to me. I've grown up with all those movies, those western movies. And "The Wild Ones" with Marlon Brando. It's certainly a parable that could have happened at any time in our human history, probably anyplace in the world. I knew something was up when I was making it western. It was such a well-defined little operetta I guess you'd say. I immediately thought of the bad guys, the gang coming in and kinda lording their way over the town and kind of striking fear in everyone. Of course that was very important. The politically aware person that I am remembered I'd been hearing those words: 'Fear! Fear! Fear! Fear! Terrorists! Terrorists! Fear!" nonstop for what is it, six years? That became the direction. But I kept it as a parable. It just seemed really cool to leave it that way and let everybody figure it out for themselves."

You're not just a gloom-and-doom song. The first single "Don't You Wish It Was True" is a very optimistic song.

"I love that song. It's happy and it feels good. The twist in the song that keeps it from just falling off the earth as a corny testament to the Partridge Family is I say I dreamed, 'I dreamed I walked in heaven.' Some of those songs from the early '70s everybody was la-la-laing around as if those things were true. 'The candy man can' (Laughs). They treated it as if it was real which made you sort of gag. In my song I wanted to sing about something happy and be able to express the things we all desire, but the fact that I said 'I dreamed' meant, at least in my mind, that I could get away with singing about this but not like a guy out lying in the dandelions in the green grass."

I asked Rod Stewart why he wasn't writing songs anymore after doing great ones like "You Wear It Well" and "Every Picture Tells a Story" and he said no one wanted to hear what he had to say anymore. Have you ever felt that way?

"Did Rod write "Maggie May?"

Yeah. He and Ron Wood.

"Wow. You'd think that guy would want to kick-start himself. I'll tell you something, writing a song, at least trying to write with what some of us seem to understand as a good song with good lyrics, intelligent lyrics ? is something that's meaningful. Writing a song is every bit as agonizing as these novelists that you see so full of angst, people like Ernest Hemingway. They drive themselves crazy. Trying to write good songs, you have to keep digging way down inside yourself. I already mentioned, going through the three or four weeks of pretty much crap. That can lower your self-esteem. Every day you're trying and you're giving it as much energy as you've got, an honest effort, but nothing but crap comes out. That can really harm you. That can wear you down. If you're unwilling to keep going it can make you unwilling to keep going. Because it's painful. But finally, when you turn the corner and something good pops out? I just never know. I could be two minutes away from "Proud Mary." I have no idea. I'm sitting there and nothing but garbage is coming out, which is what happened that day. Then "Broken Down Cowboy" came out. Maybe I'm a little too full of myself at times, but at that moment I was stunned. It was like somebody punched me in the gut. I guess you could say I was impressed. It doesn't sound very humble to say that, but it seemed cool. It was so unlike what I'd been doing 15 minutes before. It just blows your mind it can happen that way."

Everyone thinks they have to write an epic. You've got a couple of short, sharp songs here ? "It Ain't Right," "I Can't Take it No More." Was that on purpose?

"Thank you for that. Let's put it this way ? I'm the guy who loves "Wooly Bully" every bit as much as "The Times They Are A Changing." They're both equally valid as far as I'm concerned. Especially growing up in rock 'n 'roll. It's kinda like the Statue of Liberty. We accept everyone. Everyone can come here and be welcome. Just promise to have attitude. I revel in the rock 'n' roll songs that just make you feel great because of the way the music sounds and the attitude of the lyrics. I'm quite happy to go off and do a song like "It Ain't Right." It's fun to play, I must say. I can't wait to be on a stage somewhere playing "Somebody Help Me." It's rock 'n' roll. It's hypnotic, but not necessarily profound at all. It's just fun."

You've had a writing notebook since 1967 where you wrote all your classics. Did you ever misplace that notebook?

"Yes. As a matter of fact I misplaced it for a while, several years, and I started another one. When I found the first one again, I think it was around the "Hoodoo" album time, and I'd stuck the notebook into a box that had some cowboy boots. I don't know why. Now it seems to make total sense but I don't know what was happening then. The original book and the new book I put back together in one place. It's really now one notebook. Mostly what it is, is whenever I think of what sounds like a good song title I'll write it down and make sure it gets in that book. A song title by its nature may very well tell you which direction to go in the song. Although the very first entry, this is quite true, the very first entry when I first had blank paper put in that binder ? it's a small notebook ? the first entry was "Proud Mary." I had no idea what that meant until a few months went by and I named a riverboat Proud Mary. As time has gone on, the song just jumps out of me right at the moment, without even looking at the notebook. Certainly that's where "Broken Down Cowboy" came from. I didn't have that before. Or "Gunslinger." I'll have to look back; I may have written that down, but I don't remember it. They seem to come out right in the moment. For a while I'd get a cool guitar thing then look in the book and that would suggest something to do."

"Long Dark Night" is very topical and political. Did that song come quickly?

"The music did. I got myself into that groove and I was playing that certain guitar tuned a certain way, making that sound. I'm kinda jamming. The only thing that basically said it "It'll be a long dark night before this thing is done." (for the verses) I started singing what are the verses, but singing sort of nonsense. I think I got probably two verses right away. That told me what this song was about, what I was referring to as a long dark night. I knew there'd be a couple more verses. I allowed myself to let that song simmer inside. I probably could have written 30 verses quite easily. I just wanted to hit the most meaningful spots, you might even say the most objectionable things to address, so that everybody would understand where I'm coming from as far as the Long Dark Night. I'm not necessarily speaking about the war. I'm speaking about the way this administration has set about tearing down the Constitution and instilling its ? I don't want to overstep my boundaries here, but its measure of control on the American culture, which I find really disgusting. To me that's what the long dark night is."

Have you gotten pushback for your political songwriting?

"(chuckles). I remember you and I talked just before "Déjà Vu" had come out. I must say there have been many, many times I've looked back and said 'Wow, I gotta tell this to Mark Brown the next time we talk.' When "Déjà Vu" was just out and was fresh and I was on tour, basically, in many places I would play that song and I would be booed. There would be quite a healthy group of people booing. A lot of noise and controversy going on. I will tell you I was supposed to be on one of the morning network shows. At the last minute, the afternoon before we were going to go on ? the show called my management and said 'We don't want John to sing that "Déjà Vu" song.' (laughs). But they'd already invited me to be on this show. Just for a minute, just for an eye-blink, I looked at that. I thought 'That's not what were going to do. We're either doing the song or we're not doing the show.' As we all kind of discussed it we're sort of sitting in a pretty good spot here. If I don't do a show and it becomes known that they didn't want me to do "Déjà Vu" it's going to look pretty bad on them, not me. As the afternoon wore on and phone calls went back and forth I just stood by my guns. It was very clear. All of these broadcasting companies are owned by big corporate monolith corporations. They make most of their profits from a war in one way or another. They're very conservative by nature. Certainly most of these corporations give very hefty sizable donations to the Republican party. I was suddenly a persona non grata or whatever. I realized OK, we're not going to go on the show and by the way we're going to let everybody know why. That kinda made them say 'Oh well, never mind, everything's OK.'"

You wrote that song paralleling Iraq and Vietnam during the build-up to the war. What's your view now that more and more people are making that comparison?

"That's why I think I was prophetic. It was simply having lived through Vietnam, the idea of sending people off to die ? I was a kid then (he was actually in the Army Reserves at age 18) but I'm not a kid now. The idea of sending our children off to die for a very stupid reason ? for me it was clearly stupid ? and it seems very un-winnable. It was a situation, even before we went in, where this isn't something you win. This isn't desert storm. In desert storm we kicked them out of Kuwait. That was OK. This was chaos in the whole region. That 's why I was pissed off. Despite what the administration says there's no clear mission. There's no clear goal. Much like Vietnam. We were going to go over there and meander around until enough people die, then we'll be sick of it then we'll just come home, with nothing solved, of course. Which is probably what's actually gong to happen. The part that's making me mad, through a parent's or especially a mother's eyes, is sending a child off to die. That really made me angry, that concept."

Now that you've played "Ramble Tamble" in concert, may I start lobbying for "Someday Never Comes?"

"Oh, OK."

Get on that.

"OK, I'll work it out."