The American rock legend John Fogerty knows about despair. Following Creedence Clearwater Revival’s contentious breakup in the early 1970s, he began drinking. The bender lasted several years, until he met his current wife, Julie.Fogerty, clean and sober now, begins his American tour tomorrow, in Napa, California. This November, he is also headlining three Florida concerts for The Charity Pro’s, an organization helping families stricken by the COVID-19 pandemic (see previous two parts of this series).In Part 3 here, Fogerty openly addresses his alcoholism, looks back on other parts of his storied career, including Woodstock, and lets us know how he thinks President Joe Biden is doing. Following are the remaining excerpts from a fascinating conversation.
Jim Clash: Let's go back to a time when things weren’t so good. After your bitter CCR breakup and the ensuing lockdown your record company imposed on you, you went into a tailspin. Was meeting your wife, Julie, the catalyst that brought you out of it?
John Fogerty: I was a raging alcoholic. I can talk openly now because it's behind me, thank God. What do they call that, older but wiser? There's just so much to life, no matter what's going on. Every day is a gift. When you get up, you want to have all of your faculties, go to work, earn bread and butter for your family, be a real dad, sharing your love and expertise with your kids. My heart had been so full of unhappiness. At the end, there was no easy, clearcut way out. If there was, I'd bottle it.Everyone makes their own decisions. You hear about people on opioids now, the devil's handiwork. You try to talk to them, but nothing happens until they talk to themselves, accept that they need help, want to change. For me, Julie and my family filled me with love. At first, my heart was a complete black hole. But love kept taking up more space, until it finally pushed all of the bitterness away. So there was absolutely no reason for me to be a drunk at that point. Yes, Julie was the catalyst. I was deeply and desperately in love with her, and I still am.
Clash: CCR played at Woodstock, though many people don’t know it because you were not in the first documentary film or on the initial album. Why weren’t you?
Fogerty: It was mostly that we didn’t get a good crowd response. We followed The Grateful Dead, which was on stage for an hour and a half, much of the time in a fog because they had taken LSD. Plus everything was running late. By the time Creedence got on stage, it was like 2:30 a.m. Everyone was asleep. Here, I thought this was going to be our crowning achievement. The band played great, but there was no reaction until about the last 10 minutes of our set. So basically we woke them, then warmed them up for Janis Joplin. I didn’t feel I wanted that particular conundrum in the movie. Here we were, on our way to becoming the number-one band in the world. What do I care about this movie? It didn’t show us in the best light, so I said no.
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Clash: How did CCR manage to thrive during the British Invasion, whereas so many American groups were overshadowed? Timing?
Fogerty: When the Brits came over in 1964, The Beatles and such, we weren’t good enough. We were just a little high school band. Our instrumentation was piano, drums and guitar, with me singing. In fact, my brother, Tom, wasn’t even in the band. He was older, doing his own musical thing, influenced by people like Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell. Later, he started to dismiss that avenue. There are always going to be pop people who are a little too sugary. I was always in the musician camp, because I played guitar. I was serious about it, even at 14, into James Burton, Scotty Moore and Elvis [Presley].
Clash: What advice might you have for people getting into the music business to avoid the mess you suffered through with your former record company?
Fogerty: Well, it took years and years for me to be released from the bondage my record company had me in. I’m a lot older now. Because I’m a happier man, I try to dismiss all of that. If you had a young kid, maybe your son, and you wanted me to talk to him, I would sit down and give him a good hour’s lecture about what I went through. I feel better, but I haven’t forgotten what happened, you know? It was just wrong. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen to too many people. There’s a tendency to take advantage of youngsters with stars in their eyes. Get a good lawyer, and have him read the contract well. And make sure he’s on your side [laughs].
Clash: How do you think President Biden is doing?
Fogerty: I think he’s doing very well. I happen to be a liberal, you probably know that. I do believe he is suffering from an image gap. If you want to nit-pick, withdrawing from Afghanistan was not really his decision, at least at this point in time, although he had long wanted to. By the way, Jim, you know you’re going to get into trouble talking to a musician about foreign policy. I don’t consider myself a politician and I do realize that, as an adult and American citizen, political things are a lot more complicated than us folks at home would like to believe. It’s a shame the pullout happened the way it did. What it’s done, of course, has allowed those that disagree with Joe Biden to have political fodder to chew on. That’s too bad so early in an Administration. The greater good is that we’re ending a war that seemed like it would go on forever. I’m not the guy to sit in that chair. But Biden rightfully did say, ‘the buck stops here,’ taking responsibility for something not completely his choice.
Clash: How about the pandemic?
Fogerty: Golly, I sure wish there was a way to convince folks who don’t believe in the vaccine, or in wearing a mask. I’m vaccinated, and happily so. I just happen to believe in medicine. We had smallpox, polio and so many other diseases we’ve conquered. I’ve seen it in my lifetime, I’m still here [laughs]. I do realize it’s complicated and cumbersome for some folks. I believe the way to help each other is trying to speak in conversational terms, not make enemies or political rivals of those who feel a different way. We’re all Americans. We need to respect each other, be reassuring and hopeful. I want everyone to be safe. I don’t want any more people to die just because they have personal beliefs about vaccines, masks and all of that. To me, it’s obvious, but that’s how I happen to feel. You have to do your best to make the facts available.
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