John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John J Mellencamp, also known as John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American musician, singer-songwriter, painter, and actor. He is known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrumentation. He rose to superstardom in the 1980s while "honing an almost startlingly plainspoken writing style that, starting in 1982, yielded a string of Top 10 singles," including "Hurts So Good," "Jack & Diane," "Crumblin' Down," "Pink Houses," "Lonely Ol' Night," "Small Town," "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.," "Paper in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth7 October 1951
CountryUnited States of America
Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll.
This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.
This is serious business, sex, violence, and rock and roll.
There's a young man in a T-shirt listening to a rock and roll station. He's got greasy hair, greasy smile, he says, Lord this must be my destination.
Rock'n'roll starts between the legs and goes through the heart, then to the head. As long as it does those three things, it's a great rock song.
All the women in the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar.
Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.
People didn't listen to the song; they just heard the word Baghdad. They got angry. I was commenting on his economic position, not the war.
Sound quality was supposed to be one of the big selling points for CDs but, as we know, it wasn't very good at all. It was just another con, a get-rich-quick scheme, a monumental hoax perpetrated on the music consuming public.
As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine.
If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed, and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other's problems.
I didn't know if I was ever gonna finish the record. We just kept working on it and working on it and it got to a point where we quit.
We had an exercise in speech class in school, impromptu speaking, that I was always real good at.
Wait a minute, guys, I have always been on your side. I have always spoken for you, always tried to put on a good face for the state of Indiana. All of a sudden, some of you people think I'm a bad guy?