John Fogerty on New Memoir and Why He Sort of Likes Donald Trump
John Fogerty‘s new book, Fortunate Son: My Life, My Music, was partially born out frustration with the way he often saw his story portrayed in the press. “I’d talk to a newspaper or magazine, and what I said never really came out right,” he says. “In fact, it really looked bad in print when I saw myself complaining or anything about something. Finally I just said to myself, ‘I’m gonna write a book.'”
He began the process about eight years ago by hiring someone to interview him on video camera about his entire life. “I was asked a zillion questions in an attempt to get the whole story out of me,” he says. “I don’t know how many hours we shot, but it ended up not being a book then.” They wound up calling up Jimmy McDonough, best known for his stellar 2002 Neil Young biography Shakey, and had him put the pieces together. “I want to stress that this is not ghost-written,” says Fogerty. “Jimmy mainly acted as the interviewer. He said to me, ‘John, this book is in your voice.'”
Fortunate Son tells the whole story of Fogerty’s life, from his times in the Army Reserve to the rise of Creedence Clearwater Revival through their highly acrimonious breakup and the never-ending battles with his former bandmates and Fantasy Records president Saul Zaentz, who controlled the publishing rights to the Creedence tunes. He also gets personal, explaining how he screwed up his first marriage and how a drinking problem nearly derailed his second one.
We spoke with Fogerty about the book, his ongoing war with the other members of Creedence, Donald Trump and why he’s never seen The Big Lebowski.
As I read the book, I kept thinking about how the band caused you nothing but grief. Do you ever think you would have been better off as a solo artist?
That’s an interesting question. It’s really funny because I basically formed that band when I was 14 and always thought of myself as a band member, but even when we started I knew I had more music in me than the other guys, including my brother Tom. But by the time I wrote “Proud Mary,” I had evolved, and something quite different started to happen. I knew I had something I didn’t have before. I knew that’s where good stuff would be created, like Lennon/McCartney, Irving Berlin, Leiber and Stoller or today somebody like Bruce [Springsteen] or, of course, Bob Dylan. I knew I was inside that place, wherever that was, where those people created that stuff. I very much felt that the other guys in the band weren’t there, but even at that point I still felt like part of the team.
Were they of any benefit to you?
Yeah, I think so. What you’re getting is that all those personalities were so difficult for me. We never really had a manager, and I think those people were unmanageable. They had a real problem with taking direction. Let’s say I was in a band with John Lennon before I wrote “Have You Ever Seen the Rain.” I think I would have pretty much followed him.