The Living Legend John Fogerty!

After getting the rights to his CCR catalogue back, John is releasing LEGACY THE CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL YEARS. John called Bret to discuss keeping his voice excellent, his sons getting involved with the music, and, well, baseball!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I am so glad to talk to you. I can't
hear you, but I'm glad you're there. It's the Brett
Sonders Podcast. This week I'm joined again by John Fogerty,
one of my musical heroes. He's releasing the album Legacy
the Cretans Clearwater Revival Years, available on August twenty second.
He re records some of his greatest songs. And it's

(00:23):
incredible because John Fogerty in twenty twenty five, who's eighty,
sounds like John Fogerty in nineteen seventy. It's good to
talk with John Fogerty on the Brett Sonders Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Great Brett, how are you doing, sir?

Speaker 1 (00:36):
It's always just such an honor to talk with you,
and I always appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
You're welcome, glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
There's a new album on the way this Friday, Legacy
the Credens Clearwater Revival Years. These songs are so deeply
embedded in our culture. I mean that in the most
positive sense. What does this project mean for you, John?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I think what it really does is focuses on the
songwriting of this particular and musical act. You know, I
wrote all these songs way back well for the career
of Creten's clear Water Revival, And I've always felt that,

(01:24):
how can I say it. If you're a young band,
you get yourself to where you're pretty good, that's great.
You're going to need to be that, but you're still
going to need songs, good songs, or else you're going
to be pretty limited.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, you have the good songs. As you put it,
your voice is remarkable on these recordings. What goes into
maintaining your voice? It sounds like you're in a time
machine and you came back to sing on your records
from nineteen seventy.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, you know, I try to take care of myself.
That's something that's really important to me. Back in the nineties,
I put out an album called Blue Moons Swamp and
started touring, and man, I ran right into a buzz
saw and I didn't quite know what was going on.
Finally saw some doctors, you know, specialists, and holy moly,

(02:19):
there was more to it than just walking out and singing. Certainly,
taking care of yourself. One thing I'd always done. I'm
a runner. I would go jogging almost every day and
that helped for stamina, but your personal say habits like
when I was a kid, you know, back in the

(02:41):
Credence days, I was smoking. Please, if you're smoking, stop
stop that. Gut it out. I don't smoke anymore. I
stopped that a long time ago, and that's a good
move for your voice and your diet and getting enough rest.
I know these are corny things. It sounds like your
mom probably told you, but it's really true. And I

(03:05):
think a big part of it is I'm happy, and
I think that means I go to bed at and
I laying next to my dear wife Julie, and I
feel blessed. So I don't have a lot of stress
going on, which when you you know, when you're stressed,
a lot of stuff happens negatively in your body.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, John, those sentiments are beautiful, and you're right. There
was probably an attitude back when you were getting started
that's smoking and drinking, and that was all integral to
rock and roll. Now we find out that no, these
things are bad for a long lasting rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
True, absolutely true. Yeah, if you don't, if you want
to be more than a one hit wonder, you're gonna
have to do that.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
As Hey, your sons, Shane and Tyler joined you in
the recording of this new album, Legacy the Creeden's Clearwater
Revival Years. I do have to ask, were your kids
always into your music or were they not into it
when they were younger, because you know, it wasn't too
cool to be into your dad's music.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Oh. I think that's the natural evolution. When they were young,
they liked, you know, all the stuff the young kids
would like that was current, and then they started to
very much go their own way. I remember they they
kind of found a psychedelic vein kind of a little

(04:32):
bit almost like an indie alternative sort of thing, and
they really liked that a lot more than I did,
let's say, And so they would get into that vein
and at some point, because I was always just around,
you know, you oh, yeah, that's that stuff. It's over
there by the furniture, you know, they really weren't too impressed.

(04:55):
Until later as they started playing guitar and that sort
of they began to see the beauty of the songs,
you know, and they started to respect songs. And I
think that's when it clicked on. They're both songwriters, and
so you know, Proud Mary is a pretty cool song.

(05:15):
To be learning how to do it from Sure, why do.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
You think these songs cut through time because they really
are timeless.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Well, I'm not sure that I really understand why. I
could tell you what I was thinking, but that doesn't
mean it's actually the answer. Some of this stuff is
just left for us to ponder, I believe. But I
did really try to get to the purest form of
a song that I could get to. I didn't want

(05:50):
a bunch of dead weight, a bunch of you know
er well you know in the song. I wanted it
to just be like that and get out of here,
you know, I mean to me, two minutes and ten
seconds would be about perfect. I'm being a little sarcastic,
but that does make you kind of make your point,
I suppose. And also I would if a song didn't

(06:14):
seem like it was really going anywhere, or if it
didn't seem to fit what I thought was the vision
that I had for my band, I would chuck it.
I would just start over, and I would say, back
in those days, for every song you've heard, I've written
ten and thrown them away. What that really means is

(06:37):
I've started ten kind of got into a verse or
two and realized this isn't what I want to do,
and stop that. Just throw it away and start over
until you find that piece of material, as some of
the old song sharks used to say, find that piece
of material, a song that is saying or talking about

(07:02):
what you want to say.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
John, I would love to hear some of your rejected songs,
because I'm relatively certain they're better than ninety nine percent
of what's on the radio right now.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well, I do have a I don't know. I think
some of them were dreadful, actually, but you know, we're
all hearing a lot about AI these days. I have
a little opinion that probably a lot of the stuff
that people threw away, that's what AI is doing now.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Finally, John Fogerty, what advice do you have Since you're
a baseball guy for our Colorado Rockies, I'm sure you're
aware of their debacle of a season.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh my goodness. Well, I'm an open as fan, so
come on, you know we share the worst. I guess
I don't know. I would never presume to, you know,
to tell anybody what to do. I mean it just
you know, you got to work it out, hopefully hopefully

(08:11):
you get well. No I can't even go there. You
know what would always happen with the Open A's, at
least in a fans vision, they would get to finally
get a good team together, like there was probably about
ten maybe eight years ago, all these guys that was
a great team, and then economics, I guess the reason

(08:33):
they scattered everybody to the wind. And all those people
are doing great now on other teams. You know, you just,
oh gosh, you know, it's hard to go through that.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
John Fogerty, the new album is Legacy the Credens Clearwater
Revival Years. It's out Friday. I just have to tell
you every time I talk to you, you really are
one of our greats, and I really appreciate everything that
you do, sir.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Thank you nice being here. Thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
I love that guy's music, John Fogerty. I'm Brett Sonders.
See you next time. Drop me a line Brett B.
R E T at kbc O dot com and you
can find me on social media anywhere you look.