#2485 - John Fogerty

**John Fogerty** (0:01)
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

**Joe Rogan** (0:03)
The Joe Rogan Experience.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:06)
Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

**John Fogerty** (0:12)
They put your stuff on the floor.

**Joe Rogan** (0:14)
It doesn't matter, you can keep it on the table. It's fun.
There's water there too, in this metal cup, and then there's coffee.

**John Fogerty** (0:23)
Oh, thanks so much. Okay, yeah, you're ready to...
I have some notes that I'll probably never look at, but...

**Joe Rogan** (0:30)
You got notes?

**John Fogerty** (0:32)
Me?

**Joe Rogan** (0:34)
What's on the notes?

**John Fogerty** (0:35)
Oh, just stuff like what I went through with CCR and all that, but... Tell me something, did you read up on me or anything?

**Joe Rogan** (0:46)
I'm a huge fan! I don't have to read up on you.

**John Fogerty** (0:49)
Okay.

**Joe Rogan** (0:49)
I read up on you a little bit, just to catch up about how you got out of the... Well, you did do military service, but you got out by smoking a lot of weed and not eating. I read that. Is that true?

**John Fogerty** (1:01)
No.

**Joe Rogan** (1:02)
Is that true? They lied? There was a story about you smoking a lot of weed and getting emaciated so you can get out of the army?

**John Fogerty** (1:10)
Well, it's not quite in that sequence, but those things did happen. Yeah.
I had determined to lose a lot of weight. So I was really skinny by 1967, 68 I mean, I think it was 129 pounds.

**Joe Rogan** (1:37)
Whoa.

**John Fogerty** (1:38)
Yeah.
Then I was going to go to the, I think it was the Presidio and I had to meet with an Army doctor and my friends gave me a couple of joints, and I stuck them in. I used to smoke and those cigarettes. I stuck it in the cigarette and going across the Bay Bridge, I smoked them. I hadn't even thought about it. So if you want, yeah, man, he went on a starvation diet, a protest diet and then smoked a lot of weed. That's what I heard. That way, but yeah, okay. But it's essentially some truth.

**Joe Rogan** (2:19)
Some truth to it.
You had a legendary career, my friend. Legendary.

**John Fogerty** (2:24)
Thank you. Still working on it.

**Joe Rogan** (2:26)
It's incredible, man.
You are like one of the main voices of Rock & Roll in America, if you really think about it. Your songs, I mean, you have so many gigantic hits. You know, when the UFC has a lot of walkout songs, you know, when fighters come out and walk out, a lot of guys walk out to your music. I don't even know if you are aware of it. But Fortunate Son is a big one.

**John Fogerty** (2:51)
Yeah.

**Joe Rogan** (2:51)
Bad Moon Rising, that's another big one people walk out to.

**John Fogerty** (2:54)
Great.

**Joe Rogan** (2:56)
It's pretty awesome.

**John Fogerty** (2:57)
Wow. Yeah, I'm not that aware of the UFC stuff, but, you know, everybody, whatever floats your boat.

**Joe Rogan** (3:05)
Well, people just love your music. So you went through many generations. Like, you got your first record contract. How old were you?

**John Fogerty** (3:14)
Um, I know I signed one when I was around 19 Of course, it would have been unenforceable.

**Joe Rogan** (3:23)
It's not legal at the time, right? You had to be 21?

**John Fogerty** (3:26)
Yeah. The deal? I believe so.

**Joe Rogan** (3:28)
Yeah. Well, you're also one of the first rock and roll artists that wrote songs that became very popular about how you're getting screwed over by the record business.
You know what I mean? So, Leonard Skitter did it, working for MCA. They did that song. But you had Vans Can't Dance.

**John Fogerty** (3:48)
It was actually Zantz Can't Dance.

**Joe Rogan** (3:49)
But you had to change it, right?

**John Fogerty** (3:51)
Yeah. The name of the person was Zantz.
It sold about a half a million copies as Zantz. But the record company Warner Brothers, in their way of settling somewhat, had me change it to Vans.

**Joe Rogan** (4:11)
Because the guy's name was Zantz.

**John Fogerty** (4:13)
Zantz, yeah.

**Joe Rogan** (4:14)
It was screwing up.

**John Fogerty** (4:16)
That's right in the middle of that whole thing was a mess. I got sued for sounding like myself.

**Joe Rogan** (4:25)
What?

**John Fogerty** (4:26)
Yeah.

**Joe Rogan** (4:27)
How did that happen?

**John Fogerty** (4:29)
I'll tell you. So, and I didn't find this out. And there was eventually a trial. So, many people think that that's funny. You got sued for sounding like yourself. Why, that's funny. Well, no, you're getting a legal lawsuit that's probably going to take away a lot of your money and you're going to go through three, four years of anguish. Well, anyway, ended up in a trial. He was suing me for, at the time, was an enormous amount of money, 144 million dollars for his, whatever, metal anguish or something.