John Mellencamp Finds His Freedom

A few weeks ago John Mellencamp brought Rolling Stone up to his 41st floor suite at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, following a sold-out show. After playing RS his new T Bone Burnett-produced album Life, Death, Love and Freedom, Mellencamp talked candidly about the new record, his forthcoming play co-written with Stephen King and why he doesn't want to play "Hurts So Good" anymore.

Rolling Stone: It's got to be nice as an artist to be in a spot where you have your audience and your following, and you can do what you want, no?

John Mellencamp: Sure. And they've got to expect to get pissed off (sometimes too, 'cause I'm not gonna do what they expect me to do. [Laughs] During the Nineties I was in and out of the music business about 150 times. I don't know how many times I quit. "I can't stand doing this anymore. I can't do this." And then I'd get all excited for a few weeks and start making a record, get halfway through the record and go, ooh, God.

RS: Do you worry about record sales, or how you'll get the music to your fans now that there are so many alternate ways to release music?

JM: You know, I don't do that. I'm a singer-songwriter. I should be singing songs and writing songs, not worrying about selling them. I'm going to keep making records. I'll keep writing songs and playing them to my family and whatever audience comes to see me. You know, if there's 10,000 people, great. If there's ten, so what? I've made twenty-four albums, you know? I've come from Johnny Cougar — I've grown up in public.

RS: Is this attitude new?

JM: Oh, sure. In the Nineties I went for a long time and wouldn't go on tour. This is the first tour I've talked to the audience in ten, fifteen years. I'd walk out and say hello and never say another word, 'cause I thought — my head was like, "They don't want to come here to hear me talk. They came hear to hear these fuckin' songs. The songs are the stars, not me." But now my attitude is different.

I'm just gonna go out and be myself and play these songs and do what the fuck I do, and like I said, I'm not for everybody. I'm sure I piss some of the audience off sometimes, 'cause, you know, they're sitting there going, he didn't play "Hurts So Good." Well, I don't want to play those songs anymore. So that's the luxury of being me. In the Nineties there was a part of me that [thought] we gotta be the biggest band in the world. I don't even give a fuck, I don't even have those thoughts anymore. I'm just happy to be able to go out and play. And if I can make a little bit of difference, fabulous.