By Steve Newton
In May of 1983 I did my first interview with John Mellencamp, or at least that’s who he wanted to be.
Back then the heartland rocker was still known as John Cougar, and was riding high on the breakthrough success of his latest album, American Fool, which spent nine weeks at the top of the Billboard album chart and boasted the hits “Hurts So Good”, “Jack & Diane”, and “Hand to Hold on To”.
At one point in the conversation I asked him about the name “Cougar”, and he explained how he really detested it. Warning: coarse language.
To hear the full 22-minute audio of my 1983 interview with “John Cougar”–and my 1999 interview with John Mellencamp as well–subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can eavesdrop on over 500 of my uncut, one-on-one conversations with rockers since 1982.