His paintings sometimes echo the great German surrealist Max Beckmann, and sometimes Modigliani, and you might even think you saw the shadow of Basquiat fall over some of his pieces. No, John legitimately belongs in the Modern Art Pantheon, alongside the Rauschenbergs, Pollocks, Warhols, Hockneys and Frida Kahlos (he would be uncomfortable with that statement, but ignore that). Not a musician who also paints, God knows there are more than a few of those. He gave me an opportunity to make records, and that name put a huge chip on my shoulder and made me work a little harder, and try a little bit harder.”Īlso Read Bruce Springsteen Adds 22 North American Shows to 2023 TourĪlthough we may primarily know Mellencamp as a rock star, one of the highest-selling of all time and a Hall of Famer, he is also a great painter. “As I’ve gotten older, I realized the guy did me a favor. “For years, I really hated the fact that I signed with him and became Johnny Cougar,” he says now. For his next album, The Lonesome Jubilee, another massive hit, he dropped Cougar and that tired old albatross sank to the bottom of the sea.

After a few hit singles, he broke out in 1985 with the album Scarecrow, recording under the name John Cougar Mellencamp. Reluctantly, John accepted the Faustian deal and the much ridiculed name. “I had one set of people telling me I had to give them money, and the other was going to give me money, so I decided to go with the people who were going to pay me,” he said.ĭefries got Mellencamp a record deal, no small thing in 1975, but insisted he change his name to Johnny Cougar. Art school, John discovered, was going to be expensive. Tony Defries, David Bowie’s manager at the time, liked his voice and wanted to sign him. And he had an appointment at the Art Students League of New York. He brought demo tapes of him singing in bars, because he thought all he needed was to let people hear him sing to get a recording contract.

In his early 20s, having just graduated from Vincennes University in his home state of Indiana, John Mellencamp went to New York to pursue one of two careers, either painter or musician.

Scarecrow john mellencamp