No one was more fortunate than those who got to see and hear legendary guitarists John Fogerty and Tom Morello last week (3/11) at SXSW.
Fogerty, who is quickly approaching 80 years old, was the keynote speaker of the annual music festival. But first he rocked an 18-song set where the Rage Against the Machine virtuoso joined him for the two song encore.
The next day Morello interviewed the former frontman of Creedence Clearwater Revival for over an hour. And just as if we wrote it up ourselves, one of the earliest questions was about setlists.
"One thing that I care so much about is a set list and the idea of crafting like a narrative for the night. How do you decide what songs you're gonna play? What order you're gonna open with, etc?" Morello asked.
"Look, I just go on ChatGPT..." Fogerty said to a roar of laughter.
Morello pretending to be Fogerty replied by saying, "'ChatGPT, this is John Fogerty. What are my biggest bangers? Put them in order.'"
The real Fogerty then answered sincerely. "I want people to have fun. I want them to be entertained. I want to I want them to join in. I want them to sing along," the classic rocker who has sold over 100 million records said.
"But I think over time, I mean, for me, it's going way back to when I was at The Monkey Inn, which is a little bar in Berkeley," Fogerty continued.
"You noticed songs would have an effect. Every time we played "Blue Suede Shoes," a fight would break out. Every single time. It's kind of like that. You sort of pace your hour-and-a-half, or whatever it's going to be, to have it tell that story. But I think it's all about the audience," he said.
The audience at Stubb's on Red River in Austin got a heapin helpin of CCR classics from "Bad Moon Rising" to "Who'll Stop The Rain," as well as some of Fogerty's solo work like "Centerfield" and "Rock and Roll Girls."
The night ended with two radio staples that Morello joined in on: "Travelin' Band" and "Proud Mary."
It was fitting that Morello, who spent a few years traveling with Bruce Springsteen as a temporary member of the E. Street Band, rocked out to "Traveling Band" with Fogerty himself.
The Boss is an enormous fan of Fogerty's "Traveling Band" is a song he closed with or had in the final encore set during many of his biggest shows during the Born in the USA Tour. He's covered CCR 213 times and Fogerty's solo work over 100 times.
"Why don't we talk about one of our favorite collaborations," Morello suggested to Fogerty. "What's it like playing with Springsteen?"
"I love playing with Bruce," Fogerty replied.
"He's a super fan of yours, by the way," Morello chimed in. "Like he speaks so deeply and genuinely about his love for John Fogerty as a person, and how meaningful and important your catalog is to his work in music too. I've told you that before, but I want to say it publicly."
"I think my love for him springs from the same place," Fogerty said.
"I love his songs. I love his passion about his songs. I love that he really has a good time playing music, enjoys it. It comes from his soul, his heart. It's nice that he likes me too. That's pretty cool."
Morello also got Fogerty to talk about the origin story of one of his all-time classics, "Fortunate Son," a tune he's played nearly 1,000 times and is second only to "Proud Mary" to his most-performed hits.
Fogerty explained that he was drafted during the Vietnam War but he never had to see action, though he was in the Army Reserve from '66-'68. He did as he was told to do. So it made him upset when the kids of the rich and powerful were able to get out of the draft because they knew the right official who would say they had bone spurs or something.
"That pissed me off for all the other guys that were drafted and were going to Vietnam," Fogerty explained. "It just didn't seem fair. It was rich people lording over us peasants.
"So all of that was in my mind. I actually rehearsed the song with the band [CCR] for a few weeks as what was my habit in those days, but I really didn't know what the song was going to be about. Way back in the day they'd have these political conventions, back when they were [shown in] black-and-white and really smokey looking, and somebody would get up and say, "Your Honor, the great state of Texas would like to nominate her favorite son, Billy Saul Estes for President.'
"A lot of states did that [when I was] a kid. I kind of took that to heart, and I kind of thought I was going to write a song called 'Favorite Son.'
"I went into my bedroom because of the pressure of now having to do it, because it was getting time to record this thing. I had a yellow pad. I sat on the edge of my bed and started thinking about all this stuff, especially the unfairness of it all. And at some point a kind of rage came out of me.
"It crystallized perfectly in my mind. I didn't have any of the phrases at all. Nothing. And suddenly I'm saying to myself, 'some folks are born made to wave the flag.' They're so political and patriotic - Super Patriots. All that make America great - all that stuff. They stick you right in your face. And I was getting angry and angry, but I ain't no Senator's son [who could easily get a deferment].
"Then the next verse is about money and privilege. 'It ain't me. It ain't me. Ain't no millionaire son.' Anyway, about 20 minutes later, I had written the whole thing down," he said.
John will be doing a number of shows this year starting off with one near Coachella next weekend, then Jazz Fest in the spring, then a few in Europe, finally on July 6 he brings his travelin band to the Hollywood Bowl.
Get your tickets on John's website.
Tom Morello now takes some time off before heading to Australia for a trio of gigs, then he comes back to North America for some more shows this summer. Grab those tickets off Tom's website.
