Bloomington, Indiana — On a breezy Sunday afternoon in May, a day off from the Live and In Person Tour, John Mellencamp is in the golf cart he uses to navigate his extensive forested property in Bloomington, Indiana. got on and got off. He wore a black zip-up sweater and black track pants. In a grizzled pompadour, he climbed to the top of a barn-like art studio built by Amish builders 20 years ago and broke a 7.5-ounce can of Coca-Cola.

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

No matter what anyone says, this kindness doesn’t stand out. But the Mellencamp native is an intractable flame merchant, an unrepentant nicotine addict, and once professed: I didn’t expect this conscientious statement to Detail magazine shortly after he had a heart attack in the ’90s. Historically, he doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks about him or his smoking.

Since achieving fame in the early 80’s,Jack & DianeThe singer has been a working-class hero, a farm aid worker, a tabloid proprietor, and many other things, but being polite isn’t one of them. For years, Mellencamp has been a human battering ram against the Republican Party’s attempts to twist his progressive populist anthems into dime patriotic expressions. Last year, entertainment attorney Allen Grubman condemned anti-Semitism in the wake of Kanye West’s public meltdown in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech (“F—anti-Semitism, and f— Anyone who speaks like that,” proclaimed Mellencamp). “Stay strong,” he told farmers who gathered at a climate protest in Washington, DC in March.

Sitting at a long table, with a glass ashtray and a blue pack of American Spirits within arm’s reach, Mellencamp, 71, spoke with a gentle demeanor that belies his candid reputation. That’s probably how it was set up. Neighborhood birds chirping, chic Turkish rugs, expensive candles, and his ‘art barn’ filled with masculine touches, dark woods, Mellencamp’s own moody artwork, and oversized framed posters of James Dean. ‘ is the musician’s ‘favorite place’.

On June 16, Mellencamp will release their twenty-fifth studio album, Orpheus Descending, which builds on the solemn lyrical themes and delta blues of last year’s Strictly a One-Eyed Jack. It inherits the central sound. Recorded in his studio near Bloomington with his Indiana band over the years, the song is woven with social and political commentary and moments of palpable heartbreak. The album’s indictment of America’s failures is no different than his songs:pink houseBut their message is more succinct and nearly impossible to get wrong. The singer succinctly summarizes its core message from Greek mythology. “Don’t look back,” he said. “There is nothing worth preserving there.”

But during our nearly two-hour exchange, he freely reminisced about his past, including growing up in the idyllic postage stamps of Seymour, Indiana. More recent things have also surfaced, such as the beginning of a seemingly new relationship with a 57-year-old man. A 1-year-old girl from New York City, he didn’t reveal her name.

“I’m a terrible boyfriend,” he admitted. His third marriage to model Elaine Irwin ended in 2011, and among them is actor Meg Ryan and model Christie Brinkley, a famous couple who he says has been dating since their third marriage. said. “You have a very pretty face,” he blurted out to me at one point, but then added, “I don’t think you should say that.” About his own love life, he said: [at that age]”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I was tricked.”

Mellencamp is a living vessel of contradiction, freeing him from everyday people and the problems he sings about. (One of his five children is Teddy Mellencamp Aroyab, an influencer who starred in three seasons of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”)

Since releasing the songI always lie to people I don’t know’” Last year, he was obsessed with cheating and how it played out on public and private forums. “We have been fooled by schools, governments, laws, men, women, churches and families,” he said. “We’re all locked in solitary confinement inside our own bodies.”

But the blue-collar champion also confessed to relying on his men for decades of wealth and privilege. While he’s on tour, a personal assistant can help with everything from healthy habits like stretching, meditation, and eating, to the style of hotel room he prefers. “You know, I never wrote a check,” he said. A few years ago, when he decided to renew his driver’s license on his own, he didn’t know he had to take the money with him. Those at the Bloomington DMV that day found a local celebrity begging for money.

Could Mellencamp remain in Indiana, the salt-of-the-ground man who thrived against all odds? Or is he a private jet playboy with models and influencers? Can one be both?

“He knows where he comes from. He never forgot it,” friend Billy Joel said in a phone interview. “He’s always rooting for the underdog, and when people are in trouble, he can empathize with it.”

“He knows where he comes from. He never forgot it,” Billy Joel says of his friend John Mellencamp.

(Diana King/For the Times)

Mellencamp co-founded Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young in 1985 to help family farmers amid widespread foreclosures under Ronald Reagan’s economic policies. Now, his commitment to the cause has lasted longer than any of his marriages. And Mellencamp considers his own life, beyond the bona fide wealthy, utterly implausible.

Born with spina bifida, he and four other infants underwent experimental surgery at Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. “Three of them died on the operating table,” he said. “Another girl lived to be like 16, and I survived. So you’re looking at the luckiest man in the world.” was operated on.”

Artist formerly known as John Cougar Mellencamp.

(Bob Sasha/Corbis via Getty Images)

Since hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with “American Fool” in 1982, Mellencamp (then John Cougar, née Johnny Cougar, then known as John Cougar Mellencamp) has been a heartthrob. Among Rand’s rock buddies, he is an underdog and a person who has overcome the times. An idiosyncratic river from pop star to Americana trailblazer to cranky folk singer. Although he famously kicked a skeptical record executive out of the “American Fool” sessions and has since denied any input from the label, he, like his late friend John Prine, has run his own artist-run label. has never been launched. He is in the business of selling.

“I don’t like businessmen or cops. They are dangerous people.”

He may not be as famous as Bruce Springsteen – the duo performed “Did You Say That a Thing” and “Wasted Days” in last year’s Strictly A One-Eyed Jack. – but he likes to be his underdog. “I have always been an outsider. I will continue to be an outsider,” he said.

“For better or worse, he’s very loyal to his way,” country star Keith Urban told The Times.

In 1988, while Urban was playing in an Australian bar band, he was watching Mellencamp’s Lonesome Jubilee Tour with a nosebleed. At the time, Urban said he didn’t know what direction to take in his life and career. “John came out on stage with the best band I’ve ever seen. Kenny Aronoff on drums, Toby Myers on bass, Larry Crane, Mike Wansick, Lisa Germano on fiddle and accordion. It was a band that represented Mellencamp called John Casella,” he recalled. “I saw the stage and I was like, ‘Oh, I get it.’ Combine all your influences to make your own sound and do your own thing. That’s what you have to do.” Keith, and it was deep.

John Mellencamp (left) and Bruce Springsteen perform at the 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

(Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic via Getty Images)

Mellencamp’s 2023 tour will feature conceptual elements including scenes from favorite classic films such as Hud and The Grapes of Wrath, as well as elaborate displays filled with antique-style lights and mannequins of movie characters. It features a set and is an opportunity for fans. “Let’s get into the world of John Mellencamp,” he said. “The goal was, ‘OK, you don’t walk into a concert.’ I was. “But as we went along, it became more like a concert, because it’s too difficult to challenge the audience.”

At concerts in Los Angeles and Evansville, Indiana, his most enthusiastic and immediate reaction from the crowd was to hits like:small townand “Hurts So Good,” but his efforts to subvert that pattern were evident. He turned the barn-burning “Jack & Diane” into a minimalist folk song with a guitar. A compassionate anecdote about a homeless woman he met in Oregon preceded the lyrically hamstringy but well-meaning protest song of “Orpheus Advent,” “The Eyes of Portland.” was written. However, “they don’t really want to hear the new songs,” he admitted. “They want to hear songs they know.”

Yet he did not stop speaking his mind. “This is a woman’s body and women should be able to do what they want,” he said of the recent wave of anti-abortion legislation. “How can you say ‘you can’t kill a baby’ and then tell everyone you want a gun?” I wonder? “It just says to me that you don’t care.”

After denigrating how Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have resigned (“Her ego wouldn’t let her stop”), he declared to the Supreme Court: It’s just another branch of government that doesn’t work.

“Think only of yourself, leave others alone, and help your neighbors if you can,” he added of his overall outlook.

On an average day when not making records or touring, Mellencamp works in his art studio from 11am to 5pm, then exercises, eats dinner and relaxes. Tonight he’s going to watch “Old People’s News” (“60 Minutes”) while drinking soup.

In a recent performance, Mellencamp shared an anecdote about a relative’s longevity. His grandmother lived to be 100 years old. On this day, he said, his father was 93 and had “two or three girlfriends.”

“I don’t know if they’re girlfriends in the traditional sense, but they take care of him. They go out to dinner with him, drive him around. .”

Mellencamp has smoked since she was 10 and said she has no plans to quit. But “I had an MRI of my lungs and I’m proud to say that he looks like a kid’s lungs,” he said, puffing on a cigarette. “Doctors don’t get it.”

Will he be a statistical anomaly that avoids the lethal effects of smoking? “They will take me somewhere else,” he said. “Tobacco has a way around it.”