John Mellencamp
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
It was like, you know, he's so American.
Yeah, I was a fucking hillbilly.
Yeah, but you know what?
I learned stuff from some of the critics that were good.
Well, one of my best friends was a guy named Tim White, who was the editor of Rolling Stone and the editor of Billboard magazine, and he died a few years ago.
And you want to hear some inside baseball?
Tim and I talked every day.
And Tim is as different as me, as you.
Tim wore a bow tie, white bucks, you know, blue jeans, suit jacket every day.
And he was the editor of Rolling Stone for a long time.
And then he became editor of Billboard and he called me up and he said,
I'm going to have to sign a deal with SoundScan.
I didn't know what that was.
He goes, John, you don't understand the ramifications of signing a deal with SoundScan.
I said, well, what are they?
He goes, you'll be out of business.