![]() ![]() Seated at a long table, a glass ashtray and blue pack of American Spirit cigarettes within reach, Mellencamp, 71, spoke with a geniality that belied his outspoken reputation. “Keep slugging,” he told farmers gathered at a climate action protest in March in Washington, D.C. Last year, during his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech for his entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman, he decried antisemitism in the wake of Kanye West’s public meltdown (“F- antisemitism, and f- anybody who says anything in that manner,” Mellencamp declared). Throughout the years, Mellencamp has been a human battering ram against Republicans who’ve attempted to twist his progressive populist anthems into 10 cent expressions of patriotism. Since achieving fame in the early ’80s, the “ Jack & Diane” singer has been many things - working-class hero, Farm Aid activist, tabloid fodder - but polite isn’t one of them. Historically, he hasn’t seemed to care what anyone thinks about him or his smoking. I’m a f- ass-,” to Details magazine shortly after he had a heart attack in the ’90s, the conscientious remark was unexpected. But coming from Mellencamp, an intractable firebrand and unrepentant nicotine addict who once declared, “I’m still smoking. Said by anyone else, this nicety is unremarkable. In a black zip-up sweater, black track pants and a graying, tousled pompadour, he climbed to the top floor of his barn-like art studio, constructed by Amish builders two decades ago, and cracked a 7.5-ounce can of Coca-Cola. On a breezy Sunday afternoon in May - a day off from his Live and in Person tour - John Mellencamp descended the golf cart he uses to navigate his expansive, sylvan estate in Bloomington, Ind. ![]()
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