John Tristao spent 21 years subbing for John Fogerty in Creedence Clearwater Revisited — an experience he calls 'pure torture.' He also spent time in Scientology in the Sixties, appeared on The Gong Show, and got puked on by Janis Joplin.
Tristao spent 21 years fronting Creedence Clearwater Revisited, playing roughly 1,800 shows with them all across the globe. But he clashed with Clifford the entire time, struggled many nights to hit the high notes of songs like “Up Around The Bend,” and dealt with a backlash from fans and critics that never seemed to let up.
It was the start of a very long and bumpy journey that brought him to the Scientology Celebrity Center,I’ve read that you knew Janis Joplin. Tell me about that. I liked to sing and drum at the same time back then, so we were doing the double drummer thing. That’s truly where they got the idea to do it. It was from us.
We all knew that they were Scientologists. That’s why they moved to L.A., to get closer to the organization. I told them when I joined, “I’m not going to do that.” And they said, “Fine. No problem.” They told us when we die here, you go to this planet that is operated by bears. They have this carnival, and they put you on these rides and shock you and implant these terrible thoughts in your reactive mind. You come back to Earth to get rid of that. I know that I’m out there, but this is even too far for me.Yeah. He was a brilliant guy. He was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. His family was wonderful, all of them.The band basically started falling apart.
And so we just started goofing around. We had a couple of terrible players. But we did have Jim Armstrong, who later on was playing with Papa Doo Run Run. They were a great surf band. And gradually with Daddy-O, people started enjoying what we did. So I started writing skits. We got into doing full-blown theatrics and costume changes and that kind of thing. It was really, really fun.. That period was having a major nostalgic moment.
And so eventually, one at a time, guys start quitting. You start replacing key figures in the band, and it’s not the same. It changes everything. We went on and on and on and actually had great local success, but just couldn’t grab anything out of that.I was part of an advertising agency. We had also formed another version of Daddy-O. I got remarried, and my wife was a local singer, just an awesome singer. I made the horrible mistake of getting her in the band.
Stu was talking to him one day. He said that him and Doug were going to put the band back together, and they couldn’t find a singer. Michael said, “Hey, I got the guy.” And that’s how it happened.When I was doing the Fifties thing, people said I had the gift of mimic. I have a Fogerty-ish voice, mainly because I know how he got his tone. That was partially thanks to Michael McDonald. He taught me how to do that. I met Michael when he was on retainer with the Doobie Brothers.
It must have been a mixture of euphoria and anxiety, since you now had to fill the shoes of one of the great singers of the rock era. You really were in an impossible situation. To many fans, it was sacrilegious that this group even existed without John Fogerty. I thought Creedence Clearwater Revisited was perfect. That’s really what it was. We were just covering the music, revisiting that great era, and those great songs.Yeah. We briefly lost the name. In fact, I had to go to court in L.A. to prove my name was John. He was saying that I called myself John to further confuse the public. Oh my god! So I had to bring my birth certificate down there. I got to on the stand, and I showed it to the judge. I said, “No, see, this was my mom’s idea.
Did you get close to Doug and Stu at all offstage, or did you always feel like they were your bosses? With the lights in your face, I couldn’t see past those few rows. I’d be looking at these people, and some of them were sleeping. Some were yawning. Some of them were just obviously not enjoying it. I was like, “Man, you’re sucking the life out of me here.” That was hard.
Well, it did because I was stuck in this thought that there was nothing I could do that was good enough to knock Stu out of the park. When I did what I considered to be a damn near-perfect show, the response I got was, “Hey, good job.” This whole time, John and the guys are always bashing each other in the press. Meanwhile, you’re just caught in the crossfire again and again.
I had the first attack, went to the hospital. They did a bunch of tests, and sent me home saying I had gas. “Gas? Hey, guys, this was more than a fart, trust me.” And like I say, I understand it. I really don’t fault him for that. But they just kicked me to the curb. The hard part for me was when I was in the hospital, my room alone was $150,000 a day. I was in there almost a month. So when I came out, I had a bill of $2.4 million. My insurance wouldn’t pay any of it. So needless to say, that broke me.
That said, I’m really fortunate it happened when it did. We were in South America shortly before that. If it had happened there, I’d be in the ground.Oh, they are done. They retired. They retired in February [2020], and Covid hit in March. That was just what I call the real stroke of luck. But they were heading that way. Toward the end, when I was with them, they were already talking retirement. I don’t know what drove them. In my eyes, the guy who replaced me, Dan, is a good singer.
That wasn’t the point. The point was to explain my life. People would constantly ask me, “Why do you come off as such a tough guy?” Well, I had an abusive childhood. My whole biker presentation was, “Leave me alone.”When I was trying to talk about the way I was treated by him and Stu… You can’t single one guy out. They were both my bosses. I thought, “If I say the wrong thing, I couldn’t survive a Creedence lawsuit,” which they’re famous for.
I felt, “I have to do something with my time. I’m driving my wife nuts. I’ll volunteer at the hospital. I’ve got a small case of emphysema, so I don’t smoke pot anymore, so I don’t have to worry about being drug tested. I’ll sign on as a replacement courier.”
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