John Mellencamp Not Fighting Corporate Giants Anymore

NY (Launch) - John Mellencamp summer tour--which kicked off yesterday (July 31) in San Diego and runs until this year's Farm Aid concert in Noblesville, Indiana, on September 29--is visiting the usually array of summer amphitheaters. Many of those venues are owned and/or operated by SFX, the music-industry conglomerate that Mellencamp has been critical of in recent years. In fact, during his last tour, he said he wouldn't play such venues again.

Now, however, Mellencamp tells he's changed his tune a bit. "This is the changing world," he says. "A lot of the stuff that I believed in the '80s and early '90s just didn't seem to matter to anybody. Nobody gives a f--k, you know? And if this is the way it is, well then, you know, this is the way it is. I've made the decision I'm not gonna sit there and do what Pearl Jam tried to do. It's stupid, 'cause--you know, OK, noble cause, guys--at the end of the f--kin' day, it ruined their career."

Mellencamp has finished work on a new album, Cuttin' Heads, which is due out this fall.