John Mellencamp enjoys a good dustup, so much so that the man formerly known as Cougar once did an entire press circuit proudly sporting a black eye on late-night television. But yeah, this anecdote still hurts so bad: In a New York Times interview, Mellencamp admitted he once initiated a physical altercation with former Cars front man and noted hunk Benjamin Orr, for reasons he doesn’t seem to want to elaborate on. “I built my own studio in Indiana because I couldn’t get along with anyone in the multiplex,” he said. “I punched the blond-haired singer of the Cars. I fought all the time, and lost all the time.” Mellencamp also recalled how he “got kicked off every tour” he embarked on as an opening act in his early years as a performer. Orr died back in 2000 from pancreatic cancer, so we’re left to our own devices to figure out if their tiff occurred during the parallel studio sessions of John Cougar and Candy-O or The Lonesome Jubilee and Door to Door.
