J ohn Fogerty is going up around the TV bend this week, making a guest appearance and providing the theme song for Fox TV’s new series “The Finder,” which debuts at 9 p.m. ET on Jan. 12.
“The producers of the show, I guess they’re big fans and had this idea that they wanted me to play a character,” Fogerty tells Billboard.com. “They had a storyline that was inspired, I guess, by some events in my real life. And then as things rolled along, they asked me to create a theme for their show.” Fogerty says “The Finder” tune “sounds very much like me… kind of my swampy sort of sound. It’s short; it’s enough for an opening credit theme but it’s fun to play it. I have to admit when I got to the point where I was mixing that I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, this sure is cool. It will be great to hear something like this on TV,’ because it’s much more my kind of element rather than the usual sort of spacey, techno stuff you always hear.”
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There are no plans to make “The Finder” theme available for sale, but Fogerty did perform a stripped-down version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” for the episode and will post it for free download on his johnfogerty.com website for a week after the show airs.
In the episode, Fogerty plays a musician whose stolen guitar is returned to him by main character Walter Sherman (Geoff Stults). But Fogerty says the script felt more like “a metaphor for all that I’ve lost… It’s kind of their take on my life. I was surprised that they knew so much about me.”
Fogerty says he enjoyed working on the episode. “It’s fun to try new stuff. I must say the people on the set, the producers and other actors, were very supportive. There was no ‘Who’s this guy coming in here? He’s not a professional! He doesn’t know anything about this stuff!’ Everybody was kind of ‘roll up your sleeves and do the episode the best you can,’ that sort of thing. I really liked the work ethic of how it comes together. It was fascinating.”
The theme for “The Finder” isn’t the only new music Fogerty has been working on. He says he’s been “working on an album for a few months” and recording original material with several possible guests, including the Foo Fighters and country stars Brad Paisley (“A person I really admire for a whole bunch of reasons and a heck of a nice guy, too”) and Miranda Lambert (“She’s a great voice and a great, soulful presence in music, and really a delightful person.”) No release date has been determined yet for the album, though Fogerty will also be touring this year, including March dates in Australia and New Zealand and a possible North American run later.
He’s also heard about negative comments from former CCR mates Stu Cook and Doug Clifford in response to a gentle reunion overture Fogerty made during 2011. “Somebody just asked me about a reunion and that sort of thing…and I said that I suppose if somebody started talking about it, I’d at least sit down and listen,” Fogerty recalls. “I was surprised I was so mellow about it…But I’ve heard through the grapevine the other fellas were really upset or something over that. So I sent back, ‘Oh. I guess there’s no reunion then.'”