Doug Clifford Talks Strained Relationship With John Fogerty: ‘I Don’t Hate the Guy’

Even after decades of feuding — and even in the midst of another lawsuit -- ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford insists he has love for his former bandmate John Fogerty.

"I'm not impressed with John as a person," Clifford admitted during a recent interview with the Arizona Republic. "I'm very disappointed in a guy I would have jumped in front of a bullet for at a certain point in my life. But it's like a family. You may not like what's going on. You may not like the person. But you love them because they're family."

Difficult as it surely is to keep the years of acrimony from tainting his feelings for the music they made together, Clifford still stands behind Creedence's incredible string of hits — and continues to perform them with Creedence Clearwater Revisited, alongside ex-CCR bassist Stu Cook. "We had an amazing run and I'm proud of it. I'm just sort of disappointed in the way it came out in the end," Clifford pointed out. "Not the music. Thank God for the music. That's our legacy. That's what I want to hang my hat on because that's what it's all about."

Calling Fogerty a "control freak" who destroyed the group rather than loosen his iron grip over the material, Clifford argued that while the songwriting credits may not have reflected it, Creedence's music was always more democratic than people may have understood: "The river of songs that came out is from when we would come in and jam when the albums were being made. Songs would come out of those jams and we never got credit. Each one of us brought something to the table that made that whole thing work."

Lamenting that he and Cook "took the blame as the a--holes who thought we could become singer-songwriters" after Creedence broke up, Clifford concluded, "I wish John well. People say, 'You must really hate the guy.' I don't hate the guy. I love the guy. I just don't like the way he operates."

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