Rocker John Pierson pays tribute to favorite bands with podcast

John Pierson has the kind of diverse and accomplished creative resume that can make many of us feel like shiftless do-nothings.

The Mount Prospect native is the co-founder of Screeching Weasel, one of the most influential punk bands of the '80s and '90s, and a member of several other bands. He's a longtime member of the Neo-Futurists, an experimental theater troupe based in Chicago. He's a successful playwright. He's published two novels. He's an actor and a teacher.

All of that work didn't stop him, though, from recently adding yet another item to his resume: Podcaster.

Pierson, known in his Screeching Weasel days as "John Jughead," produces a regular podcast titled "Jughead's Basement," in which he pays tribute to his favorite rock and punk albums by interviewing the bands who made them.

The idea for the podcast, available at jugheadsbasement.com, emerged from a couple of places, Pierson says. First, he was (and is) a passionate rock 'n' roll fan, the kind who can't resist a chance to talk about bands, songs and albums with others similarly obsessed.

The second factor was a flood in his basement that destroyed a number of his prized vinyl records.

"I realized then that instead of just replacing those records, I could bring them to life in a different, less tangible kind of way," Pierson, 48, said in a phone interview. "I'd gotten to be friends with a lot of bands, and I thought interviewing them about great albums they'd made would be a cool way to re-create them."

And so, "Jughead's Basement" was born. Each episode focuses on a particular album that's important to Pierson. He talks about the album himself, but he also includes interviews with band members and commentary from friends, critics and journalists.

He interviews the band members separately, so that each gets an equal chance to contribute to the overall story. And he doesn't post an episode unless he can get roughly three-quarters of the members to grant interviews.

"It's important to me that the story be as complete as possible," he said. "That's part of why I do the interviews separately. In a group setting, it's pretty common for one member to kind of take charge and dominate the conversation."

The very first episode came out in 2012, and it focused on the soundtrack album to the 1984 cult film "Repo Man." The album, which featured tracks from bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks and Suicidal Tendencies, introduced Pierson to punk while he was a Northwest suburban teenager who spent his time hanging out (and eventually working) at the old Randhurst Mall movie theater.

"That record was definitely an eye-opener for me," he said. "It seemed natural to start the podcast with it."

Other episodes focus on bands as varied as the Feelies, Big Black, Naked Raygun and the Promise Ring. He even did one on "My Brain Hurts," the beloved 1991 record from Screeching Weasel.

Assembling a podcast episode is difficult work, Pierson said, particularly at the editing stage. But he finds it as creatively rewarding as his other artistic pursuits.

"It's when the editing starts that the creativity comes into play," he said. "I try to make the episodes flow well, so that they follow the progression of the album they're discussing, with the right balance of talk and music."

The podcast, which is free, remains a labor of love for Pierson, something he works on in between his various other creative pursuits. He recently spent time in New York and San Francisco working with Neo Futurist companies in those cities, and he remains active in music, as well. Not long ago, he spent about a year in Japan, portraying a character at a Universal Studios theme park.

"Growing up, I didn't really have any serious creative ambitions," he said. "It was the formation of Weasel in the '80s that made me start to take that seriously.

"My professional choices haven't always been the most lucrative," he added with a laugh. "But I'm very thankful for what I've been able to do."