John Mellencamp is fairly certain he won’t be able to hear much sooner rather than later.
“I’ll probably be totally deaf by the time the tour’s over,” Mellencamp, 75, shared on the Thursday, October 29, episode of the “Nepo, Baby” podcast. “I wear earplugs and stuff, but I do not ever, will I ever get hearing aids.”
The “Jack and Diane” singer wrapped his Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits run of shows this past August after nearly 20 dates. He currently doesn’t have any shows listed on his website.
As for why he doesn’t want to sign up for hearing aids, the Grammy winner said he won’t forget what his relatives used to say.
“My grandmother said, ‘John, don’t ever get hearing aids because once you get them, you can’t live without them,’” he recalled on the podcast. “She said, ‘If you think chasing around a pair of glasses is a drag, wait till you start chasing around a pair of glasses and some hearing aids.’”
During the podcast taping, which featured his son and Mellencamp Whiskey founder Hud Mellencamp, John said he struggles with pulsatile tinnitus.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the condition creates a thumping or swooshing noise in your head. The noise seems to keep time with your heartbeat.
“I don’t like going out [to eat] ‘cause I can’t hear. Right now, my ears are ringing like crazy, and I have pulsatile tinnitus, which is, I hear, my heartbeat,” John shared. “And we go into a restaurant and it’s just like, ‘Well, I’m out.’ Because I can’t hear anything, because I hear all this noise and stuff and you know, I’m sure people don’t want to keep [yelling] in my face or… so just add tinnitus on top of that and it’s impossible.”
As John continues to spend time in Indiana, he would never object to having more family members move closer.
During a January episode of the Today show, John expressed wishes that daughter Teddi Mellencamp would consider saying goodbye to California.
“I’m going to go out and see her [in Los Angeles],” John shared on the morning show. “I’ve tried to talk her into moving back home. I said, ‘Move back to Indiana, bring the kids and just come back and live in Indiana,’ but she won’t do it.”
Despite any distance, John remains extremely close with his family, as evident by Teddi’s speech for her dad at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards.
“We’re celebrating the icon, the artist, a man the whole world shows is John Mellencamp,” she said in March. “A man I get to call Dad and my best friend.”
