Stuttering John

Born on October 4, 1965, in Massapequa, New York, "Stuttering John" Melendez first gained widespread attention through his notorious on-air celebrity interviews for The Howard Stern Show. He joined the program as an intern in 1989, after which Stern thrust him into the public eye by capitalizing on his stutter and casting the self-described "hero of the stupid" in confrontations with politicians and entertainers through deliberately absurd inquiries. Examples include his question to Ringo Starr about what he had done with the money his mother provided for singing lessons, his inquiry to ZZ Top regarding whether the band members ever vomited and ended up with large pieces lodged in their beards, and his probe of Michael Jackson about whether the singer had learned to walk backwards specifically to dodge blows from his father. Even as his profile rose through this association with Stern, Melendez kept chasing a separate ambition in music by leading the short-lived groups Mund and Rubber Beaver. He issued the heavy metal album Stuttering John in 1994 and followed it with Everybody's Normal But Me in 1998.