The first time local high school teacher John Mollica saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 he knew he was destined to become a musician. That moment sparked a passion in his heart that would live on forever.
“I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, and I’m still doing it,”said Mollica, who currently lives in Cliffside Park and teaches at Memorial High School in West New York. “It’s what defines me. It’s what I love to do.”
Growing up in the mean streets of 1960s and 1970s West New York, Mollica’s essence was forged by what he witnessed on a daily basis.
“Desperate living, the tenement dwellers,” said Mollica. “I’m surrounded by it my whole life. I find that’s fertile ground to write about. The great conflicts of everyday life come out of that.”
Like all compelling stories, Mollica’s songs feature universally relatable themes and multi-dimensional characters faced with adversity and misfortune.
“My protagonists are flawed, tragic characters all desperately configuring to break out of their doomed traps the only way they knew how – either with a gun, a weak plan, and always, always, with limited hope,” he said.
In his song “They’ll Never Find Me Here,” Mollica’s lyrics depict a dark world of desperation surrounding a person, cast-down and struggling to return to what he loves most.
Underneath a restless moon,
I shot out the stars, I robbed a car in Jersey City,
I didn’t get that far,
The county cops nailed me on a Bayonne pier
Now I’m coming back to you, babe
They’ll never find me here
“Besides the themes of modern crime and violence, my songs are a confessional discussing alienation, ill-fated love, Italian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, and personal identity,” he said. “I try to remain associative and lyrical enough to reflect the lives of my listeners.”
“Great songs possess a wondrous sense of longing. They remind us of that place we want to be, but can’t get to.” – John Mollica
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Big dreams, strong faith
Greatly influenced by rock ‘n’ roll’s revolutionary artists, Mollica wanted to establish an image of authenticity combined with an innovative fusion of refined edginess.
“Back in the late ’70s, I had a vision for what I felt would be an extremely original musical presentation,” he said. “For me, it was always Paul Simon meets The Ramones, Bob Dylan meets The Clash, Leonard Cohen meets The Sex Pistols, Neil Diamond meets the New York Dolls. I loved the idea of the ’60s song/poets meeting the ’70s street punks.”
Embodying his vision, Mollica took the stage name of The Johnny Caruso Story.
“Into the mix, I sprinkled a little bit of Al Capone and every old gangster movie Hollywood had to offer, and out came The Johnny Caruso Story,” he said.
It seemed as if Mollica’s prayers had finally been answered when Jim Cretecos, Bruce Springsteen’s former producer, began managing The Johnny Caruso Story.
“We were ass-kickin,” said Mollica. “We played on the same bill with artists like Gary US Bonds, The Good Rats, Rick Derringer, and Clarence Clemons and the Red Bank Rockers. My father came to one of our premier shows and someone asked him if he was Mr. Caruso. He responded angrily, ‘No! Regardless of what that kid calls himself, I’m still Mr. Mollica’.”
The Johnny Caruso Story’s success was taking off without a hitch.
Everything seemed to be falling into place for Mollica. This would prove to be one of the most fulfilling moments in his professional career.
“I performed for the legendary Columbia Records recording visionary John Hammond,” said Mollica. “He signed Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, among many others, to Columbia Records. I sat right in his office and played my songs for him on the guitar. He was very impressed with my songwriting. He said he couldn’t wait for Springsteen to hear me.”
A fateful twist
His dreams were close to becoming a reality. He could taste success, but a fateful twist during this joyful time quickly turned into a modern-day tragedy for The Johnny Caruso Story.
“Greed, mismanagement, and foolish, misplaced loyalties all contributed to the whole thing going up in smoke,” said Mollica. “It sickened me. It broke my heart. I was ruined. I walked around for years beating myself up asking myself how I could have blown such a wonderful opportunity. I managed to pick up the pieces and move on, but it is still unfinished business as far as I’m concerned. The albatross is very heavy.”
Anyone who’s ever had a dream, or has simply experienced a great loss, can sympathize, on a human level, with Mollica’s disillusion. Since then, Mollica’s stage name has morphed into Johnny Boy Mollica; a nickname given to him by his close friends and family.
‘The best teacher I have ever had’
Mollica, 58, has been an English, Film, and Humanities teacher at his alma mater, Memorial High School, for the past 33 years.
Two of his former students from the class of 2009 expressed their warm sentiments toward Mollica and his genuine and passionate approach in the classroom.
“I remember when I first met him in my college prep English course,” said Rosemarie Suarez. “He seemed like the type of teacher that, if you handed him an apple, he would bean it at your head. He loved his students, though.”
For the students, walking in to his class was the best part of their day. They knew that by the time the class had come to an end, they’d leave knowing something they didn’t know before. His in-depth analysis and passionate interpretation of the coming-of-age novel, “The Catcher in the Rye,” and its themes of individuality, innocence, alienation, and adulthood, stayed with his students forever.
“Mr. Mollica shaped my entire way of thinking,” said Stephanie Osorio. “He showed all of his students that it’s okay to question life, and even your own beliefs. He brought passion into every single lesson plan and in turn, passed along that passion of literature to his students.”
Apart from introducing his students to critically-acclaimed works of literature, film, and music, the life lessons he imparted are what his students remember him best for.
“What I love about him most is that he doesn’t care what people think about him,” said Osorio. “He’s completely genuine, and will push you to be the best version of you, because he can see beyond what a lot of his students do. He was and continues to be the best teacher I have ever had. The lessons he taught me will stay with me forever.”
“Mr. Mollica taught me that in this world, you can do anything,” said Suarez. “People aren’t going to like you, and that’s okay. You can’t be afraid to be different, because people are afraid of different. Being different threatens people.”
A dream that will never die
Even after more than three decades of teaching, Mollica loves his day job. But music is and will remain his one true passion.
“I still love teaching,” he said. “The kids I work with keep me young and inspire me, but I’m a songwriter first. To me, songwriting is the greatest art form there is. Great songs possess a wondrous sense of longing. They remind us of that place we want to be, but can’t get to.”
“It’s a really strange thing,” he continued. “The songs that I love most present heartbreaking let downs and broken promises, while leaving us with shreds of romantic hope to carry on as we ride off into the sunset of the unknown. That’s what a fade out is to me, and that’s the feeling I try to evoke in my writing.”
Some of Mollica’s favorite songwriters include The Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen and Carole King, to name a few.
“[They all] did what I’m talking about beautifully,” said Mollica. “They had something to say. Whether I achieved it or not is your call, but I’m trying.”
These days, Mollica can be seen spending time with his family, and working on his music. Mollica lights up when talking about his 12-year-old son, Nicholas, who is following in his artistic footsteps.
“He’s the light of my life,” he said. “He’s a great kid. He plays the guitar. He’s a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He likes that. [Having a child is] a life-changing event.”
Mollica is currently in the process of recording a double album – a retrospective, as he calls it. Titled “West New York,” the album will include 20 songs, and should be released next year.
“I’m working with some really good people,” he said. “I have so many songs. I think my newest songs are really good. They’re dark and moody and rooted in Hudson County. The audiences I play for seem to like what I’m doing.”
Mollica can be seen performing locally in clubs like The Sidewalk Cafe in the East Village, his favorite venue, Caffe Vivaldi, and The Vagabond Café, both in the West Village.
For Mollica, patience and faith are key when struggling to make dreams a reality.
“You gotta learn to wait for things,” he said. “If you learn to wait for things, they’ll come. If they don’t, they weren’t meant to come. There’s nothing you can do about it.”