This Roxborough ‘country bumpkin’ is starting a Garrett Stubbs Club and releasing a ‘Philbilly Country’ album

Meet John McGlaughlin, a Roxborough native and Navy officer who’s starting the East Coast chapter of the Garrett Stubbs Club, is releasing a “Philbilly Country” album, and drives a Phillies/Eagles Honda Acty kei truck.

Growing up with four siblings in Roxborough, John McGlaughlin spent his summers barefoot, building forts near the Wissahickon Creek and playing baseball at sandlots.

“I didn’t even really know I was in Philadelphia most of the time,” he said. “I was a huge Philadelphia sports fan, but I didn’t really associate downtown Philadelphia with where we lived.”

When his suburban classmates at Archbishop Carroll High found out he was from Roxborough, they called him “city people,” but when McGlaughlin went to the heart of Philly and told people where he was from, he got a different response.

“They’re like, ‘You’re like Philbillies, man. That’s not really Philadelphia at all,’” he said.

The term was meant as an insult but McGlaughlin — who fell in love with the storytelling of country music as a kid while listening to 92.5 WXTU — took ownership of it. On Friday, he’s releasing his first album, Philbilly Country, under his nickname, “Johnny Rockhead.” It features the eponymous track and other bangers, like “Irish Goodbye” and “Cherry Wooder Ice.”

“I wanted to write a song that involved the words wooder and ice,” he said.

McGlaughlin, 40, wrote and recorded the album in between his work as a Navy JAG Corps officer stationed in Rhode Island, his life as a husband and father of two, and his new duties as a charter member of the East Coast chapter of the Stubbs Club, a tribute to fun-loving Phillies backup catcher Garrett Stubbs (the Navy does not endorse the album or the fan club but did confirm McGlaughlin’s active-duty status).

“Right now it’s just four members and we’re going to have some signs made up: ‘Day drinking for the day gamer’ and ‘Stubbs Club,’” he said.

The club will debut at the Phillies home opener Friday and McGlaughlin will arrive in style in his 1996 Honda Acty kei truck, which is custom-painted in half Phillies and half Eagles colors with a green P on the front and team emblems on either side.

McGlaughlin loves taking it to games when he’s in town. Most of the time.

“People go nuts at Eagles tailgates,” he said. “It’s a little terrifying because people surround it and they’re like ‘Let’s flip it! Let’s flip it!’”

McGlaughlin, who grew up attending games at the 700 level of Veterans Stadium, is used to the fervor of Philly fans.

“One of the earliest memories I have is a Mets fight back in the old Vet,” he said. “The entire 700 level was just awash with fists …and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is the best! I love this place.”

But the wider world called to McGlaughlin. While he eventually got his degree in English from Temple University in 2007, he took time off in between and lived for brief stints in Ireland, Nova Scotia, Poland, and France, working as everything from a sign holder to a bicycle tour guide.

“It’s been a very irregular path through life. There’s been no master strategy,” he said.

In 2005, during a cross-country trip on his motorcycle, McGlaughlin met his future wife, Priscilla, at the Hollywood Hostel in Los Angeles. The pair married in 2012 and have two kids, Johnny, 8, and Pippi, 6.

Realizing he’d been “very much adrift,” in 2008, McGlaughlin enrolled in law school at Drexel University.

“I had a few friends that got jammed up with the criminal justice system and I saw the power of what a lawyer could do,” he said.

After graduating in 2011, McGlaughlin worked as a public defender in Delaware County before becoming a lawyer with the Navy JAG Corps in 2015. He had friends and a brother who’d served and wanted to do the same.

Since enlisting, McGlaughlin, a lieutenant commander, has been stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Sasebo, Japan; and now, Newport, R.I.

“It’s the best move I could have made. It’s been awesome,” he said. “But I’m still Philadelphia obsessed. I could not get Philadelphia off my mind.”

While stationed in Sasebo, McGlaughlin bought his Japanese mini-truck for $2,000 from a car dealer there who drove a hearse. All three sides of the bed fold down, the driver’s seat is on the right, it’s manual, the seats are ripping apart, and it only goes up to 70 mph. But McGlaughlin loves it.

“You can park it anywhere,” he said.

Since it’s more than 25 years old, he was able to have it shipped back to the U.S. when he returned last year. It has temporary tags; McGlaughlin is still waiting for permanent registration from PennDot.

He first had the truck painted in an all-Phillies theme last year, then decided to do half Eagles on it a few months later. The total cost of both paint jobs was more than the truck itself.

McGlaughlin named the vehicle “WLDCARD,” in honor of the Phillies’ recent playoff runs.

“They’ve been wild cards forever,” he said.

The truck stars in many of McGlaughlin’s music videos, which he makes around Roxborough with his friends. It’s also on the cover of his album, which he’s releasing Friday under the name “Johnny Rockhead,” a nickname given to him by his dad when he was a bigheaded little kid.

McGlaughlin, who taught himself to play the guitar and has only performed in public twice, loves songwriting and downplays his guitar and vocal skills.

When his good buddy Dennis Small Jr. — a Marine veteran who once gave him a Taylor Rosewood guitar — died at 37 of COVID-19 in 2020, McGlaughlin made it his goal to get one of his songs recorded by a real artist.

“When he died, it really messed me up. It just put things into perspective for me,” McGlaughlin said. “You really do only have a very short time.”

He tried to get songs out through several avenues, but when he had no luck breaking in, McGlaughlin decided to record his own 15-song album.

He worked with Michael Harmon at Studio Crash in Kensington, who guided him through the process and offered suggestions. Instead of ending a song with the classic Southern line of “Y’all come back now, you hear?” Harmon suggested “Youse guys all come back now, you hear? We out. Go Birds.”

The resulting album is humorous and heartfelt, with a healthy dose of Philly. In the song “Philbilly Country,” McGlaughlin name drops the Wissahickon, Devil’s Pond, and the Eagles. And in “Cherry Wooder Ice” he writes about Rita’s and sings, “Girls like you don’t pick guys like me. You got me feeling like I hit the PA lottery.”

McGlaughlin is releasing 50 CDs (”I grew up in the ‘90s; I want a physical product”), and they’ll be available at philbillycountry.com, where he’ll also post music videos and updates on other platforms where the songs can be heard.

As excited as he is for his album release this week, McGlaughlin is just as excited for the Phillies home opener Friday, where his East Coast chapter of the Stubbs Club will make its debut — shirtless, in Phillies overalls with empty cases of Budweiser on their heads and cans of Bud in their front pockets.

McGlaughlin began planning the club during the off season, but recently discovered there’s already an existing Stubbs Club, which formed in Fresno, Calif., when Stubbs played minor league ball with the Fresno Grizzlies.

So instead of starting a new club, he reached out to the founder of the original one and got permission to charter an East Coast chapter. The Fresno crew now hopes to make a trip to Philly this summer “to join the East Coast chapter in celebrating all things Stubbs,” McGlaughlin said.

The Stubbs Club will be in parking lot S and in the standing-room-only section under the PhanaVision at the Phillies home opener, for those interested in inquiring about membership.