‘Stuttering John’ Ready for Rock World : Pop music: While keeping his radio job with Howard Stern, John Melendez releases an album and plays club dates, including two tonight in L.A.

John Melendez--better known as “Stuttering John,” a supporting player on Howard Stern’s popular radio show--says he truly likes to harass and annoy celebrities with outrageous questions in the name of humor and pseudo-journalism.

“I believe in what I’m doing. I really think it’s something funny, and a lot of times these questions are what people really want to ask,” said Melendez, whom Stern hired specifically because he stuttered. “It’s great radio.”

But now Melendez, 28, has taken on a new challenge that has nothing to do with his faltering speech or his willingness to ask whatever irreverent or insulting question Stern and his staff write for him.

He’s released an album of hard-driving rock--called, not surprisingly, “Stuttering John” (although, like country singer Mel Tillis, he doesn’t stutter when he sings).

Actually, Melendez has been playing guitar in a host of bands since his high school days, and Stern has regularly plugged Melendez’s club gigs at the end of his show.

“Ever since I was 5, I’ve been writing songs,” Melendez said in a phone interview from his home on Long Island. “I got my first guitar for my confirmation, then I formed my first band in high school. We won a battle of the bands in 11th grade.”

Thanks in large part to the notoriety he has achieved on the Stern show, Melendez landed a record deal with Atlantic Records and, with the release of “Stuttering John,” has begun striking out beyond the New York area for club dates. He’ll be performing at the Roxy and the Viper Room in Los Angeles tonight and is scheduling appearances in many of the 16 cities where Stern’s syndicated radio show is broadcast.

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His role as Stern’s whipping boy--the one who ventures out with a tape recorder to ask brazen questions and then gets ridiculed for his stuttering while Stern plays the tapes on the air--has not only opened doors for Melendez in his recording career but also has provided the musician with a venue that few, if any, fledgling artists could ever get: Stern has played cuts from Melendez’s record and has praised his music on the air.

“I think Howard has definitely helped me, given me this platform,” Melendez said. “Where else could you write a song and the next day have millions of people listen to it?”

Call it loyalty, gratitude or self-promotional smarts, but don’t expect Melendez to forgo his “Stuttering John” persona in favor of “Rocking John.” He has no plans to leave his day job.

Unless, that is, some superstar rockers were to call and ask him to open for them. “Obviously if Aerosmith asks me to go on tour with them, I’m going to go,” he said. “I think Howard would understand.”

But given Melendez’s penchant for asking irritating questions and ticking off famous folks, including the likes of Lou Reed, Eddie Van Halen and Cher, the music world may not be clamoring for his company. He’s even been banned from covering the Grammy Awards (might that change if he’s up for one someday?) because of a comment he made about one of the members of the pop group Wilson Philips eating the Grammy statuette.

Hired 5 1/2 years ago as an intern, Melendez initially worked on Stern’s radio show without pay, in exchange for free plugs about his club dates. Now he gets paid $20,000 a year for his work interviewing celebrities. On Wednesday, for example, he was on the air playing tapes of questions he had asked a group of ABC stars the day before, including, “What dead animal do you think it is that Ted Koppel wears on his head?,” “Why are there no blacks on ‘Home Improvement’?” and “Are there any lesbian shows being planned for ABC’s schedule?”

Melendez got considerable national coverage in 1992 following Gennifer Flowers’ press conference in which she discussed her alleged affair with then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton.

“I asked Gennifer Flowers if Clinton wore a condom, and the whole place busted up in laughter,” Melendez reminisced. “I also asked her, ‘Will you be sleeping with any other presidential candidates?’ Every news show covered it, even ‘The McLaughlin Report.’ They referred to me as Mr. Melendez, which made my mom real happy.”

Some of Melendez’s more unconventional questions include asking Chastity Bono if she had ever French-kissed her mother, Cher, and inquiring of the Dalai Lama if people addressed him with “Hello, Dalai.” “Some celebrities have a great time with it, but some people just don’t know how to laugh at themselves and it’s a shame,” Melendez said.

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Melendez does possess the ability to laugh at himself.

Though his stutter has been with him since he was 5 and has made him the butt of many jokes over the years, Melendez speaks candidly about it.

“I like it if people say, ‘You stutter. How come?’ My answer is usually, ‘I don’t know why I stutter, but it really sucks,’ ” Melendez said. “It breaks the ice.

“If people laugh at it and people are able to deal with it and ask questions about it, it makes it easier,” he continued. “It’s when people don’t, and hold in laughter and treat it like it’s a special thing--that’s the wrong thing to do.”

Stern certainly doesn’t hold in his laughter, but Melendez believes he’s actually helping other stutterers, rather than encouraging listeners to join Stern in ridiculing them.

“Yes, Howard makes fun of me. It doesn’t really bother me,” he said. “I think by Howard putting me on the air and goofing on me, it really helps the whole situation out. I really believe that. I got a letter from a stutterer recently saying, ‘Thanks a lot. Now people know what it’s all about.’ Stutterers feel that people will think that because they stutter they’re stupid. But people see I’m a normal guy who has a speech impediment and it just kind of makes it easier for me and for stutterers.”

* Melendez will perform with his band Stuttering John at 10 tonight at the Roxy (9009 Sunset Blvd.), and about midnight at the Viper Room (8852 Sunset Blvd.). “The Howard Stern Show” is heard weekday mornings on KLSX-FM (97.1).