Bon Jovi (6 page)

Meatpacking District, New York, NY, December 9, 1999.
Olaf Heine

Aboard
One Wild Night
tour plane, somewhere over California, March 2001.
Cynthia Levine

Meatpacking District, New York, NY, December 9, 1999.
Olaf Heine

Lost Highway
Tour, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Phil Griffin

Lost Highway
tour, Punchestown Racecourse, Dublin, Ireland, June 7, 2008.
Phil Griffin

RICHIE

Lost Highway
tour, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Phil Griffin

A
few years back, we started writing a “proper” band biography. The publishers wanted a tell-all and we were determined to tell nothing. No one was saying a word so we scrapped the idea. But in a way, that says all you need to know about this band.

Through the movie and this book, we’re finally inviting people to witness the relationships between the band members and also between the public and the songs Jon and I have written. The connection people feel to our songwriting is part of what has kept us relevant over so many years. I feel so privileged to be a part of the soundtrack of people’s lives.

The relationship between Jon, Tico, David, and me is a very special bond. It began as we fought to build a career and navigate the ever-changing waters of the music business together. It grew as we each battled our mutual and personal angels and demons. At different times, we were there to pick each other up, lend an ear, or offer a shoulder to lean on. We’ve spent more time together than with our families and that definitively makes us a family.

Jon and I find ourselves closer than ever now; it’s an anomaly the record business has never seen before. That Mick and Keith thing? It was a power struggle that never happened to us. We’re tighter now, after twenty-six years of brotherhood and friendship.

Every night I walk onto the stage, look over my shoulder, and see Tico and Dave. I’m proud as hell to know I’m playing with the best musicians, my brothers. Jon, in my opinion, on any given night is the best front man in the business. I have such mad respect and love for all my bandmates. It is truly an honor.

I feel an enormous responsibility to the band, and especially the fans who come to see us from city to city, country to country, and all over the world. Every night, I give 100 percent of my heart onstage. I’m grateful for that opportunity. I thank you.

I’m excited, not just about the new album but about the future of Bon Jovi. We plan to maintain the integrity and dignity of our songwriting and record-making process and the journey will continue, searching for the evolution of what the band will be.

—Richie

One Wild Night
tour, The Schott, Columbus, OH, May 4, 2001.
Sam Erickson

Lost Highway
tour, Punchestown Racecourse, Dublin, Ireland, June 7, 2008.
Phil Griffin

New Jersey
tour, 1989.
Mark “WEISSGUY” Weiss/www.markweiss.com

Slippery When Wet
tour, 1987.
Neil Zlozower

THE SONGS

Sanctuary Sound II, Middletown, NJ, April 2009.
Phil Griffin (2009)

JON:
The best part of this whole process to me is writing the song, seeing it on a piece of paper.

Then the second phase is recording it and seeing if it came out as good as it was in theory. And then, of course, you want to tour it.

What I try to do—and I realize that I do this to a fault—is I try to find the optimism. I don’t like to write the downer song. I have, but I don’t typically because I want to use the moment for the people who are listening to find something to lift them up.

The recurring theme of eternal optimism seems to be my niche. I’m living there. I’m very, very comfortable in knowing that niche is mine. Bon Jovi have
our
thing.

Art is subjective. It shouldn’t make my music any more important or less important than anyone else’s. It is what it is.

TICO:
It’s magic. It starts from a creative process. Jon and Richie work with a little tape player and some guitars to make a song that works for all of us. If you had a couple of different guys in the band, it would sound totally different. It wouldn’t, it couldn’t be the same song.

JON:
You
can
craft a song. But I’ve found that whenever we crafted a song, those songs didn’t work. I’m not that good a craftsman to make it work so it’s got to come from a real place.

It’s not a conscious effort to write a hit song. It’s a conscious effort to write a great song and if a “Livin’ On A Prayer” or “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” or “It’s My Life” is born, you go, “I want the world to know that we’ve just knocked one out of the park!”

Sure, “Bad Medicine” sounds cute and “You Give Love A Bad Name” is tongue-in-cheek. You remember the lyric though, right?

When I was twenty-five, “Bad Name” was the shit. We were in the mall. We had that hair and those clothes. It was real. That was us, then. But I couldn’t do that today. I don’t think we could sit down to write “You Give Love A Bad Name” again. It would be crafting and it wouldn’t resonate.

TICO:
You can’t manufacture. If you manufacture anything that has to do with creativity—art, music, anything—it won’t work. It will be transparent. It won’t be felt.

JON:
It’s too important that we continue to write songs that move people. I’m not going to follow whatever the trend happens to be at the moment. I have to be true to myself.

We have to be true to ourselves as songwriters and true to what Bon Jovi is about.

Sanctuary Sound II, Middletown, NJ, April 2009.
Phil Griffin (2009)

Sanctuary Sound II, Middletown, NJ, April 2009.
Phil Griffin (2009)

RICHIE:
When it comes down to Jon and I writing a song, it’s pure. We’re not thinking about business. We’ve written specific songs earlier in our careers saying, “This is going to work in an arena” or “This will work in a stadium.” They were specifically made to get the crowd ready, get everybody’s dander up, and deliver the knockout punch.

For the most part, Jon and I have remained the same people and our friendship has grown tighter over the years. Anytime you write songs together, everybody’s got their own individual experience and idea of what the song is about. They are often different for Jon and me but we meet in the middle on things. Different songs mean different things to him.

When I’m up onstage singing, sometimes I’m really thinking about my dad. Certain lyrics turn out to mean something different over time. Some stuff you wrote in 1990, it comes back around when you are performing it now. Life boomerangs and fits into those lyrical strands we’d written about years before. It’s like looking at your life through a rearview mirror. It becomes clearer as you get older.

Our lyrics speak to how people really live, what they feel. Those are our feelings but when we write a song, we write a lyric people connect with naturally.

JON:
From a songwriting point of view, we grew up after the
New Jersey
album. By then, I had a hell of a lot more to say and we were more mature.

DAVID:
Our songs don’t preach. We’re not hitting somebody with a hammer saying, “This is my point of view. This is my point of view.” Our lyrics invite you in. This is a point of view for all of us.

Sanctuary Sound II, Middletown, NJ, April 2009.
Phil Griffin (2009)

JON:
We were working on the
Keep The Faith
album when the riots broke out in LA. Rodney King got beat up in the streets and there was LA burning. That era was over. The 80s were done. We were up in Vancouver and we watched LA burning on television.

“Keep The Faith” was a reaction to what we’d witnessed but we intentionally did not get specific. Hopefully people will understand the power of the lyric and what inspired it but in a year—or ten—it still needs to resonate. You want things to be timeless and classic. You want things to be there forever. So, it’s not catering to this generation … it’s for all generations. So we hone the lyric. We universalize it.

New Jersey
promotional photo shoot, Little Mountain Recording Studios, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 1988.
Mark “WEISSGUY” Weiss/www.markweiss.com

Recording session for
Young Guns II:
Blaze of Glory
, A&M Studios, Los Angeles, CA, 1990.
Mark “WEISSGUY” Weiss/www.markweiss.com

RICHIE:
Lost Highway
evolved. The idea was to go down to Nashville and try something different. We had a great window after “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.” I think a band that has been together as long as we have, any time there is a door open to evolution, give it a shot.

JON:
It was totally a get-out-of-jail-free card. Just try it. Who knew?

TICO:
Not having any pressure, man. We were having fun.

RICHIE:
It was an opportunity to experiment. We’re in a place, at this point in our career, where we don’t have to worry. If we don’t like something, we just don’t put it out.

JON:
Lost Highway
was an introspective record because we took a look at ourselves and left ourselves open to scrutiny by sharing those situations and feelings beyond the four of us. It was a great growth record. We were in a place where we had something to write about and turn our lives into big, broad subject matter.

Lost Highway
Tour, pre-show walk to the stage, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Phil Griffin