Rock idol
By STEVEN PATRICK
Five men. Rock guitars. Pop sensibility. Stirred up in a melting pot called
Bon Jovi. The story of the biggest pop-rock peddlers since KISS began when
lead singer Jon Bon Jovi was a janitor in a recording studio. His is a story
that has come a long way, busting out of New Jersey in the early 1980s and
breaking into the charts with the multi platinum Slippery when Wet, which
put pop and rock in a sizzling concoction of guitars, synths and pop
harmonies. It was big, bold pop sound that kick-started the hair-band and
spandex movement. Bon Jovi's rock wasn't about rebellion, it was about good
times and optimism, it was about ... living on a prayer.
These rock 'n' roll boys, or should we say millionaires don't really need to
sing for their supper any longer considering Bon Jovi's superstar
credentials in the music scene. But Jon Bon Jovi (vocals), Richie Sambora
(guitar), David Bryan (keyboards), Tico Torres (drums) and unofficial fifth
member Hugh McDonald (on bass) were still the buzz of the week when they
delivered a playful set at the Heineken Music Centre in Amsterdam,
Netherlands last week.
The sold out occasion was cheekily titled the "world's biggest listening
session" to promote the band's new album Have A Nice Day, the first new
music from the five-piece in three years.
And that was what it was - rather than being a full on rock 'n' roll show,
Bon Jovi's one-hour odd gig seemed more like a big sound check that 6,000
people were invited to. The show was a fun, laid-back affair and the fans
loved it.
Call it tuneful metal or poodle rock, Bon Jovi has been fairly consistent
hit-makers and become a lean-mean touring machine, while other hair bands
have fallen by the wayside. The ultra-prolific band has claimed to have
written more than 500 songs.
The band, barring a couple of mini-line up changes (Hugh McDonald now
handles the low notes) are still together after all these years, overdosing
on optimism with their new offering Have A Nice Day, their ninth studio
album, barring greatest hits packages and live albums. The first single is
the title track from the new album and feels like an offspring of It's My
Life; a feel-good pop nugget that basically says "Live life!"
Any Bon Jovi new album is worth, at least, a cursory listen. But Have A Nice
Day seems to be an album that reflects signature Bon Jovi - with its big
choruses and inspired energy. It's also the second single that's going to
garner the "oohs and aahs" from the fans. Called Welcome To Wherever You
Are, it is the band's most poignant song to date.
Uplifting, yet reflective, the song serves as perfect tonic for a mid-life
crisis. Not too bad an effort since most in Bon Jovi are pushing into their
mid-40s, and starting to seek personal and band redefinition in already
illustrious career.
BLOOD BROTHERS: (from left) Bon Jovi's David Bryan, Tico Torres, Jon Bon
Jovi and Richie Sambora still trucking on.
No trip would be complete for a Bon Jovi event without the main man himself
taking time to talk about the new music. A day before the band's gig, lead
singer Jon Bon Jovi, 43, looking pleased as punch walked into a room for
casual chat at the Amstel Intercontinental hotel. He was in a good mood that
afternoon - exuding an "all-American-guy-done-good" aura rather than
rock-star godliness.
"Welcome!" was the first word to greet this writer. Dressed in brown
corduroy jeans and jacket, Jon was affable and obliging.
It also helped that Jon was a curious interviewee, taking a moment to check
out the recording kit on the table.
"What is this?" he asked, before figuring out himself: "Wow, technology!
You've got cool toys, man." Incidentally, he was rather fascinated by a
camera that also records audio. Oh well, enough distractions, then.
In person, Jon looked smaller than he is in his videos - but that's camera
angles for you. Also looking younger than his age, he was smiley and fun
(full of "ya da ya da ya das") throughout the interview that ranged topics
from acting to music to politics. After half-an -hour with him, you could
tell this bloke (even with a Superman tattoo on his arm) was the real deal.
When you were seven, I read that you got a guitar from your mum but you
threw it away ?
I threw it down the basement stairs. That was because I was forced to clean
up the TV room and I didn't want to do it. There also were these stinking
guitar lessons that I didn't want to do ... because they had no soul. When
they were teaching me how to play guitar, it was just 'braaaaang (hums a
scale)' and I was falling asleep while my guitar teacher smoked his stinky
pipe. So, there was this guy, smoking a pipe, making me play scales and I
thought, 'this thing sucks!'. I threw it down the steps and liked the sound
of it. I broke the tuning peg and it sat there for six years.
Back to the new album Have A Nice Day, who's the smiley face on the record?
It's a self-portrait, can't you see (laughs)? The album went full circle to
get back to that single title (Have A Nice Day). I wanted to call the album,
Kings of Suburbia. The band liked it but the management hated it. I thought
it was funny, it reminded me of the tongue-in-cheek of Slippery When Wet. So
we settled on Have A Nice Day and thought about how to get a picture to
correlate to this title. So, we thought we'd do a smiley face as a
trademark. One thing that excited me was the prospect transcended the
language barriers. Whether you put it in the alleyway or the flag in your
canal, you really know what it is. We get the point across ... Have A Nice
Day!
Who actually is the face?
I call it Hugh, so the bass player finally gets some recognition around here
(laughs)! It's a lot more cynical than the original smiley face. The
original 1970s face was a lot more peace and love. This is a lot more
cynical.
What was the most stressful album that Bon Jovi had to record?
The second (7800 Fahrenheit) wasn't easy. You have your whole life to write
the first one. On the second one, you still don't know who you are. We had
no real voice yet. In retrospect, that's my least favourite album. Slippery
and Jersey came easy. But Keep The Faith was a lot of hard work because we
knew it was time to change. It was the 1990s and the grunge movement was
kicking the pants of our peer group. We toiled over that record. We spent a
good six months and recorded 30 songs for it. That was the last time it was
hard.
There was no fighting or inner tension within the band?
Coming into Faith, there was no fighting but there a real uneasiness about
how to proceed. We hadn't spoken steadily considering we hadn't made a
record from 1990 to 1992. Prior to that we made records more regularly, in
1985, 86 and 88. It could have been deemed tough when I did the first solo
record Young Guns, and there was this uneasiness on whether I was going to
come back and have the band. Of course I was! We just knew we couldn't write
Bad Medicine again, and when Kurt Cobain was writing Smells Like Teen
Spirit, we knew we had better find a new voice. Motley Cure and Def Leppard
were not having the kind of success that they were accustomed to but we were
lucky that people got it (the Keep The Faith album). Some of the bands from
my genre, jumped onto the grunge bands. They went from spandex to looking
like grunge. We didn't do that; we had to find our own voice.
You seem to be increasingly aware of the world by playing benefit concerts.
The band played on a VH1 special for Hurricane Katrina victims and also on
Live8.
It's a continuing evolution. After Keep the Faith, we thought we'd have to
be aware of social causes. Between 1992 and 2005, I grew up even more; I had
a bunch of kids and got married. My viewpoints have changed as a guy who's
travelled the world and gotten involved in causes. I like to utilise my
celebrity (status) to make a difference if only to feel good about what it
lifestyle. My peer group wanted to be on the cover of Circus, I wanted to be
on the cover of Time, I knew there was a bigger world out there. For
(Hurricane) Katrina, we played on the VHI MTV telethon, but we also wrote a
million dollar cheque. We want to do something and make a difference.
This question is related to your acting career. What roles would you like to
play?
I'm more attracted to drama than comedy. I would like to find a movie like ?
I'm trying to think of the title of this one ... Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise?
You mean A Few Good Men?
Yeah! I could do lawyer stuff like that. It's real piece to sink your teeth
into. I got this thriller coming up called Cry Wolf. It looks like it's
going to do pretty well. It's hard because I don't commit enough time to
Hollywood. It's true I'm facing the fact that you can't really do both
movies and music. People have told me that in order to get my acting career
going, I have to quit music. Well, I guess I'm not ready to walk away from
this. Even Will Smith, he puts out records, but he can't tour like I do.
That's the problem ... unless you're going to be Elvis or Sinatra and do
both but that was in a different era.
Is Bon Jovi now more an album type of band than a hit singles band?
It's harder to get on Top 40 radio these days. If we do, I don't think it's
really our sound. Radio is closed to what its play lists are, so I can't
play that game. You have to write songs that are good for you and the
audience is going to like. You can't think about Top 40 radio. You want to
have success only if it relates to what is you do. I'd love the new alum to
sell 100 million copies and have it be the biggest record of the year, sure.
But I'm very aware that there only are a few stations in the country that
can play Have A Nice Day. We're not going to get on the rap and urban
stations. The format that plays our kind of music is very little.
What are your views of the political climate in the US? You did get behind
John Kerry.
The system's broken and that's the reality of it. But I did put myself on
the line going out and campaigning for John Kerry. The polarisation of the
country is something that I realised. The US shouldn't become blue states
and red states. Everybody should become purple. You'll never hear me
belittling the president out of respect for the office. It's not that I'm a
fan (of Bush) but with all my country's flaws, I still love my country. I
was a huge Clinton supporter and I thought the system was more benevolent.
I'd rather pay more taxes for social services for the less fortunate.
How did Bon Jovi manage to stick it out for over 20 years?
We've been up and down. A lot of it has to do with being true to what we
are. I didn't get rappers, I didn't start scratching, I didn't go to Seattle
and I didn't learn boy band moves. We did what we did. We stayed on. You
could like it or not like it, but at least it was honest. I think that being
open to working with Desmond Child or Max Martin helped as well. My ego
wasn't big enough to say that I wouldn't collaborate. I've written enough
songs myself or with Richie and my song writing is what it is.
Being open minded and being true to ourselves as individuals does help (from
solo stuff and movies, whatever it is that floats your boat). So when you
come back into the band, you're not pissy (about being with the same
people). Individual projects do fortify the friendship. I remember we were
living out of a suitcase from 1983 to 1990. Back then, we'd sit around just
having dinner and we'd have nothing to say to each other.
These days, when we come back into the band, we can actually say, "Guess
what I did?" Also, not getting the part or being in a film that goes
straight to video brings humility back to me (laughs). Otherwise you could
believe the hype. I've seen other great bands implode because they didn't
allow each other solo projects. Steven Tyler (from Aerosmith) should be out
doing solo records. Eddie Van Halen should have done a solo record. It could
be really great for the band.
The song Welcome To Wherever You Are from the new album seems a very
poignant statement.
I'm very proud of it. I like the song a lot. It's a song of inclusion if
there's anything I learnt from the republican campaign last year is the idea
that Christians, Muslims and Jews are in this world together. We have to get
over our differences and move on. You have to be happy in what it is you do
and what you are. To compare one's life to another and think that it was
better than the other is so shallow-minded. I was witnessing that in
America; just because someone has darker skin, he's profiled like a
terrorist and I thought, my God! Is this what this country has become?
Welcome To Wherever You Are means you don't judge a book by its cover.
Because you never know what's inside. You could meet the most brilliant mind
of the future with a kid who has a pierced tongue and pierced nose, thank
you.
Is Living On a Prayer this generation's Born To Run (a Bruce Springsteen
classic)?
Oh Christ no! What's interesting about that song was that it was a number
one song in America but never anywhere else. It seems to have gotten
stronger as the years have gone on. I'm very surprised by that. I knew it
was a number one song but I just didn't know it was a great song when we
wrote it. I wanted to leave it off the album. (Jon reportedly said it was
too soft to be a rock song). But now, you hear the stories that it's the
biggest karaoke song ever ... I was in Vegas in a nightclub and they turned
the volume down when the song was playing and 3,000 people sang along. You
kind of forget how the song has impacted people's lives. But I don't know if
it's Born to Run though.
Bon Jovi's Have a Nice Day is out on Universal Music.
|
|