Bon Jovi (12 page)

In the early 90s, I saw an art store and said, “I’m going back to this.” I built a studio in SoHo and locked myself in there for months and months and months at a time.

I got lost in there. All I did was work. Wore clogs and paint clothes. I looked like I was sick. I weighed 130 pounds. Sometimes I’d just forget to eat. Before I knew it, I had several hundred pieces done.

There have been times we’ve had a couple years off between albums and tours so I’d get lost in my art. I had to be creative. It’s the way I grew up and everything that’s creative is good for me. It’s good energy. The fact that you can explore different elements besides music is very important.

When I found art again it gave me a chance to be spiritual by myself. You get creative making records but when you’re on tour, you’re not all that creative. Every night you’re playing. Art was something where I didn’t need anybody else. I needed to do it on my own.

When you’re creating with other musicians, it’s the interaction that combines into one entity, which is special. But being able to go inside yourself, on your own and pull something creative out … it fulfills me.

And, spiritually, it got everything out of me, whether it was love, anger, whatever I wanted. And I couldn’t be arrested for it!

I’m a musician. I’m an artist. That’s just part of who I am. There is no doubt I could have survived without being in this band and made a living as an artist. But I think the art made me a better person, a better creator, a better musician ... because music is just painting with sound instead of colors. It’s intertwined. Art gave me another outlet to be creative, something I could do for the rest of my life, which I really love and enjoy. And being in the financial situation with Bon Jovi, I never have to starve being an artist. I already did that as a musician. I remember those nineteen-cent boxes of macaroni and cheese.

Rock Star Baby is another big endeavor for me. When the first of the guys in the band were having kids, we wanted to buy cool stuff for the babies and there just wasn’t anything cool. That inspired my brainchild, the Rock Star Baby line. Now we have children’s clothing, jewelry, strollers, cosmetics, home decor, you name it.

That’s what I do on my days off (if I’m not golfing!). I’m on e-mail. I’m on the phone. It’s creating a lifestyle for the family that wants to be hipper.

Original painting entitled “My Sun” by Tico Torres (promotional postcard).
From the personal collection of Tico Torres, postcard image by Dana Vitale

David Bryan, Monmouth County, NJ, December 10, 1999.
Olaf Heine

DAVID:
When you work on your own art and nobody else is with you, you grow individually. You get better at being yourself and that makes it that much better when the band all regroup. We can be better at our craft with more life under our belt.

In 1999 I got together with Francine Pascal who at the time had Sweet Valley High, a book series. We worked on a rock ‘n’ roll stage version of the Sweet Valley High book series.

Then right at the end of 2001, I read the script of
Memphis
. I could hear the finished product in my head. I knew what it was. It told the story of the first white DJ to put black music on the radio. It was fictionalized but based on real characters.

Joe DiPietro, the creator, said he’d waited to find the right collaborator because it’s a story about music and the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. He needed a real rock ‘n’ roll guy, not a theater guy who thought he could rock. Joe allowed me into that world. The lines are blurred. We’re really partners.

In Bon Jovi, in the band, I play a part. It’s Jon’s vision and we back him up and then add our parts to that vision—our vision within his vision. But in the theater world, it’s my vision.

When you’re the composer, it’s pretty cool having everybody sit in the room and look to you. There’s a nine-piece band and twenty-six actors. I wrote every note that comes out of everybody’s mouth and every note that every instrument plays, and I cowrote all the lyrics.

It’s a really complicated art form. It’s acting; it’s singing; it’s dancing—and doing it all live. You have to put it up and try to fix it. It’s like problem solving and I really love that. I’ll be sleepless until I solve the puzzle.

It’s good fortune how everything is colliding. Both
The Toxic Avenger
and
Memphis
are Broadway bound. But the band has to tour. That’s my main gig, for now, and I love it. Eventually, I’ll have to figure out how to coexist in the theater and rock ‘n’ roll worlds.

Newspaper article about David Bryan’s musical tacked to wall of Sanctuary Sound II, April 2008.
Phil Griffin

Richie Sambora, Sanctuary Sound II, Middletown, NJ, December 10, 1999.
Olaf Heine

RICHIE:
Independent pursuits keep you strong and confident. We have to learn and grow and be inspired and moved. We have to be individuals so we can be a stronger group. It’s paramount in our success equation. Individually everybody has their own projects that are enriching to their own spirits. That’s very important stuff. I am dying to do a solo record again. I love making records, beyond the band, just working with other artists. I love to get called for sessions and do movie soundtracks and branch out.

Working with other producers and other great musicians, you are always learning. There is always a great interchange of “I’ll teach you this. You teach me that.” It’s part of the ongoing education process that makes this organization work. You bring back new information and new ideas to the band. Even if it’s a small thing, a slight educational process you went through, it’s all good. It makes the whole stronger when the individual parts are stronger and more creative and more inspired.

My talent, my own education process, my own commitment to learning means I’m open to everything. I could do a solo record wherever I wanted and whenever I wanted with whomever I wanted.

I always approached my solo albums with a lot more artistic freedom because no one is expecting anything of me except a fresh look, a fresh musical painting. I’d get the best musicians I know, people with whom I’d always wanted to work, always wanted to co-produce, and not care about the finances really. When you do a solo album, the learning experience is that much more intense. Every day you walk into the studio and wear a dozen different hats. You’re the songwriter, the guitar player, the lead singer, the background singer, the arranger, and the co-producer. So you’re really juggling a lot of responsibilities. I can’t wait to do another one.

JON:
I’m really rooted right now, just on that steady course, knowing who I am, what I am, and where I’m going. So it’s nice, maybe, to watch my bandmates blossom.

25 YEARS

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

Band photo shoot, The Eleanor, Long Island City, NY, December 2, 2008.
Phil Griffin

JON:
We’re not supposed to still be here. When you played your first block dance in Sayreville, you thought that was the big time. Subsequently, the club in Asbury to getting a record deal you thought was the big time; to headlining the first time, you thought was the big time; to when
Slippery
came out, you thought, “It can’t get bigger than
Slippery
.” Then when you look back, you go, “Oh, no, no, no, no.” The subsequent tours were so much bigger. You never really run out of what is the big time.

In today’s world, it would be very hard to break like we did. Then again, with YouTube and MySpace and Facebook and Twitter, there are new avenues that kids are gonna go travel and they’ll find their own way.

TICO:
It helps to be very young. You go for it because you believe only in it. I think we had that notion like kids do now. They’ll get where they want to go and find a way to do it.

DAVID:
You really have to be a hard worker. You have to have an insane amount of drive.

JON:
I’m sure there are great kid bands out there that could kick our ass but there’s a difference between having a pop celebrity moment in time and having a career. Don’t talk to me about one-, five-, or ten-year careers.

When you get to twenty years, to twenty-five, when you get to forty years and the songs have stood the test of time, then talk to me about a career, a legacy.

Leonard Cohen has a legacy. Paul Simon, Bob Dylan have a legacy. Among the pop kids today, there will be celebrities. They may even be icons, but to have been respected for influencing their generation and the generations that come after, that is the goal.

There was an eighteen-year-old kid from Lebanon who came to our shows. Why is he into a forty-six-year-old guy who’s been making records longer than he’s even been alive? Why were we the biggest show ever held in Abu Dhabi? We didn’t have a hit record there. It’s the body of work. It’s the history onstage. It’s the impact that we’ve made across generations.

RICHIE:
Some people think we’re a new band. They just discovered us two albums ago. They have the opportunity, which is probably pretty interesting, to rediscover the older stuff.

JON:
There’s nothing like that feeling when music changes your life. When you get a chance to see or meet or open for someone you look up to and they like your music, they give you something indescribable. Southside Johnny was that person for me when I was a kid. It was pretty great stuff.

It’s cool to talk to some of these bands that open for us. Every kid draws the same inspiration from somebody who came before. It’s wonderful to be part of that line in history, traveling from the getting to giving end of it. It’s just as rewarding.

RICHIE:
There’s a learning process. OK, where do you go now? Where’s the next road, man? Where’s the next path? It’s an exciting thing for a musician.

We’re always striving to do great work, to create something special. It would be no fun for us; there would be no reason to do it, if that wasn’t a main part of the equation.

DAVID:
We’re completely past the point of ever saying, “Fuck you—I’m walking away from this.” Now it’s so much fun to walk onstage. But there’s the reality check, knowing that the older you get and the longer this timeline goes, there’s the chance you’ll be doing it less and less.

“Whole Lot of Leavin’” portrait session, Minneapolis, MN, March 17, 2008.
Phil Griffin

Lost Highway
tour, Manchester, England, 2008.
Phil Griffin

Promotional portrait session, The Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, MI, July 7, 2008.
Phil Griffin

RICHIE:
People ask me what keeps us out there, what keeps us going. Number one, it’s in my blood and I love to do it. If I wasn’t getting paid I’d still be making music someplace. I’d be doing it anyway.

DAVID:
We truly want the best for each other. We’re there for each other. We’re fortunate. We’re a band of brothers. When one man falls, we’re there to pick him up.

If the phone rang and any one of these guys was on the line and said help—it ain’t about a record, it ain’t about anything—the reply is “What do you need? What can I do for you?”

RICHIE:
There aren’t many things that we don’t know about each other after all these years. There’s really nothing to hide at this point.

JON:
You’re closer than you would be with your siblings. That’s a fact. There’s no question. We shared more of our lives. Half of our entire lives we’ve spent with each other.

RICHIE:
One of the secrets to our success is that we’ve never tried to be anybody else or something we’re not. But I think our continual forward motion is a great challenge.

DAVID:
You don’t have any guarantees. You can put out that next record and it could tank.

TICO:
You’re only as good as your last word, your last effort.

RICHIE:
We don’t take that for granted.

DAVID:
Every time you put something out there, you step into the ring. You better have done your training. You better get ready to fight because you can get knocked out. There’s no guarantee.

JON:
It’s OK to be afraid. It’s OK to be excited. It’s OK to laugh, cry, hurt, indulge, whatever. Reach outside your comfort zone. Do not get comfortable. Once you get too comfortable then you’re on that slide and then it’s nostalgia. Then you’re taking pictures of the past.

RICHIE:
Having such a big life in this band—it’s big, man. This is a machine, an organism that encompasses you on an emotional level if you are going to bring that. For me, I bring it 100 percent every time I show up.

JON:
There’s only twenty-four hours in a day. Maybe the cost of all this is that I’ve spent too many nights sleeping in hotel rooms with a sleeping pill and a bottle of wine and missing my kid’s school play.

Whatever I wanted to do artistically, whether it worked or didn’t, I did it. There was never the fear of anything. There’s no “if only.” Very few regrets around here, man.

It’s July and I’m at a crossroads emotionally and spiritually. I just can’t pack up a suitcase and go again. I just can’t. It’ll be interesting to see where I go next year. The mind is starting to spin, but I’m cursing that guitar right now. I just don’t wanna see it. I don’t wanna talk to it. I don’t want it to stare at me as I walk through the room. I wanna leave it lying there. Eventually, I’ll tease it and it’ll tease me and the circus will begin again. But it’s a process, a tough process so you gotta be up for it.

RICHIE:
Jon and I will get together and start writing again. We’ll start stockpiling for the next installment of what Bon Jovi is going to look like. That’s the exciting part, seeing where we go next.

JON:
Twenty-five years in the history … and I’m still in the process …

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