A chat with Jack Ponti & Doug Katsaros - 1st Bon Jovi album

Really enjoyed reading that! Thank you.

Thanks for sharing an interesting read.

Look forward to reading the rest of the interviews.

Hi guys, thanks for the nice respond! Always a pleasuer doing thing like this for fans who appreciate it

Let's continue the story of the first album. This time I got to talk to Larry Alexander briefly. He mixed the first album and recorded the second one. Nothing really shocking was said, but its still nice to hear his point of view during those sessions. He had a hard time remember any details but it is not often the voices of the engineers are being heard regarding recordings.


Q: How did you get in touch to work for Bon Jovi?

LA: Jon Bon Jovi was working at his cousin's studio, the Power Station, so when he wanted to record his band, the recording was done by all of the staff engineers who were free at the time. I was not available to do any of the recording of the first album. One song, Runaway, was entered into a radio station battle of the bands, and won first prize which was a recording contract with Motown Records. Then the radio station started playing the song a lot and it was heard by someone from Polygram Records, and they decided to buy the contract from Motown. I was asked at that point to mix the first album. I was also a staff engineer at Power Station at that time.

Q: What was your duties for the second album, compared to the first one?

LA: When it came time to record the second album they asked me to continue with the group and do the recording. I thought that they were a really excellent band and I loved their material right from the start. They were also all really nice guys. I had a great time recording the second album.

Q: How did you find Lance Quinn and Tony Bongiovi as producers?

LA: I thought that Tony and Lance did a great job as producers, even though Tony can be a little abrasive at times. As I said, I was not part of the recording of the first album, only mixing so I can't really compare the recording process of the two albums.

Q: Anything to add?

LA: All I can say is that it was a great experience to be involved with such a great group at such an early time in their career.

Like I said, nothing really new, but he was nice to talk to and it he was very obvious that he enjoyed working with the band.

I've got some good ones coming up soon, so hold your hat!