Probably Jon, but it's not actually specified.


Bon Jovi


Legend is a word that gets bandied around with reckless abandon these days. But Bon Jovi are living legends.

Were you disappointed not to perform at Wembley?

We had two sold-out shows at Wembley and the fans were looking forward to that but we were lucky enough to get Milton Keynes on the same dates. And it turned into something even better, I think.

It was unfortunate that we didn’t get to open Wembley Stadium but Milton Keynes was great.

Do you still have the die-hard fans from the early Bon Jovi days?

We’ve got three generations. We have kids from ten-years old at least until 65. It’s quite a wide span and we’re very lucky to be current enough to have a lot of kids.

How do you stay current?

Of course, it’s in the songs, and you try to keep current by listening to what’s out there and getting a producer who has a current sound and can help you with that.

But it’s really in the writing of the songs – there is no formula (if there was, everyone would do it). It’s just doing what’s in your heart, put it out best you can and then hopefully it gets picked up.

Could you see a time when you stop writing music?

I don’t see that and none of the guys think so – we’re having too much fun right now. It’s the biggest high to be able to go out and play in front of people who enjoy your music.

When you think about finishing anything you just feel like doing better work.


Bon Jovi


Do the tours take their toll on you guys at all?

Look, we live for the few hours we get to play music. The rest of it is just travelling. I think if you talked to anybody, you sacrifice a little bit of family time – you don’t see them as often. That’s one of the downsides. The upside is we’ve been doing this all of the time and we love doing it.

So are you guys still pretty rock and roll when you’re on tour?

We do a fair amount of partying but it has calmed down a little bit since the younger days. We all have families and it’s a little different when one of your little guys wants a bottle of milk at around seven o’clock in the morning! There’s a sense of responsibility now.

Do you miss the rock and roll days?

I’m perfectly happy where I’m at now. I wouldn’t change anything of the way I grew up, but everything has its time and place.

Do you think younger bands these days are as rock and roll as you guys were?

I don’t know, to be honest with you. That’s a good question. I would imagine so. I would imagine it’s just a different era, a different time.

Has Bon Jovi always gelled well?

We’re a great band together. When we’re writing and doing records we exhaust every possibility from everybody. We’re our own worst critics, we’re harder on ourselves than anyone else could be.

Excellence is not to be the best band in the world, it’s just to be good for ourselves. We put out records and say that this is the best we can do and leave it at that. After that, it’s up to the listener to say ‘I like that’ or ‘I don’t like that’.

When other bands implode relatively quickly, why do you think you’ve survived so long together?

As opposed to other bands and other situations we all have our own side projects and that’s what keeps us fresh. It used to be just about the band – we’d record and then go home. What’s nice is to be able to go do your acting, do your solo records or whatever and live another part of your life that is personally you. That way, when you come back together you have more to write about.

We support each other and help each other in our personal projects, and unlike other bands we think it’s healthy.

Is having outside interests important to the success of Bon Jovi then?

It’s so important. This is why: you write songs about life but you need to go and live life to write about it. If you just live a band life what is there really to write about after you’ve done it once. So living life individually for guys in bands is so important and brings a lot more to the table.

Just for an analogy, remember when you’d go on holiday at school and you’d come back after your vacation and all your friends had new clothes and new bikes and they did something else and went places. They always had something to talk about.

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