An artist who redefined pop rock at the beginning of the 90s is branching out. Winnie Chung surveys the busy life of Jon Bon Jovi.

It's tough being a rock star. It's even tougher.It's even tougher when you're a devoted husband and father, and headlining a band called Bon Jovi, developing a solo career and starting out in movies, all at once. So it isn't surprising that Jon Bon Jovi looks a little tired as he waits for dinner to be served.

"Jet lag," he says, shaking his head ruefully. He had just flown into Hong Kong from the United States via Tokyo, where he played the previous night to an over-capacity crowd of 12,000 at the Budokan Hall.

He is kicking off a new individual career that does not include his old friends from Bon Jovi - Richie Sambora, Tico Torres and David Bryan - and he is enjoying every minute of it.

He has a new solo album: Destination Anywhere is riding high on the British charts. The album, his second solo outing since the soundtrack from Young Guns II, was produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame and Steve Lironi, who did Black Grape's It's Great When You're Straight ... Yeah.

The album marks a departure from Bon Jovi's New Jersey heavy rock sounds, having been influenced by the British rock scene where he spent three months filming a new movie, The Leading Man.

Working with the "crazy" Stewart was a complete revelation for JBJ who was used to a more regimented style with his band. "We're in his purple studio - purple because--he's kooky - and he's producing Texas in the other room and taking pictures there and writing a song with me here. I go, 'This guy is nuts, I like it,' " says JBJ, laughing.

"Bon Jovi is very regimented. We go into studio, Richie and I write it. We demo it with the band, we play it for the producers; everything is so geared towards the tour. But Dave was always telling me,'If you don't like it, press the red button [and erase it].' We're in his studio in his house, or my studio in my house, and there's no tour booked. And that was the magic. You say, 'Who cares? Throw it away.' I never had that [before]."

JBJ met Stewart during a get-together at Bruce Willis' house in London when Willis was filming The Fifth Element. The visit ended with a jam session and started their collaboration.

But JBJ has pulled off an amazing coup by getting top Hollywood stars such as Demi Moore, Annabella Sciorra, Kevin Bacon and Whoopi Goldberg to work for free on a 32-minute video for Destination Anywhere.

"Yeah,-Demi Moore was saying I could be a Hollywood producer, being able to get all these people to be in the film for no money," says JBJ, as he sips white wine on the rocks.

But of course he is great friends with Willis and Moore, has written a song, Always, for Sciorra, worked with Goldberg on his first movie, Moonlight and Valentino, and will be helping Bacon with his debut album, due out later this year.

The video film, which premiered exclusively on MTV last month, is a broody tale of a troubled couple, Jon (JBJ) and Janie (Moore), each of whom is going through hell after their fourYear-old daughter is killed in a hit-and-run accident. He takes refuge in a walk on the wild side, she in drink and drugs. Sciorra is Dorothy, Janie's friend, while Bacon makes a brief appearance as Mike, Jon's confidant. Goldberg makes a cameo as a philosophical taxi driver.

"The subject is a little dark,"acknowledged JBJ,"but we figured that, if we did the usual romantic comedy kind of stuff, people would look at it like, you know . .."

Like a rock star messing around at acting? "Yeah."

But he is serious about his acting career. He took acting lessons for more than two years, sheared off his shaggy mane, and is looking at plenty of scripts these days. It is a clean start.

"It's a good outlet for me. I want to have this to turn to when I'm not touring with the band. It's great I can do this, or do some modelling like the Versace campaign when 1 want to. Yeah, it's a new, start but it's OK: I'm lucky I've still got a day job [with Bon Jovi]."

Having sold more than 75million records worldwide. he has the luxury of picking his ''On yeah, it feels good ... and to be able to enjoy it now. There's no more 'I gotta prove something': it's watching it from the outside and realising what I'm doing," he smiles.

"[Bon Jovi] was always a blur. And you really couldn't go home and say to a friend, 'So I was in Hong Kong yesterday and the day before in Tokyo', because they look at you like you're a Martian, you know. Like, 'That's hard work, huh?' But they don't know what goes into it."

But, he adds, nothing beats the feeling he gets when a new song comes to him. That's why he has no intention of abandoning his music for acting: the acting and solo work give him a chance to step back and reassess his work and life in a different light, something he feels will benefit Bon Jovi when they get together again.

"Music is infinitely more exciting because I create it, it's mine. With a film role, I have to convince a guy who doesn't know me to hire me for the job," he says.

He recounts his first Hong Kong "assignment" at Channel V where he was asked to play a few of the new songs. "The first song I was, like, drooping, because 1 was tired from the jet lag and by the third song they were saying, 'Thank you for coming'

and I was, like, 'No, no, no ... I want to keep playing. I'm telling you these stories.'

"It's like: 'I like the view, but I'm not sure I want to stay here', and that's what the acting is. This is cool, I like it and then I'd like to come back into the driver's seat. "

Although he is enjoying his newfound "single" status JBJ has firm plans to he back in the driver's scat for Bon Jovi next year.

Young Guns II reportedly caused some unhappiness with the other band members but, this time round, their lead singer says, they are comfortable with his new plans.

They have all developed their own projects. Sambora and Bryan are both working on solo projects, and Torres has opened his own art gallery and is now a commissioned artist.

"I wanted to get one of his paintings for Elton John and he wanted to charge me money. Me, can you imagine?' jokes JBJ, who will have two other movies, Homegrown and Little City

"But truth of the matter is I think now they're in a better place and they know I'm not leaving and abandoning them. Now they believe me. "

In other words, Jon Bon Jovi intends to keep his day job.

The entertainment pages are edited by Winnie Chung. Tel: 2565-2216; tax: 25622485; e-mail: wchung@scmp.com

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