For all you These Day lovers. I posted the audio to the tracks a few weeks back. Here is the entire article. Boy has the recording process changed. And Jon did smoke during those times:
Bon Jovi, the biggest Rock band in the world, are back with a killer new album! And Steffan Chirazi is in the studio with ‘em as Jon ‘n’ the boys finish the last coupla tracks!
A&M Studios, Los Angeles. Friday March 31. 4.25pm. The very end of Bon Jovi’s ‘These Days’ recording sessions. The door to Studio A swings open and in strides a man with a silly voice and sunglasses complaining with a laugh about being tired. He’s coming on all Mexicano/Italian with theees fahnee voice. He is Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi guitarist.
Behind him follows a man quieter but no less fatigued. There are two more b-sides to lay down and he wants to get ‘em done quickly. He is Jon Bon Jovi.
Already in the large control room are drummer Tico Torres, irrespressible keyboard player David Bryan and bassist Hugh McDonald. McDonald, of course, replaced long-serving bassist Alec John Such last year. He’s done the album and will do the tour, but still isn’t a ‘band member’ in the gang sense, although it’s obvious from his friendship with Jon (he worked on the first Bon Jovi album in 1984) that he is maybe the only person who could have worked out.
Engineer Obie O’Brien, a warm practical joker, is revving up the gears for final ‘off the floor’ recordings of ‘Always’ and ‘Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night’. Obie’s been one of Jon’s best friends from the days when Jon swept the floors of the Powerstation studios. He’s had a hand in engineering most Bon Jovi projects: he just knows how the band tick.
JBJ is vibin’ up the band: ‘Okay guys, let’s do it!“ And in they go, setting up very quickly ”Make yourself comfortable,“ says Jon, suggesting I stay in the room where the band are about to record. So I park myself between McDonald and Bryan as the band lay down each track in one take, off the floor, no f**k-ups registered!
It’s a glorious sight: five people of such consummate musical ability that they need no second chance to get an excellent job done. Masters of their craft, Bon Jovi have just put down the last two b-sides in twenty minutes!
”One more take?“ Asks O’Brien. Jon shakes his head, picks a beer off a nearby flightcase and strikes up a smoke before walking upstairs into the playback room.
Torres and Bryan are both flying back to New Jersey tomorrow. Bryan is relishing his role as father of baby twins while Torres, recently engaged to Wonderbra model Eva Herzigova, has got his pilot’s licence.
Richie Sambora is looking forward to a few weeks off with his new bride Heather Locklear. Jon Bon Jovi meanwhile will spend some more time in Southern California trying to kick back a little before Bon Jovi head over to Europe to play a few small gigs here and there with Van Halen, including a few at Wembley Stadium and some shows with the Rolling Stones. As one does, eh?!
Bon Jovi started as underdogs, became top dogs, were underdogs again and with ‘These Days’ they’re back as top dogs once again. Proof? Three night at Wembley Stadium in June. But Bon Jovi ain’t slacking off. No, when you’re born with a work ethic, you die with a work ethic. ”We’ve worked very hard with this record,“ sighs Jon Bon Jovi.
Yet, on first listen, ‘These Days’ sounds like it came so easily and naturally that it’s hard to imagine the band sweating over it. But then, great albums always sound effortless. And ‘These days’ is the ultimate Bon Jovi album, a superb collection of songs from superb songwriters with a few twists in the tail too. The seeds of this record were sown long ago.
”After the last tour I went off to the Caribbean with my family to chill out,“ says Jon, ”And that’s when I started writing songs for the album! And, before you know it, I’d invited Richie out. So, we ended up drinking a lot and writing a lot together. This was in January of ’94, so it took 11 months of writing and rewriting before we even demoed the songs. We started recording in Nashville but ended up trashing everything because I didn’t like the guitar tones, the tuning, the keyboard parts. Then we came out here and started all over again. We took about 2 weeks out for the Christmas holidays, but I had the tapes all of December - and, being the lunatic that I
am, I couldn’t help but go in the studio! I started doing vocals at home, and hated it! So we came out here to LA, initially as a favour to Richie. He was a newlywed and because of his and Heather’s schedule, he wanted to spend as much time with her as he could because he knew about the heavy touring schedule coming up. I had a house here so it wasn’t any big deal. So we spent January here, did all the guitars, went back to my house for February to finish the vocals, then came back here in March for overdubs and mixing. Overall this record has takes 11 months to write, demo, make. A lotta time!“
Why did Bon Jovi ever go to Nashville in the first place, especially as it seemed to be so unproductive in the end?
”I loved the idea. First of all, we always go away when we make a record. I never considered just staying in my house. I like that whole thing of being a Rock band and going off to work on the album, the five of us. With this one it’s changed a little because of kids, but we wanted to go to Nashville. We’d been there for a week during the greatest hits record and I loved the idea that on every street corner, there’s a songwriter. So we gave it a shot but it didn’t really work out, so we went back to LA. The songs are meant to sound like they’re gonna sound live, that’s all. I have an idea of the kind of guitar tones I’d like Richie to have, he knows how to get ‘em and it’s almost unspoken. Same with the arrangements, same with everything.“
”We did a fine job together,“ Jon purrs with satisfaction, taking a long draw on his cigarette. And with the recording finished at last, Jon begins a track-by-track breakdown of ‘These Days’ exclusively for Kerrang! Readers.
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09-12-2013, 03:23 AM
