another interview with Richie
Q&A: Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi
Richie Sambora
by Christina Fuoco
SoundSpike News
Feb 9, 2003, 7:58 pm PST
After 20 years in the music business, Bon Jovi is hitting milestones and breaking records with regularity.
The New Jersey rockers recently swung through Australia, and continued on to Japan in January where they became the first international band to sell out every domed venue in the country, according to guitarist Richie Sambora.
"We’re thrilled to have some of the statistics that are associated with this band," he said.
The statistics are expected to pile up this year when Bon Jovi sells its 100 millionth album worldwide. Sambora said that the number currently sits between 97 and 98 million. In honor of the milestone and Bon Jovi's 20th anniversary, the group is putting together a boxed set of previously unreleased material.
"There's going to be some rarities on that box set. Like when we played Wembley [Arena in London], Bob Geldof and I did 'I Don't Like Mondays' on the eve of when he did Live Aid. There will be special moments like that that are part of the band's career."
But for now, Bon Jovi is focusing on its tour in support of its latest album "Bounce."
Sambora recently talked to SoundSpike about "Bounce," the box set and Bon Jovi's love of football.
In the last couple of years, Bon Jovi seems to have become the official band of the NFL.
[Laughs] It's been cool. Our affiliation with the NFL has been unbelievable, you know? After Sept. 11, [NFL commissioner] Paul Tagliabue asked Jon and I to open the football season. We opened the football season on the step of [a New York City] fire house. It was very, very emotional. We sang "America the Beautiful." This year, they asked us to open the season up again, this time at Times Square. Everybody saw that on TV, I'm sure. There were 500,000 people there. We also did two halftime shows then the Super Bowl. We bookended the season. We opened the season and we closed the season.
Are you big football fans?
We're sports guys. We love football. We're huge football fans, huge sports fans. Obviously, being from New Jersey, we're Giants and Jets fans. It's interesting [though]. We're transient sports fans. I'll go to a game. I don't care what kind of game it is. I'll go to a horse race or a boxing match.
Is there any significance to the fact that Bon Jovi plays "It's My Life" along with new songs at NFL events?
The NFL asked us to do that. They're using it now for all their clip shows. Plus, it's a very, very important song for us. It really, really crosses the generation gap. There's a new generation of fans that seem to like Bon Jovi. In Europe, they used it for the world soccer tournament and the song has been licensed for all these different commercials in all these different countries all over the world. Plus, it's been played in every sports arena.
How do you see your latest album, "Bounce," as different from your previous efforts?
I think it's a very, very diverse record. It's some of the heaviest material [with the] heaviest guitar. What we tried to do on the other end of that is making Jon more intimate. The ballady stuff is more intimate than he's ever been. It's the best batch of songs that we came up with.
The single "Misunderstood" has been embraced by MTV and VH1. The video and the song certainly show the differences between the way men and women think.
We speak a different language. [Laughs] Guys are thinking they're doing the right thing but they apologize for being misunderstood. We think we're being OK, but we're sticking our foot in our mouth. They say, "I'm sorry but I'm messing up." I don't care if you're a teenager in love or you're 50 years old. This song is going to apply. It's a fun video.
Tell me about Bon Jovi's songwriting process.
Jon and I write very simply. We write before we record. We don't write on the road because we're so focused on doing that. We create a writing period of time. We write batches of 10 songs, take those 10 songs, bring them to the band, demo them and put them away. Then we write another 10 songs. We do that four times a record. That's how we get the 12 songs.
Right now we're going through the songs we haven't used and we're going to try to put together a box set for the 100 millionth record [sold worldwide]. It's going to be all those songs that no one's ever heard. I'm not sure when that's gonna come.
We could put out the box set right now because we project over the next year that we'll sell 2 million records between catalogue and the new album. But we want it done legitimately. We want to make sure that mark is hit.
That must be some project, to go through all the old tapes and decide what to include in the box set.
Our engineer [Obie O'Brien] is going through it, weeding out all the good stuff and getting it to the level where it's palatable. We don't have the time to do it. We're in the middle of the tour. He knows us really well.
Do you have a title yet?
No. It's a work in progress. [Laughs]
From what I understand, you were writing "Bounce" when the terrorists attacks hit. How did that affect your songwriting?
We were in the middle of writing this record when 9/11 happened. After it happened, for the first couple weeks, we couldn't write about anything else. We wanted to get them out of the way. We needed to heal ourselves. But we wanted an optimistic rock 'n' roll record, not a dark record. We knew that most of those songs weren't going to make it on the record [because] we knew the record was going to come out a year later. … We felt we obviously needed to touch on it, but we didn’t want to make it a 9/11 record.
Bon Jovi tends to have optimistic albums. Do you think that's one of the reasons for your success?
We've had threads of optimism throughout all our albums. "Livin' on a Prayer' Prayer" is a very optimistic song. "Keep the Faith," "It's My Life," all optimistic. Our overall view is pretty upbeat. What are we going to write? Angry songs? We're very, very thankful and grateful that we still have a place in this business, that we're still relevant. We're going to keep on going. This band will never be the fat Elvis. [Laughs]
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02-10-2003, 11:22 AM
