PART 2.-

From hair to rock eternity. (interview with rock icon Jon Bon Jovi)
Author/s: Gwyneth Paltrow, July, 1995


GP: This band's been around for twelve years, and from the time you started, you've been one of the biggest bands, right?

JBJ: I guess. You know, we're doing good. I have no idea how we do it. I'm just awfully grateful to be here. It's just doing what you love to do.

GP: It's like a whole thing that I can't even fathom. Are there songs that you would rather kill yourself than have to play again?

JBJ: [laughs] Everybody's got those skeletons.

GP: Like what ones?

JBJ: Oh God! There was a song that a record company guy convinced me to do on our first album, called "She Don't Know Me," and it's the only song that I've ever recorded that I didn't write.

GP: Wow.

JBJ: I did it because the guy said, "This is how you're going to get a record deal; you need a song like this." I said, "Oh Christ," and I did it. Never played the song live, hated it, and would rather be skinned alive than have to do it now.

GP: But not, like, "Livin' on a Prayer"?

JBJ: No. "Prayer" still actually holds up, and you realize that the lyric has meant a lot of things to a lot of people. So I don't mind that, or "Wanted," or "Blaze of Glory."

GP: I love that song. Are you bitter that "Livin' on a Prayer" was, like, the number one hit when I was in ninth grade? [laughs]

JBJ: [laughs] Oh man, you're makin' me feel old now. It's funny, because I'm lying here with a bag of ice on my back. "So when I was young . . ." [laughs] You're killin' me.

GP: Don't you have another album coming out, too?

JBJ: Yeah. It's called These Days.

GP: Have you ever stopped? What is with you?

JBJ: I just kept going, because we had a lot of songs. After the film, we went right into the studio.

GP: When were you writing them?

JBJ: Sometimes during filming in Toronto. I had some gear up there and, you know, all that sitting around!

GP: What do you mean?

JBJ: I got two great habits from the movie. I smoke cigarettes now, and I drink a ton of coffee, because that's all people do on movie sets.

GP: If you had to pick your favorite day on the movie or your favorite thing you did, can you think of one?

JBJ: I look at it as a whole. Somebody said, "Well, put your life in perspective," and I said, "Well, there are probably three things: the birth of my kids, the first time we played Giants Stadium, and doing Moonlight and Valentino.

GP: Oh my God!

JBJ: They were the greatest things that I've ever done. I loved making the movie. It reminded me of when we did our first record. Because it was uncharted ground, I had no idea what I was doing.

GP: What was your first album?

JBJ: It was in 1983, and it had "Runaway" on it. It was just called Bon Jovi.

GP: Oh my God, '83. When you get old and want to retire, what are you going to do?

JBJ: [sighs] I don't know. Guys like the Stones are the gauge. Nobody has an age limit yet. So I've got another thirty years.

GP: You'll have your kids around you and you'll be jamming.

JBJ: Well, I could think of worse things.

GP I know. Do you want to have more? Is Dorothea up for it?

JBJ: Yeah. But not for a while. [laughs] Right now we need a break. So we've just got to cool it.

GP: You can just, you know, keep practicing.

JBJ: Yeah, that's it. When are you gonna get married, Gwyn?

GP: I definitely will get married. I just don't know when. I'm only twenty-two. How old were you when you got married?

JBJ: Twenty-seven. You've got time.

GP: But you and Dorothea had been together for, like, ten years.

JBJ: Fifteen now. Our wedding anniversary is tomorrow, our sixth anniversary.

GP: Happy anniversary! Is it fun being married?

JBJ: You know what? It is. You can have your best friend, and she can sleep over all the time. [laughs]

GP: If you could pick the next movie you were going to do, what would it be about?

JBJ: I can tell you what it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be one of those silly action movies or the comedies with the slapstick nonsense. I'd much rather do a hip movie than a hit movie any day. I don't need to be in Wayne's World or Ace Ventura or Terminator Six.

GP: What's funny about. doing movies is, it's so hard, and I feel burned out from it all, and I think, There's no way I'm going to be able to do this one. . . . I just have nothing left. Then I get to rehearsals today, and I had this unexpected well of stuff that I didn't think I'd have. Sometimes it just comes from beyond you. Do you get that?

JBJ: Absolutely. When you write songs, you don't even know where they come from. When it happens, you just sort of look at the paper when it's done and go, "Wow." There are days when something just spills out, and it's pretty amazing.

GP: What was your first song to go to number one?

JBJ: "You Give Love a Bad Name" went number one in '86.

GP: What was your hairstyle in 1986?

JBJ: Oh God, don't do it.

GP: Whoo-hoo-hoo! [laughs]

JBJ: Don't do it to me. Please.

GP: What do you think when you see your hairstyles from '83 to now? [laughs]

JBJ: Oh God. You're killing me, Gwynie. I'm gonna tell people it's a wig. I just pull it off. I'm Tina Turner. I just hand it in at the end of the show. God.

GP: You wish you could get away that easily.

JBJ: Yeah, I know. I was just a mall rat.

GP: A total mall rat.

JBJ: I was just like every other kid in New Jersey. Long hair, sneakers, you know.

GP: You were so hip, let's face it.

JBJ: Oh yeah. Whoo! Heh-heh. Just cutting-edge, yup.

GP: All right, so I want to ask, when you had to kiss Elizabeth [Perkins] in the movie, was it O.K.? Were you nervous?

JBJ: She's a good kisser. It was actually a great week - between her and the video shoot with Cindy Crawford for "Please Come Home for Christmas" in the same week.

GP: Oh yeah!

JBJ: Have you been in these kinds of love scenes?

GP: No. I can't even imagine it.

JBJ: Let's put it this way. If you start liking it a little too much! . . .

GP: And Woodrow Wilson is reinaugurated . . .

JBJ: Yeah! Hey, these things happen. If somebody asks, "Were you acting with Cindy Crawford?" ****, no! [laughs]

GP: Oh man, what's Dorothea gonna say about that?

JBJ: She was there for half of it, which was really funny.

GP: [laughs] So when was the last time you remember being really, really happy? Not just normally happy.

JBJ: You know what? I'm really happy these days. I'm coming to terms with a lot of things.

GP: Like?

JBJ: Well, life in general. But success, and how my life worked around it, and how I'm not a prisoner of it. And being happy musically and professionally, by broadening as I have this year. And, most importantly, my wife is doing good and my kids are healthy. It's a good year to be awfully grateful.

GP: I've been having a good run, too. I feel safe.

JBJ: It's good to enjoy it. Sometimes you get caught up in it, and you can really do some silly things, or you could do the other extreme, which is to never acknowledge it, never even take the opportunity to pat yourself on the back and go, "Hey, this is a good day. Enjoy it." As long as you take the time to do that, you're really in a good place, you know?

GP: You rock!