Richie Sambora

The hearing thing is definitely true, a person I know who's worked photography for him during the RSO period told me he struggles to hear stuff sometimes.

I can't remember where it was but it was Richie himself saying that he was something like 70% deaf after 40 years of touring. He also rarely (if ever) used in-ears and played using normal monitors.

I remember that interview, too, where he said that he has hearing problems.
But the thing with rarely using in-ears is wrong. Since they started using them, he can be seen a lot with them. So that's another one of his stories where he just fades away a little bit from the truth

Wasn't Jon using monitors on last tour vs. in-ears on last several tours? Either way, you can turn volume on both of them, I wouldn't say one or another is to be the reason for hearing problems per se. But listening, performing, recording etc. on high volume for 40 years can bring real damage. Even for several years. Especially I guess performing in front of several powered amps as in early years

https://youtu.be/jOZA9vWTwmA?si=WK4V1xjUCceAv0gE&t=143

Given that there are a few songs tied to samples on a click, he absolutely used them in his time in the band. But after that he probably had little reason to, it's not like the vocal triggers made it to the solo stuff.

Wrong.
The in-ears protect your ears against all other sounds coming from outside. They are not just for listening to your own mix, like a monitor does.
So being in front of drums on a very short distance for years and years and using monitors instead of in-ears makes a big difference.

That has nothing to do with it. In studio they use headphones and on stage, the PA boxes are in fact in front of them (and pointed away), usually right over the stage line. So that doesn't have too much of an effect to the people on stage.

You're right that in-ear protection really protects better against undesired outside sounds (like drums too loud for vocalists, etc.), but what I was saying is that you can still be too agressive on your own mix in in-ears, as many musicians tend to be.

Same applies for studio work. Long hours with mixing headphones usually tend to go volume up as hours go by.

Regarding your second argument, PA boxes are usually in front of the stage, but back in the day amps were behind and very powerful. Perhaps most notorious even before Jovi, in the 70's, but this continued for quite some time. Today, you can power whole arena with a little 10w amp that is mic'd, making noise on stage much less of a problem.

Regardless of the reasons why, there’s no dispute that he suffers from hearing loss.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

no let's dispute a little more, it is fun !

He's still appearing here and there or releasing songs every once in a while but... do you guys think Richie's basically retired at this point?
Sure feels like...