The Song That Saved The Band

Originally Posted by The Walrus

Hmmmmm ... I don't remember those rumours....

Originally Posted by RyanBounce04

How do you not?!?!!? I remember it as clear as day! Someone made a thread or posted in a thread reporting that they'd been rehearsing Dry County at Soundcheck.

Ryan

Originally Posted by Captain_jovi

Really? I remember someone saying they heard them rehearsing Hard times come easy but I don't recall DC.

..Wait. It wasn't Seb, was it? Cuz for the longest time, I thought they did Novocaine at the first Japanese show till I was told otherwise.

Originally Posted by Lord of the Jovi Realm

Found this recently thought it was pretty cool

Richie explains the song that saved Bon Jovi - compiled and paraphrased from a series of interviews in the early 00s.

After New Jersey the band got together at the urging of a Japanese concert promoter. Jon and RIchie were each paid 1/2 million dollars US for that one show. The first X-mas show was a warm up for this high paying gig. They only played a handful of songs and parted ways for a good long stretch. Jons physical exhaustion and mental fatigue were very evident. He tried to recharge himself with Young Guns II and got the band together to play for the Academy Awards that year, but the band was unofficially separated at this point. The same promoter in Japan offered them the chance to play Japan again the following year as an exclusive engagement which was billed sometimes in Japan as the last Bon Jovi show. Jon and Richie got a cool 1 million each for this. But afterward Jon said to the band "we can't do this anymore" as he left. Richie released and toured behind his first solo record which he called "the greatest tour of my life". Meanwhile Jon tried a few things to "find himself, and deal with the end of the band". He toured with Southside Johnny as a backup musician and then took a long road trip across the country with a few close friends. In a little town in the middle of nowhere at a hotel where they stopped for the evening Jon headed down to the hotel restaurant for a little nightcap to help him sleep. The restaurant told him they didn't have a bar and when he asked for directions to the closest establishment, he was told that it was over an hour away due to local liquor laws. In the banquet room, still unable to sleep, Jon wrote at the grand piano the song that would save the band, a piano part, 2 verses and the chorus to Dry County. The next morning after breakfast Jon called Richie and left him a mesage on his machine. "Rich, it's me........I'm not ready to give up yet, I should be home in a few days, I got a song I think would be great, can you call the guys and see what they are doing, I think we should try" Richie said he kept the tape from the answering machine and he did hear Jon's song a few days later and it made him cry. "He never wrote a song like that before, it was real grown up music, no tits and ass, no fun and games but powerful", "when I laid down my track it was one take, Jon's voice just led me to the right solo". "Whatever happened that night in the desert changed our course, we were set on being apart" "shit that piano saved the greatest band in the world, (laughs)"

P

Originally Posted by JoviForever

Are you able to provide the source of this interview? Which magazine etc.