Part 2

"Bon Jovi never got into drugs. He’s been married to Dorothea, his high-school sweetheart, since 1989. (“I’ll take the monicker as poster boy for marriage because I was wise enough, even as a young man, to realise the grass isn’t always greener.”) He spends much of his time running the Soul Foundation, a Philadelphia charity providing homes for low-income families, alongside a community restaurant where patrons volunteer for their meals or contribute financially with a minimum donation. All of this might lead you to think that the next stop for Bon Jovi, a lifelong Democrat who campaigned on behalf of Barack Obama, is politics. He rejects the suggestion.

“I wish there was more nobility in politics,” he says. Could he be talking about Donald Trump’s ruthless campaigning tactics? “Let me see if I can say this properly without just spewing my views. I understand the plight of the angry white older guy, which is the demographic that candidate is winning, because of the chasm between the haves and the have-nots and because the middle class has been eroded. In England, that frustration led to Brexit. With Trump, there was a time when I thought, no chance in Hell. Then I got scared. Then about six weeks ago I thought, we’re going to be OK, love will prevail over hate. Now I just don’t know.”

You can see why Bon Jovi might be hankering after the certainties of his youth, why coming back to the Power Station, where it all began for him, is an attractive proposition. “Now I’m trying to get the muscles back to go out there again, but I’m trepidatious,” he says as our interview comes to an end. “You’re the first person I’ve really talked to about the album and all I want to ask is, ‘What do you think?’ ”

I tell him I think it’s an honest album with a bruised and battered feel, reminiscent of Springsteen at his most rocking. He likes the first description but not the second, Springsteen comparisons having dogged him for the past three decades. As we get up to leave, I ask him what’s next.

“The plan now is to do some shows where we play This House Is Not for Sale from beginning to end.”

What, no Livin’ on a Prayer?

“When I get out on tour the chances of playing 15 songs from the album are probably not real, but every artist wants to play the new stuff. So first here is the album, presented in the way an album mattered to me when I was a kid. Then it’s the next step. You want Livin’ on a Prayer?”

Of course I do. Who doesn’t?

“Come and see us on tour.”

This House Is Not for Sale by Bon Jovi is out on Mercury on October 21"