No Richie on current leg of the tour

I think he wants a happy healthy Richie, and if that's a sober richie then yes I would guess he would want that. Since the drunk richie plays like crap, isn't always present and doesn't give his best.

Since there has been speculation that Richie may have bailed over money issues, following is an excerpt from Ratt's Bobby Blotzer's book, telling how Richie did not receive any share from merchandising back in 1985:

"I remember that Richie Sambora and I were in my room one night drinking. We were starving, so I'm thinking, "Let's go down to our bus, we've got pizza down there.” So, we scurry down to the bus, and all the pizza is gone. I did find a box in a bunk that had some two-day-old pizza in it. Hard as tree bark, but we tried to heat it up and eat it, anyway. It just wasn't very appetizing.
We kept talking about business, mostly merchandise. He asked how much we were getting, and I told him. He was blown away! I asked, "What about you guys? What do you do?” He's like, "F... if I know. I don't get any of that.”
I was stunned. Are you kidding me?
I go, "You don't get anything on merchandise? Wow, dude. You wrote the songs with Jon, from the very beginning.” We talked about it until he was pretty worked up.
He was worked up enough to go in and insisted on a piece of it, I guess, because he came up to me later and said, "Thanks for sticking up for me that night, because I went in and recut my deal.” Now, he's got something like $80 million in the bank? So, hey, Richie! Send a brother a little love, will ya?""

He also states that the Bon Jovi guys were on a weekly salary of $500 on that tour, and that Jon resented Stephen Pearcy etc.

Anyone have Ally Sheedy's account of when she was with Richie...ya know, since we are bringing up ancient history and all.

There must have been a lot of re-negotiating went on after the initial thrill of just being in a famous band sunk in and wore off a bit.

Also, I wonder if Hugh received the same amount as Alex in 1994/1995. Maybe Hugh was earning more the whole time if Alex was mostly only doing live shows and promo.

I've said so many times, we have half the story.

RS clearly thought that Jon would stop the tour/beg him to come back and despite protesting the opposite, IMO there was certainly some kind of animosity or passive-aggressive bullshit between Jon and Richie. David and Tico know there place in the band. In their opinion, Jon has steered them right more than wrong but Richie’s opinion on this has changed, I believe. I don’t believe that Jon has done nothing wrong. I think that even if there was no disagreement; in the very least, he could have and should have managed the situation and contained it before it got to the point where RS left. DO NOT get me wrong… RS chose to walk off the tour and be a twat but as the quarterback, as the Boss - he obviously knew this was coming so he knew Richie wasn’t happy – when the call came in, JBJ has said himself he knew what it was before Paul Korzilius even said the words. As someone who manages people and runs a little band, there comes a point where you have to take someone aside and make things better. But I don’t think either of them knew it would turn in to the staring competition it has.

But, to take a dose of my own medicine – maybe there’s nothing Jon could have done, we just don’t know. But now, I get the vibe that RS is doing this ‘it was all me just wanting to be with my daughter’ thing as a ‘I’ll take the blame, I’ve been a dick, I won’t reveal anything else just let me come back.’ The problem he has is; Jon HAS proved he just might be able to do this without Richie, to a certain extent - and Richie has continued to sink without a trace, musically.

But Rolo – you’re just providing all those who worship Jon with every excuse in the book to exhault him on-high and slate the man you claim to love… so even if you’re not trolling, you kind of are.

Rolo is in too deep now, must defend Richie at all costs!! Bringing the Aftermath tour in is a bit silly given how he even bailed on his own shows when the ticket sales were so bad- if he was that much into the love and musical freedom he would have played for the few fans that bought tickets.
Thing is, he would have had a decent enough fanbase to tour Europe/Asia and the like, but he has lost a lot of goodwill from his fans through his behaviour over this tour. As has been said many times, he's a grown man- if he didn't want to tour, he didn't have to say yes, he didn't have to sign a contract. He's not a 5 year old girl, he's a 50-odd year old man, Jon wasn't pointing a gun to his head.

All of this wouldn't have grown into the issue it had if he had just grown a pair of balls and not done the album/tour in the first place. Everyone would have known were they stood and wouldn't have begrudged him not being on tour for whatever reason. It's because we as fans were deceived- not just by Richie, but by the Bon Jovi machine as a whole, but to absolve Richie of all blame is naive at best, plain stupid and blinkered at worst.



Not really a fair comparison, as back in 85 I doubt any of them were getting much from the record company- this was pre-Slippery so they didn't have the bargaining power that they do now.

Aloha !

Another thing is that once he actually leaves Bon Jovi, not many fans will keep buying tickets to see him do solo shows. He's no Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Paul Simon or even Noel Gallagher or Morrissey who's been capable of entertaining audiences outside of the band they're playing in. Richie's been pretty much invisible for the past 10 years or so ever since Bon Jovi stopped being a band. If he actually leaves Bon Jovi he'll be "that guitarist that used to play in Bon Jovi who's got a solo album out". He's got no career outside of Bon Jovi and doesn't seem to be that willing to work for it either considering how little effort he put into promoting his own album.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

As JBJ and the other members have said many times, during that period none of them had money. I imagine even Jon was not getting much from merch then. That passage you quoted never says it was with Jon or against Jon he re-negotiated his deal.

I imagine several times over the last 30 years one or all have sat down and reworked their cut. I am not even sure that thing above is important in the grand scheme.

lol rolo lol