Backstage with Bon Jovi (40th Anniversary)

Bon Jovi's recording for "Stairway To Heaven/Highway To Hell" had been set to July 1988 from the get-go, hence that song being part of the sessions. Doc had almost all of the members record with Fairbairn in Vancouver and wanted to get Bon Jovi's recording done before they hit the road for New Jersey. Hence the rest of the acts starting their sessions from January 1989 onwards and Bon Jovi having been pulled upfront.

The song production chart for New Jersey proves that all those tracks were recorded in the studio (not the demo’s already heard) as the parts per song are ticked off from the studio sessions - so just like the proper mixed b side version of Love Is War from the Living In Sin single the other tracks left off New Jersey have studio multitracks that have never seen the light of day. Whether these were mixed at the time or still unmixed who knows but it’s bizarre these weren’t found/used for the New Jersey deluxe edition - If they weren’t mixed at the time I hope one day they are mixed by a recognised mixer (Chris Lord Alge etc) not Obie to the same sort of standard as the New Jersey album official tracks ……….. A lot of fans would prefer this over new material ……

The "demos already heard" were recorded in the studio as well. They just didn't make it to the final mixing / production stage once the record company put their veto onto the double album Jon had envisioned.
There's no song on that working sheet where a studio recording isn't known. Given that Lay Your Hands On Me isn't yet on that list, it's obvious this wasn't the final stage of production either.

Lay Your Hand On Me is there, right before The Boys Are Back...

Ah my bad. I also think the crosses behind some tracks indicate that they were already axed from the final tracklist at that point.

The unreleased tracks that didn’t make New Jersey and that was put on the bonus deluxe edition is the demo’s not the tracked in Vancouver versions meaning they have yet to be released or possibly mixed except Love Is War which was used and mixed for a B side in 89.

Or, if they did exist, it could be another case of they've been lost or the tapes damaged - like the better version of Does Anybody Really Fall In Love.

If they do still exist it would be weird that they used the demos on the New Jersey deluxed instead of these...

The released versions say that they were mixed in 2014 by Obie, but that they were produced by Bruce Fairbairn. Would Bruce have been involved in the demos? Seems odd. Diamond Ring is the only exception which was mixed by Bob Rock in 1988, so that sounds like it would have been recorded in Vancouver, while the others would be the demos?

I think not including the finished version of Does Anybody and completely excluding Rosie had something to do with licensing.



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Those deluxe album version released are 100% not Bruce Fairbairn tracked recordings ……. Little Mountain studios had a reputation for its great drum sound - hence Aerosmith - Poison tracked there…… Also check out the Aerosmith and Kiss recording chart sheets which are pretty much the same and we’re check offs for studio recording of parts…..
The deluxe edition has tracks which made New Jersey also in the same lower quality on the bonus disc so it’s obviously the ones released were working demos - plus Love Is War was put out as a b side proving a higher quality version existed. Who knows why but it could simply be that they had a two track rough mix bounce down of the circulated leaked demo’s and it was cost effective and easy to just use those ….. IF the multitracks are available it would be great to have them mixed by a pro mixer and released one day …… Here s a great documentary on Little Mountain Studios -

I'm not sure that's right though, House of Fire and Does anybody....were completely different takes than the versions on the leaked tracks. Backdoor to Heaven sounds different too (and I'm not referring to the pitch change).