Jon is clearly driven by an incredible hunger to be "successful". I think he's absolutely sincere when he says that he will never be the fat Elvis and as soon as it becomes a nostalgia act that he will bring the band to an end. What's interesting for me now is to figure out what Jon defines successful as being.

Undoubtedly since Crush, having hit singles and successful albums has been his litmus test for success, and the band's direction has followed there from. Crush was made to find both a new audience and attract the old fans (hence IML and TYFLM). Bounce was created the way it was to follow in the footsteps of the success of IML. HAND was entirely created, musically, visually, promotionally to be a commercial success, and Lost Highway was written to commercially capitalise on the success of Who Says. None of that is necessarily a bad thing at all (afterall the same was true and then some for Slippery, New Jersey, and Keep the Faith) but it's very clear the motivation for the creation of those albums in their form was commercial success. I also don't think that a desire for commercial success has to be (or was in Bon Jovi's case) in conflict with artistic integrity.

Personally, I've been hoping for the last number of years that Jon would begin to change his mind set on success. I hoped that he would recognise that Bon Jovi are now at a stage in their career where no matter what they do they will never have a big hit single or an album that sells 10 million, but that success could be had in other ways; writing great songs, building loyalty with your existing fan base, and being a massive touring force. Happily, I think since the Lost Highway tour, that has slowly but surely become the case.

I think the success of the Lost Highway tour probably took Jon by surprise and made him believe that he could continue to achieve amazing success through touring rather than album sales or hit singles. My hope was that believing this could provide Jon with a new artistic freedom and to forget about writing another number 1, radio-friendly song, and simply concentrate on creating songs and albums that are most true to him. In my opinion, The Circle was a major step in that direction. Then when I heard what he said in the iHeart radio interview, I was overjoyed. That was everything I wanted to hear him say. Now what I'm waiting for is the evidence to back that up what he said. It's one thing to say such a thing, it's another to follow through and create music that's consistent with that mindset.

Songs like Old Habits and Not Running Anymore are straight from that mindset. At no point in listening to those songs do you ever get the sense that Jon was writing them with a desire for them to be radio friendly. They are just pure artistic creations; love them or hate them. My hope is that the songs that make up the forthcoming album will have been written from that place rather than from a (conscious or unconscious) starting place of "chasing a hit single". Everyone tends to say they was another New Jersey or KTF or TD; I want another Destination Anywhere! I want to see that song writer back. Whether it's writing big rock songs, quiet acoustic songs, socially conscious songs, party songs, love songs, it doesn't matter if they are being written from that place or that state of mind.

This is why I'm looking forward to What About Now more than any other Bon Jovi. I think it is has the potential to be both the best or worst album of their career, and could well define the direction the next decade of their career will take.