Tico Torres barely played on the first album?
 

I have recently been doing some research about the recording of the first album in 1984. Not by any means a favorite, but it seems to be an intereresting time as a lot of outisde musicans seemed to stop by and play on the album. We know that both Aldo Nova and Doug Kastaros backed up David Bryan with keyboards and of course we know the Runaway story. BUT, how much did Tico play on the first album?

Frankie LaRocka played drums on Runaway and Chuck Burgi is credited as a drummer as well. Todya I stumbled upon an old interview with Chuch Burgi who states that he played on five songs on the first album. The exact quote goes...

"I played on Jon's (Bon Jovi) first record. I think I did five tunes on that. He had a band. Tico was in the band, but they were having trouble in the studio. They had already recorded a one-off song called "Runaway", which was his first single. I knew the producer from working in another band in the studio with him and so he called me and said, "I got something else to you to lay on," and I came in and did I guess five songs in the course of two days. I was also in a band being produced at the time by Jon's cousin, Tony Bongovi. Tony was a part owner of Power Station and he was producing and engineering everybody from Bruce Springsteen to all sorts of groups."

Link: http://www.classicbands.com/ChuckBurgiInterview.html

If he spent two days in the studio it makes sense that he recorded about five songs. With Frankie LaRocka doing Runaway and Chuck Burgi doing five others, that leaves Tico with only 3 songs. Of course I don't know how many songs the band did record for the first album that didn't make it so the numbers may vary.

Is this something I have missed out on and is common knowledge? Maybe it's as simple as Chuck Burgi simply remembering it wrong and exaggerates it quite a bit. But it seems like a thing you would remember, if you have done studio work for Bon Jovi, one of the biggest band in the world. What do you think? If it's true that Tico plays on less then half of the album it definetly changes the view on that album.

I don't know... I think is Tico on everything, the guy maybe recorded but we don't know if his take made it to the final cut...

This is the first I've heard of it, interesting! But yah who knows what takes made it, just that he recorded. It doesn't sound like a lot of different drummers to me, the sound is pretty consistent.

Yeah. But maybe he used Tico's kit, who knows. On the other hand, I'd like to know what kind of "trouble" they were having in the studio. Can only think of technical issues, so using Tico's kit can be ruled out. Or did Tico have a few drinks too many or something like that? :mrgreen:

Interesting!

I'm not a drummer, but if we had some expert on that area, maybe he could tell by the way Tico plays which songs feature him....?

There was also a rumour going around that he played on half of Lost Highway. There's video footage of the songs he played on so I often wonder if it's true.

In my opinion ,as a drummer,and knowing Ticos drummin perfectly,if I had to tell one song on the first album dont played by him,Id say with no doubt "She dont know me"
Of course,its just my opinion.