jedijovi posted this on Backstage:
Musicians' rock-solid friendship
If you go
By Rex Rutkoski
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Thursday, March 20, 2003
He's been around the world, and then some, but Jon Bon Jovi says one image remains forever emblazoned in his mind.
It was the time he first saw former Cheswick resident Norman Nardini perform live.
"I remember explicitly," the superstar musician says over the phone from his dressing room trailer in San Diego. "It was Norm Nardini and the Muscles of Love (Bon Jovi's nickname for Nardini's Tigers). They hit the stage in their T-shirts and cutoffs. He is a madman, quite a showman," he says, laughing out loud at the memory.
They became fast friends that day in 1980 when Nardini opened for Bon Jovi on his home turf: the Fast Lane in Asbury Park, N.J. Guitarist Paul Shook of Millvale, a Shaler High graduate, was a member of the Tigers.
Bon Jovi was still in high school and his band was called The Rest. No one from his current group played with him then.
"I think I scared him. He had never seen a real Pittsburgh rock'n'roll band," says Nardini, laughing. "I think he thought we would be just some chumps from Pittsburgh."
Nardini was 29 at the time. Bon Jovi was 18.
"A couple of guys in my band stole the chicks off a couple guys in his band. It was real rock'n'roll," Nardini adds, laughing again.
It's a good bet that Nardini and Bon Jovi, who have remained close, will be doing some heavy reminiscing Monday when Bon Jovi returns to headline a concert in Mellon Arena, with the Goo Goo Dolls as guests.
Through the years Bon Jovi has invited Nardini on stage to play with him, or has joined him after the show to jam with him in a Pittsburgh club. Nardini says he never knows what will happen until Bon Jovi gets into town and calls him. Nardini knows he already has 40 to 50 people who want his assistance in getting into the show that night.
His own most vivid memory of his time with Bon Jovi was the day he took his Tigers to Bon Jovi's parents' house for a spaghetti dinner. "He was just this high school kid and he had a really cool family. He was talking about how he wanted to become a big rock star. We were kind of like this underground heroes."
They stayed in touch. "We got to be buddies. He came to all my shows when we played New Jersey." Bon Jovi even chose to share his 30th birthday with Nardini, joining him at an Asbury Park gig.
Bon Jovi played with him for an hour at a club in McDonald after a Star Lake concert. Bon Jovi had Nardini learn a Creedence Clearwater Revival song one night backstage at the Arena before playing it with him in front of the Pittsburgh audience. They jammed on the Rolling Stones' "It's All Over Now" on stage at Star Lake, and they rocked the old Decade club in Oakland more than once.
Nardini also has made friends with Bon Jovi keyboardist Dave Bryan, who hired him to play his wedding and he hires him each summer to play a party he hosts at his New Jersey residence.
Often Bon Jovi wants to perform Nardini's music when he joins him for a late night jam. "That frustrates his fans," Nardini says laughing.
Even with all of his success, Bon Jovi insists he could have been happy being Norm Nardini, one of Pittsburgh's favorite musical sons.
"The motivating factor when you're a kid is not to sell 100 million records, but just to learn how to write songs and perform them. I wouldn't have known what success of this extent was. I could have been very content to be Norman, play music on his level and Southside Johnny's level. That's all we knew existed. I didn't want to be Zeppelin."
Bon Jovi often has spoken of Nardini in glowing terms, once observing, "Norman is the epitome of rock'n'roll. He lives it and breathes it. The greatest compliment anybody can pay a player is that he lives it. God bless him for it."
In those early years, Nardini and his Tigers were actually bigger than Bon Jovi. Nardini and company had a reputation as a hot, gritty East Coast rock'n'roll band, and were earning respect in the national music industry.
Nardini signed with CBS and did a video for MTV of his song "If You Don't Want Me, Somebody Will," which he cut with Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi produced a demo for Nardini in the early '80s at the Power Station, a New York City recording studio owned by Bon Jovi's uncle. Bon Jovi had moved in there and worked as the janitor.
Nardini knew early that sweeping floors was not his friend's calling.
"I thought he was a good looking kid, a talented kid, I thought he had a lot of heart. Now I think he is the Frank Sinatra of his generation," he says. "Jonny studied the masters. He was always very hip to what Bruce (Springsteen) was doing and Southside Johnny was doing. At the beginning, people thought of his group as a hair band, but I think he knew he wanted to go deeper and write the way Bruce writes. He is really a disciple of the older Jersey guys, and now he is the Jersey guy as far as I'm concerned."
Bon Jovi believes that people have found something in the core of his songs. "It's important to know music means something to people," he says. He is flattered when people tell him a song moved them. "It moved me when I wrote it, and because it did I wanted to share it with others." It really is a humbling experience when you are able to do that, he adds.
"You think, 'Oh, my, people can't really be that excited by goofy, fun, rock songs.' But there's more to some of them." He cites songs like 'It's My Life" and "Keep The Faith" as examples.
Nardini is not surprised at his friend's phenomenal success.
"Jonny is so much brighter and so much more together than people give him credit for. There is a reason he has lasted as long as he has," he says. "People don't realize how smart he is. He is the brains behind what he does, the business force behind it."
Nardini spoke to him a few weeks ago. "When I call he calls me back, no matter where he is. He called me three times one day recently in between Toronto and Montreal. We kept missing each other's calls. That's the kind of guy he is. It shows me if he does that with me, I can't imagine what a professional relationship he has with the day to day business people he really needs to be with. He is really responsible and respectful of others."
Bon Jovi is careful in choosing projects. "I try to find things people can relate to. Obviously I wouldn't do a lot of movies we see advertised in the paper on Friday. I just try to do things I feel I can make a contribution to. With that in mind, it will be honest. Then, win or lose it came from every bit of being I have. Music and film opportunities come and go. Even if the success was not so great, the intent was there."
He continues to be motivated by the opportunity to learn. "The idea of learning is probably the biggest thing," he says. "I certainly don't want to sit in another trailer like I am right now. I enjoy the creative process immensely and love to learn something from it."
Nardini gets a kick out of seeing Bon Jovi on television or in a film too. "I'm so proud of him. I've met so many young guys and talented guys along the way. He is still developing. That's the amazing thing about him. He is something. He really is an incredible guy.
"It was a stroke of brilliance for him to realize there is more to life than rock'n'roll, smart of him to realize there were other ways to promote yourself and get other people interested in who you are and what you do. He figured it out before anyone saw him act. He studied for a couple of years."
Bon Jovi says he likes to believe he can take on a character and portray it in an honest manner. "I certainly give it every ounce of my being. It's not a vanity project for me anymore. I want to make a contribution."
He is sure the same creative expression fuels both his acting and his music. "They complement each other greatly. In essence, when I'm doing music I'm the director and producer and star. I'm the bass player of the movie business. Doing film is humbling and exciting. You learn a lot and in the end you don't have any control over it."
Music remains his centerpiece, and he says the underlying current of all his albums, including his new "Bounce," has been "faith, hope and optimism."
He is asked how he, like his friend Nardini, has been able to maintain that optimism.
"Look around you and every day you wake up is an opportunity to have a good day," Bon Jovi, 41, says. "A lot has to do with my upbringing and the time and place I was brought up in."
By no means was it a privileged background, he says. "It was a very blue collar, working class background. I was born in the Kennedy years and optimism was flowing. The feeling of freedom and optimism was instilled as a kid. There were all these great things there to be had, opportunities to be had."
Nardini, 52, says that he has no regrets that he was not able to explore his own opportunities to the extent that Bon Jovi has. "I made some bad decisions, missed some boats. We all can't be Johnny," he says. "But the fact he is such a good guy it makes me happy. I don't have to be him. It wasn't in the cards for me."
Norman Nardini is still having a lot of fun rocking in his own free world.
Rex Rutkoski can be reached at
rrutkoski@tribweb.com or (724) 226-4664.
03-25-2003, 04:32 PM
Musicians' rock-solid friendship
how adorable!
