Jon Bon Jovi looks down at his designer shoes as if seeing them for the first time. ‘Do you like them?’ he says. ‘Stolen!’ Stolen is not some hipster label. He means they were stolen from a photo shoot he did a few weeks ago. He pointed both thumbs at his leather jacket and added. “I stole that too.
The 62-year-old Bon Jovi frontman circles the carpet of his Corinthia London hotel suite like dogs before they decide where to sit, then pulls his legs up yogi-style once he’s settled on the sofa. “We’ve seen each other before, haven’t we?”
In his band’s 1987 hit “Wanted Dead or Alive,” Bon Jovi declared, “I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all,” so it’s impressive that he recognized this one — not least because it’s been 28 years since then. our last meeting From the side of the stage in Stuttgart, I witnessed the rock star at her peak as she belted out million sellers like ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ and ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ to 75,000 fans who roared every word. back at him.
At the time, there was no reason to believe that Bon Jovi wasn’t ready to follow his heroes the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. “I’ll never be a fat Elvis,” he told me—a sound he repeats nearly three decades later when I ask him if he’s still maintaining his goal of seven percent body fat. “No,” she says, “but I still have a 31-inch waist and can run five miles.” How fast? “Um, well, let’s just say I saw a stretcher go by.
However, my genes were good to me.” She runs her fingers through her impressive silver mane, “I still have that hair.
Anyone who has seen the new four-part Disney+ documentary Thank You Good Night: The Bon Jovi Story he’ll know that the singer’s figure isn’t the reason he’s slowing down. Decades of touring had robbed him of his singing ability. His atrophied vocal cords won’t close when he tries to sing, robbing him of a fifth of his range.
Ahead of leading neck surgeon Robert Sataloff’s surgery in the summer of 2022, which would either fix the problem or make it irreparable, we watch Bon Jovi ponder “having someone take a knife to your vocal cords, [then] wake up and not be there. This thing [the vocal cord] as big as your thumbnail – but employs 120 people.”
On the other hand, ITV said this This morning that he had “no problems” recording the band’s new album Foreverreleased last Friday, and even hinted that the band would be hitting the road again “very soon,” so the operation probably wasn’t a complete failure.
The album itself is a purposeful affirmation of Jon Bon Jovi’s personal and political values. Topics range from the attack by Trump supporters on Capitol Hill in January 2021 (“The People’s House”) to his own daughter’s upcoming wedding (“Kiss The Bride”) and the endurance of his own band (“Legendary, We Made It”) Look Easy’ ).
In fact, failure seems to be something that Bon Jovi sees as a mere test of initiative on the way to some greater triumph.
By the dawn of the 1980s, he was already plotting his rise, pulling all-nighters at New York’s Power Station—the studio owned by his cousin Tony, where the likes of Chic and Roxy Music recorded albums.
Bon Jovi watched David Bowie sing ‘Let’s Dance’ as a bouncer. (“You talked when they talked to you,” he says.) Bon Jovi recalls the moment Mick Jagger asked him how his demos were going. Till five years, Slippery when wetBon Jovi’s third album, released in 1986, outsold the Rolling Stones by about eight to one, eventually moving 16 million copies.
Jon Bon Jovi and family at the 2018 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Ohio
He remains saddened by the music industry’s reluctance to acknowledge the extent of his band’s influence:Slippery when wet he hasn’t been nominated for a single Grammy, go for it!” he says. He is similarly angry at talk of his band being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 — an honor he believes was insultingly overdue. When accepting the award, his first words were: ‘I didn’t know if I should give the damn speech or the acceptance speech.’
To understand why Bon Jovi was not taken seriously, it is enough to remember the early image of the group: Spandex, cowboy boots, vests on the naked body. And the hair. So much hair. This may explain his cautious reaction to the photo shoot a few hours before our meeting, when he refused to try on any of the clothes YOU’s fashion director arranged for him. A Louis Vuitton suit on the railing received a brief commission, and the singer declared: “My grandmother would have loved it.”
In the course of our conversation, the bluntness of someone who once described himself as “the CEO of a large corporation that has been running a brand for 25 years” becomes apparent. He used to crave people comparing him to Bruce Springsteen et al thank you, good nightSpringsteen shows up to do it himself and talks about the closeness of their friendship.
The pair take frequent trips around their native New Jersey, where they ‘talk about all the things we couldn’t talk about with someone who hasn’t experienced it’.
On tour in Japan, 1984, from left: David Bryan, Tico Torres, Alec John Such, Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi
What do people do when they see them together? “Oh, people know us in the area anyway, but when you two are there, it’s almost like a Bigfoot sighting. Once we were driving and there were people at a traffic light collecting war veterans. I had a dollar in my pocket, so I rolled down the window.
The man collecting saw it was me and leaned over to the window and said, “Oh Jon, hi man, thanks.” Then he saw Bruce in the passenger seat – this old man running down the line to the other guys and said, “You’re not going to believe who just gave me a dollar!”
Back in what Bon Jovi calls ‘the gray summer of ’91’, he could probably use some words of wisdom from The Boss. That’s when the road-weary band stopped communicating and Bon Jovi and his wife (now 35 years) Dorothea Hurley moved to Malibu to seek peace. When they got there, it turned out that their neighbors were Robert Downey Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland – “young men going through the same phase of their lives”.
It also referred to Bon Jovi’s drinking and his growing neurosis: “I was getting crazy about having to go into elevators.” He went to see a therapist but was 50 minutes late and only had ten minutes of his allotted time left. On the way back, his resulting rage spiraled to the point that Hurley had to stop him from jumping out of the moving car.
His childhood love turned into a lifelong partnership in Bon Jovi’s most successful song from this tumultuous period. On million-selling mea culpa ‘Bed of Roses’, he sings about dating ‘some blonde’ [who] gave me nightmares”, making him realize “the truth is baby, you’re all I need”.
Over the years he has stopped short of outright denials when asked about indiscretions on the road, but in an April interview he admitted he had “got away with murder”: “I’m a rock and roll star. I’m not a saint. I’m not saying there weren’t 100 girls in my life. I’m Jon Bon Jovi!”
Jon Bon Jovi and Paul McCartney perform together in the Hamptons, New York, 2012
Track thank you, good nightIt’s about making her better understand why their marriage lasted—if she had a good reason to, Hurley would just as quickly throw him out of that moving car than stop him from leaving. He is definitely not afraid to give home truths. Right after a concert in Nashville in 2022, Hurley finally told him what the rest of his band couldn’t bring themselves to do: his voice wasn’t up to the job anymore. He looks forlorn at that moment. “It hurt my heart,” he told me.
For Bon Jovi, watching the documentary was “like watching the spirit of Christmas future”. Of course, it could be that he’s trying to reconcile the carefree, mic-wielding Bon Jovi with the silver-haired father of four, who is choking back tears over the many sacrifices his bandmates made in their early days.
When asked why he started crying at that moment, his eyes watered again. He talks about his drummer, Tico Torres, who is ten years older than me, has a record deal, a wife and a house. [who] gave up everything to follow a 21-year-old boy’; David Bryan, who was going to be a doctor, and guitarist Richie Sambora, who was planning to pursue a solo career.
Bon Jovi says the arrogance of youth prevented him from understanding what he was asking of them until he had something to lose. “In some ways, that’s what aging means: the fear of what might have happened and the fear of what may yet happen.”
Some of the most moving scenes in Tthank you, good night Focus on the departure of Sambora, who cited “deep family issues” as the reason he didn’t board the plane for Bon Jovi’s 2013 world tour. The pair reunited last year to watch a documentary at Bon Jovi’s home: “Just the two of us, late into the night . I hugged him and haven’t spoken to him since.’
Bon Jovi’s four children have taken center stage, except for his actor son Jake Bongiovi, 22. [Bongiovi is Bon Jovi’s real name] who got married last month Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, 20. “It was a very small family wedding and the bride looked beautiful and Jake is happy as can be,” Bon Jovi said. The One Show. Is it new to have someone in the family to compare fame to?
“Millie is wiser than her years,” her father-in-law replies, “wiser than I was at her age.” She and Jake figure things out together. You talk to them and they say, “We’re developing them [ideas for] movies together’ and I’m taken aback.’
Jake Bongiovi and Millie Bobby Brown, who were married last month, New York, 2022
In the Hamptons on Long Island, a three-hour drive from New Jersey, where Bon Jovi and Hurley spend most of their downtime, they enjoy a close friendship with close neighbors Paul McCartney and his wife, Nancy Shevell. Peter Jackson Week Return the documentary came out, both couples watched it at McCartney’s house.
“What was it? Unfathomable!” he trumpets boyishly: “I even refer to him as Beatle Paul.” In his face? Sure.
He once said, “Why do you call me Beatle Paul?” And I tell him, “It’s because I’m too old to call you Mr. McCartney and I’m too stunned to ever call you Paul, no matter how close we’ve been!” It’s Beatle Paul.’
And is he okay with that?
‘Yes!’ he replies. “But only with me!”
Bon Jovi seems to be more happy with this arrangement than any accolade he’s been chasing for so long. He earned the respect of the rock stars he used to get coffee for. Now it remains to be seen whether his voice will heal enough to survive the three-hour shows his fans are used to. “Honestly, I can’t answer that for you,” he says.
The temptation to borrow a line from his most famous song is too great: are we halfway there?
“I see what you did,” he said with a smile. Currently, the journal remains empty. But who would dare to doubt him?
Jon Bon Jovi album Forever it’s out now. Thank You Good Night: The Jon Bon Jovi Story is available to watch on Disney+
Directed by Esther Malloy.
Grooming: Katya Thomas at Carol Hayes.