Original subtitles

[waves crashing]

[crowd cheering]

♪ Shot through the heart and you're to blame ♪

[crowd] ♪ Darling, you give love a bad name ♪

[rock music]

I think Bon Jovi started out as a rock band

and they became a pop band

and they retained the rock and roll feel.

They liked that, did they?

A bit uncool.

[no audio]

Their music was so hot, it would melt rock.

There is quite a bit of snobbery about Bon Jovi, I suppose,

among certain rock bands that think they're a bit above

humming along with the damn good tune.

They always have the last laugh, it doesn't matter,

it doesn't touch them, it doesn't affect them.

I mean you don't join a rock band because you want to

be part of the Christian Union or Salvation Army.

You don't generally join a rock and roll band in New Jersey

because you're a glass of white wine

with a meal and an early night kind of a dude.

With the fame comes money,

with the money and the fame come chicks,

with the chicks come drug dealers,

with the drug dealers come one long party

that can literally last months and months and months

and years and years and years.

The name of Bon Jovi is really synonymous with New Jersey,

I've read that as much as Bruce Springsteen's name,

from the very earliest days.

It was very important to them that they expressed

their background as a New Jersey band

and it was very much a part of

how they presented themselves to the public.

I think you could tell Bon Jovi came from New Jersey

in the early days particularly.

There's something extremely loud and obnoxious

about New Yorkers which

you have to be another New Yorker to really love,

but the boys from New Jersey they tended to dress down,

look slightly more like Bruce Springsteen

and less like Joey Ramone.

Certainly there is something extremely identifiable

about Bon Jovi's roots in New Jersey

because you can't really talk about

that state without talking about New York itself

because the Garden State, as it's called,

is really looked at as the dumping ground of New York

which is the place where the bright lights in the big city are.

Whereas New Jersey is working class, is slower,

it's suburban and no one really important comes from there.

It's a terrible stereotype but it's something that I'm sure

Bon Jovi have reacted against from their earliest days.

That's what really defines them as a band,

is the fact that they've overcome the kind of mundane identity

that is associated with people from New Jersey

and become bigger than anyone from New York ever could.

Bon Jovi came out of this New Jersey scene

which certainly had an influence on them,

particularly Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny.

In fact, Jon Bon Jovi would mention Southside Johnny

before he'd talk about Bruce Springsteen back in those days,

which might be rather surprising.

But there was that huge scene on the Jersey Shore.

Well Jon Bon Jovi was born and brought up in New Jersey,

as was David Bryan.

They're both the same age, they were both born in 1962.

Jon had several groups growing up.

Probably the most famous was Atlantic City Expressway.

Tico, sort of nine years older than Jon,

he had a big background in session work

and touring bands and he was signed to RCA

with a group called Franke and the Knockouts.

Alec John Such was ten years older than Jon

when the group started out.

In fact, well, he's probably still ten years older than Jon.

And he had a background in session work too

and he played in lots of covers bands around New Jersey.

And Richie Sambora, also New Jersey born and bred,

three years older than Jon.

He had a group called Mercy,

which was at one time signed to Led Zeppelin's Swansong label,

which was very apt because he was a massive Jimmy Page fan.

And he had another few bands as well.

And when he first saw Bon Jovi,

who at that time had Dave Sabo, called Snake,

who later went on to form Skid Row.

He was the first Bon Jovi guitarist.

Richie Sambora turned up in Chicago to see them play

and went up and told Jon that he had the wrong guitars

and that he, Richie, should take the job.

And that's why he joined so.

They all came together like that.

♪ On the street where you live ♪

♪ Girls talk about their social lives ♪

♪ They're made of lipstick, plastic and paint

♪ A touch of sable in their eyes ♪

♪ All your life all you've asked ♪

♪ When's your Daddy gonna talk to you? ♪

♪ But you were living in another world ♪

♪ Trying to get your message through ♪

In the very early days Jon received a lot of support from his family,

his uncle Tony Bongiovi,

who was one of the owners of the Power Station Studios in New York.

Jon got like a summer job there as a gopher,

go make the coffee, sweep the floors, as a kid.

So he got to see a lot of top musicians working close up.

He also later on got to demo songs during downtime,

those hours when regular artists

weren't using the studio, usually literally

in the middle of the night.

So he built up a little stack of demos of his own music

and when Tony Bongiovi heard Runaway

he realised that that was, you know,

for the first time this was a really great song,

really great composition, and got a team of studio musicians

together to record it with Jon,

and the demo was sent out all over the place

and really with very little reaction.

♪ Left there to look at you ♪

♪ You know she likes the lights at night on the neon Broadway sign ♪

Like I was saying, it's very difficult to get a record deal

and most A&R guys are afraid to sign

or take a chance on a young band.

And especially with our representation

or history behind you,

I went to a radio station because I thought who sits in a room

by himself with a microphone, does what he loves to do,

which is spin records and talk into this mic?

- The DJ? - Well, it was a DJ

and I went in and I said,

"look, if it stinks just tell me,

"but I'm really frustrated at this point,

"listen to this song, Runaway."

And he did and he liked it enough

and begged me to put it on this homegrown album

that the radio station was putting on.

There were a brand new station out of New York

that's now defunct called WAPP

and a DJ named Chip Hobart there.

[interviewer] I remember that station when I lived there

20 years ago.

It was there for a short period of time.

It's now a country station.

It was 103.5 on the dial out there.

But by my saying, OK, why not?

You know, it wasn't what you ever aspired to do when you're a kid.

You see, I'm going to get a record deal.

Well, you think album, you don't think single,

you don't think one cut on a local record.

OK, we'll see what happens.

The fluke was, A, it was New York City

and I was getting in an airplane to New York City without a record deal

or a manager or even a band at that point.

And then the station was owned by a chain

and that chain picked up the song.

And now it was causing a bit of a--

Sure, because now you're in a number of cities across the country.

- And going national now. - And the competition is saying

where that song came from? Who is that? How is that?

And record companies then turned around and paid attention.

In 1983, fortunately, I got a record deal.

Yeah.

♪ Oh, she's a little runaway ♪

♪ Daddy's girl learned fast ♪

♪ All those things she couldn't say ♪

♪ Ooh, she's a little runaway ♪

The fact is, which they've never hidden,

or felt any shame about,

is that Bon Jovi himself, Jon, he was signed to the record company.

The band were not.

The band were Jon's employees from the start.

So they were a band of guys who Jon pulled together

to back him, so that was always the truth.

And they didn't have any gripes about that as far as I'm aware.

Once he'd got his record deal and put the Bon Jovi band together,

his whole career then moved on to another level.

He had a manager called Doc McGhee, who came in,

a very experienced New York smart operator,

had a history in the music business, knew what he was doing.

Nevertheless it was a very, very long struggle.

The first Bon Jovi album,

they were really a perfectly proficient rock band,

maybe verging a little towards A&R in some parts

and towards rock and roll in other parts,

but some of the material was really quite ordinary,

they were still finding their feet,

they were still looking for the wow factor.

Well, I mean, I think everything else that's on the debut,

it's just like a much more straight ahead kind of rock album,

but Runaway is obviously a different songwriter,

I mean you definitely get a strong sense that Bon Jovi were,

you know, in a studio and just figuring out what works,

you know, just like what they can do as a band,

whereas Runaway obviously had composition

that took place elsewhere.

I think the first Bon Jovi album really,

the standout track is always going to be Runaway,

it was the first single, the first video,

it was what made them big in Japan before they got big everywhere else.

It was the one that the girls really liked as well

and in a strange way that kind of embarrassed them somewhat

because the success of Runaway

threatened to turn them into a pop group

and at that stage Jon in particular was very keen

that they should be taken seriously as a rock group.

♪ This time girl I've had enough ♪

♪ You're too hot to handle with kid gloves ♪

I think it was a good predictor of the cliches

that were going to be ever present

throughout all of Bon Jovi's discography,

of course there's an extremely heavy emphasis on melody,

writing the killer hook,

writing something that's going to be kind of lapped up

by the radio listening public and so on,

but it wasn't quite there yet,

it wasn't refined because they weren't really secure

in their identity as a commercial band,

which is what they would certainly become much later.

They were much more derivative of other things

that were happening at the time and certainly

there weren't the sort of foreigner influences that you hear

in some of the later albums.

♪ You held my heart for ransom ♪

♪ Baby, set it free ♪

Well with this album,

Runaway was a top 40 hit in America

which was brilliant for a debut single.

The album itself, it settled just outside the top 40 in America,

got to number 71 in this country.

So that was very very encouraging indeed for the band

and for the record company so there were great hopes

for the next album.

In terms of touring Bon Jovi did a lot of support tours

and they kept on doing support tours

right up to the point of Slippery When Wet coming out.

When that came out they were actually on another support tour.

They toured with the Scorpions.

The one place where they did break through

really really big with the debut album was Japan

and as a result of their reception in Japan

they opened their 7,800 Degrees Fahrenheit world tour there.

Oh it's just genius, it's so stupid, it's absolute genius.

The second album was rather hilariously

called 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit which is a hell of a mouthful

for any kid looking for it at a record store.

The whole idea is that that's the temperature at which rock melts,

the idea being that you know their music was so hot

it would melt rock.

You have to wonder because this is the days before Google,

is before Wikipedia,

how did anyone associated with the band or in the band know

that the temperature which you can melt stone

is 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit?

It's completely bizarre, so someone must have had a geology book

laying around which just boggles the mind

to know that so of course the implication of that is that

"oh it's hot rock, isn't it?"

But I don't think the fans would necessarily get that

and really the story isn't that interesting

if that is what the explanation is.

It's the only one that I think anyone's come up with.

Jon who was, and is, but particularly in those days,

an extremely pretty young man

really really wanted to downplay the whole thing,

really really wanted to emphasize that Bon Jovi

was a proper rock band, it was five guys, this big gang together,

they weren't gonna trade on his looks.

They were gonna prove that they could go out and kick ass

and so that whole album, you know,

there would be no Runaway, no big cutesy ballads,

it would be all about ballsy kick-ass rock,

and that's pretty much what it was.

And the only trouble was it failed miserably.

I think it's certainly a low point for the band, you know,

just both in terms of the songwriting the material

that wasn't there.

And I think that they were trying to get a bit deep.

I mean, we're talking about with 7800

Bon Jovi before they were really Bon Jovi, you know.

We're still talking about the seeds of the band

that would later become the global icons,

the kind of housewives dream kind of band

that they later became.

So you don't really see the refined Bon Jovi,

the kind of self-aware Bon Jovi that knows what they're doing

and has the confidence to write an album

like New Jersey or Slippery Slippery When Wet

I mean, that was yet to come.

Simply they had promise, but they weren't really there.

♪ In a place in a world they forgot ♪

♪ Lives the heart of me ♪

♪ A part that just won't die ♪

A couple of reasons Bon Jovi were big in Japan

before everywhere else...

Runaway was the first reason.

Jon's looks were the second reason.

Japanese girls love cute Western pop stars

and they don't come much cuter than Jon Bon Jovi back in 1983 or '84.

Something that I wonder about their success in Japan

is just exactly how to make sense of it.

I mean, you don't get the sense that rock fans are the same

in Japan as they are elsewhere.

There's almost a weird kind of fetishization of rock stars,

an idolization that doesn't necessarily occur elsewhere

and, I mean, you look at the audiences

and so on these people do not look like rock fans,

they're not part of the same team.

♪ Take me back to Tokyo road ♪

♪ Back to Tokyo road ♪

♪ Take me back to Tokyo road ♪

♪ Take me back to Tokyo road ♪

I think Tokyo Road and the lyrics are a little bit ambiguous actually

but it I think it was probably inspired

by their experiences touring in Japan,

probably the heart of the song is the red light passage,

which is where this sort of thunderous rock sound disappears

to be replaced with all sorts of atmospheric noises.

And then of course the band burst back into gallop on to the last post

but it's an interesting song,

probably works better live than it does on the record, really.

It's a very good live song and it survived into the set

for quite a long time.

I think Tokyo Road is a brilliant song.

It's instantly recognizable

and obviously the bridge goes on forever,

which is ideal for a band that really kind of, you know,

their cash cow is the live stage.

That's what Bon Jovi were,

they were brilliant sellout headliners.

And that's the kind of song you can extend

for 30 minutes if you want to,

because it's written in a way where it doesn't even go into psychedelia,

it's just repetition.

And if you listen to that bassline,

you're talking about like almost zen-like stamina, you know,

just hitting the same string over and over and over and over again.

So you have to wonder how many times you have to rehearse that,

probably once.

♪ Take me back to Tokyo road ♪

♪ Back to Tokyo road ♪

I think when you look at the second album

pretty much you have to bear in mind

at every turn here is a group desperately

trying to be taken seriously.

You don't get taken seriously by singing

"la, la, la, I love you, you love me, oh how happy we will be."

You get taken seriously trying to be Bruce Springsteen

doing Darkness on the Edge of Town.

And that's kind of what they were trying to do,

tackle the big issues, prove they were serious,

have something serious to say about this bad old world

and this tough old life

and how they feel it deep down inside,

and I know I sound sarcastic but you know a 23 year old boy

is trying to write seriously about life,

that's what you're going to get.

They didn't really grab the bull by the horns

until Slippery When Wet

when they did have professional songwriters come in

and kind of slap them into shape and say

"guys, this is very tedious,

"we've got to get some big choruses together here,

"get some serious songs going

"or people are just not going to

"buy this album either and your career is over."

I'm quite sure there was an element of desperation

in the way they approached that album.

On the whole, a productive desperation,

that you can hear in the craving to make this work,

to get across to people,

to succeed whether most artists would say,

and I really do believe them on the whole,

most artists would say they're not motivated by money,

the riches side of what might be achieved,

but they are motivated by wanting to get their music across

and reach those people,

and the money is a very pleasant side of it.

♪ Will find you ♪

♪ Only lonely, oh, oh-oh ♪

♪ I can't stop ♪

I remember one record company executive telling me at the time,

as always certain record company executives will,

claiming that he'd saved their recording career

by sending a memo out to the chiefs at their record company

explaining that so far they'd got it entirely wrong with Bon Jovi,

they were treating them like a heavy metal band.

They weren't a heavy metal band,

and the crucial point was they were a pop group

dressed as a heavy metal band,

and if they could get their heads around that idea,

start promoting the idea that they've got this amazingly

good looking guy at the front of the group

and give them some songs that people could remember

longer than five minutes,

they might have a hit.

I think they basically...

When the kind of hammer was put down on Bon Jovi,

certainly they were kind of at a fork in the road

and they had to ask themselves, you know,

what are we going to do?

Are we going to stick to what we really love doing

or are we just going to try and keep the band together

and become successful?

You've got to consider Bon Jovi himself, Jon Bon Jovi,

sang on a Christmas themed record based on Star Wars

and dedicated it to R2-D2.

You're not talking about someone who's, you know,

kind of really out to defy the world

with his artistic statements or anything like that.

So I imagine that conversation

probably lasted about two minutes, if that.

I think Bon Jovi were probably under pressure

from the record company to increase their record sales

with their third album and certainly get a couple

of hit singles if they could.

They went to Vancouver to record this album and they brought in

a producer called Bruce Fairbairn

who had done Blue Oyster Cult and people like that,

but he wasn't yet the big name he later would be.

And they also brought in a songwriter called Desmond Child

and he collaborated on three songs with Jon and Richie,

two of them were singles,

You Give Love a Bad Name and Livin' on a Prayer,

and the third was Without Love.

And both of these people actually saw

the potential of the group

for absolutely fantastic melodic rock music,

the commercial possibilities of it

and probably lightened things up a bit, I would imagine.

I think certainly 7800's lukewarm reception was something that

really kind of spawned their later success

or would have led to their complete failure because,

yeah, this was the 80s and the music industry was changing at that time.

You know, studios were changing and they were not willing to invest in

artists and, of course, it's absolutely heinous

when you compare that to what's going on in the 70s,

but it's even worse now where you just basically

have to score a hit with your first one.

So I think Bon Jovi's experience with 7800

was certainly something that, you know, was...

It's just kind of a... There's something prophetic about that,

that they were already getting that pressure

on their second album, because realistically,

they shouldn't have been writing their best songs

by that time anyway, that they should still had them in them,

but that's not what people were after.

There's a saying in the music business, "art for art's sake,

"hit singles for fuck's sake."

[rock music]

As to how Slippery When Wet got its title,

I understand that there are some rude stories out there,

but I don't know them.

I mean, it sounds sexy, doesn't it?

And yet, all I've ever heard is about this road sign in Vancouver,

where they recorded the album.

And there was a sign on the corner of the road

saying Slippery When Wet, and they thought, "that's a good phrase,

"we'll call our album that."

I'm sure that's true.

And anything else is a figment of very bad people's imaginations.

But I'm prepared to hear the stories if you want to tell me.

[laughing]

Well, it's an interesting thing about Slippery When Wet, you know,

because there's something so deeply misogynistic

about the entire album.

I mean, of course, 80s America was extremely sensitive.

I mean, this is the era of Reagan.

It's the era of very strong republicanism.

And the rebirth of conservative values after the 70s.

And Bon Jovi, in a way,

kind of summed up a lot of what that was all about,

which is basically we're not talking about, you know,

feminism or whatever.

But the PMRC was extremely active at that time as well,

and weren't happy at all about the gigantic breasts

that were going to make the cover of that album.

And so the band relented,

because they are not the dead Kennedys.

You know, they didn't exactly go up against Tip or Gore

and the conservative American government.

They said, "OK, we'll just have a trash bag that's wedded

"and just kind of like write the title into it,"

which is not really the bold artistic statement

that they might have made.

But I don't think anyone was expecting it.

♪ Shot through the heart and you're to blame ♪

[crowd] ♪ Darling, you give love a bad name ♪

♪ An angel's smile is what you sell ♪

♪ You promised me heaven, then put me through hell ♪

You Give Love a Bad Name, obviously the first single, in fact,

not Livin' On a Prayer.

So that's what they hit people with

and I suppose it's a grittier song,

it's a harder rocking song and it's really aggressive.

But I think it's a very natural song,

it's not anti-women, it's not sexist,

it's a proper hate-love song, love-hate song, hate-love,

because they bust up and it takes its revenge very nicely I'd say,

as in nastily,

just because it's so strong and here he is insulting this woman,

whether it's a real person or not.

Obviously it becomes generic in the song,

it just becomes what everybody's familiar with,

of course, it's from the male point of view,

but I think women can relate to it too, as in all that pitch.

She treated him wrong.

♪ Shot through the heart and you're to blame ♪

♪ You give love a bad name ♪

♪ I play my part and you play your game ♪

♪ You give love a bad name ♪

♪ Yeah, you give love a bad name ♪

Quite a lot of people have said that particularly Desmond Child was

almost single-handedly responsible

for the success of Slippery When Wet,

but I think that's overstating the case a bit,

and he only co-wrote three tracks.

♪ Your very first kiss was your first kiss goodbye ♪

♪ Woah, you're a loaded gun ♪

He didn't have a massive reputation by then,

but he was a sort of a song doctor.

There was a whole cluster of song doctors came up in the 80s,

people whose function was to work with people,

with songwriters who already had something on the go,

but couldn't quite hit the spot for massive popularity.

And so they went to see him,

just for three tracks on this album,

so it's not like he's a dominant influence

and he's only a co-writer of the three tracks, but there he is.

He co-wrote the first two hit singles.

[rock music]

The band had a very good idea by now of where they were going,

They'd established what their strengths were,

hopefully they'd established what their weaknesses were,

and they went on without Desmond Child

to write some fantastic songs and fantastic albums

that are still selling in their millions.

♪ Shot through the heart and you're to blame ♪

♪ You give love a bad name ♪

♪ I play my part and you play your game ♪

♪ You give love a bad name ♪

In terms of how Slippery When Wet made the breakthrough,

what you see if you read back into

the publications of the time, magazines around about that time,

is that it is seen as an album that was propelled by video.

The relationship with MTV really, really took off

with Slippery When Wet because they had those massive singles,

You Give Love a Bad Name and Livin' on a Prayer,

and they had a marvelous relationship with MTV.

Obviously they were a very visual group

and so they were perfect broadcasting too.

Desmond and I grew up in New Jersey, you know.

Had a couple brothers of mine that used to think that we were gonna rule the universe.

Well, there's something about Bon Jovi during Livin' On a Prayer

acoustically that completely changes the dynamic of that song.

When you listen to the original version,

it's brimming with the kind of optimism

that you're sure that prayer is going to get answered.

There's something about the acoustic version

that's kind of got us sort of sitting in a die bar

at five in the morning knocking back your 20th whiskey.

Pretty sure the prayer isn't going to get answered.

It kind of changes the mood into a kind of glasses half empty

sort of song and that's not the way it was originally written,

but it says something about the musicianship of the band

that they could transform that song so totally

by conveying it in an acoustic way,

just where it's just a little slowed down,

a little subtler, and it became something almost political.

♪ Tommy used to work on the docks, union's been on strike

♪ He's down on his luck, it's tough, so tough ♪

♪ Gina works the diner all day, she's working for her man

♪ She brings home her pay, for love, mmm, for love ♪

Doing Livin' On a Prayer acoustically I think did two things.

Number one, it proved that old adage, you know,

that the best songs are the ones that always come over

when you just strip them down to their absolute basic elements.

It's like Travis doing Hit Me Baby One More Time.

You can play that on an acoustic guitar.

It still sounds great.

It doesn't have to be Britney and the big production

to make it sound great.

Livin' On a Prayer, same thing.

It's just a great song.

It could have been a Beatles song.

It's just a great catchy song, whoever does it,

and however you do it.

I think the other thing it did for Bon Jovi

was in that kind of pre-unplugged age it demonstrated

a bit like the Dominion gig had demonstrated five years before

that they actually didn't need all the razzmatazz.

You could take all that away

and these two guys actually can deliver.

If they were in this room right now with an acoustic guitar

they would be able to sing just as well as you hear on record,

play just as well, and the stuff would come over

and you'd have to applaud at the end of it

because they are the real deal.

♪ Whoa, we're half way there ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Whoa, we're half way there ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

Livin' On a Prayer has that strong structure,

great chorus, loads of power behind it of course,

and there's a couple of things that happen in there

that are interesting.

One of which I think is absolutely grotesque,

that intro where that strange voice, that fuzz-boxed voice,

comes in whatever the hell it is making those weird noises,

what were they thinking of when they put that in?

What an atrocity that is.

How did that song survive that production feature and become a hit?

I mean, it's just so weird,

it sounds like it's gonna be a comic song, isn't it?

What are they doing? Does anybody like that?

Why haven't they stripped it out?

Why didn't they strip it out before they released it, you know?

So there's a weirdness about it.

The song opens with a very peculiar noise

and still people carry on listening.

♪ She says, "We've gotta hold on to what we've got ♪

♪ It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not

♪ We've got each other and that's a lot for love ♪

♪ We'll give it a shot" ♪

♪ Whoa, we're half way there ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Take my hand, we'll make it, I swear ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

But then in terms of the writing,

and here again you don't know if this is old Desmond at work,

Desmond Child, or whether it's Bon Jovi realizing,

"hey, this is how we do it."

Does that key change towards the end?

Now what ought to be happening to that song

is it ought to be going into what they always say

on the lyric sheets on albums, repeat to fade.

And repeat to fade is not a very inspiring thought, is it?

Can be, can work very well.

However, what you get at that point is that

after what might have been the last chorus, or the repeat to fade,

you get that key change and you go up

and you're soaring into the finish instead of fading into the finish.

And, you know, that was another thing.

It's not an entirely original device by any means,

but for sure it works there.

It does exactly what that song is primarily about,

which is being uplifting in the most literal sense,

it goes up and it takes you with it and you're there,

hollering in the shower or in the crowd, watching them,

you know, you're just singing along and it's wonderful,

nobody can object to that,

everybody can enjoy that I think, more or less.

♪ Oh, we've gotta hold on, ready or not ♪

♪ You live for the fight when that's all that you've got ♪

♪ Whoa, we're half way there ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

I think it's really difficult to say whether Jon Bon Jovi can write

really deep lyrics.

Or he just doesn't want to, I mean, you kinda think about

just like how it works with the music and so on.

You know, Wanted Dead or Alive, for instance,

it's a great example of narrative and lyrics

and so on, where you do get this really strong sense of character

and the story, and things taking place.

So he's really talented in that sense,

but you wouldn't strip the lyrics away from the music

and probably want to recite them as it might with other artists.

I think Jon takes huge inspiration from people like Bruce Springsteen

but I think trying to be the new Bruce Springsteen is

like having Bruce Springsteen trying to be the new Bob Dylan.

You just have to be who you are

I think Jon Bon Jovi

he reconciled himself to that a long long time ago.

I think the fact of the matter is that he's always been a good writer,

your average rock lyricist,

he does know how to tell a story,

clearly he doesn't rely on all the cliches.

Jon really does hark back to more of the rock style of Elton John

kind of era,

and I think he does hit that level

consistently enough to be taken seriously.

Richie brings loads to Bon Jovi,

he co-writes a lot of the best songs with Jon obviously.

He's a wonderful character,

he was very much involved with the group to begin with,

but a very under-estimated guitar player I think.

His guitar playing is fantastic,

if you listen to the first Bon Jovi album there's a lot of

Richie going wild on guitar on that.

He plays acoustic, electric, 6 string, 12 string,

guitar synths, riffs, solos, power chords,

whatever you want Richie plays it,

but at heart he's actually a blues guitar player

and so when it came to doing his solo albums

I think quite a lot of what Richie was brought up with

is evident on those.

Well it's interesting about Richie Sambora

because Eddie Van Halen gets a huge amount of credit in the 80s.

Obviously he defined his style of guitar playing.

But a lot of things that Richie Sambora were doing

were just a little more subtle, a little less showboating,

but extremely effective.

I think that that's the trademark of a good musician as opposed

to a really good performer.

And that's one of the things about him that I think

kind of defines what he does,

and especially even with his solo albums.

You know, I think he is the sort of guy who likes to sit in the studio

and, you know, fiddle with knobs and kind of get the right sound

as opposed to just sort of be the man in the spotlight.

Wanted Dead or Alive is one of the most amazingly written songs ever.

It's properly composed, and that is all down to Richie Sambora's

style of guitar playing where you've got to consider his career.

I mean, he was signed to Led Zeppelin's label

Swan Song in the 70s.

I mean, the guy knew what he was doing

if he caught the attention of Jimmy Page.

So if he wanted to add a spaghetti western kind of atmosphere

to a song he was the sort of person who could do that

and that kind of tinkling guitar in the beginning is unforgettable.

It's riveting and it conveys this kind of cinematic feel

that makes you feel as though you are almost watching a movie.

You can see the cowboy,

you know what's going on with him

and it just kind of conveys the story in a way

that the lyrics don't necessarily.

♪ It's all the same ♪

♪ Only the names will change ♪

♪ Everyday it seems we're wasting away ♪

I think Wanted Dead or Alive works really well, first of all,

because it's a very good song.

It's extremely memorable, very catchy,

you don't have to be a rock fan to like it,

but if you are a rock fan

of course it does have these extra layers you know,

"on a steel horse I ride," the motorbike.

The whole allusions to touring.

The whole thing about, you know, that cowboy thing of rock and roll

where you turn up in town and kiss all the women and fight all the men.

By the morning you're gone on your steel horse.

It works on a number of levels

and they do it extremely at face value.

They're a very very straight-faced,

there's no joke or irony in there.

♪ I'm a cowboy ♪

♪ On a steel horse I ride ♪

♪ I'm wanted dead or alive ♪

I think Wanted Dead or Alive is almost like their mini anthem

because they did write it together.

It really does sum up how they felt

about the whole rock and roll experience at that point.

And they still do it live to this day.

It's a big, big moment in the show.

And for some reason, whether you find the lyrics corny or not,

it does send that tingle down the spine.

It's got something.

Wanted Dead or Alive is probably Bon Jovi's signature song.

It's not my personal favourite, I must admit,

but people love it and they play it wherever they go.

It's just immediately identifiable, Bon Jovi.

It's the whole saga of life on the road.

And despite the fact that it's such a popular song,

it's actually quite a despairing song.

If you listen to the lyrics,

it's by no means the heroic cowboy riding into town on his steel horse.

It's actually a very searching, very depressed song in many ways.

But the way that it's presented is kind of akin

to like a Sergio Leone film.

It's got that kind of Wild West feel

about Richie's guitar playing, which is very intricate,

very fitting to the song, him and Jon, the dynamic duo.

And at the end, then Richie gets the chance to do some full blooded

guitar work too, so it's a really good collaboration.

♪ And I walk these streets ♪

♪ A loaded six string on my back ♪

♪ I play for keeps ♪

♪ 'Cause I might not make it back ♪

♪ I've been everywhere (oh, yeah) ♪

♪ Still, I'm standing tall ♪

♪ I've seen a million faces ♪

♪ And I've rocked them all ♪

♪ 'Cause I'm a cowboy ♪

♪ On a steel horse I ride ♪

♪ I'm wanted (wanted) dead or alive ♪

Wanted Dead or Alive, I think is an example of

how their writing could have a degree of range.

Their writing wasn't all going in one direction.

And yet their performance was,

because although that was a hit single,

not a great hit, but it was a hit single.

To me, that's really quite a poor track.

And it's because they don't bring out what that song may have.

And perhaps the song is really crass.

You can easily feel that it is crass

and of course I'm a cowboy and a steel horse I ride,

I'm wanted, dead or alive.

Actually when you come, the more you think about it,

any time I come back to that chorus

it does seem pretty naff to me.

The bad end of this kind of rock music

is when it starts to get self aggrandizing.

When the lyrics and the arrangement and the whole thing

starts to puff up the artist

and it just becomes an exercise in chest beating.

And I do think that that's probably a track

where that did happen. I mean maybe that song was rescuable.

Maybe, he probably had to rewrite the chorus though,

I don't think that chorus is salvageable.

But the idea of the itinerant musician,

the troubadour as the gun-slinging cowboy.

You can see where it comes from and it's not illogical,

it's just crap, that's the problem, you know, it is self aggrandizing.

He is a guy with a guitar on his back as one of the verses says,

he isn't a guy with a six-gun on his waist.

He's not going around to kill people,

he's going around the world to entertain people

and those are rather different functions,

so essentially this song is rather ill-conceived

and though the verses I think are quite good

and a better chorus might have been written,

it is one of those songs on Slippery When Wet where the band

crushes the song underfoot

and they lose themselves, really, they do lose themselves.

The poodle haircuts, the hair rock music,

well, that had been something that was evolving

quite naturally really, so it's easy to look back now

and laugh at all that but in the 80s

that was a very cool way to look in certain rock circles, you see.

And probably it may have started with bands like the New York Dolls.

Kind of crossed over to Europe via groups like Hanoi Rocks

and then it was kind of paralleled from Hanoi Rocks

and taken back to America where it kind of materialized

in groups like Motley Crue, Poison, Guns and Roses.

I don't think Bon Jovi exactly have the biggest hairdos,

certainly the most preened,

I mean, you definitely get a sense that Bon Jovi

is a man who might look in the mirror

more than once before he leaves the house,

but the the whole idea of hair metal

is obviously a bit of a misnomer.

It repeats none of the ethos of metal itself.

I mean in a way it is metal for people who don't like metal,

who want to feel as though they are going to metal concerts,

listening to metal records because it's completely non-threatening

and stripped of any of the kind of working class origins

that really defined those kinds of bands.

I think that that look, the poodle look, was kind of restricted

to the stars up to a point,

because those hairdos and the dye jobs they had and all that caper,

like him both of them here...

I remember the issue they're having it here.

They were pretty elaborate and rather expensive and time consuming

and then rude British lads would probably call you a puff,

which was a bad thing to be called back in those days.

And so I think that there was a degree of crossover

but when I see pictures of Bon Jovi fans,

at least Bon Jovi's British fans back in those days,

they looked like what heavy metal fans have been looking for

up to 20 years.

I think because they are obsessed themselves, you know Jon,

I think the curse of being the amazingly good looking young man

is that you want to be taken seriously.

And there's a lot of snobbery in rock music,

particularly 20 years ago where Lemmy from Motorhead,

well, he's clearly serious because the man's as ugly as a hog.

He's obviously not just pandering to the girls, he's the real deal.

He's a biker, you know.

He's not by the way, he just looks like one.

You know, Ozzy Osbourne,

I mean, this is not someone who's going to be in a boy band.

This is particularly in Black Sabbath days

these guys weren't designed to be

pinned up on some 13 year old girl's wall.

Jon Bon Jovi on the other hand,

is Robbie Williams 20 years before.

He could easily have been in Take That with the right haircut.

He could easily have been in the Bay City Rollers before that.

He could easily be in Pop Idol right now and do real well.

And for him that's an issue.

I think less so these days,

but in the early days when he was still out there building empires

and proving he had talent, the message was implicit.

Yeah, I'm really good looking and yes, girls love me

and I probably don't have to try very hard.

But in fact, I do try hard.

I can really sing, I can really write songs,

I can play guitar and here's the proof.

There's more to me than meets the eye.

♪ Joey comes from a sacred part of town ♪

I suppose Slippery When Wet is a classic rock album as in

there's a whole generation of people who will remember it very fondly.

That's one way of being a classic rock album.

However, what that does say, I think,

is that when that generation of people dies, I suppose,

or that when their fondness for the music of their youth

fades away, if it ever does, that's it.

That's the last memorial to Bon Jovi, I think.

I don't believe that, unlike, say, Dylan,

who was one of his original inspirations,

or I would imagine Bruce Springsteen.

I don't think that Bon Jovi's music will carry on

capturing new generations of fans,

much as it has some very, very strong qualities.

It does lack substance, really.

No, no, no, I think Slippery When Wet is the defining moment of Bon Jovi.

I mean, it is them hitting their peak,

which they might have been able to sustain somewhat with New Jersey,

which certainly had its hits,

and Platinum albums are nothing to sniff at.

But Slippery When Wet just kind of hit the struck

when the iron was hot, you know.

The radio stations were ready to play that kind of album to death.

People were ready to listen to it to death,

and it's really easy to see why,

because it is the sound of a band fully realized.

I think to their credit, unlike so many groups of the 80s,

from Duran Duran onwards really,

here's a group that made it enormously successful

in the mid to late 80s, and yet, you know, 15-20 years later,

they're just as big as they ever were.

In fact, when we think of Bon Jovi,

we tend not to think of those days anymore,

we tend to think of the group as we see it now,

the group that plays Wembley Stadium,

the group that plays Dodger Stadium in America.

The group that is literally huge all over the world.

♪ I play my part and you play your game ♪

[crowd] ♪ You give love a bad name ♪

♪ Shot through the heart and you're to blame ♪

♪ You give love a bad name ♪

Slippery When Wet was maybe not the peak of their career,

but definitely the golden era,

because that was when the huge sudden impact of Bon Jovi spread,

it spread smiles around the world.

Everybody looks back on that period,

and those singles are indelibly remembered.

They're not just looking back on the music,

they're looking back on a whole era,

a whole lifestyle when that music was kind of the backdrop to it.

Bon Jovi actually went on

to sell millions and millions and millions more records.

New Jersey was a huge album,

they're still making albums to this day

that are selling in their millions and millions.

I would say in terms of career peaks,

there was a pretty big one in 2004

when they celebrated 100 million album sales,

and they've probably put on a few more million since then,

they're just unstoppable.

They have not been tainted by changing fashions.

They've kept the audiences they had, they keep adding more.

They're one of those bands that don't go out of fashion

because they just keep on doing what they do.

People trust them in a funny way

and they just remain at the very very top.

Bon Jovi certainly were uncool to a very high degree back in the 80s

and it's not something that their music is going to acquire

in retrospect.

So no I think they never were cool,

they never will be cool,

but there again, that's such a nebulous thing to say, isn't it?

It disrespects all those hundreds of thousands of people

who enormously liked them

and it really is only that thing about

some people being perceived as tastemakers

and if what they say is uncool, is uncool.

But it's no harm in that, I'd say.

They're uncool and who the hell cares about that?

They don't care. Bon Jovi sure don't care.

They know where they stand.

They know they will be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

when they've done their 25 years.

They know they've had a very strong career.

I don't know where they write their music

in relation to the great artists who they've admired.

I suppose they probably know they're more like KISS

than they are like Bruce Springsteen.

Bon Jovi probably do know that.

And I guess that's why, exactly, they would never be cool.

And they would never be great either,

but they certainly have been entertaining.

♪ You live for the fight when that's all that you've got ♪

♪ Whoa, we're half way there ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Whoa, we're half way there ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

♪ Take my hand and we'll make it, I swear ♪

♪ Whoa oh, livin' on a prayer ♪

[music fades]