Bravo- 1986
Stars in private- Jon Bon Jovi
I am pelted on the stage with BRA's!
Bravo: How did you give that odd title for
your No.1 album Slippery When Wet?
Jon: It should be called Wanted: Dead Or Alive at the beginning. But I was never
really happy over this title. It sounded too seriously and roughly, not my
style, you know. We sat in an evening at a table in this striptease-bar in
Vancouver
and discussed the Cover and the title for the hundredth time. We are permanent
guests there. We went there often after the work in the studio, in order to
drink. The girls already knew us and were really hot. In this evening, they had
something especially great - a Dusch- and bath-scene on open stage with water,
soap and all the other. They came close, because we payed no attention on their
performance for a long time. Then one bent itself over the table, and since I
want to grab her. Of course I slipped at her soaped skin and could not hold her,
but in this moment, we had the album-title. Later there was another wild party
in the cloakroom of the Girls.
Bravo: What will you say about the girls? They follow you in flocks.
Jon: Yes, girls are the reason, why you one day take a guitar and start to sing.
The thought of the girls brings you to it, that you start to rant on the stage.
I tell you because of the girls and nothing otherwise Rock'n'Roll was invented.
Of course I don't lay with all the girlswithout a break. But some are truly
sweet,and they show me so clearly how very much they like me... It's clear
however, that I find it hot, if a girl in a concert takes off the BRA and throws
it to me into the face. That can happen only in a Rock'n'Roll-Konzert, where the
total Extase rules. That the girls wouldn't do that under normal circumstances
for no man. The Girls look for one true adventure and I also, a moment of the
ecstasy,before the normal life continues again.
Bravo: Furthermore you also have a solid girlfriend however, or?
Jon: Ah, yes - Dorothea, she's my girlfriend since my schooldays. In my country
it's named "Highschool Sweetheart", she is and remains my girlfriend!
Bravo: Does Dorothea travel with you and the band through the country, when you
are on tour?
Jon: Yes, often. And she is quite proud, if all these girls run after, then she
always says: "And that all belong only to me!" I find I this so great
from her.
Bravo: Only to her? Truly completely to her?
Jon: Hey, be careful: I am not like a Don Juan to run from one to another girl,
what do you think for me? This theater with the girls, that simply belongs to
the Rock'n'Roll-Scene. These girls don't expect in reality, that something
happens seriously When they show that they like me.
Bravo: You still lived - to the joy of your parents - at your old home in
Sayreville, New Jersey. Why then do we meet today here in Bradley Beach at the
South-coast of New Jersey?
Jon: I attend to build my own house, near my parents, to whom I am attached very
much as well as at my brothers Tony and Matty. In the meantime, I have rented
here this house to rest in the pauses between the concerts.
Bravo: Why exactly here - at the wintry abandoned beach of Jersey?
Jon: New Jersey is my home, the Atlantic-beach is familiar to me from my
childhood, I feel here the best, I must always be nearby the sea. My future
house will be here too...
Bravo: And your room at your parents house?
Jon: That remains as it is - my last refuge, if something does wrong. And my
parents should have the feeling, that I have not yet gone away ultimately from
them.
Bravo: Closely to Bradley Beach, Bruce Springsteen live in Freehold. Do you know
him personaly?
Jon: Yes! I have already admired him since years, somehow he has always been my
model. And now when our last album became N 1, Springsteens sent to me whole
E-Street-Band luck-wishes - all has signed. Man, I was really proud! These old
Rock'n'Rollers send to me- 24- years old beginner congratulation -I found it
madly...
Bravo: Where do you actually rehearse with the band now? Early you were in Perth
Amboy, at the Jersey-coast, in a quite dark quarter.
Jon: No - there rehearsals finished! There a bad history has happened - in this
dark area. As I arrived a day there, in order to prepare everything for our
test, the padlocks were still at the doors in fact, but one had broken into our
studio from the roof and everything with some value had stolen. All electronic
appliances, the intensifiers, tone-mixers, Speaker, simply everything,
which a band needs for working. Over 40 000 dollars of loss and - unfortunately
without any insurance. An evil damage...
Bravo: Pity. But you have finally earned good money with plates and concerts.
Jon: Okay - they are gone.
Bravo: And so many money, that you now earn - what does you do with them?
Jon: I don't lose my mind, if you mean that. They are positioned sensibly in the
bank, because I must think for the future. Who knows how long my music-career as
rocker will last? Don't deceive, that I'll buy with my money luxury cars my
money buys and waste them...
Bravo: You had however an old Toyota sport car. Do you still have it?
Jon: No. I bought other old sport cars - stylish, quick but not expensive. That
is fun for me - and it not needs to be Ferrari or Lamborghini...
Bravo: And where do you rehearse with the band?
Jon: Now we travel so much, but if we are here near New York: In the studio of
my cousin Tony Hattan. There I feel as if I am at home.
Bravo: What was the most most embarrassing experience since beginning of your
rock career?
Jon: That was in England. We should play before people, that hardly knew us. And
the people were somehow against us anyway and looked at us quite suspicious. The
mood was so taut, that you believed, that you go home again, if something
doesn't happen. But it happened: All at once, as we had just come on the stage,
the intensifier-installation
stopped working! Only a pitiful chirping came from our guitars, and the
percussion sounded, as if somebody would knock timidly at the door. From singing
no sound - micro was off! What do I do? It went to my mind that my acoustic
guitar lay behind the stage. I took it, ran to the stage-edge and played a
Tom-Petty-Song for the people, then another, merely with it. I felt like an
idiot, but it worked: people somehow understood, that I can overcome difficulies.
And the intensifiers started working after a quarter of an hour again. All
okay...
Bravo: How do you now live, John? Earlier, I remember, you still have fun to
play softball with your small brother Matty in the yard or drive your car. What
do you now have for hobbies?
Jon: I no more time for hobbies now. But I still love driving my car completely
without goal and plan.