Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
Rock band
“Bon Jovi was responsible for the most organic- sounding technopop-metal hybrids of the ’80s,” wrote Spin’s Chuck Eddy in 1993 of the megapopular five-member band named after its lead singer, Jon Bon Jovi. Credited as one of the creators of “metal lite” or “pop metal”—heavy metal rock softened by Top Forty lyrics—the band rose to prominence with the help of millions of MTV-watching teenage listeners during a decade dominated by the likes of pop giants Madonna and Michael Jackson. Eddy characterized Bon Jovi’s sound as “dirty-white-boy guitars, a pinch of rockabilly twang, and maybe a couple of classically orchestrated disco strings” in his critique of the band’s chartbusting 1986 album Slippery When Wet. Indeed, the New Jersey rockers who are the state’s second-most-famous musical export (after working-class hero Bruce Springsteen), have not only survived but thrived in an ever-changing, intensely competitive industry. Thanks to their music skills, carefully polished image, loyalty to fans, and collective good looks, Bon Jovi has sold more than 30 million records globally. “We just want kids to have fun, nothing more—and nothing less,” Jon Bon
For the Record…
Members include Jon Bon Jovi (born John Bongiovi, March 2, 1962, in Sayreville, NJ; son of John [a hairdresser] and Carol [owner of a gift shop] Bongiovi; married Dorothea Hurley, 1989; children: Stephanie Rose), vocals, guitar; David Bryan (born David Bryan Rashbaum, c. 1962 in Edison, NJ), keyboards; Richie Sambora (born c. 1959 in Woodbridge, NJ; replaced Dave Sabo, c. 1983), guitar; Alec Jon Such (born c. 1952 in Perth Amboy, NJ), bass; and Hector “Tico” Torres (born c. 1954 in Colonia, NJ), drums.
Band formed as the Wild Ones in New Jersey, c. 1982; signed by PolyGram Records; released self-titled debut album, 1984; toured U.S.S.R., c. 1988. Jon Bon Jovi founded Jambco record label, 1991, has served as producer and songwriter for other artists, and assumed management of Bon Jovi, c. 1992.
Awards: Double platinum records for Bon Joui and 7800Fahrenheit and multiplatinum records for Slippery When Wet and New Jersey.
Addresses: Record company —Jambco/PolyGram, PolyGram Worldwide Plaza, 825 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10019.
Jovi stated in a 1986 interview in Rolling Stone. “We aren’t U2, we aren’t gonna change the world.... We’re a rock band, and that’s all we’re supposed to be.”
Born March 2, 1962, in Sayreville, New Jersey, Jon Bon Jovi is the oldest son of Italian-Americans John and Carol Bongiovi. John Sr., a hairdresser, was notorious for closely cropping his three young sons’ hair. Mrs. Bongiovi, a gift-shop owner and former Playboy bunny, planted the seed of her son’s love of music when she brought home a guitar for seven-year-old Jon. “I was very much the average American kid,” he told Jill Selsman in Interview. “I wanted to be an astronaut, a cop, or a baseball player. I remember my first experience with a guitar very well. . . . I flung it down the steps and heard it going oing, oing, oing. I remember hearing that and thinking, that’s pretty cool. It took another seven years for me to want to get into it, though.”
As a teenager Jon was influenced by the music of folk rocker Bob Dylan, Irish mystic-soulman Van Morrison, and fellow New Jerseyites Springsteen and South Side Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. He played in several bands, including the Atlantic City Expressway (his first), the Rest, and the Raze. A highlight of his early career came when Springsteen joined the Atlantic City Expressway onstage for an impromptu jam session in an Asbury Park nightclub, a “near religious” experience for Jon.
Following high school graduation, the already ambitious singer and musician was ready to leave Sayreville, an industrial town he considered a dead end. Jon’s cousin, Tony Bongiovi, part-owner of the Power Station, a well-known New York City recording studio, gave him a job sweeping floors. The perks of the position included rubbing elbows with Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and pop star David Bowie and recording demo tapes with professional back-up bands during non-peak hours. During this period, Jon attempted to interest record companies in his music, with little success.
“Runaway” Kicked off Career
In 1982 one of Jon’s demo songs, “Runaway,” became a surprise hit following local radio airplay of a compilation album featuring amateur groups. Soon thereafter, the budding rock star was signed by Mercury Records, a division of PolyGram, and suddenly found himself in need of a permanent band. He assembled some of his early Jersey Shore mates—Tico Torres, Dave Bryan, Alec Jon Such, and Dave Sabo, who was eventually replaced by Richie Sambora—as the Wild Ones and watched Mercury turn “Runaway” into a national hit. Properly marketing the band, which had since become simply Bongiovi, was critical to Mercury executives, who insisted on a spelling change to minimize what they apparently deemed the too-Italian character of Jon Bon Jovi’s surname. Thus was born the phoneticized Bon Jovi; the singer took this opportunity to change his name as well. Though the band would develop a strong group identity, Mercury did not offer Torres, Bryan, Such, and Sambora a contract, effectively making them Jon’s employees.
In 1984 the group released its first album, Bon Jovi, and began touring as the opening act for established acts such as .38 Special, Ted Nugent, Eddie Money, Judas Priest, and ZZ Top. As his ensemble began to enjoy coast-to-coast attention, Jon Bon Jovi landed in the middle of lawsuit brought by his cousin Tony, who claimed to have advanced Jon’s career and now wanted payment for his efforts. The suit was settled out of court, with Tony Bongiovi winning a producer’s credit, cash award, and royalties on the group’s first release— as well as a one percent royalty on the next two albums. This infuriated Jon, who considered Tony’s influence minimal at best. Despite the legal wrangling, the first album sold well and laid the groundwork for the band’s basic sound: a big beat with catchy lyrics.
Bon Jovi was quickly followed in 1985 by 7800 Fahrenheit— the melting point of rock—which sold over 500,000 copies. Though critics were generally unimpressed with the band and considered them more “fluff” than “stuff,” the teenage crowd couldn’t get enough of them. “The whole younger rock movement was in dire need of someone to come along and be a superstar,” national radio programmer Fred Jacobs explained to the Detroit Free Press, elaborating, “The pop ranks have had so many people in the past few years ... but the young rockers really haven’t had anybody to get them into the arenas and throw their fists in the air and get nuts about.”
Slippery Breakthrough
In 1986, Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi’s third and best-selling album to date (over 13 million copies), was released to largely positive reviews. Audiences savored the combination of heavy metal guitar crunch and upbeat lyrics. With singles like “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “Living on a Prayer,” and “Wanted Dead or Alive,” the band had reached a new plateau of success. This was due, in part, to the increasing prominence of music videos, which allowed for superior marketing of the “videogenic” quintet. “Nobody knew what Bon Jovi was,” guitarist Richie Sambora later told the Detroit Free Press. “It could’ve been a spaghetti or a jeans company for all they knew. We said, ’No actors, no actresses, no concept. We’re going for simplicity. Just come and film us live, at a show.’ All of a sudden, Bon Jovi became Bon Jovi. It was clearly defined. What’s Bon Jovi? It’s a rock ’n’ roll band.”
Sambora also attributed the album’s success to the group’s ability to fill a niche in the music business. “There was a need by the people for a Bon Jovi,” he said in a 1989 Rolling Stone interview, echoing radio programmer Jacobs. “Just a good-time entertainment band, you know? A bridge between [pop crooner] Phil Collins and [hard rock outfit] Whitesnake.” Despite this confidence, the group was ill-prepared for their emerging superstar status and experienced some growing pains. “With the first two albums, we were happy to have enough money to go to McDonald’s,” Jon Bon Jovi told Edna Gundersen of USA Today. “We went through the phase of buy, buy, buy!,” he continued. “It’s hard to grow up when that kind of success is thrust upon you.”
But grow up they did. The band embarked on a grueling world tour to promote Slippery When Wet, which had reached Number One on the album charts, then immediately launched into writing and recording its follow-up, New Jersey, released in 1988. That album generated more hits, including “Lay Your Hands on Me,” “Bad Medicine,” “I’ll Be There for You,” and “Blood on Blood,” ultimately reaching Number One and selling more than nine million copies worldwide. High Fidelity’s Ken Richardson wrote of the album, “The first ten minutes are absolutely thrilling: ’Lay Your Hands on Me’ proves the band can play undiluted metal, and ’Bad Medicine’ proves it can add some of that mean streak to its pop sense.”
New Jersey was the first American album released on the then-U.S.S.R.’s state-owned record company Melodiya, a move that prompted Bon Jovi to visit the Soviet Union during the its 16-month tour. Though completely unintentional, Jon Bon Jovi took some flak on the home front for naming the album after his home state as it was perceived as a jab at Bruce Springsteen. “I went to hell for calling the album New Jersey, ” he groused in the Chicago Tribune. “Springsteen owns the state. Somewhere along the line, when nobody was looking, he bought it.”
The band would not release another album for four years—an eternity in pop music; rumors abounded that the group was on the verge of splitting. The bandmembers were, in fact, suffering from severe burnout, the result of virtually non-stop recording and touring. “For years we spent every waking moment together, even vacations,” said Sambora in a 1992 article in USA Today. “People thought we were crazy to live, eat and breathe this band. We needed to get away from each other.”
During the self-imposed hiatus from 1989 to 1991, both Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi released solo albums. Jon’s Blaze of Glory (1990), a collection of songs written for or inspired by the western Young Guns II, delivered tumbleweed authenticity but didn’t overwhelm critics. The title track was “a slow, dusty clone of ’Wanted Dead or Alive,”’ according to People’s Craig Tomashoff. Greg Sandow of Entertainment Weekly called it “thin if you don’t share his cowboy thang” and rated it a C+. Sambora’s solo album, Stranger in This Town (1991), fared only marginally better with Sandow, who awarded it a B-, remarking, “Gotta love Richie Sambora’s solo meditations for their brooding mood. But only a few of the songs stand out.”
Several significant events in Jon Bon Jovi’s life occurred during the break from the band: In 1989 he married his girlfriend of ten years, Dorothea Hurley; two years later he started his own label, Jambco Records, and produced albums for Aldo Nova and Billy Falcon, as well as producing and co-writing songs for Cher, Stevie Nicks, and Hall & Oates. He and Sambora also set off on a two-week cross-country motorcycle trip that would significantly affect their creative juices; formerly apolitical, the two observed some of the country’s social ailments first-hand and determined to incorporate awareness-raising messages into their next album, thereby displaying a new maturity. On the image front, Jon Bon Jovi revamped his style by cutting his trademark dirty-blond tangle of hair; the result was a more contemporary look for the matinee-idol-hand-some heartthrob.
Faced Challenge of Grunge
Although 1992’s much-anticipated Keep the Faith debuted at Number Five on the Billboard charts, the fully rested Bon Jovi were concerned about the album’s long-term prospects. Much had changed on the hard rock scene since the success of New Jersey, with Seattle’s so-called “grunge” bands Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana riding an unprecedented alternative-rock wave of popularity. Undeterred, Jon Bon Jovi faced this challenge head-on, dismissing long-time manager Doc McGhee and undertaking management of the band himself.
“Success is a funny thing,” he told Roy Trakin in a 1993 Music Express interview. “I enjoyed it, but no one seemed to care for the five of us the way they cared about keeping the machine running. By the time the New Jersey tour was over, nobody even said goodbye to one another.” “We’re on our own now,” he continued. “It’s five grown-up guys who are supporting ourselves with no one to congratulate or blame but ourselves. . . . This is our turn on the firing line, and we’ll see what comes of it.”
Critical reaction to Keep the Faith was lukewarm despite a major publicity effort by Mercury. Spin’s Eddy called ’Dry County,’ inspired by Jon’s motorcycle trek to California, “[an] interminable opus about economic depression in a hamlet where booze is illegal.” Of “Bed of Roses”—which nonetheless became a hit—Eddy wrote, “Sounds like Billy Joel—a vodka-soaked holy-ghost piano waltz.” Yet Rolling Stone praised “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” assessing, “This booming combination of hammerhead vocal hooks and weekend-warrior hedonism is classic Bon Jovi. If Jon and the boys didn’t invent this sure-shot formula, they certainly own the patent.”
Though not the smash of their former efforts, Keep the Faith seemed to satisfy fans, and Jon Bon Jovi was confident that the band’s core group of admirers would truly “keep the faith.” Criticism in some circles that he had “sold out” to commercial interests led the rock veteran to respond in USA Today, “For the first time I’m not impressed with money or numbers. I got wiser and I learned to deal with success. ... I can take valid criticism very easily, but not from a gunslinger out to beat me up before he even listens to the album. There are certain critics in the world who aren’t ever going to like me no matter what. What can I do? I’m not out to make them happy.”
Selected discography
On Mercury/PolyGram Records, except where noted
Bon Jovi, 1984.
7800 Fahrenheit, 1985.
Slippery When Wet, 1986.
New Jersey, 1988.
Keep the Faith, Jambco/Mercury, 1992.
Sources
Periodicals
Billboard, June 12, 1993.
Chicago Tribune, March 19, 1989.
Detroit Free Press, March 8, 1987; May 25, 1987.
Entertainment Weekly, December 11, 1992.
High Fidelity, January 1989.
Interview, December 1990.
Music Express, January 1993.
People, October 1, 1990.
Rolling Stone, November 20, 1986; February 9, 1989; December 10, 1992.
Spin, January 1993.
USA Today, November 9, 1992.
Additional information for this profile was obtained from Jambco/PolyGram Records, 1992.
—Mary Scott Dye
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
Rock group
“Bon Jovi was responsible for the most organic-sounding technopop-metal hybrids of the ’80s,” wrote Spin’s Chuck Eddy in 1993 of the megapopular five-member band named after its lead singer, Jon Bon Jovi. Credited as one of the creators of “metal lite” or “pop metal”—heavy metal rock softened by top 40 lyrics—the band rose to prominence with the help of millions of MTV-watching teenage listeners during a decade dominated by pop giants Madonna and Michael Jackson. Eddy characterized Bon Jovi’s sound as “dirty-white-boy guitars, a pinch of rockabilly twang, and maybe a couple of classically orchestrated disco strings” in his critique of the band’s chartbusting 1986 album Slippery When Wet. Indeed, the New Jersey rockers who are the state’s second-most-famous musical export (after working-class hero Bruce Springsteen), have not only survived but thrived in an ever-changing, intensely competitive industry. Thanks to their music skills, carefully polished image, loyalty to fans, and collective good looks, Bon Jovi has sold more than 90 million records globally. “We just want kids to have fun, nothing more—and nothing less,” [Jon Bon Jovi] stated in a 1986 interview in Rolling Stone.“We aren’t U2, we aren’t gonna change the
For the Record…
Members include Jon Bon Jovi (born John Bon-giovi on March 2, 1962, in Sayreville, NJ; son of John [a hairdresser] and Carol [owner of a gift shop] Bongiovi; married Dorothea Hurley, 1989; two children), vocals, guitar; David Bryan (born David Bryan Rashbaum, c. 1962, in Edison, NJ; married April McLean, 1990; three children), keyboards; Hugh McDonald (replaced Alec John Such), bass; Richie Sambora (born c. 1959 in Woodbridge, NJ; replaced Dave Sabo, c. 1983; married Heather Locklear, 1994; one daughter), guitar; Alec John Such (born c. 1952 in Perth Amboy, NJ; left group, 1994), bass; Hector “lïco” Torres (born c. 1954 in Colonia, NJ; married Eva Herzigova, 1996; divorced, 1998), drums.
Band formed as the Wild Ones in New Jersey, c. 1982; signed by Poly Gram Records; released self-titled debut album, 1984; toured former U.S.S.R., c. 1988; Jon Bon Jovi founded Jambco Records, 1991; released Keeping the Faith, 1992; released greatest hits collection, Cross Road, 1994; released These Days, 1995; released Crush, 2000.
Addresses: Record company —Island Def Jam, 825 8th Avenue 24th Floor, New York, NY 10019, website: http://www.islandrecords.com. Website —Bon Jovi Official Website: http://www.bonjovi.com.
world…. We’re a rock band, and that’s all we’re supposed to be.”
Born on March 2, 1962, in Sayreville, New Jersey, Jon Bon Jovi is the oldest son of Italian-Americans John and Carol Bongiovi. John Sr., a hairdresser, was notorious for closely cropping his three young sons’ hair. Mrs. Bongiovi, a gift-shop owner and former Playboy bunny, planted the seed of her son’s love of music when she brought home a guitar for seven-year-old Jon. “I was very much the average American kid,” he told Jill Selsman in Interview. “I wanted to be an astronaut, a cop, or a baseball player. I remember my first experience with a guitar very well…. I flung it down the steps and heard it going oing, oing, oing. I remember hearing that and thinking, that’s pretty cool. It took another seven years for me to want to get into it, though.”
As a teenager Jon was influenced by the music of folk rocker Bob Dylan, Irish mystic-soulman Van Morrison, and fellow New-Jerseyites Springsteen and South Side Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. He played in several bands, including the Atlantic City Expressway (his first), the Rest, and the Raze. A highlight of his early career came when Springsteen joined the Atlantic City Expressway onstage for an impromptu jam session in an Asbury Park nightclub, a “near religious” experience for Jon.
Following high school graduation, the already ambitious singer and musician was ready to leave Sayreville, an industrial town he considered a dead end. Jon’s cousin, Tony Bongiovi, part-owner of the Power Station, a well-known New York City recording studio, gave him a job sweeping floors. The perks of the position included rubbing elbows with Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and pop star David Bowie and recording demo tapes with professional back-up bands during non-peak hours. During this period, Jon attempted to interest record companies in his music, with little success.
“Runaway” Kicked off Career
In 1982 one of Jon’s demo songs, “Runaway,” became a surprise hit following local radio airplay of a compilation album featuring amateur groups. Soon thereafter, the budding rock star was signed by Mercury Records, a division of PolyGram, and suddenly found himself in need of a permanent band. He assembled some of his early Jersey Shore mates—Tico Torres, Dave Bryan, Alec John Such, and Dave Sabo, who was eventually replaced by Richie Sambora—as The Wild Ones and watched Mercury turn “Runaway” into a national hit. Properly marketing the band, which had since become simply Bongiovi, was critical to Mercury executives, who insisted on a spelling change to minimize what they apparently deemed the too-Italian character of Jon Bon Jovi’s surname. Thus was born the phoneticized Bon Jovi; the singer took this opportunity to change his name as well. Though the band would develop a strong group identity, Mercury did not offer Torres, Bryan, Such, and Sambora a contract, effectively making them Jon’s employees.
In 1984 the group released its first album, Bon Jovi, and began touring as the opening act for established acts such as .38 Special, Ted Nugent, Eddie Money, Judas Priest, and ZZ Top. As his ensemble began to enjoy coast-to-coast attention, Jon Bon Jovi landed in the middle of lawsuit brought by his cousin Tony, who claimed to have advanced Jon’s career and now wanted payment for his efforts. The suit was settled out of court, with Tony Bongiovi winning a producer’s credit, cash award, and royalties on the group’s first release—as well as a one percent royalty on the next two albums. This infuriated Jon, who considered Tony’s influence minimal at best. Despite the legal wrangling, the first album sold well and laid the groundwork for the band’s basic sound: a big beat with catchy lyrics.
Bon Jovi was quickly followed in 1985 by 7800 Fahrenheit—the melting point of rock—which achieved platinum sales in 1987. Though critics were generally unimpressed with the band and considered them more “fluff” than “stuff,” the teenage crowd couldn’t get enough of them. “The whole younger rock movement was in dire need of someone to come along and be a superstar,” national radio programmer Fred Jacobs explained to the Detroit Free Press, elaborating, “The pop ranks have had so many people in the past few years … but the young rockers really haven’t had anybody to get them into the arenas and throw their fists in the air and get nuts about.”
Slippery Breakthrough
In 1986, Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi’s third and best-selling album to date was released to largely positive reviews. Audiences savored the combination of heavy metal guitar crunch and upbeat lyrics. With singles like “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “Living on a Prayer,” and “Wanted Dead or Alive,” the band had reached a new plateau of success. This was due, in part, to the increasing prominence of music videos, which allowed for superior marketing of the “videogenic” quintet. “Nobody knew what Bon Jovi was,” guitarist Richie Sambora later told the Detroit Free Press.“It could’ve been a spaghetti or a jeans company for all they knew. We said, ‘No actors, no actresses, no concept. We’re going for simplicity. Just come and film us live, at a show.’ All of a sudden, Bon Jovi became Bon Jovi. It was clearly defined. What’s Bon Jovi? It’s a rock ‘n’ roll band.”
Sambora also attributed the album’s success to the group’s ability to fill a niche in the music business. “There was a need by the people for a Bon Jovi,” he said in a 1989 Rolling Stone interview, echoing radio programmer Jacobs. “Just a good-time entertainment band, you know? A bridge between [pop crooner] Phil Collins and [hard rock outfit] Whitesnake.” Despite this confidence, the group was ill prepared for their emerging superstar status and experienced some growing pains. “With the first two albums, we were happy to have enough money to go to McDonald’s,” Jon Bon Jovi told Edna Gundersen of USA Today.“We went through the phase of buy, buy, buy!,” he continued. “It’s hard to grow up when that kind of success is thrust upon you.”
But grow up they did. The band embarked on a grueling world tour to promote Slippery When Wet, which had reached number one on the album charts, then immediately launched into writing and recording its follow-up, New Jersey, released in 1988. That album generated more hits, including “Lay Your Hands on Me,” “Bad Medicine,” “I’ll Be There for You,” and “Blood on Blood,” ultimately reaching number one. High Fidelity’s Ken Richardson wrote of the album, “The first ten minutes are absolutely thrilling: ‘Lay Your Hands on Me’ proves the band can play undiluted metal, and ‘Bad Medicine’ proves it can add some of that mean streak to its pop sense.”
New Jersey was the first American album released on the former-U.S.S.R.’s state-owned record company Melodiya, a move that prompted Bon Jovi to visit the Soviet Union during the its 16-month tour. Though completely unintentional, Jon Bon Jovi took some flak on the home front for naming the album after his home state as it was perceived as a jab at Bruce Springsteen. “I went to hell for calling the album New Jersey” he groused in the Chicago Tribune.“Springsteen owns the state. Somewhere along the line, when nobody was looking, he bought it.”
The band would not release another album for four years—an eternity in pop music; rumors abounded that the group was on the verge of splitting. The band members were, in fact, suffering from severe burnout, the result of virtually non-stop recording and touring. “For years we spent every waking moment together, even vacations,” said Sambora in a 1992 article in USA Today.“People thought we were crazy to live, eat and breathe this band. We needed to get away from each other.”
During the self-imposed hiatus from 1989 to 1991, both Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi released solo albums. Jon’s Blaze of Glory (1990), a collection of songs written for or inspired by the western Young Guns II, delivered tumbleweed authenticity but didn’t over-whelm critics. The title track was “a slow, dusty clone of ‘Wanted Dead or Alive,”’ according to People’s Craig Tomashoff. Greg Sandow of Entertainment Weekly called it “thin if you don’t share his cowboy thang” and rated it a C+. Sambora’s solo album, Stranger in This Town (1991), fared only marginally better with Sandow, who awarded it a B-, remarking, “Gotta love Richie Sambora’s solo meditations for their brooding mood. But only a few of the songs stand out.”
New Maturity
Several significant events in Jon Bon Jovi’s life occurred during the break from the band: In 1989 he married his girlfriend of ten years, Dorothea Hurley; two years later he started his own label, Jambco Records, and produced albums for Aldo Nova and Billy Falcon, as well as producing and co-writing songs for Cher, Stevie Nicks, and Hall & Oates. He and Sambora also set off on a two-week cross-country motorcycle trip that would significantly affect their creative juices; formerly apolitical, the two observed some of the country’s social ailments first-hand and decided to incorporate awareness-raising messages into their next album, thereby displaying a new maturity. On the image front, Jon Bon Jovi revamped his style by cutting his trademark dirty-blond tangle of hair; the result was a more contemporary look for the matinee-idol-handsome heartthrob.
Although 1992’s much-anticipated Keep the Faith debuted at number five on the Billboard charts, the fully rested Bon Jovi were concerned about the album’s long-term prospects. Much had changed on the hard rock scene since the success of New Jersey, with Seattle’s so-called “grunge” bands Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana riding an unprecedented alternative-rock wave of popularity. Undeterred, Jon Bon Jovi faced this challenge head-on, dismissing long-time manager Doc McGhee and undertaking management of the band himself.
“Success is a funny thing,” he told Roy Trakin in a 1993 Music Express interview. “I enjoyed it, but no one seemed to care for the five of us the way they cared about keeping the machine running. By the time the New Jersey tour was over, nobody even said goodbye to one another.” “We’re on our own now,” he continued. “It’s five grown-up guys who are supporting ourselves with no one to congratulate or blame but ourselves…. This is our turn on the firing line, and we’ll see what comes of it.”
Critical reaction to Keep the Faith was lukewarm despite a major publicity effort by Mercury. Spin’s Eddy called “Dry County,” inspired by Jon’s motorcycle trek to California, “[an] interminable opus about economic depression in a hamlet where booze is illegal.” Of “Bed of Roses”—which nonetheless became a hit—Eddy wrote, “Sounds like Billy Joel—a vodka-soaked holy-ghost piano waltz.” Yet Rolling Stone praised “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” assessing, “This booming combination of hammerhead vocal hooks and weekend-warrior hedonism is classic Bon Jovi. If Jon and the boys didn’t invent this sure-shot formula, they certainly own the patent.”
Though not the smash of their former efforts, Keep the Faith seemed to satisfy fans, and Jon Bon Jovi was confident that the band’s core group of admirers would truly “keep the faith.” Criticism in some circles that he had “sold out” to commercial interests led the rock veteran to respond in USA Today: “For the first time I’m not impressed with money or numbers. I got wiser and I learned to deal with success…. I can take valid criticism very easily, but not from a gunslinger out to beat me up before he even listens to the album. There are certain critics in the world who aren’t ever going to like me no matter what. What can I do? I’m not out to make them happy.”
Continued Success
Hoping to capitalize on the release of their multiplati-num-selling greatest hits collection entitled Cross Road, Bon Jovi released These Days in 1995. The album featured the lead single “This Ain’t A Love Song,” “Diamond Ring,” an acoustic ballad, and “Something for the Pain,” a true rock song. “I think it’s the most introspective record we’ve done,” Jon Bon Jovi told Billboard in 1995. The group toured widely in support of the album, including three sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium in London, England. The year 2000 saw the release of Crush, the group’s first album for Island/Def Jam Music Group after the label subsumed Mercury Records in a merger between Universal/PolyGram. David E. Thigpen of Time called the album “a piece of vintage ’90s pop-metal, as straightforward as a stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike.” Though not the blockbuster success of Slippery When Wet, the album was certified multiplatinum in 2001.
Jon Bon Jovi has enjoyed a budding career as an actor, appearing in such films as Moonlight and Valentino in 1995, Destination Anywhere in 1997, Homegrown in 1998, U-571 in 2000, and Pay It Forward in 2001. He and Sambora continue to build successful solo careers, and Torres has looked beyond the stage to find success as an artist and as the creator of a baby clothing line called Rock Star Baby.
Selected discography
Bon Jovi, Mercury, 1984.
7800 Fahrenheit, Mercury, 1985.
Slippery When Wet, Mercury, 1986.
New Jersey, Mercury, 1988.
Keep the Faith, Mercury, 1992.
Cross Road, Mercury, 1994.
These Days, Mercury, 1995.
Crush, Island/Mercury, 2000.
One Wild Night: Live 1985-2001, Universal, 2001.
Sources
Periodicals
Billboard, June 12, 1993; May 20, 1995; May 13, 2000.
Chicago Tribune, March 19, 1989.
Detroit Free Press, March 8, 1987; May 25, 1987.
Entertainment Weekly, December 11, 1992.
High Fidelity, January 1989.
Interview, December 1990.
Music Express, January 1993.
People, October 1, 1990; November 30, 1998.
Rolling Stone, November 20, 1986; February 9, 1989, December 10, 1992.
Spin, January 1993.
Time, June 26, 2000, p. 74.
USA Today, November 9, 1992.
Online
“Bon Jovi,” RollingStone.com, http://www.rollingstone.com (August 13, 2001).
Bon Jovi Official Website, http://www.bonjovi.com (August 13, 2001).
Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com (August 30, 2001).
Recording Industry of America, http://www.riaa.com (August 13, 2001).
Additional information for this profile was obtained from Jambco/PolyGram Records, 1992.
—Mary Scott Dye
Sambora, Richie
Richie Sambora
Rock guitarist
Though Bon Jovi fans know him best as that group’s I revered lead guitarist, Richie Sambora has also established himself as a solo artist with a far different style than the arena-rock riffs that made him famous and helped Bon Jovi sell 75 million records since the mid-1980s. Sambora has released two solo albums in the 1990s that allow himto explore new territory. Studiowhiz Don Was produced the latest of the two and expressed admiration for both Sambora’s talent and hiswork ethic: “Here’s a guy who could spend the rest of his life cruising around on a boat!,” Was remarked in a press release accompanying Undiscovered Sours debut. The producer failed to note further evidence of Sambora’s good fortune (or good sense)—his marriage to television actress Heather Locklear, with whom he has a daughter.
Sambora was born in Perth Amboy, New Jerseyin 1959 and grew up in nearby Woodbridge. He began playing the guitar at the age of twelve, in the early 1970s, and was lucky to have his formative musical years marked by the active recording and touring of many influential bands who created the “metal” genre, such as Led Zeppelin. When he was offereda chance to join a band that seemed to hold potential, Sambora dropped out of college, adecision that upset his parents. But the Bruce Foster Band went nowhere and Sambora hit a low point in his life. In time, hejoined another New Jersey act, Bon Jovi, as their lead guitarist, and by 1985 the band was being booked on tour dates overseas. With their 1986 album Slippery When Wet and the song “Living on a Prayer,” Bon Jovi became one of the biggest rock successes of the decade.
Bon Jovi went on to sell literally millions of records and play to sell-out crowds of screaming fans on hundreds of occasions, but Sambora felt constrained. By the early 1990s, he knew he needed a break from the idolatry, especially after the band finished exhaustive world tours. “Playing the same… songs every night can drive a guy crazy,” Sambora told Greg Rule in Guitar Player. “I had to break free. Ineeded to refine my craft, become a better musician…. I needed to find out who I was.” Such desires were not easy to fulfill, though, simply because of Bon Jovi’s huge international success and the group’s living legend status was a mixed blessing of sorts for Sambora when it came time to do his own project. “Because of those sales, I’m expected to live up to a lot,” he told Guitar Player. “To tell you the truth, I kin d of ignored the living up to a lot’ part. I kept the record company out of the studio. I gave people the same tape for seven months, and some would say things like, I love the changes you made to that song.’ I found out who was [real] and who wasn’t.”
While he was on tour in the early 1990s, Sambora wrote song fragments in his spare time. When he decided to make his solo record, he purchased several new guitars, and had to teach himself how to play them—a strategy he knew would help him make that stylistic break from metal that hewanted. He later admitted that he was nervous about singing, since he had not done much of it in recent years with the exception of Bon Jovi back-up vocals, though he used to be the front man in his pre-Bon Jovi bands. ’After the first set of basic tracks, I was really happy with the way things were sounding,” Sambora told Rule in Guitar Player.“Everything was a lot more comfortable from that point.”
Before making what would become his solo debut, 1991’s Stranger in This Town, Sambora had the good fortune to meet one of his idols, Eric Clapton. Sambora had once been the presenter at a music-awards show and met himthen, and later was invited to sit in on a live session with Clapton, Lou Reed, Buddy Guy, and Bo Diddley. When Sambora was in the process of making Stranger, he sent Clapton a note asking him if he was interested in helping out on a track. To his surprise, Clapton was happy to guest on “Mr. Bluesman,” a song Sambora wrote about his guitar heroes such as Clapton and Robert Johnson. For some of the tracks, Sambora drew upon his early, pre-arena-concert songwriting forays when he was a New Jerseycollege dropout; both “The Answer” and “One Light Burning” had their creative origins in the years before he joined Bon Jovi.
For the Record…
Born July 11, 1959, in Perth Amboy, NJ; son of Adam and Joan Sambora; married to actress Heather Locklear; children: Ava. Attended King College, late 1970s.
Sambora’s first band was the Bruce Foster Band; since 1984 he has been Bon Jovi’s lead guitarist and co-written four number one hit singles; released first solo album, Stranger in a Strange Land, Mercury, 1991; released Undiscovered Soul, Mercury, 1998.
Addresses: Record company —Mercury Records, 825 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10019, (212) 333-8000, Fax (212) 333-8245.
Sambora also drew upon even more ancient experiences for another track, “Ballad of Youth.” The first single off Stranger, Sambora wanted to send a message to fans about pressures and teen angst. “I was thinking how hard it was for me to decipher being a teenager,” he told Melinda Newman in Billboard. “Now I’m in my 30s and I want to say to kids, ‘Hey man, don’t be so hard on yourself because the world’s a tough place. Give yourself a break’.” Themes of “lost love and alienation” seemed to bind Stranger in This Town, wrote Billboards Newman. “The result is a record that sounds more chunky, dense, and raw than typical Bon Jovi fare.”
Sambora went back to Bon Jovi, who continued its successful formula of platinum-selling rock records and sold-out concert tours. During this time, Sambora was also introduced to the woman who would later become his wife, Melrose Place vixen, Heather Locklear. By the time the pair had wed and were expecting a daughter in 1997, Sambora decided to try his hand at another solo album. His solo debut, Sambora would later recollect, “was a real murky record because it was a murky time in my life,” he told Billboard’s Deborsh Evans Price. He and his bandmates, he said, “were just mere shells of the guys we were,” and he feltthat exhaustion had been evident on Stranger.
This time around, Sambora and his Bon Jovi label, Mercury, enlisted the help of famed producer Don Was. Records from acts as diverse as Bob Dylan to Jewel to the B-52s had benefited from Was’s talents, but the Grammy-winning studio genius admitted he had reservations about working with Sambora. As Price wrote in Billboard, Was almost “expected him to pull up in a limo and fall out in the producer’s driveway with a bottle of Jack Daniels.” Yet Was found working with Sambora both a professional and enjoyable experience he praised the guitarist’s songwriting talents and his voice. “He can dive into the well of inspiration and hold his breath for a long time,” Was told Price. “I learned a lot about making records working with him.”
Undiscovered Soul, released in early 1998, was made intermittently over the course of the previous year. Was took some time off to work with the Rolling Stones in the studio, and Sambora devoted time to his wife and the arrival of their daughter. Locklear was enlisted to sing back-up for one track, and her Maltese dogs, Harley and Lambchop, are thanked in the liner notes of Undiscovered Soul. The notes also express graììtudeìone studio musicians who helped out, including Billy Preston, who once worked with the Beatles late in their career, and Chuck Leavell, on loan from the Rolling Stones tour. A People review was less than complimentary, noting that though Sambora himself is “appealing” and a decent singer, the album shows evidence of his “eager embrace for every cliché in the rock-and-roll thesaurus.” Yet New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press cast a less critical eye on the hometown favorite: Sambora, wrote Kelly-Jane Cotter, “is a likable performer with unmitigated enthusiasm for the guitar. His voice has never sounded better. And his approach to blues-rock is unpretentious and brisk.”
Selected discography
Stranger in This Town, Mercury, 1991.
Undiscovered Soul, Mercury, 1998.
Sources
Asbury Park Press, February 20, 1998.
Billboard, September 7,1991, p. 66; September 14, 1991, pp. 38, 39; January 24, 1998, pp. 14, 24.
Guitar Player, March 1992, pp. 29-33.
People, March 9, 1998; March 16, 1998.
Additional information forthis profile was provided by Mercury Records publicity materials, 1998.
—Carol Brennan
Bon Jovi
BON JOVI
Formed: 1983, Sayreville, New Jersey
Members: Jon Bon Jovi, vocals, guitar (born John Bongiovi, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 2 March 1962); David Bryan, keyboards (born Edison, New Jersey, 7 February 1962); Richie Sambora, guitar (born Woodbridge, New Jersey, 11 July 1960); Tico Torres, drums (born New York, New York, 7 October 1953). Former member: Alec John Such, bass (born Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 14 November 1956).
Genre: Rock
Best-selling album since 1990: Crush (2000)
Hit songs since 1990: "It's My Life," "Bed of Roses," "Always"
After a commercial downturn for much of the 1990s, Bon Jovi returned with a bang in 2000 and reestablished themselves as America's preeminent commercial rock band.
John Bongiovi had an inglorious start to his musical career, working as a "go-fer" at New York's legendary Power Station recording studio. After hours he began recording his own songs and soon had amassed a collection of demos. One song in particular, "Runaway," attracted the attention of a local radio station, WAPP, which included the song on a compilation of local music. "Runaway" became a huge local hit and even began to pick up national airplay. Bongiovi, lacking a band, quickly called upon fellow New Jerseyans David Bryan (keyboards), Richie Sambora (guitar), Tico Torres (drums), and Alec John Such (bass), dubbing his new band Bon Jovi and changing his own name to Jon Bon Jovi.
Bon Jovi signed with Mercury Records, which released the band's self-titled debut album in 1984. "Runaway" was included on the album and, backed by the marketing power of Mercury Records, landed in the Top 40 in its second life. With their big, teased hair and tight leather pants—the standard look of hard rock acts of the day—the band quickly became an MTV favorite.
The band's second album, 7800 Fahrenheit (1985), was a commercial disappointment and put pressure on the band to release a hit third album. Bon Jovi did not disappoint—the resulting Slippery When Wet (1986) spent ninety-four weeks on the Billboard album charts, including eight at number one; the album sold 9 million copies in the United States and featured two number one singles: "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on a Prayer."
The band toured relentlessly in support of Slippery When Wet and, when the tour finally ended, the band rushed back into the studio to record New Jersey (1988), a big-sounding pop-rock record that featured four Top 10 singles, including the chart toppers "Bad Medicine" and "I'll Be There for You." New Jersey sold 5 million copies.
Physically exhausted from years of constant touring and recording, the band members went their separate ways at the beginning of the 1990s. The producers of the movie Young Guns II wanted to use Bon Jovi's cowboy anthem "Wanted Dead or Alive" as the movie's theme song, but Jon Bon Jovi ended up recording the entire soundtrack album for the film—his first solo effort—and also made his film debut in the movie. The soundtrack featured the single "Blaze of Glory," which reached number one on the pop charts and earned Jon Bon Jovi a Golden Globe for Best Song from a Motion Picture. Sambora also released his own solo album, the bluesy Stranger in This Town (1991), which features guitar legend Eric Clapton.
In 1992 the band reunited to record Keep the Faith. The album was a commercial disappointment by Bon Jovi's standards, selling only 2 million copies in the United States. Though the band had come to rely less on its keyboard-driven, 1980s-style sound in favor of a more complex and varied hard-rock presentation, Bon Jovi suffered from their past success and reputation; in large part, American commercial hard rock had shifted away from the band's pop-metal style and more toward the raw, grunge sounds of bands such as Nirvana. Keep the Faith did spawn the top ten ballad "Bed of Roses," which features a soft piano prominently in the mix and sports a slick, adult contemporary sound, punctuated by the romantic chorus hook: "I want to lay you down in a bed of roses / For tonight, I sleep on a bed of nails / I want to be just as close as the Holy Ghost is / And lay you down on a bed of roses."
With Bon Jovi's contemporary music stalling, Mercury Records chose to release Cross Road, a greatest hits collection, in 1994. Cross Road featured the new song "Always," another tender ballad. "Always" sold more than 3 million copies as a single and suggested that a Bon Jovi comeback was in the offing. The band's renewed success was tempered somewhat by the loss of their original bass player, Alec John Such, whom the band fired in 1994.
The band's much-anticipated new album, These Days (1995), was a major commercial disappointment for Bon Jovi, selling only 650,000 copies. The album's slick adult contemporary pop-rock sound disappointed the Bon Jovi faithful, which longed for the band's trademark working-class rock anthems such as "Livin' on a Prayer." The band's future seemed in doubt as well, with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora each focusing on second solo albums. Jon Bon Jovi also became more involved in cinema, starring in the film Moonlight and Valentino (1996).
In 2000 Bon Jovi released their seventh studio album, Crush. The album found the band embracing its roots, revisiting the big arena-rock sound that had established the band in the 1980s—a sound that also was enjoying major retro appeal at the time. The lead single "It's My Life" was a major hit. "It's My Life" features a crunching rock sound punctuated by the same talk-box guitar that Sambora had employed on "Livin' on a Prayer"; the song's lyrics find the band celebrating the here-and-now and addressing adversity, perhaps in recognition of the band's own difficulties: "It's my life / It's now or never / I ain't gonna live forever / I just want to live while I'm alive." Crush debuted on the Billboard album charts at number seven and sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. In support of the album, the band did a sold-out arena tour of Europe, Japan, and the United States, culminating in two homecoming concerts at Giants Stadium in New Jersey; the concerts, broadcast on VH1, broke the music television station's ratings records.
The band's plans for a hiatus following the Crush tour changed with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Bon Jovi appeared at the Tribute to Heroes telethon and at the Concert for New York that fall, raising money for victims of the tragedy. Bon Jovi also returned to the studio to record Bounce, a tribute to the nation's resiliency in the face of the terrorist attacks. Released in 2002, the album featured the hard-charging lead single "Everyday," which, like "It's My Life," celebrated the band's live-inthe-moment philosophy: "I've had enough of cryin' / Bleeding, sweatin', dyin' / Hear me when I say / Gonna live my life every day." Bounce debuted at number two on the Billboard album charts.
Bon Jovi emerged from a commercial void in the 1990s and launched a major comeback by returning to their musical roots. Launching a "second career" with "It's My Life," Bon Jovi entered the new millennium once again atop the charts.
SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:
Bon Jovi (Mercury, 1984); 7800 Fahrenheit (Mercury, 1985); Slippery When Wet (Mercury, 1986); New Jersey (Mercury, 1988); Keep the Faith (Mercury, 1992); These Days (Mercury, 1995); Crush (Island, 2000); Bounce (Island, 2002).
scott tribble
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi, the band that defined mid-1980s pop-metal. membership:Jon Bon Jovi (real name, John Francis Bongiovi), gtr., voc. (b. Pert Amboy, N.J., March 2, 1962); Richie Sambora, gtr. (b. Woodbridge, N.J., July 11, 1959); David Bryan, kybd. (b. Feb. 7, 1962); Alec John Such, bs. (b. Yonkers, N.Y., Nov. 14, 1956); Tico Torres (real name, Hector Torres), drm. (b. N.Y.C., Oct. 7, 1953). The son of a hairdresser and former Playboy Bunny-turned-florist, John Bongiovi slept through his SATs, having played a gig the night before. He decided he didn’t need to take the test to become a rock star. In his case, he was right.
Bongiovi started playing the guitar in grade school, but got serious about it early in high school. He had trouble making small talk and used his guitar- playing skills as a means to pick up girls. He started playing in clubs and dances with various bands, several including keyboard player David Bryan Rashbaum. By age 16, he was hanging out with Southside Johnny and jamming with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
John’s uncle, Tony Bongiovi, owned and operated the Power Station, one of the top studios of the 1970s and 1980s, and hired John to sweep floors in the studio and let him sleep in the top floor apartment. Tony had young John sing a tune on the Star Wars Christmas Album, “Christmas with the Stars” in 1978. During downtime, John recorded demos. One tune, “Runaway” recorded with members of the E Street Band, started getting radio play in the N.Y. area. He was signed to PolyGram worldwide and put together a band of friends from the Jersey shore. These including drummer Tico Torres, bassist Alec John Such, Rashbaum, and guitaist Dave Sabo, who was replaced by Richie Sambora and later joined Skid Row. Rashbaum lost his last name, becoming David Bryan and Bongiovi changed his name to the less ethnic Jon Bon Jovi.
The group recorded their eponymous debut, released in 1984. The first single, a cover of “She Don’t Know Me” recorded at the insistence of the album’s producer, hit #48. The follow-up, “Runaway” actually cracked the Top 40, spending a week at #39. The album sold respectably, hitting #43. The band toured relentlessly behind the album, a habit they maintained through the mid-1990s.
The next album, 1985’s 7800 Fahrenheit, succumbed to the sophomore jinx, peaking at #37 as a result of the band’s constant touring, but producing no chart singles. For their third album, the band took several steps. They brought in professional songwriter Desmond Child to help polish their songs, then tested them for teen audiences, basing what they used on the reaction. They recorded in Vancouver, spending much of their down time in strip clubs. From a shower act at one of these clubs came the title Slippery When Wet. The lead single from the album, “You Give Love a Bad Name” topped the U.S. charts, as did the follow-up, “Livin’ on a Prayer.” “Wanted Dead or Alive” came in at #7. The album topped the charts, sold 11 million copies, and suddenly Bon Jovi was the biggest name in pop music, and pop metal became the sound of young America circa 1986.
The band took to the road for nearly two years. They went into the studio and followed up with the worldwide chart topper N.J. This one sold six million copies on the strength of singles like the #1 hits “I’ll Be There for You” and “Bad Medicine,” the #3 “Born to Be My Baby,” and the Top Ten hits “Lay Your Hands on Me” and “Living in Sin.”
After another grueling world tour, the band announced that they were taking a break. Bon Jovi recorded music for the soundtrack of the movie Young Guns, including the chart topping single “Blaze of Glory,” which became the title track of the album. The album charted at #3, and the follow-up single “Miracle” topped out at #12. He made a cameo appearance in the film, and was so intrigued by acting, he started taking lessons with renowned teacher Harold Guskin.
Sambora also recorded a solo album, the hard rocking Stranger in Town, which charted at #36. Bryan did an album of more textural music during the hiatus, as well. The band also received an MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, an odd thing considering how they usually made very simple performance style clips.
After four years away from each other, they came back together re-energized. Leaning more on the power ballads than the rockers, the single “Keep The Faith” and album of the same name both did better overseas than in the U.S., though the album did sell two million copies and reach #5. “Bed of Roses” hit #10 on the charts and “In These Arms” #27. “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” however, barely cracked the Hot 100, and “I Believe” and “Dry County” didn’t.
After another exhausting world tour, the band took another break. During this hiatus, Bon Jovi tested his acting skills in a few independent films, in addition to modeling for Versace.
The #4 single “Always” heralded the greatest hitsplus package Cross Road. The other single “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night” didn’t chart in the U.S., but went to ten in England. The band’s next album, These Days, had a similar fate. While it clocked in at a respectable #9 in the U.S., it topped the English charts. “This Ain’t a Love Song” hit #14, but the other two singles, which went Top Ten over there didn’t even chart in the U.S.
The band went on two more grueling world tours. In 1984, they played to audiences in 37 countries—45 the next year. Bon Jovi made three more films and then returned to music with Destination Anywhere. Produced by Eurythmie Dave Stewart and Steve Lironi, the album featured hard rock licks and computer loops. Sambora released his Undiscovered Soul a year later. The band expected to regroup for an album due just at the turn of the millenium.
Discography
bon jovi:Bon Jovi (1984); Slippery When Wet (1986); Bon Jovi Live (1987); New Jersey (1988); Keep The Faith (1993); These Days (1995). jon bon jovi:Young Guns II: “Blaze of Glory” (Music from...) (1990); Destination Anywhere (1997). richie sambora:Stranger in Town (1991); Undiscovered Soul (1998). david bryan:Netherworld (1992).
—Hank Bordowitz
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi's 1986 break-out album, brought "metal" inspired pop music to the forefront of American popular culture. The album was Bon Jovi's third effort for Mercury Records, which had gone through a bidding war to get the group in 1984. Slippery When Wet was different from Bon Jovi's earlier albums, the self-titled Bon Jovi and 7800 Fahrenheit, because the group hired a professional songwriter to work on the project. Mercury Records also invested an unprecedented amount of marketing research into the album. The group recorded about 30 songs, which were played for focus groups of teenagers, and the resulting album spawned two number one singles, sold more than 10 million copies, and established Bon Jovi as the premier "hair metal" band of the 1980s.
The band had humble beginnings. New Jersey rocker Jon Bongiovi had recorded a single called "Runaway" with a group of local notables, and when the single received good radio play he decided to get a more permanent group together for local performances. Along with Bongiovi, who changed his last name to Bon Jovi, guitarist Richie Sambora, bassist Alec John Such, keyboardist David Rashbaum (changed to Bryan), and drummer Tico Torres were the members of a the new group Bon Jovi. Alec John Such eventually left the group in the early 1990s, and after that time no other members have officially been added to Bon Jovi.
After the success of Slippery When Wet, the group came back with New Jersey in 1988. The album was a big commercial success, selling 8 million copies, but after the New Jersey tour the group took some time apart for solo projects. Jon Bon Jovi found success working on the soundtrack to Young Guns II in 1990, and guitarist Sambora released Stranger in this Town in 1991.
Bon Jovi reunited to release Keep the Faith in the midst of the Seattle-based grunge rock movement. Its sales were lower than previous Bon Jovi efforts, but their tenth anniversary hits collection, Crossroads, went multi-platinum. The release of These Days in 1994 was a departure from their rock-pop roots and had a more contemporary sound. In the late 1990s, Jon Bon Jovi worked on solo projects and an acting career. His first solo album, Destination Anywhere, was released in 1997. It was accompanied by a mini-movie that got exposure on MTV.
—Margaret E. Burns
Further Reading:
Jeffries, Neil. Bon Jovi: A Biography. Philadelphia, Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc., 1997.