The Last Word: Jon Bon Jovi
The rock legend on playing Wembley next summer, taking road trips with Bruce Springsteen and the strangest place he’s ever heard his music
By Nick Reilly
This is The Last Word. It’s our chance to take a bonafide music legend and ask them about life, navigating the tricky waters of the music biz and what they’ve got on the horizon. Up next, it’s Jon Bon Jovi.
What’s it like being back in London, Jon?
It’s been fabulous. I did a few things that I’ve never done before and I’ll tell you what’s weird – I’m seeing things I’ve never seen before. In 40 years of coming to London, just silly stuff like different restaurants and bars. I love it.
You’re playing Wembley Stadium next summer. Always a big deal?
It’ll be great. We have a history in the building which dates back to the mid-90s, when we were the last band to play the old place. We were meant to open the new one, sold it out a couple of times and they couldn’t put people in the building, so we had to move it to Milton Keynes. That wasn’t fair, so I didn’t play there for a number of years because I was mad at them. I went back in 2019 and thought, ‘OK, the building’s really actually quite nice.’ And I went back the other day by myself when there was nothing on the pitch and I could take in the size of it and think, ‘Boy, I’ve had a lot of joy in this building and a lot of great memories here.’ I want to come back for no other reason than that, just to be at peace with it.
After having major vocal cord surgery, did you ever think you might not sing again, let alone tour?
At the end of our tour in 2022, a very short tour, I thought basically that I could work the vocal cords back into shape, really not knowing what was wrong with them. By the end of that 15th and final show of the tour, I looked to my wife and said, “That’s pretty good.” She just responded, “No, it wasn’t.” And for a moment in time, I thought, ‘That’s the end.’ I’ve done everything I know how to will it back into shape, to diet properly, no booze, lah-di-dah. But my surgeon said to me, “I promise you nothing other than you’ll be able to sing better than you are now. I don’t know the timeline and the results.” What did I have to lose?
My life wasn’t contingent on ever touring again, but the hope was that I could have the joy that I used to have singing, no matter where it was, that I would end up doing it again. And I have felt that resonance. I have felt that magic in my bones.
If you were ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’, to borrow your song title, where would you flee to?
That’s a good question in this crazy world we’re living in. Who would embrace us as expats of America? I think my first and easiest choice would be to come to the UK. After that, I might think Canada, but it’s too cold. Australia, but it’s too far. Ireland would be up there too. The UK and Ireland are two places where I reckon I could go undetected.
You’ve teamed up with Bruce Springsteen on ‘Hollow Man’, which features on the Forever (Legendary Edition). He’s a close friend of yours and you’ve spoken about going on 100-mile drives together when you were recovering from vocal cord surgery…
Yeah, we do that. It’s an opportunity for two old friends to get together with no phones, no radio, no distractions, but when you run out of things to talk about, you turn around, and that’s really what it has become. Everyone is so curious about it, like it’s the Illuminati getting together somewhere in the Batcave and discussing the world order. But really, it’s just an opportunity to take a drive with an old friend and talk. Of course, the little boy in me still gets excited about it, and the man in me is happy to have a friend to talk to.
You’ve also got Robbie Williams on the record…
He was the first person I called. He was the right guy to sing ‘We Made It Look Easy’. Our careers aren’t similar in that I wasn’t in a boy band, and I didn’t have a drugs or alcohol issue, but there have been a lot of peaks and valleys in Robbie’s career, and he can certainly relate to that lyric and say we made it look easy, even if it’s anything but.
How did you become friends?
We’d met at awards shows, but we got closer in the last few years when he moved to Florida. It was before his movie came out and we’d spend evenings together and he became this shoulder to lean on when I needed it.
When he went back on tour this year, I’d tell him, “You’re an inspiration and do this tour for me, you little prick! Go be great for me, because I need to know that you got through this tour. I’ll be thinking about how cuckoo you are, so that when I want to go cuckoo I won’t, because I’ll be thinking about how you stayed sane, sober and figured it all out.”
What’s the most unlikely place you’ve ever heard a Bon Jovi song?
Ooh. At the mouth of the Grand Canyon. I was down in the bottom getting gas for my motorcycle, and the guy was pumping gas while they played our music. I had a helmet on, and I was like, “That’s me!” He didn’t blink an eye. I had to take off the helmet and be like, “No, really, that’s me! Motherfucker, that’s me!”