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He explains the joys of Vancouver strip clubs, and cops to the sordid truth behind the Slippery When Wet album title.
Playing nights. Sleeping days. Writing in his mom's basement with Jon Bon Jovi after gigging all night. Guitarist Richie Sambora believed that if Bon Jovi's third album didn't hit, the band would be kaput. He tells VH1 about how his yin-yang chemistry with singer Jon (and songwriter Desmond Child) pulled the group back from the brink, explains the joys of Vancouver strip clubs, and cops to the sordid truth behind the Slippery When Wet album title.
VH1: So where was the band in 1985, when you began work on writing Slippery When Wet?
Richie Sambora: We had just finished a nine-month world tour, getting what I thought was a mediocre record, 1700 Degrees Fahrenheit, up to gold status. We were in debt to the record label for a couple of million bucks. We needed to pull this next album through to make sure there was going to be a Bon Jovi. It was an edgy time. We had no money. We were paying our crew more than we were making ourselves. We were living at our mom and dad's, and wrote most of the songs for Slippery When Wet in my mom's basement.
VH1: What kind of music were you listening to at the time you started writing?
Sambora: I was listening to the same stuff that I always listened to. I was a big fan of Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, and modern day blues people like Albert King. I also had a steady diet of Motown like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. Jon's influences are much different than mine, but it all melded together. I think that's what made Bon Jovi's style come through. Slippery When Wet was a unique album because we created something that nobody was doing before. It had power and heaviness, but wasn't heavy metal. The lyrics related to people's everyday lives, too.
VH1: How did your upbringing influence your work?
Sambora: We were all basically middle class kids with a work ethic. My dad worked two jobs and my mom worked. We still work harder than any band out there. Reaganomics had us believing that everything was cool. It was a high time in American consciousness. Everybody was partying and there was no social disease to speak of. Everybody was having a pretty damn good time, you know?
VH1: How did you write "Living On A Prayer?"
Sambora: We wrote it at Desmond Child's apartment in New York. I was really late because I had a recording session the night before with a friend of mine. They were very mad at me. The beginning of that song came out of that session. I remember Jon and I were sitting in a cab. It was raining and he said, "I don't know if that song is going be on this record." I said, "Jon, that may have been the best song we've ever written." He said, "Well, maybe it could be on a soundtrack somewhere." I just looked at him and said, "That's a No. 1 song." It only happens once in a lifetime, but lucky for us, we wrote a lot of No. 1s afterwards. No matter what you do to it, production-wise or arrangement-wise, the song lives. When we did it for the Concert for New York, it had a whole new meaning. We pared it down to an acoustic guitar and fiddle and some percussion. It's a song that has its own life. That song will stand for who we are as much as "Wanted Dead Or Alive" or "I'll Be There For You" or "It's My Life" or any of our No. 1s.
VH1: Who is the subject of "You Give Love A Bad Name?"
Sambora: I think it was written about everyone! We've all been through relationships where you're just MF-ing the other person. We did it in fun. We used some cheeky words and stuff but the important part is that the riffs were good. It was a very catchy song. You can't stop singing it.
VH1: What made you decide to use Bruce Fairbairn as a producer?
Sambora: We admired him from afar and contacted him. He had made some records with Loverboy. We felt that we had this great batch of songs and if he could lend that sonic perception to what we felt was a solid song, then, with the fan base that we had built touring and making records before this, we had a winner.
VH1: Who were the pizza parlor jury?
Sambora: When we were making the demos in New Jersey, we'd go across the street to the pizza parlor. They knew we were somebody, but they didn't know really who we were. We asked this arbitrary bunch of kids, "You want to hear some stuff?" It was like a marketing test with these guys. They came in and said, "Yeah, we like this one. This one gets through and that one doesn't." We still do that now with our friends and wives and kids and nephews and whatever.
VH1: So how did you end up recording the album in Vancouver?
Sambora: That's where Bruce Fairbairn lived and that's where he wanted to be. He also wanted to get us out of our element in New Jersey. I don't think it was such a good idea because we were very out of control. The working environment was always in control. It was the environment that came after the work that was usually out of control. Luckily, we were sturdy lads!
VH1: Tell me about the strip clubs in Vancouver.
Sambora: The strip clubs in Vancouver were something that we had never seen before, being from New Jersey. The first day we walked into this strip club, this woman descended from the ceiling down a pole and proceeded to take all her clothes off. When she got in a shower and soaped herself up, we just about lost our tongues. We just sat there and said, "We will be here everyday." That energized us through the whole project. Our testosterone was at a very high level back then.
VH1: Did you eat dinner there?
Sambora: Sometimes even lunch! It depended on the day really. Sometimes it was go-go breakfast! We were all-American boys with lots of energy. We were young.
VH1: Where were you living?
Sambora: We all lived in the same rented condo together. It was destroyed by the end of the recording. The police evicted Jon and me. We had to finish the last few days living at the Sheraton hotel, because we had pissed the neighbors off with the noise. It was five guys together and it got pretty wild. It was a brand new condo, right on the river overlooking the World's Fair. It was lovely until we moved in there. Then it was "There goes the neighborhood." You know, sometimes you forget your key and have to climb over the wall …
VH1: Whose idea was it to use the talk box on "Living on a Prayer?"
Sambora: It was my idea. There's a couple things that I really lent to that record from an arrangement and production standpoint. I had used the talk box in other bands, mimicking Joe Walsh and Peter Frampton. It hadn't been used for a long time. They all thought I was nuts. Then when they heard it, they thought it was great. Acoustic guitars also weren't really used on a rock record at that time. Acoustic guitar wasn't getting on the radio, especially 12 strings. Coming from the Led Zeppelin school, I was a very elegant acoustic guitar player, so I brought that to the table. Those were the kind of things that I tried to lend from my youth to the production of that particular record.
VH1: How did you come up with the name Slippery When Wet?
Sambora: It was going to be called Wanted Dead Or Alive. We went up into this remote place in the mountains outside of Vancouver called Whistler. We were shooting in this cave in this Western garb. It looked a little bit put on, and we were kind of unhappy with it. As we were driving back to the Number Five - our favorite strip club in Vancouver - our manager Doc McGhee saw this sign on the road, "Slippery When Wet." He said something about it, but we were hemming and hawing. Then we went to this club and saw this gorgeous blonde go into the shower and soap herself up. We looked at each other and went, "Slippery When Wet. That's going to be it." The problem then became, what's the album cover going to be like? We shot this one beautiful girl with large breasts and a thing that said "Slippery When Wet." The censors didn't let it happen. So it was getting to the last minute and Jon and I were together in this room. The Slippery When Wet album cover is actually a Hefty trash can bag with water sprayed on it. We held it on both sides and Jon wrote "Slippery When Wet." Fourteen million records later …
Jon Bon Jovi: "You Were Either Going To Be Southside Johnny Or Def Leppard"
He talks about sharing spaghetti sauce with Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi's live crusade, and the band's first private plane ride.
At age 24, Jon Bon Jovi thought he had everything a renegade heart from Sayreville, N.J., could want. He was working regular. His band had a gold record. And who knows? One day he might have a mansion in Long Island like his pal Aldo Nova. Little did he know that wasn't even the half of it. Jon and pals were about to cut Slippery When Wet, and go on to rock millions of fans. The singer turned actor told VH1 about sharing spaghetti sauce with Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi's live crusade, and the band's first private plane ride.
VH1: What was the mood in the band going into the writing of Slippery When Wet?
Jon Bon Jovi: We were on top of the world. 7800 Degrees Fahrenheit was a gold record. I remember the campaign for the third single, "Silent Night." The cover was me with the words "The Best Kept Secret in Rock 'n' Roll." We were living the rock star dream, although in reality we were all still living with our folks. Leaving the bus was heartbreaking because that was your apartment. It was a glorious time.
VH1: Was there a worry that if the third album didn't fly that was going to be it for you?
Bon Jovi: No. I thought playing the block dance was successful. When you got a record deal you thought that was successful. When you had a gold record you thought that was successful. If it ended at any point soon, I had made 50 grand, and bought a condo in Florida sight unseen because then I'd have a roof over my head. I thought you were the Rolling Stones if you had a gold record. My only rock star friend was Aldo Nova and he had one gold album that hung above his fireplace. He had this - in my eyes - mansion on Long Island. I thought that was it. At that time, though, bands had three records to make or break themselves. We knew we were either going to achieve greater success or be relegated to the theater circuit. You were either going to be Southside Johnny or Def Leppard. I wasn't too concerned because I was 24 years old. But there was a great anticipation for the third record at radio and MTV and the rock magazines. We were this great live band who just needed the opportunities.
VH1: How did you go about trying to meet that expectation?
Bon Jovi: We did what we always did - started writing. I knew I wanted to incorporate the movie element and tell stories about people I knew. Now instead of rewriting a song like "Runaway" where the girl didn't have a name, I wanted to give names to people. I wanted to relate those stories to people I had gone to high school with. Some got married right out of high school. Some joined the service and now were working somewhere. I wanted to tell their stories because they could've been me, if I hadn't learned to play guitar.
VH1: What was the writing process for you and Richie like for the third record?
Bon Jovi: We wrote it in Richie's mother's basement. His folks both worked, so the house was empty. He was playing the bars on the cover circuit, trying to make ends meet. I would drive over there in my little Datsun 280Z with some pizza, bang on the door, and wake him up at 1 PM. We'd write until six when his folks came home for dinner. It was great because it was just us. We knew who we were. We knew it was going to be a different producer who would capture that live element. And we were going to have stories to tell.
VH1: How did "Wanted Dead or Alive" come together?
Bon Jovi: I was on the bus during the Fahrenheit tour. I couldn't sleep and was staring out the window, thinking, "Wow, this is great, but it's an interesting existence. You don't know were you are. You're living in truck stops, sleeping on the bus, showering at a gig." We were thinking of songs like [Bob Seger's] "Turn The Page," and how those songs were storytellers doing their best storytelling. I talked to Richie about the concept, and like magic he played the riff and we knocked it out in two or three hours.
VH1: What did you think after you finished "Wanted Dead or Alive" and "Never Say Goodbye?"
Bon Jovi: It was a confusing time. At our label, it was Tears for Fears, whose lyrics I wasn't relating to whatsoever. We were writing songs that made you say, "I want to sing that tomorrow at the show." Everything we were writing had to be relatable to our show. How is this going to move the crowd? What are we going to do to steal the headliner's thunder? What hook do I need? I knew a song like "Raise Your Hands," would get people involved, especially if you're the opening act. "Wanted" wasn't so much that, because it was a place in time. "Never Say Goodbye" wasn't either, because that was about missing the high school girlfriend. But everything else had to be related to the show.
VH1: How did Desmond Child come into the picture?
Bon Jovi: I liked what Bryan Adams was doing with Tina Turner. So I asked our A&R guy, "Can't I write a song for a Tina Turner and sing it with her?" He said, "It's the publisher's job to get those songs out there, and your publisher's obviously not doing that. I know a guy who has lost his record deal and is hustling songs around. If you guys write with him, perhaps something good will come of it." We thought, "Why not? We'll see what happens." Des came down to Richie's mother's basement. We wrote a song called "The Edge Of A Broken Heart." The second song we wrote was "You Give Love A Bad Name." We demo-ed it and everyone liked it, but we didn't know it was a hit song. None of us had ever had a hit. Desmond had one semi-successful song with KISS called "I Was Made For Loving You." But we were all on the cusp. The producer Bruce Fairbairn was on the cusp. The engineer Bob Rock was on the cusp. When the pieces came together, it was bigger than life.
VH1: So was it all perfect timing on everybody's part?
Bon Jovi: It was just the magic of the gods. The first record we did in New York. The second record, we went to Philadelphia with Lance Crane. It was like a scene out of The Godfather. Everybody was in one apartment. My dad would bring down a pot of sauce and we'd live off it for a week. For the third record, Bruce said, "Why don't you come to Vancouver?" We thought, "What the hell, what else do we have to do?" So we all moved to Vancouver to a two-bedroom apartment and did pre-production, which was something new. We started playing together as a unit and realized that Bruce was going to capture the essence of the band live. He was unbelievably anal. He would say things like, "We're going to work on bar eight tomorrow because that's not quite right yet, guys." But he gave us this feeling of purpose. He believed in us. It seemed like it was going to be something.
VH1: Did the sessions go smoothly as a whole?
Bon Jovi: Oh yeah. It was quick. We started touring before the record was even close to being out. I said, "Let's open for the Cars or Bryan Adams." Our manager Doc McGhee said, "No. We're going out with the Scorpions and Judas Priest. We're going out with guys that have had a whole lot of records and a fan base that isn't fickle and they're going to learn to like you." That was like a kick in the teeth. We had to learn fast because that they were good, tight rock bands. We went from the Judas Priest tour to the .38 Special tour. Suddenly we're Bon Jovi the good old boy band! Throw us into any situation and we could adapt. That was an integral part of our becoming a live act, and now we had the songs to back it up.
VH1: Do you remember when Slippery went to No. 1?
Bon Jovi: Oh, yeah. Slippery hit No. 1 while we were in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1986. We were opening for .38 Special. Doc was coming out to celebrate with us. He missed his flight, so he chartered a private plane. When he came with that plane, we left the bus right there. We all squeezed into that plane. It was elbow to elbow, but we were on a plane, man! We had a No.1 album. Bon Jovi was selling a million records a month and it was phenomenal. .38 Special's manager said, "Maybe we'll let you be co-headliners." We went, "Great. Gotta go now. It's our time." We got on that plane, went to the next city, and told the promoter. He says, "As a gift for all the money I'm making tonight on the 38 Special tour, I'm gonna pay for that plane to take you to the next city." Now we're smart. We get to the next city and we go, "You're not gonna believe what the promoter did for us last night. He paid for us to fly to the next city." So the guy's going, "I'll pay for the plane to go to the next city." We're like, "Suckers!" From the airplanes we went on to if you did one show, you got a leather jacket. You did ten shows, it was a pool table. When you did 15 shows, you got a 1969 red convertible Camaro. I got five pool tables, ten leather jackets and a '69 Camaro convertible. Which, in retrospect, means our promoter made way too much money!
VH1: When was the last time you listened to Slippery When Wet?
Bon Jovi: I rarely listen to the old records. There's not even a platinum record hanging in my house. But I heard "You Give Love a Bad Name" on the radio the other night. I turned it up, too. I was like, "Wow. It's still on the radio, all these years later." I saw myself as a younger kid, enjoying that moment in time, and you smile. It still holds up.
Tico Torres: A Dedicated Toddler of Fashion by Jim Macnie
“Babies weren’t wearing anything hip,” he explained. “All that light blue and pink? God. Most parents dress cool and I figured they want to dress their babies cool because every kid is like a star.”
With that, Torres decided to start a clothing line now deemed Rock Star Baby. Drastic reaction? Not really. Torres came from a family of Cuban seamstresses, and the entire clan used to collaborate on the outfits he sported in his early Bon Jovi days.
“All the stuff you saw me wearing on stage or on album covers from the last 20 years was made by me and my family,” he revealed. “When you start out you can’t afford designers, so you make your own clothes. We used to cut our patterns, pick out materials and then go for it. My wildest phase was in the ‘70s and the early ‘80s. I wore orange platform shoes - and played drums with them, too!”
To assist him in his mission to introduce the toddler set to the world of chic, Torres collaborated with former Halston designer Cinzia Spalletti. Being a drummer, Torres did not beat around the bush. It was tap, tap, tap, let's get things done.
“It was ‘Man, I love the way you make these things. But the name’s wrong. The color’s wrong. The attitude’s wrong,’” he chuckles. “I said, ‘Let’s go with something that’s universal - music. Let’s introduce black, grays, khaki, green, a lot of colors that are not the norm for babies.’
“Cinzia been doing this for 20 years, and she's great at it, so she pretty much has a free hand on everything about the designs. Of course, she runs stuff by me and I’ll yea or nay it. When I suggested using black, for instance, I heard silence on the phone and thought she hung up on me!”
In fact, the pair developed a line of comfortable, baby-safe clothing decorated with musical characters that Torres admits would look as good on parents as they do on the rug rats themselves.
“We have gray and black leathers,” Torres explains. “We have vests that say ‘Rock Star Baby World Tour.’ We got shirts with tattoos on them. People look at them and go, ‘Where can I get this for adults?’
“But we make baby bags for adults. My drum tech’s a bruiser, a big tough guy who’s tattooed head to toe. He came to me, pleading, ‘Can I get one of your bags?’ He had been carrying this blue thing with cute little animals on it and thought, ‘It’s just not me.’ We’ve got bags in canvas and very fine nylon, which you can throw your computer in. When the baby’s grown up, you have yourself a bag. But you’re not ordained to look like you’re carrying a baby bag.”
Roadies aren’t the only one who want some of Torres’ duds. His celebrity chums have also come calling.
“I’ve been sending stuff to a lot of people in the industry,” he said. “Michael Douglas’ kid has them. Jon (Bon Jovi) was doing Ally McBeal so we sent Calista Flockhart some stuff. Cindy Crawford has a Madonna leather outfit for her kid. Bono and Larry Mullen from U2 sent back notes saying they’re freaking out, they love this stuff. It’s cool. Getting the letters back from everybody is like an immediate gratification.”
“If anything I want to change the face of babies and what they wear,” Torres explains. He's quite mindful of ancient baby pictures that find him sporting a sailor suit. “So they can turn around and go, ‘I was a cool-looking baby.’ For me, if you can start with little babies and work on up, you’re doing okay.”
Bon Jovi: Playing the Big Dance
They talk about their new live album, One Wild Night, the next Bon Jovi record, and writing songs for the Crush generation.
In case you didn’t know, Bon Jovi are back in a big way. To prove it they’ve just sold out two massive shows at Giants Stadium. As their summer tour comes to an end, Richie Sambora and David Bryan talk to VH1.com's Jon Wiederhorn about their new live album, One Wild Night, the next Bon Jovi record, and writing songs for the Crush generation.
VH1: Do you view the two nights [July 27-28] at Giants Stadium as a sort of homecoming?
David Bryan: It don't get better than that. It's your hometown. That's the stadium, that's the big dance. That, to me, is the Super Bowl.
Richie Sambora: Yeah, definitely. If somebody were to tell us a year ago that we're going to play Giants Stadium for two nights … that's pretty big stuff. We're very, very proud of how this record has gone over. It seems like there's a whole new legion of young fans that think Crush is our first album. [Laughs]
VH1: You've been working on some new material?
Sambora: Jon was doing a movie and I did some solo work. I started working on some new Bon Jovi songs that I'll present to him. He'll chime in and do his stuff. And I have a song called "Take Me On" coming on a movie soundtrack called On the L. I was going to put out a solo record, but then we did this live album and... I don't think we want to lose the momentum of what we have going as a band. I think we're just going to go in and do another band record. Jon and I have more to say as writers. That's why we do records, 'cause we have something to talk about. We'll start writing in September and hopefully get one out within a year.
VH1: Does the solo and movie stuff ever conflict with the momentum of Bon Jovi? Or do you intentionally schedule it so that you can have your cake and eat it, too?
Sambora: No, you can't schedule movies. When he gets one, we quit for a bit and I do solo stuff. That's the great thing about our band. Everybody supports each other when they do solo projects. For some bands it's poison, but for us it seems to be the lifeblood. We do it because we enjoy it and I think that that's why we're still around.
VH1: Tell me about the songs that you started writing for Bon Jovi. How would you describe them? Are they like Crush?
Sambora: I'm just starting to chip away at ideas. There's nothing in stone as of yet because, really, the magic comes when Jon and I sit down in a room. The stuff that I started writing was in a storytelling style. Optimistic songs. Jon and I will probably write 50 songs before we get to the 10 that will make the record.
VH1: Are they feeling as upbeat as some of the songs on Crush?
Sambora: I think they're equally upbeat. I think Crush was a pretty optimistic record. I don't know what's going to happen next, but even on our live record there are no ballads. As a writer, I'm not really feeling them at this moment, although they've served us very, very well in the past.
VH1: But this time, it was an anthem that took this record to the next level.
Sambora: Absolutely. "It's My Life" is an amazing song for the Crush generation, man. It took us to a different level. Great song.
Bryan: "It's My Life" was such a big song. It touched everyone from our regular fans who have been with us forever to a whole bunch of new, younger fans. They went out and brought Crush and then they started buying the catalog and went, "Oh, it's not their first record. It's their 10th record!" That's the power of a song like that.
VH1: Your records have always done well. I don't want to call it a comeback, because everyone hates that expression, but really it was a resurrection.
Bryan: I think it's just a resurgence because … we're the quietest, most successful band there is out there. In the '90s, grunge was in and people said we were dead. Well [1993's] Keep the Faith came out and sold 9 million records. For a band that was over, that's pretty damn … well, it's more than anybody who was out at that time sold. And then [1995's] These Days came out and that sold 9 million records. And the Greatest Hits came out with "Always," and that sold 15 million records. Everybody says it's a comeback. Well, wait a minute. That's 34 million records. I don't really think that's "going away."
VH1: What are you listening to? What music are you liking right now?
Bryan: I really love that Train record. It's probably my favorite record. I like Lifehouse and Tonic, Coldplay. Vertical Horizon is good. That Train record, though, is killing me right now.
Sambora: I've been listening to Vertical Horizon. I dig the new Limp Bizkit. [Fred Durst has] done a real great job of integrating rap with metal and coming up with his own trip. I listen to Foo Fighters, Creed, Train, Lifehouse.
VH1: A lot of bands crank out a live record after putting out two studio albums. It took you considerably longer.
Sambora: We've been lucky to be creative enough not to have to put one out. Our fans have been asking us to put one out for a really long time. We actually were fighting with the record company about whether we could've made it a triple live album. But we wanted to keep the price down for the fans. It's a great snapshot because all our new fans can pick up this live record and listen to the old music.
Bryan: We would've liked to probably put out a 17-CD set. But I think it's a really good snapshot of the band from 1984 until now. We've recorded ourselves all around the world since '84. There are tracks like "Runaway" and "In and Out of Love" from '84 in Japan. You can hear the hunger of the band that was the young Bon Jovi.
VH1: How do you think you've changed?
Bryan: I think there was a lot of raw talent and raw energy there, and now it's refined, but no less energetic. It's different. You're going to be different between your first record and your 10th record. We're at the top of our game now.
VH1: Do you think you've maintained that edge? 'Cause "It's My Life" is an edgy song.
Bryan: No, I'm not talking about edge, I'm just talking about the difference between your first Super Bowl and your 10th Super Bowl. Not any better or worse, just different. That's the thing that you really want to hear from a live record for me. You want to hear from a band what they were at the beginning.
VH1: You've been on the road forever. Have you been looking forward to the tour coming to an end?
Bryan: We don't tour the way we used to tour. We used to tour with human intentions, not with superhuman intentions. Before we used to go out for a year straight, but now we have families and it's different. Usually we go around two or three weeks and then come home for a week and then go out for the same thing. We're not the guys who shot up heroin and died in cars. I don't know if that's so newsworthy for anybody, but usually people like to see the drama of it all. It's great to have America back to a reign of rock.
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