Great Interview with Richie

*** Thanks to Rike for posting this article on a board I frequent...

Will Bon Jovi’s prayer be answered?
Friday, November 14, 2008 1:27 AM EST

By John Benson
Correspondent@News-Herald.com

Perhaps the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum should keep Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora’s phone number on speed dial.

Not only is the New Jersey native a featured guest artist scheduled to perform at the 13th annual American Music Masters tribute concert “The Wizard of Waukesha: The Life and Legacy of Les Paul,” which takes place Saturday at PlayhouseSquare’s State Theater, but 2009 marks Bon Jovi’s first year of Rock Hall membership eligibility.

So does he think the “Wanted Dead or Alive” band deserves such recognition? “Yeah, I would hope so,” said Sambora, calling from Los Angeles. “I think because we’ve made so many people happy with our music and our concert tours, and the fact that we sold over 120 million records — yeah, I think we deserve it. I can honestly say that, but at some point. I don’t think it has to happen right off the bat.”

He quickly added, “But that would be nice.”

Bon Jovi will be an interesting test case for Rock Hall voters, who often overlook style-over substance-groups. While the group has sold massive amounts of albums, putting them into the U2, Madonna and Beatles stratosphere, the one knock on the “Livin’ on a Prayer” act remains the ’80s hair-metal tag still attached two decades later.

“Honestly, what’s really funny about this is, outside of America, we were never pigeonholed with that stigma,” Sambora said. “It just was a fad that happened here in America, and everywhere else in the world we’re just a great American rock ’n’ roll band.”

Furthermore, the band is a multi-platinum-album-selling machine that added another successful record to its catalog with 2007’s “Lost Highway.” That CD found Sambora and band mate Jon Bon Jovi delving into a Music City vibe after the act scored a surprise No. 1 country hit single with “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” (featuring Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles), which is from the group’s 2005 album, “Have a Nice Day.”

“You can’t beat good songs,” Sambora said. “Obviously, what Nashville is famous for is being a music town, and Jon and I had been going there and writing and working for 15 years, so it was nothing really different. When you’ve been a band for 25 years, you want to constantly try to get out of your own shadow stylistically and try to do something different, and this album, ‘Lost Highway,’ gave us a chance to do that.”

Sambora said Bon Jovi has already started to look ahead; however, fans shouldn’t expect another Nashville-influenced effort. Up next for the group is its second greatest hits disc, due out in late 2009. In the meantime, the guitarist is using his downtime to have some fun. That includes not only recently joining B.B. King on stage in Chicago for the taping of a PBS special, but working with Kid Rock and T.I., as well as scoring the upcoming feature film “The Tournament.”

Then there’s also the “The Wizard of Waukesha: The Life and Legacy of Les Paul” tribute show, which will find him jamming with James Burton, Billy Gibbons and The Ventures, Jennifer Batten, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Eric Carmen, Dennis Coffey, Lenny Kaye, Steve Lukather, Barbara Lynn, Lonnie Mack, Katy Moffatt, Alannah Myles and Slash.

“It should be great,” Sambora said. “A bunch of great guitar players and a bunch of great musicians there. It’s going to be great music, and we’re honoring a great man who really changed the face of the music business and the rock ’n’ roll community, for sure.”


~ Hath