From Netherworld to Memphis, Part Two

The second part of Bryan Reesman's interview is up. Here's an excerpt.

How do you think your image has changed from David Bryan the rocker to David Bryan the composer? What have people’s expectations been like?

The best part is that everybody [high up in theater] is about 70 or 80 years old, so they call me “The Kid”. In my world we’re old men, and in this world, I’m a kid, so I like that. With producers in that world, I always said I’m trying to class up the joint in my band by being a Broadway composer. They think it [the music] is raucous. It’s funny what people think the cliché is. Joe DiPietro and I are halfway through writing another one. We made a pact that we’re writing with each other, that we want to be the modern Rodgers and Hammerstein and want to take a partnership because we really enjoy what we do and do it well together. But he really understands the sensibility of what I do. It’s completely not theater, if you will. It’s just different.

You said you were working on another show with Joe.

We’re probably about halfway through it. We’ve been working on for about a year or so and got about eight songs in it already. We found the heartbeat of it. So when Joe and I write when I’m on the road, I’ll call him up while I have a keyboard in my room, we’ll write over the phone. Sometimes if I’m in the city for five days, he’ll fly out and we’ll sit together and write for five days. Time marches on whether I’m on tour were not. We want to get another one out there.

Are there any Bon Jovi songs that you would like to hear come back into the band’s set list?

On the tour we came in with our master list of about 90 songs, just to keep the boredom out. We first learn them, then walk into the sound check and play them. We’ve been playing some old ones from the first record. We’ve played “Roulette” and “The Hardest Part Is The Night”. Songs we haven’t done in forever. It’s fun to do that stuff.

You can read the full (and fantastically long) interview here (first part is here).

~ Hath