Q&A: Richie Sambora

CE Pro Magazine (the leading trade publication for professionals involved in the custom electronics business) has a great Q&A session with Richie on their website. Here's a taste:

People listen to everything from low-resolution MP3 files to high-res 24-bit/96kHz WAV files. Do you have preferences?
The WAV file is better than a low-resolution file. It’s harder to transport, because it’s a dense file when compared to low-resolution file. Look,compressed music is not going to sound as good as analog ever, it just can’t, but the ear does get use to it.

From a musician/songwriter’s perspective, do you think that compressed music takes away from the listening experience?
Honestly, what happens is the ear trains itself to listen to it. A lot of people don’t know what analog sound is - I would say the majority of people. You have to be, what, 40 to know what analog was even, and then to actually remember it?

For my birthday someone recently got me an amazing gift. Somebody bought me a bunch LPs [vinyl], and now I’ve got to go out and get myself a record player. I’m looking forward to [playing them], and that I’ll be an analog freak. I can’t wait to go out and get all this stuff and re-visit all of that [vinyl and analog].

My ear is now trained to listening to digital music. It’s all conditioning.

If you could recommend any Bon Jovi or solo material recording (videos and CDs) for a killer home theater/music system demo, what would you choose and why?
All of our stuff sounds pretty good. Obviously, if you’re looking for a classic Bon Jovi album, Slippery When Wet is that. I think as an audiophile [recording], New Jersey may be the best-sounding record that we’ve made, because it’s the last analog record that we made. The production team of Bruce Fairburn and Bob Rock [put together New Jersey], and unfortunately Bruce died [in 1999]; it was Bob’s last album as an engineer. (Rock went on to produce Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood and Metallica’s “Black” album immediately following his work on New Jersey.)

To put Bruce and Bob together with the songs that Jon and I wrote - Jon and I were also becoming producers at that time - to put four record producers in the room who really wanted to make a great record, that really wanted to do something special, and to follow up Slippery when Wet was no easy task, but we did. We had more top-10 hits on Jersey than we had on Slippery.

DVD wise, I would say Bon Jovi Live from Madison Square Garden from the last tour is the best sounding that we have so far. It’s also well shot by a guy named Phil Griffin, and it’s mixed by our longtime cohort and engineer Obie O’Brien. He did an amazing job.

Visit the website for the full interview.

~ Hath