Interview: Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi

It would be so easy to hold a grudge against Bon Jovi guitarist, Richie Sambora. Not only does he get to satisfy thousands of women every night – I’m talking about his stadium gigs, natch – he’s loaded, plays a mean guitar and still has all his own hair and teeth. So it was through gritted teeth that I spoke to the man about 20 years on the road with Bon Jovi and his band’s the career-spanning boxset, 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong.

Ed: Bon Jovi has just exceeded sales of 100 million records. That’s quite an achievement.
Richie: “Yeah, it feels good to me! It’s a big milestone, you know? 100 million records in 20 some odd years in the music business, there aren’t many bands that have stood the test of time like we have. I’ve always appreciated our longevity and the fact that our fans have been so loyal to us. We’ve somehow forged ahead through all those trials and tribulations in the music in the music industry…”

Ed: Do you ever wake up in the morning and think, ‘How the hell did I get here?’
Richie: “Absolutely! All the time man… That’s one of the reasons why we put the boxset, together –just to see where the hell we’ve been for the past 20 years (laughs). We wanted to do something a bit different with this set and gather together all our unreleased, demo and hard-to-find recordings. Usually with a boxset you get all the hits with a couple of new tracks, so this is very different.”

Ed: Did you re-record any parts of the songs?
Richie: “To be honest very little, actually. I would maybe add a backing vocal here and there. Some of the songs didn’t have a guitar solo because they were basically live demos, so I put a few solos in there. Thing is, we didn’t want to mess around with the songs too much, that was the essence of it.”

Ed: After 20 years do you still enjoy playing live or is it just a necessary part of being in a successful rock band?
Richie: “The world is crazy out there and if you can show 70,000 people a night a good time, it’s an amazing thing. People who have never been to one of our shows don’t know just how intense in can be. The great thing is that our original fans are now bringing their kids to the shows. It just keeps on growing.”