- I woke up this morning... - I woke up this morning...
- And I said to myself... - And I said, "Self... "
- "Self... - "Self...
what a great... day
for rock and roll. "
And after 20 countries...
I always had the idea to do a box set
to accompany the 20th anniversary of the band.
This box set contains nearly 40 songs
that nobody's ever heard before.
There are a couple of songs that have different versions
of lyrics and music,
key changes in production
that you may have heard.
And these were things that were in our vaults.
The way a record takes shape with the band
is that we usually write 30 or 40 songs
for an album, dating back to "Slippery When Wet. "
We were really prolific
and we'd take our time to get each and every record right,
representing who we were at that time.
I wanted this to come out at the time of our 20th anniversary,
which is now, and fortunately for us
there also is the milestone
of a hundred million albums sold.
And so here we are, having sold a hundred million albums
and nearly 40 songs that nobody's ever heard.
So we wanted to make this very special.
Most artists are able to give a box set to a record company
that are comprised of several mixes
of songs you're familiar with,
remastered versions.
This is something that's gonna help you understand
why a record took a certain shape.
You never say goodbye,
you just say good night.
But you remember to say thank you.
When I was a kid,
I remember still standing in my mother's kitchen
thinking about if we had any success at all,
what it would be like to be 30 making records.
And then all these amazing things have happened.
In our wildest, wildest dreams
I never thought that we would sell 100 million albums
and still be here to talk about it.
We wanna take you into the vaults, show you what we have to give.
The first 20 years have been amazing.
The next 20 are only gonna be better.
This box set encompasses...
many sketches of a lot of different songs
that we wrote.
I'm very, very proud of it. It's been very pleasurable for us
to go through our archives
and come up with all this stuff, and I hope you all enjoy it,
'cause we certainly did.
A couple of discs shows a lot of years of work.
I would like to thank each of you 100 million personally,
but I think it would take up all the DVD,
and we don't have all the names, we don't have time for that.
We're fans of musicians and music
and whenever we got box sets and stuff
to hear other music from other bands,
it's something that lets you into the living room,
or the soul of the musician. This is a little different.
These are songs that were predominantly never released.
And it is our soul. We hope you enjoy it.
I had a good time listening to these right now.
Anyway, like Jonny said, hopefully we'll be around
for another 20 years. So thank you.
This is a song called "The Fire Inside,"
that I still think is really good, and I can't believe we didn't put it on.
But I think I wrote this for "Keep the Faith,"
and I don't know how it never got out of the notebook.
You know what? I was playing guitar on this,
- and it was your song... - This is really good.
- "The Fire Inside"? - I completely forgot about it.
I think it was just me and you sitting, and it was a demo...
- Just the two of us? - Just the two of us, yeah.
- I can see the "Young Gun" influence. - It was the total "Young Gun. "
- Yeah, you were... - I was in that place.
...an angry "yout'." - A yout'.
"A yout' wit' angah. "
It was funny, 'cause when I wrote that whole album,
I was so blaming it on Billy the Kid in that script.
"Oh no, no, that's not me, that's him. "
Now when you hear it, all those years later,
- that ain't Billy, that's me. - No, it sounds like you, man.
That lyric was you.
You wanna know the situation?
This is the situation at Piccadilly Circus, Tower Records.
The police riot squad has moved in.
They have threatened, if Bon Jovi plays
off the balcony, which we're planning on doing,
that I will be arrested and the whole band will be arrested.
But we're going for it anyway.
How do you like that? We'll play anyway.
Can you hear it okay? Can you guys hear all right?
Then let's do it, mate.
May I speak to the manager of the group, please?
- Yes, I will do, my friend. - Are you the manager?
No, I'm not, but I will fire them in two seconds.
Thank you very much.
- M...? - C-G-H-E...
Can you turn the cameras off, please?
Keep coming, guys, keep coming. That way, guys, straight.
One of my favorite songs that you wrote...
you know, as your partner, as a songwriter and as a co-producer
in the stuff that we've done together, a lot of times I take great pleasure
in not having to be in touch with a particular song
on a lyrical basis, or on a heart basis.
I remember having a great time and really respecting this song.
I was really concerned...
that the innocence that I had
when I picked up a guitar as a teenager
was gone, and gone forever.
Suddenly, you became this...
head of a corporation and a boss
and a tool for the machine
to go on.
I sat at the piano during that whole period
and wrote songs like this.
There's a lot of my hurt
in that innocence that was lost.
The juxtaposition of the celebration of Fourth of July,
and the obvious fact that the fireworks had gone out of the relationship
really makes the lyric desperate.
- Good job, cat. - Thanks, man.
Another appearance by the accordion.
Yeah.
I don't know who plays it, but whoever that cat is, he's something special.
Hey!
This was a pretty neat loud rock song.
You might have heard it if you're a really hardcore fan.
It was in a little-known movie, "The Cowboy Way. "
- "The Cowboy Way. " Kiefer Sutherland... - Kiefer Sutherland.
...and Woody Harrelson, that's right. - Woody Harrelson.
Wayne Isham shot the video, I remember that,
and Andy Johns produced it.
They wanted something loud and fast
and upbeat. I like the lyrical content of this,
but we really went after
a Who kind of a musical approach to it.
Dude, that was like Keith Moon.
- Keith Moon reincarnated. - There you go.
We just went nuts. We went gnarly on that.
That was killer.
There's a lot of songs that we wrote for movies
that didn't get put in movies. "Always" was written for a movie.
I wrote that for a movie called "Romeo Is Bleeding. "
The script was great. The movie wasn't.
I kept the song, put it on the shelf,
John Kalodner, an A&R guy here in town,
a friend of ours, pulled it off the shelf,
he said, "This is a hit song, you should do it. "
The rest is history.
That one was one of the few, if only times
I pulled a song back and it was our biggest single ever.
- You got a number-one single. - Yeah!
- That's it, bud. - We dig 'er.
"Real Life" was recorded
in a day... maybe two, maybe two, in New York City.
It was the last time we worked with Bruce Fairbairn
before he passed away.
So at that time, I had given Bruce the 30 tracks that I had written
and Richie gave him the ones that he had written.
We were going through them, we picked this one for "Ed TV,"
that starred Matthew MacConaughey,
and I was just off to Italy to go and be in a film
with Matthew, and...
that was it. Then when we came back,
the day I got back, I got the news that Bruce had passed away.
So this was the last chance we ever had to work with Bruce,
who obviously changed our lives.
Made our lives...
producing "Slippery When Wet" and "New Jersey. "
He's still sorely missed in the camp.
He was a great man, great producer, just wonderful producer.
Any time, all right?
Everybody has own passport in hand.
And the black glasses.
I don't hope... don't.
No black glasses.
Soviet people want to see you.
That's what we're in the process of trying to do.
Get our album released here. Hopefully, we can take the music to the people.
They are waiting for you, and they hope to see you on stage.
Yeah, we hope in August that we'll be here.
What would you like, what kind of message can you leave
for the Soviet youngsters? It's about 140 million people,
- watching you now. - I'm...
I think that...
I want them to open their eyes and their ears
and their hearts to us.
And we wanna do the same here in the Soviet Union
and bring the next generation
of the world together.
Brr! It's freezing.
We're coming in August. It looks like it's gonna be August the 9th
at this stadium, Lenin Stadium.
- Cheese. - Cheese!
Freeze!
We've been a touring act all over the world for the last five years.
And this is the highest high
that we could have ever imagined,
coming to Moscow and playing. So we're looking forward to it.
Richie and I wrote "Garageland"
in New York City...
in my apartment. We were...
writing for "Crush. "
It had been another period
after "Destination Anywhere"
and his second solo record
where we were reinventing ourselves.
We'd talk about
where we came from and where we were going to.
It was an early song written for "Crush,"
but because the subject matter had been written before...
on a number of songs over the years,
it didn't make it. But when I hear it now,
I go, "This could've made it. "
When I hear
those guys that are really singing and playing
and making music that they wanna sing,
and that are reminiscent of the influences that I had as a kid...
I get it.
If you were to ask me two years ago what was my advice,
I'd say, "Sing a song,
learn how to play the instrument, write about what you know.
Don't worry about how many sit-ups can you do
and how flat is your belly. "
The video era...
as the Buggles once said, "killed the radio star. "
It killed the imagination. But I think that there's a return to it again.
Which is exciting to me, because there's an opportunity
for a band to grow as a band
and go out there on the road and become one,
where each of the members of the band is as important as the next.
It's not just about the close-up in the video
of the singer's face.
That's what "Garageland" was about.
It was this, you see? Because if anybody sticks out,
you're not gonna win the fight.
It was important that
the unity, the closed fist is what...
it makes it hard enough to go out there and try to achieve
any kind of success.
Longevity is...
virtually impossible these days for a band
to have three records before they have any real success
the way we did.
But I do believe that there's an opportunity
that some of these bands are showing their promise now.
That they're gonna have a chance to make two and three records.
"Garageland" was for "Crush. "
- It's good. I heard it, I'm surprised. - Yeah.
I go, "Wow, this could've made it. "
- But it's... - Yeah, I'm surprised
when you listen back to it, like it didn't make a record of some sort.
We had eighths in the choruses,
I would have liked to hear the hi-hat.
- Hindsight. - "Hollywood Nights," you know?
I like the title alone, "Garageland. "
It's cool.
I think that's what attracted us.
# With a strap on your back, you got wings on your feet #
# You feel like a king when you walk down the street #
# Heard those old records and knew we belonged #
# When the drums hit the groove, we'd all sing along. #
It's got that feeling of where we came from.
Yeah, I like that. It's good.
It's a real honest-to-goodness story about every band
that gets together and goes through what we did.
- "Garageland. " - The glory of...
dreaming, I guess.
I think it's really about dreaming. You're in your garage
and you're dreaming you're up on the stadium stage.
This was the dream, this was the goal.
If it's all over now, it doesn't matter.
In the immortal words of Paul Korzilius, our road manager,
"We made it to the dance. " This is it.
We're going to have 80,000 people tonight.
It's amazing. Couldn't be happier if I was twins.
Be up 80 feet in the air.
They've even built a catwalk the size of a football field for this gig.
This is wonderful.
- No one's ever done this. - Look at this.
The Stones, the Who, the no ones...
I can't even speak. I was gonna cry about four times.
A sea of people, planes coming in... it was a wonderful evening.
- Wonderful day. - Look at the puddle of water
in my second pair of shoes, that I only... watch this.
I only put these on for three songs.
That's how wet I am.
"Four Letter Word" is about spousal abuse.
I wrote this first alone.
So the demo version of it is that. The second version,
with the horns and the girls and the lyric changes,
was co-written with Dave and Richie.
I liked the idea that it had
an R&B feel to it.
I think that a lot of that had to do
with my spending time with Southside Johnny
and going on the road with him and playing guitar for a few dates
and just getting back to the pure fun
of what it was that I liked about music...
10 years prior to that,
why I wanted to grow up and be Southside Johnny.
I wrote this, originally, I think it was in mind
that I could see John singing it.
And then we put it away and dug it up again as a band...
and reworked it, re-recorded it and tried to make it fit.
But it's a little too R&B.
Was that you singing that high part? That was "Lemma. "
# Love ain't nothing... #
- That was Lema. - That's right, that's good.
That was our foray into Motown, baby.
That's right, with a key change.
Then, we uplifted that at the end.
- Why did we change keys? - Yeah, we shouldn't have done it.
To make you suffer live.
One thing that's really funny, when we look back on the songs we've written,
we say, "Why did we write in those high keys?"
- Thank God we learned. - Now we need people coming
to grab the the old...
I cleaned out my desk. I got all my pencils.
Gee, I hope I get to go to second grade next year.
Welcome to Bon Jovi Airlines.
We're on our way to the gig. Come with me.
Hi, you may not know me
but...
don't leave home without it. We're going to the gig,
this is our last one, in Lapland.
This is where Santa Claus lives.
But I'm Jewish.
Hello there, "venison breath. "
Going to a gig.
Going to Yugoslavia to join the army.
Here's a unique story,
We just didn't want it to seem like we were...
jumping on a bandwagon.
It was... Richie and I wrote it after Kurt Cobain died.
You know, I admired the guy a lot.
I thought that he had a great voice, he had a unique sound.
Really had something to say lyrically.
It seemed that he was really troubled
by the music "business," as I've said before.
But unlike...
us, where we were able to get help,
and figure it out,
unfortunately...
Kurt Cobain obviously didn't have somebody
to help him through the hard part.
What bothered me the most is that he'd left a daughter
who was the same age as my own.
So we wrote it in the form of a song
but it's a letter to her... to his little daughter Frances,
to say, "I'm sorry you didn't get to know your dad.
I bet he's sorry he didn't get to know you, too.
I just want to tell you it's lonely at the top.
It's not everything everyone thinks it is. "
Richie and I wrote this, it's a beautiful song.
- It's called, "The One That Got Away. " - "The One That Got Away. "
Great, great story.
That's gotta be one of my favorite songs that didn't make a record.
That, "Fourth of July"...
they were probably a bit too intelligent lyrically, maybe,
for... or something, I don't know. What do you think?
I don't know, I don't remember what record it was from.
This studio, as we were in there demoing,
it was falling apart.
Things didn't work, remember?
- We were kind of... - It was painful.
It was painful, 'cause you get into the creative process
and you have all of these technical problems that continuously...
- The headphones were... - Oh, God.
...were a nightmare. - Yeah, everything.
I just don't remember what record that was.
It was brilliant. They were brilliant.
The people I came with, they've never seen Bon Jovi before,
and I said, "Oh, you'll have to come, you'll have to come. "
They said, "Oh, okay. " They came and they thoroughly enjoyed it.
They really, really enjoyed it.
This was probably, in my opinion, the worst show.
I can hardly hear a thing, it was brilliant.
When I was outside, I'm looking up, going, "Hey, where's the sound?"
Kids in front, I heard what they were hearing. Boy, it sounded like it did.
Best concert I've ever been in my life.
Absolutely. Look what he gave me.
I liked the music. It was brilliant, everything.
No they deep-sixed, they just went.
All of a sudden I had nothing, I had no drums, no vocals, no nothing.
What they did do was absolutely fantastic.
Just as good as the last four times I've seen them.
Check... too much, and it's the wrong kind.
I'm hearing bass instead of guitars,
I'm hearing the bass as loud as the lead vocal.
- Fantastic. - Oh.
There's a lot of... that seemed like it was really held back.
They come here, I'm out there playing power chord,
chunking along, man. And... they're not getting it.
You just gotta get down, you know, it's like, holy...
I brought it down, brother. I brought it down.
Hey, listen to me! I put it right the... down.
I had to know what to turn off and what to go,
"What's gonna blow up, what's not...?"
- Kept going. - That's what's supposed to happen.
The bass should be one with that kick drum.
I wanna hear it sound like a Fender in an airplane.
And I don't wanna hear it, I wanna feel it.
Everything that could, did go wrong.
If it happens again and I have a machine gun,
it's loaded, so stand out of the way.
This is one of my favorites. This is definitely on the box.
When I wrote this one, I immediately knew...
and you guys remember this,
Tico sings the lead vocals.
Definitely one of the favorites on the box.
This is one of my favorites. I loved this.
I loved this rendition of it. This is so T.
Tico sang it, and he sang the hell out of it.
I fought hard in the mixing of the box set
to have Tico sing this song
because I think he means it from his belly.
He took my words.
And it's always great to hear your words interpreted by somebody else.
In this case, it was T.
And T always says, "You know I love you.
I've been staring at your ass for 20 years. "
Tico pulled this one off.
People hear it and they go, "Who is that?"
That's really Tico, that's as good as he sings.
A drummer that can sing.
With soul, no less, for Christ's sake.
I can't even think that high.
- That was pretty high, too. - Yeah, you were getting up there
in that bridge, man.
- When did we do that? - I think it was "Keep the Faith. "
- You think it was "Keep the Faith"? - I do.
I don't think it was "These Days. " I think it was "Keep the Faith. "
No, I thought it was in "Sanctuary of '94."
- That's a beautiful song. - In Vancouver up there?
- No, it was at Jon's house. - In the basement, at my old house.
- Ooh. - Oh, God.
And Tico's contribution, ladies and gentlemen, for the archives,
I'd like everyone to know now that we're long dead and gone,
- and it was Tico who killed us. - I'm glad this isn't Smell-a-vision.
I wrote this one right here,
with Pat Leonard.
Pat Leonard produced "This Left Feels Right. "
We hooked up with Pat... I thought of Pat
because of his experience doing "Unplugged" records
and was very aware of his doing Elton John
and Madonna.
Very diverse producer, player,
and I knew
what he could potentially bring to a Bon Jovi project.
So with "This Left Feels Right,"
we really took those songs
and reworked and recreated them.
He and I were talking about direction.
We started fooling around out in the room there
and in a couple of hours wrote this song together.
And we said, "Let's put it on a record,
let's have a couple of new songs. "
We recorded it as a band
to fit musically
with the recreation of the catalogue songs from "This Left Feels Right. "
So we were somewhat limited in the production style.
So that it didn't sound like something we weren't,
I chose not to put it on "This Left Feels Right. "
I think that it's a great song
with a neat lyric,
but just wasn't right for the project.
So we're able to share it with you here,
but I didn't wanna confuse what "This Left Feels Right"
meant to me.
This is a great song, it's a ballad.
This title we've used.
"Open All Night," we've used about five times.
We finally actually did a song on the "Bounce" record
called "Open All Night. " It was a great title.
- We never could get it right. - Rod Stewart recorded
"Open All Night" once, remember that?
- One of the songs... - One of the versions.
I mean, we wrote this title how many times?
A lot. This is one that didn't make it.
The reason we put them all on here
even after having released the song on "Bounce,"
was we wanted to show you that vulnerability.
I wanted to show you why you take a title and beat the heck out of it
until it's something that you want to share.
I don't know what album it's from,
probably "Crush. "
Good lyric, a real movie lyric.
But I like to show you
for all you aspiring songwriters it's okay.
Try something, try it again. Try it again...
until you get it right.
"Outlaws of Love. " I don't remember writing this song.
I don't remember it at all.
This is... this and "We Rule the Night,"
and some of these that have dust on top of their dust.
What I'm doing right now, is I'm learning "Crazy" and "Tumbling Dice,"
'cause we may do those songs tonight
and I have no recollection, "re-col-lection"?
And I have no idea what the chords are.
With songs like "We Rule the Night,"
and I'm looking over here at the board,
"Outlaws of Love" and these earlier things,
we forgot them. We didn't even know they existed.
And that's some of the fun...
is that we're finding gems that we didn't know that we had.
I didn't necessarily wanna include them, even on this.
It doesn't mean I like them,
but they were a part of our history.
And for what they were,
and at the time that they were written,
we obviously liked them enough to record them.
But it's a part of that growing...
the growing period and who we were and where we were going
that got us to where we are today.
This is something called "Ordinary People. "
Me, Dave and Richie wrote this one...
- At Dave's house. - At Dave's house.
What year was that?
I think this was, like, '95 for "These Days. "
I think. I think.
I had one version of it and then...
Isn't there a line about Michael Jordan in this thing, too?
Right. I had a version of this and then we rewrote it together
and it became much better.
- I know we did it at your house. - It was very Jersey.
"You and me, we're ordinary people," you know.
- A lot of... a lot of words. - Plus, we didn't have an ending.
- We couldn't end the damn thing. - Fade it.
So we just figured, "Let's go to another bridge and change chords. "
- Right. - Modulate five times.
- We had a lot of words. - Let's keep on that, keep going...
- "Little Jimmy got hi-top sneakers... " - But you know what?
I'm telling you, like now, we would know how to fix it.
There was a stylized period, '95-ish.
- Yeah. - What kind of wine was that period?
No, there was this kid... it was like that Mullen guy
had a big hit with that... remember that song?
- He was up in the Hollywood Hills... - Oh, yeah.
- Shaking hands with so-and-so? - Oh, yeah, yeah.
It was one of those kind of influenced, like a "Night Moves" kind of thing.
Christopher Cross? "Chocolate Babies"?
It's a pretty good lifestyle. I mean, it's entertainment.
And people in our business
tend to put it higher than that, you know?
They think that you're royalty or something or...
you're not, man.
People that aren't in our business
turn the radio on to get from point A to point B in their car. You know?
So this is my life, this is the lifestyle,
but, it's not so different. You know?
I get up every morning, take a shower and shave if I want to, you know?
It's just...
we're our own bosses, maybe. So that's what makes it so special.
When I was a kid, I thought rock and roll was mine.
It was mine, it wasn't my parents'.
You know what I mean? It would symbolize my youth
and my individuality and my separation and my generation.
Even, like my dad, when I talk to him,
I'll talk to him and he'll tell me about,
"Yeah, man. I remember when I was a greaser in the '50s"
back in Bayonne, New Jersey. He named me Richard,
because he bought his first automobile at "Rick's Auto Sales. "
You know what I mean? And, so...
You were named after a used-car salesman?
I was named after a used-car lot, man!
What we wanted to do with this, was also share...
a taste of what...
Richie's obvious influences
to me and to the band are
with a song that didn't make one of his solo records.
It's just him emoting the way he does.
You know, he moves me every time I hear him play and sing like this.
It's a great song.
But I feel that way about everything on his solo records.
I think he did a great job with it and we wanted to include it
so that you guys don't forget
that he's made a couple of great solo records.
When we talk about Dave and his delving into musical theater...
this is a song from a play that Dave wrote music for
and it's called "Memphis. "
This is a song from that play that he sings.
When I heard him singing it,
I thought, "This is like the great Elton John song that Elton never wrote. "
So we wanted Dave to include the song on the record, too.
So that you get a feel for what it is that Dave does.
What it is that Richie does when we're not working.
What it is that Tico does when he sings a song.
We wanted to get a feel for each of us individually
and why collectively it works.
It's easy, kids.
I got a good feeling about this kid. I think he...
Hey, look at that, kids. Play piano and you get $54.
- Make that $53. - That's what it's supposed to be.
- Thank you. - Whoo-hoo!
Play piano, earn money. See how that works?
One song, 53 bucks? That's not bad.
And I got a meal. I feel like I'm playing gigs again.
"The Radio Saved My Life Tonight" I wrote on the piano.
It was at a very difficult time,
as are several songs that are gonna come out here
for the first time on this box.
Where I was looking inward,
and questioning...
what it was that was going
to motivate me to make another record.
It wasn't a question of making another record with the band or not.
It was just to make another record.
The innocence of my youth was now gone.
It was after "New Jersey"
when the burn-out settled in.
And it... again in retrospect,
it wasn't anyone's fault.
It was the powers-that-be doing what they do
to help ensure that you're gonna be in the marketplace,
you know, and touring and recording and touring
and working and doing interviews and touring and more touring.
I was really burned out.
With a song like "The Radio Saved My Life Tonight,"
I realized...
the purity of writing a song.
Being moved when you heard a song on the radio again.
The magic that music had.
I was able to get that one down on paper.
It's as simple as saying,
"I crawled into bed with no one to share the thought with, but...
well, last night the radio saved my life. "
It kept me wanting to be here to talk to you...
14 years later.
When you hear yourself on the radio...
there was a period in the very beginning...
I remember every time you'd hear "Runaway" on the radio
I'd turn it up and drive fast and think,
"I hope I get pulled over just so I could tell the cop,
'Look, that's me on the radio. "'
But I only had three minutes to get pulled over.
Usually, I just kept driving.
Then there was a period of hearing yourself on the radio so much
that I would change the channel. I would change it
because I lived this song. You know, you wrote it,
you recorded it, you toured it, you'd hear it on the...
it was enough already. You'd listen to anything but yourself.
I remember sitting in the back of a car in Los Angeles
and the radio was on and I heard "You Give Love a Bad Name. "
I wanted to hit the dial, and I didn't.
I heard it in its entirety
and I was able to sit there in that car by myself and went,
"You know, it's a pretty good song.
It's fun. It makes you want to roll the windows down
and get the cops to chase you again. "
This is also from...
it's that studio that was falling apart.
I think again this was one of those things that was just too high.
# Satellite! #
- Three songs in one. - Yeah, exactly.
I don't know why you guys kept changing the keys.
- I play in one key. - I always reach into the bag...
D. What key now? G.
Where are we going, Paul?
Obie, this is where we're going.
- Oh, sorry, sir. - To get paid.
- Patrick? - Isn't that a great hat?
- Hey, Big Paul? - What, what, what, what?
- What leg are we on here? - Who got you that hat?
We did two US legs,
one Japan leg, two European legs,
of course, we topped that European leg with two sold-out shows
at Milton Keynes. Count 'em, two!
- Not one, two. - Two.
- Thank you very much. - Paul, let's just work.
Let me give you some of the cheap seats.
Thank you.
This is the last time you'll see me before the mayhem.
This nice shirt we paid lots of money for,
soon it may not exist.
Covered in ink.
Well, these guys are real serious.
- Do you have your passport? - Very serious.
Just plowed through a whole bunch of people.
This song was influenced by...
Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.
And Johnny Cash had just passed away.
I thought, "How many of the greats are still
around and still viable?
Still doing it?
And is this breed of the originals
gonna be lost forever?
Are we just gonna be limited
to what these radio stations
that have playlists of 20 songs are giving us, are forcefeeding us,
and the video channels are forcefeeding us?
Is the next Dylan gonna ever be able to come along?"
So in my mind's eye, I had this picture
of a carnival huckster sitting outside the tent saying,
"Come see a living, breathing spectacle
only seen right here," and taking you into the tent.
So if you came in you'd see this guy covered in spiderwebs
and they'd wind him up, and one more time
he'd really play and really sing and...
really write you a song. The lyric is a little bit bitter.
It says, "Keep your pseudo-punk,
hip-hop, J. Lo junk and your digital downloads.
Here's the last man standing. "
It was meant to be Bob
and not Britney.
It's much more aggressive
and will be included on the new record.
...Returned in 1814 after the War of Liberation from Napoleon.
Of course, we're doing the speedreader's tour of East Berlin.
We have about an hour to get back onto our plane
or else we're gonna be stuck here.
The record store in Berlin
was all opera and old world music, which is, I guess, cool in itself.
But this was supposed to be the modern record store
and there was no rock n' roll in that record store at all
except for one Elvis single.
That's the real deal, folks.
Elvis is cool even in East Germany.
They don't have any of our records. We're really big here.
What can you do? I feel sorry for the people.
The last thing to get through was 1956 with Elvis.
I felt like I was going to an illegal place.
I felt like I was chopping the wall that was illegal,
looking around for the police or for the army to come and pick you up
and drag you away. So I really dug it just for that fact.
This is the most labor I've done in years.
Put the date, December...
19.
This made the "Crossroads" record, but it has different lyrics.
- It was a hit, too. - We wrote this in Mystique.
- On the island of Mystique. - That was a fun time.
Yeah.
Richie, myself, and Desmond
wrote that on a vacation.
And we worked very hard on it.
But when it was done,
we thought it was a little too melancholy.
So we went back in and with the band started...
getting behind what we were doing musically.
- Yeah, much more moody than the... - Serious and...
- Darker lyrics. - Yeah, much darker.
- The lyrics are darker. - Yeah.
- The final version of "Crossroads"... - Yeah, I liked it a lot.
That's pretty neat, though, for all the kids out there to hear it.
- Right, aggression. - Mistakes and all.
They're not mistakes, they're on purpose.
- Do 'em twice. - They're on purposes.
Yah! Yah!
The maddening crowd.
As the Bon Jovi crew gets mobbed by the fans.
- Look at this one. - The clinging fans.
- Hey, Captain Camera! - Everybody set? Camera.
You're gonna be in the picture here.
I was getting freaking allergies.
Hello.
Why didn't that make the record? Let me tell you.
- This is how you kill the lead singer. - Right.
- Like this, really. - Over and over again.
Let's sing that twice on tour and then we go home.
The opening song would be over.
But you know what, though? What we were trying to do...
- what we were trying to do... - Was kill him.
- No, we can kill Jon... - Yes.
We're just trying to take his larynx out
and basically replace it with some 16-year-old's.
But we're trying to reconnect with our fans, obviously.
- We're starting all over again. - "Keep the Faith" was...
After a two-year hiatus.
We did a little bit of a hiatus, we both did solo albums.
In '92,
as we were about to begin recording "Keep the Faith,"
music had changed. It was a new landscape in rock music.
All the bands, all our peers,
everything that record companies were signing
that were similar in style to us,
was now being put out to pasture
by the movement in Seattle
and the commercial birth, if you will, of rap music.
We knew it was going to be us against "the machine"
the same way it was us against the world...
seven or eight years prior,
just before the recording of our first record.
With "Keep the Faith" we knew
that we had to take control of our own destiny.
Songs like "Starting All Over Again" and "Taking It Back"
were sung from the point of view
of that chip's back on my shoulder
and I'm ready to launch into phase two of my career.
So Paul, was it coincidence or conspiracy
that three different people from three different angles
hit me on opening acts yesterday?
I was on the phone till 2:00 this morning.
- Morning. - And cut.
Jimmy lovine called and said
that he'd build a stage and pay for a truck
if we would let that little kid band on it.
Hi, Tic.
There's Al.
My name is Pince and I am funky.
My name is Pince, the one and only.
When it comes to Pince...
I don't... know.
- Ready? - Yeah.
Oh man, that's cool. I got some cool stuff of this band.
Yeah, you'll probably sell it, make money on us.
There's a song called "Out of Bounds"
that was written for the "Slippery" record.
Richie and I wrote it in Vancouver.
And it was for a movie. It was a movie called "Out of Bounds. "
I think it starred Anthony Michael Hall.
It didn't make the movie, obviously.
Little known fact about that...
that album
was there was a number of titles for it.
"Slippery When Wet" was not the first title, it was the last one.
It was shot,
pictures taken, and the album cover at one point
was considered to be "Wanted Dead or Alive. "
An unknown fact...
the truth is I was reading a paper up there in Vancouver
and saw this name of a bar band and I thought,
"This is a great album title. "
And I almost called "Slippery When Wet" "Guns N' Roses,"
because I saw this thing called "Guns N' Roses. "
And I said, "What a great album title. "
We've got the pictures... I had a beard,
everybody in the band had beards and moustaches
and we wore these long dusters.
It was a very cowboy-looking picture.
I thought, "Wow, this is so us,"
you know, love songs and cowboy songs.
"Out of Bounds" was an outtake from that record.
But the first title of that record
was, in fact, "Guns N' Roses. "
Fortunately for me, I didn't call the album "Guns N' Roses. "
A year later, they had a little bit of success.
Milli Vanilli will not be going to rock 'n' roll heaven, no.
Because they have sinned against the Lord.
That's right! They did not sing in 1990 and therefore...
twofore, therefore, all that legal jargon...
they will not receive a plastic dashboard Jesus.
Not only did they not sing on their records,
- but they did not play them. - Amen!
This is great!
Craig said to run stairs to keep in shape.
- Yeah, we do this every morning. - I'm doing it.
If you ever want to be a rock star.
Okay, now. Thank you.
This is great!
Jesus!
If you look up, ladies and gentlemen,
Jesus is gonna go for a full gainer,
difficulty factor: 7.6.
The Russians don't think he can make it.
Look, you can see my house from here.
There's New Jersey. You can smell it.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the prehistoric football.
That is the reason why Americans sit in front of their television
every Sunday, including this one, to watch the Super Bowl.
You gotta climb thousands of miles to see this antenna.
You think you could get this at Radio Shack? No.
Rio De Janeiro.
And now we have what we call
"Sunday football. " God bless America.
- What's the count? On what? - It'll be, "Hut, hut!"
- Second hut. - On the second hut.
Down! Set! Red, green.
Hut, hut!
Go!
Oh! Interception!
"Sympathy" was an outtake from "Keep the Faith. "
And when we went to Vancouver...
to work with Bob Rock,
we went there with the idea that we would, in fact,
do two albums... a double record.
That was one of 30 songs that we cut for "Keep the Faith. "
We tracked 30 songs for that record.
- Part of it was done here. - That's right.
At one point, we had every room in this studio
working at the same time.
96 tracks per song.
We would bring in tape machines.
We had four tape machines going at the same time.
There wasn't enough engineers, so we hired monkeys.
- Yeah. - There was like these rogue monkeys...
- That was pretty insane. - Bob Rock was in one,
Randy was in another, Obie was in another.
- We were in every room in this studio. - We just kept rounding.
Who had what parts to do to get it done in time.
Excuse me, Dave?
- I'm documenting this whole thing here. - Oh, okay.
Hi, I'm your pilot.
I'm just letting these guys do all the buttons before I get in there.
You know, like, they're the techs...
I'm the artist.
- Artiste. - Right.
They push all the buttons, I get in there and fly it. It's easy.
# Lay your glands on me #
# Lay your glands on me... #
Oh, here we are. We're in the plane.
- In the plane. - "The plane, boss. "
- The plane. - The plane. I'm going to fly...
"The plane, boss. "
If I don't get any pizza, I'm gonna throw up.
I need to eat food.
Okay, there's a Canada Dry bottle.
- We're... I'm going very artsy, here. - Yeah, but you know what, O?
What the hell's he doing, shooting the soda bottle?
- Yeah. - It's art, okay?
You know, it's funny. You're going and show this to somebody at home
and they're going to go, "Boy, Obie, you're... up. "
- He wastes a lot of film. - I hear that all the time.
I hear that... everybody I show...
I'm much better with a regular camera, though.
- All right, so read this letter... - "Sanctuary Studio in Emory,
to Bon Jovi band members from Obie O'Brien. Reason: The box set.
Fellows, I hope you're all well
and enjoying the sights and sounds of Los Angeles.
My crew and I are working very very hard,
- 20 to 22 hours a day. " - Ha! Yeah.
"Very little food, even less water.
As a matter of fact, I went to Pete today
and it looked like someone was emptying a vacuum cleaner bag.
We have been getting very little sleep
because we stay awake at night worrying about this project.
I am trying very hard, you know.
What... actually, I don't give a rat's ass.
I've been lying in the pool and driving Jon's convertible
with his underwear on my head.
The only time I really go to the studio is to see
how many beer bottles Rew has been able to stack up
in the shape of a pyramid.
Oh, by the way, Governor McGreevey stopped by
and asked Rew and I if we wanted to ride on the "flesh-colored hobbyhorse. "
Good luck to you all,
and may you all collectively bite me.
Obie O'Brien. "
And now, a word from the band.
- That's funny. - A word from the band.
We'll save this for the camera.
Here. Send that to Obie.
You're fired. Thank you.
Here's a real love song.
- It's called, "Why Aren't You Dead?" - Where did this go?
- I think this was for "Crush. " - Yes.
- I think we did this one for... - "Why aren't you dead?"
- What's it called? - It's a Hallmark moment.
One of the kinds of things, like when we wrote,
"You Give Love A Bad Name," you have a fun title,
you know what the song's gonna be.
It's the young guys' approach to a tongue-in-cheek lyric
in the vein of "Bad Medicine," "You give love a bad name. "
We demoed this for the "Keep the Faith" record.
After we wrote it and demoed it,
and now that I hear it, 14 years later,
you'll realize that it wasn't where we were going.
It was more about where we had been.
Hey, Rich? You having a good time?
No!
Again, I am for granted.
Osaka.
I leave Heather Locklear...
to come to Osaka to play a concerto...
that does not exist, with Buddhist monks
who refuse to sing!
I'm in hell!
Oh, this is bad.
This is really bad.
Now I don't know what to do. I've been up since 5:00...
learning a concerto.
This... blows.
I come to Osaka and I leave Heather. Nice.
- I wouldn't have done that. - You were the smart one.
Dumb..., I am.
The dumbest man on earth, moi.
Thanks.
- Obie. - Yeah?
Thank you.
Arf, arf! Woof! Woof!
I tried to get a meal here...
Paul, that fish lost his life just to make you happy.
Actually, I'm a vegetarian.
- That's real fresh. - That... twitching.
Look it's moving... the fish, Daddy. The fish is moving.
Oh, my God.
I can't believe it is trying to be alive, but it's dead.
There's no head. He has no head.
The fish has no head.
What are you going to do when the fish has no head?
Time to eat it then, don't you think?
Absolutely. Incredible.
Sake!
God, that thing's humping.
"Humping to please," man.
- Gotta flip that over pretty soon. - Man, he doesn't know he's dead.
It's a Frankenstein fish.
See, his head is...
Jeez, Obie check it out, man. It's jumping.
Eat it.
Just put in your mouth and eat it. Go ahead.
Be a man. Go ahead, eat it!
Stick it in your face and eat it.
- Whoo! - Oh, God.
The will to live... The will... to live.
Look at it. Slapped that fish right up against that glass, didn't it?
Look, we feel bad. Put it back together and put it back in the tank.
- Whoa, did you get that one? - Yeah.
Fish lips.
Look, look.
Fish lips.
- Did that look cool? - Do it again.
The will... to live.
This is very Golden Earring or AC/DC or something.
- Which one was that? - It's called, "Taking It Back. "
- It's really fun. - What year?
It's not a great chorus. That's why it obviously didn't make the record.
God, do you remember? I don't...
I don't know what album, I don't know where it came from.
- Somewhere... - But enjoy...
- That's right. - Enjoy us.
- Go back... - Enjoy us enjoying ourselves.
Oh, "Edge Of A Broken Heart. "
This is the song that you've all wanted me to play live.
People ask me, "Why didn't this make 'Slippery'?"
Well, it was in the same era that I didn't think
that "Living On A Prayer" was a hit.
I never claimed to be a good A&R guy.
But, "Edge Of A Broken Heart" was an outtake from "Slippery. "
It ended up on a soundtrack
for a little movie called, "The Disorderlies. "
And it starred a very early rap band called "The Fat Boys. "
I know you guys like it, so we found the masters
and put it on this box just for you.
It was absolutely appropriate for the "Slippery" record.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda been on the "Slippery,"
had cooler minds prevailed.
Here's my formal apology.
Here we are.
On the fast train.
Going to some place I've never heard of.
Exactly, thank you.
And then, directly after that, as you're leaving the room,
everybody's offered a sip of sake, so for any of us who don't drink,
you just go through the motions of drinking it.
- Like this. - Exactly.
- Thank you. - And then what'll happen is,
that the band will then be taken...
it's all on the same... walk out, and then we go along...
you four will be taken to the sacred temple
where you'll go and pray with the high priest for 10 minutes.
All this for a shoot, huh?
What? Did you tell him I was one of the chosen people?
Well, maybe you can make up for it.
All your sins are forgiven.
No, it's not. It's like this wand. It's very pretty.
We've already had it done. You can't tell? The whole film crew?
- You guys look good. - We're all very different now.
- You look very pure. - Much lighter.
And then after that, you guys'll go back to the waiting room
and you'll have to wait till 6:00 to light the signal fires
which is where we're going to shoot.
I'll just remind you, that they've only done this
for like, Clinton and the Queen and Lech Walesa.
This is like...
so, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry it's gonna take time, but it's...
How long do we go on the chosen people? We just go right to the end?
- Uh, yes. - Thank you.
- He's looking out for you. - Thanks.
- I'd better hit him with a stick now. - So, you guys ready?
Hey, Heather? Al Bundy.
Naked!
Postcards from the road.
This is us leaving Japan.
It's been fun. It's been long.
It's been long and fun. Keep it to yourself.
That's it. We're leaving Asia.
We're on our way to Italy.
- "It-ly. " - "It-ly. "
- To play the pi-ano. - To play the pi-ano.
When we're there, we're gonna drink...
we're gonna drink a lot of wine...
eat steaks Florentine...
dudes in big long boats,
a lot of pizza. You know what I'm sayin',
they all move to Brooklyn eventually, anyway.
I don't mean that in a bad way.
Here we are in the traffic.
This is us slagging everyone around the world tour.
This is us abusing everyone, because we can.
'Cause we are Americans.
Sayonara!
For the guys that missed the show, "Sorry, we'll see you next time. "
For the guys that were here, "We kicked your ass,
and we'll see you again real soon, thank you. "
Oh, yeah!
We've been very honest
putting this box set together for you
and told you that there's nearly 40 songs that no one's ever heard
and shared a lot of our insight and memories with you.
I couldn't have dreamt ever,
that I'd be sitting here 20 years on...
and 100 million albums sold and saying thanks,
because this is the kind of things you don't even dream of as a kid...
but you've obviously been a part of it.
So much a part of it, that we wanted to include all those little notes...
from you, in the box... in the booklet,
because we want to share this with you.
We made this together.
You just as much as me.
This is by no means a goodbye, it's just...
recapping another piece of the book, another part of the history,
and another chapter, as far as we're concerned.
And we're going on, moving ahead.
In 20 more years...
I hope to sit down with you again and talk.
But it's been a great ride. It's been a great ride thus far.
And I'm just...
real grateful for the chance to do what I love to do...
and to grow up with you.
I guess we'll just say we'll see you out there on the road.
Here we are. I don't like... what day is today?
Monday!
In the words of Bob Geldof, "I don't like Mondays. "
I wanna shoot... the whole day through.
- Here we are. - Hey Bob, get me a sandwich.
Yeah, get me a sandwich. Get me something to eat,
a little coffee. I'll take that with sugar. Okay...
That's it. Here we are.
Hey VH1, you forgot to say it.
We love VH1.
- That's right. - V... H... 1.
V... H... 1.
Thank you. See ya. Press the red button now.
I love you all!
It wasn't a bat!
Does Ozzy watch BonJovi. Com? I bet you he does. 10 to 1.
- Sharon! - Sharon!
Making hist... making history.
- Hello, darlin'. - How are y'all doin'? I'm Johnny Cash.
How you doin'? Obie, it was so hot yesterday
that my camera was just on "dew. "
- It wouldn't... I couldn't - Oh, the moisture.
It wouldn't work. It wouldn't work.
- Yeah, they shut down. - I loaded it in the... room.
I wonder if that's gonna... mine's been running,
- so it should be all right. - Well, you'll know soon enough.
- Yeah. - Great footage.
Hard at work.
Well, Tic... come to the end of it.
The end of an epic... situation.
Yes, epic.
Lots of fartin' around. Lots of sun.
Lots of ugly women.
How ugly were they?
Oh, they were...
they were as ugly as a blind cobbler's thumb.
A blind cobbler chewing on a bulldog.
As ugly as my great, great grandmother in the grave is looking now.
But we are here, we are finished.
Ripped by: SkyFury