Life on Planet Rock

by Lonn Friend

  As for Jon, I’m not sure I knew him that much better after a week on the road than I did before I landed in Tokyo. I had to chip away slowly and respectfully at the barrier that divided him from the rest of humanity.

  Returning from Japan, I was drained. This trip exhausted me. It was a microcosm of what a band the size of Bon Jovi must endure on a world tour that goes for a year or more and doesn’t stop until as many fans as humanly possible have been properly, personally, and profoundly rocked.

  Band manager Doc McGhee parted ways with Bon Jovi in late ‘91. Jon and Doc no longer saw eye to eye on where the leader of his band was going. Richie, however, still felt close to Doc and trusted him for career guidance. He fought for a brief while to keep him on as his private personal manager, but Jon nixed the idea, feeling it was important that the band remain on the same path, in unison, as they cleaned house and started anew in the spring of ‘92.

  The group was now “self managed under the corporate moniker Bon Jovi Management. Richie’s brilliant and deeply personal solo endeavor Stranger in This Town had come and gone without making much of a commercial splash. Jon also changed booking agencies to the mighty CAA (Creative Artists Agency) because his mind was now on acting and Hollywood, and he wanted a major player in his corner.

  I got a call inviting me to visit Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver—home of Fairbairn and his protégé Bob Rock—to get an inside glimpse of the Keep the Faith recording sessions.

  The invitation was flattering, but I didn’t accept it immediately. My staff, the editors that kept me connected to the cool, were concerned about Jon’s new high-fashion haircut and how it would play with the molten-minded don’t-fuck-with-us RIP readership. “Lonn,” they chimed in unison, “he looks like Julia Roberts.” I digested their concerns and agreed to have lunch with Jon and Richie at a fancy Japanese restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard.

  “We want to be on the cover with the release of Keep the Faith, Lonn,” said Jon. “And we want you to write the story.” I wanted to, but the girls were right—he did look like Julia Roberts. I said so, in a courteous, tongue-in-cheek way. Richie laughed. I suppose I was having some fun, fucking with the invincible Jon Bon Jovi. It was my turn to flex the ego.

  I collapsed like a cheap suitcase before the green-tea ice cream arrived and committed to the cover story, with one provision: Bon Jovi had to play the sixth-anniversary RIP party in October.

  “Done,” he said.

  “Cool,” I replied, shaking his and Richie’s hands. Jon’s haircut may have been softer, but one of the smartest businessmen in rock ‘n’ roll wanted the endorsement of the heaviest magazine on the stands. And he’d just gotten it.

  That August in Vancouver, Jon let a couple more layers of skin peel off during our conversations, but he still played closer to the chest than just about any artist I’d ever interviewed. When he opened up, it was always about reaching for more fame, more success.

  That night, the Lollapalooza Tour was passing through Vancouver, so with the help of the sexy, tattooed studio assistant Rhian Gittins, I talked Jon and Richie into taking a break from the studio and heading out to see a couple bands that were changing the landscape of modern rock.

  The rain started to pour down as Eddie Vedder swung from a cable above the muddy crowd, leading Pearl Jam through a set of perfectly orchestrated mayhem. When Chris Cornell hit the stage and unloaded his Herculean cries of existential despair on the drenched, enraptured throng, I glanced over at Richie, who was grinning from ear to ear. “This fucking band, what are they called? Soundgarden?” he asked excitedly. “They’re nuts! I love this!”

  As moved as Richie and I were by the grunge growl, Jon appeared completely disinterested. He was thinking about his thing, Bon Jovi, not some punks in dirty flannel shirts and worn-out Doc Martens. I don’t believe he felt threatened by the new kids on the Northwest block. He was too confident in his own craft and really wasn’t paying enough attention to draw a conclusion one way or another. Pearl Jam could have covered “You Give Love a Bad Name,” and he still wouldn’t have budged.

  I returned home, penned the December 1992, sixth-anniversary RIP cover story, “Bon Jovi: Born Again,” and hosted another incredible party at the four-thousand-seat-capacity Hollywood Palladium that, true to his word, Jon and the boys headlined, opening their set with the Beatles classic “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which reminded me of sound check in Yokohama on that remarkable Japan journey when Jon and Richie sang the chorus “I get by with a little help from Lonn Friend,” causing the visiting writer to blush a bit.

  The RIP party was the pinnacle of a remarkable year, but when the band had left and the fans had all gone home, I remember sitting in my car, alone in the parking lot, wondering what to make of things. Bon Jovi had just played my party. Should I have been patting myself on the back for negotiating the gig? Did I really know the superstar singing his ass off as a favor for a friend who had done a favor for him by writing a decent magazine article? Looking back, I wasn’t sure of anything anymore except that I was caught up in the illusion that this shit actually meant something not just to the artist but to the fans. Jon was singing about faith, but did I have a clue what that meant? Did he?

  When I went inside in ‘94, I lost almost all contact with Bon Jovi. The educational-experiment days as vice president of A&R at Arista Records ended in January 1998. I saw Jon only once during my tenure, but Richie phoned me several times, once from Frankfurt in the summer of 1996, giddy over the immense concert success the band was enjoying in Europe. While I was running about the country scouting for the next big thing that I never did find, the Bon Jovi beast had grown into a stadium-swallowing King Kong.

  In the old country, no rock band could touch them when it came to attendance or fan loyalty. “We’re doing three weeks of just German dates!” chimed Richie, forever pinching himself from the band’s incredible longevity. I could hear the genuine excitement and humility in his voice. I asked how Jon was. “He’s good. We’re good. Everything’s beautiful. How you doing, buddy?” I told Richie that the record business wasn’t my cup of tea, and I wasn’t sure where I would be when this gig was over. “Listen, man, you’ll be okay. Just have faith.” Faith.

  In early 2000, a call from VH1 blew the boys from Jersey back into my life. “We’re doing a Behind the Music on Bon Jovi,” they said. “And everyone up here says, ‘You have to talk to Lonn Friend.’ ” I felt honored and agreed to the sit-down, doing very little homework before my session. VH1 had resurrected my public persona the previous fall when they asked me to take part in the Metallica and Mötley Crüe episodes of Behind the Music. I’d been away from RIP and the heavy-metal life for five years, but when I sat in that chair and the producer asked the questions, I was instantly back in the day, offering anecdotes and insights on the rockers I’d traveled so far with.

  The Bon Jovi Q&A was a lot of fun. I recalled with enhanced perspective the tumultuous Tokyo trip. VH1 even ran a copy of the “Bon Jovi: Dead or Alive?” RIP cover. I was very happy with how my sound bites played and, apparently, so was Jon, because on June 21, 2000, I was surprised by a special delivery at my office at the streaming hard-rock Web site KNAC.com, where I’d taken up editor-in-chief duties the previous December. It was an expensive bottle of champagne wrapped in a leather casing with a handwritten note from Jon that read,

  Dear Lonn,

  What a surprise it was to see your smiling face on Behind the Music. I wanted to drop you this quick note to thank you for your kind words. The Sopranos bit was priceless. Should I ever be able to repay the favor, don’t hesitate to ask. We’re there.

  With respect,

  Jon.

  I was touched by the sentiment and the gesture. Rock stars don’t usually go out of their way to thank the press. It wasn’t entirely sincere, however. Jon could not have been surprised by my appearance. He handpicked most of the people he wanted VH1 to go after. Not only that, he negotiated for approval on the cut before it
was aired, a mighty display of influence. Regardless, I showed the bottle of champagne to the people in the office. “Look what Jon Bon Jovi sent me.” Synchronicity soon orchestrated a personal reunion with the band and a concert review that would lead to my most revealing Bon Jovi adventure of all.

  It was November 2000, and I was in the Windy City doing a segment for KNAC.com, part of my streaming-video series for them. I’d just finished a rollicking hour-long interview with Sammy Hagar in his room at the Ritz Carlton and was regrouping on a sofa in the palatial lobby and who came waltzing down the hall toward me but Richie and Dave.

  “Oh, my God, what the fuck is this?” they beamed. We hugged like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. “What are you doing in Chicago?” they asked.

  “Interviewing Sammy,” I said. “I’m leaving in the morning.”

  They looked at each other and smiled. “Uh, no you’re not, buddy,” ordered Richie. “We’re playing here tomorrow night, and you’re coming! In fact, we’re going to the House of Blues tonight to see blues guitarist Keb’ Mo’. Snake [mutual old pal from Skid Row] is here! You best get ready to rock, my brother!”

  Just like the RIP days, I was changing plans in a heartbeat. Jon quickly got wind of my presence and invited me to ride to the gig with him. He asked about my life, what I’d been up to, and showed me photos taken of a rally he’d performed at for Al Gore, who would soon lose the most controversial presidential election in American history.

  “You seem to have calmed down a lot, Lonn,” he observed.

  “Yeah,” I replied quietly. “I’m not the high-volume metal dude from RIP anymore. I’m not sure that I ever really was.”

  He reached over and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here, Lonn,” he said.

  The ride was good, but the next night’s gig was great. Bon Jovi played their hearts out, ignited the audience into a good old arena-rock frenzy. I’d caught many shows in the Windy City; they have the most enthusiastic fans in America. For a kid from affected Tinsel Town, where the crowds at times couldn’t muster enough chaos at the end of a performance to seduce the band into an encore, the night hit on all cylinders.

  In June 2001, I called in the favor promised in that post-Behind the Music note to ask Jon to help create a demo for a TV show that I had conceived called Rock a Mile with Lonn Friend. I needed a huge band for my reel, and he obliged, inviting me across the Atlantic to be the fly on the grandest, most successful touring wall in Europe. Just like the old days, I had an all-access laminate and the freedom to roll digital videotape wherever and whenever I wanted. The only difference between this jaunt and those I made for RIP was that this trip was on my dime. Call it a leap of faith.

  First stop was Zurich, Switzerland, and the legendary Dolder Grand Hotel. I arrived the night before the show so I’d have time to catch up with the boys before the concert madness and videotaping began. I found out that evening that the relationship between Jon and Richie had scaled some serious hurdles in recent years. Richie wasn’t complaining as much about being the axe in the shadow of the superstar. He’d released a second unsuccessful solo LP, Undiscovered Soul, but wasn’t blaming the album’s poor performance on anyone. Richie had cut a new publishing deal that gave him a much bigger piece of the Bon Jovi songwriting-royalty pie. He and his wife, actress Heather Locklear, had brought a little girl into the world. There was a resolve about my old buddy, a sense of peace with respect to his lot in the Bon Jovi life. I wondered if Jon had made the same transition.

  I’d mapped out a ten-day trip that would include five stadium shows in exotic European locales I’d never been to. First night was Zurich; next night, Padova, Italy; then a day off before Vienna, Austria; and concluding in Munich, Germany. I was flying with the band on their private jet, older, wiser but just as curious about what this megarock thing really meant.

  Zurich was a painful show for Jon, as was Padova. He was suffering from old knee problems and near exhaustion after four concerts without a break. But we had a day off, and Jon decided the caravan should make a slight detour and spend the night in Venice, the floating city of concrete. Richie and I spent four hours at a café in San Marco Square, talking about our lives while the pigeons lovingly accosted the tourists sprinkling seed on the cobblestone. “I feel great,” he said, pausing to take a breath. “But you know, Lonn, after twenty years, it gets harder to keep yourself together.”

  Richie articulated in fervent detail the journey of his relationship with Jon, the balance they strike, the secret to their extraordinary success, which is really quite simple in construct. Jon is the fire that brings the moths to the flame; Richie makes those moths feel like butterflies.

  The rest of the guys feed off the strength of their union. The true fan knows when it works, when the chemistry is authentic. That these five guys are going to take them to that higher place by, as Richie said, “doin’ it until they fall down.” I sat the digital video recorder on the table, and we just floated away into three hours of conversation.

  A band dinner was planned at Robert De Niro’s favorite Venice eatery, and I was hoping for some quality time with Jon, but that continued to be problematic. An audience with the pope seemed a far more doable Italian dream.

  Over antipasti, Jon and I talked about the songs that resonated loudest with the Euro crowds. “I think ‘Keep the Faith’ has developed into something larger than life,” I said. “That track has come a long way from Little Mountain. I remember when you played it for me up there, Jon.” “Faith” in live performance had begun to beat with a stronger pulse and purpose that set it apart from almost any other Bon Jovi song. Driven by Hugh McDonald’s urgent bass line and Tico’s machine-gun drum beat, the boys ratcheted up the once-average rock song to anthemlike proportions. Jon’s passionate delivery of the message and Richie’s incendiary solo brought the sold-out stadiums to their frenetic feet.

  With the bill paid and the band members dispersing, I found myself strolling through San Marco with Jon, on a mission to finally breach that sacred space between writer and rocker and get to the truth. We were walking back through the square to the hotel after dinner. It was very late and a lot of expensive Pinot Grigio had been imbibed.

  “I’ve got a feeling, Jon,” I muttered as we approached the front steps of our palatial resting spot, “that this trip is gonna be like William Miller in Almost Famous, desperately trying to get his interview with the big guy but not succeeding until the final scene in the film.”

  He laughed, flashing the smile that’s broken a million hearts, and said, “Oh, yeah, wise guy? You got your camera?”

  It was around my wrist, where it’d been virtually every moment since I landed in Switzerland. I witnessed the power of celebrity again as Jon snapped his fingers, and quicker than you could say “Volare,” a boat was waiting for us at the dock, prepared to take us, in the dead of night, wherever the rock star wanted to go.

  We cruised through the canals, the water splashing up the sides of our aquataxi, our hair blowing in the midnight Venice breeze. “I know the place,” Jon shouted to me over the drone of the engine. “The Cipriani Hotel. We had the U-571 wrap party there. The bar is nice and open all night.” Jon had worked hard copping roles on the indie film circuit, but U-571 was his first gig in big-budget film. It was released in April of 2000, and Jon shared the screen with seasoned Hollywood heavies like Matthew McConaughey and Harvey Keitel. “I really loved doing that picture,” he told me. “I learned a lot about acting. Everyone treated me so great.” Jon died forty-five minutes into the film, but his performance was solid.

  That hour with Jon yielded the most honest exchange we’d ever shared. He confessed to me his physical ailments on this tour. “My knees from the past surgeries felt like they were giving out,” he confessed. Jon was literally running on life support in Zurich. At one point in the show, he actually felt like he was going to collapse during the playful ballad “Bad Medicine.” In midverse, he handed the mike to Richie, who
picked up the song without missing a beat. The crowd thought the brothers in arms were kidding around. “That never happened before,” he said. “Richie saved me up there. I’m tired, Lonn. I’m really tired.”

  Jon revealed his ego when proclaiming how few acts in the history of music had sold more than ninety million records, as his did and, in the most telling moment, dropped his head to his chest, confessing that all his songs—no matter how they were interpreted—came from the heart. Here, for the first time in our long journey together, the hero with the Superman tattoo on his shoulder had turned back into Clark Kent.

  This was a man of immense strength who was also acutely fragile. He loved the spotlight but longed for privacy. “They come from all over Europe, on trains, sometimes they travel for days to feel the music,” he said. “I understand it but I don’t get it.”

  That comment summed up how I felt about the whole metal culture since the RIP adventure began. Voracious fans devoted to furious, ofttimes dissonant musical styles. We covered every clique from glam to speed to thrash to death metal, where the vocalists sang in deep, garbled demonic baritones, spitting out indecipherable lyrics over earsplitting guitar strains. As the editor, I didn’t have to “get” every scene or dig every band. I just had to make sure we covered them, because the readers got it, and that’s what mattered.

  The next day on the private-jet flight to Vienna, Jon was revitalized and so was the band. The atmosphere was fun and free. I rolled tape and joked about the freshly made cookies being served at thirty thousand feet to the passenger manifest of eight bodies. Life on the road at this level was still a blast. But the flight over was nothing compared to the incredible show that night in Austria.