SmartLess - "Jon Bon Jovi"
Episode Date: April 22, 2024This week we host Mr. John Francis Bongiovi Jr, also occasionally known as Jon Bon Jovi. The chicken or the egg, a Golden Grahams commercial, and finding joy for the first time in a decade. A...nd so, our dear listener: strum the tennis racket and think you can sing… on an all-new SmartLess.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Okay, I am really excited.
About?
I've got some great news.
About?
Well, it's about today.
Oh, what's happening today?
We are...
Well, fuck, you're going to find out.
It's an all new Smartless.
Smart. We are... well fuck you're gonna find out it's an all-new smartlis.
That was you guys. Hi.
We just had a little connection problem with Will.
It sounded like you were Hal from 2001.
I'm glad you got it all worked out.
I know, me too.
Was there a ghost in the machine?
I guess so.
Right?
Isn't that a band?
That was an album the police did.
It was by the police.
Very good album.
By the way, the police, you know, I used to listen to them all the time.
We don't hear about them in, you know.
Well, cause Sting went off on his own.
I know, but it's just a good memory.
When he went on his own, is it accurate to say that he defunded the police?
Wow.
I don't know, it's early. It's early. It's really early. Is it accurate to say that he defunded the police? Wow.
I don't know, it's early.
It's early.
It's really early.
It's early, what am I gonna do?
They're not all gonna be home runs, J.B.
Jason, so did we miss you on Sunday
because you just weren't feeling it
or were you out of town?
No, I was flying back to work.
I left at noon.
Oh, that's right.
I thought Amanda said that.
Apropos of nothing, Shaunie, I was sent a picture from
you and Eric Idol in a picture together.
It looked like it might have been a bowling alley,
you guys were in?
That was a roller rink.
Okay, so I was close.
That was just yesterday.
Pretty close.
And that was just sort of just like a date you guys had,
like maybe meet me at the roller skating rink?
Tell me what you look like so I can recognize you?
First of all, that's crazy.
I wonder who sent you that.
Was it Kevin Nealon?
Eric, Idle, and I share an attorney,
the great Tom Hoverman.
Oh, okay, great.
Yeah, no, it was Kevin Nealon's wife, Susan Yagley,
who's a very funny actress person.
She decided to have her birthday party at a roller derby,
like a rolling, what is that called?
Roller rink.
It's a roller skating rink?
Roller skating rink, yeah.
And so I was too nervous.
Have you been drinking this morning?
You feel like you've been.
No, it's too early.
He's got a latte going.
Have you been eating?
No, not at all.
You haven't eaten anything yet? And so Scotty, I No, not at all. You haven't eaten anything yet?
And so Scotty, I was really nervous.
No, I haven't eaten anything.
So Scotty, I was really nervous.
So I didn't-
Scotty's frying up some donut holes.
But they did have like pizza and cake.
Thank God.
And all that, and popcorn.
I described Sean the other day as junk food curious.
Hey, were there any terrible accidents there
at the roller skating rink?
Yeah, because you really, really hurt your tailbone.
Oh, do you have any good roller skate rink accident stories?
Can't wait to ask the guest.
Yes, so Scotty, so I didn't want to put them on
because I'm on blood thinners.
I'm almost done with my blood thinners
because of my AFib, right, it's long.
Hang on, what does a roller skating accident
have to do with blood thinners? Because if you hit your head or something, you could bleed like, right, aphid line. Hang on, what does a roller skating accident have to do with blood donation?
Because if you hit your head or something,
you could bleed like, you could bleed out and die.
Way to think about the worst case scenario.
So anyway, so the first 30 seconds, my friend Kevin,
who you've both met, Kevin and Kerry,
Kevin, bam, mashed his head on the fucking wood floor,
wiped out immediately.
And so I ran over to him, I was like,
are you all right, you all right?
He's like, yeah, no, I go, are you seeing stars?
And he's like, no, which meant yes.
When did they get here?
That's a bummer if he looked at you
and he says he's not seeing any stars.
I mean, that's insult to his injury's insult to his injury, you know?
God, Will, you really, I'm glad you rebooted.
Yeah, somebody slept really well.
Yeah, I did sleep well.
Anyway, roller derby, but good idea for a birthday party, right?
For an adult.
Sounds like not a good idea.
It's up there with an ice skating rink.
You've just described why it's not a good idea.
No, Kevin's totally fine.
Oh, good.
But I walked, because I didn't want to put the skates on, so Scotty had skates on, and I walked with him around You've just described why it's not a good idea. No, Kevin's totally fine. Oh good. Izzy.
But I walked,
because I didn't want to put the skates on,
so Scotty had skates on,
and I walked with him around the thing while he skated.
And that's so dumb.
A little bit.
It's kind of on brand.
You know, now they've got at these rinks,
you know, like an old man, old woman walker
that can help you ice skate or roller skate.
They didn't have that in my day. You just yes I see that the kids had that yeah yeah yeah
but but so Eric Idol was there I never met Eric Idol from Monty Python I was
like oh my god what a genius yeah really nice guy did he did he ask for like a
drink from you or is he like hey can I get a diet coke? Just bring my car up, boy. Yeah, he was really nice.
Whose guest is it today?
It's my guest.
And how do you feel about your choice today, Will?
I feel really, really good.
Really?
Yeah, you know why?
You know what I like?
I like international superstars.
Oh my gosh.
A lot.
This is a legit, you don't often.
Are we gonna see stars?
Are we gonna see stars today?
You're gonna see a major international superstar
and I'm embarrassing him, but it's so true.
But on top of it, or sort of not on top of it,
beneath it, he's a really, really, really great guy
that I've had the good fortune
of spending a little bit of time with over the years.
Super, super good dude.
And then you forget that he sold a good jillion records.
I mean, a good jillion records over the years as a member of a rock and roll Hall of Fame band.
And then as an equally impressive solo career, he's in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has written
multiple massive hits, and he's an actor
and he's an incredible philanthropist and he's got a new docu-series about
his story. I think it's called Thank You, Goodnight.
Yeah, guys, once I start getting, if I start saying specific things you're just
gonna guess it so I'm just gonna guys, please allow me to introduce you to the one, the only, the phenomenal,
Mr. John Bon Jovi.
Wow!
It's triple A list.
Look, I mean, it is triple, triple.
No one sings higher.
Yeah.
Or better.
Or better.
Or better.
Oh my gosh, good morning.
I saw John like six months ago or something last summer
and I was like, would you ever consider doing our podcast?
And he said yes, and it took a minute to organize.
He's a very busy man.
And I'm so happy you're here.
John, good to see you, man.
I'm so happy to be here.
I'm a huge fan.
I listen all the time and I watch the entire series
that you guys did on the road.
Oh my God.
In the dead of winter.
Yes, it was great.
It was great.
Listener, we have John Bon Jovi from the White House.
You look like you're in the kind of place
I would love to live.
You're doing well, clearly, right?
This is a nice, there's clothing.
I see a lot of house envy just in the pre-roll
when you were talking about Sean's house.
Well, look at me, I'm doing a hostage video here.
Oh, it's good.
I need to up my situation.
But no, and I see a Patriots jersey.
Are you a Patriots fan?
Oh yeah, look it, I see the background in my office.
Yes, I'm a huge Patriots fan.
That is Bill Belichick's hoodie.
Now, oh my God, they're wearing the short sleeve.
Why did he wear a short-sleeved hoodie?
Fashion statement, right?
Yeah.
Fashion, well, no, he also, he might run hot.
Like, he wants the thing, but he also runs a little bit hot.
My question is, who cuts them?
Do you know, John, who cuts them?
I don't know who cuts them.
No, knowing that when you look closely,
I think he probably, I think he cuts him with a butter knife.
Yeah.
Well that, and just has an odd,
he's got sweaty forearms,
and I've never met anyone with that.
Maybe Thoreau came over and gave him the snip.
It might be a Justin.
Yeah, maybe.
He's giving Justin Thoreau a run for his money.
Well, listen, I think if you're winning
that many championships, you know,
you're doing something right,
and he doesn't want to mess with
whatever system he's got going.
Yeah. Why do you have director's chairs there? Just to hang out in? any championships, you know, you're doing something right and he doesn't want to mess with whatever system he's got going.
Yeah.
Why do you have director's chairs there?
Just to hang out in?
Because I'm a groupie and when I did my little movie career,
I actually stole the entire chair, not the back.
You guys that make real movies, I took the whole chair.
You took the whole chair.
Well, you made a bunch of movies.
I want to get into that in a minute.
You've done a lot, actually quite a surprising amount
of acting.
Yeah, it's a fascinating career.
Yeah, I think that, but you started as a singer,
as a musician, and I kinda wanna talk about,
what was that?
I wanna know how you know you could sing.
Well, yeah, like what was that first thing,
growing up in New Jersey, what was that early music scene,
and how did you plug into it?
You know, how do you get started?
Yeah.
What do you do?
Any kid that's all of our ages
thinks of three things when they're 13.
You wanna be a baseball player or a rock and roll star
or an astronaut, you know?
So you strum the tennis racket and you you think you can sing
Yeah, when you're playing in the garage is in the school dance with your first band
The benefit of that for me was that the drinking age in New Jersey was 18
So at 16 I could be playing in a bar and I loved it so much that I didn't have them and I didn't have the
responsibilities of a career path yet, a job, a higher education thought.
It was like music, music, music.
I like music.
Because my parents were somewhat supportive, their attitude was, if you're going to be
in a bar at one or two in the morning, at least we know where you are.
They saw that I was really, really wanting
to pursue that career path.
And then I was also blessed because I wrote Runaway
when I was 20.
So I got a record deal at 21.
Yeah, that was your first hit in...
1983, I put that out independently without the band
and then got a record deal.
And it's been the same record deal for 40 years.
Wow, that's great. Wow.
Amazing.
Was it ever, so you started singing so young
that was singing uncool at that age?
You know, because when I was a little kid,
I always just thought singing was not cool
because I was so young.
What was it like at your age when you did it?
All the centerfolds of Circus Magazine was pretty cool.
Yeah, right.
In the late 70s, it was Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith
and Queen and Leonard Skinner and Springsteen and all the,
and then remember that Bruce Springsteen
and Southside Johnny were from 25 miles south of my house.
So chances are with 10 Asbury Jukes
and seven members of the E Street band,
by playing in those bars,
you're going to see real live rock stars.
And when you're 16, that's like seeing Santa Claus.
So all of these things were incredibly inspirational.
And being a lead singer in a rock band, Mr. Jason Sir,
is pretty fucking good.
I was gonna say more about ballads, probably, in my head,
as opposed to a rock and roll stage.
No, the ballads work. The ballads work.
They work, too, right?
Are you kidding? Of course the ballads work.
Are you crazy, JP? Think it through, dude.
Yeah, are you... But here's what blows my mind
about your voice.
I always comment about how, like,
your pipes are just incredible.
The fact that, whoa!
I mean, that's like way, way, way, way up there.
And not a lot of people can do that.
And where do you find, at such a young age,
because people are already trepidatious
about opening their mouth and am I gonna be able to sing?
And you're just wailing, like where does that confidence
come from like to really go for those notes
at such a young age and write those songs that are massive?
Naivete, I was too stupid to know any better.
I didn't study.
You just got in front of a mic and yelped
until it made sense.
I regret, that's a high C, Sean.
The high note is a fucking C.
It's crazy.
It's like a soprano.
It's not good.
You know, I'm going to be 62 on Saturday.
I'm 62 years old.
Happy birthday.
Hitting a high C...
Can you do it?
I can hit a, I can squeak out a C, yeah.
Right, so does it start to leave just like, you know,
Tom Brady ain't throwing anymore.
Yeah, the big thing about this huge documentary
that we just did, the parallel story
and showing you relate to this,
I underwent a massive surgery for the first time in my life.
In your throat for your vocal cords?
Oh wow, wow.
Oh I didn't know that.
That's scary.
Yeah, that's what I'm going through right now.
And hence this, but not your typical nodule.
Because I really have studied singing for a lot of years.
But I had what's called now a medialization.
And if you're at all familiar with that.
One chord was atrophying
while the strong one was pushing the weak one around
and I wasn't singing well.
And it was, I couldn't understand it.
And this is on the last two years since the surgery.
And they put a plastic implant outside the chords
to strengthen them. Wow.
So I'm still in the rehab stage and it's disheartening.
John, what was that like when you first noticed that?
When you had that, do you remember having that first thing
of like, shit, I'm not, yeah?
And what you would do is compensate.
You're like, well, that didn't work today,
so let me do it this way, let me do it this way.
And finally you're standing on your head
trying to hit a note, and you would compensate
to a point where it just wasn't very good anymore.
And other things start getting out of whack.
Right, way out of whack.
And then your mind.
How are you feeling now, how's it going?
I'm 20 months post-surgery, I would say I'm 90% there
and you still gotta get the ghosts out of the machine
as you guys are saying.
The ones in your head.
Yeah, for sure.
The ones that are saying now that you're over,
back to, let's just say you don't have to compensate
anymore, your mind still has to remind your body
that it's fixed.
You don't have to compensate anymore.
Right, right.
What about the absolute panic and horror
of going under the knife?
And when I wake up, I hope that A, I can speak,
and in a perfect world, I can still sing.
Like, I'm sure your research on doctors
must have been intense.
Yeah, and this is what I do, right? This is, I'm sure your research on doctors must have been intense. Yeah, and this is what I do, right?
This is, I'm a singer.
Yeah, the doctor, I knew the doctor that did Julie Andrews.
So we all, you and I both know that story.
And you went to him too, and so did I for a lot of years.
Yeah.
And then, but the guy that I found in Philadelphia,
the greatest thing he said after I exhausted everything,
every bit of what I call voodoo, every Eastern medicine,
every laser, every dietary singing lessons,
everything I possibly could, and I did 15 shows
and it just was not working.
And I went to see him and I said,
I can give you 100% of 80%.
And he says, isn't that good enough?
And I said, no, I'm gonna quit.
He says, now we can talk about this surgery. And he says, and that good enough? And I said, no, I'm gonna quit. He says, now we can talk about this surgery.
And he says, and I guarantee you nothing.
He says, but if you work hard,
this will give you your best shot.
So I've been diligent in my recovery
and hoping that everything's gonna be all right,
but I don't know.
Are you bullish on being able
to get out there and tour again?
I'm hoping to be.
I'm being bluntly honest.
If I'm not great, I'm not going.
But hang on.
I mean, there are plenty of musicians and bands
that I would easily pay top dollars to go see.
But even if they can't make the song sound like it did
when they recorded it fucking 30 years ago,
I still wanna see them doing it
and just move the mic away from their mouth a little bit
when they reach for that high seat.
I mean, but.
Look at John's like, no.
But you're providing more than incredible singing.
You guys are the watch. We wanna see you, John.
Watch YouTube.
I'm not interested
Well, what about your bandmates what are they are they are they are they are they understanding of that position or are they saying fucking?
Come on. No, you know, we are we are actively rehearsing. We did a couple of days this week. Everybody was here in New Jersey
Just running it hard for a couple of days
and seeing, measuring the progress.
Oh, that's great.
Because I have this great new record,
I feel optimistic about the record, I love the film.
A guy named Deepak, Deepak, Gotham Chopra,
Deepak's son directed it.
It was a two year, four part docu-series
that'll air on Hulu,
but I'm very happy with it,
because it's on the band.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so great.
It's our 40th anniversary right now.
I can't wait to see that.
That's so mind blowing, 40 years.
I feel like I became really, well, like a lot of people,
really well aware of you guys with the massive,
first of all, your massive hit, Living on a Prayer,
which...
Well, there's tons in there.
Yeah, you could say that.
There's tons of them, but that was the...
10 different songs.
Of course, but that's sort of the,
for me, that was the first one that really,
I was like, holy shit, and that, you guys kind of,
do you remember the first time playing that,
when it was a hit and playing it in front of an audience
and everybody going like, fuck yeah.
Maybe not the first time,
but what was interesting about that song
is we really didn't know what we had
because it was so different.
It didn't sound like anything on the radio.
And it had a Motown kind of a baseline.
It had the boy girl story that is almost Shakespearean
at the end of the day.
And it's so,
You Give Love a Bad Name was the first single on that record
and it was a number one song
and that was pretty evident and obvious that it would be.
But when we put out Living on a Prayer,
I thought, yeah, it should be second
because who knows what it's gonna do.
And then of course, you know,
it's one of the biggest pop songs of all time.
Of all.
We'll be right back.
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And now back to the show.
Can I tell you something about You Give Love a Bad Name?
I guess.
So my first dog was named Buzzy,
and when I was potty training him, he would go outside and
he would poop on the lawn.
So I changed the words from what they are to, there's poop on the lawn and you're to
blame Buzzy, you give dogs a bad name.
I love that.
Thank you, Sean.
You're welcome.
There's poop on the lawn and you're too blame.
This is the family member that you just stop inviting.
You know?
No, we're not having Thanksgiving this year, Sean.
Sorry.
You know?
Wait, I have other stories.
Sean, tell me more about your music career
because I didn't get the chance,
but Dorothea saw the play.
Oh, so good.
My wife saw the play and was talking so incredibly
about not only your playing, but your singing as well.
How did you keep it eight days a week?
Well, that's so nice.
It was just a play.
I didn't sing, but I played.
Oh, you didn't have to sing?
No, thank, I'll never do that again. But his voice, she was probably a play, I didn't sing, but I played. Oh, you didn't have to sing? No, I'll never do that again.
But his voice, she was probably talking about,
he did a whole different voice for this character.
I remember Will and I, Will, did we look at each other?
When he came out, I think we've told this story.
It's a big swing.
A big swing, looked at each other like,
oh boy, here we fucking go.
Because it's one of those moments, John,
where you're like, it's either gonna be great
or it's gonna be terrible.
What are we gonna say to him backstage?
And like 30 seconds past that point,
it's like, oh no, we're in good hands.
He's pulling this off.
And it was a big, it was a different voice,
a whole gate and everything.
I said to Jason when I saw him right after the show,
I said, can I guess your thought bubble
when I first came out?
He said, yeah, and it was just, uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
Wait, John, did you ever do Broadway?
Did you ever do a show on Broadway?
No.
No, God, you were great.
No, the stage to me is the stage.
So I didn't need that.
I didn't need that even in the learning experience.
For me, when I went in to try to learn to act,
and I studied for a couple years
before I ever even went for an audition,
it was the opportunity to grow in the arts.
It was just a different avenue in the arts
that I could bring that back then to the fold,
different material to write about,
different humility, standing
on the audition line, you know, being turned down before you even walked into the room.
And all of that humility that I brought back while I was learning about the craft was incredibly
formative.
What was your feeling about that as you were starting to learn about acting and quote unquote
study it? Because I'm always sort of a little pessimistic about if it's something we can learn to do I think it's all
something we all know how to do it's freeing yourself up but like did you
think it was like oh this is a real craft a real art form that I'm enjoying
or were you like oh this is just learning how to be full of shit I mean
both both are valid both are true but there's just just different perspectives
on what it is and how to where did it find itself on you?
I just have too much respect for y'all,
and I immensely respect the craft,
and I wouldn't dare think that even Pacino or De Niro,
if I put a microphone in their face and said,
"'Sing me a song,' that they'd be any good at it.
I think in order to be good at it,
you should learn how to do it."
Yeah, amen. And so I studied for two years privately not in classes
But privately until I was confident enough to even you know, try to get an audition
Yeah, I had too much respect for it
Yeah, and what was the one things that you that made you feel like you wanted to take on that challenge of?
Expanding your creative juices from music to acting?
I had had five records by that point
and Slippery was our third, that was a monster,
New Jersey was a monster.
Then I wrote the soundtrack to the Young Guns record
and I, you know, I win all the awards with that.
So there was this kind of stupid ego moment
in the band's history where you're like,
you think you're too smart.
The incredible thing about starting over
with something in the arts that you know nothing about
but you've had so many other life experiences,
brings you a great humility.
And so that when you take that back to music,
it was an opportunity for me to share that with the
guys and for them to then learn from that.
You know, and it humbled all of us to go.
I think that's a big reason why when we went into the 90s
and the grunge movement happened, we didn't even slow down.
We still had hits.
We still kept going.
We had more international growth than ever.
And all of that was, I think, a direct result
of my sitting in that basement apartment in Manhattan
with Harold Guskin for years, you know, getting yelled at.
And so I really, really loved the process of acting.
The bitch was whenever, and you guys know this well,
I would go in and they'd say,
anytime you get a spark in this town,
you take off for a year and go on the road.
We don't think you're serious about it.
I said, I'm fucking serious about it,
but you pay me two cents,
and I'm six on the call sheet.
What am I gonna do here?
There's a stadium waiting in, you know, wherever.
Right, right, right.
What was that first film that I remember you did?
Moonlight in Valentino was a girly movie I did.
Moonlight in Valentino, yes.
Yeah, with Gwyneth and Whoopi and Kathleen Turner
and Liz Perkins.
So do you remember the...
So let's talk about that.
So you, I mean, you talk about it,
but like you're a massive international superstar,
rock star, and then you go on the set of this movie
and it's a new thing that you've just been
sort of learning about.
That first day on set, that first take.
Oh, yeah. So I say I'll never forget it.
The director was a guy named David Onspach who had done Hoosiers and Rudy.
And so he was a guy's guy writing those kind of movies.
He's got four ladies as his stars.
I'm the cute, you know, house painter.
We're doing take two, take three, take four.
After the girls are giving him like one take a piece
and walking off the set, and he's going take two, take three.
And I walked over to him, I said, David, I'm sorry,
we have to do so many takes, I'll pay for the film.
He says, this is how we make movies.
Oh my God, that's so sweet.
Now, were you encouraged? It must have been nerve-racking though.
Yeah, I'll bet it was nerve-racking,
but did you find some sort of encouragement
and inspiration that you weren't the first
of like Sting and David Bowie,
they did some great performances.
Was that inspirational for you?
No, because they'd all, by definition, weren't successful.
You may look back and think that those movies were cool,
but we were, as musicians, told, you do either or.
Bowie and Madonna and whatever,
no, there's musicians that want to act.
They're not allowed to freely do both the way Sinatra could.
But what were your expectations?
You weren't possibly looking to match your level of success
with acting that you had.
It wasn't based on success, it was based on opportunity.
So that the opportunities just kept going down
and down and down and then suddenly you're making
like an indie to an indie
and I'm sitting on the curb outside of CAA like with a tear in my eye.
LAUGHING
But did you...
What have I done?
But did you find that...
I mentioned that you were in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
You're such a great songwriter and lyricist and music and everything.
And did you find when you were acting throughout the years,
did you find that sort of common thing as an artist
as you're doing it, sort of the beats of it?
Was there a commonality between being a performer,
being a singer, songwriter, and being an actor?
What was that kind of?
I think there are commonalities,
but again, I think the biggest thing to me was that finding
something else in the arts that gave me an opportunity to grow.
It wasn't like I went from singing to building cars, you know, one has nothing at all to
do with the other.
This is another way to emote, this is another way to tell a story, this is more information
for me to write about because, you know, all I had to write about between 21 and 30 was
life on the road,
to be honest with you.
I was nowhere near as seasoned a man
as Bob Dylan or Woody Guthrie.
I was writing pop songs in a rock and roll band
in a very sheltered, middle American,
white, suburban life.
So going and learning about, I don't know,
Tennessee Williams and coming home and writing something
and thinking, ooh, why did I get to write
Blazer Glory and the whole Young Gun soundtrack
when my hands on a script, I know how to do that.
Yeah, I know.
Does it still hold interest for you?
Where does it sit now for you, the acting?
I would have to stop doing music
and go back to really working hard on the craft.
You know, I have far too much respect for it to think,
sure, send me a role, I'm ready to go.
Well, is it sitting there sort of in second position
to as you start to see, like, let's see how the voice does
and if the voice is not to your standards,
maybe we can look forward to seeing more acting from you?
I wouldn't be, I wouldn't say no for sure.
I would just make sure I did it right.
Yeah, what about producing music
or producing other arts and stuff?
I did all that early on.
I don't need any more egos in the studio.
I got a big enough one myself.
Okay, well Sean, you can log off.
Okay.
No.
I mean. Hey, well Sean, you can log off. Okay. Okay. I mean.
Hey, did you, forgive me, did you see,
did you see the We Are the World documentary?
Yes.
Yeah. Yes.
Wasn't that, yeah, incredible.
I wanna see that.
Just all those people coming together, wow.
I'd never even thought about that they were there
through the night.
Yeah, I know.
And at six in the morning, they're waiting
for their solo line.
And Bruce and Cyndi Lauper are just cock-eyed still,
just being good sports about it all.
I mean, you were missed in that.
I was like, where's?
I was just a little too young.
I had two albums out by that point.
I wasn't big enough.
Oh, all right.
I wasn't big enough yet.
But go back to the performing in big arenas and shows
and stuff and fans and dealing with fans
and stuff like that.
Is there any kind of, was there any kind of moment,
have you ever had any kind of crazy happening on stage
with a fan that was just completely through the show?
Sure, I mean all the cliche stuff.
People screaming and.
That kind of stuff is.
Rushing the stage.
Girls throw you their underwear.
I mean, you're the...
Everybody got to be, that's not even original
because you know what I mean, it's sort of,
every kid got to be Justin Bieber to Justin Timberlake
all the way back to Elvis, you know, it's just,
I with Harry Styles, you know, all that.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And how do you or any of those people you just mentioned
avoid the intoxication and complete transitioning into,
well, I'm God, and it's never going to be anything different
and you end up buying the ego that you,
in retrospect, should have been renting.
But how do you avoid that big pitfall of,
it's never gonna be any less than this?
Because you're in a 360 of idolization
that it's gotta be impossible to not-
Or to make right size.
Jump into, yeah.
I don't know, I mean for me it was-
You seem so balanced.
Not being there where y'all are.
For me that was one thing.
I bought the house in Malibu.
It's standing out of California.
I bought the house on the beach in Malibu
and my wife and I looked at each other and said,
not for me.
But I, cause I knew what the lifestyle was
and we were caught up in it.
A lot of those people, you know,
we had a house right on the beach, right?
We're all at the height of everybody's craziness.
And that was one of the things that we said,
let's go back to New Jersey where there's no Joneses
to keep up with.
Let's go back to what we know.
You mentioned it, John, your wife Dorothea,
who I've also had the great pleasure and honor
of spending a little bit of time with,
getting to know a little bit,
and she's such an awesome person.
And I was thinking like, yeah, you didn't fault any of those pitfalls.
You grew up, I mean, and when I say grew up,
I mean like, sir, your 20s, those formative years,
you were a massive star.
You and Dorothea, were you guys in it together?
Did that help keep you grounded?
Absolutely.
We've been together since high school.
So for us, that was, yeah, we grew together.
Yeah, so she's seen the whole ride.
And then she didn't have to buy into something
or I didn't have to doubt her commitment to it.
And then I could fall in the gutter
throughout the course of it.
And she could say, OK, I got it.
I know why.
And let's pick it up and go from here.
So yeah, I give her the credit for so much of it.
How lucky are you that you have that,
you had this partner with you?
Oh, I know.
Right?
Yeah, we're married 35 years already.
Bono went through the same thing.
Yeah, yeah.
His wife, it's just incredible.
So John, we always talk about to people
who are in the music world about like chicken and the egg,
do you write the lyrics, do you write the music first?
Talk about your process, what inspires you
to write a certain way as opposed to other?
And do you like, your voice lends itself to ballad
so much more than the other stuff and it's all great,
but you have such a lyric voice.
Well, thank you.
It's come both ways, but for me,
I would like to say the slim majority of it
comes from a title first,
because for me that dictates the feel of the music.
And then, you know, I write the lyrics.
Something that you, like.
You know, wanted dead or alive is, you know, that kind for the record. Something that you like. You know, Wanted Dead or Alive is, you know,
that kind of a feeling of an open D chord.
It just, it calls for that.
And Better Roses would call for something else.
You know, that was, it was sort of meant
to be written on a piano.
But the process depends on the situation.
We had a record out in the midst of COVID called 2020,
and it was a topical record.
So it covered everything from gun control
to George Floyd to COVID to an introspective topical record
released into a black hole of COVID
that it couldn't promote, it couldn't tour.
And it's good that I was able to do that.
I was very proud of it.
This record, post-surgery, and the process,
because there's no happy ending yet,
is that I'm finding joy for the first time in a decade.
I'm truly finding joy.
I haven't had joy in a decade.
Why, why?
And that's because of the voice.
Because of the voice, yeah.
I was honored just recently at this Music Cares event,
two weeks ago, three weeks ago out in LA.
The Grammys pick one person to celebrate their catalog,
and in my case, the philanthropy.
Michael McDonald's involved with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I was, this year's not an honoree.
And on the Saturday morning after the night,
I woke up and I was like, something's weird.
And I went, I know what it is.
It's the first time in 10 years
the only voice in my head was mine.
No doubt, no fear, no second thoughts, you know,
it's just, I had fun last night.
Would you have, despite your, despite the surgery.
I would have beat myself to shit for the last decade.
I would have beat myself silly.
I do it daily anyway.
And I don't have anything wrong with that.
I don't like that, Sean.
I'm fucking tired of it.
Tell me how you stopped doing it.
What, beating yourself up?
But you know what I always say,
we were talking about this a while ago,
if beating yourself up or putting yourself down,
if that cured you, then we'd all be fixed, right?
It doesn't work.
It just doesn't work.
It's hard to stop that voice in your head
that you're probably a perfectionist,
and so anything less than, you start beating yourself up.
I always beat myself up when I leave any social event at all.
I'll get in the car, I'll be like,
God, was that okay?
And I said that to that person.
Personality hangover, we call it.
Oh, personality hangover, yeah, exactly.
Sean said to me once, I remember,
and you said, nobody's harder on me than myself.
And I said, give me a shot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
But John, what was it, John,
what was bringing on the beating yourself up
just that you weren't having access to do your stuff?
You know, like you were just.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was like, you know, I was saying that, you know,
the only thing that's ever been up my nose is my finger,
and now suddenly God's taking away my tools, and I'm at my wit's end.
And the crazy doctor says, I don't know what it is, but I just gave you all my trust.
What do you mean you don't know what it is?
Now I'm aimlessly out there.
Take more drugs for it. take another shot for it.
Sean can relate, right?
And I'm going down this.
When I did, not the recent Broadway show,
but I did another musical once.
What was it called?
Promises, Promises.
Oh.
Oh.
Yeah, thanks.
And I was on Prednisone for a year.
Yep, yep.
Just because you had a, it's always inflamed,
always inflamed.
It's no life, it's no life.
And it gets you puffy.
And it gets you a little puffy.
Oh there's Jason.
I thought your mic was not working for a second.
And we will be right back.
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And now back to the show.
John, with the frustration of not being able to perform and go out there and throw your fastball
was probably at the same time that you were probably
more loaded with quality ideas and inspiration
for stuff to write.
Just because I just find the older we get,
the smarter we get, the better we are at everything.
And so are you now sort of approaching a possible
where they match or, you know, I'm hoping.
I think I'm on the verge.
I think I'm on the verge of that.
Yeah.
These last couple of records that I couldn't
fully celebrate these last couple of records.
I'm hoping and believing that I'm gonna have that opportunity again
when we do get to go out.
Yeah, that's the hope, yeah.
Honestly, John, that attitude, you have that,
you kind of ooze positivity.
I will say, I didn't realize that you were going
through all this, and anytime I see you,
you've always got such a great attitude.
You come into a room, you shine light,
you ask people how they're doing.
I love that about you, I think it's really great.
And I also know you do a lot of philanthropy as well, right?
You started, you got the John Bon Jovi Soul Foundation.
Is that what it is?
The foundation and the kitchens, yeah.
And the kitchens. I mean, this is great.
Talk to us a little bit about what you do.
These guys don't know about this stuff.
It's awesome.
Kitchens?
A thousand years ago, 20 years ago, I used to own an arena football team.
My aspirations were to someday own an NFL team, and it was me cutting my teeth.
But in order to win in the community in Philadelphia, I said,
we got to be more philanthropic than everyone.
So that sort of was my first foray into this.
We started to find something that anyone, everyone could relate to,
which was affordable housing and hunger.
And so I started to do that.
And everybody was like, yeah, bravo, good job.
Habitat for Humanity does this every day.
When the economic downturn of 2008 happened,
Dorothea said, now you gotta feed the people
in the houses you've built.
I was like, hmm.
And in stream of consciousness, she just lays out a plan
for this thing that we now call the JBJ Soul Kitchens.
Simply put, if any of you guys came
and laid 30 bucks on the table,
it would cover your meal and the meal of somebody else
who can't afford to pay.
It empowers people because we ask them
if they can't pay anything to volunteer.
And if you guys were to come and didn't volunteer, you'd sort of think you're missing the party
because everybody's working in the garden or busing a table or washing a dish, folding napkins.
It's not difficult labor, but when they feel empowered and they've earned the certificate to not only pay for their meal,
but perhaps it's a kid, he comes back with his entire family and he's got that pride in a
teenager bringing his family back and feeding them. It's all farm to table. We take no government subsidies.
So we did our first one in an auto body shop that we converted into this restaurant.
Second one we built after Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey
here and we have all this service providing around it,
a food pantry, a food bank, culinary program.
Then the third one and the fourth one,
this blows people's minds, are on college campuses.
Because we were aware, but most people think,
wait a minute, I just sent my kid to the university.
Well guess what?
They're not necessarily eating ramen by choice.
They don't have any money.
So we came to that realization many years ago,
and we put one on two different university campuses
here in New Jersey.
So we currently have four of those restaurants.
And then myself or our foundation fund the shortfall.
And we've been doing that for 12, 13 years now.
That's so cool.
My mom started a, she was one half who started a food bank
for people in the Chicago area called
Northern Illinois Food Bank.
Very similar to what you're doing.
And that's kind of her legacy and she's still remembered
there, it's part of Second Harvest, which I'm sure you.
Yeah, right, and I bet you it gave her hard work
but great joy.
Well, no, Will, I wanna go first.
So she's just sort of half, she's just kept an eye on,
on part of, go ahead, Will.
I was gonna say she could've called it Eye on Hunger.
Sean's mom
We actually brought it out on stage and we held it yeah, eye, yeah. In his mom's eye, we held it.
Yeah, for real.
Nice guys, nice guys, you call them your friends.
But wait, so John, what the hell's Bon Jovi?
Is that, what nationality is that?
What the hell is Bon Jovi?
What kind of question is that?
What the fuck?
Sean, can I talk to you for a second?
What the hell is Bon Jovi?
Yeah.
No, I mean, I...
It's Italian, it's Italian.
Okay, since I was a kid, I thought you made that name up.
B-O-N-G-I-O-V-I.
B-O-N, the same way, G-I, which in Italian
phonetics is the J sound. So it's pronounced the same way, but
it's B-O-N-G-I instead of a J. And it's always been two separate words?
No, no, no. It's the silly American thatN-G-I instead of a J.
And it's always been two separate words?
And in truth, when I got the record deal and I had gotten the band together to help me play Runaway,
because I had it on the radio all over the country,
I went to the record company and said, we got an idea. It should be you. And I went, how about if it's we,
and if you remember Van Halen,
I was like, we make it two words.
Oh, very good.
This is good.
Oh, that's great.
In truth, it was a little bit of that in the 80s
because I didn't want to be a solo artist.
I really knew that that's too much heat.
Yeah, I mean, cause when I was a kid,
I thought it was you guys were all related.
The worst guy on the,
that the worst fair weather fan will come up to you
on the street and go, hey, Bon.
Hey, it's not Bon, motherfucker.
You're not a very big fan.
Hey, on the music industry, business sort of,
and because our industry's going through
a bit of a transition now,
your business started much earlier with the transition.
How do you feel that the industry is doing and adapting?
Are you a fan of the current state of things?
I think we've at least hit a place now
where there's stability.
I've said it before.
We, my band and I at this time and those around our period,
were there for what was called the gold rush,
you know, when CDs were invented and everybody bought their record collection again
and you could sell 20 million copies of an album.
So I was fortunate enough to have been in the heat of that.
Nowadays, because they've finally settled on streaming,
I'm okay with it.
I wish and I blame Apple for breaking up the CD,
the work of art, the book.
They sold you one chapter of the book at a time
instead of the entire book.
I was always pissed off about that.
And their attitude was we're gonna sell you
one song at a time so you don't have to buy the whole album.
Well wait a minute, I just wrote the whole album.
I'm excited about the whole album.
I wanna present it as a whole.
So I've always been pissed off since that,
the advent of the iPod,
but I think we've reached a stable place with streaming.
And in this current state of affairs for the young talent,
what was also daunting was that the record companies now
aren't signing you because you just wrote a great song.
They wanna know how many likes you've got on social media,
which is a sin.
On the other hand, it affords the world
the opportunity to have another Bob Dylan
because there was a period in time
where unless you sounded like you could sing
on American Idol, you weren't gonna get a record deal.
So the internet allows for a Bob Dylan.
The streaming allows for some stability,
even though it's a low rate, but it's something.
And this is the new world order.
So it's obligating you guys to go out
and do a bunch of touring in order to make a bunch of money
and that's kind of exhausting.
It's still as criminal as it ever was.
It's harder on the young band
and how are they gonna support themselves on the road
if they don't have any record money
or there's tour support and all the things that we had
40 years ago that they're not gonna have now.
I've heard and have been in on conversations,
but it's obviously not something I can directly relate to.
It's not as big a business for the young kid coming up.
It's like, I get to do that, but I'm also gonna have to do
this and this in order to make a living.
It's the same with all entertainment.
It feels like you have to learn how to do it all.
I think about all the time,
it's like starting as a young actor today,
as opposed to when we started out
and you could go out and you get a job,
you audition for stuff, you were in the mix,
you auditioned for pilots, you get a movie,
but do all that, because now it's such a free-for-all.
Or you could do a commercial
and you could expect $30,000 by the time it's done its run.
Like now it's all non-union and yeah.
Yeah, you could do a Golden Grahams commercial.
You know what I mean?
Has anybody ever done a Golden Grahams commercial on that?
I'm in a go-kart in that one.
My son is a young aspiring actor
and he would have that magic
when he walked into a room for an audition,
but because he came up during COVID and now,
everything is on these Zooms.
And I think that all those casting agents
are missing out on the personality
of the young actor or actors coming in
and winning your heart, not just reading their lines.
I will tell you though,
I'm in the middle
of casting something right now,
and none of these casting sessions are in person,
they're all on Zoom, and I am so jealous
that the actors are not stuck in what was always for me
the most stressful thing I could ever do.
Yeah, that's true too.
Was waiting in the lobby,
hearing the actor before me doing it, killing,
them being late, me going over my sides and over my sides
and then going in, having to do the bullshit talking
with them and now I'm sweating and I'm having to be,
and then I gotta switch into acting gear
and then I gotta do, then they get,
like it was so nerve wracking.
The fact that they get to do it on Zoom now,
to me is like, it's much less stressful.
But I think there's always been a flaw in that, Jay,
because you shouldn't just put all the actors up
for the same role in one room.
It's just, you know, is there another way to do it?
Like schedule them?
The whole thing is torture.
Yeah, it's just all.
I don't know, but there's something to also
going through that experience, you know after as somebody who I
Grew up in New York in the 90s in my 20s and went on a million auditions
Yeah, and bombed a bunch and I learned so much from that process and then also
Conversely when I did have start having success. I really appreciated it wasn't until my 30s that I had any success,
and I really appreciated it because I had gone through that
for so many years and was starving and you know.
I also made some friends during the process,
so they're missing out on that too.
I made a lot of friends.
Yeah, right.
A lot of friends.
I just think that they missed the personality.
Yeah, I agree, Sean.
Wooing that casting agent some
and letting them see that spark.
And knowing whether they're gonna be a problem on set.
Do they have, are they nice people?
Yeah.
John, I think that you're totally onto something.
I think there, I was also just thinking
about what you were saying before about albums
and when you would write an album.
And I was just thinking like,
you remember that feeling, you really hit on something,
that feeling as a kid of getting an album
and taking it home and taking the plastic off it and taking the sleeve out
and reading the lyrics and listening to every frickin' song.
How does it start?
And then the third song.
Is it my imagination or is the third song
always one that kicks your ass?
That's the single, right?
That's the single.
Okay, all right.
Is that way, I didn't know that.
Is that by design?
It just happens to be, it's sort of commonplace.
You kind of start slow and then you nail them and then yeah,
and then there's a bounce.
Living on a prayer was the third track on Super.
Was it really?
There you go.
Hey, give me the first note.
Are you by piano or a guitar or anything?
Give me the first note of the chorus.
Sean, are you gonna sing?
I'm gonna try it.
Oh, oh please, thank you.
Come on.
Well, we're out of time everybody.
I'm not that close.
Now you are.
Stay tuned for Smartless Extras, where you can enjoy some of Sean's...
It's that, D minor.
We got it.
Can you hear that?
Yes. Can you hear that?
Yes.
I had to run across the room and bang on the piano.
Wait, wait, wait.
But you're not seated.
Whoa, whoa.
Is that the first note, but it's up in octave?
Yeah, it's a G.
Whoa, halfway there.
Yeah.
Go on.
Whoa!
Nope.
It's so high.
It's so high it's crazy.
You know what you do then is you hold the microphone out. No. It's too high. Yeah. It's so high it's crazy.
You know what you do then is you hold the microphone out.
Oh!
Just sounds like you're furious.
Let the audience do it.
You hold the mic over the audience and go,
Buzzy you give dogs a bad name.
But John, you know what?
Whenever your songs come on the radio in the car,
I will pretend I'm you and I will scream my head off.
Love that.
Oh yeah, it's impossible, impossible not to
just absolutely belt out one of your songs, John,
when they come on.
I love that.
It's just the best.
Dude, we've taken up too much of your time already.
You're such a- So much fun.
You're the man.
John, when you're coming to town, let's hang out.
I would love that.
Nothing would make me happy.
You're never coming back.
Very brave.
Don't give me a number.
No, let's do it in New York.
Let's do it in New York.
That would be great.
That would be awesome.
And then we'll do it,
JB's in New York for the next six months.
Let's do it.
Yeah, please.
Let's get together.
Cool guys.
This was really a joy. Thanks for doing it, John. Likewise, get together cool guys. I I was this was really a joy. Thanks
Likewise, thank you. You're such a great dude. You're such a such a cool dude
Yeah, and such a such a great artist and thank you for taking the time and wish you all the best man
Can't wait to see you again. Thanks guys. Thank you. All right. Have a good one. Bye now
The great John Bon Jovi, he's great so fucking easy. They don't make them like that anymore You know, I mean great the great John Bon Jovi. He's great. So fucking easy. They don't make him like that anymore.
You know? I mean, great, the great John Bon Jovi is just sounds like a little like we need a better word than great.
Yeah.
JB, you were just, yeah. Yeah, what do you, how do you, yeah, I just said the great John Bon Jovi, but you're right.
It doesn't seem like it's enough.
Right. Well, cause I mean, well, and who's doing it? What they did, who's doing that today?
There isn't a size of a band today like that.
It's all sort of been diluted a bit.
I didn't even ask him about the prep
for a show with the hairspray and the hair
and the outfits and the energy.
Those were all wigs, all wigs.
No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Yeah, that's a... No, super easy to hang out with. Yeah, he seems kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah, no, super easy to hang out with.
Where did you meet him, Will?
I met him, we have a bunch of mutual friends,
and obviously- Long Island.
And just, yeah, just over the years,
and he is one of those guys, every time you see him,
he's just, he's very sort of warm
and very generous with people.
Actually, one time I had lunch with him years ago.
We were down on vacation and Archie was maybe a year old.
Feels like this could be a St. Bart story.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
We were down on vacation.
And he got, Archie got like all these like little bites
all over, we didn't know what was going on,
we were freaking out, you know, you got a one year old,
you're like, what's going on, we're in the middle of nowhere.
And John helped us sort of call a friend who had new,
you know, got us in, you know, to get him looked at,
it was great, he was very sweet.
I love that. He's a very sweet guy.
Yeah, he seems super cool.
You know, that Slippery When Wet album was so huge,
that's where that Living on a Prayer song was,
but there was another song on there.
Oh my God, here it goes.
And it was called, and really it's a real song.
Oh, I know, I know.
I'm sorry, do you have another appointment?
No, it's called Never Say Good Bye.
It's a real song. Fuck it your nickname is shoehorn. Could you just try to shoehorn? You're always looking for a way out. We always got you SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess.
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Hello, I'm Johnny Knoxville.
And I'm Elna Baker and we have a new podcast that's called Pretty Sure I Can Fly.
Yep, we've teamed up with my friends and bar mates from SmartList to create a podcast where
we talk to folks who have more balls in a bowling alley.
People who accomplish something extraordinary despite people telling them that it couldn't
or shouldn't be done.
You'll hear stories about the Air Force doctor who buckled into a 600 mile per hour rocket
sled and became the fastest man on the planet.
And a man who wrestles alligators and sharks for fun.
Do not do this.
You'll hear about a foul-mouthed moonshiner.
Got a two-inch dick and a six-inch tongue and knows how to use both of them.
And an even more foul-mouthed female stunt pilot.
We got bull riders.
Balloonists.
Bob Sletters.
And big wave surfers.
People who lay their balls on an anvil
and hand the other fellow the hammer.
Okay, I bet you've actually done that, Johnny.
Maybe for sweeps.
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