A SLAB O’ LIFE WITH BON JOVI

A SLAB O’ LIFE WITH BON JOVI

FEATURES

John Neilson

Japan. Land of the Rising Sun, transistors and raw squid as a dietary staple. Birthplace of the Atomic Age. Elephants’ graveyard for stadium bands that have outstayed their welcome in the rest of the world. You know the place.

It’s 8 p.m., and all over the country kids in Walkmans are clustered in the glow of 24-inch Trinitrons, their tricolored shadows dancing on the walls behind them. Tonight, as on every Monday night, they’re waiting for their favorite show: Fuji TV’s Yoruno Hit Studio! For some of them, however, tonight will be special. In a little over two hours, a telecommunications satellite miles overhead will be beaming down images from the big country across the big water, images of one of America’s latest cultural exports. In a few breathless hours, Japan will be watching Bon Jovi—live!

In Brooklyn, U.S. of A., Monday night is just a memory, and not a particularly clear one, at that. It’s 6 a.m. Tuesday, and the sun is just beginning to filter in the windows of the River Cafe, nestled in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. Most of the grim faces around the room have been up since 4:00 in expectation of 7:00 airtime—a few just kept going when the bars closed. Only now the word has come down that things have been pushed back to 8:30. Another round of coffee is passed.

Jon Bon Jovi and the band are here, looking not a bit like their airbrushed publicity shots would have you believe. Judging from the sound of things, they don’t much feel like the Rock Demi-Gods their Japanese fans envision, either.

“I wuz up all night puking,” guitarist David Bryan confesses from behind a low-slung hat and sunglasses—an outfit that only thinly disguises eyes like open wounds. Sunglasses are everywhere this morning, despite the fact that the sun won’t be overhead for a few hours yet. In the corner, bassist Alec John Such hasn’t moved since I got here. Me, I’m on my third coffee, breaking my own rule of never pouring scalding liquids on my soft, fleshy parts.

Outside, TV crews are lashing down cameras on a moored barge framed by the Bridge, the East River and Lower Manhattan...

“I think that we’re supposed to lead the kids to believe that this is where we rehearse,” Bon Jovi cracks, and the question goes up in the room whether the barge will actually be floating down river during the shoot.

‘‘We’re gonna look like fucking U2!” exclaims motor-mouth keys man Richie Sambora, who is unnervingly manic for this hour of the morning. The only person in the room showing any signs of energy at the moment, he has just spent the last few minutes telling me how if you thrust one arm out every so often on stage, you ‘‘can’t miss” with the kids.

‘‘The show was gonna be on the top of the Pan Am building at like dawn,” Bon Jovi adds, ‘‘with helicopters! That’s how they explained it to me. All I know is that it’s like a prime time TV show, and it’s live by satellite. It’s one of the biggest shows in Japan. I don’t know too much about it. I know that they want us to do ‘Runaway,’ which is real weird, what with the new record...” Not that this is any chore, mind you. ‘‘That song,” he says, was ‘‘truly written from the heart.

“I can still go out this year and sing ‘Runaway’ and mean it.”

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“I better be a millionaire someday for all this!”

Jon Bon Jovi

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

Mean what, you say? And what’s it all for, anyway?

It’s a teaser, mainly, for the Japanese tour Bon Jovi will be embarking on within the week—a tour which will be close to selling out before their plane touches down. Hopefully, this prime time showcase will sell the few remaining seats, appease the unlucky fans, and shift a few thousand more units of the debut record (the second will come out mid-tour). All worthy goals, of course, but at this hour, these abstractions pale before the awful realities of hangovers and hunger. Medic!

Before you can say “percentage share of the 11-to-25-year-old target market,” help arrives in the form of Sausage “EggaMuffs” all around, and tequila for the hardy few (“Tequila’s very good for you—do you know how cold it’s gonna be on that pier?”—Bon Jovi). By airtime, the bottle will be half drained.

Luckily, by 8:00, enough life has come back into everyone to make the 100-yard journey by limo to Pier L There will be time for one runthrough before airtime, but this is hardly as dramatic as it might seem. After all, no one expects rock bands to actually play on TV anymore. No, this will be a lip-sync. The young Japanese hostess steps out in front, runs through a bit of briefing with the band...

...And they’re rolling. Gesturing broadly and sailing into a flurry of sing-song patter, she welcomes the band, who echo her with a smartly rehearsed chorus of Japanese “Hellos!” Then more patter, and...well, what have we here? It’s a pizza-sized cookie with “BON JOVI” printed in big black letters, of course. Passing it around, the guys gum big hunks of it, gripping it in their mouths and grinning for the cameras. This, I think to myself, is the product of a very inscrutable sense of humor.

Then it’s showtime. As the opening piano notes ring from the monitor speakers, a nearby fireship answers with huge misty fountains from its water cannons. An overhead helicopter swoops in for some whizz-bang shots. Guitar solos are accompanied by convulsive grimacing. Richie is cheese-dogging some one-finger solos, while leaning back over the river. Bon Jovi sort of wanders about, singing into space...

“No No NO!” The director has come out from the mobile control room in the pierside warehouse, temper flaring with barely supressed panic. The gist of her shouting is that in 10 minutes they will be seen by millions of eyes thousands of miles away, and that the band, and not she, will be seen as the assholes if this lip-sync is flubbed. The director is quickly flooded with reassurances and led back to her post, but the high spirits have dropped several notches. It’s 8:27.

Places are resumed, and this time the cameras roll for real. Cue the introductions. Cue the cookie. Cue the helicopter. Cue the music tape. Once more “Runaway” comes blaring forth. Once more the fireship erupts in metaphorical spasms of masculinity. This time, however, the band is a well-oiled machine, synchronizing 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-Left! 1-2-3-4-5-6-7Right! With the chord changes.

“This sure looks a lot like the video,” a voice by my side murmurs. She’s right-give or take a few teenage tramps with demonic aspirations.

David leans into his “solo” with polished precision. Richie pounds at his keys, lunges in to the mike for the high harmonies, and— sure enough— thrusts out one arm on the accents. Out front, Bon Jovi is coiling himself around his mikestand, letting his streaked mane ease into the wind as he leans into the chorus...

Heck, if I were judgin’ on Puttin’ On The Hits, this stuff would beat the pants off the Madonna groupies, no problem. These guys do a great Bon Jovi impression, which gets them a 30 for appearance (natch). They get a 30 for the lipsynch (not the forgone conclusion it may seem, since the tracks that they’re miming to were laid down by a crack session team before the band ever came together). And for originality... well, hey, how original are those other clones?

...And then it’s ending, and I get to watch the band decide at which point in the fade to stop playing. As the last few notes tinkle out, Tico’s drumsticks pitch into the East River, and it’s a wrap. In Tokyo they’re fading to an advid for jeans or something. The band’ll be back live in a few minutes for a bit of chat, but the tough part is over with.

The tough part of this particular hurdle, that is. In actuality, their day’s promotional chores are just beginning:

“From 9:00 in the morning I have casting calls for my video,” BJ informs me, “then 11 with you guys (“...in the press,” I assume), then catch the 4:30 train to Philly, then do that listening party down there...get up in the morning, be at record stores all day...”

Et cetera, et cetera, more or less up until their tour takes off. And then?

“We’ll be back here in June. It goes: Japan until May 3rd, come home for the 4th, May 5th leave for Paris, do Europe for the rest of May, fly from England to L.A. for some TV shows, and then we’ll be home a couple days, and then the American tour for the summer. And then we’ll see what happens after that.”

It’s a tough road to the top, but at least it’s a well-worn path, from garages in Jersey or Anywhere U.S.A. to whatever Budokans the future may have in store for them. And at the end of the path? Well, on that score there’s little confusion.

“I better be a millionaire someday for all this!”—Bon Jovi.

If you get there before I do, save me a place.