Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, coming to Hulu

There is no possible world where band member talks about new Jovi album differently then same old cliches: it's a rock record, we are very proud, it's really good, it's best our album in years, etc. I wouldn't call it "lying", just business as usual

Absolutely. Every album is "the most fun we've had since Slippery".

Of course it's just business and these are one of the average phrases that someone of the band can say about one new album, i meant he lied because the things weren't too happy for him at that point and he didn't like the album overall and it's happend what it's happend.


Of course he couldn't say "It's good, there are good songs on the new album, but it doesn't sound too much like a Bon Jovi record for me and to be honest, i wasn't often there during the album sessions because Shanks did some of my parts"

Phil X, who we know from his pre-Bon Jovi phase isn't *personally a fan of Richie's guitar parts* respects Richie the creative entity and co-leader of Bon Jovi. Around the RRHOF era, he pretty much said that his spot is Richie's spot, of course he deserves to be there. It wasn't some stock HR answer to please the company, it was obvious he knew and knows that Richie contributed a ton to the band.

I would assume Richie knows and appreciates this.

Shanks must know how important Richie is, but he answered to Jon. And I don't remember him praising Richie in public at all. Which is ****ing weird, considering he plays guitar, too, and was a fan of the band in his youth. How can he, as a guitar player and songwriter, not recognize and respect Richie's contributions? Or maybe he knew not to praise him when JBJ was pissed at him.

Still.

Keep in mind that early on when Because We Can dropped, Richie wasn't even credited. That came later.

Could be a simple oversight, but I don't know, it just felt a little too "woah, he really wasn't very present for this one, was he?".

Also: I remember the title track being previewed early (as we know from a promo single: Produced by JS & JBJ; Richie isn't credited), then Amen (no Richie co-write at least). Could it be JBJ & JS stared to record stuff earlier than planned, without Richie?

Aloha !

You're making it sound like as if Jon didn't have enough compassion solely because of whatever popped up in 2006.

You don't turn into a non-functioning alcoholic overnight. It takes months or even years to get this bad. Who knows what the band had to put up with before Richie finally started falling of the wagon for good? It's pretty obvious they refuse to tell the whole story here still because it'd mean more harm than good for everyone in the band.

Richie had issues with alcohol long before 2006. The first rumours showing up go all the way to back in 2001. 2005 was when he first started getting sloppy and started making mistakes, 2008 was okay-ish and then 2010 to 2013 were a disaster.

That's well over a decade of Richie having issues and having time to sort himself out. He had a year off after the Bounce tour, had half a year off after the HAND tour, had half a year off after the Lost Highway Tour, half a year after the Circle tour and then did 3 months of touring in 2011 and subsequently had a full year off to write, promote and tour his solo record. That's a total of 3 years off in an entire decade of being "on the road all the time"

He had plenty of time, but refused to sort himself out. Really, how much compassion would Jon need to give?

Yes. Richie was barely around and only did the occasional overdub, guitar work and backing vocals.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I mean, what you say makes sense. It just seems a bit harsh on Richie. Stuff happened after 2006 that obviously derailed him further. I didn't know about known problems before that, but I can imagine.

Still, he did manage several full tours and cycles, rarely any band after 20 years had that hectic schedule. Not just album and tour every 2 years, but also compilations and promo events every year basically. For a normal working man, that's easy schedule, but we're talking about aging rockstars with addiction problems more often than not.

And yes, it's not Jon's fault, he didn't throw him out of the band. But all these circumstances led to Shanks getting more prominent role. It's just that I'm under impression still of Jon's behaviour in those years (WWWB documentary), that rubbed the wrong way everybody in the band, fans also.

If you're saying that Richie had plenty of time to sort himself out and Jon waited long enough and was right to start next cycle with WAN, okay fair enough. But in hindsight, even Jon probably realizes it was a mistake. With equal ground, Jon is right. But he is the leader and he knows he has guitar player and partner who is a liability. A little bit better business management would have been wiser, if not compassion then?

I don't know if you're just kidding or about to become one of the biggest clowns around here.

Thanks for the insult, very insightful of you.

Perhaps it comes the wrong way, english is my 2nd language and obviously my try on easy going comment about rockstars didn't translate very well.

What I meant is it's not hard schedule by any means if you go by standard definition of work schedule, it would be insulting to call that hard schedule, as Supersonic made a solid point about having half year breaks after tours. But to be serious, in comparison to any other band out there of that caliber, very few had so many live shows and albums as Jovi in that decade. It takes a toll I guess, I'm trying to be sympathetic to Richie a bit, I don't have a specific agenda

Aloha !

Further on, saying he needs to show up for compilations and promo events is ridiculous. For most records since Bounce, Bon Jovi did about 3 weeks of promo and that's it. He was rarely involved in the interviews and talk shows anymore either.

Richie did a few writing sessions, then recorded the album for a few months, had more time off (as had everyone else in the band) while Jon made sure the tour would start.

Being in a band is not hard work when you're at the stage Bon Jovi are at. You've got your own manager, lawyer, driver, guitar tech, cook, therapist all while being chauffeured around in the most comfortable cars to the most expensive hotels while eating the best food on the planet. Yet Richie made it sound like "touring the 50 countries every year" is hard. It isn't. Anyone saying the opposite is completely delusional.

I also wouldn't say you're aging when you're in your fifties. It's not his schedule that killed him. It's his unwillingness to accept that he had to face his demons that killed his position in the band.

I think you'd have to broaden your horizon a bit. I just checked the first 2 random big touring act I could think of. In the past decade...

Bryan Adams has done 5 studio albums, 4 live records, 2 soundtracks, 2 compilations and played over 1.600 shows
Def Leppard has done 5 studio albums, 4 live records, 4 compilations and played over 1.100 shows
Scorpions has done 5 studio albums, 2 live records, 25 compilations and played over 1.000 shows

Bon Jovi did 8 studio albums, 1 live record and 1 compilation while playing over 900 shows

I'm pretty sure there's plenty of other examples out there.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan