Bon Jovi 25 Years On

Sambora on why Bon Jovi have not lost their touch

12 June 2008 - Speaking exclusively to 6 Music, Bon Jovi’s guitarist Richie Sambora talks tours, girls and teeth.

The first night took place at St Mary’s Stadium in Southampton on 11 June and now they head to Europe before their next UK gig at Glasgow's Hampden Park on 21 June.

The band will play to over a million people worldwide on the The Lost Highway tour, and they are utilising one of the biggest stage sets on the concert circuit.

Sambora said: "After all these years we’ve really, really learned how to take a stadium and make it an intimate place, with the use of the cutting edge technology that we bring with us, all these high tech video screens, it’s just unbelievable.

"The guy in the back row is seeing if I got any food in my teeth from lunch so it really brings the crowd in to what’s going on."

Tour Highlights

Having played as a band since 1983, 6 Music asked him what will be the highlights of their new shows.

To which he replied: "We play all the hits and there’s gonna be a lot of the new album, it’s just going great. You know, the highlight is the unity of the people.

"Everybody is really having a great time together. You got 70,000 people on the same brain wave, it’s really cool."

"Everybody is really having a great time together. You got 70,000 people on the same brain wave."
Richie Sambora

Bon Jovi Crowds

Sambora revealed he still feels stunned by their audiences, saying:

"There’s still like throngs of young girls in the front row and I could be their father at this point.

"They think we’re a new band, some kinda magic or something, but it’s really working out great. There’s a lot of fans from a lot of different demographics."

With 10 studio albums in their back catalogue the band are still going strong.  Sambora went on to discuss how their mass appeal enables them to communicate with people after so long.

He said: "Music is the universal language, it really is. When we went to Moscow many years back before the wall was even torn down, the Cold War was still happening for God’s sakes but we were there making music and everybody was loving it - so it proved to me that music is the universal language."

Other Projects

Despite the length of the band’s current tour, Sambora has still found the time to work on other projects.

"LL Cool J just asked me to play on his record so I did that a couple of weeks back and now I’m gonna be in the video," he told 6 Music, "and I played on a movie soundtrack when I was home in my spare time, so it’s constant work."

It is touring the world that helps Richie keeps his creative juices flowing, as he explained:

"I do write bits on tour because when you’re travelling the world you’re taking pieces of each culture out.

"I was just in Spain so obviously I was listening to some flamenco guitars so that’ll seep its way through maybe next week sometime. You suck up the culture and it kinda seeps its way through your musical soul."

Georgie Rogers