You acted like a CEO very much in touch with reality. Is that one of your management secrets?
It's very easy to be George Bush Sr. and go into the supermarket and not know they have scanners because it's easy to be unattached from everyday life. And that's what too many people in business do, in entertainment do, in politics do, and they forget what's out the window.
How do you reconcile the need for control with the need to share power?
I think it's important to go into the Soul offices and meet people and talk to them. The girl that works at our front desk came up with a radio spot, and I made sure I sent her an e-mail thanking her because it was a great creative spot and I appreciated her going beyond answering the phones. I said I know you're only an intern, I saw the initiative, and I'm making sure everyone is going to know that you did it and thank you.
You don't believe in a lot of overhead, do you?
Jon Bon Jovi Enterprises is lean and mean. I've got just two people here [gesturing at his Manhattan offices]. I've been self-managed for 12 years now. I had a creative falling out with my manager at the time, and the options were to go to another big management company -- and be a part of the puzzle -- or create my own. Twenty percent was just going out the window for something that wasn't necessary.
So it was like starting your own business -- with yourself as a client.
My record deal was done. CAA was booking the tour. I just had to handle the creative and continue my relationships with the record company; I've been with the same record company for 20 years.
Sometimes I've found that CEOs and people passionately engaged in their business need to step back and secure a fresh perspective. You did that with your band, didn't you?
"I called everyone I knew in the NFL and said give me input."
We had four albums from '84 through '90, two of which were a couple of the biggest rock records ever -- Slippery When Wet and New Jersey. We were overworked. When bands implode, the truth is that the machine is revving so hot, no one is thinking what these kids are dealing with. They're thrust into being the heads of corporations, and they're just guys in a garage with a guitar. Ask Guns N' Roses.
What was your solution?
I encouraged all the guys in the band to find other outlets -- anything -- so that they could bring information back to the fold that would give us something to write about. I wanted to grow as an individual. When we got back together two years later, in '92 -- although we had never broken up -- it was with a whole lot of information times five. All of those things added up to our reinventing ourselves with a record called Keep the Faith when all our peers were being pushed to the wayside.
Rob Light, your agent, told me you are the only artist from your generation who "came out the other side" when grunge transformed rock.
That's when all these different managers said it's over for this style of music, it's over for this band. And I said to myself this is the exciting part, it's just the beginning. I asked the band to trust in me, and said that if they believed in the vision we could be bigger than ever.
You also went to Europe and toured there. Then It's My Life got you back into the pop marketplace; it was wise as a business and aesthetic strategy.
We've been in and out many times. When radio wasn't that open-armed to us, we went and found where to go. We took it to places where it wasn't what you would expect, such as Europe and Asia.
I've spoken to a lot of people about you, and they all say you are what you are. Authenticity matters in any business -- your customers know when you're faking it.
I'm not trying to be the 18-year-old new kid. And I'm not hanging out with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and pretending I'm an old guy. I'm just me. Every time I release a song I know I may have to sing it in 20 years, so therefore I better be happy with it, really happy with it, and not do it just because it's going to be a hit.
There's a story that you once took some tracks to a pizza parlor and did a focus group with kids.
We were making demos for what was our third album in Sayreville, N.J. -- my hometown -- in a little demo studio. The game of telephone makes it sound like I was so smart to poll these people. But the truth is that I went around the corner to have a pizza, and a bunch of kids were in there, and they said we know you guys, you made two records, blah, blah, blah. So we invited a dozen of them back, and their reaction to various songs helped influence the decision-making.
You're in a creative business. What do you think of change?
My new saying is, I love progress but hate change. That's why I have the same wife, the same band, the same guys working for me, the same everything. I don't hang out with the Hollywood clique. No yes men. Can't do it. Don't have time for it. Seen through it.
Do you have a role model?
Frank Sinatra. He's the guy I aspire to be half as cool as for half as long. Frank did 60 movies, toured till he was 80, got a President elected. That's who I want to be.
You've had a few disappointments in Hollywood and elsewhere. How have they affected you?
Go and get rejected on a movie set. Have failures because it strengthens you as an individual. The diversity that is part of my career has been great to help me learn about who I am and where I want to go.
That's part of the puzzle of who I am. That humility that comes from the movie business has added an increased depth to what the band is, what I am as a person. You'll have to trust me on this, but it would be easy as a successful musician to start to believe the hype. I
