When lockdown hit, instead of running off to a house on the beach, Bon Jovi washed dishes every day in JBJ Soul Kitchen, one of the two community kitchens he set up near his home, where meals are provided through donations or volunteering. Perhaps you are thinking that you don’t especially need Jon Bon Jovi’s thoughts on BLM, but reason not the need: as he has done throughout his near 40-year career, he offers solid music and heartfelt lyrics, and, really, hats off to the man for engaging with the moment because Lord knows he doesn’t need to do anything at all any more.

It is a thoughtful look at the past year, addressing gun control (Lower the Flag), the coronavirus crisis (Do What You Can) and the Black Lives Matter movement (the disarmingly beautiful American Reckoning). Anyone whose image of Bon Jovi is still locked in the Livin’ on a Prayer era – the big guitars, the bigger hair – will be somewhat taken aback by 2020. We are talking today because the latest single, Story of Love, from his album 2020, is about to be released in the UK. The trappings of rock stardom were never a part of my home.” He and his wife of 31 years, Dorothea, have four kids: Stephanie, 27, Jesse, 25, Jacob, 18 and Romeo, 16, and for a long time, he says, “my younger kids weren’t quite sure what I do”. “There are no platinum records hanging anywhere in my house. “My life is much more normal than one would imagine,” says the sixth wealthiest rock star in the world, sandwiched on that list between Sting and Elton John. (Although I think we both know that if Bon Jovi is the prince of New Jersey, its king is Bruce Springsteen.) From the tiny amount I can see, his house looks lovely – wood-panelled walls and not over-flashy. “I am the crown prince of New Jersey,” he declares, which is probably true – he named one of his biggest-selling albums after the state and has stayed firmly loyal to his home turf. “It bought a lot of people houses,” he says.īon Jovi, 58, is talking to me on Zoom from his house in New Jersey. Maybe we should just put it on a movie soundtrack.’ Richie looked at me and said: ‘You’re an idiot – it’s really good.’ I said: ‘I just don’t know where it’s going.’ But it didn’t have that boom boom boom bassline yet, so it sounded more like the Clash.”īon Jovi looks at me as if I had asked about the woods-based habits of bears.

I remember walking out of the room with Richie and I said: ‘Eh, it’s OK. So he didn’t know it was a hit when he wrote it?

I’m sure happy my name’s on it!” Bon Jovi grins. It was created on a day when none of us had any ideas, we just had a conversation and it came out of that. But my God, who knew? Not us, I can assure you.

(clockwise from top left) Richie Sambora, Alec John Such, David Bryan, Jon Bon Jovi and Tico Torres in the mid-80s.

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