The Bon Jovi Conversation That ‘Shook’ Richie Sambora


Jesse Grant, Getty Images© Ultimate Classic Rock

Richie Sambora has detailed a conversation late in his Bon Jovi tenure that “shook” the guitarist.

During a recent appearance on the Magnificent Others podcast, hosted by Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, Sambora – who departed Bon Jovi in 2013 – reflected on his final days in the band, noting how he and frontman Jon Bon Jovi seemed to be drifting apart..

“I felt like Jon was changing his focus and he often wanted to be a solo artist,” the guitarist noted. “And I go, ‘Go make a solo [album]’… He was definitely changing directions.”

Solo albums weren’t foreign to the musicians. In fact, Sambora himself had just come back from touring in support of his 2012 solo LP Aftermath of the Lowdown. When the guitarist reconnected with Bon Jovi to work on the band’s next album, he assumed he and the singer would handle the bulk of the songwriting duties, as they’d done for the majority of their successful career. However, Sambora soon realized something had changed.

“[Jon Bon Jovi] said, all of a sudden, ‘Nah, you don’t gotta worry about [songwriting],” Sambora recalled. “'[Session guitarist] John Shanks and I wrote like 30 songs.’”

Sambora Said the New Material ‘Sounded Like Every Song That I Didn’t Want to Write’

As Sambora noted, his songwriting partnership with Bon Jovi had proven incredibly fruitful up to that point. Across more than 30 years, the bandmates collaborated on such timeless tracks as “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “I’ll Be There for You.” Having that dynamic changed was startling to the guitarist.

“It shook me a little bit,” Sambora admitted. “But I said, ‘Alright. What do you got?”

In an attempt to keep an open mind, Sambora listened to the songs Bon Jovi and Shanks had worked on. “And it didn’t sound like Bon Jovi. It didn’t sound like the band,” the rocker explained. “It sounded like every song that I didn’t want to write.”

Sambora left Bon Jovi soon afterward, opting to focus on his family life. Bon Jovi’s next album, 2015’s Burning Bridges, was made up largely of material written with Shanks and producer Billy Falcon. Sambora received one songwriting credit on the LP for “Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning,” a tune that was started prior to his departure. 2016’s This House Is Not for Sale marked the first Bon Jovi album without a Sambora songwriting credit.