"Jon Bon Jovi"

0:05Okay, I am really excited. About? I've got some great news. And? Well, it's about... Are you pregnant? It's about today. Oh. What's happening today? We are... Well, fuck, you're going to find out. It's an all-new Smart List. Smart List.

0:32Smart List.

0:38Smart List.

0:42That was you guys. Hi. We just had a little connection problem with Will. It sounded like you were Hal from 2001. Yeah. I'm glad you got it all worked out. I know, me too. I, um... Was there a ghost in the machine? I guess so. Right? That's the... Wasn't that a band? That was an album the police did. It was by the police, yeah. Very good album. By the way, the police... Yeah. You know, I just... I used to listen to them all the time. We don't hear about them in, you know. Well, because Sting went off on his own. I know, but it's just a good memory. When he went on his own, is it accurate to say that he defunded the police?

1:24Wow. I don't know. It's early. It's early. It's really early. It's early. What am I going to do? They're not all going to be home runs, JB. Jason, so did we miss you on Sunday because we missed, because you just weren't feeling it, or were you out of town? No, I was flying back to work. I left at noon. Oh, that's right. I saw Amanda. Apropos of nothing, Shawnee, I was sent a picture from someone, you and Eric Idol in a picture together. It looked like it might have been a bowling alley. No, it was a roller rink. Okay, so I was close. That was just yesterday. Pretty close. And that was just sort of just like a date you guys had, Like, maybe meet me at the roller skating rink.

2:07That's a great question. Tell me what you look like so I can recognize you. First of all, that's crazy. I wonder who sent you that. Was it Kevin Nealon? Eric, Idol, and I share an attorney, the great Tom Hoverman. Oh, okay, great. Yeah, no, it was Kevin Nealon's wife, Susan Yagley, who's a very funny actress person. She decided to have her birthday party at a roller derby, like a roller, what is that called? Roller rink. It's a roller skating rink. Roller skating rink. Yeah. And so I was too nervous. Have you been drinking this morning? You feel like you've been. No, it's too early. He's got a latte going.

2:41Have you been eating? No, not at all. You haven't eaten anything yet? And so Scotty, I was really nervous. No, I haven't eaten anything. So Scotty, I was really nervous. So I didn't put the skates on. Scotty's frying up some donut holes. But they did have like pizza and cake. Thank God. And I had all that. And popcorn. I described Sean the other day as junk food curious. hey uh were there any terrible accidents there at the roller skating rink yeah because you really really yeah so do you have any good do you have any good roller skate rink uh uh accident stories can't wait to ask the guest yes so scotty so i didn't want to put them on because i'm on blood thinners i'm almost done with my blood thinners because my afib right hand well what does a roller skating accident have to do with because if you hit your head or something you could bleed like you could bleed out and die oh way to think about the worst case scenario so anyway so i was there so the first 30 seconds my friend kevin who you both met kevin and carrie sure kevin bam mashed his head on the on the fucking wood floor wiped out immediately and so i ran over to him i was like are you all right you're right he's like yeah no i go are you seeing stars and he's like no which one yes when do they get here that's a bummer if he looked at you and he says he's not seeing any stars i mean that's got a that's insult to his injury you know well you really i'm glad you rebooted yeah somebody slept really well yeah i did sleep well anyway roller derby but good idea for for a birthday party right for an adult sounds like not a good idea it's up there with an ice skating you've just described why it's not a good idea No, Kevin's totally fine.

4:23Oh, good. Is he? But I walked because I didn't want to put the skates on, so Scotty had skates on, and I walked with him around the thing while he skated. And that's so dumb. A little bit. It's kind of on brand. You know, now they've got at these rinks, you know, like an old man, old woman walker that can help you ice skate or roller skate. They didn't have that in my day. You just had to kind of like keep a hand on the wall. Yes, I see that the kids had that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But so Eric Idle was there. I never met Eric Idle from Monty Python. I was like, oh, my God. What a genius. Yeah, incredible.

4:56Really nice guy. Did he ask for, like, a drink from you, or was he like, hey, can I get a Diet Coke? Bring my car up, boy. He was really nice. Whose guest is it today? It's my guest. And how do you feel about your choice today, Will? I feel really, really good. Really? Yeah, you know why? You know what I like? I like international superstars. Oh, my God. A lot. This is a legit, you don't often. Are we going to see stars? Are we going to see stars? You're going to see a major international superstar, and I'm embarrassing him, but it's so true. But on top of it, or sort of not on top of it, beneath it, he's a really, really, really great guy that I've had the good fortune of spending a little bit of time with over the years.

5:41Super, super good dude. And then you forget that he sold a gajillion records. That's a lot. I mean, a gajillion records over the years. As a member of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, and then as an equally impressive solo career, he's in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has written multiple massive hits. And he's an actor, and he's an incredible philanthropist. And he's got a new docuseries about his story. I think it's called Thank You, Goodnight. How do I know all your friends? Once I start getting, if I start saying specific things, you're just going to guess it. So I'm just going to say, guys, please allow me to introduce you to the one, the only, the phenomenal, Mr.

6:28Jon Bon Jovi. Wow. That's triple A list. Look at, I mean, it is triple. No one sings higher. Yeah. Or better. Or better. Or better. Oh, my gosh. Hi there, Jon Bon Jovi. This is so cool. I saw Jon like six months ago or something last summer, and I was like, would you ever consider doing our podcast? And he said yes. And it took a minute to organize. He's a very busy man. And I'm so happy you're here. John, good to see you, man. I'm so happy to be here. I'm a huge fan. I listen all the time and I watch the entire series that you guys did on the road. Oh, my God. Crazy documentary. In the dead of winter.

7:06Yes, it was great. It was great. Now, listener, we have Jon Bon Jovi from the White House. you look like you're in the kind of place I would love to live you're doing well clearly right this is a nice I see a lot of house envy just in the pre-roll when you were talking about Sean's house well look at me I'm doing a hostage video here I need to up my situation but no and I see a Patriots jersey are you a Patriots fan oh yeah look at I see the background in my office yes I'm a huge Patriots fan. That is Bill Belichick's hoodie. Now, oh, my God, they're right. The short sleeve. Why did he wear a short-sleeved hoodie?

7:48Fashion statement, right? Yeah. Fashion. Well, no, also, he might run hot. Like, he wants the thing, but he also runs a little bit hot. My question is, who cuts them? Do you know, John, who cuts them? I don't know who cuts them. No. Knowing, when you look closely, I think he probably, I think he cuts them with a butter knife. Yeah. Well, that just has an odd, he's got sweaty forearms, and I've never met anyone with that. Maybe Thoreau came over and gave him the snip. It might be Justin. He's giving Justin Thoreau a run for his money. Listen, I think if you're winning that many championships, you're doing something right, and he doesn't want to mess with whatever system he's got going.

8:25Why do you have director's chairs there? Just to hang out in? Because I'm a groupie, and when I did my little movie career, I actually stole the entire chair, not the back. You guys that make real movies, I took the whole chair. You took the whole chair. Well, you made a bunch of movies. I want to get into that in a minute. You've done a lot, actually quite a surprising amount of acting. Yeah, it's a fascinating career. Yeah, I think that, but you started as a singer, as a musician, and I kind of want to talk about what was that? I want to know how you know you could sing. Well, yeah, like what was that first thing?

9:01Growing up in New Jersey, what was that early music scene, and how did you plug into it? You know, how do you get started? Yeah. What do you do? Any kid that's all of our ages thinks of three things when they're 13. You want to be a baseball player or a rock and roll star or an astronaut. You know? So you strum the tennis racket and you think you can sing. Yeah. When you're playing in the garages and the school dance with your first band, And the benefit of that for me was that the drinking age in New Jersey was 18. So at 16, I could be playing in a bar. And I loved it so much that I didn't have the responsibilities of a career path yet, a job, a higher education thought.

9:49You know, it was like music, music, music. I like music. And because my parents were somewhat supportive, their attitude was, if you're going to be in a bar at 1 or 2 in the morning, at least we know where you are. And they saw that I was, you know, really, really wanting to pursue that career path. And then I was also blessed because, you know, I wrote Runaway when I was 20. So I got a record deal at 21. Yeah, that was your first hit in... 1983, I put that out independently without the band and then got a record deal. And it's been the same record deal for 40 years. wow that's great was it ever did you so you started singing so young uh that was it was it was singing uncool at that age you know because like when i was a little kid like i always just thought singing was not was not was not cool because i was so young what was it like at your age uh when you did it all the centerfolds of circus magazine was pretty cool you know in the late 70s it was like zeppelin and aerosmith and yeah queen and and leonard skinnard and springsteen and all the and then remember that bruce springsteen and south side johnny were from 25 miles south of my house so chances are with 10 asbury jukes and seven members of the e street band by playing in those bars you're going to see real live rock stars right and when you're 16 that's like seeing Santa Claus.

11:20Yeah. You know, so all of these things were incredibly inspirational and being a lead singer in a rock band, Mr. Jason, sir, is pretty fucking good. I was thinking more about ballads probably in my head as opposed to a rock and roll stage. No, the ballads work. The ballads work. They work too, right? Are you kidding? Of course the ballads work. Are you crazy, JB? Think it through, dude. Yeah. Are you, but here's what blows my mind about your voice. I always comment about how like your your pipes are just incredible the fact that whoa i mean that's like way way way way up there and not a lot of people can do that and strong where do you find at such a young age because people are already trepidatious about opening their mouth and am i going to be able to sing and you're just wailing like where does that confidence come from like to really go for those notes at such a young age and write those songs that are massive not naivete it was i was too stupid to know any better yeah i didn't study really you just got in front of a mic and yelped until it made sense yeah you know i regret that's a high c sean the high note is a fucking c it's crazy it's like a soprano it's not good you know when you're i'm going to be 62 um saturday I'm 62 years old.

12:41Happy birthday. Hitting a high C. Can you do it? I can squeak out a C, yeah. Right. So does it start to leave just like, you know, Tom Brady ain't thrown anymore. Yeah, the big thing about this huge documentary that we just did, the parallel story, and Sean, you relate to this, I underwent a massive surgery for the first time in my life. In your throat? For your vocal cords? Oh, wow. Oh, I didn't know that. That's scary. Yeah, that's what I'm going through right now. and hence this, but not your typical nodule. Yeah. Because I really have studied singing for a lot of years. You have to. But I had what's called now a medialization, if you're at all familiar with that.

13:24No. One chord was atrophying while the strong one was pushing the weak one around and I wasn't singing well. And it was, I couldn't understand it. And this is all in the last two years since the surgery. And they put a plastic implant outside the cords to strengthen them. Wow. So I'm still in the rehab stage. And it's disheartening. John, what was that like when you first noticed that? Do you remember having that first thing of like, shit, I'm not, yeah? And what you would do is compensate. You know, you're like, well, that didn't work today, so let me do it this way. Let me do it this way. And finally you're standing on your head trying to hit a note.

14:07and you would compensate and to a point where it just wasn't very good anymore and other things start getting out of whack right way out of whack and then your mind how do you how is it how are you feeling now how is it going i'm 20 months post-surgery i would say i'm 90 percent there and you still got to get the ghost sat in the machine as you guys are saying the ones in your head yeah The ones that are saying now that you're over back to, let's just say you don't have to compensate anymore, your mind still has to remind your body that it's fixed. You don't have to compensate anymore. Right, right.

14:47What about the absolute panic and horror of going under the knife? And when I wake up, I hope that, A, I can speak, and in the public world, I can still sing. Like, I'm sure your research on doctors must have been intense. Yeah, and this is what I do, right? This is, I'm a singer. Yeah, the doctor, I knew the doctor that did Julie Andrews. So you and I both know that story. And you went to him too, and so did I for a lot of years. Yeah. But the guy that I found in Philadelphia, the greatest thing he said after I exhausted everything, every bit of what I call voodoo, every Eastern medicine, and every laser, every dietary singing lessons, everything I possibly could.

15:32And I did 15 shows and it just was not working. And I went to see him and I said, I can give you 100 % of 80%. And he says, isn't that good enough? And I said, no, I'm going to quit. He says, now we can talk about this surgery. And he says, and I guarantee you nothing. He says, but if you work hard, this will give you your best shot. So I've been diligent in my recovery and hoping that, you know, everything's going to be all right. But I don't know. Are you bullish on being able to get out there and tour again? I'm hoping to be. I'm being bluntly honest. You know, if I'm not great, I'm not going.

16:13But hang on. I mean, like, there are plenty of musicians and bands that I would easily pay top dollar to go see. Yeah, but so what? But even if they can't make the song sound like it did when they recorded it fucking 30 years ago, I still want to see them doing it and just move the mic away from their mouth a little bit when they reach for that high. Like, I mean, but. Look at John's like, no. John, but you're providing more than, you know, incredible singing. You guys are watching. We want to see you, John. Watch YouTube. I'm not interested. Not interested. Well, what about your bandmates? Are they understanding of that position or are they saying, fucking come on?

16:56No, you know, we are actively rehearsing. We did a couple of days this week. Everybody was here in New Jersey just running it hard for a couple of days and measuring the progress. Oh, that's great. Because I have this great new record. I feel optimistic about the record. I love the film. A guy named Deepak, Gotham Chopra, Deepak's son, directed it. It's a two-year, four-part docuseries that will air on Hulu. But I'm very happy with it because it's on the band. Yeah. That's so great. It's our 40th anniversary right now. I can't wait to see that. That's so mind-blowing. 40 years. I feel like I became really, well, like a lot of people, really well aware of you guys with the massive, first of all, your massive hit, Living on a Prayer, which...

17:46Well, there's tons of them. Yeah, you can say that 10 different scenes. Of course. But that's sort of like, for me, that was the first one that really, I was like, holy shit. And that, you guys kind of, do you remember the first time playing that when it was a hit and playing it in front of an audience and everybody going like, fuck yeah. Maybe not the first time, but what was interesting about that song is we really didn't know what we had because it was so different. It didn't sound like anything on the radio. And, you know, it had a Motown kind of a bass line. it had the boy-girl story that is almost Shakespearean at the end of the day, you know?

18:23And it's so, You Give Love a Bad Name was the first single on that record, and it was a number one song, and that was pretty evident and obvious that it would be. But when we put out Living on a Prayer, I thought, yeah, it should be second, because who knows what it's going to do. And then, of course, you know, it's one of the biggest pop songs of all time. We'll be right back.

18:48And now, back to the show. Can I tell you something about You Give Love a Bad Name? I guess. My first dog was named Buzzy, and when I was potty training him, he would go outside and he would poop on the lawn, so I changed the words from what they are to, There's poop on the lawn, and you're to blame Buzzy, you give dogs a bad name. I love that. Thank you, Sean. You're welcome. There's poop on the lawn and you're too blamed This is the family member that you just stop inviting, you know? No, we're not having Thanksgiving this year, Sean. Sorry. You know?

19:40Wait, I have other stories. Sean, tell me more about your music career because I didn't get the chance, but Dorothea saw the play. Oh, so good. My wife saw the play and was talking so incredibly about not only your playing but your singing as well. How did you keep it eight days a week? Well, that's so nice. It was just a play. I didn't sing but I played, yeah. Oh, you didn't have to sing? No, thank you. I'll never do that again. But his voice, she was probably talking about he did a whole different voice for this character that I remember Will and I kind of Will, did we look at each other? Like when he came out I think we've told this story right.

20:13It was such a big swing. A big swing. Looked at each other like oh boy here we fucking because it's one of those moments john where you're like it's either going to be uh great or it's going to be terrible yeah what are we going to say to him backstage and like 30 seconds past that point it's like oh no we're in good hands he's pulling this off and it was a it was a big yeah it was a different voice a whole gate and everything anyway i said i said to jason when i saw him right after the show i said can i guess your thought bubble when i first came out he said yeah and it was just uh-oh

20:50wait john did you ever do broadway did you ever do a show on broadway no god you know great for the stage to me is the you know the stage so yeah of course i didn't need that i didn't need that um even in the learning experience for me when i went into to try to to learn to act and i studied for a couple years before I ever even went for an audition. It was the opportunity to grow in the arts. It was just a different avenue in the arts that I could bring that back then to the fold, different material to write about, different humility, standing on the audition line, and, you know, being turned down before you even walked into the room.

21:27Yeah. And all of that humility that I brought back while I was learning about the craft was incredibly formative. What was your feeling about that as you were starting to learn about acting and quote-unquote study it? Because I'm always sort of a little pessimistic about if it's something we can learn to do. I think it's all something we all know how to do. It's just freeing yourself up. But like, did you think it was like, oh, this is a real craft, a real art form that I'm enjoying? Or were you like, oh, this is just learning how to be full of shit. I mean, both are valid, both are true, but there's just different perspectives on what it is.

22:01And where did it find itself on you? I just have too much respect for y 'all. and and i immensely respect the craft that i i wouldn't dare think that even pacino or dinero if i put a microphone in their face and said sing me a song right they'd be any good at it right i think in order to be good at it you should learn how to do it yeah amen and so i studied for two years privately not in classes but uh privately until i was confident enough to even you know try to get an audition yeah i had too much respect for it and what was the one things uh that you that made you feel like you wanted to take on that challenge of of expanding your creative juices from music to acting i had had um five records uh by that point and slippery was our third that was a monster new jersey was a monster then i wrote the soundtrack to the young guns record and i you know i win all the awards with that so there was this kind of stupid ego moment in the band's history where you're like you think you're too smart the incredible thing about starting over with something in the arts that you know nothing about but you've had so many other life experiences it brings you a great humility and so that when you take that back to music it was it was an opportunity for me to share that with the guys and for them to then learn from that you know and it humbled all of us to go I think that's a big reason why when we went into the 90s and the grunge movement happened, we didn't even slow down.

23:32We still had hits. We still kept going. We had more international growth than ever. And all of that was, I think, a direct result of my sitting in that basement apartment in Manhattan with Harold Guskin for years, you know, getting yelled at. And so I really, really loved the process of acting. The bitch was whenever, and you guys know this well, I would go in and they'd say, anytime you get a spark in this town, and you take off for a year and go on the road. We don't think you're serious about it. I said, I'm fucking serious about it, but you pay me two cents and I'm six on the call sheet. Right.

24:10I said, what am I going to do here? There's a stadium waiting in, you know, wherever. Right, right, right, right. What was that first film that I remember you did? Moonlight and Valentino was a girly movie. Moonlight and Valentino, yes. Yeah, Gwyneth and Whoopi and Kathleen Turner and Liz Perkins. So do you remember the, so let's talk about that. So you, you, I mean, you talk about it, but like you're a massive international superstar, rock star. And then you go on the set of this movie and it's a new thing that you've, you've just been sort of learning about that first day on set, that first take.

24:45Oh yeah. So I say, I'll never forget it. The director was a guy named David Ansbach who had done Hoosiers and Rudy. And so he was a guy's guy writing those kinds of movies. He's got four ladies as his stars. I'm the cute, you know, house painter. We're doing take two, take three, take four. After the girls are giving him like one take apiece and walking off the set. And he's going take two, take three. And I walked over to him. I said, David, I'm sorry. We have to do so many takes. I'll pay for the film. This is how we make movies. I'll pay for the film. That's so sweet. Now, were you encouraged?

25:21It must have been nerve-wracking, though. Yeah. I'll bet it was nerve-wracking, but did you find some sort of encouragement and inspiration that you weren't the first of, like, Sting and David Bowie? They did some great performances. Was that inspirational for you? No, because they'd all, by definition, weren't successful. You may look back and think that those movies, you know, were cool. Right. But, you know, we were, as musicians, told you do either or. Right. You know, Bowie and Madonna and whatever were, you know, no, there's musicians that want to act. They're not allowed to freely do both the ways Sinatra could.

26:07But what were your expectations? You weren't possibly looking to match your level of success with acting that you had. It wasn't based on success. It was based on opportunity. So that the opportunities just kept going down and down and down and then suddenly you're making like an indie to an indie and I'm sitting on the curb outside of CAA like with a tear in my eye. Going, what have I done? But did you find that, I mentioned that you're in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, you're such a great songwriter and lyricist and music and everything. Did you find when you were acting throughout the years, did you find that sort of common thing as an artist as you're doing it, sort of the beats of it?

26:51Was there a commonality between being a performer, being a singer, songwriter, and being an actor? What was that kind of... I think there are commonalities, but again, I think the biggest thing to me was that finding something else in the arts that gave me an opportunity to grow. It wasn't like I went from singing to building cars. You know, one has nothing at all to do with the other. This is another way to emote. This is another way to tell a story. This is more information for me to write about because, you know, all I had to write about between 21 and 30 was life on the road, to be honest with you.

27:23I was nowhere near as seasoned a man as Bob Dylan or Woody Guthrie. You know, I was writing pop songs in a rock and roll band, you know, in a very sheltered, middle American, white, suburban life. So, you know, going and learning about, I don't know, Tennessee Williams and coming home and writing something and thinking, you know why did i get to write blaze of glory and and the whole young gun soundtrack when my hands on a script i know how to do that yeah is it still does it still hold interest for you where is it sitting out for you at the acting i i would i would have to stop doing music and go back to really working hard on the craft you know when i i have far too much respect for it to think sure send me a role i'm ready to go yeah right well is it sitting there sort of in second position to Second position.

28:12As you start to see, like, let's see how the voice does. Yeah. And if the voice is not to your standards, maybe we can look forward to seeing more acting from you? I wouldn't say no for sure. I would just make sure I did it right. Yeah. What about producing music or producing other artists? I did all that early on. I don't need any more egos in the studio. I got a big enough one myself. Okay, well, Sean, you can log off. I mean Hey, did you Forgive me Did you see Did you see the We Are The World documentary? Yes Yeah Yes Wasn't that Awesome Yeah, incredible I want to see that All those people coming together Wow I'd never even Thought about That they were there Through the night Yeah, I know And at six in the morning They're waiting for their solo line And like, you know Bruce and Cyndi Lauper Are just cockeyed still Just being good sports about it I mean, you were missed in that I was like, where's I was just a little too young.