World Music
Richie Sambora: ‘That’s what song writing is, it’s sharing our joy and tragedies’
This weekend on Deep Hidden Meaning Radio with Nile Rodgers on Apple Music 1, Richie Sambora joins Nile to share the stories behind some of Bon Jovi’s most iconic songs. During the interview he discusses winning the Apple Music Special International Award at the Ivors, writing hits like ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’, ‘Livin’…
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About Writing ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’…
I guess I was about 23 years old, living with my mother, playing clubs. I would tell Jon, I’d say, “Meet me at my house.” Because both my parents worked. I loved to write, Jon doesn’t like to write with a lot of other writers obviously, because he was trying to find himself as an artist. You know what I mean? Meanwhile, we’re sitting in my mother’s kitchen, with formica and a 12 inch Japanese TV, all you see is like… Anyway, so Desmond [Child] and him are not getting along at this point. And me and Desmond went downstairs. So we start chucking around this idea. I said, “What do we need to do? We need to make guys accessible for Bon Jovi.” And that was our first number one single.
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About The Message Behind ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’…
Richie Sambora: B*****s break your heart. No, that’s it.
Nile Rodgers: It’s that simple.
Richie Sambora: Is it any simpler than that? It’s really true.
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About The Audience Reaction To ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’…
Oh, there’s definitely energy there…They rejoice in the fact that they’ve also had bad relationships. That’s really what it’s about, man. That’s what’s song writing is, it’s sharing our joy and tragedies…It’s about sharing that stuff. And somehow my life has been fodder. You know what I mean?
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About Writing ‘Livin’ On a Prayer’ with Jon Bon Jovi and Desmond Child…
My dad was working two jobs. He was one of nine. I’m going to New York for a writing session with Desmond and Jon at Desmond’s apartment. Traffic total stop, someone’s car died or something like that. I don’t know how long it took me to get out of there. I found myself a parking spot about an hour later. I get there and they’re mad as hell. And I went, “What are you guys writing? Play it for me.” And I’ll sing it for you if you like. It was a song called, ‘Growing Up The Hard Way’. And we would write 30 songs to get 10 good ones. So here’s the song. “She had a blue tattoo on the back of her hand that said, ‘I love you, mommy and dad'” “Jon, you sing it.” “I don’t want to hear you sing it.” We got to bring guys in. We got to make it safe so guys can come. And I’m going, “Prayer. I need a prayer. I need a prayer. I need a prayer.” And I went, “All I got is the word, prayer.” And Desmond went, “Living on a prayer.” And then we walked out of there with the first verse, the B section, and the chorus. And Jon and I got in a cab and I said, “Wow, that’s the best song we’ve ever written.” He says, “Ah, I think it’ll be good for a movie sound track or something like that.” And he tells that story on stage too, every night. I said, “What are you saying that for?” So I said, “If I buy you dinner, can we finish it?” So I took him out and bought him dinner, and then we finished it.
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About Writing ‘Bad Medicine’…
Richie Sambora: So right around this time, Jon’s married, he’s been with his sweetheart since they were 14 years. I’m a multimillionaire rock star and I’m single. I’m having a damn good time. So I meet this girl one night… And then I started getting serious. I really started to fall for her. She turned out to be the highest paid Heidi… What was that name?
Nile Rodgers: Heidi Fleiss. Wow.
Richie Sambora: 25 Gs a night.
Nile Rodgers: Wow.
Richie Sambora: So I got a bargain every night. So anyway, she was a cool chick. The song’s about her. It’s a blues song.
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About Writing ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ And Shooting Guns On Tour…
Well, I thought if the band was going to have any longevity, we needed a banner song for guys. And I had this idea, ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’. And I got stoned one day, and I was sitting in my mother’s basement waiting for Jon to bring me a pizza so we could get going. And I came up with that riff and I went, “Well, that’s pretty easy.” And it’s a very simple riff. It seems like it’s hard to play, it’s not hard to play at all. And it made girls able to bring their husbands, and their boyfriends, and they didn’t feel like they had to go hide someplace. It was us rolling into truck stops, that long hair, and you’d hear on the CB, “You see one of the long hairs walking around.” We didn’t give a – . We’re from New Jersey. We had the most heavily armed recreational vehicle. Our bus driver used to be a green beret. We had AK-47s, and pistols, and all kind of. He says, “Hey boss, you feel like shooting some up?” Be in the middle of Utah someplace. He goes, “All right, I’ll give you about 15 minutes to get ready, you know where it is.” We’re all like… We’re painting our faces, mowing down cactuses and we weren’t hurting anybody or anything like that. That’s the kind of thing when you’re on tour when you’re young like that. There was times like that where the camaraderie was very, very deep.
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About Writing ‘Hey God’…
You know what? If it took you out of your regular life for a couple hours, or in some cases, people really said, “This is good, because other people are sad too.” Other people are going through the same kind of thing. Because people are going through questions. There’s a song called, ‘Hey God’. And it’s freezing when we’re outside, I’m going somewhere to get ready to go on tour. [00:11:00] And I was in traffic, and I opened a window, and there was a dude sitting in a box. And I had a moment with him. And he must be going, “How come I ain’t in that car? And how come…” And then I thought about it. I just started writing, “Hey God, tell me what the hell’s going on. Where all good going?” I just started doing poetry, writing a story about how many people are going like, “What the hell?” You know what I mean? That kind of thing. And Livin’ on a Prayer is a good “What the hell” song. That was the part of it. It was, “Why is this happening?”
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About Dating Cher…
She is a cool chick, and she’s so talented. I remember when… no one would take a record. She didn’t make a record for six years, but she won the Oscar. And so Clive was giving a lot of work back then as a producer, because he was hot. And he said, “By any chance Jon,” you know how he goes, “I can’t get nobody to do the Cher record.” I said, “I’ll do it. I got a song, ready to go.” I get done three days. “Can I put you down?” I said, “Yeah.” And then everybody got on board. Everybody got on with board. You know, she called me up all the time. We played together all the time. She’s awesome.
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About His Relationship With Jon Bon Jovi…
Nile Rodgers: It’s strange because when a band has a front guy, and the band has the front guy’s name, you think that all the singing is the front guy.
Richie Sambora: And all the writing.
Nile Rodgers: And all the writing, that’s true.
Richie Sambora: Exactly. That was part of my deal, to shut the – up. If I had a coffee place, the sign would say, “Have a hot steaming cup of shut the – up.” That would be my coffee place. And you know what? Guess what?
Nile Rodgers: You did.
Richie Sambora: I did it. And it worked out because that’s what he needed for whatever reason. And I was working with him and if he needed that kind of thing.
Richie Sambora Tells Nile Rodgers About Winning The Apple Music Special International Award at the Ivors…
The privilege about being a songwriter and having that work is people have their song and it’s one of your songs. It’s such a wonderful thing.