This book should be required reading for everybody who wants a career in rock and roll.<\/p>\n
How do you make it?<\/p>\n
You take one good-looking performer with focus and an unyielding desire to make it.<\/p>\n
You connect said person with a manager willing to bend every corner, lie, cheat and steal in order to see his charge succeed so he can take his twenty percent.<\/p>\n
And you get your songs written by Desmond Child.<\/p>\n
Desmond is the unsung hero of the Bon Jovi story.\u00c2\u00a0 Reading this book, you realize that without him, Bon Jovi is just a band of big-haired wannabes with a minor radio hit featuring the piano playing of a member of the E Street Band.<\/p>\n
Oh, where to begin.<\/p>\n
This book was written by Rich Bozzett, Bon Jovi’s original tour manager.<\/p>\n
I don’t know about you, but from the time I was conscious I remember my father telling me I was going to college.\u00c2\u00a0 It was not an issue of choice.\u00c2\u00a0 He demanded it.\u00c2\u00a0 Had it inserted in my DNA.\u00c2\u00a0 If I’d dropped out, not only would I have been cut off financially, he would have killed me.\u00c2\u00a0 Literally.\u00c2\u00a0 That might not be his intention, but his rage would have gotten the better of him.\u00c2\u00a0 I know, I saw that rage in action.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember bringing home a bad report card.\u00c2\u00a0 My father took me out to the garage and started banging my skis on the concrete floor.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t so worried about these wooden Northlands, I was just stunned that an adult could lose control in this way, could almost be foaming at the mouth.<\/p>\n
My dad wanted to protect me.\u00c2\u00a0 Wanted to make sure I didn’t earn a living with my hands.\u00c2\u00a0 That I used my brain to get ahead.<\/p>\n
Jon Bon Jovi’s parents lived by their hands.\u00c2\u00a0 His father was a hairdresser and his mother a florist.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe this is what imbued him with a desire to make it, to escape the almost poverty of his upbringing.<\/p>\n
But in order to make it, you need a team.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is how he got hooked up with Doc McGhee and Rich Bozzett.<\/p>\n
Doc McGhee wanted to make it in the world of rock management.\u00c2\u00a0 That requires money.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you can get rich if your band breaks through, but how are you going to keep that band on the road in the meantime?\u00c2\u00a0 In Doc’s case, by dealing dope.<\/p>\n
And his man on the touring front, Rich?\u00c2\u00a0 He’s an uneducated bloke who gets mixed up on a dope run to Colombia where the plane gets hijacked and ultimately crashes in the Caribbean and…<\/p>\n
Who makes choices like this?<\/p>\n
People without opportunities.\u00c2\u00a0 Rich details the sad saga of his best buddy Richie Fisher, who ended up in a psych ward after trying to commit suicide by jumping off the Waldorf Astoria.\u00c2\u00a0 Richie’s big job before that?\u00c2\u00a0 Road manager for Motley Crue.<\/p>\n
And there are certainly some Crue tales here.\u00c2\u00a0 But the really interesting story is of the crew itself.\u00c2\u00a0 The ragtag bunch of dope fiends, you’ve got to be high to do this job, setting up and tearing down every day you’ve got to be up, yet able to sleep.\u00c2\u00a0 You can only do this with the aid of pharmaceuticals.\u00c2\u00a0 You work for almost nothing, then you’re thrown upon the scrapheap.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Rich Bozzett.<\/p>\n
Do I believe every word of this book?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, his description of record royalties is so off it throws into question the veracity of so much more.\u00c2\u00a0 And obviously he wrote the book because he’s pissed, he never got his promised 5% of Bon Jovi.<\/p>\n
Then again, I know this story.\u00c2\u00a0 Bands will screw you not only to make it, but to keep it.\u00c2\u00a0 The music business is a microcosm of life at large.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody trying to get some bread when there’s not enough to feed all the hungry mouths.\u00c2\u00a0 What would you do if confronted by famine?\u00c2\u00a0 What laws would you break?\u00c2\u00a0 What choices would you make?\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile, the record companies hide behind a facade of legitimacy when they’re the biggest thieves of all.<\/p>\n
But the real story is Bon Jovi just didn’t have enough talent.<\/p>\n
Jon highlighted his hair upon the advice of stylists.\u00c2\u00a0 Research was done amongst the target demo in order to plot direction.\u00c2\u00a0 But after the second album stiffed, there was no road to success, because Bon Jovi, the band, just couldn’t write hit material.<\/p>\n
And that’s when Doc McGhee brought in Desmond Child.<\/p>\n
Would David Krebs or John Scher have made the same move?\u00c2\u00a0 They wanted to manage Bon Jovi too.\u00c2\u00a0 But Jon went with the upstart. Sometimes you want someone hungry.\u00c2\u00a0 And as important as money is, it’s the idea that ultimately triumphs.<\/p>\n
They wrote "Livin’ On A Prayer" the very first day.\u00c2\u00a0 In a bedroom in Jon’s house.\u00c2\u00a0 Jon, Richie Sambora and Desmond.\u00c2\u00a0 According to Bozzett, it was all about Diane Lane.\u00c2\u00a0 Who could party harder than any member of the band and ended up partying too hard with Richie when Jon thought she was HIS girlfriend.\u00c2\u00a0 Mmm…<\/p>\n
Then again, what broke up the band after "New Jersey" was money.\u00c2\u00a0 Because Jon thought it was all about him.\u00c2\u00a0 And the four others were getting screwed.<\/p>\n
You pay your dues, work ultra hard, but eventually you want yours.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you get it?<\/p>\n
Rich never got his 5%.\u00c2\u00a0 If only he had a lawyer.\u00c2\u00a0 But did he have an educated father, did he grow up in an environment where people said it was wise to pay a little now to make a lot later?\u00c2\u00a0 I doubt it.<\/p>\n
Then again, Jon’s wife-to-be, Dorothea, was afraid to order room service in the early days, for fear Jon would become incensed over the expenditure.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got to give Jon credit.\u00c2\u00a0 How many acts have started off broke and ended up broke because they didn’t know the value of a dollar.<\/p>\n
This book is horribly written.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s one man’s viewpoint.<\/p>\n
But I know it’s true.<\/p>\n
I’ve worked in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve met these characters.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s one field where education is not a requirement to play.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re thrown in with a bunch of rapacious scoundrels, and only the smartest, with the sharpest elbows, succeed.\u00c2\u00a0 If you haven’t been ripped off, if you haven’t been physically threatened, you’re not in the music business.<\/p>\n
This is one man’s tale.\u00c2\u00a0 Published by an outfit I’ve never heard of.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure major publishers passed, they didn’t want the lawsuits, didn’t want to get on Jon’s bad side.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, impact will be limited.<\/p>\n
The supposed draw is black and whites from an aborted publicity shoot with naked girls.\u00c2\u00a0 You can see better stuff on the Internet for free.<\/p>\n
But you can’t find the true story of how one inexperienced, uneducated limousine driver did whatever he was told to earn a one in a million shot as the right hand to the biggest band in the world only to lose it all six years later.<\/p>\n
Actually, that’s a long ride in this business.<\/p>\n
You’ve never heard of Rich Bozzett.\u00c2\u00a0 And there are a zillion more faceless people who work to make these bands succeed you’ve also never heard of.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t do it alone.\u00c2\u00a0 As Rich Bozzett says, be loyal and take care of the little people, keep your promises.<\/p>\n
Then again, without Jon.\u00c2\u00a0 Without Doc.\u00c2\u00a0 Without Desmond.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got nothing.<\/p>\n
The best team can’t do anything with a stiff.<\/p>\n
A mediocre team can have some success with a highly-talented performer.<\/p>\n
But combine a great team with a great front man and you can achieve world domination.<\/p>\n
But I know my father was right.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re better off going to law school.\u00c2\u00a0 Or becoming a doctor.\u00c2\u00a0 You want to be a professional, with a leg up.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise, you’re Rich Bozzett, pledging fealty to people who need you today, but discard you like a dishrag tomorrow.<\/p>\n
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