‘That’s gotta be changed before you sign the deal,’ I said. Doc and John’s lawyer agreed. John was relieved. ‘Let me talk to the business affairs office at PolyGram to negotiate a more equitable deal.’ Anything was more equitable than giving up a percentage of your wages for life.
Tony played hardball. He insisted he had legal rights to John’s future earnings. I wasn’t about to let that fly. Ted Green and the lawyers at PolyGram found some holes in the contract and pointed them out to Tony.
‘Here’s the deal,’ he said. ‘You can get an expensive lawyer and try to make your unfair contract stick. If you do that, we will get a bunch of more expensive lawyers, and if you file a lawsuit, it will drag out and you will end up paying your lawyer a ton of money. If we go to court and you lose, you’ll have to pay your legal fees and our legal fees, and you’ll be in debt for life. You won’t get to produce the album, and your name will be shit in this industry. Or you can compromise, produce John’s album, and move on with your career.’
Tony caved. In the end, he and John signed a contract that entitled Tony to two percent of the earnings from the first album, which he would produce, and one percent from the second. That was more than fair. Some people felt John shouldn’t have had to pay Tony anything, but to play the devil’s advocate, John’s original deal was with Tony, and Tony was the one who gave John his first shot. Tony hired the session musicians, put in time in the studio with John, and helped groom him for the big time. So, Tony certainly deserved something for his efforts, and he got it—even though it wasn’t what he had bargained for before anyone knew who John was.
After the settlement, the relationship between John and Tony got ugly. Tony was still bitter about the deal and continued to hold a grudge. Luckily for John, when Bon Jovi achieved major success, it was with their third album, 1986’s Slippery When Wet, after his financial obligation to Tony had expired. That album would sell twelve million copies and springboard his and the band’s careers. No one could have predicted that when Bon Jovi’s first album came out, but since there was so much to focus on now, the crappy contract he made with his second cousin was soon forgotten. It was time for him to put all his energy into working with the band, recording hit records, touring, and becoming a huge rock star.
Jon Bon Jovi was a rock star long before he stopped using the first name John. He oozed charisma and knew when to smile, who to flatter, and exactly what to say to everyone, including record label folks, radio station personnel, journalists, and fans. The girls loved him, and he loved the girls. He had all the right ingredients to cook with, and he could turn up the heat with a tussle of his hair.
Jon was pleased that ‘Runaway’ was doing well, but he made it clear to me from the start that he wanted a gigantic hit. I assured him that everyone at the label had high hopes for him and would throw their support behind him and his band. But an album recorded at the Power Station with one standout song wasn’t going to make him a superstar. He had forward momentum, which was great, but now he needed to build his following by exposing himself to the masses.
Doc and I put our weight behind the band. Instead of booking them with poppy hard rock bands, we put Bon Jovi on tour with Scorpions and KISS. It might seem like a mismatch (like Gentle Giant touring with Black Sabbath), but there was a method to our insanity. We wanted Bon Jovi to earn a following without simply going through the motions.
‘What the fuck?’ Jon said at one point. ‘These aren’t our biggest fans, the ones calling radio stations and requesting our songs. We’re lucky if they know “Runaway.” What the hell were you guys thinking?’
‘Jon, when the guys in these other bands are onstage, I want you to watch them,’ I told him. ‘They’re not shaking their asses. They’re not playing to the girls, ’cause the crowd is mostly guys who want to see musicians that rock and shake their guitars. They’re not even thinking about your ass.’
Jon soaked up the advice, and soon he’d stopped shaking his ass in favor of more masculine rock poses, which went over well. His backing band followed suit and started dressing more like bad boys and less like pretty girls. That toughness infiltrated the sound of the music, and Jon had the band to pull it off. When he got a little gritty, Richie, Alec, Tico, and keyboardist David Rashbaum took a cue from his newfound pretty-boy toughness.
Without much else to work with on the first album, in May 1984 PolyGram released the single ‘She Don’t Know Me,’ the only song written by an outside songwriter, Mark Avsec of Wild Chery (‘Play That Funky Music’). The success of ‘Runaway’ incentivized radio stations to give it a chance, but it didn’t move listeners. In October, we put out the last single from the album, ‘Burning For Love,’ which was primarily written by Sambora. That did slightly better, but not by much.
Before we ended Bon Jovi’s first album cycle, we wanted to get the band over to Europe and see how they would fare with crowds that didn’t know them. PolyGram was a mutt-like hybrid of two European companies, so it wasn’t hard to convince them that the band could win over European fans who liked Def Leppard, Scorpions, and Billy Idol. Touring in the States had turned Bon Jovi into a solid, spotlight-seducing rock band. They worked their asses off and gave the audience their all, even on the rare occasions when crowds stood cross-armed shooting daggers from angry eyes.
Bon Jovi didn’t blow up in Europe, but they didn’t bomb either, and by the time they headed back to the States, plenty of the continent’s hard-rock media and fans, impressed by the band’s chemistry and theatrics, would be keeping an eye on them to see what they did next. Despite Jon’s unusual financial arrangement with his bandmates, Bon Jovi was a tight, unified force, and the outstanding relationship between Jon and Richie created an onstage focus for the band for many years. Over the decades, layers of tension would develop between the two until their marriage was no longer sustainable, but while they had the same shared drive, goals, and love for music, their performances eclipsed their problems. And, as with many other great vocalist/guitarist teams—Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Plant/Page, and so on—the friction fueled their creativity.
I worked closely with Doc to maximize every opportunity to push Bon Jovi further up the rock’n’roll hierarchy. We were able to rally every department at PolyGram. At staff meetings, we emphasized how the timing was right for the band to break through, and that Bon Jovi needed to be the label’s number one priority. We followed the axioms of Machiavelli, discouraging certain staffers from downplaying the album and vocally supporting those who showed a serious interest or were willing to play ball to benefit their future at the label. We threatened no one, but we certainly provided vocal incentives. In the end, we had more than one hundred national and international offices around the company intently focused on Bon Jovi’s success. The company pumped much of its promotional budget into the album and provided the band with healthy tour support. We were putting our bets on a winning horse that just needed a little nurturing before the triple crown.
The tours went well, and radio stations continued to play their music—mostly ‘Runaway.’ That was fine, but not quite enough. Bon Jovi went gold (and eventually platinum), which most bands would be ecstatic about. None of the bands Bon Jovi toured with had gone gold on their first album. Yet, considering how hard PolyGram worked to break the band, we expected more, and we needed Bon Jovi to rise to platinum-plus status in order to justify our expenses. We knew we had to get a second album out right away to keep the wave of support growing and that meant putting together new songs and getting into the studio.