By ANDREW MATHIESON
IT’S an oft-repeated fable: Jon Bon Jovi handing a demo tape featuring one of more than 400 untried songs to a New Jersey DJ who instantly recognised “Runaway” as a hit.
After persisting with recording from his cousin’s backyard studio between shifts as a janitor, selling women’s shoes and running errands for a studio, it was a breakthrough for an artist who had been stockpiling his demo tapes at night.
But it wasn’t until manager Doc McGhee took charge of the band within two years, after endless record labels dismissed their music, that those steps turned more into larger strides.
The change secured a spot to open for Californian metal outfit Ratt on their prestigious 1984 arena tour, which ensured that Bon Jovi’s popularity could sell out the Chicago Pavilion two back-to-back nights in what was dubbed a transitional year.
“I like to say that I broke people,” McGhee told Talking Metal podcast.
“I think my role is that I empower them and to get them to be better at what they do.
“I put them in situations where they can shine, but they were very talented people all the way around in their own fields before that.”
The next Slippery When Wet album was almost bound to change rock history.
But before the third record, once said to have fused a heavy metal edge with
a radio-friendly formula, sitting at No.1 on the US charts for eight weeks and named the top-selling album of 1987, McGhee felt there was one regret for all involved.
That was 7800° Fahrenheit.
Despite being somewhat of a fan favourite, Bon Jovi has tried to distance the album from its 15 works over 36 years.
They were unsatisfied with its sound considering their direction and, on reflection, disowned the record once the band solidified its status as worldwide superstars.
“I still don’t know what the fuck that (7800° Fahrenheit) was, but, anyway, it was a record that was kind of a rock record but not a rock record,” McGhee says.
“But the reason why Bon Jovi started to evolve (after that record) was because they were starting to play with rock bands – so they were playing with KISS, they were playing with Scorpions, they were playing with Ratt.
“They were playing with different bands that were harder in the sense of a harder
sound than what Jonny was used to.”
Jon Bon Jovi’s influences of Southside Jonny and even Bruce Springsteen or “all that stuff from Jersey Shore” was seen as detrimental to the band’s prospects of making it big.
It certainly did not suit the strengths of the band members of the time, according to McGhee.
“With Tico (Torres), Richie (Sambora), Dave (Sabo) and Al (John Such), that rhythm section was just so good and so tight that it just kind of morphed into this rock band,” he says.
“That is just Richie and Tico because Tico came from Frankie and the Knockouts, and Richie came from Richie Sambora & Friends, and he’s also a really good guitar player and a really good writer, so Jonny and Richie became really great writers together.”
On their ascension to the top of the rock industry, Bon Jovi was standing at the top of the precipice – and could have easily fallen over.
The music – or more specifically, Slippery When Wet – held the lead singer together in what was another rocky road to success.
“Jonny wasn’t coming from a great place during 7800 Degrees,” McGhee says.
“He broke up with his girlfriend; he was having problems with Dorothea (Hurley) and they had been together like for 100 years.
“He was having troubles there, and he wasn’t being accepted as much in the music scene that maybe he would have liked to, or any of us would have liked to, during 1983 through to 1986 period of time.
“But when we got off the KISS tour and came back, Jonny and Richie started to work with Desmond (Child), and they wanted to make a fun rock record.”
McGhee talks of the album like it was a turning point in his seven years of association with Jon that ended in 1991.
And it completely moved generations of diehard fans.
That says a lot for a managerial career that has included a start with Motley Crue, an eternity with Skid Row, and an endless stint towards perfecting the longevity of KISS.
“(We did it) no expectations that this was going to be monstrous hit or any of that shit, just a great rock record, which we did all inside six weeks in a cloud of dust in Vancouver with Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock,” McGhee says.
“We walked right in, we knew all the songs, we knew all the arrangements, we knew everything that we were going to do and that was when Slippery When Wet was born.
“That changed his world; that changed everybody’s world.”
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