MuchMusic Studios, Toronto, Tuesday, June 24, 1997.

VJ: Welcome Jon Bon Jovi. He has his second solo album, called "Destination Anywhere." It's a big departure for you, like, a lot of new musical terrain that you're covering here, with the samples and loops and production courtesy of Dave Lironi and Dave Stewart. Why did you decide on going toward a new area for yourself?

Jon Bon Jovi: Just the idea of experimenting and being on a journey as a songwriter. I think you try to take yourself into new areas with every record and with this one, I was obviously influenced being in London, and the Britpop scene was really exploding over there, and the idea of the samples and drum loops and things that the band Bon Jovi has never used, because you know it's a very organic band. So the idea of experimenting with it, it was a challenge, it was a thrill. I looked forward to it.

VJ: So being in Britain, that was a big eye-opener for a lot of new music for you?

JB: Yeah, you know it was music that wouldn't have gotten played on New York radio, you know, and American MTV. It was definitely an influence.

VJ: Yeah, a lot of people, too, on the credits, show a lot of people who worked on the album, Kenny Aronoff, Aldo Nova, and also Helena Christensen, supermodel. Is that her first, is that her debut?

JB: Ta-da! Supermodel! I don't know. She's a friend of Dave's -- I wasn't even there. And there's a little thing on this song called "Every Word Was A Piece Of My Heart" that says "hey now," she sang it, we sampled it and threw it on, it was almost a goof.

VJ: Well, I was wondering, cause you know we saw you with Cindy Crawford in the Christmas video, swapping spit, and you, are you a supermodel, are you having...

JB: Swapping spit? Swapping spit . . .

VJ: Being the Versace guy, are you considered a supermodel?

JB: No. A stupid model is more like it.

VJ: The songs are very personal as well. You're singing about love and staying together and running away together and sometimes breaking up. Are these autobiographical?

JB: There's a lot of me in that record. I mean, the lyrics to Midnight in Chelsea, where it says no one's asking me for favors, no one's looking for a savior, they're too busy saving me, is really the tone of the record right there.

VJ: Were you alone for a lot of the, when you were writing it?

JB: Yeah, I wrote a great part of it in a trailer on the set of the film The Leading Man and given the opportunity to be alone like that and to write is great.

VJ: Despite all the supermodels and so forth and your image, you've stayed with your high school sweetheart, Dorothea.

JB: Yeah.

VJ: It's interesting, having so much love on the album, what is the most important love that you value the most?

JB: Oh, I don't know, I'm fortunate enough to have someone that puts up with me, is what it's about. But it's import to have that loyalty, if you have that in a relationship or a band or in friends, I think that's important to have.

VJ: Do you find it grounds you, with all the other craziness that's circulating in your head.

JB: There's a lot of craziness in my life, sure. But I think a lot of what we were founded on, the band was founded on, was that loyalty, that gave us strength.

VJ: And your acting career, you were talking about The Leading Man, you've developed the acting career and we saw you in Moonlight and Valentino. What inspired you to do the acting thing?

JB: Well, initially I wrote music to the film Young Guns and won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award. And I wanted to write other music for movies. Eventually those scripts dried up, but I, by that point, had been bitten by the bug with the idea of hey, why don't I try this? So I took a lot of lessons for a couple of years and eventually got my first film which was here called Moonlight and Valentino and subsequently have done four others since, three that will be out in the next 6 months.

VJ: Wow. So do you find that with the success of say Courtney Love and Will Smith, do you find that musicians are natural actors?

JB: No, not at all. And I think it's a craft like anything else. Just because you're a singer in a rock band doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that you should be able to think you're an actor. It's something you have to learn, but even Robert DeNiro wouldn't go and make a record tomorrow, you know.

VJ: Yeah, but William Shatner did!

JB: Well, yeah, I guess he did, didn't he? So did Leonard Nimoy . . .

VJ: Do you use part of the same brain, the same brain of the musician brain and the actor brain, do they cross over?

JB: Ah, I guess so, it's all part of the arts, you try to express yourself in different ways. for example, the Destination Anywhere film that you guys are going to finally get, was a way of crossing the two, it was a way of taking the music and the lyrics and incorporating them into dialogue and writing a script around them and pushing the medium of video to a new level.

VJ: Cool. And that's a 30-minute video, too.

JB: It's an hour.

VJ: An hour? Wow! And it's staring Demi Moore?

JB: Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Bacon and Annabella Sciorra.

VJ: Cool. A lot of music?

JB: The music from the album acts as a score to the move. But I never sing in it I never play in it, it's all dialogue.

VJ: Did you have any part in the writing of the script?

JB: Not really. I gave them the concept and the lyrics, of course, which were mine from the record, but then we hired real Hollywood scriptwriters to develop a script.

VJ: Do you find that as an actor in Hollywood do they tend to typecast you in any way, do you ever find the rock `n' roll image a disadvantage?

JB: Yeah, it's really cliche in how they thing you want to make a movie because you have nothing better to do or . . . .

VJ: Do they tend to cast you for specific types of roles?

BJ: No, I get plenty of offers for different kinds of roles. I think it's more in the, he's a rock `n' roll star, he's going to be so-and -so when he shows up here. You know, it carries a lot of baggage.

VJ: With The Leading Man, that was a UK production. Did you find that the industry was different in England? You play a villain in that role.

JB: It was an indie movie. It's the indie movie circuit, I think, is somewhat different from the big Hollywood machine. And they're a little less jaded.

VJ: What's your role like in The Leading Man?

JB: I play a man, I play a Hollywood actor who goes to West End London to be in a play. But I don't know, you know if it's ever going to be seen here at this point. It played at the Toronto Film Festival.

VJ: Probably the art house circuit.

JB: Yeah.

VJ: What would be say the ultimate role you think you would like to play?

JB: I don't know I really don't think like that. I think it's more you know you're looking for good stories, dialogue driven parts, good scripts. They don't necessarily have to be hit movies as much as you want them to be hip movies.

VJ: And do you find that you're really going into character study, is it really different from who you are as a person?

JB: Yeah, well obviously you take a piece of yourself into the work, but you have to put on the shirt of the character that you're filling, yeah.

VJ: What are some of the upcoming projects that you're going to be involved with, musical or . . .

JB: Well, musically, the record comes out just this week, it's been out only six days now, but the movie stuff, there's three movies coming, and ensemble piece called Little City that's a Miramax movie that'll be out in September, something called Long Time, Nothing New with Eddie Burns who did She's The One and the Brothers McMullen and a movie called Homegrown with Billy Bob Thornton.

VJ: Is that an indie film?

JB: No, they're all studio pictures. So they'll all be out in the next six months.

VJ:Well, you have in the last 14 years sold over 75 million albums worldwide and you've been able to really withstand the change in musical climates as well as really grow as an artist. What has been the secret for you to keep going that way to be open to ...

JB: Just the idea that we were willing to experiment and be true to ourselves and not try to jump on any fads or fashions and I think that we all got along as friends, the band gets along. So there's that kinship with our audience who felt that we were that garage band that got lucky and made it they feel a part of that. We'll just keep doing what we do.

VJ: And the acting thing is a total challenge.

JB: It is, it is.

VJ: Right on. We'll play your video Midnight in Chelsea from Destination Anywhere, you're going to be playing at the Guvernment in Toronto tonight and I guess we'll be playing your extended full-hour music video soon.

JB: Great.

VJ: Thanks for coming in.

JB: Bye.

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