Jon Bon Jovi - Midday with Kerri-Anne (Australia) - August 5th 1997

Starts with showing a clip of Midnight In Chelsea. Jon is wearing a black shirt and a black leather jacket. He looks very relaxed, happy and seems willing to talk.

KAK:Well folks, from New York Jon Bon Jovi.. Welcome Jon.

Jon: Thank you.

KAK: Good to have you with us here on Midday... Now we just saw the single there, Midnight In Chelsea, where did the inspiration for that come from?

Jon: I was in London doing a film called The Leading Man, in January of ‘96 and I moved there for 3 months, knowing I was embarking on both a solo album and a staring role in a picture, it was obviously going to be a new chapter in my life. Umm there was a great anticipation and great excitement but I did feel like a foreign man in a foreign land so I wrote a narration of Chelsea London and the things I saw around me and admitted in the song, ‘no one’s looking for a saviour, they’re too busy saving me’. And it was this whole facade of being a rock and roll star was put away for a while and it was a real exciting time for me.

KAK: Now putting the whole album together, where did you do that? How did it come together?

Jon: I wrote it in various locations around the world.. A lot of it was written on the set of the film The Leading Man in a trailer, because as you probably know there is a lot of ‘down’ time in movie making. But various songs were written in various places from Vienna to Amsterdam to Philadelphia Pennsylvania to New Jersey. And I wrote on the record where it is I wrote each and every one of the songs just to give the listener a little more of an insight to how I go about doing it, and then it was recorded in LA and New Jersey for the most part.

KAK: And I also read, and I hope its not a urben myth, that when you were putting all these songs together and the inspiration behind some of them that the Duchess Of York, Fergie as we call her, also got very inspirational on ‘the spoons’. Is that true?

Jon: Yeah well she was present on the day that Midnight In Chelsea was born. Dave Stewart and I had met socially one afternoon in London at a house that Bruce Willis was renting while he was doing the film The Fifth Element. And I was doing The Leading Man so he invited my family and I to come over and said he was inviting some people who just happened to be Prince Andrew and Sarah, Dave Stewart and his wife and kids, and everyone got together and started strumming these guitars and Bruce is playing his harmonica. Fergie didn’t pick up any spoons but everyone was sitting around sort of banging on thighs, or books, or you know just generally having a good time as the minstrels played.

KAK: Well, what did Prince Andrew do?

Jon: (thinking for a second).. Ummm, kept a hell of a back beat, just did like everyone else, he was just sitting around enjoying the evening.

KAK: So he didn’t play drums for you... You wouldn’t invite him into a session?

Jon: Oh I most certainly would.. Imagine the attraction of having your own prince playing drums.

KAK: Gee, getting a look into British Royalty from an American point of view must be interesting.. What did you think?

Jon: Well you know, you have to respect the position but umm, but I truly was an outsider, I didn’t look at it like it was bigger than life because as an American, you know, we don’t have Royalty here, we just see it in the tabloids, so to me it was just a nice guy named Andrew and a lot of bodyguards.

KAK: So you weren’t warned about how to address Royalty and His Royal Highness or Her, or whatever?

Jon: They were just another mum and dad, you know, with all our kids playing in the pool like I said, you know, and we were strumming away and they were singing and clapping hands and having a bit of a picnic, you know, it was just a nice easy night.

KAK: I guess you must really relate more than anyone, as being one of the biggest rock stars in the world, the difficulty with being a celebrity, being famous, the pressure on you as to the sort of celebrity pressure on a Royal family as well?

Jon: I imagine its 10 fold or 100 fold what they go through, compared to what we go through, I think a lot of what our appeal has been though the years, is that we were always the garage band next door (clip of Bad Name shown, talking continues over it), and we’ve just always felt that it was big garages we were playing and it ended up that a lot of people liked it, umm but we don’t pay that must attention to celebrities, to tell you the honest to God truth. It’s a pretty low key organisation.

KAK:So you weren’t tempted to ask Prince Andrew for a quick Royal tour of Buckingham Palace or anything? (Back to Jon).

Jon: I was tempted, I didn’t have my camera, believe me I would have liked to have had my picture taken, like anyone else, but I blew it and I didn’t bring a camera. (snaps his fingers as if to say ‘damn, I missed out’).

KAK: Okay I love the CD, congratulations on that, but what I’m really fascinated with is the new ground breaking concept of the short film with your music threaded through, where did this idea come from? It’s quite new.

Jon: Well I think it is, it’s rather innovative if nothing else, umm, I think 15 years ago when video began and we could see music for the first time, it was very exciting and perhaps the medium has grown tired and for someone like me who has done maybe 30 or more of them, I didn’t really look forward to it, because you’re not really singing, you’re not really playing your sort of mugging for a camera and often times just giving into a directors story line and his impression of your songs. So I came up with an idea that perhaps I could cross my acting ability with my record and developed an hour drama based around one of the songs, umm August 7th which deals with the loss of a child and how two parents have had to deal with this. (To a clip from Destination Anywhere, talking continues over it) We took key lines of lyrics and turned them into dialogue, wrote a script around it then shot a 45minute movie to work around it.

KAK: The powerful cast that you managed to assemble, was it daunting? Who was on the set and was it daunting as a young actor?

Jon: Well no, because at the end of the day you know have to deliver, you’re there to do a job and more so than in any of the films that I have done I had more of a creative control because it was a piece that I was doing for me umm, and because Demi had introduced me to Dave Stewart she felt a kinship to the record and we had become friends, she’s come to see me over the years so you know she was a little more than an acquaintance (To another clip from Destination Anywhere, talking continues over it) Whoopi you know had of course done Moonlight And Valentino with me, or I should say I did with her. Kevin Bacon is making a record, and umm our paths crossed as he’s getting into music and I’m getting into movies, so he was willing to help me out. Annabella Scorria plays my wife in a fourth coming movie called Little City, and I’d written the song Always about a character in a film that she did... Romeo’s Bleeding, so she then had a relationship with me. (Back to Jon). And fortunately for me they were all available.

KAK: So in essence because it was your music and your project, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg and Kevin Bacon were working for Jon Bon Jovi?

Jon: (smiling)... Not a bad gig huh?

KAK: Were they obedient?

Jon: (laughing) ... You know what was really great, they all did it out of friendship, they all did it for free and they wanted to be there as much as I wanted to be there cause we all felt we were creating something new. And I owe them all forever for doing it.

KAK: Is it tough being natural, being an actor? You’ve just gotta be yourself and take a role, but is that the hardest thing... Being natural in front of the camera to act?

Jon:You know I’ve been in front of cameras now for the last 14 years making records so it wasn’t very daunting, and I’m not afraid of proforming in front of people so the crew weren’t intimidating. I think as long as you grasp who the character is it’s pretty easy to be natural.

KAK: Will we see Jon, the day that you pick up a Grammy for an album and also an Academy Award for an acting roll all together in the same year?

Jon: (looking shocked at the thought) Well... Who can predict the future, you know, it’s nothing that I’m gonna count on that’s for sure, but umm, you just hope to be creative and productive and if you can be those two things I think that’s as much as winning any trophy.

KAK: Jon Bon Jovi thank you very much for all your time. All the best with the solo CD Destination Anywhere... Ladies and gentleman Jon Bon Jovi.