Interview with Bon Jovi’s Ex-Tour Manager - Rich Bozzett - August 16th, 2010
By: Laurie Lonsdale“Since its very beginning, there has been an impenetrable “Circle” of secrecy surrounding Bon Jovi. But now there’s an inside story – from their very first gig as an unknown opening act, through to their ascent to unimaginable superstardom, as told by the only person who was inside the circle with them – Bon Jovi tour manager Richard Bozzett.”
I had the opportunity to speak with Bozzett about the book, his experiences with the band, and his dealings with manager Doc McGhee. Because of the connection we made, much was discussed that I promised would remain off the record, and true to my word, it will. However, even without disclosing some of the more controversial subjects we hit upon, the interview, much like the book, was very interesting. Here’s some of what Rich and I spoke about during our extended conversation.
Laurie: Hi Rich, nice to speak with you.
Rich: You too.
Laurie: Let me start by saying I enjoyed the book. I polished it off in less than 4 hours, and given my background in concert promo and having met the band on more than one occasion, it helped to shed some light on a few things that I had always questioned. There is much to discuss here, so let’s start with the simple questions and focus first on the fun side of your experience with the band. What do you feel was the most satisfying thing to come out of your relationship with Bon Jovi in general?
Rich: It’s a good question. I guess my feeling would be, just to see something go from nothing to a huge success and being a part of that. I made that distinction in the book. Hopefully after reading the book, they (the readers) get the feeling that they know there was a guy who cared about the band, the only one in the beginning, and really believed in the dream that it can happen. Seeing them grow from nothing to superstardom and knowing that I really had a lot to do with that, stays with me to this day.
Laurie: So you have a sense of self-satisfaction as a result?
Rich: Yes. I believed when nobody else would. You know what’s so funny, Laurie? Some people around the organization didn’t believe because we also had Motley Crue on board (Motley Crue and Bon Jovi were both under Doc McGhee’s management) and they (Motley Crue) were making tons of money, selling millions of records, you know? Then all of a sudden when Bon Jovi hit, everybody was like, “Oh, we love Jon!” and it’s like, “That interesting guy that you all thought sucked?”
Laurie: Yeah, but you have to expect that people tend to jump on bandwagons. Besides, Bon Jovi appealed to a bit of a different crowd than the Crue – with Bon Jovi we’re talkin’ LOTS of little girls and tween fans, so the tendency for kids to jump on the bandwagon is even greater.
Rich: True, but it happened even within our own organization. Doc spent much of his time with Motley because he had to. As I said in the book, you don’t manage Motley Crue, you just mop up after them.
Laurie: (laughing) Sounds about right.
(At this point, Rich and I segued into a separate discussion about Motley Crue, their habits, Doc McGhee, drug money and smuggling – some of which is in the book, some of which is not)
Laurie: So what was the craziest or the stupidest thing you saw a fan do to get backstage, or get a band member’s attention?
Rich: That’s a good question too, Laurie.
Laurie: Well, I just wondered how your experiences compare, cuz I’ve been backstage myself many times and I’ve seen some pretty stupid shit.
Rich: (laughing) Yeah, I have too! So, let’s see if I can get something other than the normal sexual offer - I don’t want to sound like too much of a pervert. I mean, men love women, nobody can deny that. Men are attracted to women; they’ve got to have them – that was true of this band, and myself included. I didn’t dabble too much because I was busy running the show, but now and again, even I had opportunity.
Laurie: Yep, no doubt the sexual offers happen. Most people know that though – it’s a given, and it was pretty prevalent back in Bon Jovi’s heyday, so you wouldn’t sound like a pervert for mentioning it.
Rich: I guess, but really, stuff like that didn’t come until later for Bon Jovi. Don’t forget, I was on the first four original tours and no one was so much interested in getting backstage at that time. But the Slippery tour (for 1986 album “Slippery When Wet” which has gone twelve times platinum since its release) things got crazy and people wanted to get backstage. But I don’t remember seeing anything too ridiculous, Laurie.
Laurie: Okay then, what’s the craziest story from the road? For example, I read the part in the book where you guys left Alec (former bassist Alec John Such who left the band in 1994) behind, and he just lay down on his suitcase waiting for someone to notice. That’s funny.
Rich: At the truck stop! That’s a great one.
Laurie: It strikes me that there would be no sense of panic on his face - just sort of calm and flippant about it, lying around, waiting for somebody to realize he was missing.
Rich: You’re absolutely right! It’s interesting that you would know how he would react. But how it happened was, you know lanyards and how you put them around your neck? Well, the bus driver usually had everyone hang them on the mirror when they left the bus and they’d put them on again when they returned. So, if there was none around the mirror it meant that everybody was on the bus and he’s not waiting for a head call. If you’re big enough to be on the road you’ve got to be big enough to take care of yourself. But Alec forgot to leave his on the mirror and left the bus. That’s how he got left behind. That was a great story from the early days on the road. I do have another one for you. Alec actually missed a show over in Germany.
Laurie: Oh, did he? How did that happen?
Rich: Yeah. We called him “Alec the Cat”, because he liked to stay up and wander around at night. I don’t want to say anything bad about him, but he was into stuff the other guys weren’t, and he’d be up for two or three days before he crashed. He’d just go and wander about cities and stuff. The next day was the show and sure enough he was nowhere to be found. We didn’t know where to find him, we looked high and low, we had people out looking for him, everything. Come six o’clock we opened up for KISS and no Alec. We got a guy on the road with us named Dana to fill in for him.
Laurie: Really?
Rich: Really. As tour manager I never missed a show. The original members and I never missed a show and as tour manager my job is to make sure that band is on stage on time. Unless someone breaks their arm or Jon’s throat is in a critical situation, where he can’t sing and the fans won’t enjoy it; we put that show on. But to have a band member disappear, it was a little scary that day.
Laurie: I can imagine. You’re not just looking at the show that he’s currently missing; you’re wondering where he got to and if he’s alright? What happens now and how do you get him back?
Rich: Right, and what happens if he’s not even able to come back? Let’s face it, things happen in life and we were in a strange country. Being the opening act it was just a twenty minute, twenty-five minute set for KISS, so it was only a few songs. Thank God Dana played…..usually roadies are very well trained musicians, usually they want to be rock stars, and usually they can play and sing.
Laurie: Makes sense.
Rich: I had that happen to me with Pat Travers with the drummer, he broke his collar bone in Colorado and for the rest of the tour Dave Levine (roadie) sat in. They sent the drummer home and Dave filled in admirably. We didn’t miss a show. I was like, “Dave you want to get in there?”
Laurie: I hope his pay was stepped up proportionally.
Rich: Yeah. That was a Doc McGhee act, also. I worked for Doc McGhee with Pat Travers, Bon Jovi and Motley Crue. I think I mentioned that in the book that I started off with Doc earlier. I didn’t get too into detail with Pat Travers stuff but I was with Motley originally and then I got this call when I was in Florida that they were going to sign this kid Bon Jovi. I got into New York to meet the guys there at his (Doc McGhee’s) office and it took off from there and it was a long road. Around 1987 we all knew the band’s original image wasn’t going to work so we decided to bring in a real songwriter, Desmond Child (a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who wrote hits for KISS, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi and Katy Perry), who wrote hits for bands like Aerosmith previously, and it worked. (Child co-wrote the bands first number one hits “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer”)
Laurie: Yes, it did. Desmond Child sure has turned out an awful lot of singles for an awful lot of bands.
Rich: Yeah, he’s a brilliant songwriter. I wish his personal band had done better. I haven’t spoken to Desmond in a long time; I don’t even know how he’s doing. But yeah, he’s made so many, just so many famous songs.
Laurie: He’s a hit maker. He seems to know exactly what radio is looking for.
Rich: Exactly. That was a much better idea than the ill conceived promotional idea we almost went with (referring to a series of staged pictures of the band taken on a bed with several naked models – the idea being to make the band more controversial).
Laurie: (laughing) That’s for sure.
Rich: As a matter of fact, I threw a couple of those pictures in there just to get people’s attention for the book, to get people to focus on it. But it seemed everyone was focusing on just that bunch of pictures, you know?
Laurie: Not so strange… sex sells and when you’re looking at a band like Bon Jovi that’s got a squeaky clean image in comparison to Motley Crue and other bands of that time period, then it makes sense that stuff like that is going to be an attention grabber.
Rich: I know, but once I had their attention I was hoping people would be able to see past that.
Laurie: You wanted people to know the band, right? Well, that kind of brings me to my next question…… doing concert PR in the late eighties, I’ve actually been backstage with Bon Jovi twice – once on the “Slippery When Wet” tour and then again during the “New Jersey” tour.
Rich: Surely Laurie, if you were on the “Slippery” tour, you met me.
Laurie: I must have, I recall someone that looked a lot like you sitting on the couch, backstage in the hospitality room, just kind of watching over everything and everyone.
Rich: Yeah, that was probably me.
Laurie: We shook hands, but I didn’t stay long - on the Slippery tour I spent most of my backstage time with the opening band, Cinderella. However, on the “New Jersey” tour I was with Bon Jovi for an extended period of time; drinking a few beers with David Bryan and Richie Sambora and shooting the shit for something like two hours while the others came and went and dropped in on bits and pieces of conversation. Being as it was my second time with the band, I was with them long enough to form opinions, and I want you to tell me more or less if I’ve got them figured out. I saw Alec as being the class clown – anything for a laugh. Tico (Torres, drummer) was a bit reserved. David (Bryan, keyboardist) just seemed to be out for a good time. Richie (Sambora, lead guitarist) was down to earth, sincere, and genuinely nice. And Jon…… well…… was full of himself. Does that seem about accurate?
Rich: Damn right! You hit the nail on the head on that one. Yes, Alec was the clown and Richie was the sincere one, the peacemaker, always the one to smooth things over. He was the one that gave me the nickname “The Admiral”. And with Jon, that’s it, that’s how to say it – he’s full of himself. Wow, you really nailed it!
Laurie: It was hard not to think that way about him……. I was sitting at the table drinking with Richie and I had this big poster they were all signing as they came in. Jon bounced in, literally bounced in, and continued to spring up and down on the balls of his feet as he stood there. And I thought, “What the hell is he on?” because he was just so very hyper. He wheeled around and he looked at me and said, “What do you do?” There was no introduction or nice lead-in, just: “What do you do?” I said, “I do concert PR”. He said, “Oh”, grabbed the black Sharpie pen on the table and scrawled across the poster ‘Thanks for your cash’. I still have the poster to this day.
Rich: Wow! Jon’s weird…… he’s weird, like you said, full of himself. But I tried to write the book in a good manner.
Laurie: I know, I sensed that, so despite how it all went down at the end, it sounds like you really loved what you did.
Rich: Yes, I did. I did the job and I did it honestly. I’d tell them (the band) if it was sunny out or if it was raining. I’m not like other guys who will tell the band it’s sunny even if it’s fuckin’ raining, just because its what they want to hear - I’m not that type of guy. That’s what he (Jon) surrounds himself with today.
Laurie: ‘Yes’ people? Hmmm…. Well, you mentioned that Jon’s ego made him act as though his band members weren’t members at all, but rather musicians for hire, and certainly he made it clear with the percentage earnings of record sales that were assigned to each member (David Bryan and Alec Van Such = .5%, Tico Torres = 1%, Richie Sambora = 1%, Doc McGhee = 20%, accountants = 10%, and the rest went to Jon). That particular part of the book stuck out for me and was a real eye opener. Do you think it’s probably much the same way today? Would it be safe to say that maturity and having a family haven’t really humbled Jon?
Rich: Yeah, I would. He had that kind of ‘Superman’ mentality goin’ on. So, after the “New Jersey” tour he got new management and it was bullshit because they said, “He’s got to run the whole show” and they just ‘yes’ him. Did you notice that, Laurie?
Laurie: Yes, as a matter of fact I did, because even on the Toronto stopover for the New Jersey tour, he was the one checking on last minute details and seemingly controlling things before they went on stage.
Rich: I’m glad you noticed that, it makes me feel better to know that I’m not the only one that felt like that. He (Jon Bon Jovi) surrounded himself with yes men and I’m not a yes man. We just went head to head at one point and everything just blew up. So then Doc offered me five percent of Skid Row and I said, “Doc, you owe me five percent for Bon Jovi. I helped build this thing”, and he said “Your best move is Skid Row”. I said, “I don’t mind going to Skid Row but I want my piece of Bon Jovi” and he said, “Well I got a lot of problems, the DEA arrested me for drug smuggling and it costs a lot of money to defend yourself” and his famous line was, “When you spend a million a year, you’ve got to make a million a year” and since Jon said I didn’t have that yes man attitude, I was out. After the “New Jersey” tour I had to go down to New Jersey to visit him everyday and I think he wanted people that were going to yes him to death. I’d just spent six or seven years building this band working twenty-four seven, eight hours, then eight hours, then eight hours and again, it’s like working three days in one day. It felt like I worked twenty years in theory and I missed all my family’s funerals, all these weddings of my loved ones, I lost my fiancé. I never got to go college, I jumped on this music bandwagon and you’re in it to make a piece of the pie. But when it came time to pay me, Doc had his legal problems and he said, “We can put you over to Skid Row” but I stayed with Bon Jovi to wait it out, I didn’t make the move, I probably should have. You can’t go backwards and change things. I got sold out basically by Doc, he played Jonny (Jon Bon Jovi) and me against each other.
Laurie: Yeah, I suppose so. I can understand why you were hesitant of going to Skid Row, being under the same management.
Rich : He (Doc) thought he had given me enough of Bon Jovi through gifts and had given me half salary when I worked this thing.
Laurie: But this was a plentiful time in the 80’s, Rich, when record deals were cut like crazy and bands were coming out of the woodwork. Every week there was a brand new band releasing a new record. I can understand that you might not have wanted to jump onto another band within the same management group, but did you ever consider hopping on board with another band under different management?
Rich: Maybe I was just naïve. But here I was, with Jon twenty four hours a day, I did everything he asked me to do and I stayed with them when nobody believed in them. I built them, I promoted them, and I pushed the buttons at record companies to get their act together. I basically did Doc’s half while he tended to Motley Crue to get his money made. I never thought I was not going to get it. I said, “I want my five percent or give me something” and when it occurred to me that Jon wasn’t going to be on my side, I wasn’t going to be on the “New Jersey” tour after I set it all up just before the European run. Mostly it’s just greed and stupidity, greed on Doc’s part and stupidity on my part to believe he was going to give me my money.”
Laurie: So, do you feel as though this book helped you to exercise your feelings? I mean, you say it was simply time that your story was told, and yet to a certain degree, I’m sure readers will feel it’s a bit of an “in-your-face” to Doc and Jon. I know you're not going to admit to spite or vengefulness, but in a way do you feel as though you’ve been vindicated now that readers and fans will know the underhanded side of things?
Rich: I don’t know that I feel vindicated, but I’m glad that fans will know there’s another side to Bon Jovi besides what they see and read from him.
Laurie: Nevertheless, for a tell-all book, you seem to go pretty easy on him. As a published author myself, I know what its like to be writing something and get close to the edge and then for some reason, perhaps a fear of what people will think, you pull back and continue to dance on the edge of what you truly want to say. Well, to an extent, I felt that you were pulling back with this book, not with respect to Doc McGhee so much, but definitely with respect to the band. You’d no sooner let a little nugget of controversy slip and then you would somehow justify it or rectify it by saying how good or clean that person was, particularly when it came to Jon. Why is that?
Rich: You noticed that? Wow, you read the book pretty closely. You’re pretty smart. Yes, you’re right, I did pull back. I was being told to go harder, but I didn’t want to. I wasn’t trying to stir up anything: I just wanted the story told.
Laurie: Have you received band reaction to the book yet, and what’s that like? Has Jon come forth with an opinion?
Rich: Yeah, I hear that Jon’s pissed about it, mainly because of the pictures with the naked girls.
Laurie: But those were only a small part of the story. There’s dozens upon dozens of other photos in there. Besides, you made a point of saying more than once in the book that those particular pictures were staged in an effort to change the band’s reputation and harden them up a little (pardon the pun) so they could compete with heavier bands like Motley Crue, etc. If you were deliberately trying to make him or the band look bad, you didn’t need to say the photos were staged.
Rich: I know. I told the truth and said they were staged, but he’s pissed about it anyway.
Laurie: I’m sorry to hear that Rich, but you had to expect that he wouldn’t be thrilled.
Rich: He doesn’t want his kids to see them.
Laurie: Maybe he’s upset about his kids, or maybe it’s because the book divulges that the photographer of those pictures ended up dead on his honeymoon.
(At this point, Rich and I segued into off-the-record talk of these staged photos that have caused so much upset and controversy over the years, as well as talk of the photographer that took them and his demise)
Laurie: Nevertheless, the book is out there now and I understand that it’s doing well, so I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to me about it. I’ve enjoyed our conversation.
Rich: Me too. You’re cool, Laurie. And given your background, I think we have a lot more we could talk about. We should stay in touch.
Laurie: I’d like that. I’ll send you my contact info. Thanks so much.
Rich: Thank you too Laurie. Talk soon.
Laurie: You bet’cha.
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