Tris McCall/The Star-Ledger Tris McCall/The Star-Ledger
Jersey native David Bryan, best known as Bon Jovi's pianist, has found a second career on Broadway.
David Bryan is missing his first Bon Jovi concert in 23 years.
He’s got a good excuse: The rocker has important business to attend to at Radio City Music Hall tonight.
This founding member of one of the biggest rock bands on the planet is on the verge of also taking home Broadway’s highest honor.
“Memphis,” the show he wrote with stage veteran Joe DiPietro, has been nominated for eight Tony Awards, including best musical, best original score and best orchestration.
Bryan, whose dramatic piano, organ and synthesizer arrangements have always set Bon Jovi apart from its hard-rocking peers, is delighted by the unexpected success of his second career
“I’m not a guy who grew up in theater,” says Bryan, 48, who was raised in Edison and attended J.P. Stevens High School. “I’ve always played in rock bands. After my bar mitzvah in 1975, I went to see ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ and for years, that was it. Musicals weren’t on my radar.”
They certainly are now. “Memphis,” which tells the story of a white radio disc jockey audacious enough to air black music in the early ’50s, has connected with the Broadway audience.
“We’re more than chugging along,” says Bryan, “making money every week.”
“Toxic Avenger,” a second collaboration with DiPietro based on the cult Troma film about a radioactive Jersey superhero, won the 2009 Outer Critics Circle Award for best off-Broadway musical. And the pair are hard at work on yet another production: “Chasing the Song,” which seeks to do for early-’60s Brill Building pop what “Memphis” did for the dawn of rock ’n’ roll.
As purposeful as it all seems now, Bryan admits that his introduction to Broadway songwriting was anything but. Frustrated by his inability to sell his original solo compositions to cover artists, Bryan told his publisher he wouldn’t write another until he’d had a song placed with a performer.
“My publisher asked, ‘How about musicals?’ ” Bryan recalls, “and I answered ‘What are they?’ He said, ‘What if I told you I could get 20 of your songs covered eight times a week?’ ”
“I said, ‘Sold.’ ”
While the rock ’n’ roll subject matter of “Memphis” appealed to the Bon Jovi pianist — as did the chance to tell the story of a forbidden interracial romance — it was DiPietro’s script that really caught Bryan’s attention.
“I read it through,” says Bryan, “and I immediately imagined what you see and hear onstage right now. The words were all in the right patterns for songwriting. I heard every one of the songs in my head.”
Excited, Bryan contacted DiPietro. The Oradell native, who’d written the lyrics to the long-running hit “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” asked the rocker to send him a demo version of one of the “Memphis” songs. Bryan chose “Music of My Soul” (“the heart of the story,” he says, “and the heart of the main character”), and got to work.
“I went right down to the studio,” says Bryan, who, despite his long résumé, had no reservations about auditioning for his new role. “I played piano, organ and bass, mixed it all together and FedExed it to him. I talked to him at noon, I put it all together, and got it to Joe by 5:30.”
“He said, ‘If you’re not crazy, you’ve got the gig.’ ”
While nothing in “Memphis” sounds like Bon Jovi, Bryan’s long experience in rock bands helped him conceptualize the rest of the score.
“I thought of the show as a set-list,” says Bryan. “I knew we needed hit choruses. I knew where I wanted to put the emotional rides, and I knew the value of a big singalong anthem. Before I was in Bon Jovi, I played in a horn band with Jon, so when it came time to orchestrate ‘Memphis’, I definitely knew what I wanted to hear.”
At first, the immediacy of Bryan’s writing bewildered some of his collaborators. Broadway musicals are notoriously talky, and not everybody who worked on “Memphis” shared the pianist’s insistence that each song have a memorable hook.
“I’d be asked, ‘Why do you keep repeating that one part?’” says Bryan. “I’d remind them that some of the great Broadway songs have refrains, and if people are singing the chorus on the way out of the show, you know you’ve got a hit.”
The cast and crew of “Memphis” quickly came to respect Bryan’s dedication. And Bryan, who has toured stadiums all over the world with Bon Jovi — no minor undertaking — was astonished by the intricacy and scale of the Broadway enterprise.
“It’s the most complicated beast I’ve ever seen,” says the pianist. “It’s hard enough to write the music and the lyrics. Then you’ve got to orchestrate, you’ve got to do the sets, the choreography. We’re talking about 15-hour days, and then at night, you take notes and rewrite. The emotions are boiling.”
Once unaware of Broadway, Bryan is now hooked on the intensity of the stage. In between Bon Jovi tours, while his bandmates are resting, he’ll get to work on another play — and he doesn’t plan to slow down any time soon.
“I’m a lucky guy. I’m in an amazing band, and I found this new door, and opened it up.”
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