With Bon Jovi set to release its latest studio album, Forever, this Friday, June 7, frontman Jon Bon Jovi visited CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday to promote the record. During the interview, the singer also shared some cool recollections of his pre-fame gig. Bon Jovi worked at the famed New York City recording studio the Power Station, which was owned by his cousin Tony Bongiovi.
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“[I was] 18, 19, 20 [years old],” Bon Jovi recalled. “It was the biggest recording studio in the world at the time. I was the gofer. I was the guy would run out and get burgers and the beer. Whatever you needed.”
During their chat, host Stephen Colbert asked Bon Jovi if he crossed paths with any big stars during his studio tenure. Jon shared that he was on hand for the making of one of the most famous duets in rock history.
“One day, I looked through the control room door and I watched David Bowie and [Queen’s] Freddie Mercury sing ‘Under Pressure,’” he remembered. “I was there. I saw them sing that vocal.”
About His Brush with The Rolling Stones
Bon Jovi recalled another brush with greatness that took place in 1981 outside the Power Studio when he went to rehearse there with his band at the time.
“I was getting out of a taxicab [with my band,] and paying with change … and, literally, The Rolling Stones were getting out of a limousine behind us,” the 62-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer remembered. “And a paparazzi jumped out of a garbage can, a big flip-over garbage can, [and] started taking pictures of The Stones.”
Bon Jovi said that the band chuckled and started heading into the studio. Then, the photographer called out to Mick Jagger.
“[T]he guy yelled, ‘Mick, Mick, give us a picture with The Stones,’” Jon shared. “And [Mick] grabbed me and my little band, and he said, ‘This is my band, The Frogs.’ I would pay anything to have that photograph 45 years later.”
On the New Hulu Documentary, Thank You, Goodnight
Bon Jovi also chatted a bit about the new four-part Hulu documentary Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story.
“It’s a career retrospect,” noted, adding that “there was this parallel story line, because I’d been through this horrific vocal surgery in the last couple of years, which is unfortunate.”
Bon Jovi pointed out, happily, that “what you see in the film was shot one and two years ago, so I’m well on that road to recovery now, thank God.”
