Sad Moment: Bon Jovi has been hospitalized after been involved in a ghastly car accident…

“We were getting hassle from everyone to make the perfect album. It had to sell or the band would stall”: How Bon Jovi made a hard rock monster and saved their career with Slippery When Wet

It’s 1986, and a Mexican restaurant called Break For The Border in Central London is the location for a celebration. It’s time for Bon Jovi to get due credit from their record label, Mercury, for the fact that third album Slippery When Wet has turned them into household names. After the first of multiple sold-out nights at the Hammersmith Odeon – now the Apollo – the assembled media, hangers-on, musicians and general glitterati of the English rock scene have been crammed around snaking tables, drinking margaritas and downing tequila shots. No expense has been spared.

Suddenly, the creaking PA system is cranked and the familiar strains of You Give Love A Bad Name blare out, as the band arrive, surrounded by label types and security. From the midst of this pushing, shoving, self-important crowd, Jon Bon Jovi lifts a hand, clenches it into a fist, and waves it triumphantly at the journalists who’d supported the band from the beginning.