Jon Bon Jovi explained why it was essential that Bon Jovi “found help” after the success of two career-making albums, Slippery When Wet and New Jersey.

The group found itself suffering from burnout in 1988, but the singer said they made the right decisions to avoid destroying their futures.

“I remember when we were young and Slippery When Wet was our Thriller or Like A Virgin, right?” Bon Jovi told GQ in a recent interview. “I remember us saying we haven’t changed. But everyone around us had. Even our parents looked at us for answers at that point, because we’d become famous. … We were like, ‘That’s fucking weird.’

He noted that "what burned us out after the New Jersey album was having back-to-back huge albums and doing 240-show tours. … I don’t blame the managers, agents and lawyers and stuff that kept us working, because it’s been repeated by every successful band at that point in your career. You either fall backwards and it’s over, or you figure it out and you go forward.

"We found help after New Jersey and [took] a couple of years off to realize that it wasn’t us, it was it. We regrouped and we did Keep the Faith, and we ran on. Guns N’ Roses took 25 years to have another record, right? They went back and fell off the precipice, and we went forward.”

Bon Jovi also recalled getting too close to the world of excess, which he’s tried to avoid all his life. “When I dabbled with having a house in Malibu, Calif., I said, ‘We gotta go,’” he said. “‘It was all around me. And now either those people are dead or divorced, or drug addicts, mental institutions or all kinds of stories, you know? This ain’t for me, it’s gotta go.”

 

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