Today I got one of those unique, wonderful surprises that being an interviewer brings: meeting a performer from my favorite…and one of the world’s most famous..rock bands. Ok, the interview was not a surprise. I knew I would be taping a conversation with David Bryan, the keyboardist of Bon Jovi, at his New Jersey beach house, it had been in the works for a couple of weeks.
The surprise came in the impression he made on me. For more than a quarter century he’s been in the shadow of larger than life frontman Jon Bon Jovi, and to some extent guitarist Richie Sambora in particular his headline grabbing marriage to and divorce from Heather Locklear. I’ve seldom heard David say a word, so his personality was a mystery to me.
But suddenly he is stepping into the spotlight in his own right, winning three Tony Awards last month for writing lyrics, orchestrating and producing the Broadway musical, “Memphis.” At age 48, he has a new aspect to his career that is clearly rejuvinating him. “I could talk about this show all day” was one of the first things he said to me. He was effusive about it.
We spent the better part of two hours at his home in a wide ranging conversation about “Memphis,” and Bon Jovi. He showed me how he’s been using a champagne tote purchased at Harrods in London to carry his Tony Awards from country to country while Bon Jovi is on a world tour. The “Tony tote.”
But what I noticed most was his passion in how he talked about “Memphis.” When I interview someone I can tell the difference between when the artist is simply “selling” the show or pushing tickets, and when they believe what they’ve done has real quality. He talks about “Memphis” in personal terms, a nearly nine year journey from script to stage. I also noticed his broad based knowledge about musicians and the industry (every performer I happened to mention in conversation, from Tony Bennett to Duncan Sheik to Keb’ Mo’, he had an opinion about their work). I also have personal admiration for anyone willing to take professional risks, in his case, to go outside his comfortable rock genre and take on musical theatre. It all points to a creative intelligence and musicality that I have to believe has been a glue holding Bon Jovi together all these years. And I don’t think the public or critics have always noticed that.
We also discussed criticism of “Memphis” that the music is too pop, some of the songs too “light” for Broadway and you’ll hear what he has to say about that many more things in two weeks when the next ON THE SCENE episode airs, times to be announced next week.
I love days like this.