Jon Bon Jovi knows that some fans just want Livin’ on a Prayer on a loop. But he’s never been one to stay stuck in the past. With 2020, he wrote an album that didn’t just acknowledge the world’s chaos—it dove straight into it. “I had to bear witness,” he says. “You couldn’t live through 2020 and just write about fast cars and pretty girls.” Instead, he tackled gun violence (Lower the Flag), racial injustice (American Reckoning), and, yes, even the pandemic (Do What You Can). “That one got me kicked out of country radio,” he laughs. “They said, ‘People don’t want to hear about COVID.’ As if we weren’t all living through it.”
Bon Jovi has always had a bit of a folk singer’s soul, but this record made it even clearer. “I’ve been called a folk singer trapped in a rock band, and I’ll take it,” he says. “I mean, I’m no Woody Guthrie, but I write about real people. Always have.” He points to Runaway, his breakout hit, as proof. “That was a social commentary. I just didn’t know that at the time because I was 21 and had a one-track mind: ‘Be a rock star.’” But at 58, writing a song like You Give Love a Bad Name again wasn’t exactly on his to-do list. “You have to grow up sometime,” he says. “The worst thing I could do is pretend I’m still 25.”
Of course, 2020 isn’t all doom and gloom. Story of Love finds him reflecting on family and legacy, and the music video—filled with old family footage—turned into an unexpected nostalgia trip. “My wife dug up all these old videos,” he says. “And my son picked up the guitar for the first time. So he got to see the real process—me sitting there, pulling my hair out, swearing at the lyrics. Not just the fun parts.”
Musically, the goal was to keep things stripped back. “There’s a bigness to Slippery When Wet that I’ve never been able to recreate,” he admits. “Maybe it was the analog tape, maybe it was the fact that I had more hair.” With 2020, he focused on keeping the production lean. “If I can’t play it live, it doesn’t belong on the record. And trust me, a lot of songs went straight to the ‘nope’ pile.”
With a career that spans four decades, he knows there will always be people who just want the hits. And that’s fine. “The nostalgia’s great, but I’m more interested in what’s next,” he says. “That’s always been the thrill. The future is way more exciting.”
Watch the full interview above and then check out the videos below.
