Jon Bon Jovi was home, picking out old Creed ence tunes on his acoustic guitar, back in the land of Big Macs.
His band, Bon Jovi, just finished a big overseas tour, in places where the group is bigger than ever. Its new album, "These Days," is currently No. 1 in 12 countries, including England, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, doing better than Michael Jackson and everyone else.
The group completed a tour of European stadiums, where Van Halen opened for them. And in the most distant corners of the earth, Bon Jovi says, there were problems.
"We had to come into Jakarta by boat to get to the venue because they had no idea that 100,000 people would show up, and they had to secure it," he says. "We had to build a barricade in Bombay out of any pieces of wood they could find. It literally looked like something they would have stuck up at a war zone -- probably more for the safety of the people in front rather than for our sake -- because they never had a show at their cricket grounds like this. It was the biggest show they ever had there."
Now back in the States, the superstar says, "It's nice to know there's a McDonald's around."
Although the band -- which plays the Meadows Music Theatre in Hartford Saturday -- isn't topping the charts in its homeland ("These Days" opened at No. 9 and has since dropped to No. 16), it is hanging in there, --no mean feat when its hard-rock colleagues from the '80s have faded or fallen in the alternative-rock revolution.
"We're just doing what we always did," says Bon Jovi, aimlessly plucking strings. "We just won't go away."
There's no secret to the band's longevity, he says, "other than writing songs that people like. And not trying to play the fad game. And just staying true to what you are."
Bon Jovi has had successful power ballads such as the current Top 20 hit, "This Ain't a Love Song," following last year's No. 1 "Always." Not because ballads are all the band does, he says, but because it's all the radio plays.
"The albums rock plenty," Bon Jovi says.
Indeed, after a decade of upbeat, optimistic hits such as "Livin on a Prayer" "Born To Be My Baby" and "I'll Be There for You," listeners may be surprised at the dark vision on "These Days."
"The stars seem out of reach," Bon Jovi sings on the album's title song. "Hey God, do you ever think of me?" says the luckless protagonist of the opening song, "Hey God."
And on "Something To Believe In," he renounces God, religion, friends, the pope and drugs the way John Lennon did in "God." "In a world that gives you nothing," Bon Jovi sings over yet another catchy melody, "I need something to believe in."
It's a reflection, Bon Jovi says, of "the world around me. Or the shoes I'm wearing.
"I've been to Bombay and seen leprosy on the streets, in a place where 60 percent of the people were homeless. Sixty percent! Then I'm walking up the street on Broadway and stepping over a guy who's passed out.
"I just don't understand how in 1995 people have to live with leprosy or homelessness in Manhattan, the biggest, greatest city in God's earth. It makes me wonder how, if we can't take care of each other, what's going on?"
Such woes are concerns that are "directly up to God," he says. "I'm saying, it's your place, you should visit."
It ups the cosmic ante considerably from a writer whose complaints were more in the nature of "You Give Love a Bad Name."
"I'm a recovering Catholic," says Bon Jovi, 33. "So I'm going through all those questioning things. It forces you to view the world a little differently."
One thing he does believe in is Southside Johnny and the Jukes, the fabled Jersey shore band that inspired Bon Jovi back when his last name was Bongiovi.
"He's definitely a big influence on my career. I just wanted to be a Juke my whole life," Bon Jovi says of Southside, who currently resides in Stamford. "He doesn't do much else these days, so we're lucky to get him to support us." Southside is opening the show.
The current tour also features the debut of Hugh McDonald on bass, joining Bon Jovi, guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist Dave Bryan and drummer Tico Torres.
Although there are reports of huge blow-up dolls and pinball machines adorning the current tour, Bon Jovi says, "I think the approach is that it's going to be a great, sweaty rock 'n' roll show that gives people more than their money's worth and doesn't rely on a big production."