Welcome to our new trivia section!
In unsteady time-lags here you will find some background information about different Bon Jovi related topics that we'd like to share with you.
#1 "The Night that saved the band" - the Dry County story
The story leading up the band's reconciliation is a rather dark one. After New Jersey, the band went their separate ways. Jon and Richie were each paid
1/2 million US-dollars for the New Year's Eve show at the end of 1990. The first X-mas show was a warm up for this high paying gig. Jon's physical exhaustion and mental fatigue were
very evident. He had tried to recharge himself with Young Guns II, but the band was unofficially separated at this point. Contractual obligations made them have to play a string of shows in
Japan as an exclusive engagement which was billed sometimes in Japan as the last Bon Jovi show. Jon and Richie got an estimated 1 million each for this. But afterwards Jon said to the band
"we can't do this anymore" as he left. Richie released and toured behind his first solo record which he called "the greatest tour of my life". Meanwhile Jon tried a few things to "find himself,
and deal with the end of the band". He toured with Southside Johnny as a backup musician and was mentally worn down in 1991.
"I was out in California a lot in what we'd call the Grey Summer. We'd spend everyday on the beach, drinking, feeling miserable. Not knowing why. I had all the
success you could ever ask for. And yet I wasn't happy..."
Dorothea brought up up the idea of taking a long road trip across the country with a few close friends. In a little town, in
the middle of nowhere, at a hotel where they stopped for the evening, Jon headed down to the hotel restaurant for a little nightcap to help him sleep. The restaurant told him they didn't have a
bar and when he asked for directions to the closest establishment, he was told that it was over an hour away due to local liquor laws. In the banquet room, still unable to sleep, Jon wrote at the
grand piano the song that would save the band, a piano part, 2 verses and the chorus to Dry County. The next morning after breakfast, Jon called Richie and left him a message on his machine, as
Richie recalled in a Japanese interview in the late 90s.
"Rich, it's me........I'm not ready to give up yet, I should be home in a few days, I got a song I think would be great, can you call the guys and see what they are
doing, I think we should try..."
Richie said he kept the tape from the answering machine and he did hear Jon's song a few days later and it made him cry. "He never wrote a song like that before, it was real grown up music, no
tits and ass, no fun and games but powerful [...] when I laid down my track it was one take, Jon's voice just led me to the right solo. Whatever happened that night in the desert changed our
course, we were set on being apart...shit that piano saved the greatest band in the world!!!"
