It's rare for any rock band to live through the 1980's and not be — at the very least — somewhat embarrassed by some of their videos. Classic Rock reported that Jon Bon Jovi definitely falls into that category, telling SiriusXM's Andy Cohen Live: "When I think back that 'Runaway'. . . when we made a video, (I thought) 'Wait a minute, I just learned to play the guitar and write a song. You want me to be a filmmaker? What the hell do I know?' I fell for it hook, line and sinker."
He went on to say, "And the stupid record company with the stupid video director who says Fahrenheit 451 (when the album was 7800 Fahrenheit) or whatever with his niece starring in the video, it's like Jesus God. You want to embarrass me? Tie me to a chair and make me watch videos from my first two albums."
Bon Jovi explained that by the time of 1986's Slippery When Wet, the band had learned how to play to their strengths for their promo clips: "We were smart enough by the third album, it took three albums to figure out just promote the live show with a video, so by 'You Give Love A Bad Name,' 'Livin' On A Prayer,' 'Wanted Dead Or Alive,' those are really just performance videos and that's when we realized this is all that matters."
Jon Bon Jovi told us he and the band have come a long way since scoring their first Number One album with 1986's Slippery When Wet: ["Y'know when I was 25 and we wrote ' . . .Bad Name,' you were the kid with long hair in the mall — sex, drugs, rock n' roll. All that kind of stuff. You were a cowboy. You were gonna ride into town. You were dead or alive. That's who I was at that time. I'm not that guy anymore. I've grown up in the public eye. We've been at this a long time."] SOUNDCUE (:21 OC: . . . a long time)