NEW YORK – Since he underwent surgery on his vocal cords in 2022, Jon Bon Jovi has put in the work to get his voice back.
Daily vocal therapy to strengthen his vocal cords has become a regimen. The frontman for the Rock & Roll Hall of band bearing his name recently told interviewers he has high standards and won’t compromise on the quality of his work.
And if he’s not satisfied with how he sounds – with the quality of his voice and his ability to sing -- he would rather walk away from performing live.
“I won’t fake it. ... I won’t compromise who we are as a band live, because I’d like to think we’re a pretty darn good band,” he recently told Entertainment Tonight.
“I want to perform for two and a half hours a night, four nights a week — and I know how good I can be,” he said in a recent interview with The Sunday Times of London. “If I can’t be that guy … put it this way, I don’t ever need to be the fat Elvis.”
No compromising.
“I’ll be crushed if I can’t sing live again, but what does a quarterback do when faced with the last ball he’ll ever throw? That’s the situation I’m in,” he told The Sunday Times.
Previously: Rock legend says he won’t ‘fake it,’ could quit live performances
“This is the first time I’m saying this. If the singing is not great, if I can’t be the guy I once was … then I’m done,” he told The Sunday Times. “And I’m good with that.”
Bon Jovi, with Jon Bon Jovi as its frontman, formed in 1983 in New Jersey. Over four decades the band has produced four No. 1 hits and 10 songs in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
The band, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
A docuseries that tracks the band’s career, “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story,” premieres April 26 in four parts on Hulu and Disney+.
Bon Jovi will release a new album, “Forever,” in June. But singing in a recording studio and performing on stage are two different things.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Bon Jovi, who was born John Bongiovi, said the release of the new album, coupled with his February performance at MusiCares Person of the Year gala in his honor, have him hopeful.
“To be clear, I can sing,” Bon Jovi told Entertainment Tonight.
“I sang on the new record. I’ve done MusiCares and I nailed it,” he said.
“There was a great little thing that came out of MusiCares. On the Saturday morning when I woke up after that night, it was the first time in a decade that the only voice in my head was mine,” Bon Jovi said. “Fear wasn’t there. Doubt wasn’t there. And (his wife) Dorthea texted the kids and said, ‘He’s back!’”
Meanwhile, the work toward recovery will continue. Vocal therapy comes daily. “I don’t do anything until I can get that in, first,” he said.
“I’m working hard on it,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “It’s up to God at this point. I’ve done everything I can do.”