Richie Sambora Addresses Future Return to Bon Jovi

Will Sambora rejoin the group? “Yes, I would think about it for sure,” he says. “There’s no malice here. You get along for 30 years, that’s a damn good marriage. … I was coming out of something a little bit different with my solo record, Aftermath of the Lowdown, and it just didn’t go in the right direction for me artistically, which is not to say it’s a bad thing.”

Solo ambitions aside, months on tour and in the studio simply took away from his other life. “I did 14 cycles for 30 years, so I missed a lot,” he explains. “A lot of life happened. And I also had three solo albums and tours, wrote songs for other people. … Burnt isn’t the right word, but I almost fell out of love with music and I needed to fall in love with it again.”

Sambora insists that reports of a rift concerning money are “baloney,” adding, “You look at your bank account, and you see the currency of love and happiness is more important than the currency of money.”

He also explained an earlier comment during an interview in Australia about a difference of “pace” in the band. Says Sambora: “When we mature in our age, you have a different pace, because it gets so complicated with family. The guys had a different pace and I didn’t agree with it. Everybody thinks you are nuts because this rock star life is such a glamorous thing, but let me tell you something. In the ‘80s it was fantastic, but now, there is nothing going on.”

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t have love for his bandmates. When drummer Tico Torres was sidelined after an appendectomy, Sambora was there. “We texted each other all the time,” says Sambora. “His mom is sick, and my mom was sick, and I’m in New Jersey at the same time. I said, ‘Dude, I’m here. What can I do for you?”

Sambora continues: “When you’re sick on the road, it’s the worst. That’s when you become the most vulnerable and neurotic. You become scared. If I had a cold or a chest infection, and I had to sing all those high parts, there was stage fright. Because when you walk out in front of an audience of over 70,000 people, you’ve got to be on your game. They deserve it.”

For now, Sambora is content just to play music and hinted that there is more on the way — two albums’ worth, but it won’t be coming out via his Aftermath of the Lowdown label, Dangerbird.”

“They blew me off the second week of my album,” he says. “I put that single out and then the president [Jeff Castelaz] left and went to work for Elektra,” he says. “I want to get together with people that I like, who I have relationships with, and try to build a brand. Go out and gig on my own and make a living.”

Source: Hollywood Reporter