Jon Bon Jovi Reflects On The Band's Journey & Staying True To Their Roots In Thank You Goodnight Docuseries

Summary Celebrating 40 years of rock and roll, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story takes fans behind the scenes with unreleased footage and personal stories.

Jon Bon Jovi reflects on the band's journey, staying true to their roots and sound while showcasing vulnerability and personal experiences through their music.

Drummer Tico Torres shares insights on performing for over 40 years, staying youthful, and the band's commitment to creating great music.

Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story is a docuseries that explores the illustrious career of Bon Jovi chronicling their journey over the last forty years. This includes their humble beginnings at clubs on the Jersey shore, devastating losses as the band lost a member, and the great success of performing on some of the biggest stages in the world. Through it all, Jon Bon Jovi and his band have worked hard to stay true to their music and their Jersey roots.

Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story uses never-before-seen images, footage, personal videos, unreleased early demos, and more to bring viewers on a journey behind the scenes of a band that, so many have loved for their entire lives. Gotham Chopra has made some of the greatest sports documentaries in the world and, when asked, he jumped at the chance to step outside his wheelhouse to tell Bon Jovi's story. While filming and telling this story, Bon Jovi was questioning his future as a performer, and now Bon Jovi is releasing new music for rock and roll fans to enjoy.

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Screen Rant interviewed legendary musicians Jon Bon Jovi and Tico Torres about their new docuseries Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story. Bon Jovi reflected on why this is the perfect time to tell their story and why fans have connected with their songs for so long. Torres discussed the thrill of performing and the greatest achievement of the band.

Why The 40th Anniversary Was The Perfect Time: "You're Only Going To Have A Milestone Like This Once"

Bon Jovi first began their quest to become rock and roll legends in 1983, just over forty years ago. Jon Bon Jovi began tinkering with the idea of telling their story after the band had been together for 38 years and decided that it would be the perfect time to let their fans in on how they became the band that so many know and love today.

Jon Bon Jovi: I knew that the 40th anniversary was coming and you're only going to have a milestone like this once. If you were to wait until the 50th, who knows what might happen over the course of the next 10 years. So at year 38, I started to think about how can we mark this occasion? We began archiving so much that was in the vault and simultaneously considered making this documentary. I did in fact see Man in the Arena, and Gotham Chopra was my first and only meeting that I had with a director. I thought that he understood the concept of sport, which a team and a band are very similar and he also had that spiritual aspect because of his family upbringing. Which I thought he could relate to the innermost workings of what life is in a band. And so we hit it off and I think he delivered on the promise.

Torres reflected on how he has grown over the course of the last forty years and how he manages to still tap into his love for performing for an audience after doing it for over four decades. He also explained how the band has stayed true to who they are and the brotherhood they have always had.

Tico Torres: When you're younger, everything is new. Everything's a challenge, new and exciting. When you do it for a lot of years, the thing that keeps me young is actually playing again, playing live, playing with my guys. It makes me a kid again, it's the fountain of youth at best. And so that doesn't change. The whole secret is to capture that young, fun loving time that we have together, and playing live now and in the studio that comes back. It never goes away. I think a lot of it comes from where we grew up. It's sort of like we're a gang, take on the world. We've always been a bunch of guys that just want one goal, and that's really to kick people's ass. So that was the Jersey etiquette, and we took that from a lot of different bands growing up, and I think we're still there in that kind of attitude.

Bon Jovi's View On Their Story: "All We Ever Wanted To Do Was Tell The Truth"

Being vulnerable isn't new for Jon Bon Jovi as a songwriter he often taps into his personal feelings and experiences to share with the world. However, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story challenged him to be open in a different way by showing the world his process including how difficult it can be. He explained why so many people have connected with their music over the years.

Jon Bon Jovi: I had no problem being open and honest throughout the filming and the making of the film. All we ever wanted to do was tell the truth, and if anyone thinks that doing what we do is easy, this isn't any different than any other day. It's just that you get to see what life is like behind that curtain. It is always hard work to be an athlete, to be a member of a band, to be a member of a family, takes work. And this just captured the work behind the play, if you will. I think that growing up in public, you become a more prolific writer. You're able to capture moments that are happening in and around your life. It's not just creating rhyme schemes that are "Moon, June and Spoon" and writing catchy pop hooks, but when you can get deeply personal, the magic really happens when something is so deeply personal that when you hear it, you think it's about you and you make those characters about you. That's sort of the magic of our songwriting. I've been able to capture a lot of my own personal memories along the way, and people have just related to them.

Jon Bon Jovi also broke down the importance of Bon Jovi staying true to their sound and why they have refused to bend to the whims of different musical fads over the years. Torres teased Jon by saying the band's greatest accomplishment was getting him to really listen and pay attention to the lyrics of the new album, which Jon agreed was a major accomplishment for him as well.

Jon Bon Jovi: I think that's the integral part of your sentence right there, is that remaining true to who and what we are. Don't chase fads nor fashions because you're always going to be late. And by remaining true to who we are, and we go on this journey. Now, granted people who were on the train with us for Runaway in 1984 may have gotten off along the way. Others got on the train at that juncture, you see? So this train keeps rolling and people are allowed to get on it and get off of it. By remaining true to what we are, the people that listen can count on it. They can count on Bon Jovi to only tell them their truth. We're not trying to be a K-pop band because that's popular two years ago. Those kinds of things would be career mistakes, and we never made those mistakes. Tico Torres: The fact that we're still here and still doing it. Like John says, it's a road. It's a lot of ups and downs. It's a family and the fact that we can still do great songs. A quick little story. I'm not much of a lyricist or listen to lyrics, but when John wrote this record and we put it together and we started listening back and I had to call 'em and tell 'em, man, the lyrics are great because they got through to me. It took 40 years where I'm actually going, okay, I'm listening to the lyrics. So yeah, I think that's a milestone for me.

About Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story

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40 years of personal videos, unreleased early demos, original lyrics, and never-before-seen photos that chronicle the journey from Jersey Shore Clubs to the biggest stages on the planet. The series relives the triumphs and setbacks, greatest hits, biggest disappointments, and most public moments of friction.

Check back for our interview with Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story director Gotham Chopra.

Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story debuts on Hulu on April 16.

Source: Screen Rant Plus