SamboraBlog

The National Post contributed to a conference call interview with the band back in February, when they were first embarking on their sold-out tour to lay audiences down on a bed of roses.

Their new album, entitled Lost Highway, started when the band went to Nashville “with a blank pad and a pen,” said Richie Sambora. “It’s the Hollywood of music.”

Half of the album was recorded in Nashville and half in L.A., which would explain why it is the band’s first full-length country album.

“What prompted the interest in country is because with this style of music it’s all about song writing,” said Richie Sambora. “And we fancy ourselves good songwriters. Besides, Lost Highway is not a country record, but more of a Nashville sound, and we’re on a constant quest of evolution. I don’t think we’ll ever make an entire country album again, but it always has been and always will be a piece to our sound.”

“Country’s not really a genre we’re going to follow,” added Tico Torres. “It was really enjoyable to for us to play, but not a huge success with the audience.”

While the band admits “tours are the best way to promote albums,” they promised the concert would be more a greatest hits album with a dash of support for Lost Highway.

Possibly the most successful band from an era that produced notorious glam rockers Poison, Motley Crue and Cinderella, Sambora credits their continued success to “good songs and great performances—that’s why we’re still around.”

While they’ve shed the snakeskin of the ‘80s, they consider their new contemporaries to be more along the lines of the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and the Foo Fighters, said Sambora.

“Our fans are from 6 to 60,” he said, “we just have that universal appeal.”

Bon Jovi play back-to-back shows in Toronto on Wednesday and Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre.