In the early days of hair metal, Bon Jovi became one of the first success stories on MTV, making the first major videos for the glam metal movement. Although songs like ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ and ‘Livin on a Prayer’ became iconic, the band’s frontman doesn’t look back on his first video very fondly.
When talking about first signing a deal, Jon Bon Jovi mentioned being hesitant about shooting a video for his debut single ‘Runaway’, telling Sirius XM: “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?”. Jon had previously worked as a solo act until the song took off, after which the rest of the band were rounded out.
Jon went on to say that he was embarrassed by the final product, saying, “I fell for it hook, line and sinker, and the stupid record company with the stupid video director who says Fahrenheit 451 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”.
Despite the teased hair, Jon admitted that the videos got much better going into albums like Slippery When Wet, recalling, “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”.
