{"id":12415,"date":"2010-07-08T14:58:24","date_gmt":"2010-07-08T18:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=12415"},"modified":"2010-07-08T15:05:54","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T19:05:54","slug":"interview-with-david-bryan-on-%e2%80%98memphis%e2%80%99-japan-bon-jovi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/08\/interview-with-david-bryan-on-%e2%80%98memphis%e2%80%99-japan-bon-jovi\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with David Bryan on \u2018Memphis,\u2019 Japan, Bon Jovi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By JQ Magazine<\/em><\/a>\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Justin Tedaldi<\/em><\/a> (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page<\/em> here<\/em><\/a> to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHow could people be so bad and make me feel so good?\u201d\u00a0This is\u00a0a line from \u201cMusic of My Soul\u201d\u00a0from the hit Broadway\u00a0show Memphis<\/em>, which won the Tony Award last month for Best Musical. The music of Memphis<\/em>, based on the first white DJ to put African American music on the radio in the 1950s, was written by David Bryan, founding member and keyboardist of New Jersey rock group Bon Jovi, and a new Tony winner himself (Best Original Score with co-lyricist and bookwriter Joe DiPietro, and Best Orchestrations with Daryl Waters). I spoke with David about Memphis<\/em>, Japan and Bon Jovi prior to the group\u2019s fourth and final show at New Meadowlands Stadium Friday.<\/p>\n

What were the goals in writing Memphis<\/em>? Did you and co-writer Joe DiPietro say, \u201cAll right, we\u2019re going to conquer Broadway,\u201d or did it just develop through its earlier productions starting in 2003?<\/strong>
\nI got the script from Joe in 2001, and that\u2019s when we started. I read the script and called him up and said \u201cI hear all this music,\u201d and we got together and banged it all out. We did a great story\u2014it was the birth of rock and roll; it was the birth of civil rights, if you will; ending racism; it was a love story\u2014there was a lot things going on in it that really drew me.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, everybody wanted to get to Broadway, but I think you can\u2019t get there unless your piece has been worked on, so it\u2019s a journey. It\u2019s a very long journey, and it\u2019s a complicated piece, the musical; you want to make sure you get it right. So we really worked on it and honed it and worked on it, and it\u2019s a very different production now that it\u2019s at the Shubert than the first time out, because I think, you know, we\u2019re better at it, because we looked at it more.<\/p>\n

What were your initial impressions on your first visit to Japan in the \u201980s, and how do you feel about Japan today?<\/strong>
\nJapan is like our second home, you know? We\u2019ll be down there in November, and it\u2019s always our second home. I remember going there [in 1984], our first year playing Super Rock [Festival], and it was very isolated, if you will, and now, with the Internet, the world is way less isolated\u2026everything\u2019s becoming everything. It\u2019s a very special place, very special fans, and the Japanese have embraced us, and it\u2019s great, you know? We\u2019re going to go back there and play and I\u2019m going to bring Memphis<\/em> there, too. Memphis<\/em> is going to be a huge musical in Japan.<\/p>\n

Compared to other Western rock bands, Bon Jovi is still hugely successful in Japan, selling out the biggest stadiums with each tour and enjoying healthy record sales. What do you think is the key to the group\u2019s long lasting appeal over there?<\/strong>
\nAs a band, we\u2019ve strived to stay current. Our new record, The Circle<\/em>, was Number One in 15 countries, you know, we just strive to be current, not just go, \u201cOkay, the last record did good and that\u2019s it.\u201d You want to hear \u201cLivin\u2019 on a Prayer\u201d and \u201cWanted Dead or Alive\u201d on the radio, but yet you want to hear us playing the new song \u201cWe Weren\u2019t Born to Follow.\u201d So, the idea is that we keep pushing the envelope, keep pushing new songs and keep trying to better ourselves and keep expressing ourselves. Other than that, as a live band, we\u2019ve always committed to walking on that stage and leaving your heart on the stage. We put out 150 percent every time we walk out on stage.<\/p>\n

Read the full\u00a0interview <\/em>here<\/a><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JQ Magazine\u2019s\u00a0Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page here to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories. \u201cHow could people be so bad and make me feel so good?\u201d\u00a0This is\u00a0a line from \u201cMusic of My Soul\u201d\u00a0from the hit Broadway\u00a0show Memphis, which won the Tony Award last month for Best Musical. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviewprofile","category-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-3ef","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12415"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12420,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12415\/revisions\/12420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}