SFBG: How have longtime fans at your shows been responding to the new country material?

RS: Country music is something that, as I grew up a little bit more, I think I sort of came to. The great thing about Bon Jovi fans now is that I think that we do have universal appeal from a multigenerational standpoint. I think that people, 6 to 60 or 7 to 70, really grab a hold of our music. I remember, when I was married, my father-in-law telling me that the lyrics of “It’s My Life” were very, very profound to him - that they got him to a place where it was like, “I ain’t going to live forever. I just want to live while I’m alive.” But as far as the country thing I hope that we turn people on to a new kind of country music.

SFBG: With your dad's recent passing, those lyrics that you just quoted must take on new meaning for you.

RS: Last night we did a cancer benefit for my dad’s cancer hospital. My dad passed away almost a year ago, and as I was singing the lyrics of the song, those lyrics became very profound to me. Because of that, the lyrics of our song somehow translate beyond what we would say when we write them, and it becomes everybody else’s lyrics. Somehow we’ve struck some kind of chord or some kind of nerve, and it's humanity or something.

SFBG: You had a very difficult year in 2007, in general.

RS: Oh, well obviously just because you’re a rock 'n' roll star doesn’t make you exempt from any of life’s tragedies that happen. I had a couple of them kind of mount up on me a bit. But the band is obviously a great, great aid in pulling me up and helping me out of all those situations - obviously my mom and my friends, but the band and also the fans and the work. About a week after I detoxed and stopped all that stuff, I went right back to work. And we just started touring and promotion on the Lost Highway album, and between the band and the fans in my face, it got me through it.

SFBG: What prompted the band's interest in making a country album?

RS: Obviously, I think the surprise success of “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” to becoming the number one track. Also in Nashville, there are a lot of great songwriters, and we kind of fancy ourselves good songwriters also, because it seems that we get to people with our lyrics and music. So it was a natural progression and a natural “why not try that” and see what happens.

SFBG: Talk about the time that you spent in Nashville writing Lost Highway.

RS: There are a lot of great songwriters in Nashville and we wanted to plug in and see what was going on. So we walked in there with a blank pad and a pen, and went over to people’s houses and just wrote. It’s a fantastic town. I mean as far as musicians go, it’s the Hollywood of music. When you’re an actor, you want to go to Hollywood. When you’re a musician, you want to go to Nashville.

SFBG: Will you continue recording in a country vein?

RS: I don’t think we’ll ever make another country album completely again. Well, you never can say never, but it doesn’t sound like we’re going to stay there. I think that it will always be a piece of our sound. There’s a definite link between country and rhythm and blues and that whole kind of area down there. There’s some southern twang blues thing that goes on that really created rock 'n' roll, so it’s going to be an element.

SFBG: Another rock star that's dabbled in country is Bret Michaels. Considering the success of his Rock of Love series and the success of other rock star reality shows, would Bon Jovi consider going the reality TV route?

RS: I’m sure everybody has different reasons for it. I don’t know if that's anything that we would ever embrace - the closest thing we ever came to a reality show was back in 1988 when we did what was called Access All Areas. And we had camera crews follow us around what ended up being one of the nuttiest years of our life, and it was such a pain in the ass.

SFBG: Do you think that these types of shows give rock stars a bad reputation?

RS: I’m not really sure. I don’t watch the Bret Michaels program. I’m not big on reality shows. I mean, I don’t watch a lot of TV in general, unfortunately. It’s just not been my makeup.

SFBG: Has Bon Jovi ever been asked to do one?

RS: I’ve been offered a lot of reality shows but they are more musical-oriented like Making the Band. And it interests me in the fact where I can help new musicians, but it doesn’t interest me because I’m not keen on taking the time to do that. I would much rather be working in the studio on new albums and new projects and with the band touring.

SFBG: You've all managed to stay together even as you and Jon have been working on outside music and film projects for a while now. Has the band ever discussed calling it quits?

RS: Nope. If you’ve a good job, man, we’ve got a good day job, no way. Everybody has their things outside this band. And it’s very, very important that everybody has individual kinds of nourishment outside and we all welcome that.

SFBG: How do you explain Bon Jovi's continued success when so many '80s rock bands have either broken up or fallen out of fashion?

RS: The things that still work in music and get to people are really good songs and great live performances. I think that that’s why we’re still around. That’s why people fall off that mountain, that’s why a lot of our so-called contemporaries of the ‘80s didn’t make the cut.

SFBG: On a recent VH1 Top 100 Songs of the '80s countdown, fans voted “Livin' on a Prayer” number one. Did the band initially expect that song to be such an enduring classic?

RS: After we wrote that song, Jon and I were in a taxi cab in New York, and it was a rainy day, and we had just completed the first verse and chords. And even if he tells the story on stage all the time, he looked at me and said, "We’ll probably give it away to a movie soundtrack,” and I said, “What are you, crazy?” So, you never know.

BON JOVI
Wed/2, 7:30 p.m., $49.50-$129.50
April 8, 7:30 p.m., $49.50-$129.50
HP Pavilion
525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose
(408) 999-6800