Jon: Rumers are rumers. You gotta spell them by coming to places and speaking about yourself instead of letting the press do it for you. But I think that Japanese are fans more than any other should know that wasn't the case because this is the only place in the world where we came to play even on that break. So, you know they should have kept the faith like I did and I think it's...you know, don't believe all you read.
Richie: I think it's a...2 tours almost back to back Slippery tour 16 and half months and New Jersey tour 16 and half months and just a...the success, the enegy of success come among you can really really make it for tease. We are just a very hard working band for about the last 4 years of that period of time. So we are just really tired and needed to take a break.
Jon: We've never had the night off, we've never had the sundays off because we were always living out of a hotel room somewhere in the world. But we wanted to tell our fans that it's no more than what they go through and they should understand that we are just like them. You know this is our job and this is what we do in our lives, but we are no difference than anyone. They get tired, we get tired.
Alec: Nobody said that you're fired, nobody said "Oh, geez, I'm not coming back." or anything like that. Just we were so tired, we just kind of got on different airplaines and went home...and that was it, really I mean...you know just a... The press after a while when Jon was doing his solo stuff and Richie's stuff like that, so they just started to say that we were breaking up. And we read about that in the papers, you know, we went "Oh, how about that?"
Tico: I mean we always knew in our heart that we never break up. Just a...it was planed to take a break, and everybody do the projects. I myself took off, I needed time away from drums and stuff, and it was well needed. What's why I got "Keep The Faith" and I'm happy.
David: Well, it's universal for all of us. We all agree that we were gonna take a break, and it wasn't spreading up. It was just a break.
Richie: Why don't you believe us!!!!!!!!! (laughing)
Alec: Last time, we toured, made a record, toured, made a record for like 9 years. If a manager said "Hey, can you guys do another 70 gigs?", we go "Yeah." and we go out and do them. And we didn't really realize that it starts getting a little bit crispy. And so we all know now the pace, takes a little time off, go home once in a while, you know that kind of stuff.
David: We're gonna take a lunch.
Jon: We are gonna do a same amount of shows, but here's the for instance. We did this promotional tour, so when we come on the real tour, we won't have to do all this stuff. You know, the stuff that a...if this was a previous tour, we would've done press until 4 o'clock and said "Oh, we gotta go! We gotta go sound check." Now, we're gonna just do this, and at night, we get to go out to see Tokyo, see our friends, go to the places that we like to go when we are here in town and then when we are here on the tour, then we are just worried about the show. We get the rest of the day enjoying the day.
Tico: Can't wait. We've got a whole new show already and new songs. We are very excited about this. Even better than the last 10 years.
Richie: A whole better.
David: We are a live band. It's a lot better than the interviews.
Jon: Frequent flyer miles, lots of airplane foods, can hardly wait to go to customs in every country.
David: Lots of passport stamps. pang, pong, pang, pong.....
Jon: The great myth about this business is I'm a prisoner of Rock 'n Roll. There's no such thing. You can go anywhere to do anything you want. It's nonsense. It's not about the chart game though, you know, I mean it's not about what's in fashion today. It's about making the record that you are proud of, making the record that you can sing about every night hopefully for the next 10 years. You know, that's what it's about. It's about the music. It's not about playing the chart game.
Richie: You know, to make good records as long as we can and hopefully people wanna buy it. I think it's a sincere quest for Bon Jovi.
Jon: Well, I think it's the first album of the 90's. It's the way to phrase it and I think that you're gonna see some growth from the previous albums and that's only natural because if we order to try to copy our previous success, there wouldn't be any...any maturity in the sound and we are 4 years on...you...you've lived life 4 more years I think you have to write about that. And...you know, to rewrite "Livin' On A Prayer" wouldn't be fair to us, wouldn't be fair to our fans.
Tico: 4 years older, and you know we've always grown together, and being separated. Jon doing "Blaze of Glory", Richie doing solo, David doing movies, you know you get a certain growth on your own that way and then come back together. Your ideas and... that's how "Keep The Faith" got together and sounds the way it is. It's actually very helpful.
Alec: In a lot of ways it reflected our growth, for me I happened to like "If I Was Your Mother". There has some cool lyrics, very psychotic, but a...a whole record kinda has a forward movement.
Tico: Yeah, I agree with Al. I mean "Keep the Faith" and so and so, is a lot more rhythmic and there's some bluce kind of -- and a little bit soul, down whole rhythm comes from "Sleep When I'm Dead", it gets heavier with "Mother" so I mean I think there's a lot different rhythmic and melodies that we've never tried before.
David: It was a whole record... was definitely growth. For me, playing different...playing grand piano, playing acoustic piano, playing a lot of different synthesizers and programming...it was a definitely fun.
Jon: I guess for me, it sounds like "Dry County" or "Bed of Roses" or "Believe" and "Keep The Faith" that shows a growth both musically and lyrically and I think you have to listen to them, you have to read into the lyrics. Maybe some of it get lost in the translation, but I think you see a lot of growth in those kind of songs.
Richie: "Dry County" I think for me personally. I think that I have a chance to play for about 3 or 4 minutes, and I thought it was such a long form song, it's about 10 minutes. That shows a lot of growth there. I also like "If I Was Your Mother." because that's kind of just a lyrical contents of this great psycho and twisted song.
About the cover image of Keep The Faith.
Jon: Everything's David's idea. (laughing) It was all of us talking to Aintain Covin who shot the picture. And I think that it shows a lot more than just 5 band members together. It's very universal sign from aslete to people to unity of people around the world, you know I think that hands joined together and keeping faith in the world, it could be pretty universal.
Richie: We were gonna try a feet. It was gonna be called "Keep the Feet".
Alec: But didn't work.
All: Didn't work.(laughing)
Jon: We've talked about it.
Richie: A little shaky. That was my idea. That was my idea. You guys didn't like my idea.
Any messages to Japanese Fans.
David: Japan is ichiban(the best).
Richie: Wait for us. We'll be back. Wait. It will be september.
Jon: It's been great. You know, thanks for keeping the faith. We're gonna definitely come back and tour. We are glad to came here on our promotion tour. It's for nothing else, just have a good laugh and see old friends again. Adios Amigos.