Jon Bon Jovi says "country" move is a return to his roots

A lot is being made about how Bon Jovi has supposedly gone "country" on their new album Lost Highway, but the band's leader says that's not necessarily the case. While the record was made in Nashville, and while it features duets with country superstars LeAnn Rimes and Big & Rich, Jon Bon Jovi calls it "a Bon Jovi record influenced by Nashville."

He told Reuters, "If you would have asked me at the end of the tour last August to do a record in September, I would have said, 'Not for all the tea in China. I don't have anything to say.' I didn't like what I heard on the Top 40. I had nothing in common with any of that stuff. But when I listened to Keith Urban, Gary Allan, and Big & Rich, I heard the same kind of stories I'd been writing for 25 years. I thought, 'I get it: Write a record, go back to your storytelling days, and say something about yourself."'

He added, "We had to just make sure we weren't patronizing the true country format. Could you have imagined me walking into an award show where 15 or 25 other artists are and saying, 'Howdy, y'all,' with straw in my teeth and a cowboy hat on? I would have expected them to run me out of Dodge... We're very respectful of it. All I can ask for is, 'Give us a chance and don't judge the book by its cover.'"

Lost Highway comes out June 19th.
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