Jon Bon Jovi suggested that when the live-music industry returns to action, he won’t be as big a part of the scene as he used to be.

Bon Jovi have frequently ranked among the highest-grossing tours in the world, with their 2007-08 Lost Highway trip ranking at No. 10 in the decade's biggest, having taken $210.7 million over 99 appearances – an average of $2.1 million per night. But in a new interview, the singer told the Rockonteurs podcast that he’s started to lose interest in large-scale tours and that the feeling stretched back for at least eight years.

“I had a conversation about [touring] Australia a year from now,” he explained. “As long as we do it in a manner that’s pleasurable, we want to do some dates. Because I just don’t see me doing 100-show tours anymore. It’s not really motivational for me. ... The feeling definitely has to be there. At the end of the tour, December of '13, I didn't sing in the shower. For all of 2014, I didn't touch the guitar. In fact, I walked by it and gave it the finger.”

Bon Jovi also considered the possibility of being given the finger himself, as the potential result of the more politically aware material he’s been writing recently. Accepting that he’s always “tried to be the eternal optimist” in the past, he said, “The times lead you to think differently … so I took advantage of the moment and wrote about it.”

He added that "in order to tell the truth, you have to put yourself out there and stick your chin out. And if someone comes to the show and doesn’t agree that I’m just trying to be witness to history, and they see it as I’m taking sides, and give me the single-finger salute … it’ll take me out of the moment when you’re on the stage trying to sing the song. But in the grand scheme of things, at this phase in my career, if I were to just try to appease an audience, then shame on me. I would be really remiss an artist if I was that full of shit … that would make me sick. I’d rather not make a record.”

 

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