58 | MAY 2 • 2024 

THE EARLY YEARS
Bryan’s father Ed Rashbaum 
played trumpet himself, which 
Bryan tried — along with other 
instruments. Music didn’t click, 
however, until he started taking 
piano lessons at the age of 7 from 
Juilliard School professor Emery 
Hack. Bryan was initially cowed 
by the Hammond organ in Hack’s 
studio, but “then he went to the 
piano and started playing that,
” 
Bryan recalls in the documentary, 
“and he started playing Brahms 
and Bach and Mozart and 
Schubert. All this beautiful noise 
and sound was coming out of this 
piece of wood. I said, ‘Whatever 
this is, I need to do that.
’” 
Around the time he was bar 
mitzvahed, Bryan’s father sup-
ported his developing talent by 
buying him a Farfisa Deluxe 
Combo organ and a Univox elec-
tric piano.
Jon Bongiovi, who hailed 
from nearby Sayerville, was 
referred to Bryan by a mutual 
musician friend when the two 
were teenagers; he was attracted 
by Bryan’s skill and also by the 
fact his father had a van from his 
surgical supply business that the 
band — then called Atlantic City 
Expressway — could use to haul 
equipment. “I got the gig because 
of the equipment, and I had a 
van,
” Bryan quips. 
The group played regularly on 
the Jersey Shore circuit, particular 
in Asbury Park — where Bon 
Jovi was befriended by Bruce 
Springsteen and Southside 
Johnny Lyon. But Bryan’s rock 
and roll dream was put aside 
when he graduated from high 
school and attended Rutgers 
University as a pre-med student 
(with a 4.0 GPA to boot). But 
Bongiovi (soon to change his 
surname to Bon Jovi) recruited 
Bryan to play on his first single 
“Runaway” in 1980, and Bryan 
was also the first musician 
he contacted to join the band 

he formed when he scored a 
recording contact in 1983.
“I said, ‘Listen, I love pre-med, 
but I’ll give this (music), like, a 
year. It looks like it’s way more 
fun than being a doctor,
’” recalls 
Bryant, who famously packed 
a bowling ball for the Bon Jovi 
band’s first national tour in a bus.
The band’s four-plus-decades 
of multi-platinum success — 

including enduring hits such as 
“Livin’ on a Prayer,
” “You Give 
Love a Bad Name,
” “I’ll Be There 
for You,
” “Wanted Dead or Alive” 
and more — has more than 
justified his decision. Bryan has 
co-written several songs for the 
band over the years, and he was 
also part of the Bon Jovi solo 
album “Blaze of Glory” recorded 
for the 1990 film Young Guns. 
“It’s dreaming whatever dream 
you can do,
” Bryan said at South 
By Southwest. “
At the beginning, 
it was five guys that were willing 
to leave everything they know 
— leave home, leave it! We were 
gone from ’84 to ’90, six years. 
We just believed in him, believed 
in us and believed in (the 
audience) and we’re still there, 
still believin’
.
”

WHAT LIES AHEAD
That belief has been tested 
recently, however. During a brief 
2022 tour, Jon Bon Jovi was 
clearly struggling with his voice; 
he subsequently underwent 

surgery on his vocal cords and 
continues to recover, working 
with a voice coach and other 
therapies. 
The group has recorded a new 
album — “Forever,
” due out June 
7 — but it’s still uncertain if he’ll 
recover enough for the band to 
tour again. 
Nevertheless, Bryan sees the 
completion of “Forever” — 
whose first single, “Legendary,
” 
came out in mid-March — as 
hopeful. “There was so much 
uncertainty for so long,
” he notes 
in Thank You, Goodnight, “and it’s 
all trending toward Jon wanting 
to be back on the road because 
he has his tools again. He says 
he hasn’t been that happy in 10 
years. It’s joyful.
”
Until that time, however, Bryan 
will also continue to work on his 
theater music, an outlet he did 
not see coming before Memphis, 
which was loosely based on 
famed Memphis DJ Dewey 
Phillips, one of the first white 
radio personalities in the country 

to play Black music during the 
1950s. 
“The most peculiar thing about 
all of this is I didn’t grow up on 
Broadway,
” Bryan notes. “I rarely 
went to see shows. I know what a 
live experience is ’
cause I play in a 
band, but when I got that script, 
it really changed everything for 
me. For some reason, I just heard 
all the songs, right then and 
there. I called (DiPeitro) up and 
said, ‘Joe, I got it. I got all these 
songs. I know I don’t have a lot 
of experience in this, but I hear 
every one of your songs.
’
“He was probably thinking, 
‘OK, great, I got a guy who’s 
hearing things!’ But I did.
”
Bryan also says he could hear 
Bon Jovi’s repertoire being turned 
into some kind of musical, much 
like colleagues such as ABBA, 
Queen, the Who, Green Day and 
Billy Joel.
“It could be easily done,
” he 
says. “The band has so many 
story songs that could be done 
on stage. I’m not interested in 
a jukebox musical myself; I’m a 
lot more interested in coming 
up with something new, not just 
placing a story into those songs. 
But you never know what might 
happen in the future.
” 

Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi 

Story is currently streaming via Hulu.

David 
Bryan

Bon Jovi in 
the early 
years

continued from page 56

ARTS&LIFE
DOCUMENTARY

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HULU

