Jon Bon Jovi has been there and done that. Sure, fans last year could log on to the web and watch Bon Jovi, the band, recording its new album in real time. But the man himself fondly recalls when high technology meant reel-to-reel tape recorders: "You'd press RECORD and that was it. Then you'd go to a studio and work it out. Nowadays kids are computer literate, and they're able to produce more out of their bedrooms than we could produce in the garage."

Bon Jovi and Bon Jovi have done well since the days of their garage rehearsals. They had bar and club gigs, and world tours followed. The group has sold more than 80 million albums since its 1986 debut.

Bon Jovi became a major industry--and U.S. exporter--the old-fashioned way: The group wrote dozens of songs and played up to 250 concert dates each year.

Jon makes no apologies for the clothes or for his signature "hair band" mane of the Eighties. Why should he? He's the son of a U.S. Marine and a hairdresser, who was also a Marine. And he had the good fortune to be born in the small state that produces more than its share of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and rock-and-rollers: New Jersey.

One theory is that Bon Jovi's long run owes something to the fact that the band's members go their separate ways for a few years and then reunite with a slightly new take on their brand of blue-collar rock and roll. Or on their sartorial style.

Jon Bon Jovi has used his sabbaticals to study acting. He tested the waters, to good notices, in independent films. Recently he's had what he terms "modest parts" in features such as U-571 and Pay It Forward.

Shortly before a recent tour, Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker met the rocker at his Manhattan pied-à-terre--with its great view of New Jersey. "No Kurt Cobain-style angst for Bon Jovi," Kalbacker reports. "He genuinely delights in his family and the fruits of rock stardom, from his Robert A.M. Stern-designed New Jersey mansion to appearing on the Leno-Letterman circuit. He claims no special secret to his stamina, but I can't help wondering if the strong black coffee he serves--he brews one cup at a time--doesn't have something to do with it."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: Was getting into the music business all about rock and roll or mostly about chicks?

Jon Bon Jovi: It was obviously about the chicks. I was too small to play football and I went to an all-boys Catholic high school. It was the beginning of my sophomore year and I had really started to take music seriously. One of the religious brothers--they weren't priests--pulled me aside and said, "You're failing in practically everything and I think this guitar thing should become a hobby." I looked at this man. I'd just discovered women and I thought, This is the wrong place for me. The biggest thing on a Friday night would be to go to the girls' high school. All the girls would be on one side and all the guys would be on the other and you'd be making your move. Eventually I started to play those dances. Then you're bigger than life because everybody in the room is looking at you. Playing my own high school dance was even cooler than being quarterback. I was a rock star. I was 15. I'd made it.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: You hail from Sayreville, New Jersey. That region of the state is sometimes referred to as Jersey's "chemical coast" because of the large number of refineries. Is there something in the water that helps produce rock-and-rollers?

Jon Bon Jovi: Sayreville was an industrialized city. It was a great upbringing. It was safe. It was very picket fence. It was ethnic, and it was a melting pot for music. You got to taste it right from high school and you knew how diverse it was going to be. There was the huge R&B influence of the horns. Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny were making records. How could you not see that the Asbury Jukes were one of the great live bands? Asbury Park was magical because you could perform your original material at a time when cover bands were so successful. You'd make $100 for the whole band, but you got to do your own thing. Another neat thing about the Asbury scene at that time was that John or Bruce would come in and play with anybody and everybody. I've got pictures of me playing with Bruce when I was 16 years old. That was before distinctly different styles of music developed according to where you were from and who you rooted for. We up-and-comers borrowed each other's amps. You'd plug in someone else's Strat. You would buy each other beer.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: Describe the benefits of fetching coffee and cigarettes for the stars at New York's Power Station Studios.

Jon Bon Jovi: David Bowie told me to get him a Heineken. For $50 a week, I was allowed to be a gofer. I'd run errands with the hope that in the middle of the night I would get to record. A dream opportunity would have been to watch other people do it. In all honesty I wasn't even in the system--I was a gofer. I remember getting yelled at by Diana Ross. I was sent to deliver something to her and the sign said DO NOT ENTER, and of course I did. I laughed when I walked out. That whole Miss Ross thing. Yeah, right. Here's my Rolling Stones story: I was getting out of a cab and paying with quarters and nickels and dimes. And this car pulled up behind the cab. Ron Galella, the paparazzi guy, jumped out of a Dumpster. He wanted to take pictures of the Stones. He's yelling, "Mick! Mick! Mick!" And Mick grabbed a couple of us and said, "This is my new band, the Frogs," and he took some pictures with us. He held the door for us, and we all walked into the studio. Whenever I'd see Mick around the studio, he would encourage me. Fifteen years later we were playing the same stadiums and I wrote him a fan letter and explained the story. I asked Mick if we could open for him at Wembley Stadium. He said, "I ain't paying you." I told him I understood, and that all I wanted was a picture of us and the Stones. We opened for them for two nights.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Are those conscious parallels between your latest video, Crush, and the opening scenes of Hard Day's Night?

Jon Bon Jovi: The latest one is actually a play off Run Lola Run. You want to see us rip off Hard Day's Night, go back to the Keep the Faith record. It's blatant. We stole from the Beatles, we stole from everybody for videos--which is what you're supposed to do. Wayne Isham has directed the videos over the years and he and I are both movie buffs. Sometimes he's captured the essence of what the band is about and sometimes we've missed it. For the one we shot last Saturday and Sunday, I called Emilio Estevez and said, "Emil, I want you to reprise Billy the Kid in Young Guns II." We got Arnold Schwarzenegger to go into storage and pull out his Terminator costume. He showed up early on Sunday morning in the outfit, on the bike. Even the glasses and hair were perfect. And he was there early. So we had some fun. Lip-synching is the most pain-in-the-ass part of the business. As an actor, I don't get bored because every take of every scene is a performance, and I get to collaborate. On a video, I'm not singing, I'm mugging for the cameras. It's tedious, boring. It's miserable. The advantages of video are if the radio station in Los Angeles isn't playing my record, the only way a kid's going to get to hear my thing is to turn on the TV. So videos are a necessary evil, an important part of the advertising of a record. But it's all your cost and none of your profit.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: We're sure you must know, as a hairdresser's son, the uses of mousse and gel. Which did you apply this morning?

Jon Bon Jovi: Grease. I didn't take a shower today. I got up too early. I didn't shave. I have a little baby beard, and the worst sideburns in the universe.