Richie Sambora Explains His Failed KISS Audition, Says He Never Really Wanted To Be In Glam Band
Richie Sambora is best known for his decades-long musical partnership with Jon Bon Jovi, but the longtime Bon Jovi guitarist applied for a much different gig before making it big with the New Jersey rock band. Nearly 35 years after a failed audition with ’70s supergoup KISS, Sambora says he is glad that he didn’t land an early 1980s spot with legendary rock band because, well, he didn’t actually want it.
“I didn’t really know what I was doing back then and didn’t really want the gig,” Richie told Metal Express Radio about his 1982 audition for KISS. “They wanted someone to replace Ace [Frehley] but I think they wanted someone who worshipped them. I liked their music but I wasn’t into them in a big way.”
According to Sambora, his own affinity for blues music overruled his desire to join the iconic glam rock band.
“I was more into [Led] Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Albert King and Johnny Winter and stuff like that which was totally different to KISS so I wasn’t really that into the idea of joining the band,” Richie continued. “I just thought it’d be a good thing to go along and give it a go. I didn’t feel like wearing any of their makeup, that’s for sure.”
KISS ultimately went makeup free during the period they worked with eventual Frehley replacement Bruce Kulick, but Sambora clearly made the right choice, regardless. Richie Sambora’s partnership with Bon Jovi lasted nearly 30 years, and they sold more than 130 million albums together.
Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi of #BonJovi 1986 pic.twitter.com/vEavxIOLig
— Classic Rock In Pics (@crockpics) September 26, 2016
According to Guitar.com, Richie Sambora’s Kiss audition took place just a few months before he officially joined Bon Jovi. Richie jammed with KISS band members on the songs “Detroit Rock City,” “Hard Luck Woman,” and “Rock and Roll All Night,” despite the fact that he wasn’t all that familiar with the songs.
“They were actually pi**ed I showed up,” Sambora revealed. “They liked they way I played but they were going, ‘you know this one? That one?’ And I’m goin’ ‘No.'”
Richie Sambora was ultimately turned down by KISS, but he maintains that’s how he wanted things to play out.
“Honestly, I didn’t really want it,” Richie told Guitar.com of the KISS gig. ” I was really only trying for it as a good business measure.”
While Richie Sambora has repeatedly said he really didn’t want to be a part of KISS, the band’s founding member Paul Stanley throws shade at that excuse. In his book Face the Music: A Life Exposed, Paul wrote that he doesn’t buy Richie’s story that he never wanted to be a part of one of the biggest rock bands on the planet.
“With Ace gone, we put the word out that we were looking for a new guitar slinger,” Stanley wrote. “Richie Sambora, who was in a newly formed band called Bon Jovi, flew in from New Jersey to audition. He wasn’t yet the consummate player he would become, and he didn’t get the gig.”
“It’s funny, but years later I heard him say he hadn’t really wanted the job because he wanted to be in something more blues-based. First of all, it’s hard to imagine that he flew to California to audition for KISS just because he liked airplane food; also, Bon Jovi’s done a lot of great things, but they don’t sit next to Howlin Wolf in my record collection.”
Richie Sambora left Bon Jovi a few years ago and is currently collaborating on new music with his girlfriend, Orianthi.
Take a look at the video below to see Richie Sambora explaining why he didn’t want to join KISS.
[Featured Image by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]
