The Bon Jovi frontman talks about the future of the band

For the first time publicly, Jon Bon Jovi has opened up about the vocal issues that plagued him during Bon Jovi’s 2022 tour leaving the singer with scathing reviews. During last week’s Pollstar Q&A in which he was the featured speaker and received the Milestone Award, the rocker discussed how he’s recovering from damaged cords.

“It’ll become public knowledge now, but I’ve had major reconstructive surgery in my vocal cords, and I never had anything like this, ever. So it’s been a difficult road, but I found a doctor in Philadelphia who did something called a medialization because one of my cords was literally atrophied,” Jon shares.

Jefferson Health defines vocal fold medialization as “a procedure in which the paralyzed vocal fold (vocal cord) is pushed to the middle so that the functioning vocal fold can close properly to regain normal vocal function and swallowing ability.”

Jon continues, “Sometimes people get nodules — that’s pretty commonplace. Sometimes deviated septums and things that they’ve done take their toll on the cords. The only thing that’s ever been up my nose has been my finger. And so it was very difficult this last decade to have to contend with something that was out of my control… the strong [vocal chord] was taking what was left of the weak one, so they put a plastic implant in it. For the last almost two years now, I’ve been in this rehab getting it back together, but I’m very close. Friday night [at the 2024 MusiCares Person of the Year] was my first live performance in two years. The new record’s done, so now I just want to get back to two and a half hours a night four nights a week before I go out there on the road for real, but I’m confident in my doctor.”

Jon also discussed the future of the band and whether or not they will tour in celebration of its forthcoming new album and 40th anniversary in 2024.

“My health has been first and foremost a topic of discussion, but I’m well on the road to recovery there,” he says. “If I can’t be great, I’m out. And I think that the documentary that we’re about to put out addresses all of that. It’s called Thank You, Goodnight for a reason, and we’ll determine what happens there. But we do have this incredible four-part doc to celebrate the 40th. We have a brand new record that I’m very excited about. And the hope is that I get to go out and celebrate it this time because I’m so excited by it. But if I can’t do it at a level to which I’ve grown accustomed, then there’s no harm in that. There’s no foul there.”

This spring, fans can go inside the world of the band with the four-part docu-series, Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, the first-ever to focus on the band’s history with full cooperation from all past and present members of Bon Jovi. Hulu has acquired the rights to the docu-series, produced by ROS, the banner of filmmaker Gotham Chopra. The all-access series chronicling four decades of the iconic rock band Bon Jovi premieres Friday, April 26th on Hulu in the US and coming soon to Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ in all other territories. Following one of the world’s most iconic bands and its frontman, Jon Bon Jovi, the documentary gives us a view of the music and the man.

Last month, the band released three new 40th anniversary editions of its self-titled album via Island/UMR. The releases officially kick off the Bon Jovi 40 campaign and are accompanied by various 1984-era merchandise and a 40th anniversary celebration trailer.

This week also saw Jon Bon Jovi and his band announce the spring 2024 opening of his newest venture, JBJ’s Nashville, set to open this spring in Nashville’s Lower Broadway honky-tonk bar district. Positioned to stand out amid traditional bars on the strip, JBJ’s will tower as the tallest and second largest bar by square footage, boasting 37,000 square feet dedicated to a rock ‘n’ roll revolution along with carrying forward the roots of country music from Nashville’s storied history.