Canadian rocker Sebastian Bach has revealed how Jon Bon Jovi and members of his family threatened him during a 1989 tour.
In his new memoir 18 and Life on Skid Row, Bach recalled a tour stop in Kentucky where he made fun of Bon Jovi’s name on stage. After his set was done, Bach noticed a group of people heading towards him.
“Leading the pack was Jon Bon Jovi himself. Flanking him, side to side, was his dad and his brother Tony. Behind them was the full Bon Jovi road crew,” Bach wrote.
The Skid Row frontman said Bon Jovi was livid and said: “I heard what you said on my stage, motherf—er.”
Bach said the singer threw a punch that didn’t connect. Bach was then thrown against a concrete wall by crew members and Tony screamed: “You called my brother Bon Blow Me? On our own stage?”
Then Bon Jovi’s father, John Bongiovi, Sr., got in his face, according to Bach. “He said, ‘I’ll f—ing kill you,’ or something like that,” he wrote.
It wasn’t the first time the Skid Row singer and Jon Bon Jovi clashed. He recalled how he was once “summoned” to the singer’s dressing room and berated for swearing on stage. “He stared me down and said the words, ‘I’ll f—ing own you.’ ”
Time seems to have healed old wounds.
Bach wrote about running into Bon Jovi in a London hotel bar in 2006. He said the two hugged like old friends.
“Jon took a chance on me and our band,” Bach wrote. “I will always be indebted to him for that.”
Born Sebastian Bierk, Bach grew up in Peterborough and also lived in Toronto. Now 48, he lives in L.A. with his second wife Suzanne.
18 and Life on Skid Row is out Dec. 6.