Recently Pete Evick joined an interview with Sonic Perspectives and talked about how he created his new single ‘My Best Days’ based on the influences from Bon Jovi.
Bon Jovi has been considered one of the most impactful names in the rock scene since the beginning of their career in 1983. The band gained massive recognition internationally after the third album named ‘Slippery When Wet,’ released in 1984. The band put one of the building stones of hair metal with this album at that period. The album became a commercial success by becoming the band’s best-selling record and staying at number one on the Billboard 200 chart.
The band’s success continued with the fourth studio album entitled ‘New Jersey,’ released as a follow-up to the third album in 1988. It debuted at number eight on the Billboard 200 chart, and after two weeks, it became number one. The singles ‘Bad Medicine’ and ‘Be There For You’ both reached the top tens in the Billboard Hot 100. The album also became the first to debut at the number one in the United Kingdom.
Thanks to the success of such albums and more, the band influenced the other musicians’ sounds. One of them inspired by Bon Jovi, Bret Michaels guitarist Pete Evick opened up about their impact on his new music in a recent conversation. He purposefully created the sound of his new single ‘My Best Days’ as if it came out from Bon Jovi’s ‘New Jersey’ album.
As he explained, he was listening to songs from ‘New Jersey’ during the recording process of the single to deliver the same feeling by taking inspiration from its sound. Pete Evick also revealed that he took advice from Hugh McDonald to make the new single sound more like a Bon Jovi song. As the guitarist mentioned, McDonald gave him notes about the sound, and he arranged the new single according to these notes.
Pete Evick explained in his words when the interviewer resembled the single to Bon Jovi sound:
“This song was produced a hundred percent intentionally to sound as if it came out of the ‘New Jersey’ record. While I was in the studio, I had a couple of songs from the ‘New Jersey’ pulled up for my gig, and we drew references from them over and over again for the sole purpose of creating that feeling.”
He continued:
“I went as far as to hear Hugh McDonald, his bass player and a buddy of mine. I went as far as to send this song to him, and I said, ‘I’m not asking you to play the song because I don’t want to get tricky, but the Bon Jovi bass line is so iconic to Bon Jovi songs. Would you tell me what you would’ve played on this had Jon presented this song to you?’ He gave me a bunch of notes on what the bass line would’ve been. That’s how far I went to make it sound like a Bon Jovi song.”
You can watch the entire conversation and listen to the song below.
