Richie Sambora Has No Regrets About His Controversial Decision to Leave Bon Jovi | People

You know I'm not an angel. I've been around the block. In fact, I forgot more than you know in my life. You know that's totally Pacino's thing. I forgot more than you know in my life. In the '80s, Richie Sambora became a rock. and roll as lead guitarist for bon

jovi

in ​​the '90s he married actress heather locklear and became a father when their daughter ava was born, but by 2013

richie

and heather had been divorced for six years in august after 12 albums and countless successes in the room. The famous guitarist surprised his fans by suddenly leaving Bon Jovi.

It was a tough

decision

, man, you know, I had to

leave

that band and then I had to

leave

my fans too, so it was a

decision

I had to make. It was not a popular decision. decision either way, obviously, but in the end there was really no other option. I'm really glad I did it, so, you know, I mean, it certainly worked for our family. Heather is doing very, very well now and uh. ava is doing phenomenal today the 61 year old rock star couldn't be more proud of her relatively quiet life in southern california first of all i love being a dad more than anything else anywhere that's number one the number two, uh, I've made my houses beautiful and I've really taken a lot of time and a lot of care and made them my own so that everyone feels at home here and everyone has a good time, you know, and me included, I want I mean, I'm proud of the way the houses are.

They've worked out because they feel good, you know, I mean

people

feel at home when they come to my house, you know, and because there's a lot of love here, you know, obviously, between the family, my daughter and I, but the Richie fans shouldn't. Don't worry, playing housewife doesn't mean he stopped playing guitar. I still do it. I'm making music, writing songs and getting better, and I practice more now than I have since I was a kid. And you know what I mean. I'm still going on, I taught myself how to play, so I'm still learning a lot of different things.

I'm writing madly and it's going well. I'm writing with a lot of other artists besides me and you. I know how to play the piano better than ever and I'm just taking the time to try to get better at everything. You know, I have a new record coming out and I'm looking forward to this opening up and we can get on with it. I'm going out and playing live again because I like a lot of us musicians and you know that's what we live for, in a way, going out and getting it out to

people

. It's very, very important, it's interesting because you know you're touching people.

I know you're making people happy and it's right in front of your face, the 70 or 80,000 people are losing their minds from happiness and then they dance together and cry and the memories are that, you know it well, being that composer and writing. those songs and being part of people's lives, the soundtrack of people's lives, uh, it's a great pleasure, you know, it's something that I'm very, very proud of, sometimes I take it seriously and then not seriously. I brought a child into this world and Don't take it lightly, that commitment is something that hey, you have to take care of that and communicate, I think that's probably the biggest one you know, trying to have an open forum for communication between you and your children, so I think communication between parents and children and not being guided by fear, you know you can do it out of fear or you can guide by love, guide by love, you know and communication, being on the path both Like me, I had to teach Ava how to be a mother herself. and where she did it, I would watch her with other kids and she would do something a little weird or something like that.

Terms like you would feel if you were on the other end of that and then she would draw her own conclusions and sometimes it would take 10 minutes for her to apologize, sometimes it would take her a day to figure out what or a week, but I made her learn how to teach herself herself and how to observe things. I'm very, very proud of her and the way she turned out. She turned out to be an amazing young woman with a bright future. She incites me to music because I want to be up to date. You know, she's always pushing me on new bands, new groups, new artists and stuff like that, and that's really cool. difference and I actually lean a lot on her opinion, you know, because she's here listening to all the music when we all make it here, she obviously grew up with it, so it's intrinsically in her bones, number one, but yeah, she sings all the time. and she plays a little guitar, she is, you know, she is who she is, that's, it's like you know and that's very, very, very good, she is, you know, she's a great friend, obviously, a great daughter , great-granddaughter and you know that she is simply dedicated to being a good person. and she's funny and smart as a kid, I said myself that's okay, she has my outgoing nature and Heather's good looks, we're in trouble, that should be a lot of fun, believing we handled it very well, yeah.

For the rest of us, Richie has been in quarantine for most of 2020, the time she happily spent together with her now 23-year-old daughter, she immersed herself in schoolwork more than anything else these days, you know. , and she has a boyfriend that I like, that is. great and you know, he's a good guy and she has good friends around her and you know he's good. I am lucky to have an incredible relationship with my daughter. You know, we've been through a lot together and stuff. so and this is just one of those things that we're going through together and, you know, she graduated online, you know, she graduated dean's list with a psychology major at lmu and I majored in psychology at the college, so he said, can I take your finals to you and study with you and stuff like that?

So we did it at the beach house and she was successful and she made the dean's list, so she's doing well during this whole thing that she's going into. She hasn't started graduate school yet, she just took her exam, I guess she was about three weeks ago and she passed with flying colors, so she will continue with her psychological and sociological studies. You lead by example so my work ethic is pretty deep and I'll be working, I'll be working 10 to 12 hours a day like all the time and she sees that happen and then she sees me doing the work so I think That transferred to her because my parents transferred it to me.

They were both very hard-working people and my grandparents passed that on to them, so seven years after leaving the band, Richie would have a hard time choosing his favorite Bon Jovi song, but there's one that he finds more meaningful every day, you know, obviously. living by a prayer has to be up there just because it reached so many people, it still reaches so many people, it's one of those that makes people feel great every time they hear it, uh, it does, it's an inclusive part of It's the inclusion part that we have to hold on to everyone's been there, man, we've all been there, you know, everyone was struggling at one point to make ends meet and the hurt that strong isn't relevant now, huh, like that You never know when you do things. like how it's going to affect people and then later in life it comes up and hey, I need that song, you know, it's a pleasure for a guy like me to offer it to people because once you write it it's not your song anymore. , it belongs to everyone else. songs, so it's not really my song, it's something I came up with and then it became everyone's anthem and it still is.