Keep The Faith - Recording and Production

Recording and Production

In January 1992 the band headed to Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver. They spent seven months making the album with Bob Rock producing. Originally the band had approached Bruce Fairbairn to produce the album who produced Slippery When Wet and New Jersey, but he was working on Aerosmith's album. Most of the recording was done in Vancouver, although a couple of tracks were laid down in Los Angeles along with some over-dubs. According to an interview with Jon Bon Jovi, the album's original title was to be "Revenge".

Of the thirty songs written for the album, two were written with Desmond Child, a couple were by David Bryan and the rest being made up of Jon Bon Jovi/Richie Sambora compositions and those written solely by Jon Bon Jovi. 14 songs are make it to the final cut. Jon Bon Jovi alone wrote most of the album because, as he says, "This was my way of trying to keep things together." According to Richie Sambora, his own input had to be limited, because he'd been supporting his solo album.

Before the band reunited in the studio, Jon Bon Jovi spent the summer of 1991 in anonymity, riding his bike in places like Arizona, gaining experiences that inspired him to write "Dry County" and "Bed Of Roses". He later commented "It would never have been possible to write songs like "Bed of Roses" or "Dry County" five years ago."

Jon Bon Jovi started to writing of "Bed Of Roses" in a hotel room in Los Angeles. He brought a piano to his room that the hotel used for weddings. The first verse reflects what he was feeling when he was trying to write this. He was badly hung over from the night before, but had a piano in his hotel room and was determined to write something. This is a personal song that he feels exposes a lot of the problems he was experiencing at the time.

According to Jon Bon Jovi, "Dry County" was probably the first and last song written for this album. But it wasn’t until near the end of recording everything that it was finally pieced together to end up. That song is the story of his motorcycle trip with images that he saw in small towns where he’d see guys sitting outside bars way too early in the day, drinking their lives away because they have no chance of getting a job. It really hit him what the effect of "Reaganomics" has been.

Richie Sambora said that "Keep The Faith recognises how tough the nineties are and tries to encourage a positive message in these difficult times. "I Believe" is kind of serious too. It destroys the myth of idolatry. The message is that people should believe in themselves, not images they see on TV".

"If I Was Your Mother" is about a guy who is obsessive about his relationship with his girlfriend. So obsessive in fact that he comes to the conclusion that the only way he could get closer to her would be by being the girl’s mother. It’s the heaviest song on the record.

In These Arms was the last song they wrote for the album. Bob Rock pushed them to write one more song and it was the only song on the album which was written by Jon Bon Jovi, David Bryan and Richie Sambora.