BON JOVI Guitar Gear Guide

Bon Jovi are back! With big Jon Bon and his buddies saddling up for another tour around the world’s stadia, it’s high time to show a little love for the band’s guitar gear.

The 80s pop-rockers have been consistent hitmakers with a slew of unabashed bangers that are known throughout every major city on earth. Those songs are filled with top-flight guitar playing too, for the most part by Richie Sambora, and in recent years by Phil X. I’ll check out the gear of both of these legendary players, as well as Jon himself. Throughout, I will try as hard as I possibly can not to insert bad puns of Bon Jovi song titles into the article, so just Keep the Faith and we’ll get through this.

Dammit!

I think it’s only right to begin with the original and most famous Bon Jovi guitarist, Richie Sambora. Sambora was not only lead guitarist for 30 years with the band, but also a talented backing vocalist and a fairly major force in the band’s songwriting engine room, too. I didn’t know this prior to researching this article, but Richie wasn’t actually the original Bon Jovi guitarist! Dave Sabo was in before him, and left to later form Skid Row.

Sambora brought a fair dose of attitude and glitter to his guitar parts, not to mention some of the most iconic use of a talk box ever! His style took influence from a raft of classic rock players from Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page to Joe Walsh and Joe Perry. A proper old school guitar hero, Sambora’s Bon Jovi work is a great mix of song-serving and showy, with enough flash to impress, but never so much as to dominate a given song.

Richie Sambora is mostly associated with the Fender Stratocaster. In the 90s, he had a number of artist signature models, often with Floyd Rose tremolos and trademark star inlays.

Those stars are a holdover from his earlier days as a Kramer endorsee, with his white Kramer Jersey Star guitar! Three humbuckers, a gold Floyd Rose tremolo and those star inlays make it a pretty unmistakable guitar.

He’s also one of those guitarists who isn't’ afraid to rock a double neck, and even a TRIPLE NECK guitar! Audiences have seen him with custom made double neck Fender Strats, Ovation Richie Sambora Double Necks and an Ovations with three necks! One was a 6 string, one was a 12-string, and the last was a mandolin. Did he get it from Nigel Tufnel?

In latter years with Bon Jovi, Sambora had a signature model with ESP. The ESP SA-2 was a highly unusual looking guitar, so instead of trying to describe it, here’s a picture!

For strings, he tends to go for GHS, and interestingly uses 9s in the studio but 10s on tour, citing the extra energy of a live performance requiring a heavier gauge that will hold tuning more easily.

Sambora has made use of some of the most sought after high gain tube heads in the business, including a VHT Pitbull, a MESA/Boogie Dual Rectifier, A Diezel VH4 and a Marshall JCM2000. This is pretty much a rundown of ‘champagne’ rock amps, but when you’re in a huge band, why not?

For effects, he’s mostly of the ‘slight seasoning’ school of thought, with ambient delays, some chorus and a touch of overdrive from the likes of a BOSS OD-1 or a Klon Centaur. On Always you can hear a Dunlop UV-1 Univibe pedal, and of course there’s the Heil Talk Box from Livin’ On a Prayer! Sambora has actually used a number of talk box devices for these sounds, including Peter Frampton’s own brand Framptone Talkbox. In fact, Sambora seems to be a bit of a gearhead in general, so this selection is actually only a smattering of the toys and gizmos he’s had over the years!

After Richie Sambora left the band to concentrate on his family, Phil X - who’d stepped up at the last minute to cover the role - was asked to join as a full-time member. A well-known session player and online presence, Phil X already had a fanbase of his own, and has proven to be a big hit with Bon Jovi fans.

Throughout his career, Phil has been a fan of horned, double cut guitars. Over the years, he has collaborated with a number of top guitar brands to produce signature models, including Yamaha and Gibson, though his signature SG is still - at time of writing - in the prototype stage. Another favourite is a delicious original 1956 Les Paul Goldtop!

His guitars are strung with Cleartone gauge 9.5-44 strings, and he favours a 0.88mm Starpick, which has a star-shaped hole in the middle for grip.

He loves a P90 pickup, and he loves a Friedman amp head or two, particularly his signature Friedman Phil X PX20. 

On top of that, Phil uses an MXR M222 Talk Box to cover those famous ‘wow-wow’ sounds, an Eventide H9 for modulations and special FX, and a large range of overdrives and ambient effects.

He’s never been the lead guitarist, but frontman Jon Bon Jovi has always been a player too. Like fellow Noo Joysey songwriter Bruce Springsteen, Jon is a fan of Japanese brand Takamine. He is often seen strumming his long-time partner, the EF34IC 12 string model l both with Bon Jovi and in his solo work. In the 80s, you’d catch him playing an Ovation 1861 Balladeer.

For electrics, Jons a fan of top-end classics: Custom Shop Teles (particularly a black one with a neck humbucker) and Les Paul Goldtops, for the main part, plugged into a series of Marshall amps. For mics, he’s a Shure guy, favouring the ubiquitous pair of the SM7B and Beta 58. If it ain’t broke, sing into it!

Okay, I actually managed to get all the way through that (not just ‘halfway theeeere’!) without spouting Bon Jovi song lyrics. So that’s what equipment has been used to make those enormous hit songs for all of those decades. In the end, it’s pretty standard, solid, good stuff, without too much in the way of surprises. Makes sense to me, since the band’s backbone is solid, good songwriting.

Will you be going to see them on tour soon? Who knows, maybe Phil X will finally have his new signature Gibson SG to showcase to the masses! Enjoy!