Richie Sambora Teaches the Attitude and Emotion of the “Wanted Dead or Alive” Solo

This episode of Shred With Shifty starts with a stern reminder from our host: learn and record yourself playing these solos, folks! Shiflett needs more submissions from our not-so-amateurs in the audience taking passes at the leads learned on the show. “Pick up the pace, people!” Shiflett cries. “We need your help here!”

After the reprimand, Shifty is joined by former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, who together with Jon Bon Jovi himself formed the band’s songwriting braintrust. It’s Sambora’s first-ever podcast appearance, so buckle in. We’re making history.

Sambora tells Shifty that he started playing guitar around the age of 13, at first just air-guitaring along with an acoustic to British Invasion tunes from The Beatles and Rolling Stones until his fingers figured out where to go. “You could say I learned ass-backwards,” he grins. “I was a breach baby.” He explains he wrote the infamous, “cascading” 12-string acoustic riff for “Wanted” while he was hanging out in his mother’s basement, waiting on a pizza delivery from Jon. The intent, he says, was to bring the acoustic 12-string back into rock music like Led Zeppelin had done. In the present day, Sambora gives Shiflett a demonstration of the intro riff on a 1964 Martin 12-string.

Equipped with a dirtied-up Vox combo and a Charvel with a Floyd Rose, Sambora dive-bombs into the solo section, instructing Shifty on the attitude and emotion of the solo’s memorable, saturated squeals: “Nobody put chords in a solo!” remarks Sambora.

Elsewhere, Sambora talks about how the emergence of speed-shredders like Yngwie Malmsteen and Eddie Van Halen impacted the scene, and he and Shiflett take a few moments to swap stories about their late contemporary, Jeff Beck. Plus, Richie suggests he and Bon Jovi are mulling the possibility of his return to the band: “We’re talking about it,” says Sambora. “There’s a demand for it.”

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Producer: Jason Shadrick

Executive Producers: Brady Sadler and Jake Brennan for Double Elvis

Engineering support by Matt Tahaney and Matt Beaudoin

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