Howard Stern Will Induct Bon Jovi Into Rock Hall
Howard Stern will induct Bon Jovi into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame during the ceremony scheduled for April.
The announcement was made on Stern's radio show earlier today, when frontman Jon Bon Jovi showed up as a guest and asked the host to induct his band. “I am so honored that you asked me," Stern said. "I am thrilled to do it." Bon Jovi will be among the 2018 class that will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on April 14 in Cleveland. They will join the Cars, Dire Straits, the Moody Blues and Nina Simone as the Rock Hall's newest members.
While Stern seems excited to help out his old friend at the ceremony, he wasn't so excited to find out that it takes place in Cleveland this year, and not in New York. On the show, which you can listen to below, he said he got an email from Irving Azoff, "who has something to do with Jon. 'Jon failed to tell you it's in Cleveland.' I gotta go to f---ing Cleveland. I'm calling Jon and getting out of this. [My wife] said, 'No, you're going to go Cleveland and we're going to have fun.' ... I said, I'm gonna go, but I have to go to bed early."
Jon Bon Jovi also made an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night, admitting that the induction "truly does mean a lot. We had been looked over a couple times, and it's really an honor to consider your being in the same building as the greatest of the greats, whether it's Elvis or the Beatles or the Stones. Just the idea that the music that you made has been known to generations of people makes you feel good."
The band will also reunite with original guitarist Richie Sambora at the ceremony. Sambora left the band in 2013 but confirmed that he'll be onstage with them when they're inducted in April. "It's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- it'll be a joyous occasion," he noted. "I was there for 31 years and we sold 150 million records or something and we put a lot of asses in seats in stadiums around the world and made a lot of people happy. I did so many different jobs in that band, so, yeah, I'm showing up for that. Everybody should have a smile on their face and a smile in their hearts and it should be a celebration of what we did."
Longtime Bon Jovi bassist Hugh McDonald, who was initially left off the list of to-be-inducted members, will also join the band onstage at the ceremony. In the meantime, Bon Jovi have lined up a bunch of 2018 tour dates, which kick off on March 14 in Denver and run for two months.