WASHINGTON: Bassist Alec John Such, a founding member of the Bon Jovi band, died at the age of 70 on Sunday. The cause of death has yet to be determined.
Jon Bon Jovi took to his Instagram handle and shared an emotional post announcing Bassist’s death. He captioned the post and wrote, “Alec, you will be missed”.
“We are heartbroken to hear the news of the passing of our dear friend Alec John Such,” Bon Jovi posted. “He was an original. As a founding member of Bon Jovi, Alec was integral to the formation of the band….To be honest, we found our way to each other thru him — He was a childhood friend of Tico [Torres] and brought Richie [Sambora] to see us perform. Alec was always wild and full of life. Today these special memories bring a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. We will miss him dearly,” Jon Bon Jovi wrote.
According to Variety, John Such, who was born in Yonkers, New York, on November 14, 1951, was a member of The Message, a previous band with Sambora, before joining Bon Jovi.
John Such was the manager of the Hunka Bunka Ballroom in Sayreville, ‘New Jersey’, in the early 1980s. It was there that he saw the potential of a young musician on a mission and booked Jon Bon Jovi & The Wild Ones.
Torres and Sambora were brought in by John Such, while Bon Jovi brought in David Bryan, a childhood acquaintance who had previously been a member of the band Atlantic City Expressway. ‘Slippery When Wet’, the band’s third album, went on to sell 12 million copies, and its follow-up, 1988’s ‘New Jersey’, had even more hit songs.
“The record company used to lie about my age,” John Such told The Asbury Park Press in 2000. “I was 31 when I joined. I was a good 10 years older than the rest of the band. My sister eventually got really mad because the papers would describe her as my older sister when really she was younger.”
John Such stayed in the band until 1994 when he left. Hugh McDonald, a bassist who joined the band as an official member in 2016, took his place.
“When I was 43, I started to get burned out,” he said in that interview. “It felt like work, and I didn’t want to work. The reason I got into a band to begin with is because I didn’t want to work.”
John Such was reunited with the band and gave an impassioned speech when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. “When Jon Bon Jovi called me up and asked me to be in his band many years ago, I soon realized how serious he was and he had a vision that he wanted to bring us to, and I am too happy to have been a part of that vision,” he said, as reported by Variety.
He added, “These guys are the best. We had so many great times together and we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for those guys. Love them to death and always will.”
The band posted a video of John Such giving his message, as well as a montage of him singing ‘Blood on Blood’, a song on which he would occasionally take the main vocal role during live gigs. (ANI)