These days, however, the US and Bon Jovi are steaming up the ol' back seat again, and Sambora thinks he knows why.
"You know what happened? We grew up and then America caught up to us," he says. "In the 1990s, we started talking about more social issues. I mean, we still wrote great love songs, and we still wrote good rock songs. But we started growing up ... and having kids, going through our own stuff, and writing about the feelings that we were having ... Sometimes with an artist, people have to catch up to you and your thought stream."
Sambora's presence in the band has continued to grow.
Marrying a Hollywood hottie always helps with exposure, of course. Plus, though Jon Bon Jovi has made movies and bought sports teams and supported politicos, Sambora has remained a straight-ahead rocker, a good-time guy, hungry for guitar licks and banging heads.
His inventive, bluesy guitar style has been emulated up and down the Billboard charts, and his harmonizing gives Bon Jovi songs a fraternal last-call charm. Fans have responded to Sambora, too. The Internet is now loaded with fan sites devoted to one of the great second fiddles in the rock canon.
Sambora, currently working on a solo album, says Have a Nice Day is a balance of Bon Jovi's philosophical one-two punch: Jon's political voice and Richie's rock 'n' roll swagger.
"Jon's particular take on Have a Nice Day was that the whole country was bipartisan," he says. "He saw this great divide in the country. For me, the album's message is more social. That's what makes a band happen, you know? It's all about different kinds of feelings, you know? For me, `Have a nice day' was the operative line. When the world gets in your face, I say, `Have a nice day.' Very Clint Eastwood, you know?"
No matter how political Bon Jovi albums might get, though, Sambora promises that Bon Jovi shows will forever be rowdy.
"After you come to see a Bon Jovi live show, you're going to be converted," he says. "After all these years, if we haven't learned how to be a great rock 'n' roll band, then something's messed up. We put out that boxed set, 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong. Well, they can't."
And he swears that he and his bandmates remain tight.
"We're a band of brothers," Sambora says. "I think that people want to see people stay together. They want to be entertained by people that are staying together, and people that have camaraderie. We still like each other. That's pretty unbelievable after 22 years."
And will the relationship last another 22 years?
Sambora laughs: "Well, you may be in danger of that happening."
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