Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora is executive producing a series for HBO about an up-and-coming rock band. The show will focus on “the toil, trials and tribulations” the group must go through while trying to achieve stardom, Sambora told ABC Radio.
Sambora said HBO initially contacted him to work on music for one of its projects. He then told network reps about a script he wrote three years prior – and they wound up liking his concept better than the one they were already working on, according to ABC Radio.
The show’s tales are fiction, but were inspired by some of his own experiences in the music biz. He decided to write the script after being asked to pen a juicy autobiography, which he turned down.
“It’s like, I don’t want to do that clichéd thing about who slept with who, what substance happened here, what was going on there,” explained Sambora during the ABC Radio interview. “I’m a Jersey guy, so I keep everything to the chest. I don’t want to talk about anybody anyway, right? Plus, I have a daughter... So I said, ‘Why don’t I write a teleplay?’”
HBO asked Sambora to star in the show as well. The rocker previously acted in the movie “On the Line” and on TV’s “American Dreams” and “Still Standing,” and will be appearing in an upcoming episode of the new John Stamos series “Grandfathered.” However, Sambora had to decline the offer.
“I don’t like acting that much, so I’m not going to do it,” he said. “It wouldn’t leave me any time to do anything else too.”
According to ABC Radio, HBO did not know anything about the show when they questioned the network about it.
However, HBO is readying the series “Vinyl” for 2016, which is about the music business in New York City in the 1970s. Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger are producers of the show, and Bobby Cannavale, Olivia Wilde and Ray Romano will be starring in it.
Meanwhile, 56-six-year-old Sambora has been working on a new album with his 30-year-old girlfriend Orianthi. “We write great songs and we’re able to take it on an improvisational level,” Sambora told Billboard in April 2014. The record is expected to come out next year.
