Bon Jovi fits D.C.

Older and wiser aren't adjectives ordinarily associated with rock bands, but the Bon Jovi that will hit the stage at the Verizon Center on Monday has certainly changed and matured over the years.

Take the group's current album, "The Circle."
It's got songs such as "Work for the Working Man," which could almost be described as an economic policy anthem, "economic policy" also not words often associated with rock 'n' roll.
Still, guitarist and songwriter Richie Sambora said, "The Circle" isn't about "being on the road and girls and, you know, cars and things like that."
"We couldn't have written this album if the world wasn't in the state it was in," Sambora said in a conference call with reporters last month. "Jon and I were really conscious of what people were feeling around the world, you know, with the changes that were happening, especially in our world."

"The Circle," released in November, wasn't even supposed to be the next record for the band.
Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi started to write some new songs for a greatest hits album.
But then they were inspired by President Barack Obama's election, Sambora said, and rattled by the economic recession.

"And, I mean, I related to it particularly because my dad worked in a factory," he said, "and he got laid off periodically where he had to go find a job."

Paying attention to current events—and even just literally to the world around them—has helped Bon Jovi keep out of songwriting ruts, Sambora said.

He said the band's single, "Superman Tonight," is really the only song on the new album that could be called a "boy/girl" tune.