'We knew we were getting close,' remembers Weiss. Turning a Jersey rocker into a cowpoke is no easy task. Weiss did pull off a more believable solo shot of Jon with his hair contained under a cowboy hat and at least a week's worth of scruff. The boots are impressive, but the leopard-print scarf, the bracelets, and his high hair (the star of the first two Bon Jovi album covers), are the kind of anachronisms no amount of hair spray can fix. Jon Bon Jovi had not yet perfected the cowboy look. At first, the album was titled Wanted, a tie-in to the track ' Wanted: Dead or Alive.' Taking a cue from the Eagles, who strapped on their six-guns for the Desperado cover, Bon Jovi tried an Old West theme, hiring photographer Mark Weiss to shoot a sepia-toned version of the band as if they were outlaws, on the run in a dusty barn in front of an old-timey Wanted poster for the 'Bon Jovi Gang.'Īrmed with loaded six-strings and presumed dangerous 7800 Farenheit followed the next year, but it was their third album, Slippery When Wet - the one with ' Livin' on a Prayer' - that made them superstars in 1986. The final product, and the one that spooked the record company.īon Jovi came out of the gate with a self-titled debut album in 1984 and a debut single, ' Runaway,' that made them New Jersey famous. His photos are compiled in the book The Decade That Rocked: The Photography of Mark 'Weissguy' Weiss here, he shares some snaps from these shoots and explains how it went down.

Mark Weiss, whose clients also include Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen and Kiss, was the photographer for all three.

The Slippery When Wet album cover took three shoots with three very different themes before it was approved.

Slippery when wet bon jovi album cover