“I walk smack into him and he goes, ‘See you’re practicing, are you, mate?’ He takes the guitar – he’s lefty and I’m righty – and starts to play it”: Richie Sambora on how Paul McCartney helped him mix a Bon Jovi track

Working with one of the Fab Four is an extraordinary feat for anyone – but an instance of Bon Jovi, one of the most enduringly popular bands since the '80s, collaborating with Paul McCartney is nothing short of historic. According to a new interview with ex-Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, McCartney had a hand in mixing a track on one of the band's live albums.

“I was in Henson [Recording Studios in LA], which was A&M at the time,” Sambora tells Howie Mandel [transcribed by Ultimate Guitar].

“We were pretty popular, so, I'm the guy that likes to go around the studio and go, ‘Who's in today? What's happening?’ ‘Don Henley's over here in B, and Sting's doing his thing over there. And then Paul's in there.’ I go, ‘Paul, who?’ ‘Paul McCartney.’ I had never met a Beatle in my life. I was probably almost 40.”

The two were working in different studios, but Sambora recalls being eager to meet McCartney. While mixing a Bon Jovi record, he found himself “peeking out the door, waiting for Paul to walk in.”

“It’s like two hours now, he’s not showing up. So I walk out of one studio to go into the other overdub studio to actually do some overdubs on this live thing. I walk smack into him, and he goes, ‘See you’re practicing, are you, mate?’ And he takes the guitar, and he’s lefty and I’m righty – he takes the guitar and starts to play it.”

Richie Sambora Talks The Beatles, Bon Jovi and Being A Rockstar | Howie Mandel Does Stuff - YouTube

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As Sambora tells it, the two sat down on a couch and got along like a house on fire, so much so that “they had to pull us apart.”

“We just got into talking to each other so much. So, then he had to go into his respective studio, and I was in my respective studio, and I looked back, and Paul’s got one of my guitars, and he’s kind of messing around with it, right? And I’m mixing, so I said, ‘Well, if you’re going to be in here, why don’t you help me mix this?’ And he did.”

While Sambora didn’t specify which track Macca helped mix – and the Beatle went uncredited – he confirmed that it was a track from One Wild Night Live 1985–2001, Bon Jovi’s live record released in May 2001.

In other Richie Sambora news – Guitar World recently dug up a 2013 interview with the former Bon Jovi guitarist in which he looked back on the band's disastrous first arena engagement: an opening slot for ZZ Top at Madison Square Garden.