Richie Sambora & Orianthi On Playing Table Tennis With Prince & How Hard It Is To Break A Guitar

When RSO (Richie Sambora and Orianthi Panagaris) include Bon Jovi classics in their set, we're tipping the audience singalongs reach a deafening level. Sambora jokes, "They hate it! They can't stand it. People can't stand it when you actually can surround them with a song that actually means something to their life. That's what a great songwriter is."

Sambora confirms that touring as RSO allows the pair to play "a lot of covers" as well as "the hits that [they've] shared". "We did Purple Rain the first time on stage and, you know, Prince doesn't like - well he didn't like, rest his soul - he didn't like to have his material out there. But he left ours out there, because he dug it; he dug what we did."

When asked what they particularly admire about Prince's guitar playing, Panagaris offers, "He was very passionate about it, you know what I mean? He put everything into it."

"Yeah, his soul," Sambora adds.

"Yeah, you can hear that," Panagaris agrees, "and he was such a dedicated, committed artist... I got to work with him and meet him, and he called us actually about eight months ago and I was running on the treadmill [laughs]. And he randomly called. And he would come over to the house and play table tennis with us and stuff."

"He was such a tremendous artist it was a damn shame, you know?" Sambora laments.

"She's Australian, covered in blood with Alice Cooper - unbelievable."

RSO keep Prince's memory alive by performing his songs live and Panagaris adds, "We covered When Doves Cry, too."

"Yeah, and Prince has embodied the soul of Jimi Hendrix that has come through many guitar players because of, you know, trying to get to some emotion through playing."

Panagaris spent almost three years, which equates to two world tours, in Alice Cooper's band and Sambora says he was "scared at first" when the pair met in Hawaii after a charity concert Cooper and his band played. "I am very scary," Panagaris chuckles, before clarifying, "I was covered in blood... Fighting off pythons."

"She's Australian, covered in blood with Alice Cooper - unbelievable," Sambora recalls. The couple have been inseparable ever since and currently live together in Calabasas, California.  

During an interview with Billboard, Cooper claimed Prince kept ringing Panagaris for her tenure as touring guitarist, trying to steal her for his own band, but the guitarist corrects, "I don't think it was about stealing me. He would call randomly; he was very mysterious, Prince. He wouldn't call all the time, it would just be like, you know, a private number came through and I thought it was my parents calling - 'cause they've got private set - but it'd be Prince! And I'd be like, 'Wow!' And one time I was sitting next to Alice and [Prince] called, and I think Alice thought he was trying to steal me, but no; he was just checking in and seeing what I was doing. He was just, you know, really supportive and he wanted to support musicians and other artists... He was just a cool person, he really was; he encouraged a lot of different artists and, yeah! So I feel really blessed to have known him, met him."

On becoming friends with your musical heroes, Sambora observes, "It's actually unimaginable, really; unimaginable that the people that you grew up emulating, as heroes, become your friends and become, you know, compadres - all of that is just an amazing thing when that happens, you know... What happens is that the friendships become more important than the actual, you know, music relationships. So we talk about family, we talk about friends, we talk about what we've gone through in our lives and it comes out through song."

For Panagaris, this has definitely been the case since she grew up hearing Bon Jovi songs on the radio. When asked when they first became aware of each other, Sambora immediately jests, "Oh, Ori was four. I was playing my first night at Giants Stadium when Ori was born [laughs uproariously]."

"I remember hearing Wanted on the radio," Panagaris jumps in, "and I loved the guitar riff, truly, and, you know, Richie's such a great guitar player - that just stood out for me and, yeah! I remember hearing that; they were cranking it in Australia a lot." Sambora self-congratulates, "It's a good song," before Panagaris continues: "Livin' On A Prayer - I was playing that, you know, so I definitely remember hearing that on the radio and just thought that Richie was an amazing player."

"If you wanna get wounded, try to break a guitar." 

Despite growing up on opposite sides of the globe, both Sambora and Panagaris were turned onto music in the first place by watching the greats. Sambora goes first: "For me it was The Beatles in 1964. My mother let me stay up on Sunday night the first time they were on [The] Ed Sullivan Show and I said, 'That's what I wanna do!'"

"Yeah, actually pretty similar to me too," Panagaris shares. "I mean, I saw The Beatles and Elvis and Roy Orbison and I just wanted to be able to strum along to their songs - I thought it was so cool. And my dad got me a guitar and, yeah!" Sambora starts singing (in Elvis fashion), "Don't be cruuuueeel..."

"Yeah, all that stuff!" Panagaris laughs.

"To a heart that's truuuueee."

So Panagaris's dad got her an "acoustic to strum on" ("I dunno what the brand was, I still have it at home"). "And then I got electric later on."

"I couldn't get laid playing accordion, so I switched," Sambora confesses. And his first guitar? "My dad worked a part-time job at a store called EJ Korvette and he was working in the appliance department. And in the appliance department there was a couple of these Japanese guitars... So somebody put some money down on it, but nobody came to pick it up for, like, a year so my dad bought it for ten bucks and brought it home to me." Does he still have it? "No, I actually Pete Townshended it at a gig 'cause it would never stay in toon," he laughs. Sambora enlightens that far from being satisfying, "To do that to a guitar is really not an easy thing to do. And then, what happens is, is that the strings come up and then the thing beats you in the head."

"There's actually a horrible video online of me trying to break a guitar and it's at the Hard Rock opening," Panagaris cringes. Sambora confirms, "She did, actually; really well".

"No, I ended up breaking the brick instead of the guitar," she protests.

"If you wanna get wounded, try to break a guitar," Sambora points out.

"Yeah, and some other lady came over and broke it for me. And it was awful, 'cause it was like, 'Ori can't break a guitar'!"

"You've gotta respect the integrity of the instrument," Sambora stresses and Panagaris admits, "I felt bad doing it".

"We saw Pete," Sambora tells. "I refrained to ask him, 'How many guitars have you broken, my friend?' and then, 'How many times have you gotten hurt by it?'"

When asked to share a couple of their all-time favourite riffs, Sambora replies instantly, "Anything by Jimi Hendrix".

Panagaris agrees, "Yeah and then Stevie Ray Vaughan, too... or AC/DC, I mean, obviously, you know."

"When you write a song that touches someone, touches their life or tells them they're not alone, it's a wonderful experience and it's happened a bunch for both of us."

"How about that guy Richie Sambora? Didn't he have that one hit?" Sambora cracks himself up, before adding, "No, anything by Led Zeppelin, anything by Eric Clapton, anything by Jeff Beck - there are tonnes! You know, at the end of the day: the riff is about the song and the song is the thing that's gonna get through.

"Awesomely, when you write a song that touches someone, touches their life or tells them they're not alone, it's a wonderful experience and it's happened a bunch for both of us. And it's a great thing and, I mean, you know what? It's almost like you're on the right road; that you're doing the right thing. Keep going, keep writing good songs, help people out, make people happy, go and entertain - that's what we do."

We discuss the importance of creating music to distract people from all the negative shit that's going on in the world right now and Panagaris opines, "Music's about bringing people together and being as one and at peace, you know? That's what it's about. Music is like - I dunno, as I said before, it's a spiritual thing."

"Music and peace, man," Sambora ponders. "I mean, we got a song that I found on a cassette that was 20 years old called One Night Of Peace and we got it, and there you go." Panagaris extols, "It's a beautiful song." Is that going to be on the upcoming RSO album that the pair has been working on for about two years now? "Yep," she confirms. "It's a timeless song, for sure."

"Normally that doesn't happen," Sambora advises, "normally you don't go back and find something from years ago. [The song has a] timeless melody and has a message: it's because my friend [was] going to war and he asked me to take care of his kids if he got killed. You know, it's heavy stuff, so: We all need one night of peace and, if we can have one, why can't we have two?"

On the songwriting process, Sambora reflects, "It's amazing how sometimes songs come before the riff and sometimes the riff will come before the song; it's just the feeling, you know? So that's an interesting thing about being a guitar player and, you know, Ori is obviously one of the best guitar players in the world at any time."

"Richie is!" She laughs, sounding a tad embarrassed and repeating, "No, Richie is."

"No-no-no-no, it's true! That's it," Sambora insists.

Sambora's certainly not alone with this belief and being chosen as lead guitarist for Michael Jackson's ill-fated This Is It series of concerts speaks volumes. Watching the documentary featuring rehearsal footage, one can't help but feel for all involved: they never got to perform this extraordinary show in front of an audience. "You know what? We got to still perform. We really did. It was, like, for four months," Panagaris enlightens. "Yeah, it was gonna be the greatest show. I mean, he was putting it together to be, like, incredible... We worked hard on that thing and we were so devastated. I mean, it was hard to kind of sum up everyone's feelings at the end; it's, like, everything was so great and then, you know, him passing was such a shock and we were ready to go to London to play the shows or something. It was a crazy experience and Michael was amazing; you know, [I'm] really blessed to have worked with him."

"The guy was so good. I mean, it's insane he was so good, you know?" Sambora opines.

"Getting to play Thriller and Beat It and all those songs with him and remembering being on stage and doing that..." Panagaris trails off. We discuss the documentary and how it appeared Jackson really wanted to bring the best performances out of everyone on stage, giving individuals their chance to shine. "Absolutely," she confirms. "I mean, yeah! It was a crazy time, it really was. He brought out the best of everybody, but I was working on my album with Interscope when I was working, so [it was a] crazy time. But I couldn't tell anybody so I was, like, working in the studio then doing rehearsals with him and then, you know, going to see my friends and they're like, 'What are you doing? You're so busy!' And I'm like, 'Oh, nothing; just making the album."

"The hardest-working woman in show business," Sambora interjects.

"So it was pretty insane and then, yeah! I couldn't tell my own label; they found out afterwards."

Both Panagaris and Sambora have already released three solo albums each and their debut collaborative RSO album is almost ready to drop. Sambora admits they kinda did this album "backwards". "We played for two years and we wrote for two years, and lived together and did all that. So it becomes pretty much: that's what it is, you know? If you like us or you don't - okay!"