Blonde Jovi Goes to Jersey

"People love going to a bar and seeing their favorite music played live," affirms Blonde Jovi drummer Sara Skelton. Poor planning or unfortunate coincidence aside, the all-girl Bon Jovi tribute Blonde Jovi received a cease and desist letter from Bon Jovi's legal representation on April Fool's Day. After rereading the letter a couple times, the ladies knew the attorneys were dead serious in protecting the interests of their famous New Jersey clients. "We're all really big Bon Jovi fans," adds Skelton. "We really have no animosity toward the band at all...we want to be able to keep on playing their music without any legal problems."

After Blonde Jovi received the cease and desist letter, the band officially changed their name to Blonde Jersey. The story about the cease and desist letter quickly exploded on the Internet, providing bloggers ample ammunition to mock Bon Jovi. For the ladies in Blonde Jovi, this criticism isn't fair. "It's unfortunate that the guys in Bon Jovi are taking the fall for this by default because a lot of headlines say 'Bon Jovi Sues Tribute Band!'" says Blonde Jovi guitarist Angela Grant.

The ladies in Blonde Jovi try to play all the songs a Bon Jovi fan would expect, while also doing some deeper cuts Jon and Co. would never perform live. In the end, the tribute act just wants to show respect for Bon Jovi. "It's important to us that we don't alienate Bon Jovi's fans by having them think we're out to get them or that we have negative thoughts toward them," Grant admits. "We don't fault them at all. Attorneys can be overzealous and I'm sure they send letters to everybody that uses 'Jovi' or 'Bon Jovi' in their name."