Richie Sambora Reveals He Would ‘Without a Doubt Go Back’ to Bon Jovi — on One Condition

The guitarist abruptly left Bon Jovi mid-tour in 2013

Richie Sambora hasn’t shut the door on a possible Bon Jovi reunion.

The musician, 64, revealed in a sneak peek of a new episode of The Allison Hagendorf Show that he is open to playing with the band he famously and abruptly left in 2013.

“If he gets [his voice] back, I’ll go play. I got songs,” Sambora told Hagendorf of frontman Jon Bon Jovi, who underwent vocal cord surgery in 2022. “I swear to God. It’s the honest-to-God truth… I told everybody that I would without a doubt go back. The world needs it… We need hope.”

Though Sambora admitted that he’s only “casually” in touch with other members of the band “because there’s a bit of a rift” between them, he admitted that playing with Bon Jovi again would mean everything to his fans.

“The fans will just love it. It’s not finance, it has nothing to do with. The world could use it,” he said on the show, which is co-produced by Danny Wimmer Presents and premieres Wednesday, May 8. “But as Jon said, he’s been having problems with his voice, and now he had that operation… It’s an iffy thing at best. I don’t know if there’s anybody that has ever had that be successful. I’m not really sure about that. And I went to his house, and we talked about it.”

Richie Sambora.Matt Akana

The rocker says he told his former bandmate that he would “definitely” perform with him once more if everything healed well, and says that his recent single “I Pray” was originally “earmarked” for the band for Sambora and Bon Jovi to sing as a duet.

Bon Jovi, 62, first began experiencing issues with his vocal cords around 2015 and eventually had a surgery to alleviate loose vocal cords that were causing problems in June 2022. (The frontman, who will release the band’s 16th album Forever in June, recently told PEOPLE that “every day is the recovery process,” adding: “I’m capable of singing. What I’m not necessarily capable of is two and a half hours a night, four nights a week, but I’m aspiring to get that back.”)

The legendary group’s history has made headlines in recent weeks thanks to the Hulu docuseries Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, which premiered last month. Over several episodes, the series explores the band’s rise to fame and its major successes — as well as Sambora’s abrupt 2013 departure and its aftermath.

“It’s his project, and it’s his perspective. I have a different perspective on all of that,” Sambora recently told PEOPLE of the docuseries.

A Bon Jovi source tells PEOPLE, “We’re confused that Richie says he has a different perspective. He was interviewed extensively over multiple interview sessions for the documentary and given free rein to offer his perspective.  Were his own words not his perspective?”

In his interview with Hagendorf, Sambora said he “didn’t agree with everything in that documentary,” and felt that the band’s setbacks “didn’t deserve to be mounted on me so hard.”

Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi of Bon Jovi perform during the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in April 2018 in Cleveland, Ohio.Kevin Mazur/Getty

In 2013, the Bon Jovi band mates were returning from a break during the start of a world tour when Sambora was a no-show — and never rejoined the tour or the band.

“We were all shocked,” Bon Jovi recently told PEOPLE. “It was a show that night … and he just didn’t show up. And then the next night, and then the next night … We had 120 people on the road, 80 other shows to do. So the train kept going.”

Looking back, “it was the end of a chapter for the band,” Bon Jovi added at the time. “Difficult, but, you know, life goes on.”

Bon Jovi previously revealed to PEOPLE that ahead of the docuseries premiere that he and Sambora watched some of it together.

“He came over and watched three parts of the docuseries at my house,” he told PEOPLE last month, adding, “There’s never animosity.”

The singer also shared that “there was nothing but love” when Sambora left the band to focus on raising his daughter Ava, now 26, amid his divorce from ex Heather Locklear.

“There was never a fight,” the singer said. “Ultimately being in a rock band is not a life sentence. He had to deal with his other issues.”

Richie Sambora.Matt Akana

Sambora also opened up about Ava being one of the main reasons he decided to leave the band in the docuseries, saying they “didn’t have enough time.”

“She needed me, and I needed her. Truthfully,” he said.