David Bryan - Broadyway First Timer...

From Playbill.com

Meet Four Broadway First Timers...


No matter how loud the ovations are for Memphis, it won't match the love Broadway novice David Bryan gets at his day job. Of course, not many composers have a steady gig — actually a night job — like his: Bryan is the keyboardist for the rock group Bon Jovi.

"I tell the rest of the band I'm classing up the joint now," says Bryan, currently on tour.

Bryan, 48, stumbled into the world of musicals accidentally. In 1990, when the band took a break from touring, he got a publishing deal writing songs for other musicians to cover. Eventually his publisher suggested he write a musical.

Although he was initially brought in to just write music for Memphis, he developed a strong relationship with book writer Joe DiPietro, and they ended up with a "full-on writing partnership." The show, first produced in Massachusetts seven years ago, took a long and winding road to New York. Finally reaching Broadway in its fifth go-round "is like seeing your kid graduate from Harvard," he says. "It was an unbelievable honor. There's a picture of me kissing the sidewalk in front of the Shubert."

(Since the writing of this article, Bryan was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Score of a Musical.)

Bryan remains a rock-n-roller, but he and DiPietro are already working hard on their next show, with eight songs and 40 pages done. "I'm loving this new world," Bryan says.