Burn That Candle Down

Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora opens his third solo album Aftermath of the Lowdown with this track, which he wrote with Luke Ebbin. American producer Ebbin is best known for executing the makeover of Bon Jovi with his production of their multi-million selling album Crush.

Speaking with Artist Direct, Sambora told the story of the song. "It started out with me saying to myself, 'I want to write a real barnburner I can jam on!'" he explained. "It's something that will really work on live basis. I conjured up the image of burning the candle down as if you were with a girl in a hotel room and you decided to go crazy all night physically and have good time until the candle was burnt down [Laughs]. Then, as I was writing it, that one took shape over a few weeks. At the time, Occupy Wall Street was happening. It became a little bit of a protest song for me. I started to feed off that energy. There was an influence of that. It became more like, 'Our voice is going to get out, and we'll burn that candle down.' Metaphorically speaking, there's a duality to it."

This was mixed by Tchad Blake, who has worked with several high-profile artists, including The Black Keys. "I didn't say a damn thing to him," Sambora told Fuse TV. "I just kind of gave him the track and said, 'Do what you will,' and it came back very dirty and distorted and stuff like that, and I had to live with it for a minute, and I said it creates a certain anger in that particular piece of music, which started to come through."