“Jon had the laser-focus about becoming a rock star at age 19... he knew how to negotiate the business”: Session ace Tim Pierce on his blazing solo on Bon Jovi’s Runaway – and the hunger that propelled Jon Bon Jovi to superstardom

Session guitar ace Tim Pierce wears a ballcap and poses with a Powers Electric guitar [left]; a young Jon Bon Jovi rocks Super Rock 84 on Bon Jovi's first tour of Japan. His shirt is open. His hair is big. And he has a red Fender Stratocaster slung low by his hip.

Tim Pierce remembers it as clear as day. The teenage Jon Bon Jovi had only one thing on his mind; he was going to be a rock star. And as fate would have it, Pierce was going to play his part in making him one.

Things were different in 1981. There was a serendipity to a session guitar player’s career. Being in the right place at the right time was everything, and in this case it put Pierce in a position to lay down electric guitars on Runaway, the track that would become the first Bon Jovi hit.