Much of the hoopla surrounding the use of Kurt Cobain’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5 stemmed from a video which prominently featured Cobain singing Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name.” So the BBC did a clever thing: They asked Jon Bon Jovi what he thought of the whole deal.

As you might expect, he found it a bit tasteless. But the real surprise was that apparently Activision had also approached him to use his likeness in the game:

Jon Bon Jovi … said he had declined the offer to appear as a playable character in Guitar Hero. “I had the paperwork, they wanted me to be on that game and I just passed,” he said. “But no-one even broached the subject with me that I would be singing other people’s stuff. I don’t know how I would have reacted to that. I don’t know that I would have wanted it either.”

Of course the real difference here is that Bon Jovi is still alive. In fact, the band has a new album due this November.

By the way, in case you were pained by the headline I used for this post, I present some alternate headlines I considered, but discarded:

• Jon Bon Jovi Gives Activision a Bad Name
• Jon Bon Jovi Never Says Goodbye, Except to Activision
• Jon Bon Jovi Considers Guitar Hero 5 Bad Medicine
• Jon Bon Jovi Won’t Let Activision Lay Their Hands on Him

So believe me, it could have been much worse.

[Read, via Kotaku]

Update: Want to get up to speed? Here you go:

Kurt Cobain, Re-Animated
Kurt, Revisited
Courtney Love Threatens to Sue Activision
Activision Responds to Courtney Love Allegations
Kurtastrophe, Round 3: Grohl and Novoselic Weigh In
Kurtastrophe, Illustrated: The Law Behind the Mess