Jon Bon Jovi is giving Prince Harry a new name.
The 57-year-old lead singer of Bon Jovi talked about his upcoming collaboration with the Duke of Sussex on The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Wednesday. The rock icon couldn't help but inject a little cheesy '80s humor while talking about Harry and wife Meghan Markle's plan to step back as "senior" members of the royal family, which will take effect this spring. On Wednesday, the duke made a solo appearance at a tourism conference in Scotland and asked to be addressed as just "Harry."
"I'e been asking, what do I do, how do I address him, and then I realize I'm gonna call him the Artist Formerly Known as Prince," Bon Jovi joked, referring to the famous nickname the late music star adopted in the '90s amid a dispute with his record company over ownership rights to his music.
On Friday, Bon Jovi and Harry, 35, will meet at London's legendary Abbey Road Studios, where the rocker will re-record his band's late 2019 single "Unbroken," originally about U.S. veterans suffering from PTSD, for this year's Invictus Games. Harry, who served in the British Army for 10 years, founded the the international Paralympic-style sports competition for wounded and ill military personnel and vets in 2014. The Invictus Games Choir will also join the recording session.
The men's meeting will mark one of Harry's last engagements as a "senior" of the royal family.
"I had sent him a letter back in August with the song and the lyrics before it came out in America and I said it would be a great gift from me to the Invictus Games, and long story short, and who knew what was going to happen with him, he had said yes, now stuck to it, so we're doing it," Bon Jovi said.
"My idea and letter to him at the time was, 'I'd like to give you the single. I would love to give something back to the people...but I want them to be the singers,'" he said. "It's the 'We Are the World' for this song. I've got 12 veterans. They'll sing the chorus to the existing track, which I did, and then it'll be on the new record. Then we'll release it as a single here in time for their games and hopefully raise them some money."
He also joked about Harry, "I might hand him a tambourine and see what he's got going."
A week ago, Harry and Meghan's SussexRoyal Instagram account featured an animated graphic of a fake text message exchange with the rocker vaguely discussing their collaboration, with a few Bon Jovi lyric puns peppered in.
The 2020 Invictus Games will be held during the second week of May in the Hague in the Netherlands.