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What Makes Steve Perry Such A Great Singer?

via journey/YouTube

There’s a reason why Steve Perry is often called The Voice – because he’s been blessed with golden pipes that became a key element in Journey’s music. It was his vocal performance and delivery that took their songs to the next level. The thing is, he makes it look effortless but that doesn’t mean his vocal parts aren’t difficult to sing.

On the contrary, it takes a lot to pull it off.

Perry has an incredibly powerful range – spanning from F#2 to A5. As far as singing goes, he’s peerless and a force of nature at that. Even fellow rockers have nothing but praises for him. Queen’s Brian May even described him as “a truly luminous singer” and “a voice in a million.” Plus, he has a smooth tone and a perfect pitch. He essentially raised the bar for every other lead singer out there with his emotive delivery which gave an extra punch to Journey’s power ballads.

Anyone who tries to sing songs like Faithfully or Don’t Stop Believin’ often find themselves getting tired after belting out to the high notes and that’s another thing about Perry – his breath control and how he regulates it properly. This is why even during live performances, especially at the height of Journey’s popularity, his singing was flawless and very much identical to their studio recordings. Whereas other singers will feel tired and hoarse, he can hold long phrases.

His vocal ability is often compared to that of Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin. Perry has been imitated many times over but never duplicated. His distinctive and unique way of singing earned him the accolade of being one of the greatest singers of all time.

Three songs that showcased his impeccable voice are the Journey classics Open Arms, Faithfully, and Lights.

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Steve Perry Walked Away From Journey. A Promise Finally Ended His Silence.

By Alex Pappademas

• Sept. 5, 2018

MALIBU, Calif. — On the back patio of a Greek restaurant, a white-haired man making his way to the exit paused for a second look at one of his fellow diners, a man with a prominent nose who wore his dark hair in a modest pompadour.

“You look a lot like Steve Perry,” the white-haired man said.

“I used to be Steve Perry,” Steve Perry said.

This is how it goes when you are Steve Perry. Everyone is excited to see you, and no one can quite believe it. Everyone wants to know where you’ve been.

In 1977, an ambitious but middlingly successful San Francisco jazz-rock band called Journey went looking for a new lead singer and found Mr. Perry, then a 28-year-old veteran of many unsigned bands. Mr. Perry and the band’s lead guitarist and co-founder, Neal Schon, began writing concise, uplifting hard rock songs that showcased Mr. Perry’s clean, powerful alto, as operatic an instrument as pop has ever seen. This new incarnation of Journey produced a string of hit singles, released eight multiplatinum albums and toured relentlessly — so relentlessly that in 1987, a road-worn Mr. Perry took a hiatus, effectively dissolving the band he’d helped make famous.

He did not disappear completely — there was a solo album in 1994, followed in 1996 by a Journey reunion album, “Trial by Fire.” But it wasn’t long before Mr. Perry walked away again, from Journey and from the spotlight. With his forthcoming album, “Traces,” due in early October, he’s breaking 20 years of radio silence.

Over the course of a long midafternoon lunch — well-done souvlaki, hold all the starches — Mr. Perry, now 69, explained why he left, and why he’s returned. He spoke of loving, and losing and opening himself to being loved again, including by people he’s never met, who know him only as a voice from the Top 40 past.

And when he detailed the personal tragedy that moved him to make music again, he talked about it in language as earnest and emotional as any Journey song:

“I thought I had a pretty good heart,” he said, “but a heart isn’t really complete until it’s completely broken.”

IN ITS ’80S heyday, Journey was a commercial powerhouse and a critical piñata. With Mr. Perry up front, slinging high notes like Frisbees into the stratosphere, Journey quickly became not just big but huge . When few public figures aside from Pac-Man and Donkey Kong had their own video game, Journey had two. The offices of the group’s management company received 600 pieces of Journey fan mail per day.

The group toured hard for nine years. Gradually, that punishing schedule began to take a toll on Journey’s lead singer.

“I never had any nodules or anything, and I never had polyps,” Mr. Perry said, referring to the state of his vocal cords. He looked around for some wood to knock, then settled for his own skull. The pain, he said, was more spiritual than physical.

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As a vocalist, Mr. Perry explained, “your instrument is you. It’s not just your throat, it’s you . If you’re burnt out, if you’re depressed, if you’re feeling weary and lost and paranoid, you’re a mess.”

“Frankly,” Mr. Schon said in a phone interview, “I don’t know how he lasted as long as he did without feeling burned out. He was so good, doing things that nobody else could do.”

On Feb. 1, 1987, Mr. Perry performed one last show with Journey, in Anchorage. Then he went home.

Mr. Perry was born in Hanford, Calif., in the San Joaquin Valley, about 45 minutes south of Fresno. His parents, who were both Portuguese immigrants, divorced when he was 8, and Mr. Perry and his mother moved in next door to her parents’. “I became invisible, emotionally,” Mr. Perry said. “And there were places I used to hide, to feel comfortable, to protect myself.”

Sometimes he’d crawl into a corner of his grandparents’ garage with a blanket and a flashlight. But he also found refuge in music. “I could get lost in these 45s that I had,” Mr. Perry said. “It turned on a passion for music in me that saved my life.”

As a teen, Mr. Perry moved to Lemoore, Calif., where he enjoyed an archetypally idyllic West Coast adolescence: “A lot of my writing, to this day, is based on my emotional attachment to Lemoore High School.”

There he discovered the Beatles and the Beach Boys, went on parked-car dates by the San Joaquin Valley’s many irrigation canals, and experienced a feeling of “freedom and teenage emotion and contact with the world” that he’s never forgotten. Even a song like “No Erasin’,” the buoyant lead single from his new LP has that down-by-the-old-canal spirit, Mr. Perry said.

And after he left Journey, it was Lemoore that Mr. Perry returned to, hoping to rediscover the person he’d been before subsuming his identity within an internationally famous rock band. In the beginning, he couldn’t even bear to listen to music on the radio: “A little PTSD, I think.”

Eventually, in 1994, he made that solo album, “For the Love of Strange Medicine,” and sported a windblown near-mullet and a dazed expression on the cover. The reviews were respectful, and the album wasn’t a flop. With alternative rock at its cultural peak, Mr. Perry was a man without a context — which suited him just fine.

“I was glad,” he said, “that I was just allowed to step back and go, O.K. — this is a good time to go ride my Harley.”

JOURNEY STAYED REUNITED after Mr. Perry left for the second time in 1997. Since December 2007, its frontman has been Arnel Pineda, a former cover-band vocalist from Manila, Philippines, who Mr. Schon discovered via YouTube . When Journey was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last April, Mr. Pineda sang the 1981 anthem “Don’t Stop Believin’,” not Mr. Perry. “I’m not in the band,” he said flatly, adding, “It’s Arnel’s gig — singers have to stick together.”

Around the time Mr. Pineda joined the band, something strange had happened — after being radioactively unhip for decades, Journey had crept back into the zeitgeist. David Chase used “Don’t Stop Believin’” to nerve-racking effect in the last scene of the 2007 series finale of “The Sopranos” ; when Mr. Perry refused to sign off on the show’s use of the song until he was told how it would be used, he briefly became one of the few people in America who knew in advance how the show ended.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” became a kind of pop standard, covered by everyone from the cast of “Glee” to the avant-shred guitarist Marnie Stern . Decades after they’d gone their separate ways, Journey and Mr. Perry found themselves discovering fans they never knew they had.

Mark Oliver Everett, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter who performs with his band Eels under the stage name E, was not one of them, at first.

“When I was young, living in Virginia,” Mr. Everett said, “Journey was always on the radio, and I wasn’t into it.”

So although Mr. Perry became a regular at Eels shows beginning around 2003, it took Mr. Everett five years to invite him backstage. He’d become acquainted with Patty Jenkins, the film director, who’d befriended Mr. Perry after contacting him for permission to use “Don’t Stop Believin’” in her 2003 film “Monster.” (“When he literally showed up on the mixing stage the next day and pulled up a chair next to me, saying, ‘Hey I really love your movie. How can I help you?’ it was the beginning of one of the greatest friendships of my life,” Ms. Jenkins wrote in an email.) Over lunch, Ms. Jenkins lobbied Mr. Everett to meet Mr. Perry.

They hit it off immediately. “At that time,” Mr. Everett said, “we had a very serious Eels croquet game in my backyard every Sunday.” He invited Mr. Perry to attend that week. Before long, Mr. Perry began showing up — uninvited and unannounced, but not unwelcome — at Eels rehearsals.

“They’d always bust my chops,” Mr. Perry said. “Like, ‘Well? Is this the year you come on and sing a couple songs with us?’”

At one point, the Eels guitarist Jeff Lyster managed to bait Mr. Perry into singing Journey’s “Lights” at one of these rehearsals, which Mr. Everett remembers as “this great moment — a guy who’s become like Howard Hughes, and just walked away from it all 25 years ago, and he’s finally doing it again.”

Eventually Mr. Perry decided to sing a few numbers at an Eels show, which would be his first public performance in decades. He made this decision known to the band, Mr. Everett said, not via phone or email but by showing up to tour rehearsals one day carrying his own microphone. “He moves in mysterious ways,” Mr. Everett observed.

For mysterious Steve Perry reasons, Mr. Perry chose to make his long-awaited return to the stage at a 2014 Eels show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn. During a surprise encore, he sang three songs, including one of his favorite Eels tunes, whose profane title is rendered on an edited album as “It’s a Monstertrucker.”

“I walked out with no anticipation and they knew me and they responded, and it was really a thrill,” Mr. Perry said. “I missed it so much. I couldn’t believe it’d been so long.”

“It’s a Monstertrucker” is a spare song about struggling to get through a lonely Sunday in someone’s absence. For Mr. Perry, it was not an out-of-nowhere choice.

In 2011, Ms. Jenkins directed one segment of “Five,” a Lifetime anthology film about women and breast cancer. Mr. Perry visited her one day in the cutting room while she was at work on a scene featuring real cancer patients as extras. A woman named Kellie Nash caught Mr. Perry’s eye. Instantly smitten, he asked Ms. Jenkins if she would introduce them by email.

“And she says ‘O.K., I’ll send the email,’ ” Mr. Perry said, “but there’s one thing I should tell you first. She was in remission, but it came back, and it’s in her bones and her lungs. She’s fighting for her life.”

“My head said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Mr. Perry remembered, “but my heart said, ‘Send the email.’”

“That was extremely unlike Steve, as he is just not that guy,” Ms. Jenkins said. “I have never seen him hit on, or even show interest in anyone before. He was always so conservative about opening up to anyone.”

A few weeks later, Ms. Nash and Mr. Perry connected by phone and ended up talking for nearly five hours. Their friendship soon blossomed into romance. Mr. Perry described Ms. Nash as the greatest thing that ever happened to him.

“I was loved by a lot of people, but I didn’t really feel it as much as I did when Kellie said it,” he said. “Because she’s got better things to do than waste her time with those words.”

They were together for a year and a half. They made each other laugh and talked each other to sleep at night.

In the fall of 2012, Ms. Nash began experiencing headaches. An MRI revealed that the cancer had spread to her brain. One night not long afterward, Ms. Nash asked Mr. Perry to make her a promise.

“She said, ‘If something were to happen to me, promise me you won’t go back into isolation,’ ” Mr. Perry said, “because that would make this all for naught.”

At this point in the story, Mr. Perry asked for a moment and began to cry.

Ms. Nash died on Dec. 14, 2012, at 40. Two years later, Mr. Perry showed up to Eels rehearsal with his own microphone, ready to make good on a promise.

TIME HAS ADDED a husky edge to Mr. Perry’s angelic voice; on “Traces,” he hits some trembling high notes that bring to mind the otherworldly jazz countertenor “Little” Jimmy Scott. The tone suits the songs, which occasionally rock, but mostly feel close to their origins as solo demos Mr. Perry cut with only loops and click tracks backing him up.

The idea that the album might kick-start a comeback for Mr. Perry is one that its maker inevitably has to hem and haw about.

“I don’t even know if ‘coming back’ is a good word,” he said. “I’m in touch with the honest emotion, the love of the music I’ve just made. And all the neurosis that used to come with it, too. All the fears and joys. I had to put my arms around all of it. And walking back into it has been an experience, of all of the above.”

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How Steve Perry Finally Accepted His Aging Voice: Exclusive Interview

Steve Perry opened 2018's Traces with a moment of emotional honesty – and not just because "No Erasin'" dealt with a crushing sense of loss. The ex- Journey frontman was well aware of how his voice sounded on the released take: shaped and weathered by time.

He left it that way, taking another important step toward accepting things as they are.

“My biggest problem is the singer that I’m working with,” Perry tells UCR with a laugh. “He’s tough. He’s not easy. The voice is always a character that is inconsistent and never behaves. It’s always something that needs to be nurtured and never behaves. And then, I have to find some way of allowing a certain amount of forgiveness, for it to exist on its own terms and not shoot it in the head. It’s probably the biggest problem I’ve got, is the love/hate relationship sometimes with my own vocal abilities or shortcomings.”

Earlier this month, Perry returned to that long-awaited third solo album with Traces (Alternate Versions & Sketches ) , which offers fans an opportunity to hear the songs in a stripped-down format that reveals even more depth and vulnerability.

Perry had come to a revelation during his long time away following 1994's For the Love of Strange Medicine : Perfect isn't always, in fact, perfect. That attitude guided "No Erasin'" and the rest of his long-awaited follow up album.

“Well, it took," Perry says before pausing, "... a certain amount of risk on my heart’s part to allow the rawness of that vocal to be enough for the song, because a lot of it was just roughly sketched in when I started getting it going. There was something raw about it that I liked, but there were also things coming from my heart that I wished I could do – I guess the word might be “more perfect.” But perfect doesn’t mean more emotional, so this is a new area for me.”

Listen to Steve Perry Perform 'No Erasin''

Perry also recognizes the process that songs undergo once they have been released into the world. Even his most famous Journey tracks took on different contexts and meaning over time – right along with his approach at the mic. He's come to not only accept these evolutions, but to celebrate them.

“If you listen to my voice, I’ll give you a good example of how things change: ‘ Open Arms ,’ the original recording on Escape , it’s like that, right? [Perry sings a lyric to demonstrate] Now, you go to the Houston live version and you’ll see that the song has evolved to something it probably would have been nice to have been done like,” Perry says. “But things don’t evolve in the studio as quickly as they can evolve singin’ ‘em out in front of people every night.”

“‘Open Arms’ started to evolve with the influence of performance behind it and the voice started to evolve in a way that was getting more gruff and maybe a little more soulful than the original version,” he continues. “Although the original version is a painting in a gallery that I’m very proud of, I am proud of both of them – because it’s a good example of where it starts and where it can go. In the case of ‘No Erasin’,’ it started there, so I left it alone.”

Perry confronted similar issues with composing too, as he tried to keep Traces in an uncluttered and sincere place while grieving the death of cancer-stricken girlfriend Kellie Nash.

“In the beginning, I must tell you, some of the songwriting demons, when I sat by myself and started sketching ideas, I forgot that I had not gone into that place in a long time. And at first, it was a scary place to walk back into,” Perry says. “Like an old house you were raised in that you had not walked into since you were a kid. But the songs just kept coming and the creativity thing came back to me.”

Joy and passion began to return as he worked. Just as importantly, Perry let the songs find their way home: “Whatever music showed up, is where I said, ‘Okay, I’m finishing that.’ Whatever my heart was painfully saying, ‘Okay, then I’m finishing that.’ Because if I’m not going to be honest and truthful to what shows up, then I’m full of shit! So, I have to be honest and truthful to what shows up. And what showed up was the Traces record.”

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Steve Perry interview: the return of The Voice

After the kind of success most can only dream about, former Journey singer Steve Perry said it was all over. Then he started believin’ again…

Some words he sang in 1981 have echoed down the years: ‘ Don’t stop believin’, hold on to that feeling… ’ And yet in the life of Steve Perry there was a long period, the best part of 20 years, when his belief in music, and the feeling he put into it, seemed lost forever. 

For the man whose richly expressive, high-arcing voice helped Journey to become one of the biggest rock groups in America in the 80s, the now 69-year-old’s solo album, Traces , is a surprise comeback. It ends a self-imposed exile from the music business that began soon after Trial By Fire , his final album with Journey , released in 1996 – the year in which Oasis and the Spice Girls ruled the British charts, Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill was the biggest-selling album in America, Bill Clinton was in the White House and John Major was at Number 10. 

As Perry says now: “I had lost that deep passion in my heart for the inner joy of songwriting and singing. I sort of let it all go. If it came back, great; if it didn’t, so be it, because I’d already lived the dream of dreams.” 

His long absence from public life has made Perry something of an enigma; the guy who had it all and walked away, the legendary singer who fell silent. In all the time that Perry remained a recluse – as he puts it: “living my life in quietness, in privacy” – Journey carried on, bringing in Perry sound-alike singers Steve Augeri, Jeff Scott Soto and latterly Arnel Pineda, a Filipino discovered via YouTube performing in a Journey tribute band in Manila. 

Journey’s profile rose again when Don’t Stop Believin ’ , a Top 10 US hit in 1981 and a classic rock radio staple ever since, became more popular than ever, a global anthem, after it was featured in the cult film Monster, the acclaimed TV series The Sopranos and the hit teen show Glee . Perry, meanwhile, made only fleeting appearances in public – singing along to Don’t Stop Believin’ at baseball games, joining alternative rock group Eels on stage to run through old Journey hits and, more surprisingly, the Eels’ bluntly named It’s A Motherfucker.  

Before his comeback, Perry had felt he was done with his career in music. He also felt he had done enough. The classic albums he made with Journey and as a solo artist – from Infinity to Escape, Frontiers, Street Talk and Raised On Radio – had sold millions. The songs he sang had helped define a golden age of melodic rock. His return to music, so late in life, is not driven by a need for money or validation. It’s the result of something far more meaningful. 

“It came out of falling in love with somebody and then losing her a year and a half later,” Perry says. “Her name was Kellie Nash. She had stage four cancer when I met her, and we had made some promises to each other, one of which was that I would not go back to into isolation if something happened to her.” 

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After a moment’s hesitation, he says simply: “I kept that promise.”

It’s a late summer evening when Classic Rock catches up with Perry, at home near San Francisco. His high, singsong voice is unmistakable, his manner friendly and engaging. There is also a remarkable degree of candour in what he reveals about certain chapters in his life – his exit from Journey in the late 80s; his search for peace of mind away from the bright lights of rock stardom; most revealingly, his brief, intense relationship with Kellie Nash. In these moments he seems wide open, extraordinarily so for a man who retreated from fame and from the public gaze for such long a time. 

It is when addressing other subjects – specifically his past drug use and the possibility of him rejoining Journey – that his voice hardens a little and his answers turn more defensive or oblique, or rises as he parries a question with an offhand joke. From one such exchange comes a blunt disclosure. Asked why he rarely gave interviews to the press at the height of his fame in the 80s, he replies: “You really want to know? Will you print what I say right now?” He laughs long and hard. “Because I don’t trust journalists! I’ve had good experiences, and some not so good. I’m missing fingers, still, from the lion’s mouth.” 

He says he hated being misquoted in the press. More than that, what really hurt were the bad reviews the band received. For many critics, Journey’s everyman rock was always a soft target. “I only read three reviews in my whole life,” he says. “Then I decided I wasn’t going to read them any more. Every night, we’d get one encore, a second encore. That was my review. I didn’t need to read tomorrow’s paper.” 

So what’s changed? Perry says he has. “The passion for music came back. Singing again, I was getting goose bumps. It touches me. Nothing is bigger than that for me. So that’s why I’m talking to you now. Because I never thought I’d never feel like this again.”

When Perry thinks back to his childhood, he says wistfully: “Music is what I lived for as a kid.” 

Born on January 22, 1949 in Hanford, California, to Portuguese parents, he is an only child. It was at the age of 12 that he first dreamed of becoming a singer, after hearing soul legend Sam Cooke’s hit song Cupid . As a teenager, Perry, like so many of his generation, fell under the spell of The Beatles. In tribute, his new album includes a version of I Need You , one of the first songs George Harrison wrote for the group. 

In his early twenties, Perry fronted a number of California rock bands, one of which, Pieces, featured an established star in bassist Tim Bogert, who had been in Vanilla Fudge and Beck, Bogert & Appice. It was with Perry’s subsequent band, Alien Project, that he recorded a demo tape that caught the ear of Columbia Records executive Don Ellis. The band broke up in the summer of 1977 after bassist Richard Michaels was killed in a road accident. Soon afterwards, Ellis called Perry, first offering his sympathies, then a new opportunity – an audition with Journey. 

He’d seen Journey play live at LA club The Starwood. The group had been created as a vehicle for guitar virtuoso Neal Schon, a former member of Santana, and Perry liked what he heard: jazz rock fusion, serious chops. But the first three Journey albums had bombed, and bringing in singer Robert Fleischman to share vocals with keyboard player Gregg Rolie, also ex-Santana, was not working out. Behind Fleischman’s back, Perry met with the band after a show in Denver, Colorado. Later that night, in Schon’s hotel room, he and Perry wrote their first song together, a power ballad named Patiently . And with that, Perry was in. 

The first album he recorded with Journey, 1978’s Infinity , became the band’s first US Top-30 record, and more hits followed. But it was their 1981 album Escape , three albums later, that made them superstars. With Rolie having been replaced by Jonathan Cain, the band’s AOR sound was honed to perfection. Three Top 10 singles – Don’t Stop Believin’, Who’s Crying Now and Open Arms – helped power the album to No.1.

“We really struck a chord with Escape ,” Perry says now. “But when you reach a sort of peak moment where everything clicks, I don’t think it’s calculable. I think there’s a lot of luck involved. I think that, creatively, we were just in the right place at the right time.” 

After another multimillion seller, Frontiers , Perry also had a hit with his debut solo album Street Talk and the single Oh Sherrie . And it was at this point that the power dynamic within the group shifted. Journey had always been Neal Schon’s band, but it was Perry who took control of the 1986 album Raised On Radio , on which the singer’s soul influences dominated and the guitarist’s role was diminished. It was also during the making of this album that Perry’s mother died, which led him to re-evaluate his own life. In late 1986, when the Raised On Radio tour ended, he did not tell the band he was quitting. But as Jonathan Cain said: “I knew it was over. It was a sad, sad night.” 

I don’t trust journalists! I’m missing fingers, still, from the lion’s mouth. Steve Perry

Perry says now that he was burned out from 10 years of touring and recording. “The pace was fast, and we never stopped.” He also concedes that he partied too hard in those days. “It was the eighties!” he says, laughing. “Everybody was pretty much having a good time, put it that way.”

The laughter doesn’t last. When he’s asked for a little more detail, he gets rattled. Reminded of what he said on a recent US TV chat show, describing his state of mind in the 80s as “toasty” and “crispy” – words evocative of cocaine use – he says sharply: “Partying comes with all sorts of toasty behaviours. And that’s about all I’ll say about that.” But then just a moment later: “I never participated in toasty behaviours before a gig or during a gig,” he insists. “But after a gig, I’ll probably see you tomorrow after sound-check…”

Having left Journey behind, what followed, as he freely admits, was a struggle to adapt to a life without the band and all that went with it. 

“As much I missed the lights, as much as I missed the stage, the applause and the adoration of people who were loving the music I was participating in, I had to walk away from it to be okay emotionally on my own without it,” he says. “And that took time. That doesn’t mean I didn’t miss it, it means I had to keep walking the other way. There was some personal work to be done within myself, to be honest with you.” 

After Perry left Journey, Schon and Cain formed the supergroup Bad English with singer John Waite, who had previously worked alongside Cain in pop rock act The Babys. Perry eventually made a second solo album, 1994’s For The Love Of Strange Medicine . His reunion with Journey in 1996 was derailed by the cancellation of a major tour after Perry sustained a hip injury. The band waited two years before deciding to move on without him. And Perry quietly slipped away into a new life.

In the way that Perry describes his years away from the music business there is a sense of him drifting, and enjoying his freedom. He travelled the world, in a way he was never able to do as the star of a high-profile rock band. He had also made and saved enough money never to have to work again. Moreover, he explains, “I live small. I can only drive one car at a time.”

But he had not shut himself off from the outside world. “I was out of the limelight, but it wasn’t like I wasn’t tracking the reality of life.” And although he had left Journey behind, he was instrumental in the resurrection of Don’t Stop Believin’ – granting permission for the song to be used in Monster , a low-budget 2003 film starring Charlize Theron, and in the final episode of The Sopranos in 2007. 

The latter, for Perry, was a tough call. He loved The Sopranos , and was thrilled to hear that the show’s creator David Chase wanted to use Don’t Stop Believin’ in that episode’s closing scene. What troubled Perry was the prospect of his song – a song so full of love and hope – playing as the lead character, mafia boss Tony Soprano, got bumped off. It was only after Perry was told, in strict confidence, how the scene would play out that he gave Chase his consent. To Perry’s delight, the scene had Tony Soprano putting quarters into a jukebox and picking Don’t Stop Believin’ over songs by Heart and Tony Bennett. 

On the day after that final episode was shown on TV, Perry discovered that he was cooler than he had ever been before. “I was in an airport,” he recalls, “and these people went: ‘Hey Steve! Thumbs up, man! Tony Soprano loves Journey!’ It was amazing.” 

But it was his involvement in Monster , and the friendship he formed with the film’s director, Patty Jenkins, that would change the course of Perry’s life.

In 2013, after many years, Perry was working on music again. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to go,” he says. “It had been so long since I opened up my soul to that. But I allowed myself to do it with the idea that if I didn’t like what happened I would delete it and no one would ever hear it.” 

Then, through Jenkins, and purely by chance, he met Kellie Nash. For Perry this is a deeply personal story, but he says he’s comfortable discussing it in the public domain. “I totally am,” he says emphatically. “I will tell you how it came about, if you want me to tell you.” The inference in his voice is clear: this has profound meaning for him. 

“It started when I was watching Patty editing a TV show about cancer,” he begins. “Patty told me: ‘I put real people who have cancer on the set with my actors.’ And as the camera panned across all these people, I said: ‘Who’s that?’ She said: ‘It’s Kellie Nash, a friend of mine. She’s a PhD psychologist.’ I said: ‘Maybe I need a new shrink!’ Patty asked me why I wanted to know about Kellie. I said: ‘There’s something about her that’s talking to me.’ I asked Patty if she would email Kellie and say that her friend Steve would love to take her for a coffee. She said: ‘Okay. But before I send the email, there’s something I need to tell you. She has breast cancer. It’s in her bones and lungs and she’s fighting for her life…’” 

He takes a deep breath. “At that moment I didn’t know what to do. I’d lost my mother and my dad and my grandparents. I don’t think I was ready to get to know somebody just to lose them. My heart said send the email, my head said I don’t know. So I listened to my heart. 

“After two weeks of me going crazy, Patty says it’s okay for me to email Kellie. I’ll never forget it. You’d think I was writing the best lyric of my life. I wanted every word to be what I felt. After some emails between us, we talked on the phone for five hours one night. A few nights later we went to dinner at six o’clock and we closed that restaurant down at midnight. After that we were inseparable. 

“I remember telling her, about three or four dates later, that I was crazy about her and I loved her. She said: ‘I love you too.’ That’s when the conversations got really deep. We talked about her cancer, and she said: ‘This is some nasty stuff. I don’t think you want any of this.’ I said: ‘I don’t care.’ I told her: ‘It’s like two tracks on a rail. That’s what going on over there, and we’ll get through that together. But you and I are over here.’ 

“One night, when we were falling asleep, she said: ‘If something was to happen to me, promise me that you won’t go back to isolation and make this all for nought.’ I didn’t know how to navigate such a statement. She was looking at the arc of her whole life, and us getting together, loving each other. The possibility of us not being together, I just didn’t want to talk about it…” 

His voice shakes and trails off before he says quietly: “I made the promise. And then I lost her, twelfth of December, 2014.”

For the third time in his life, Perry’s career had been shaped by the loss of someone close to him. The death of Richard Michaels had led to Perry joining Journey. The death of his mother had contributed to his exit from the band. 

He says he still grieves for Nash. “I had a couple of years of serious crying,” he sighs, “and every now and again I still get mugged by it. It happened again just yesterday. But there was something she said to me: ‘This cancer might take my life, but it can never take our love for each other’. And I have found that to be absolutely true.” 

Nash was the inspiration for Perry’s new album Traces , but he does not think of this as simply a memorial. “Some of the songs are about Kellie,” he says. “Some are sad, but there are happy songs too – songs that rock, they’re joyful, they’re hopeful. And that emotion, finding my passion again for music, is certainly about her.” 

In the context of Perry’s career, Traces has a style and tone more reminiscent of his first solo record, Street Talk , than of his work with Journey. There’s a modern AOR feel in the album’s beautifully crafted opener No Erasin’ , and in the upbeat rock number Sun Shines Gray , and in a series of smooth ballads there are the soul and R&B influences that informed Street Talk . And while his voice has changed with age, now operating at a lower register, the essential qualities – the nuanced phrasing and the emotional depth – remain. 

“Nobody is the same as they were thirty years ago,” he says. “But I do tell you this: I am as emotionally as committed with what I’m trying to say with my voice now as I was then, if not more.”

In the way that Perry sings now, there is a similarity to Robert Plant. And just as Plant declined to be involved in a full-scale Led Zeppelin reunion in recent years, so Perry has consigned his former band to his past. Neal Schon has said the door is open for Perry to rejoin Journey, but Perry won’t be walking through it. 

“I think the band is doing really well,” he says. “Arnel is a great singer. And I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I love my new music, even if I’m sad that it took what it took – that my heart had to be broken to be complete. And after I swore I’d never do this again, I really believe in what I’m doing with this new record. Isn’t it better for the soul to keep reaching for the things that you’re afraid to do, not the things that are safe to do? Isn’t it better to keep pushing into the future so that you feel like you’re living your life on the edge as it unfolds? I think that Robert Plant is doing that, and it seems to me he’s loving it. Why go back? Throwing yourself into the abyss of the unknown, and trying to figure that out, is thrilling to me.” 

Perry’s says his comeback, so long in coming, and so unexpected, might not end with this one album. “I’ve had conversations about potential live shows,” he reveals. “And I’ve got a shitload more songs sitting around. I would love to do another record.” 

What is most surprising in all of this is that Perry has no regrets about all the time he’s been away: no sense that he might have, maybe should have, made more of his talent. 

“That was one of the things I pondered at one time,” he says. “But I have no problem with it, which is really amazing to me. I think the word ‘if’ is really a waste of time. As long as you’re doing the very best you can, in the moment, I don’t think it’s right to look back and think about ‘if’. Instead of looking at anything as a regret, I’d rather move forward. Right now that means more to me than anything.”

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 255 . Traces is out now . 

Freelance writer for Classic Rock since 2005, Paul Elliott has worked for leading music titles since 1985, including Sounds, Kerrang!, MOJO and Q . He is the author of several books including the first biography of Guns N’ Roses and the autobiography of bodyguard-to-the-stars Danny Francis. He has written liner notes for classic album reissues by artists such as Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy and Kiss, and currently works as content editor for Total Guitar . He lives in Bath - of which David Coverdale recently said: “How very Roman of you!”

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Steve Perry: The Legendary Voice of Journey

• by history tools
• November 19, 2023

With his towering vocals and magnetic stage presence, Steve Perry is one of the greatest rock frontmen of all time. He is best known as the lead singer for Journey during their arena rock heyday. Perry‘s soaring tenor and passion helped define Journey‘s melodic power ballad sound on hits like "Don‘t Stop Believin‘." After leaving Journey, Perry went on to have a successful solo career. His new music in recent years proves his voice remains as captivating as ever decades later.

Humble Beginnings in Central California

Steve Perry was born on January 22, 1949 in the small central California town of Hanford. Music was always central in his family – his mother was a vocal coach who nurtured his singing talent from a young age. As a teen, Perry formed his first band and performed at local venues before leaving Hanford for greater opportunities.

Joining Journey and Rise to Fame

After stints in other bands, Perry became the lead singer for Journey in 1977, bringing his soaring tenor voice to their sound. His arrival came just as Journey was transitioning to a more melodic, pop-oriented style. Perry‘s vocals helped rocket Journey to the top – their 1981 album Escape, featuring "Don‘t Stop Believin‘," was their biggest success.

As Journey‘s frontman, Perry delivered powerful performances like raising his arms triumphantly while hitting the iconic high notes in "Don‘t Stop Believin‘." His charisma and connection with audiences cemented his status as one of rock‘s all-time great frontmen.

Life After Journey and Triumphant Return

Exhaustion from tour life led Perry to leave Journey in 1987. He continued writing and recording as a solo artist. Health issues in the 1990s made singing difficult for Perry, but he emerged in 2018 with Traces, his first album in 25 years. His voice had lost none of its emotion and splendor.

Now in his 70s, Steve Perry continues to inspire generations of music fans with his unbelievable vocals. His journey from small town singer to global rock god is a true American success story.

Fun Facts About Steve Perry

• Got the Journey gig by giving them a demo tape on which he sang in various voices
• Once took out a full page personal ad in Billboard to find a girl he met at a Journey concert
• Co-wrote the Journey hits "Open Arms" and "Faithfully" about his girlfriend at the time
• His mother coined the nickname "The Voice" because of his remarkable singing ability
• Steve Perry‘s trademark look included big hair, a headband, and aviator sunglasses

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JOURNEY: New Documentary 'A Voice Lost...And Found' To Premiere On REELZ This Weekend

"Journey: A Voice Lost...And Found" will premiere on Reelz on Sunday, June 25 at 9 p.m. EDT / 6 p.m. PDT.

The official program synopsis: JOURNEY dominated the American music scene in the 1970s and 1980s with their epic arena rock anthems and power ballads. Frontman Steve Perry was dubbed "The Voice" thanks to the untouchable vocal stylings that burned up the radio waves and made him a household name. But the bigger JOURNEY became the more miserable Perry grew. He was the rare rock superstar who craved anonymity more than applause.

Then at the height of the band's success Perry did the unthinkable quitting JOURNEY . That alone should've been an absolute death knell for a band so defined by a single voice. But JOURNEY 's other longtime members refused to give up the dream and brought in a new singer to keep the music going.

Fans were livid that anyone would dare to try to fill Perry 's shoes. Shows were played in empty houses and threats were even made against the band. When that replacement singer didn't work out desperation forced the band to turn to YouTube for the most unlikely inspiration.

JOURNEY members Jonathan Cain and Deen Castronovo are joined by former members Jeff Scott Soto and Narada Michael Walden , as well as SiriusXM radio personality Eddie Trunk and former JOURNEY producer Kevin Elson to tell the band's amazing tale.

"Journey: A Voice Lost...And Found" is produced by AMS Pictures .

Reelz is available in more than 40 million homes on DIRECTV (238), DISH Network (299), Verizon FiOS TV (692HD), AT&T U-verse (799/1799HD) and Xfinity , Spectrum , Optimum , Mediacom , Peacock , Philo , Freecast , DIRECTV Stream , Dish Sling and many other cable systems and major streaming services nationwide. Find Reelz in your area by visiting www.reelz.com .

Owned by Hubbard Media Group , Reelz is headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico with national ad sales based in New York City with offices in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Sadly I don't have Reelz as I use YouTube TV, if there is anyone who can work out how to make a .mov .mkv .mv4 .MP4 or otherwise of this show, please DM me, I would LOVE to see it since I'm in it!! 🙏🤘😘 https://t.co/LpLHhO0i6F — Jeff Scott Soto (@jeffscottsoto) June 23, 2023

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Foolish, Foolish Throat: A Q&A with Steve Perry

By Alex Pappademas

Journey ’s ex-frontman talks vocal burnout, hip replacement, rock superstardom, and coyotes with Alex Pappademas

PLUS: _ Journey co-founder and lead guitarist Neal Schon responds_

](http://blog.gq.com/images/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/28/steve_perry.jpg)

Every time I told somebody I was writing a story about the new lead singer of Journey , I’d get the same incredulous response: “Steve Perry’s not the lead singer of Journey anymore?” Even though the piece I was writing was mostly going to be about Arnel Pineda (whose pre-Journey work can be seen here ) and the present-day incarnation of the band, I knew I couldn’t write anything about Journey without getting in touch with Steve Perry. I was supposed to talk to him for thirty minutes, but he had a lot to say—about how he joined the band, about why he left, and about the pride he still takes in the work they did together—and we ended up talking for almost two hours. The raw transcript of our interview was almost 11,000 words long; the highlights of that conversation appear below.

GQ: Journey had already made three records by the time you joined the band.

PERRY: Yeah. I joined the band in 1978. What happened was, I was in Los Angeles, trying to get signed, with a band that I was in at the time—it was called the Alien Project, but it was also called Street Talk. The name wasn’t settled yet. Don Ellis, who was running the west coast side of Columbia at the time, heard the tape and really liked the group. We were supposed to talk serious contract papers with him right after 4th of July weekend that year. And our bass player Richard Michaels got killed in a Fourth of July holiday accident on the freeway. We were destroyed by that—he was a wonderful singer, a wonderful bass player, and a great guy, and he was part of a real interesting chemistry that Columbia wanted to sign. So Don Ellis took the liberty, about two weeks after that, of sending our tapes to Herbie Herbert, who at the time was managing Journey. And I got a phone call from Don Ellis telling me that Herbie had called back and wanted to meet me and talk to me about joining the group. Because Journey had made a conscious decision, along with Columbia’s—what’s the correct word here— request [laughs] that they become a little more song-oriented. So they thought that I would be a good addition to the band. So Don Ellis called me and said Herbie wanted me to fly out and meet Neal. I think it was in Denver, Colorado—they were opening for Emerson, Lake and Palmer at the time. So I flew out there, hung out with the band. Neal and I wrote our first song that night in the hotel room, after the show. Called “Patiently.” It began at that point for me, with the band.

So Columbia was pushing Journey to write more commercial music?

They just wanted some songs to get on the radio. I was always a songwriting sort of guy. I wasn’t really into jamming too much. But I appreciated the musicality, the ability to jam. So it was the best of all worlds, I think, when I got into a band that had the ability to play in a progressive way but was open-minded about writing songs. When you have one or the other, it’s just not enough. They were really an amazing performing band. But they didn’t have any quote “hit records,” and weren’t on the radio much.

**So they were okay with the change? **

They were certainly amenable to it when I joined them.

And it obviously worked out pretty well.

It worked out really great. There was something that we had together that I think neither of us have been able to find anywhere else. Everybody’s gone on to their own incarnations, and everybody’s had success, but the truth is, there was a synergy that the band had, in the chemistry of writing and performing and arguing and recording, y’know?

You mentioned arguing—was there a lot of that?

Well, disagreements are part of life! Anything worth anything goes down the path of discussion, disagreement and greatness, I think. I mean, gee whiz. Whether it’s making a movie or making music. It’s no different.

But you ended up having creative and personal differences with Jon and Neal, differences that led to you leaving the band—is that a fair assessment of what happened?

[laughs] You’ve gotta print my response. You’ve gotta print your question and my response, because I think it’s so humorous that such a question is even asked. _[laughs] _I can’t believe that this is news. [laughs] Of course! The answer is of course there’s differences between us all! It’s called a band ! You get in a baseball team and some people like each other and some people hate each other, but they still play together.

Were you and Neal friends?

Of course we were friends. We lived together when I first joined the band. He gave me the back bedroom at his place. But we were also working together. And a lot of time spent together can chew on a friendship. Look, you’ve got to remember, they didn’t want to make it with a lead singer. They wanted to make it without one. They had Gregg Rolie, and that was enough. And he was a great vocalist for what they were looking for, but they didn’t want to have a singer out front.

You think they would have been happier if they’d made it in that prog-rock incarnation?

I can’t speak for them. But I’m sure that if they could have been successful the way they originally set out to be, that would have been fine with them.

Do you think that dynamic was set up from the beginning? Did that tension persist throughout your tenure with the band? Do you think they wished they didn’t need a charismatic singer out front to succeed they way they did?

I don’t know. That’s a tough question. I think that’s getting a little into the area of conjecture.

But I’m wondering if you felt that way. Did you feel like you were the new guy, still, after all that?

Oh, most certainly, I was the new kid on the block with them. I was the new kid in town. There was a statement I made on a VH1 special, which I’m sure you’ve heard—that I never really felt part of the band. “All these years, it’s funny—I never really felt part of it.” What they took out, edit-wise, was that— [long pause] I gotta think about how to say this. Ask me the question again?

By Kate Lindsay

By Adam Cheung

By Jack King

Okay. What did you mean when you said, on that VH1 special, that you’d never really felt like part of the band?

Okay. So— [long pause] when we did the VH1 thing, I said there was quite some time where I never really felt part of the band. And people didn’t understand what that meant. And what that meant was that there was a period of time where I always felt, from Neal, that I had to prove myself worthy of the position I was trying to occupy in the group. And not until it really took off, I think, did that question really get answered.

But along with this, you have to print that I can’t blame them. Because they’d had a certain amount of success without me, and they were wondering, once I joined, “Is this the right direction?” I could tell that. I didn’t have years of being in Santana under my belt, like Neal and Gregg. Ross Valory had played with Steve Miller and people like that, I didn’t have that. Aynsley Dunbar had played with everybody. I didn’t have that under my belt. So, yeah. I was the new kid. And I think that proving myself was something that went on for quite some time with the band members.

Schon was like fifteen years old when he joined Santana.

He was a child prodigy!

So he probably felt, justifiably—

You don’t understand. [Journey] was his band. Herbie built that band around Neal because he’s a star on his own from a guitar standpoint. There’s nobody who plays like Neal Schon, to this day. I still miss his playing. I love his playing. We don’t get along, but I love his playing. ‘Cause he’s brilliant. But you gotta know that Herbie built that band around Neal, and Gregg Rolie too, and then brought in Aynsley and Ross. And George Tickner in the beginning, who was the guitar player in the band before he left, and in came myself and Jon Cain.

That lineup of Journey ended up becoming one of the biggest bands in the world. You even had your own video game.

I was against that. Everybody went against me on that issue. ‘Cause I thought it was silly. I’ve come to find out that there’s a generation of kids who think it’s classic and wish they could find the arcade version. But I personally thought it was dumb.

But the fact that you had that—that’s a measure of how big you were.

See, it’s funny. That’s an interesting comment. Because I thought that we were big already, that we didn’t need a video game. But that’s how the world judges you. Like, “Gee whiz, you have a Lamborghini, so you must’ve been big.” I didn’t understand that. Every night, after every show, I would get everything I needed to hear. I didn’t need any of the other affirmations. I’ve read three reviews in my entire career, and they were all so painful that I decided not to read ‘em anymore. I got my review at the end of the night. When that audience wanted an encore, and they would not let you leave, it was just so gratifying. I didn’t need anything else, as far as an opinion on the show.

That kinda answers one of my questions. You had millions of fans and sold a ton of records—

I think it’s up to almost 50 million, now.

—but you were never a critics’ band. You were never cool.

That’s right. We did get a little bit trendy in spots, we all occasionally got a bit funny with our dressing, but we did not follow the New Wave thing, or the punk thing. We didn’t go nowhere near the disco thing.

**Do you think that’s why the press didn’t like you? **

There was a time that the press, and especially Rolling Stone , decided to call us—and by “us” I mean Foreigner, Journey, Styx—they called us faceless bands. Especially Journey and Foreigner. Because they said we all sounded alike. And I’ll tell you, to this day, I don’t understand what that meant. ‘Cause we didn’t sound alike. I think back in the day, there was a decision, by a couple of key editors, to never give us our just desserts. But like I said, at that point, I realized I wasn’t singing for, or co-writing with the guys, for critics. I was writing for the people who might want to listen to it. And as long as, at the end of the night, I heard what they felt about it, then I was good to go. Let’s roll. Next night.

**When you started your solo career, was that the beginning of the end for Journey? **

No. I think the beginning of the end was when Neal started his solo career. Neal did a solo album way before I was thinking about it, with Jan Hammer. And I said to Herbie, the manager, “I think this is a bad idea”—that it would fracture the band on some level. And he said “No, he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do. I’ve tried to talk him out of it, but he wants to do it.” And then he did his second one, and I said “OK, look, if he does a second one, I’m probably going to end up doing one.” Then [drummer] Steve Smith wanted to do a jazz record. And the theory coming from Steve, and I kind of understood it, was that everybody’ll go out and be able to express themselves musically in some other areas, and then when we reconvene, perhaps we will have discovered or found things that we can bring to the group to help the group evolve. And so I thought that was okay. So after Neal did his second solo album, I went to LA, and in about three weeks, I wrote Street Talk , which was a bit of a nod to the earlier band, and to the bass player who’d passed, and with some great studio musicians and cowriters, we just knocked the record out and we released it.

That was the one that had “Oh Sherrie” on it?

“Oh Sherrie,” and “Foolish Heart,” yeah.

And that became a huge hit.

It did pretty good, yeah.

Was it weird, coming back to Journey after that?

Even while I was doing the solo album, even after it was successful—in my heart of hearts, I was never gonna leave Journey. I had no desire to. At the end of the last video from my solo album, for “Foolish Heart,” there’s an extra tag-on section that I shot for the video, to just tell everybody that that particular phase of my career was now over and now I’m back to Journey. The video is a one-camera move. One huge mag, with not one edit. It starts way in the back, over a railing, and it rolls up to the front. I walk onstage. I sing with a microphone and a music stand. And it rolls around, and halfway through the song it starts rolling back out. And when it parks back out in the audience, at the end of the song, I walk offstage. But in the extra tagged-on piece, I cut to stage right, facing me walking offstage, over the shoulders of Jon, Neal, Ross and Steve. Giving me high fives. Like, “Hey, man, that was great! Let’s go have some pizza. Right on!” So that was like a nod to Journey from my solo side. “Let’s go fuckin’ be Journey again.” I wouldn’t have done that if I had any desire to leave the group. I didn’t! We went back, and we started writing Raised on Radio .

So you came back together, you made one more record, and then the band took a break. You didn’t make another record for ten years after that. What happened?

Well. I remember [pause]. I remember that tour, the Raised on Radio tour. I remember by the end of that tour [pause] , feeling musically toasty, feeling emotionally toasty, feeling vocally toasty, and, um, [pause] telling the manager, “I just don’t want to stay out here and keep doing this. Can’t we stop?” And eventually I had to say, “Look, don’t book any more shows after October. I just want to stop for a while.” So February 1st was when I finally got home from the last shows, in Alaska. And I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just needed to stop.

They would have kept going, I know that. But our relationships by then were not the greatest. At times it was wonderful, but it had been a long time, together. And we had differences of opinion in some areas, which eventually wore us down a bit. I thought it was silly to license songs for commercials and stuff. We’ve always had a difference of opinion in that area. There was a lot of stuff that we didn’t agree on. And a lot of things we did, but the point is we were toast. And maybe it’s just my opinion. Maybe I should just speak for myself. It felt like it was toast, and I felt like we should just stop. So I did.

Then shortly thereafter, I called Jon and Neal together. We met in San Rafael, we sat on the edge of the marina, and I just told them, “I can’t do this anymore. I gotta get out for a while.” And they said, “Well, what do you mean?” And I said, “That’s exactly what I mean, is what I’m saying. I just don’t wanna be in the band anymore. I wanna get out, I wanna stop.” And I think Jon said, “Well, just take some time off, and we’ll think,” and I said “Okay, fine.” And I just sort of fell back into my life. I looked around and realized that my whole life had become everything I’d worked so hard to be, and when I came back to have a regular life, I had to go find one.

Because you’d spent so many years—

Nothing was more important than being part of this huge family called Journey. And us being on this mission together, to be the greatest, and write the greatest songs, and come up with great sounds, and fight for the greatest performances. It was like being on a baseball team. Like, “Okay, we won the World Series. Now I wanna go home for a while.”

**As a singer, were you dealing with a different set of demands? **

Well, what I’m about to say—I’m gonna come across as a prima donna, but if there’s any singers out there reading this at this point, they’ll understand completely. You must put that in there, the preface, because it’s important. Everybody thinks singers are prima donnas. And to a degree I guess we are. But at the same time, the difference between a voice and fingers, or hands, is neurotic at best. When someone’s fingers get calluses on them, the guitar doesn’t hurt so bad. It feels better. Same for the bass. Same for the piano player, when his fingers get callused and strong. When a drummer gets calluses on his hands, they no longer chafe and they no longer blister, and that’s fantastic. The moment a singer gets one callus, he’s finished. Singers live on the edge of being powerful, being strong, and not degrading their voice, and it’s the most difficult edge to walk. You feel like you’re on a high-wire all the time. And the pressure of walking in front of an audience every night, and wanting to be what you know they want you to be, and what you want to be for them, and to have this silly little thing in your throat that’s about as neurotic as you are, is difficult. So it can make any singer a little crazy. It can make you just live your life in a state of insecurity and fear. Until you walk out there and open your mouth, and you see what you got, and then it tells you if it’s gonna be a fun evening or not.

And I imagine it’s much harder to take care of it.

Well, how do you do that and use it at the same time? It’s a very fine line. Like I said, using it can cause the problem. Using your fingers makes ‘em better. So it’s always a fine, artful dance. So at the end of a night, you feel great. I delivered what I wanted to do, I hit the notes, I feel good about it—but you don’t know how much you used up until tomorrow morning. And the tickets have already been sold. The next show is sold out. Only one night did I have to have a shot of B12 with an anti-inflammatory. That was in Dallas, Texas, because I got to a sound check and realized that people were lined up outside and I had half a voice. So that night we got a doctor to give me a shot. Which singers will do a lot—but I only had to do it once.

So that was a big part of the pressure? You were feeling like you were going to burn it out.

I was always on the edge of being what I expected out of myself, and what people wanted me to be, and I never wanted to settle for anything short of what it should be. And so I was always livin’ on that edge.

So when you told them you couldn’t do it anymore—at that point, were you thinking of it as a hiatus, or a breakup?

It was what I just said on tape. I sat down with ‘em at the edge of the marina, and I said I can’t do this anymore. And Jon said—or Neal, I can’t remember, it was so long ago—“Okay, we’ll take some time off.” And I said, “You don’t understand. I don’t want to be in the band anymore. I want out. I just wanna quit. I wanna let go.” And I’m sure they thought, “Oh, there he goes. Solo career. Fuck Steve”—y’know. But the truth is, no. I didn’t jump into that. I really had to let it all go. Completely. And fall back into my life. Because before that last tour—my mother had died, during the making of Raised on Radio . She was dying during the writing and recording of that record, and in the middle of doing vocals, she died. So I came home, took care of that, went back, finished the vocals and stuff, and before I know it, we’re on tour. And by the end of that tour, I was toast. I hadn’t even really addressed or dealt with anything pertaining to that loss. So I was about ready to crash and didn’t know it. And life just said, “I think you’ve got to go deal with this.” ‘Cause I was not happy with things in my life. And you can only run on the road and be in front of people so long before it doesn’t fix you enough, to where you can run away from things you haven’t addressed. You understand what I’m saying?

I imagine it was a really good way to run away from things, for a while.

You think? _[laughs] _Having people love you every night is a beautiful way to run away from things. Oh my God, it’s fantastic. But I needed to go home. So I did. After talking to Jon and Neal, I went back to my home town for a while, and I started doing things that people didn’t understand. I was going to the fair in my home town. I was riding my Harley a lot, all throughout the San Joaquin Valley. I mean, back roads, where there’s no cars, where there’s nothing but coyotes. Just lettin’ the wind kinda blow through me, and just trying to figure a little bit out, how much of me is in there, still, as opposed to what I became? What I thought I had to be? Now, I was grateful for everything that had happened. It was unbelievable. And I didn’t want to stop either, by the way. I didn’t want to leave the group, for Christ’s sake! I worked my whole frickin’ life to get to this point with these guys! We all put our lives and sweat and blood and tears into this thing. But it seemed like, for my life, to save it, I had to stop and get out. I know that sounds intense, but I had to take care of myself. It wasn’t easy to walk out, but I had to do it.

You made a couple of solo records after that.

Way after that. Way after. I think the last show, was at the end of January, ’87. I was back in my house February 1st—I’ll never forget that date. Home alone and going “Now what?” Knowing it was over. My first solo thing, I think, was maybe six, seven years later. ’94. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah, I ran right out there. [laughs] I think I needed some time off, what do you think?

But when you had that conversation, did you get the sense that they thought you were just going out on your own?

Mmm-hmm. I think they thought I was just going to leave the group and go solo and tell everybody to go—whatever. Remember, it took two solo albums from Neal before I did my first. I was a Journey member . I was a Journeyman. I was part of a band that saved my life. You don’t seem to understand how much I wanted to sing in that band. The manager, Herbie, fought for me to be in that band, when they weren’t sure. If it wasn’t for Herbie Herbert fighting for what he believed was the right direction, which was “This guy’s gonna be the singer of the band, and I don’t wanna talk about it anymore”—he fought for me. We’ve had our problems too, but if it wasn’t for Herbie, I woulda had no chance, to sing on that grand stage. He went to bat for me in a huge way.

With Neal, and the rest of the guys?

When they were uncertain?

When they were uncertain. ‘Cause you know, they had a singer before me, named Robert Fleischmann. And he was there for a brief time, until Herbie heard my tape and convinced them that they were gonna have to move from him to me. And he played the tape for ‘em, and they weren’t sure. They weren’t sure about any of it. I’m sure they weren’t sure about Robert, either, you know what I mean? But that’s okay. I completely understand their reluctance. They wanted to make it on their own goalposts. There’s nothing wrong with that. And I hope you print that, because it’s important that people know that. I’m not bitchin’. I can understand how they feel. But you’re asking me how it felt. I’m not whining. I’m _not _whining. I completely understand how they felt and why, and I want to make sure that’s clear.

Sure. You’re just responding to a question I asked.

Yeah. I did not use steroids! Except once in Dallas! _[laughs] _Okay? Now, have I perjured myself? You can’t bust me for steroids, but you’re gonna bust me for perjury—I get it!

The reunion, then—that was two years after?

Trial By Fire ? I would say ’95. I called Jonathan around ’95, and talked to him on the phone.

So you didn’t speak before that?

No. Not much, no.

I imagine the band had become a huge business, given all the records you’d sold.

Oh, yeah, ‘cause it was so successful. People trying to sell hot dogs with your music. That doesn’t feel too great to me.

So you were always opposed to that stuff?

Yeah. Still am. The music is dear to me. Two summers ago I was asked by Sony to oversee the remastering of the entire catalog. And Journey was on tour, so I said “Fine, I’ll do that.” And so I went down and sat with this mastering engineer. We redid everything. That was one of the most cathartic and painful and wonderful experiences I’ve ever had, to go through the entire catalog, all the B-sides of albums that I’d forgotten about, and remember everything about the sessions, and remember the writing of ‘em, the struggles, the accomplishments. And the songs— I gotta tell you, it was unbelievable. And I only bring that up to tell you that, at some level, every one of those tracks are like a painting in a gallery to me, and they’re precious to me. And I just don’t think they’re for selling dogs and burgers. And so— [sigh] —I’ve tried to maintain that that’s just not what they’re for. ‘Cause I just believe in their sincerity. Those songs, and those tracks. And they are like paintings, ‘cause they were painted in a different time and they sound like it, and that gives ‘em their quality. And they’re good.

**What was the reunion like? Tense? **

It was a wonderful experience. I called Jonathan. His wife told me he was in a golf tournament, I think in Florida. And she gave him the message, he called me from there, and I said “Maybe we should talk about getting back together, I’d like to see what you think, let’s have coffee when you get back.” So we had coffee, talked about it, and he said, “Well, we should get together with Neal and talk about it,” and me and Neal and Jon had coffee, and that was kind of the beginning. We started trying to put back the original band, with Ross and Smith. And we wrote the record. It was really great. It was a real great experience.

We finished the record. We mastered the record. We were ready to go and rehearse and do the first video, and I was on a ten-day break before we started rehearsals. I was in Hawaii. And I went on a hike, one I had done many times before— this incredible trail, it’s pretty intense. I got to the top of this hill, and I was in trouble. I could hardly walk. I don’t know what had happened, but the pain was like an ice pick. I’d had some pain in my left hip area before, but I didn’t think nothin’ about it ‘cause it would come and go. I just thought it was part of the aging process.

So I came home, and started seeing a series of doctors, getting opinions. And the only one that was consistent was, “When the pain gets great enough, you’ll replace the hip.” And I said, “Excuse me? What are you talking about?” And they would show me on the X-rays, and the MRIs. I guess I was just in denial about it, like, “You gotta be kidding me.” [Journey had] just reworked our partnership. We were all ready to roll. And so I started a long process, seeing many doctors, and the guys got impatient. They wanted to get on the road, and I said “Well, let’s just get the video done.” So we got the “When You Love A Woman” video done—I was packing my whole left side in ice between takes. And, then after that, I continued looking for doctors, maybe hoping I’d hear what I wanted to hear. There was several medical, non-surgical choices, and I tried all of those. And then finally, months went by, and the band got impatient. I got a phone call from Jon, and I could tell Neal was on the phone, ‘cause I can tell when the line level’s down, and I could hear him breathing, I think. And Jon was telling me, “We want to know what you wanna do. We’ve tried out a few singers. And we need to know what you wanna do.” I said, “You’ve tried out some singers?” And he said yes. His exact words were, “You’re some big shoes to fill, but we wanna get out there. We wanna know when you’re going into surgery, because we want to tour.” And y’know— I didn’t feel like major surgery was a band decision. I said, “I’m gonna get it done. I can’t tell you when, but I’m gonna get it done.” It was suggested that I could tour and sit on a stool. And I said, I am _not _gonna tour and sit on a stool . [laughs] Please.

So at the end of that conversation, I said “Look, you go call whatever you wanna do with whomever you’ve checked out something else. Call it the J-Boys. Call it anything. But don’t call it Journey, y’know? Because I am gonna get this done, eventually.” But I needed to be ready to lay down and do this thing. And it took a few more months, until October, and then I was ready, and found the right doctor for me. Emotionally. Because then I started to become a medical guy. There’s like 20 different prosthetics, all claiming to be the one that lasts, and I had to do research on that crap. But in January, Jon told me on the phone, “I just wanna know.” And I said, “Don’t call it Journey. Because if you do, you will fracture the stone. And I don’t think I’ll be able to come back to it if you break it. If you crack it—it’s got so much integrity. We’ve worked so hard. Can’t you just, y’know—not do that?” And, he asked me again: “We wanna know when you’re going to surgery. Cause we wanna get out there.” That particular set of words. I said “Okay, you do what you gotta do, and I’ll do what I gotta do.” And I hung up the phone, and when the dial tone came back, I called my attorney, and I said “Start the divorce.” And he said, “What divorce?” And I said, “The divorce .” And I told him what happened. When somebody says, “We’ve checked out a few singers,” it’s like your wife’s saying, “Look, while you were gone—I know a few guys, and I just wanna know what you’ve decided to do, because I need to know.” My feeling at that point is very simple: “What am I going back to now? If you go back to that, what are you going back to now?” So that’s why I said, “Maybe we really are done.” I’d left to find my life, once before, gone back to it, to try to reclaim something we once had, and then we kinda fell into that same place again. Y’know? So I thought, “Well, maybe I’m not supposed to be there.”

Did you feel betrayed, by the fact that they’d been looking at other vocalists?

I did not like it, one bit. ‘Cause I’d called Jon to try to put it back together. I was the one who really wanted to do it.

You were the one driving the reunion.

I made the phone call. To Jon Cain.

Have you followed what’s gone on since then, at all?

I only know that they’ve been through three guys, and I’ve never heard any of ‘em, and there’s no need to. Really—I stay away from it, because it’s really none of my business now. We have children together, which are the songs we wrote together, and we have a vested interest, as songwriters, in where they go and where they don’t go. That’s about all. I really try to stay away from it. Because since May—hold on, I’ve got the fax on my wall, in my studio. May 8th, 1998, was the total release from all our contracts, and from Sony. I was a free man then. From all of it.

Did that feel good?

In the beginning, it felt extremely freeing. And then it felt terrible._ [laughs]_

Okay. Can you unpack that for me a little bit?

Well, it felt great to be free. They were gonna go do their thing. And I was not gonna be part of that. And I’m off Sony for the first time since ’78. And no contracts were really binding me to have to be or do anything anymore. So it felt freeing at some level to be a free agent, in ’98, ‘cause the industry was really changing, and the Internet was becoming a big thing, and I thought, “Gee, the future’s kinda wide open.” And then [laughs] then I just got this unbelievable freaky drive, which shows the neurosis of the singer-songwriter. I got a panic in me. Almost exactly like the panic I felt before I got into the band, Journey. Which was, “I gotta get signed before it’s too late.” [laughs]

You broke out of prison, and immediately started thinking about how to get back in.

As bizarre as it sounds, I felt like nothing had ever happened, like our arc of success almost didn’t exist. “I gotta go out there and try to get in this business.” _[laughs] _Before it’s too late! Which was my original motivation, back in the early ‘70s. Some of that stuff never goes away. It’s amazing. I was confounded by that. After all those years of doing everything, it didn’t change my original drive, my need to get some music out there or do something creative. I was kind of surprised. You’d think that a certain amount of success would squelch certain drives. At least I did. And I’m grateful for all of it, I wouldn’t trade it for the world—but it didn’t squelch much, y’know? I still felt this panic to get a deal, get signed, maybe make another record. But I didn’t. I didn’t do that.

That’s interesting. You had that urge, but you didn’t act on it.

No, I didn’t. I guess it’s because maybe I’d found a life. I’d gotten back in touch with parts of the life I had before I was successful. But I didn’t realize what we had done together until I stopped. And only now, when people come up to me, and tell me what it meant to them, do I realize what the band accomplished. It’s extremely gratifying to have people come up and say “‘Open Arms’ was my prom song, and to this day, my husband and I still listen to it.” Or when guys’ll come up and say, “Y’know, I wasn’t into youse guys, but if I took a chick to your concert… you know what I’m sayin?” I get the whole spectrum. And they’re all good. They’re all great. They’re all magical to me. I just love it.

Is there a validation when you see it crop up in pop culture? When you see a Journey song turn up on a movie soundtrack, or on TV?

[long pause, laughs.] Some of ‘em, I think the answer is yes. Sopranos is a definite yes. Because it was such an amazing use. The movie Monster , that Patty Jenkins wrote and directed, with Charlize Theron, was an amazing use of [“Don’t Stop Believin’ ”]. And there’s been some others, that I think have just been wonderful. And there’s been some that I wasn’t too pleased about, but my feet had been held to the fire, slightly, so I had to.

**You were one of the few people in America to know how The Sopranos ended, before it aired. **

What happened was, I guess Jon and Neal had signed off way before I did. I wasn’t sure what the Sopranos use was gonna be. I was concerned that it would play while somebody got whacked. So I held out a little bit, ‘cause I wanted to know. And the show was gonna air on Sunday, finally, my publisher got back to me saying well, they need to know, and I said, “If they’ll tell me how it’s used, then I’ll be glad to let go of my own equal approval.” So I had to swear to not tell nobody, which I did, and they told me how the show ends. But I didn’t see it until the first time it aired, that Sunday night. I stood up and screamed. He goes to a restaurant, he goes through the little jukebox at the table, they go through the thing, he goes through Heart, and then he ends up with Tony Bennett, and he reaches in, puts a quarter in and pushes a button, and you think he’s gonna play Tony Bennett—he’s a wiseguy, he’s either gonna play some rock and roll or Tony Bennett, that was how they threw the scent off. And then, boom, Journey starts, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I just couldn’t believe it. It was so cool. It felt so awesome, to see that song be used in that moment.

It seemed completely right to me—given Tony Soprano’s age, he would totally have grown up listening to Journey.

You’re looking at it in a deep chronological way. I’m not. I’m looking at it very simply. Tony Soprano thinks Journey’s cool. And look at the choices he had! He could have picked Tony Bennett—the greatest voice! And he picks Journey . And then when they started editing with the lyrics—like on “Just a small-town girl,” they’re cuttin’ across to the wife, and they’re cuttin’ to everybody, as appropriately as the lyrics can—wow. It was really intense. And then the day after, I was at the airport, and you’d think we had a hit single again. Everybody at the airport, man, walkin’ by, givin’ me the thumbs-up, like, “Yo! Steve! Sopranos !” It’s like, “What the fuck?” It was unbelievably cool. And I tried to get to David Chase to try to thank him, and I have yet to be able to.

Of all the hits Journey had, why is that the one that seems to resonate the most?

Well, like I said—we were good together. Goddammit, we were good together. And Jon Cain and I used to spend hours together, doing lyrics. I mean, we’d get together with Neal, and we’d all write the arrangements. I’d write some melodies, I’d write some hooks. They’d play amazing chord changes, and we’d all try to navigate and try to help us be great with each other, and when we were done, Jon and I would take just, empty tracks, with the melodies in my head, to his house, and I would sit there at the coffee table and sing the melodies, and we would skull out lyrics. And those lyrics are a big part of it.

Is it just that people can relate to the sentiment in that song? That everybody’s a dreamer on some level?

I don’t know. If we’d had a crystal ball back then, we woulda wrote twelve of those. Nobody knew, y’know? I live just above San Diego, in Del Mar. And occasionally when I get up to Los Angeles, sometimes I’ll go out on the weekend, and some of these clubs, man—this new generation in the clubs, man, they’re playing this song, and when it comes on they’re screaming it out to each other. The girls are screaming “Just a small-town girl.” They’re screaming it at clubs. Do you have any idea what that feels like? In my lifetime, to see another generation embrace this? As I said in the beginning with you, there’s something reverent about that, to me. And I only wish to protect it, because it means something to them, like it means something to me. I don’t wanna see that get damaged. I really don’t. And I just love to see them love it so much. It just completely slays me. I would have never—I would have never thought that was gonna happen. I mean, who knew?

Are you unhappy that the other guys in the band are still out there performing this music?

I really, honestly—and you must print this—I really don’t want to respond to what they’re doing, because what they’re doing is none of my business. They’re doing what they’re doing because they feel it’s what they want to do, and I’m doing what I’m doing because it’s what I feel I wanna do.

Journey got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a few years ago. Was that the last time you saw them?

That was the last time. And I wasn’t sure if I was gonna go. Because I’d never met the singer, I’d never met their drummer. And we do have some turbulence between us. I had always sort of planned to go, but I wasn’t sure I was gonna go, you know what I mean? But I went. And it was really, really great to see everybody. At some point, in all our lives, we’d all contributed to that star on the ground. But the greatest thing was, I really felt in my heart that Neal was happy to see me. He hugged me, I hugged him, and he said a few things in my ear—that are mine, I’m not gonna mention ‘em. But it was just great. And every now and then he’d look at me and go, “What the fuck, y’know? I’m so glad you came. Wow.” It was a lift for me, that I emotionally needed. And that star’s on the sidewalk. I go there, from time to time, when I’m in town.

Where is it?

It’s on Hollywood Boulevard, on the south side of the street, east of—I wanna say Vine. It could be east of Vine. Or east of Highland. Just a little bit east of the Musicians Institute.

**So you just go check on it? **

Yeah. I think I’m gonna go by with some brass cleaner one of these days, make sure it looks nice. One time, I went there—there used to be a coffee shop right in front of it, and I was having coffee, watching people. And these two girls were there with a friend. They were of the generation we were speaking of earlier, that newer generation of fans. And they laid down on each side of it and tried to pull sexy poses with the star. And their friend was kind of hovering over them with a camera. And I ran out of the coffee shop and said, “I gotta get in on this.” [laughs] She looked up, her eyes got like saucers. And I said, “Come on, we gotta take a picture.” And I laid down, and I said, “Aww, girls, this is too sexy.” So we took a picture laying down on the sidewalk, by the star. They love the band enough to lay down on the sidewalk? In front of all these people walkin’ around ‘em and shit? I thought, “Okay. I’m layin’ down, too.” And that sidewalk’s not exactly clean.

Are you working on anything now?

I started writing music again, at the beginning of last summer. I had not opened that up in over ten years. I was reluctant to try to write some more, but now I’ve been doing that, and it’s been a real experience. I got ProTools, and I’m working on stuff. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with it yet, but I got a lot of material, and a lot of it I really like. I’m in the boil-down process. I got these ProTools sketches of songs, and I guess it’s time to record some of ‘em. I guess I have a desire to sing and write music again, and I’m letting it take me places. It’s been painful. Sometimes, when I hear myself sing, I sound like Steve Perry, and sometimes that has a lot of memories attached to it. I’m serious. I just told somebody that, a couple weeks ago, a writer that I’m working with—my own voice is sometimes difficult to hear. Because it reminds me of so much. But I’m embracing it. And I’ve played some of the stuff for friends, and for some people that aren’t afraid to tell me the truth. And they’ve really liked it. It sounds like me, they’ve said. And that’s great. It’s been a love-hate thing. All creative processes are a love-hate thing. Anything worth anything has got to be that way. Right?

_[A few days after I talked to Perry, I did a follow-up interview with Neal Schon , Journey’s co-founder and lead guitarist, in which we discussed some of the same issues Perry brought up. In the interest of fairness, here are the relevant parts of that conversation.] _

**GQ: The first three Journey albums sound like the work of a completely different band. There’s a heavy jazz-fusion influence, and none of the songs are as anthemic as “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” or “Lights,” the songs that would make you famous. When you changed your sound, what was the thought process behind that? Whose decision was it? **

NEAL SCHON: We had run our course doing what we were doing, and what we started out being. What happened was we’d put out our first record, Journey , and I think we sold a little over 100,000 records. Which in those days was not good. In these days, it would actually be respectable! [laughs] But in those days it was a bomb. And so we were basically known as a touring band. We toured probably nine, ten months a year, and the other two months that were left, we were in the studio making more new music, and then we’d get right back out there. And we did that for about five years, that grueling schedule. And we ended up making two more records—we did Look Into the Future and then Next , and each record sold progressively less than the last one, but we attained a huger live audience, because we were playing live so much.

**Did you just realize at some point that you needed a frontman? **

Well, no—I didn’t realize anything. The label said, “We think you need a frontman. Otherwise we don’t think that we can ever get anything on the radio.” They wanted us to get on the radio. And sell some records. And so they gave us an ultimatum—you either get a frontman, or we’re gonna drop you from the label. And at that point we’re all thinking, “Oh, wow. This is a drag, after all this hard work.” And Herbie [Herbert] had received a tape from somebody at the label, of Steve Perry. He was in another band, at that point, and apparently they were getting ready to get signed, and his bass player was in an awful car crash and died. And I think what Steve felt at that point that he wanted to fold the band and go back to working on his grandfather’s ranch. So Herbie got his tape, and he played it for us, and he goes, “This is your new singer.” _[laughs] _And we’re all looking at each other going, “Really. Okay.” So we’re listening and goin’, “Wow, this guy’s got an amazing voice, but does he fit with us?” Because it was a radical change. Listening to what he was doing, and listening to what we were doing—it was like A to Z. I was goin’, “How are we gonna morph this together and make it work?”

Well, Steve came out with us and started hangin’ out—he was hangin’ with me, actually, and we were roomin’ together, and I pulled out an acoustic guitar, and one of the first songs we wrote, in about a half an hour, was “Patiently.” And that just kinda came out of nowhere. And then the second song we wrote, I was downstairs in Gregg Rolie’s house, where I was living, in Mill Valley, and Perry was over, and we were sittin’ down in the beanbags in the music room, and he started singin’ me these melodies that he had, for “Lights.” And I just started putting the stumble to it, felt like it was gonna be a stumble, and tried to give it some Hendrix-y type chords, to make it sound cool, and then I added a bridge to that, for a guitar solo, and that one was done, in about ten minutes. And so at that point, I knew I had some chemistry writing with him, even though it was very different from anything I’d done before. And I started learning how to craft song songs, instead of just jams.

How did it feel to be told that you needed to change what you were doing? Was that a hard pill to swallow at first?

At first it was, yeah. It was a bit of a learning curve, for me. Blues and progressive stuff was where I was at, y’know? And some funk. So it was a completely different area for me. But, y’know, I just flowed with it. I went along with it. I think in the end we all took Herbie’s advice, and it ended up being great advice.

Did Steve have to prove himself to you?

Well, there was no proving to us that he could sing. The guy could sing amazingly well. And after we compiled enough material to go in and cut our first record Infinity , we all listened to it and went, “Wow, there’s something here.” And the label was freakin’ out, they were lovin’ it. Management—Herbie was freakin’ out, he was lovin it. We were all lovin’ it. It sounded good. And lo and behold, all of a sudden you started hearin’ “Lights” on the radio. And “Wheel in the Sky.” And those were our first singles.

**You went on to make a string of hit records with Steve. You became one of the biggest bands in the world. And then you went on hiatus. What was the deal with that? Did you get burned out? **

Well, of course, everybody gets burned, but I was like a machine out there. I loved touring. So I was ready to go, go, go, and I think pretty much everybody else in the band was. [After the Raised on Radio tour] Steve Perry just came up and said, “Look, I’m burnt, I’m toast, I need to take a rest.” And so in the middle of a tour, he just pulled out. I believe we were in Hawaii. We hadn’t finished the second leg of the tour. And so everybody packed their stuff, went home, and I’m hearing that we’re gonna be off for maybe a couple months, three months, six months, whatever—but it turned out to be close to eight to ten years.

Did you feel like Journey had run its course?

No—I didn’t think Journey was done. We actually never even quit. It wasn’t like we called each other and went, “Okay, this is history, nice knowin’ ya.” It was just sort of left at a hiatus. And it was all based around Steve giving us a call and saying “Okay, I’m fine now, I’m ready to go.” And it just didn’t happen.

Was that frustrating for you, that he sort of pulled out like that?

Well, yeah. You work on something for so many years, and you attain what you attain, which was an amazing feat, and then it’s sort of like the rug is pulled out from under you.

Eventually he came back. You made one more record together. And then he left the band for good.

He said he was having health issues, and he needed to have hip replacement, and this and that. And so we kept waiting around to see if he was gonna go take care of it. And he pretty much came back and said, “Y’know, this is a personal issue, and I’m not gonna be pushed in a corner to get my hip fid. When I’m ready I’m ready.” And I said, “I understand that.” Everybody understood that. And we still waited, even though we had things goin’ on. I still never wanted Journey to go away, because it was something that I was there from the beginning and started. And I felt that we still had wings, y’know? Which made me, inevitably, want to put it back together, without Steve. If you watch the [ Behind the Music ] documentary on VH1—it’s pretty much one-sided, with Perry, the way they edited that thing, but there was a couple funny things that went down in that interview. He’s saying, y’know, “If these guys wanna go on, I think they should just start something new and not use the Journey name.” Don’t crack the stone is what he kept on saying. Don’t crack the stone. Don’t go out and play these songs with someone else and crack the stone. Well, he did the same thing, way before we did! He went out on a solo tour, a solo Steve Perry tour, where none of us were invited. Actually Jonathan Cain tried to go down and go in and see him in San Francisco and they wouldn’t let him in the building! And he was playin’, I think, nine Journey songs and three of his original songs.

This was in the ‘80s? When he was touring behind his solo record?

Yeah, the “Oh Sherrie” record. And then, y’know, after that, he’s talking about not cracking the stone. So to me, the stone was already cracked.

**So was that the big strain on your relationship—his solo career? **

Well, I think—looking back, I was sort of a workaholic. I still am, somewhat. I’ve slowed down a bit. But in those days, if we took a month off from the road, I would jump into a side project. I did a one-off record with Sammy Hagar. And I had always been a big fan of Jan Hammer, the keyboard player that was playing with John McLaughlin and Mahavishnu Orchestra, and was doing all the Miami Vice themes at that time, the music for the show. I met him when Journey was opening up for Jeff Beck, before Steve was in the band. And I’d always wanted to do a record with him, because I just loved his musicality—I loved the fact that he played like a wicked guitar player, and was always curious what I’d sound like playing with him. So I went to do my first solo record with him. We did it in a month, again, with some down time. And I think that actually might have provoked Perry to go and do a solo record. So in retrospect [laughs] maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did, because he went, “Well, Neal’s doin’ one, why can’t I do one?” And everybody’s goin’, “Well, Neal’s not doin’ anything that’s gonna conflict with Journey, y’know? It sounds progressive, and Neal’s singin’ on it, he obviously doesn’t sing like you.” But that was his open door, to go do it, and that was sort of the beginning of the demise.

It’s been your band longer than it was ever Steve’s band. Do you get tired of it being defined by his presence or his absence?

Um—no. I think he contributed so much to the sound of the band, obviously, to where those songs are gonna be embedded in everybody’s heads and hearts forever. And I think that we accomplished a lot together. And the legacy continues, with Arnel. I think that he brings the realness to even the old material. He’s not just a Steve Perry emulator.

You and Steve don’t talk, right? Is it safe to say that there’s not communication between you anymore?

I have tried to talk to him, numerous times. And he will not allow me to have his number. Everything has to go through lawyers and management. And that is sort of a drag. You’d think that after a while, everybody would grow up and be able to talk, one on one. But it just hasn’t happened. So, because of his wishes, that’s the way things go down.

**What’s the beef about, specifically? **

You know what? I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s like I said—I didn’t crack the stone. In my mind, he cracked the stone when he went out and did our stuff without us.

With what you make off the old stuff, could you afford to retire at this point?

Probably some time ago, yeah, I could have done that. With the other company that I’m a part of, Nocturne [a video-production studio]—between that and the residuals that I get, yes, I could live comfortably and just hang it up. But I’m just not in it for the money. I love doin’ it. I love playing. And so I think I’ll play, probably until the day I die. I look at people like BB King and I go, man, God bless ‘em. That’s what I want to be doing. I look at people like Jeff Beck who are in their 60s and still kicking ass, with more fire than they had when they were kids. Those are the guys that I look up to. This is what I wanna do. I mean, it’s in my blood, y’know? It’s what I do. And it’s what I really love. I feel lost when I’m not doing it. I mean, this last year, I had a whole year off, and I kinda went buggy. The one thing that was good was that it allotted me some time to get some personal issues in order with myself. I drank a lot. All through the years. And really did have a drinking problem, and didn’t know it. And so now I’ve been sober for the last nine months, and I never want to look back. This is the healthiest I’ve ever been, and I think it’s the best I’ve been playin’. I just sort of rid of a lot of demons that were inside of me. And I think without the year off, I wouldn’t ever have gotten to that place.

You were able to function, so you never really addressed any of that stuff.

Yeah. I believe I was a functioning alcoholic. And the reason I didn’t realize that I was an alcoholic is that I didn’t have to wake up in the morning and pound down a six-pack. I could go out and I could have eight, nine, ten vodkas, and then I wouldn’t drink for another three or four days. When I did drink, it was in excess. And I think I made a lot of really bad decisions over the years, because I was messed up like that. I’m just happy to be on the right track now, for once in a row.

**Do you think you made bad decisions in terms of how you handled things with the band? Do you think there were things you would have dealt with differently if you were sober? **

Possibly. There’s definitely some decisions, that are pretty personal, that I wouldn’t have done the way I did, because I was not thinking clearly. But for the most part, I’m just glad that I didn’t completely F up everything. And that I was still able just to play and have at least half of myself there. Now I feel like I have 100 percent of myself here, and I’m more into it than I’ve ever been into it. So I’m really excited about getting out there and just being completely in control of what’s going on, for real.

**But do you think your drinking affected your relationships with the other guys in the band? **

I’m sure I was a bitch to deal with. Definitely. It depended where you caught me. If I was drinkin’, I was great to be around, and funny. Much like a lot of people are. And then the next three days after that, I was terrible to be around. I’d be comin’ off it, and probably didn’t know that I was probably just jonesing for a drink. I had been through a lot of divorces, and probably a lot of ‘em due to this problem, and I had to just really face everything on a straight level. I was using alcohol for many, many years, to numb myself.

I imagine it’s really easy to be a functioning alcoholic when you’re on tour with a rock band.

It was a nightly thing for me when I was on tour. I wouldn’t drink onstage, but I’d get offstage, and when I got in the bus, there’d be a chilled bottle of whatever vodka I was drinking, and I’d start plowin’ into it. And I’d sleep, and I’d wake up, go do the gig, and the same thing would happen all over again. I just don’t hang out in that environment anymore. You won’t catch me in a bar, you won’t catch me anywhere around that. And if I am around people that are messed up, you won’t see me there too long, ‘cause it reminds me too much of what I probably looked like.

When I met you guys in Vegas, you referred to Steve as “He Who Cannot Be Named.” Is there some legal issue here? Are you not allowed to talk about him on the record?

Oh, y’know—there’s no legal issue with talking about him. It’s just that he thinks every time we talk about him, we talk crap about him, and it’s really not true. We just try not to talk about him.

So you’re not enjoined from discussing him in public?

No. I mean, I didn’t say anything inflammatory to him. I didn’t talk about how he still gets paid like a motherfucker even though he shouldn’t be. It’s stuff like that I’m not allowed to talk ab

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Vocal Coach Breaks Down Steve Perry’s Singing Technique – Reveals The Secrets To His Voice

Sam Johnson / YouTube

Learn How Steve Perry Does It!

Steve Perry , formerly of Journey, as you most likely already know, is one of the most gifted and iconic rock singers of his time. Whether it’s fronting his former band or performing his incredible solo work, Steve is a walking masterclass of pure singing excellence, but you of course already knew that.

For years, decades even, aspiring singers have tried to mimic his iconic singing style and apply it to their own band. Some have come close, so are almost identical sounding ( Arnel Pineda ), but at the end of the day there is only one Steve Perry.

So that brings us to the age old question, “how does he do it?” How is he able to utilize his voice in such an amazing way? The answer isn’t simple…

Those of us who aren’t familiar with intricate vocal techniques wouldn’t see it, but there is a lot that goes into Steve’s amazing singing voice, and luckily for us,  Sam Johnson  is here to help us understand the science behind it all!

“Sam Johnson is a voice teacher originally from Salt Lake City, Utah. He is a full member of IVTOM (International Voice Teachers of Mix), and has a degree in vocal performance from Westminster College. He spent 18 months teaching voice in Hong Kong, working with both amateur and professional singers. Sam now brings his international experience clients worldwide through Skype and FaceTime. His focus on vocal technique can help singers of all levels reach their goals.” –  vocalease.net

What you’re about to watch is a video in which Sam watches Journey perform “Don’t Stop Believin'” in Houston, Texas during which he analyzes Steve’s singing techniques and periodically pauses the video to go in depth about the things he sees Steve doing.

It’s clear that Sam knows exactly what he’s talking about and having him explain the techniques that Steve is using truly gives us a new perspective when watching him perform. See for yourself in the video below!

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Steve Perry

Who Is Steve Perry?

Steve Perry played in several bands before joining Journey in 1977. The band achieved tremendous pop rock success with its 1981 album Escape , which featured the now-classic "Don't Stop Believin'." As the group's lead singer, Perry became one of the era's most famous singers. He also had some hits on his own, including "Oh Sherrie." Perry left Journey in 1987, and except for a brief reunion, he remains a solo artist.

While attending high school in Lemoore, California, Perry played drums in the marching band. He tried college for a while, performing in the choir, but eventually abandoned school for his musical dreams. Hoping to break into the business, he moved to Los Angeles for a time. There, he worked a number of jobs, including singing on commercials and serving as an engineer in a recording studio. All the while, Perry played with a number of different groups as a vocalist and drummer. He seemed to be on the edge of a breakthrough with the group Alien Project, when it suddenly disbanded — tragically, one of its members was killed in a car crash.

Journey: "Oh Sherrie" and "Don't Stop Believin'"

In 1977, Perry caught his big break, landing a gig as the vocalist for Journey, which began performing as a jazz rock group in the early 1970s, in San Francisco. With Perry on board, the band moved more toward mainstream rock, and began to see some chart success with the first album with Perry, 1978's Infinity . The band's ode to San Francisco, "Lights," became a minor hit as did "Wheel in the Sky" and "Anytime."

Journey broken into the Top 20 with "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" on their next album, Evolution (1979). Buoyed by such hits as "Open Arms," "Who's Crying Now" and "Don't Stop Believin'," Escape (1981) became the band's first No. 1 album, selling more than 7 million copies. While the band was hugely popular with music fans, many critics were less than kind.

By the early 1980s, Journey had emerged as one of rock's top acts. Perry proved that while he may have been short in stature, he possessed one of the era's biggest and most versatile voices. He was equally adept at ballads, such as "Open Arms," and at rock anthems, such as "Any Way You Want It." Behind the scenes, Perry helped write these songs and many of the band's other hits. He penned their most enduring song, "Don't Stop Believin'," with guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain.

Journey continued to be one of the era's top-selling acts, with 1983's Frontiers . The album featured such songs as "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" and "Faithfully." To support the recording, the band undertook an extensive world tour. Around that time, Journey also became the first band to license their music and likenesses for a video game.

With 1986's Raised on Radio , Journey enjoyed another wave of success. However, Perry was ready to part ways with his bandmates. Perry left the band in 1987 after the album tour. In a statement to People magazine, Perry explained: "I had a job burnout after 10 years in Journey. I had to let my feet hit the ground, and I had to find a passion for singing again." Perry was also struggling with some personal issues at the time; his mother had become very sick, and he spent much of his time caring for her before her death.

Perry reunited with Journey in 1996, for the reunion album Trial By Fire , which reached as high as the No. 3 on the album charts. But health problems soon sidelined the famous singer—a hip condition, which led to hip replacement surgery—and his bandmates decided to continue on without him.

Solo Projects

While still with Journey, Perry released his first solo album, Street Talk (1984). The recording sold more than 2 million copies, helped along by the hit single, "Oh Sherrie." Burnt out after splitting with Journey, Perry took some time out before working on his next project.

Nearly a decade later, Perry re-emerged on the pop-rock scene with 1994's For the Love of Strange Medicine . While the album was well-received—one ballad, "You Better Wait," was a Top 10 hit—Perry failed to reach the same level of success that he had previously enjoyed. In 1998, he provided two songs for the soundtrack of Quest for Camelot , an animated film. Perry also released Greatest Hits + Five Unreleased that same year.

Recent Years

While he has largely stayed out of the spotlight, Perry continues to be heard in movies and on television. His songs are often chosen for soundtracks, and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" even played during the closing moments of the hit crime-drama series The Sopranos in 2007. In 2009, a cover version of the song was done for the hit high school musical show Glee , which introduced a new generation to Perry's work.

According to several reports, Perry began working on new material around 2010. He even built a studio in his home, which is located north of San Diego, California. "I'm finishing that room up and I've written a whole bunch of ideas and directions, all over the map, in the last two, three years," Perry told Billboard in 2012.

In 2014, Perry broke from his self-imposed exile from the concert stage. He appeared with the Eels at several of their shows. According to The Hollywood Reporter , Perry explained that "I've done the 20-year hermit thing, and it's overrated." His return to performing "has to do with a lot of changes in my life, including losing my girlfriend a year ago and her wish to hear me sing again" — referring to his romance with Kellie Nash, who died in late 2012 from cancer.

Although Perry and his old bandmates had long since ventured in separate directions, the group did reunite for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2017.

In the meantime, the singer began recording again. On August 15, 2018, he released his first new song in 20 years, the ballad "No Erasin." The track arrived ahead of his new album, Traces , his first full-length studio recording since For the Love of Strange Medicine in 1994.

Regardless of what the future holds, Perry has already earned a place in rock history. Rolling Stone magazine named him one of music's top 100 singers. According to American Idol judge and former Journey bassist, Randy Jackson, Perry's voice is one of kind. "Other than Robert Plant, there's no singer in rock that even came close to Steve Perry," Jackson said. "The power, the range, the tone—he created his own style. He mixed a little Motown, a little Everly Brothers, a little Zeppelin."

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Steve Perry
• Birth Year: 1949
• Birth date: January 22, 1949
• Birth State: California
• Birth City: Hanford
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Steve Perry was the lead singer of pop rock band Journey from 1977 to 1987. He is known for having a wide vocal range, which can be heard on such popular hits as "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Oh Sherrie."
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Steve Perry Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/steve-perry
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: July 23, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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Listen to Steve Perry’s Isolated Vocals From Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”

by Matthew Gilligan

Steve Perry may not be the vocalist for Journey anymore but his iconic voice lives on and it’s hard to turn a radio dial and not hear him singing at least a few times a day no matter where you live.

And the folks at NetMusic made a video featuring Perry’s isolated vocals on one of Journey’s biggest hits, “Don’t Stop Belivin'”.

Channels: Tags: · don't stop believin' , don't stop believing , journey , music , singing , steve perry

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A Perry Special Guy

Steve Perry was nicknamed “The Voice” by Bon Jovi back in 1989. The moniker has stuck for more than 20 years and for good reason.

I have my own thoughts about what makes Steve Perry, the former lead singer of Journey, special. No, it’s not the tight jeans nor the fabulous long hair, while those certainly do count.

A complete analysis of “The Voice” was done by Ross Muir on his FabricationsHQ Web site, so I am not going to try to match that ebook ‘argument paper’. ( https://www.fabricationshq.com/one-in-a-million—a-vocal-analysis-of-the-voice.html )

But I have listened to a few different singers doing one of the ’80s great power ballads “Open Arms,” and a couple of things make it really clear why Steve Perry is just so darn good.

It is his lyrical phrasing and control of vibrato.

On Perry’s step-down notes of “believe_what_I_say,” in “Open Arms,” he uses a controlled vibrato on each word, each step. He employs the technique several times in that piece. ( https://tinyurl.com/2bnhoqp )

Many other performers just sing the song “flat.” Not out-of-tune flat, but rather with no emotion, no nice vibrato. Each word is the same, with very little inflection. And let’s not forget the vocal ad libs Perry uses to such great effect in his solo work and classic Journey releases, such as the powerful anthem “Mother, Father.”

If those other vocalists are not singing blah, they are shouting, trying for emotion — it is “look at me, I am singing loud so believe what I say.”

It’s hard to explain but many of the old Journey songs affect me on a visceral level.

The aforementioned “Open Arms”  — and within “Still They Ride,” I find one of the finest emotional phrases in any Journey tune.

The song is a short-story masterpiece recorded live at the 1983 Budokan concert in Japan. Another deft writer, the woman behind ( www.chosenmadness.com ) turned me onto this youtube video and I will be forever grateful. ( https://tinyurl.com/2crsru2 )

The phrase “ridin’ slow-oo-oh” — man oh man. Jesse is movin’ slow through a town that doesn’t know him any more and Perry’s phrasing in that song conveys all the feelings of the restless rebel. Sublime moments, perfect phrasing. I just hit repeat on the ol’ iPod and head out on the highway looking for my own Jesse.

Now here is what I think about some of the over-the-top female fan stuff.

If you’ve read any of the posts on the (unofficial) Steve Perry Facebook fan page you’ll notice a strong trend toward the thinking that Steve Perry must be a fabulous, warm, sweet and caring guy who loves everybody and adores his fans as much as they adore him. And poor Stevie, life has been so cruel, father leaving, mother dying, former band dudes being dicks.

I have tried to interject some reason into the mix, but I am usually shot down in flames because I dare to say, “We don’t know him, the man he is now.”

Because Perry sings with such unadulterated emotions, he must be the guy in the music. In “What Was” we feel his pain as if it were our own.

If someone can sing about those feelings so well, words and phrases that touch our hearts, then he must be above the petty jealousies and foibles that plague the rest of us mere mortals.

He very well may be, but hey, we don’t know since we are not personally acquainted with the man.

Here is my other thought about why “The Voice” so appeals to us — it’s all about sex.

Perry’s high voice suggests innocence. On the 1981 Houston “Escape” concert DVD, his joy at performing is palpable. He looks like a boy/kid having a blast on stage and wearing his heart on his sleeve.

Just like the perfect (pre-zits and shaving) boy we had a crush on when we were 13-14 years old.

The boy didn’t really notice us but we knew if he would just look our way, love would burst forth and we would walk hand-in-hand to the sophomore dance in perfect non-sexual bliss.

Gene Pitney, Roy Orbison, and Del Shannon  —  all were soaring tenors that affected us in the same way. Early Frank Sinatra too, for a different generation — tapping into as yet, unknown sexual territory.

What the heck did we know about sex anyway. Just the juicy parts of Peyton Place, and we didn’t understand those very well at all.

Deeper voices can be more threatening. Think of the bass singer in an opera. Usually the bad guy. And sometimes the baritone too — bad guy.

The dichotomy of lower register voices means baritones can also remind us of husbands, fathers, brothers — safe, comforting. Analyzing baritones can be tricky.

But oh, the tenor — he is the guy in the white hat singing of unrequited or broken love. Our hero.

High-pitched voices are pure; singing love songs that promise something more than sex.

I think that is why they pushed Josh Groban in his early work — a baritone by the way— to sing in his higher range, reaching for that tenor purity, appealing to young teenage girls and old teenage women.

Then we have Elvis the Pelvis. Boy, did he open up a can of worms. Not only the lower sexual voice, but lower body movements we just knew were dirty.

Women like to remember when they were girls, asexual beings with unrecognized longings.

That’s where Steve Perry comes in — that counter tenor voice reminding us of our girlhood.

Some lady fans don’t acknowledge Steve Perry’s later public crudeness. Maybe they never heard him sing in a recorded live performance, the guttural beginning to “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’” that talks about, well, I ain’t gonna say the words. And for sure, many of those fans haven’t heard “Can’t Stop” or can’t acknowledge it is totally sex on wheels.

It’s all about fan favorites, “Faithfully” — “Open Arms” — “Don’t Stop Believing.”

I used to think, “Thank God Mr. Perry isn’t into that whole crotch-grabbing thing made popular by Michael Jackson.” But you can see Perry did exactly that in an video shot from the audience during the “For the Love of Strange Medicine” tour. Holy crap. Talk about my mental illusions being shattered. Where was the innocent boy? And what was he doing grabbing at his crotch? For crying out loud he was too old for that sh*t.

To maintain our girlish daydreams of innocence and Mr. Perry’s dignity, we respectfully request no more crotch grabbing, please. Just sing .

32 thoughts on “A Perry Special Guy”

Really nice piece of writing.. for some reason today I decided to have a classic rock Saturday and put on a Journey album, live, from concerts in Houston, Japan and Oklahoma…. I saw him in Kansas City in the early 80s, we were on the floor about 40 feet from the stage. i was in a literal trance.. 👸 I just learned today in Wikipedia that he is Portuguese!! He has certainly sex appeal, but his voice goes well beyond… it’s insanely hard to classify, which makes him even more magical… I read a piece about his voice range.. countertenor, alto? His voice has been examined time & time again.. His peers laud him… which is an honor indeed. Sadly, I found an article which noted thus: any operatic singer of his range and talent would automatically receive tender guidance and support on how to care for such an astronomical gift. Steve burst into his own category, a path never blazed before, and record executives only saw green ($$$$). The band powered on and on, and of course he couldn’t sustain it. I’m very glad he chose a sabbatical and got to know himself… as we all eventually do, God Willing. But I’m so glad to see he’s back in the spotlight, and songs like “Don’t Stop Believing” are still alive and kicking. My favorite nighttime TV host, Scotsman Craig Ferguson, from a few years, back, cleverly inserted the song into the last night of his show, with a snow globe and Bob Newhart ..(check it out, anyone born in the 50s or 60s..) Like most fans, I’m longing for a reunion… but the young man from the Phillipines is doing a masterful job with the band…. Thanks for the fun and insightful article!! 😎

Said video from the Strange Medicine tour is on YouTube…just look for the red coat. I am sitting here in lockdown in 2021, hysterical with laughter at these posts. I have also listened to nearly 100 Steve Perry interviews…and if you want a glimpse of the real man, check out the interview done by Katie Couric. Also on YouTube…just do a search for them in the search string.

I know my thoughts about getting Steve Perry, Jon Bon Jovi, and Steven Tyler together to do a album. It might be in left field, but to get the three of them to collaborate an album. To write and compose the music, and get the President of the United States to send big ass speakers above the space station, in all directions, with the three of them, and rock the universe. They were all given a gift from God in music. Rock the Universe guys. It would be awesome to do.

@Lara “But you can see Perry did exactly that in an video shot from the audience during the “For the Love of Strange Medicine” tour.” <<—- some of us would like to see said video! Link?

@Nikki B I feel for your sister. I would have been heartbroken as well, but not because I would see him in a different light, but because I would want to be that red head! Lucky lady indeed!

Nikki B. Is this just a fan story or a real sighting of him. Curious.

I loved the Steve Perry that I listened to in the 1980’s. He is a “man” so why would you believe he would be any different than any other man that has power over you !! There is no sad story behind his singing voice. He was gifted with a beautiful voice and certain songs made him even sound better than human. Any woman that let’s her guard down when they hear a beautiful voice should be shot I did it. Lead singer for a local group that had the most beautiful voice. I met him at different gigs he was playing. Then I see this girl that could have been my twin. He never went near her but I just felt a vibe. Yep, it was his wife. I feel in love with his voice and nothing else. He was ugly as sin but a smooth talker. A man is man no matter how he sounds or looks. Give it a good year before you trust a “man”. It’s a different story with boys.

Lara – good article, very interesting.

I’ve always had a slightly different viewpoint on the appeal of tenors. The young/innocent angle makes sense, but I think the higher pitch also has an underlying reference toward sexual angst…and those feelings of want/pleasure drive voices upwards in range.

G Welch – would love to know more about your story and what time period that was!

Always been curious of the love/sex lives of rock stars….are they all the same? Do they all have a line of groupies to whisk away after every show? And how do they “date” when they want a relationship. I don’t think I could be with a man who’s been with 1,000+ ladies. Too much comparison for my taste.

Sounds like Mr. Perry, like most stars, might’ve gotten spoiled with the ladies thrown around at him in his day.

Nikki B – that is a hilarious story! Does he still live in Del Mar? I fully empathize with your sister’s heartache, but what a fun/funny celebrity spotting. Steve lost the love of his life to cancer a few years ago so I say good for him if he’s out there trying to find some Lovin Touchin and Squeezin again. She is indeed a lucky girl (and thankfully it was the same girl on both spottings.) 😉

HE IS HUMAN, PEOPLE!!!

Nikki B we need to hear more. What part of CA and any more info. I live in VA so not very close to going there. What kind of car was he driving. Was this Red head girlfriend younger. We need more information please. You and your sister were so lucky.

@ Nikki B: name the beach, the “healthy morning joint,” and the town you were actually in where there are rentals anywhere near Steve Perry’s house let alone next door, and MAYBE you might buy enough cred for me to stop laughing at this story. As for the article, anyone who actually saw the band live back in the day on yearly basis as some of us did have plenty of our own stories to tell about “the real Steve Perry” or any of the other band members for that matter. It was rock n roll – what did you expect Dion and flowers??

Nikki. Whoa. You had me at hello. That was incredible. Was that THIS year?!? Sweet Jesus. My heart was racing and i could “see” everything you wrote. Too bad for her. I knew it when you said she went to his car and they kissed…beach (sex) rendezvous. Well, I knew he was no choir boy and his song of Homemade Love was what really goes down. Good for you and your sista. I need a drink…some whiskey maybe.

This is a Great read ! My family vacations twice a year in Southern California. This year was the Steve Perry spotting trip I think our home was very close to his residence . While very voyeuristic I can only comment on what my sister and I saw . Each time we passed him he was nice with a wave and a nod or a smile and a hello . My sister ten years older than me went into a complete over heating and near fainting spells after he cleared us each time. She a connoisseur of his music and the Journey years . Myself not as extreme , of course I had heard the power ballads and more famous songs . Lets get real he could be my dad with the age being so . The first sighting was at a small California healthy morning joint. Once my sisters radar went off she was locked in a full stare . We were a few tables away on the patio he was with a group of people talking resting back in his chair with sunglasses hat and walking shorts casual morning attire . Then as the check came I noticed if you looked a little closer you might notic the lady across from him talking and staring reciprocatory in a land lock of deep stares with Steve. . She had that kind of Sherilyn Fenn in Two Moon Junction sex appeal alabaster skin, auburn hair pretty smile very sexy in a natural kind of way. The kind of women men with healthy egos usually try to gain . We were staring at him he was staring at her perfect situation to get a real peek. My sister hitting me under the table mouthing “oh my GOD” too many times to count . Just call us the voyeur sisters at this point , better than anything on TV with summer being here . My sister even went and paid for another coffee so she could keep her seat. Curiosity gets the best of us all sometimes . This was no choir boy at play , one felt the need for a shower after about twenty minutes of watching these too mildly kanoodling without barely touching and no one really noticing even at their table or on the patio . Then we leave and go to our car. My sister is now sounding like a Journey song. Continuously repeating “who is that I wonder, lucky girl” twenty times in a row . She was carrying on like a scorned lover. I watched my sisters “mental illusions” being shattered . Then he walks right in front of our car to leave. Closer than a front row seat in 1985. We both look off into the distance as to not get caught staring. Then just like clock work the female comes around the back side of his car right next to ours. At this time we could only see partial heads but that touching of the face and kiss was well ” totally sex on wheels” the author may have nailed it . Next we see them both leave in separate cars carefully orchestrated in plain sight . My sister then had her dreams shattered and envy hat slapped on her head all in a split second. He definitely ruined my day my sister had a bit of an attitude you see her “innocent boy” delusions had been torn away from her by that encounter! After reading the blog I now have a better understanding of what had actually happened . The safe happy love space of relationship thinking had been changed to a rated R sexed up version, not to her liking. A few days later went down to the beach and like a boomerang coming to whack my sister in the head again, who appears on the fairly empty beach 20 feet in front of us? You guessed it Steve Perry again. For a quick second I saw my sister in disbelief . Two sightings in one week. What was going through my sisters head the author helped me understand “if someone can sing about those feelings so well, words and phrases that touch our hearts, then he must be above the petty jealousies and foibles that plague the rest of us mere mortals” NOT. Steve Perry then turned around and went back up the stairs so we were behind him again , then we passed him with the vacation nod. As we get up to the car and pack it in we both notice at the same time that auburn haired smoldering sex bomb leaning on his car. He must have been checking the beach for people. Is this going to happen twice? Yes it did, the two voyeur sisters brushing sand off in the car watch the two again unaware of us sneakily peering. He was really mesmerized . Any women would be happy to be embraced kissed and held like that with the ocean in the background. It was like a scene from that lady flick Nights in Rodanthe Richard Gere out Steve Perry in, blonde out brunette in we did not even have to pay $15 dollars and buy popcorn, what a deal. For a second I got lost , then reality set in he is in his late sixties this is oddly erotic I must stop watching and throw my sister a life ring . So my vacation was interesting and my sister will probably never really get over it , her perfect innocent love God had been mortalized in the span of a week. Thirty years of delusion down the drain. Bravo on the blog I believe the author is right on the money !

I never felt that he was “innocent”. Not even The Voice left me that impression. I always heard a man behind that deceptively sweet voice. And then when I heard him talk in interviews, I heard his true voice. A deep and soft voice, that held a bit of Commander Spock in it. That part of him left a long, long, long time ago, and I’m not talking about the primal part. His father left him and his mother at the age of seven, so that little part of security was taken away. But he positively radiates sex and sexy while being very mysterious about it. I enjoyed your article nonetheless and yes Mary, I too would love to hear true stories of what he was really like, but so far, its nothing but respect for the man.

Would love to hear personal behind the scenes true stories like that! Would love to get a glimpse into what Steve Perry is really like!

I was stuck on the “tight pants & long hair”….I can listen 2 Steve 24-7….& he does so have the knack 4 pulling the audience into his story. It’s almost mesmerizing especially on the ballads. But, even in “Anyway you want”…the feeling is there…over & over again, dare I say. He is a master of “the voice”…

However, it is still difficult to give up my chivalric image of Steve Perry because of that miraculous, beautiful voice. I guess I will always long “to walk hand-in-hand to the sophomore dance in perfect non-sexual bliss”.

I actually had an experience with Steve Perry that proves your analysis; he always represented purity to me because of his tenor vouce, but then when I met him in real life he was a jerk who just wanted sex!

Patty’s correct…no grab…just a very sublime gesture which played directly to the audience. If you watch any of the footage from the FTLOSM Tour (’94), Steve still has that stage presence and is even sexier to me than in his youth. No other voice will ever compare to Steve Perry’s, but even more what a stage presence! OMG, combine the voice and the sex appeal and that’s Steve Perry…. the Journey boys will never be able to replace that.

I have seen the concert footage, Where Mr. Perry (you say) he grabbed his crotch… news flash, he did NOT… what he did was run his hand down the front of his jeans, what he did was VERY sensual and sexy as hell. Watch the video, it during, Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin” IN NYC.

Well said! The purity of his voice, his intonations, the words he wrote, the visceral reaction to all of those beautiful gifts put together are like a caress, a butterfly kiss to a teenage girl or as you said us teenage ladies. I remember hearing Patiently and Opened the Door! But if want to see the real purity of Steve’s voice, watch the live La Do Da video. His sense of timing and insane range will blow your mind. Talk about hitting replay!!

i enjoyed you’re article been a steve pperry fan for 30yrs , the mans ‘voice’ has always been an orgasm to my ears lol. i agree w/ what you said tho. Everything Steve sings radiates Sex just love it 🙂 He does it with perfection.

thank you SO very much for taking the time to read the story and for the comment.

This is a beautiful insight into Steve Perry’s voice and music. Thank You.

i was using the word “innocent” in the way the voice sounded in the early years, its purity which could suggest innocence. when i wrote this i was thinking more of the joyfulness he had on stage in the “escape” concert in houston. there was an innocence in that performance. if that makes any sense whatsoever. 🙂

I understood what you actually meant about the pure voice. It is the same thing with female vocalists. In play/show the more innocent female characters will often have the higher Soprano voice.The more “worldly” women will sing in the lower register. With Steve it was a whole package, he had the lovely voice, eyes,hair etc.He just projected this intoxicating mix of innocent and sensuality even before he opened his mouth. And I also understand what you said about the joy in the Houston performance. It just seemed like Steve loved his life so much at that point, like a kid on Christmas morning who woke up to find his dream toy under the tree.

Josh Groban is one of my favorite classical-pop singer after Hayley Westenra”*.

Bon Jovi definitely rocks, the best rock and roll band in the planet.”.

Wonderful piece! I’ve always loved Steve Perry’s voice — his phrasing, his vibrato, his sustained breath control. I grew up on Journey’s greatest hits, which include “Lovin’, Touchin’ Squeezin’,” so I never thought of him as the innocent tenor, though I like the comparison. And I’m used to hearing him only, not seeing him “do” much of anything. Also, thanks for a good primer on how the male voice affects us.

Loved the article. I’m a huge Steve Perry fan and loved that you put everything into perspective. Hadn’t heard about the crotch grabing though. Can’t wait to read more of your articles.

What a great article. I am ‘not’ musically inclined and your writing is down to earth and I can follow. thank you for that.

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Journey: A Voice Lost... And Found

Jonathan Cain (Self) Deen Castronovo (Self) Kevin Elson (Self) Andy Greene (Self) Jeff Scott Soto (Self) Eddie Trunk (Self) Narada Michael Walden (Self)

Randy Martin

Journey: A Voice Lost...and Found presents the story of how The Voice, singer Steve Perry, left at the height of success, and how the band persevered to find a new vocalist that would carry the RRHoF group forward to sold out arenas.

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Before His First Gig With Journey, Steve Augeri Got So Nervous He Threw Up

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

Rolling Stone ‘s interview series King for a Day features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and singers who had the difficult job of fronting major rock bands after the departure of an iconic vocalist. Some of them stayed in their bands for years, while others lasted just a few months. In the end, however, they all found out that replacement singers can themselves be replaced. This edition features former Journey singer Steve Augeri.

Journey has been fronted by six vocalists over the past 50 years. Some of them lasted a matter of months, while others remained with the group for well over a decade. But none faced the insane pressure that Steve Augeri faced during his tenure from 1998 to 2006. This was right after the band parted ways with Steve “The Voice” Perry and many fans were unwilling to even consider the idea that anyone else could fill that slot.

“It was literally one day at a time, one show at a time, that I would slowly, slowly get the fans’ approval and their confidence,” Augeri says today. “Not everyone was willing, though. I might have been one of the people that said, ‘No. I don’t care if you can sing or not. I don’t care if you are a decent individual. I won’t stand for anyone other than Steve Perry singing for this band.’ I’m sure that to this day, there are some fans that feel that no matter who is singing for them. I respect that. I get it.”

Augeri left the group 16 years ago when health issues and their relentless tour schedule left him with a shattered voice, but he’s made a full recovery and now spends much of his year touring the world and playing the Journey classics with the Steve Augeri Band. He phoned up Rolling Stone from his home in Staten Island, New York, to look back on his life and his tenure in Journey.

How are you doing today? I’m doing great. I’m having a couple of double espressos, a protein energy shake, and I’m ready to talk. My cat is staring at me. We’re having a staring contest.

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Were you on tour recently? We just came back from something called the Retro Festival in Switzerland in Lucerne. Our year just started in the last two weeks. We were in Orlando, Florida, prior to that. It’s been a slow couple of years. You can only imagine. Things are starting to pick up.

It must feel good to be back onstage. Oh, goodness. Indeed. These last two years have really changed my perspective on a lot of things. Getting back to work and performing, I’ll never take it for granted again.

I want to go through some of your history here. You grew up in Brooklyn? Yeah. Bensonhurst Brooklyn in the heart of what I guess you can call Mobland/Mafialand/Gangland territory, to be honest with you. I used to go to school and I’d pass by Sammy “The Bull” Gravano’s bar where he used to carry on his illegal activities, so to speak.

Was music a big part of your life as a kid? Yeah. Starting at PS 48 in Brooklyn. They had some money in the budget to pass out recorders and then clarinets. And then a music teacher that saw a spark of talent in me and started working with me vocally. I remember my first recital in fifth grade singing [Giuseppe Verdi’s] “La donna è mobile.” I learned it phonetically and that was the start of it all.

Who were some of your favorite singers as a kid? I’m of the generation that was fortunate to see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I remember laying on the living room floor on my elbows with my hands on my chin, watching these four guys that would push me towards that direction and spark something in me. Thousands of other kids turned into musicians the next day and bothered their parents for a guitar or a bass or drums. I was one of thousands of kids that had their lives turned upside by that TV performance.

Did you see any concerts in your youth that left a big mark on you? My first concert was a Humble Pie concert at the Academy of Music on 14th Street. It then became the Palladium and then NYU dormitories. I was probably about 15. I remember that was my exposure and the first time I’d ever experienced anything like that. It was a gathering of people from all over the city that came together to celebrate this amazing music. The marijuana smoke was so thick. I had never experienced anything like that in public. There was electricity in the air. It really rocked my world and cemented my desire to follow in that path of attempting to become a rock & roll artist.

When did you first make a really serious attempt to become one? It was absolutely at age 15. I knew that was it. There was no profession or no job that could at all compare to anything like that. I already had the music bug. I was already living and breathing music. I’d wake up and I had to chatter my teeth in a drum groove. You can ask my dentist. To this day, I’m still repairing it. That used to be my drum kit. It just used to consume me 24/7.

How did your career develop from there? The beautiful thing about growing up in that era, and especially in New York City, was you’d take a walk and you’d hear a band on each and every street, whether it was coming from the basements or garages, there was one on every block. I had a little clique of three or four bands in the neighborhood. We’d all share gear, drums, amplifiers. What’s interesting is that I grew up in the same neighborhood as Saturday Night Fever. That particular nightclub, 2001 Odyssey, on Wednesday nights they would hold a rock & roll night. We were one of the bands that used to play there to an audience of about 10. It was mainly family and friends. We kind of came up in there.

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I was playing in a band called Kicks. It was managed by [Steve] Leber and [David] Krebs, who were doing AC/DC and Aerosmith. They had a wonderful gal named Marge Raymond who sang in a band called Flame. That was produced by Jimmy Iovine. Marge had a voice like no other and she could out-sing any male vocalist. She could dominate any room or any concert, any stage.

She left Flame and started Kicks and I became one of her rhythm guitarists. Then she was tapped when Aerosmith was on the ice to play with the rhythm section plus Bob Mayo of Peter Frampton frame. They called themselves Renegade. She was fronting that band. That led me to step into the lead vocalist slot for Kicks. From there, Leber and Krebs took notice.

And then Paul O’Neill, who is most noticeable for being one of the leaders of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, tapped me to play with Michael Schenker. It was for a vocalist and guitar player. I couldn’t cut it on the guitar at the time, but they took me out as a vocalist. We started in nightclubs, and then Ted Nugent took us out as his opening act.

My job was to stand behind a curtain near the side of the stage and sing background. On the Nugent tour, I used to feel this looming presence behind me. It was Ted slapping my back. He’d say, “Don’t worry. Someday you’ll be in front of that curtain.”

How did you wind up working at the Gap in the mid-Nineties? [ Laughs ] I spent a few years in this band called Tall Stories. Like many bands of our era, we were just about to release our record when the music moved on a dime with the release of Nirvana’s record [ Nevermind .] On our very same release date was Spin Doctors and, more importantly, Pearl Jam. Anything that wasn’t associated with Seattle or the new sound was dropped and not even considered. And so that was the demise of Tall Stories. We were a fine band with a fine album.

After that, I was out of work. I had a cousin that worked for the Gap. She was high up in management. She was kind enough to look and see if there was anything I could do. All through my career, I was a construction worker or laborer, much like my father and my grandfather. I come from a long line of people swinging a hammer.

I did this for a year. They made me a maintenance manager. It wasn’t so awful, but it was anything from changing toilet seats to lightbulbs to painting fitting rooms, in record time. If you ever tried on a pair of jeans at the Gap and went home with a little extra paint on your butt, that might have been my responsibility. I now apologize, in front of the world.

Were you a fan of Journey back in the Eighties? I was an absolute fan, first and foremost, of Steve Perry’s voice. I had heard them prior to that, but it wasn’t until I was working in a record store called Record Factory in Brooklyn when Escape was released. That kind of altered the direction of my life. That particular record was played a minimum of three times a day for quite a few months. I kid you not. We sold a minimum of a case a day. As you can imagine, it became ingrained in me.

When I first heard Steve, I said, “Oh, my God, this guy is doing something Sam Cooke might have done in front of an electric guitar and bass and a drum kit. He’s bringing this great R&B influence.” That marriage of the two is what grabbed my attention.

How did you hear that they were looking for a new singer? It’s the old expression of “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” I had done some work with a fabulous guitar player known as Joe Cefalu. He then moved out to Marin County in California and befriended Neal Schon. He then heard through the grapevine that they were splitting with Steve for one reason or another, and they were starting to audition vocalists.

He gives me a call and tells me what’s happening. I had basically retired after having more success than most people have had in this industry. I released a record with Tall Stories and another with Tyketto, another wonderful melodic rock band.

But a year had passed. I guess I was content working for the Gap. I was just about to reach a year and I was going to achieve 401(k) status. I was going to have a retirement plan put into place. I was like, “You’re doing OK. You walked away from music. You have a steady paycheck.” And he throws this dream back at me and goes, “Put together three songs, send it to me, and I’ll personally put it in Neal Schon’s hand.”

A week goes by. He doesn’t receive the cassette in the mail. He calls to ask what happened. I thanked him and said, “Joe, it’s a pipe dream, my friend. I appreciate you thinking of me, but this is never going to happen. I’m nowhere near the level of these guys, and especially Steve. It’s just ludicrous, insanity.” He said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of it.”

He had a great deal more confidence in me than I ever had. He handed a tape to Neal and within a day or two, I was handed a phone call from Neal inviting me out to California to audition. As soon as I hung up, I received a phone call from Jonathan Cain. It may have been vice versa. I don’t remember.

What happened from there? I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know if someone was pranking me. I didn’t know if someone was having a good laugh. I called Joe and he said, “Steve, you might want to sit down for this. What I’m about to tell you is going to alter your life forever.” He did indeed confirm that I was getting the audition. I begged Jonathan and Neal to give me a week to prepare, which is nowhere near what you need to get the voice back into shape, but I literally hadn’t sang for a year.

A week went by. I received my ticket to go across the country to San Francisco to Marin County. I walked in the room and there were these two heroes of mine. For five days, we recorded two songs a day. One was one of their classic hits, and one new song a day they had written and were preparing to release on their forthcoming record.

It was a little bit of a rocky start my first day because of either nerves or just the voice is a muscle and it hadn’t been worked in a year. We started out slow and rough. But by the fifth day, by the grace of God or some higher power, my voice came back to me. The stars aligned and I was singing up to par of close to where I was years ago.

I was feeling pretty good. They were working with A&R guru John Kalodner. They thanked me and the feeling was really great. I think I read in their eyes and their facial expressions it was going to happen without them saying it. But I turned around and said, “Gentlemen, I just want to say that I don’t know how this will end. I appreciate the opportunity. One thing for certain, by just you opening my eyes again, you’ve reestablished the fact that I want to go out and sing. I don’t want to go back to the Gap. I want to go get my music career back on track. And if this doesn’t happen, I’ll have a pretty great story to tell my grandkids.”

I had one foot out the door. I spun around and said, “You know, there was one more song I’d really love to have a stab at.” Not because I love ballads and soft rock and love songs, but because of the way that Save Perry sang “Open Arms,” it was a mega-song for me. Maybe it’s a little too mushy and a little too soft for the hard rock fans.

Here I was after nailing the audition, and I’m rolling the dice again. I could have absolutely blown it and thrown everything down the toilet. But I didn’t. I said, “Can I try that?” They agreed, and we did it. I happen to think that particular song may have clinched it for them. Again, it’s luck. It’s who you know. But after who you know, you have to be prepared. Things worked out. Stars were aligned.

How did you learn you had the gig? It didn’t happen overnight. I know Geoff Tate [from Queensrÿche] was also considered. He co-wrote one of the songs that was on one of our records. I can only imagine there had to be quite a few others. But I’m the one who got lucky. It was the big shot, one chance in a million, chance of a lifetime.

Once you got the job, did you start to feel a tremendous weight on your shoulders? It must have been like, “Oh, my God. I need to now step into the shoes of one of the greatest singers of all time, and somehow win over his fans.” Absolutely. I don’t there’s any more daunting task. I’ve seen bands replace members, and lead vocalists are usually the hardest ones. Even if there’s a beloved guitarist, for example, it’s tough. And of course, I’m coming from a fan’s perspective, first and foremost. I knew I had a great obstacle when it came to them, and there’s only one way to do it is to go out and do my best and try to be myself. It’s equally important to respect the music and respect what Steve did with it. I guess the reason they picked me in the first place is that we have vocal similarities. We aren’t identical, but there are similarities.

I had a great teacher early on in my career. One thing he taught me is that you can only go out there and be yourself and do your best. The moment you try and mimic somebody and try to alter your voice to do something other than what comes natural, you’re not going to be the best at your craft. I had to straddle those two things. I had to give the audience and the band what they were expecting, and also try to be true to myself.

There was a balancing act. And there was no overnight success. It happened over a course of eight years. It started out in 1,500 seat theaters.

Let’s go through some of that. Your first show was in June of 1998 in San Rafael, California. What was it like to walk onstage and deliver that first song? Before the show, there was a garbage receptacle. I stuck my head in there and relieved myself. I never had that happen to me before. My stomach was in jitters and butterflies. Once I was done, I cleaned up and hit the stage. I was fine for the first minute or so, but then I locked eyes with my son and my wife in the 20th row. That’s when the waterworks happened. That’s where the reality crept in. That’s where the emotions started. “This is really true. This is happening.”

I could only imagine it went well. We had the label there and John Kalodner. As you said, how do we even consider replacing someone as monumental and iconic as Steve Perry? But we did it in increments. We went out for a test drive. That was a test drive. We went to Japan for a few shows. That was a test drive.

You had to prove to the industry that the audience was still there even without Steve Perry. There were probably doubts that this was even possible. Absolutely. I understand the band’s perspective that they wanted to continue on. And of course, Steve’s perspective was, “How could you even possibly consider it?” I always looked at both sides of this. I went, “If I’m going to do this with them, I have to be respectful, more than anybody, to the fans.”

Some folks are there that literally just need the music. They have to go and pay for a ticket and hear it live. There is where Journey are fortunate, or anyone that had someone step in and do that. Sometimes they just need the music. It’s that simple.

I spoke to some people back then who saw Journey and couldn’t name one member of the band, past or present. They just wanted to hear the songs and didn’t follow the saga in any real way. Pretty much. As you can imagine, through the years I’ve come in touch with a number of these musicians. We all share the same battle stories. I have a gentlemen who used to sing for Kansas, John Elefante. He’s amazing. He’s absolutely stellar. I’ve worked with Bobby Kimball’s replacement [in Toto] who passed away a number of year ago, Fergie Frederiksen. These are just a handful of guys. I could rattle off at least 20 names.

Getting back to your early days in Journey, the Armageddon soundtrack was pretty key. It showed people that Journey would be more than just an oldies revue. Sure. The Armageddon soundtrack was a huge shot in the arm and a huge opportunity. It wouldn’t have happened without John Kalodner. The soundtrack was compete. He asked for a favor from [ Armageddon music composer] Trevor Rabin and the label. He said, “If Journey is going to have any shot at a comeback, we’re going to have to get a song on a huge blockbuster soundtrack.” So we have John and CBS Records and Trevor Rabin to thank. And you can thank “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” Aerosmith’s gazillion-selling hit single. And Diane Warren. Thank you, Diane Warren [ laughs ].

It was the peak of the CD era. The labels had basically killed the single. Everyone who wanted that one song had to buy the whole album. That’s correct. And they did that 7 million times.

Tell me about making Arrival. It was a love/hate relationship. First of all, there were so many things to love about it. They chose New York City to do the record because [producer] Kevin Shirley had a second home here. He had a beautiful penthouse on Central Park West. He had a beach home in West Hampton. The guys came and made their homes here for however long the record took, a month or so. The damndest thing is I have a very fragile voice. I’ve never been the kind of guy that can go out and sing very night.

The first week of pre-production, the label was coming. They wanted to hear us rehearse. Me being a novice and green, I gave it all I had at the first rehearsal. And I had poor monitoring. I didn’t have the expertise and the knowledge that one eventually builds up. I blew my voice out. For the first week or two, we were repairing the voice.

You can only imagine. You want to go in there and give it your 200 percent. Now I’m a bird with an injured wing, a lame duck. But through the patience of the band and Kevin Shirley’s master production, we took our time and I’m glad. I’m extremely proud of the record we did and the performances that are on that record. Somehow, by the grace of God, the record was embraced by the fans.

They gave you credits on many of the songs. You have to imagine, that was a huge honor. I had picked up a couple of things along the way with Tall Stories. And in Tyketto, I co-wrote every song on the record, along with some great records. But this was in the minor leagues. We’re talking about the Staten Island Yankees as opposed to playing up in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium.

Now here I am in the big leagues. I’m in a room with Neal and Jon, who penned “Faithfully” and “Don’t Stop Believin'” and “Who’s Crying Now” and “When You Love a Woman,” with and without Steve Perry. These guys are masters. I’m a novice. I’m green.

Neal and Jonathan would develop a section of a song and be really happy. All of a sudden, these guys are off to the races. They’re world class. But my mind is a little slow, so I literally would have to leave the room with my pen and pad and a guitar maybe. I’d have to take five minutes to listen on my own since these guys are working on all cylinders. They’re revving their engines at 120 mph.

I’d go back and throw my little idea out. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. They’d have to say, “Go back to the drawing board.” That’s where I literally did leave the room. That’s where I first learned to write with them. These guys were monsters, and I was not. [ Laughs ] That was the learning process. I was in the room with the adults, and I was the kid. It was a great experience.

Their touring schedule was often pretty rough. They’d go out for months at a time. After a couple of years, did it start to grow tiresome? Of course. At first, it’s all brand new and shiny. You run out the door. I’d have my suitcase packed a week before we left. Towards the end of my career with Journey, it would be the morning of the flight and I hadn’t packed a thing. It’s just human nature. It was hard to leave.

Everyone thinks of the upsides and the glamor and the sparkle and everything that shines. But the loneliness and the wear and tear, which is a huge part of it for a vocalist. The thing that would kill me was when we’d do three nights in a row. We would do five shows a week. And you needed to do that to keep a big touring machine afloat.

If you go down, nobody makes a nickel. You go into the red. You’re paying for hotel rooms and salaries and nobody is generating income. There’s a bit of a psychological thing going on. You have to keep yourself healthy.

One of the many things I used to do was I’d almost never go out. If perhaps they’d drink on their day off at a bar, I’d bring my bicycle and go for a ride. I literally saw the world on two wheels. The cornfields of Iowa and the Mississippi River. You name it, I saw it, but staying away from talking. I zipped it up and saved my voice for the next show. That was one way I kept it together.

Those are not easy songs to sing night after night. It was even hard for Steve Perry near the end of his time. You have to hit those notes over and over. Yeah. Whether you did or not, you were expected to. You did everything in your power to make it happen. It was diet or exercise. We used to say you literally lived the life of a monk. And it worked for a while, but what happens is it starts to compound over the years. And your voice was going to change anyway. No athlete is going to perform at 30 like they did when they were 20. That’s just the reality of your physicality. It’s just inevitable. It’s going to happen. There’s going to come a time where you can’t do five shows in a row. It’s not possible.

Tell me about making Generations . That was a different sort of record since they all sang on it. Correct. I don’t think that necessarily would have been the case had I not been on the ropes at the time. We had come off the road and I was experiencing vocal problems, or not recuperating as quickly as I used to. And so it was a great idea. “Let’s just share the vocal responsibilities amongst the band. This way, when we go out for the following tour, Steve doesn’t have to sing as much. We can take some of the workload off him.” Frankly, that was a pretty good idea. And that’s exactly what we did.

It’s sort of a lost record. It’s not on Spotify, or anything. Do you know why that is? Well, I can only imagine. I’m speculating. But for one reason or another, they just perhaps felt it wasn’t necessary or worthwhile to put it out there. I know for a fact there are a couple of songs on there that are extremely worthy. I’m sad that they haven’t done that. But that is still the case. Maybe that might change in the future going forward. Maybe not.

In 2005, you guys get the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Steve Perry shows up out of nowhere. Tell me about that day and what it was like to meet him. This was kind of nerve-racking for me, obviously, for several reasons. We had never met prior to this. I don’t think there was bad blood, but nobody was necessarily sending each other Christmas cards.

So here we are being honored. What a great honor to get a star on the Walk of Fame. It was exciting for me. I brought my whole family over. And Steve had an obligation to his fans. If you ask for my opinion, and I shouldn’t speak for anyone else, I think he showed up out of respect to the fans. It was a day to take a bow and accept a great honor. That’s why we were all there. Steve deserved it at least as much as anyone that was receiving it.

We did have a cordial, “Hello. How do you do? Great to meet you. Honored to meet you.” That was the extent of it. I didn’t expect much. I’ve always had a great respect for him. I continue to. But that’s that way it was. That’s the way it went down.

How stressful was it to go on tour at this point when you’re having vocal problems and there were that many shows booked? I don’t think I ever experienced anxiety in my life like that before. I was pretty low key. Everything rolled off my back. Nothing really stuck to me. I was pretty chill until the later years of my career with Journey. I saw the writing on the wall. I knew there was no way I could keep it up and sustain. Frankly, the day that they released me, my voice was completely “in the weeds,” as Jonathan Cain used to say. I guess that’s a golf expression. I was terrible. I don’t think I’ve ever physically and emotionally felt that much pain in my life.

It was also equally liberating. There was a relief and a weight off my shoulders that I soon embraced and accepted that I had a pretty decent run. I achieved something that, from a musician’s point of view, you only dream of. These are dreams that are so far out of reach, but somehow they came into my clutches. I had it for a while. Like everything good in life, nothing lasts forever.

Near the end of your time in Journey, some fan reports suggested you were using pre-recorded vocals onstage. Is that accurate? Well, I can’t … I’ll put it to you this way, and I’ll keep it short and sweet. Each and every day I went out and performed with Journey, I sang every show to the best of my ability and with every ounce of my heart and soul. I can’t answer that question. I can’t legally answer it. But I will tell you that much. Perhaps someday, someone else will answer it another way. That’s the best I can do.

How did they tell you it was over? At first, they sent me to some of the best doctors in Nashville and a coupe of voice therapists. It was coming together. But they had this tremendous summer tour planned with Def Leppard. Neal was working at the time with this great artist named Jeff Scott Soto. They tapped Jeff to step in and help them out for the remainder of the year. He did.

I don’t recall the precise day they gave me the pink slip, but I wasn’t surprised. I was certainly hurt. I was certainly saddened, but I wasn’t surprised because the last thing that Neal said to me before we parted was, “Steve, it’s not personal. It’s business.”

I understand. What puts it in perspective and what got me through what was one of the most difficult times in my life is that if they were able to part with the likes of Steve Perry and the talent of Steve Perry, this is a no-brainer for them. And so I was able to accept it easier. Not 100 percent. That’s because I’ve never experienced pain like that, emotional pain. But it was easier to accept.

Have you spoken to Jonathan or Neal since then? I have. Very infrequently. I had the desire to see them when they came locally once or twice. It was fun to see them. They embraced me. It was very kind of them to have me come. I’ve met Arnel [Pineda] on one or two occasions. Aside from having a great voice and a great instrument, I love his story and how he came to be. I’m actually thrilled for him since I was him. I saw what it was like. It’s a rags-to-riches story. I’m happy for him.

Your job was harder. You were coming right after Steve Perry. You had to deal with all sorts of fan expectations and pressures that he did not. You know what? I think that’s very true. I did some of the lifting. I can’t take all the credit. After me, they really exploded. I think you could call me the buffer or the primer. I was the one that really took the hits, maybe. Again, it’s all relative. I didn’t expect any less. I took the criticism. I didn’t accept any less. It’s natural and it’s just the way it was.

If it happened again, would I do it any differently? Yeah. I’d probably diminish the shows from five to four a week. That might have saved me a little bit. But who knows?

You’ve been touring a lot recently and you’re still doing the Journey classics. I’ve been fortunate in that. I formed the Steve Augeri Band 10 years ago. I’ve been fortunate enough to find a group of really great guys that love to play the music. Of course, the scale is minuscule compared to, again, playing Yankee Stadium. We’re playing what sometimes is even the sandlot. But the joy is still there. The same joy is still there. I’m not exaggerating. As long as the joy is there, I’ll continue doing it.

You’ve also done shows with John Payne and Lou Gramm and these other former singers of big bands. Yes. In fact, we just came back from Sweden yesterday. I’m still adjusting to the timezone. I’m going out tomorrow to be with John Payne and Asia. We’re playing with Lou in another few weeks. I still carry on with my band and other situations. I’ve got another situation in Nashville with the group. Sixwire. They are some of the great Nashville players. They keep me humble. They are great musicians.

Tell me about your new song, “If You Want.” Over the last 10 years, just to make people aware I haven’t completely disappeared, I’ve made sure that I’ve released at least one song a year. It’s not on a label. I just put it out on social media and YouTube and Amazon and all these platforms.

And then 2020 rolls around. We get locked down in March. I took a good look at myself, especially living in New York, and I said, “We may not get out of this alive. And I have a laundry list of material, songs I want the world to hear. Whether it gets to their ears or not, that’s another story, but I need to release them.”

I went from performing mode and I pivoted to creative mode. I don’t recall ever being this gung-ho and this enthusiastic about writing music. I wrote a bunch of stuff immediately and I started collaborating with two band members of mine, my guitarist, Adam Holland, and my keyboard player, Craig Pullman. We were sending files back and forth and we wrote about a third of the record together in that manner.

And then I had about a third of the record that I had written prior to the pandemic. I felt I had to get them out since it would be fruit dying on the vine. Then I wrote some songs in the past couple of years. I put together an album that I’m super psyched about. More than anything ever, I feel like I’ve found my voice. I don’t think I’ll get the comparisons to Steve Perry. As wonderful a compliment as that is, I feel like I finally found something that sounds like me both writing-wise and performance-wise. This summer, we’re releasing Seven Ways to Sunday . That’s the name of the record.

Your voice sounds great. I hear no signs of the damage from years past. It gets back to what I was telling you. My vocal coach told me, “When you do your thing and you’re not chasing anyone else’s expectations and you’re not imitating, you’re less likely to put yourself in a position that’s unnatural.” That’s basically what it boils down to. I would say that I’d be able to do this music without having to second guess myself and without the anxiety. [ Laughs. ]

How does it feel emotionally when you’re onstage these days and you’re singing “Faithfully” and “Don’t Stop Believin'”? Obviously with “Don’t Stop Believin'” there’s a different feeling mainly because it’s so iconic. You can almost sing just half the lyrics and the audience will sing the rest. You can literally kick back and skate a little bit. I don’t, but I could. Everyone knows it inside and out. Boy, wouldn’t you want to write a song like that? But kudos to Steve Perry and Journey.

To get back to your question, I do find joy in singing those songs. However, I will be honest with you. I do some songs in my set that are non-Journey songs, like a Rod Stewart song or a Tina Turner song. I do feel a certain freedom doing these songs and a certain comfort because I’ve hand-picked them. I have a desire to do something like this. I would do anything by Rod, but we happen to do “Forever Young.” That’s kind of apropos because as we age, going out in front of an audience literally makes you feel 20 or even 40 years younger.

As more time goes by, I imagine you’re very grateful that you had the Journey experience. It changed your life in so many ways. They brought you the audience you have now. I have no regrets. I can never say a negative word. Maybe if I really dug down deep, I’m sure you could find darkness and negativity anywhere. But at face value and even just in the big picture, it’s been nothing but a huge positive in my life and continues to be. I can only be thankful and I’m continuing on doing exactly what I did then. I’m still doing it now. Again, even if it’s going from Yankee Stadium to the sandlot, as long as it continues to be a joy, which it is, I’m going to continue doing it.

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