stephen perry journey

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.

The son of Portuguese parents, Steve Perry grew up in California. He was around 10 years old when, during a car trip with his mother, he discovered his career path; after listening to Sam Cooke on the radio, the young Perry decided he wanted to be a singer.

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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Watch: Journey’s Final Concert with Steve Perry, a Three-Song Set During a Tribute For Late Concert Promoter Bill Graham in 1991

Tina Benitez-Eves

Updated: 

By November of 1991, Journey hadn’t performed together in four years but reunited to perform at a tribute for late concert promoter Bill Graham, who died at age 60 less than two weeks earlier in a helicopter crash in California. Graham helped launch the careers of Grateful Dead , Jefferson Airplane, Santana , and Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and helped bring The Who , Jimi Hendrix, and Santana to wider audiences, Shortly after Graham’s death on October 25, the San Francisco Civic Auditorium was renamed the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and held a free concert in tribute to Graham and the others lost on the flight at Golden Gate Park called “Laughter, Love and Music” on November 3, 1991. The concert featured many of the artists Graham supported in the early days, including the Grateful Dead and Santana, along with Robin Williams, John Fogerty , and a reunited Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young , and Journey.

Videos by American Songwriter

[ RELATED: The Writer’s Block — Steve Perry on Songs and Songwriting ]

‘Raised on Radio’

Following the release of Journey’s ninth album Raised on Radio , the band went on hiatus in 1987 with Perry retreating from the public, Schon and Cain forming Bad English, and drummer Steve Smith forming The Storm. The band last toured with Perry on their Raised on Radio Tour and played their final full concert together on February 1, 1987, at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage, Alaska. During the tribute concert, Journey performed as a trio without a drummer or bassist, with Perry, keyboardist Jonathan Cain, and guitarist Neal Schon playing through a short three-song set in a lower key than usual. They opened with their 1983 hit “ Faithfully ” and “Lonely Road Without You,” before closing on an acoustic version of “Lights” from their 1978 album Infinity . Perry later reunited with Journey in 1996 for the album Trial by Fire but couldn’t tour due to a hip injury and later parted ways with the band. Trial by Fire was the last Journey album to feature Perry and Smith, who also left the band soon after its release.

“31-91”

A year after Journey’s final show with Perry, Schon wrote the song “31–91” as a tribute to Graham and recorded it with the band Hardline.

Setlist: Journey Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, November 3, 1991

“Faithfully” “Lonely Road Without You” “Lights”

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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The Real Reason Steve Perry Left Journey

For years, Journey singer Steve Perry used to wear a necklace of a gold musical eighth-note. In 2018, he explained to Rolling Stone it was a gift he received from his mom when he was 12 years old.

"She always believed in me. I wore it for years and years, but hung it up in May of 1998, just after the band and I legally split and I had a complete contractual release from all my obligations to the band and label."

Perry fronted Journey to its greatest commercial success in the '80s, catapulting the band to arena rock stardom through the likes of "Open Arms" and "Don't Stop Believin'." However , by 1987, even with the triumph of Raised by Radio tour, the band was greatly fractured and went on hiatus for nearly ten years. 

As time heals all wounds, Perry reunited in the mid-90s with bandmates Jonathan Cain, Ross Valory, and Steve Smith. Now under the management of Irving Azoff, Journey released Trial by Fire. The Recording Industry Association of America certified the album platinum and the Recording Academy nominated one of its hit singles, "When You Love a Woman," for a Grammy.

Through pain, Steve Perry came back to music

Just before tour arrangements could be made, Perry collapsed while on a hike. He learned he needed hip surgery due to a degenerative bone condition. The band could not wait for Perry to heal, and so he was replaced by Steve Augeri and later Arnel Pineda .

For years, Perry's surgery explained his reason for officially leaving Journey. But in 2018, he made a revelation. Ahead of the release of his solo album Traces , Perry admitted his actual motive.

"The truth is, that I thought music had run its course in my heart," Perry said. "I had to be honest with myself, and in my heart, I knew I just wasn't feeling it anymore."

Perry , in soul and spirit, was tired. But like any true rockstar, he could not be away from the limelight too long. Traces allowed Perry to find music again. In a promise to his late girlfriend Kellie Nash, who died in 2012 from breast cancer, this was the moment he stopped isolating himself from the world. 

"I found myself with not only just a broken heart but an open heart," Perry told Billboard . "And from that came rock and roll."

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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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Steve Perry of Journey: “Things happened to me as a child. There was nowhere to talk it out, so I sang it out instead”

Journey wrote “Don’t Stop Believin’”, the most downloaded song from the 20th century. When their lead singer quit, the band spent years trying to replace him. Finally out of hibernation, he tells his strange story.

By Kate Mossman

In the small hours of 14 June 2007, the Queen guitarist Brian May sat worrying at his computer. The American rock band Journey had fired another lead singer: 41-year-old Jeff Scott Soto had been erased from the group’s website – shed, Brian observed in his blog, like a used pair of boots.

It wasn’t that Brian didn’t sympathise with the pressures on a middle-aged rock band burdened with touring millions of dollars’ worth of hits when their original frontman was indisposed. He laid out Journey’s options. 1. Throw in the towel. 2. Find a look- and sound-alike. 3. Go out under a different name (“unrewarding”). 4. Find a new frontman who steals a bit of the limelight for himself.

Journey are responsible for “Don’t Stop Believin’”, the most-downloaded song written in the 20th century. They have had five lead singers to date. The single component they’ve spent three decades cyclically seeking to replace is the voice of their frontman, Steve Perry, who came and went, and came and went – then disappeared. Any Journey singer needs to sound exactly like Steve Perry, and that is not easy. He must have a high “tenor altino”, reaching F#2 to A5, with a tone somewhere between Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin. The first time Perry quit the band was at the height of their fame, in 1987. He’d been nursing his dying mother, and considered retraining as a neurologist.

The second time he left, ten years later, was because the band were pressing him to have a hip operation, and he refused. The girlfriend of keyboard player Jonathan Cain dimly recalled a guy from another group she thought could hit notes as high as Perry could – so founder member Neal Schon tracked him down, and found him working as a maintenance manager for Gap, enjoying the security of his first pension plan.

The new singer, Steve Augeri, became known as “Steve Perry with a perm”. He took Journey’s hits to the arenas of middle America. As he did so, the real Steve Perry – who’d co-written those hits – rode a Harley Davidson through the San Joaquin Valley in California, back to where he was born.

The Saturday Read

Morning call.

Perry has been a virtual recluse for 20 years. He sits before me in a Whitehall hotel, dissecting a chocolate muffin and carefully dabbing crumbs from his lap. He speaks in metaphorical language: he once said that leaving his band was like “re-entering the earth’s atmosphere with no heat tiles on my face”. The San Joaquin valley reached 110°F in the summer, with fields of almond trees, cotton and alfalfa. The alfalfa became a symbol of his escape. “It holds so much moisture that when you come to an area where there’s an alfalfa field on the left and right, the temperature drops 15 degrees. So I’m out on my motorcycle, and those were the days before ‘helmets’ [he makes quote marks in the air] and the wind is in my hair and all of a sudden, well, I cooled off.”

No one knew what Perry did next. There was a rumour he’d invested in a small bovine insemination business in California’s Central Valley, but it turned out to be a rogue edit on Wikipedia. In what some might call a terrible irony, the band he left behind enjoyed an unexpected, international renaissance without him, attracting a new generation of fans. In the 21st century, “Don’t Stop Believin’” was used on the soundtracks of the Oscar-winning 2003 film Monster , Scrubs, Family Guy, Glee and perhaps most memorably, in the final eerie moments of The Sopranos . It inspired long-read journalism on the magic of song craft, and it even formed the plot of the Broadway hair metal musical Rock of Ages .

Perry banked the cheques – but he missed the shows, because there was a new lead singer in the band who sounded just like him, and this time everyone was talking about it. Arnel Pineda was a Filipino fan who’d spent two years living homeless on the streets of Manila as a child – Neal Schon had found videos of him singing Journey songs on YouTube. Pineda has enjoyed the most successful stint in the job since the man he is imitating. Find a frontman who steals a bit of the limelight for himself, said Brian May, and “the sky’s the limit”.

When not riding his motorbike through the San Joaquin Valley, Perry attended the local fair, which came to his home town in June as it had done in his childhood. “I was drawn to the circus life, because they’d come into town – it was lights, Ferris wheels, it was moving, it was fantasy – and the next thing you know they’re gone,” he says. The circus was, he admits, not unlike a rock band.

“I saw Pinocchio as a child, and there was something evil about this special place where all the children could go. They’d go on the rides, but their ears would grow – and they turned into asses, actually, I guess.”

Rock bands are a ruthless business, but in Journey it’s hard to say who holds the power – the mutable frontman who forced the band in and out of hibernation for a decade, or the founder member who turned the frontman’s voice into a million-dollar franchise. Perry once claimed that he’d never felt part of the group. Schon replied: “How can you ‘not feel part’ of something you’re almost completely controlling?”

They only communicate through their lawyers now. But their songs play in every sports bar and mall in America, instantly and innocently evoking the pain and passion of ordinary human life.

“It’s like your boyfriend saying to you: drop a few pounds, get your nose fixed at the same time. Fuck off!”

Perry has watched his replacements come and go, but once, he was the replacement himself: in 1977, aged 28, having failed in several bands, he’d returned home to work mending coops on his uncle’s turkey ranch when he got the call from Neal Schon, asking him to join a jazz fusion band who couldn’t get a hit. Perry asked his mother, and she advised him to go for it. Schon tried him out by bringing him on the road and telling everyone he was the roadie’s Portuguese cousin. He sang a song at soundcheck when the official singer was away from the stage.

The clichés – “married to music”, “a band is like a family” – are well worn, but for the generation of men who became millionaire rock stars in the seventies and eighties (for it is men, and it is one generation) they are the only way to understand their motivations, not least because it is a language they invented themselves. Solo albums were referred to by Journey’s manager Herbie Herbert as cheating on your wife (both Schon and Perry cheated). Of the hip operation stand-off, Perry says: “When they told me they checked out some new singers, it’s like your boyfriend saying ‘Look, I really love you, but I need to know if we’re getting married or not because I’ve checked out some other chicks.’”

But it was more than that, wasn’t it? They were telling him they’d only take him back if he underwent major surgery.

“OK,” says Perry. “It’s like saying, ‘By the way, drop a few pounds, too. Get your nose fixed at the same time.’ FUCK OFF.” He then asks if we can talk about his new record, Traces , his first in 25 years.

When Perry was 16 years old, he heard “I Need You ” by the Beatles, released on the Help! album, and he felt they could have done better. Why had they done a kind of bossa nova he wondered, when it clearly cried out for R&B? He has reworked the song on his new album, which he wrote and produced on his own – “No one had their foot on my neck saying, ‘Are you done? Are you done?’ FUCK OFF.” he says.

When he was very young, Perry would “mumble hook lines” for potential songs, and it was in Journey that he was able to “apply everything I had ever dreamed of”. Their audience – suddenly full of girls – had a new and emotional relationship to the band via their commercial power ballads.

“You can’t solo for 18 bars,” he recalls telling Neal Schon – who was such a good guitarist that he’d been recruited by Carlos Santana aged 15, in the summer of 1969. “You can have about eight bars. And if it’s going to be eight bars, it has to be something beautiful.”

The first time the pair were put together to write, they finished Perry’s love letter to San Francisco, “Lights ” , in about ten minutes. He describes a song idea as a “sketch” – a framework of chord changes, a couple of melody ideas and a loop for rhythm. “But my problem is, I hear it completed already.”

Songs, he says, should be “like pancakes – stacked high with layers of feeling”. Modern writing is an “industrial assembly line because everyone’s on the grid. There’s 20 people writing these songs – they’re trying to maximise the individual assignments, like when they’re making a film, to increase the opportunity for a hit. But a song should be all about selling a feeling .”

Selling a feeling – is that the essence of power ballads?

“It’s the essence of music,” he says.

“Songs should be like pancakes, stacked high with layers of feeling”

“Don’t Stop Believin’” has had a lot of analysis in recent years, as interest has grown in the industry’s backroom magic. It is a power ballad with a strange minimalism, full of barely-there figures – “strangers waiting” and “streetlight people”. Unable to sleep in a Detroit hotel room, Perry had looked down to the street and noticed the way in which walkers would pop up suddenly in circles of light. The lyric’s “midnight train” was a musical madeleine, designed to take you back to Gladys Knight. The song was self-consciously cinematic, but states that life is a movie that never ends. Its thin but powerful sense of hope was so abstract, it applied to everyone – from the gambler in the lyric, rolling the dice “one last time”, to the real John Doe hearing “Don’t Stop Believin’” in a bar on a Friday night. It started with a refrain written by Jonathan Cain: what Cain heard as a chorus, Perry heard as a “pre-chorus” – suggesting that a “chorus of choruses” should be held off till the very end. It does not appear until three minutes and 20 seconds, delaying the climax. Perry gets a bit antsy discussing it.

“I don’t want to talk about the music because then you won’t listen, and it won’t be yours,” he says. “Your definition – what the song does to you, and the next person – are totally different. You hear music differently based on your life, your experience, what you are. When something resonates with a massive number of people, that is exactly what is happening.”

In 2007, he was approached by HBO for permission to use the track in the final seconds of The Sopranos . He refused to give it over without knowing what scene it would accompany, concerned that the entire Soprano family were going to “get whacked” to the song. For a few weeks, he was one of the only people in the world who knew how the series ended.

Another, equally effective modern-day licensing of the track was in Patty Jenkins’s Monster , when the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, played by Charlize Theron, meets her lover at a roller rink. A jukebox and a skating rink were just the kind of places you heard Journey every day, growing up, reinforcing the sense of their music as part of the wallpaper of American life. Perry, now 69, loved high school, “a magical time, when innocence is running your life.” Its memories are his songwriting metaphors: a concert venue, he says, rather strangely, is “the backseat of a car”.

“Everything I write comes back to high school. I know it sounds funny, but everything. It all comes from the emotions I grew into during my adolescence. Those moments are not to be tossed away.” He becomes emphatic. “If something means something to you, go back and get it and make it part of your life. And anyone who doesn’t understand how important that is, you tell them to FUCK OFF,” he advises, before breaking off to reveal he is desperate for the bathroom.

He was one of the only people in America who knew how The Sopranos ended

Perry was born to Portuguese parents in 1949. His father, Ray, was a singer – a baritone – who had tried to break into the business, and performed in the local theatres of his hometown. What kind of music did he sing?

“‘Pennies from Heaven,’” Perry replies.

His parents eloped because his mother’s father didn’t approve of a singing career. He tells their story as though music were some kind of hereditary condition or family curse, which in the case of Perry, you kind of feel it might be. His parents split when he was eight years old, and he, an only child, moved with his mother to his grandparents’ dairy farm – which might explain the rumours about his subsequent career. As with many rock stars, from Roger Waters to Lennon, the absent father was significant. I ask him why he became a singer.

“People don’t become performers because they don’t have needs,” he says. “Singing, though it can be very lovely, is essentially a primal scream. And I was screaming pretty loudly – and quite big.”

He was an invisible child, he says, but also a silenced one.

“There was a lot going on but nowhere to take it. Things happened to me as a child that I still can’t talk about – nothing to do with my parents, but things did happen. It happened to a lot of kids, as I find out.”

How old was he?

“About nine. But there was nowhere to take that stuff back then. One of my needs to perform was the need to get myself heard. Now, please, do understand, I’m not complaining – but there was nowhere to talk it out, so I got to sing it out instead.”

He spoke to a professional at the age of 63 about what had happened to him at nine. He was advised to do so by the woman he calls the love of his life, Kellie Nash, a psychology PhD candidate. But like everything else that has happened to Perry, theirs was not a conventional story.

During his mysterious, fallow years, Steve Perry seems to have investigated an alternative career in filmmaking. He was “shadowing” Monster director Patty Jenkins: “I love editing, I love directing. So with Patty I watched and learned a lot.” Jenkins was working on a TV film called Five for the Lifetime Network, exploring the impact of breast cancer. Being a methodical director, she surrounded her cast with real patients in remission. One of them – Nash – caught Perry’s eye. Jenkins then told him that Nash’s cancer had returned, was in her bones and lungs, and that she was fighting for her life. He went ahead anyway.

“I’d lost my mother,” he says. “I’d not reconnected with my father – which was another clean-up waiting to happen. I’d lost the grandparents who raised me. And I’d lost this career that I’d wanted so much, because I’d walked away from it.”

Was he so accustomed to losing things that a date with Nash didn’t scare him?

“I don’t know,” he says. “I justified it by telling myself, well, she’s a PhD psychologist, maybe I need another shrink?”

They had a year and a half together before Nash died in 2012. One night she said, “Promise me you won’t go back into isolation, for I feel that would make this all for naught.” He repeats the strange words, wide-eyed: all for naught . It was then that he decided to return to music.

“Life gets undone,” he says. “You try to come up with a plan, but it’s good for ten minutes a day. Some people have an ability to make belief systems work for a lifetime, but I think they’re hard to keep up.”

In 2014, he made world news when he turned up unannounced at a gig by the indie band Eels and performed their song “It’s a Motherfucker ” along with two of his own. He’d not sung live for 19 years but, explained the band’s Mark Everett, “For some reason only known to him, he feels like tonight in St Paul, Minnesota, it feels right.”

Perry, the once-invisible only child, still talks about Journey as a “nucleus”  he could never break into. It is fair to say that the band didn’t want him at first – it was only under the orders of their manager that he was hired at all. They came to epitomise corporate rock. “There are still things I don’t like about it,” Neal Schon once said, “but this is the way I make my living.”

You suspect that, creatively, both men might have been better off without the band – the jazz rock boy-wonder, and the hit-writing soul mogul who really wanted to be on his own. But you take whatever route to fame is presented to you – and you follow the money: “I’d rather fail at being what I wanted to be,” Perry says, “than be successful being someone I didn’t.” 

“Traces” by Steve Perry is released on 5 October through Hear Music

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25 Years Ago: Why Steve Perry Left Journey for Good

Journey  lost singer Steve Perry  for a second time on May 7, 1998. The first time, back in the '80s, Perry's exit had been voluntary – the result of recent solo success and growing indifference toward the band.

Left to their own devices at the time, former bandmates Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain formed Bad English with singer  John Waite . (Perry had fired founding bassist Ross Valory and longtime drummer Steve Smith during the sessions for 1986's Raised on Radio .)

A decade mostly gone from bright arena spotlights paved the way for Journey's triumphant mid-'90s reunion. The resulting Top 20 album, 1996's Trial by Fire , swam against the current of the era's reigning alt-rock. Three charting singles, a Grammy nomination and plans for a successful comeback tour made it seem just like the good old days.

Unfortunately, those touring plans were derailed when Perry suffered a hiking accident and refused to undergo the hip surgery necessary to get him back onstage. This opened the door to renewed ill will and undoubtedly dredged up memories of the singer's late-'80s power grab for Journey's fate.

Instead of bending to Perry's whims this time, the other members of Journey banked on their fan base's renewed support and unquenchable hunger for tour dates by recruiting a Perry soundalike Steve Augeri in order to get on with business.

The band's decision appeared to have been vindicated by a successful decade-plus of touring and recording with Augeri and, later, Arnel Pineda. Perry, for his part, maintained a relatively low profile, seemingly satisfied belting out "Don't Stop Believin'" from the bleachers of his hometown San Francisco Giants' baseball stadium, and occasionally showing up as a guest singer. He's only put out one proper solo album since, 2018's Traces . (Perry released a different version of the same LP in 2020, followed by The Season , an album of Christmas standards, in 2021).

Journey joined the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 . Before the ceremony, Schon said he hoped Perry would perform with him again. Instead, Perry ended up taking part only in the acceptance speeches, simply commenting : "I am truly grateful that Journey is being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

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“It was a total triumph as a soft rock masterpiece and a deeply personal statement”: how Journey singer Steve Perry’s stepped away from his day job to deliver an AOR classic with Street Talk

Featuring the hit single Oh Sherrie, Steve Perry’s 1984 debut album Street Talk was an AOR landmark released in a year of AOR landmarks

It was a golden year for melodic rock. In January 1984 came the debut album from a young band out of New Jersey named Bon Jovi , and in the months that followed, so many other great albums arrived. Survivor , with new singer Jimi Jamison, hit a new peak with Vital Signs . Bryan Adams released Reckless , the album that would make him a superstar. Pat Benatar’s Tropico was a thing of beauty.

There were also fine albums that somehow flew under the radar or slipped through the cracks, but which later become cult classics – Dakota’s Runaway , and self-titled debuts from Giuffria, White Sister and Boston spin-off Orion The Hunter. 

At the other end of the spectrum there were huge hit singles for Night Ranger with Sister Christian and John Waite with Missing You . And at the end of the year came the release of two monumental power ballads, both of which would top the US chart: Foreigner’s I Want To Know What Love Is and REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling .

For AOR connoisseurs it was the best of times. There was, however, one great record from 1984 that had a sting in the tail: Journey singer Steve Perry’s solo album Street Talk . 

Perry wasn’t the only member of Journey who was moonlighting that year; guitarist Neal Schon hooked up with his buddy Sammy Hagar in the brief-lived supergroup HSAS, while drummer Steve Smith busied himself with his jazz project Vital Information. But Perry’s record would have a huge impact on Journey’s career. 

Street Talk was heavily influenced by the soul and R&B he had loved since he was a teenager, and after the album hit big – selling two million copies in the US alone – Perry steered Journey in a similar direction on the band’s subsequent album, Raised On Radio . As a result, Schon ended up sidelined in what had always been his band, and the definitive Journey line-up that made the classic albums Escape and Frontiers fractured with the exits of Smith and bassist Ross Valory.

But while Street Talk might have been a problem for Journey, it was a total triumph for the singer – as both a soft-rock masterpiece and a deeply personal statement. The album was written and recorded with a cast of famous and not-so-famous musicians, including guitarist Waddy Wachtel and drummer Craig Krampf, the latter from Perry’s pre-Journey band Alien Project. 

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At the absolute peak of his powers, for Street Talk Steve Perry put everything he had into a series of perfectly crafted songs: Oh Sherrie , written for his then partner Sherrie Swafford, became a massive hit single; Captured By The Moment , a beautiful eulogy for lost heroes such as Martin Luther King and soul legend singer Sam Cooke; Strung Out , a heartbreak song that rounded off the record in a hard-rocking fashion that Neal Schon might have found a little ironic.

In a year so full of amazing music, Steve Perry delivered one of the greatest AOR albums of all time. 

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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After 20 Long Years Away, Steve Perry Finally Joins Journey Onstage

photo credit: rockaxis.com.co

Reunited And It Feels So, So Good

We’ve spent the last 20 years hoping, praying, pleading – even appealing to Steve Perry directly through the likes of Journey guitarist Neal Schon and even Carlos Santana to rejoin Journey, if only for a little while. As news of Journey’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame came to light late last year, the possibility of a Steve Perry reunion was closer to us than it had ever been but the former Journey frontman’s famed reticence when it came to anything related to his old band forced us to be realistic and prepare for the very real possibility that he wouldn’t show for Journey’s big moment.

Against all odds, however, Steve was there for Friday night’s festivities , just as excited to reunite with his former friends and bandmates as he was gracious to the legions of fans who propelled Journey to the top of the food chain and into rock and roll legend.

While Perry ultimately decided against performing with Journey and left the honor to current singer Arnel Pineda – who got his wish and finally met his idol for the very first time Friday night – his acceptance speech reflected a lifetime’s worth of love and gratitude to his bandmates as he gushed about their respective talents and thanked them individually and by name for “all the music we’ve written and recorded together.” Lastly, for the Journey fans who stopped believing that Steve heard them and cared, he had this to offer:

“You put us here,” he said. “We would not be here had it not been for you and your tireless love and consistent devotion. You never have stopped. I’ve been gone a long time, I understand that, but I want you to know that you’ve never not been in my heart.”

What a magical night! There’s no indication that Steve will ever be involved with Journey again, but who knows? It’s been an impossible year full of impossible events, and to forget that anything is possible would be absolutely foolish. Congratulations, Journey!

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Former Journey frontman Steve Perry reveals why he left band at its height

Former Journey frontman, Steve Perry, reveals why he left the rock band and how he has rebuilt his life post-rock-and-roll. (CBS)

Former Journey frontman Steve Perry revealed in a new interview why he left the iconic band in the late '90s.

The rock 'n' roll star, who is set to appear Sunday on "CBS This Morning" in an interview with Tracy Smith, said he made the decision to leave the band after he fell out of love with music and wanted to embark on a new life journey.

The singer, who is known as the voice behind one of the band's biggest hits, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” also said that he was nursing a bad hip during the time he was considering leaving the band. Despite his bandmates urging him to fix his hip so they could continue rocking, Perry ultimately realized that it wasn't just his hip in the wrong place.

“It was really your heart, not your hip,” Smith says during the interview.

“It was really my heart,” Perry responds.

After leaving the band, Perry returned home to Hanford, Calif., and started a new life not centered on music.

“I stopped singing,” Perry tells Smith. “Completely, Tracy, I swear.”

And moving forward, the once-rocker found love with psychologist Kellie Nash.

Perry shared that the pair were connected through mutual friends, but at the time, sadly, Nash was battling late-stage breast cancer. Nash died in October 2012 and Perry credits her for inspiring him to make music again.

After mourning her death for two years, the former Journey member returned to the studio.

Though the singer has rediscovered his love for music, don't expect Perry to take a step back and reunite with his former bandmates. The 69-year-old told Smith that he plans to keep moving forward.

“I can only answer that question with the truth: that I love going forward. I love going to the edge of what’s next,” he says.

Perry's new album, “Traces,” is out now.

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Journey's Neal Schon says he and Steve Perry are 'in a good place' before band's 50th anniversary

On the cusp of turning 50, the band that etched “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” and “Faithfully” into lighters-up lore is entering “a cleaned-up chapter of Journey.”

That’s according to Neal Schon, the band’s ace guitarist, lone original constant and de facto CEO.

Despite decades of fluctuating lineups and  snarly lawsuits among band members , Journey endures.

On July 8, the band released “Freedom,” its first new album in 11 years that also presents the return of Randy Jackson (as in "American Idol") on bass. The 15-song collection is steeped with vintage-sounding ballads (“Still Believe in Love,” “Live to Love Again”) and soaring melodic rockers (“United We Stand,” “You Got the Best of Me”).

Journey – including longtime keyboardist Jonathan Cain,  peppy singer Arnel Pineda , drummer Deen Castronovo and keyboardist Jason Derlatka, adding bassist Todd Jensen for live shows – will hit Resorts World Las Vegas  this month for shows backed by a symphony orchestra before rolling through more arena dates this summer and in early 2023, the band’s official 50th year.

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Journey in pop culture: Quarantined family perfectly re-creates 'Separate Ways' music video at home

Regular road warriors who consistently pack arenas and stadiums – their 27 shows this year grossed $28 million, according to Billboard Boxscore – Journey relies on a solid catalog of mega-hits and a devoted fan base that appreciates the familiarity.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers also received a boost from Netflix’s ’80s-centered “Stranger Things” when the show used “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” in the trailer for the just-ended season, launching the song onto Billboard’s Rock Digital Songs chart. The affable Schon, 68, talked with USA TODAY about the band’s complicated legacy, his relationship with former frontman Steve Perry and plans for Journey's golden anniversary.

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Question: Are you amazed at how the Journey train keeps rolling after almost 50 years?

Neal Schon: It’s quite an accomplishment and I’m very proud of what we’ve done and how we’ve gotten through emotional and personnel changes and survived. It’s pretty mind-boggling but also a lot of hard work.

Q: Does the title “Freedom” refer to anything specifically?

Schon: Our ex-manager Herbie Herbert  wanted to call the (1986) “Raised on Radio” album “Freedom” because he always came up with these one-word titles. Steve (Perry) fought him on that and got his way, so we sat on it for many years. When we got through the lawsuit with the ex-bandmates, we made the new LLC Freedom (JN) and when we were tossing around album titles said, why not just call the whole thing “Freedom?" It's for the times right now.

Q: There’s been a bit of a revolving door in the rhythm section. Deen Castronovo is back for the live shows, but Narada Michael Walden played drums on the album, and Randy Jackson is back in the band, at least on record?

Schon: Deen is singing and playing his butt off. He’s such a musical sponge, this guy. He’s been like my little brother for close to three decades and is such a joy to work with. Randy, he’d been working with me diligently this whole time. He’s so many things beyond being an amazing musician and bass player.

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Q: Will Randy play at any of the upcoming live shows or is Todd Jensen handling those duties?

Schon: Randy is still recovering from some surgery and he stays very busy and Todd fits like a glove. Having said that, I think with our 50th anniversary next year, there’s room for everybody to jump in if they want to participate. We did go through an ugly divorce with (Steve Smith and Ross Valory) with the court proceedings (in 2021, Schon and Cain settled a $10 million trademark lawsuit with the band’s former drummer and bassist). But definitely, if Steve Perry wanted to come on and sing a song, yes. If (original Journey singer) Gregg Rolie wanted to come sing a couple of songs, yes. Randy Jackson (can) come sit in on some of the material – he played on a lot of hits on “Raised on Radio.”

Q: Do you talk much with Steve Perry?

Schon: We are in contact. It’s not about him coming out with us, but we’re speaking on different levels. That’s a start, even if it’s all business. And I’m not having to go through his attorney! We’ve been texting and emailing. He’s a real private guy and he wants to keep it that way. We’re in a good place.

Q: Do you think, after 15 years, that people have accepted Arnel?

Schon: I was diligent in that I wanted to show the massive size of our audience, so I hired photogs to come out every show and shoot the audience and show the size of the crowd to make everybody see, what am I missing? From putting up the different photos every night and the reviews from the fans online, I saw very little of “This is not Journey, man.” I think we just shut everybody up.

13 Things We Learned Hanging Out With Steve Perry

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

It’s a punishingly hot August day and Steve Perry is tucked into a corner table at a Lower Manhattan Italian spot taking a quick breather between a long round of radio interviews promoting Traces , his new comeback album that he spent the last five years recording in such secrecy that he made everyone on his team sign strict NDAs. He’s no more than two minutes into our conversation, barely enough time to dip a single piece of bread into olive oil and take a bite, when he stands up and announces he has to leave at once. There’s loud dance pop playing on the radio and it’s driving him crazy.

“This is very distracting,” he says, as a large, tattooed bodyguard and two publicists perched near the bar look on. “I’m hearing drums and rhythm. I have a very ADD, multi-track mind and I can’t listen to two things at once. I just hear these electronic drums. Let’s go outside even though it’s going to be a little sticky.”

With the bodyguard in tow, we head onto the street towards a park overlooking the Hudson River. It’s a complete shift from our plan for the afternoon, but Perry has never been one to stick to a script. Ignoring the desperate pleas of his bandmates, management team and fans, he walked away from Journey near the pinnacle of their success in 1987 to live a quiet life free from screaming crowds and record executives thirsty for another hit. And even when Journey-mania returned again in the mid-2000s and “Don’t Stop Believin'” became absolutely inescapable — used everywhere from the The Sopranos finale to Glee  — he refused to emerge from hiding in any way, allowing his former bandmates to reap the hefty rewards by playing about 70 shows a year with a soundalike they plucked from YouTube.

Dressed head-to-toe in black, Perry walks down the city streets, past throngs of tourists that don’t give him a second look, and attempts to explain why he turned in his rock star card over 30 years ago. “It seemed like the only thing I could do to stop some of the badness in my heart and the lack of passion for singing,” he says. “I just had to stop. I was feeling like a forced version of myself, getting into some bad habits and not connecting to my heart. I was completely deep-fried.”

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Rolling Stone published an extensive feature on Perry’s life earlier this month, but there was still a lot we learned that didn’t fit into the piece. Here are 13 of them.

1. He became interested in spiritual matters during his lost years. “I don’t attend any religious practices and I’m not religious,” he explains. “But I’ve devoted a lot of time to people like Joseph Campbell who opened the doors to all the theologists that I have opinions about now. It took a lot of open-mindedness to rewire my thinking about so many things. It needed to happen. They say that every seven years your body completely changes, that every cell in your body is no longer the same. There’s a metamorphoses. And right now, I’m more open-minded to the idea of not knowing the answers to all things.”

2. He has a crystal-clear memory of the moment they wrote “Don’t Stop Believin.'” “I know everyone has their own opinion about this,” he says. “I don’t know what Jonathan [Cain] thinks, but I remember it starting out in a warehouse in Oakland where we had a rehearsal space. I suggested we needed something with eighths on the piano because I always liked songs that began like that. It flowed from there. We were all in the room. It was me, Jonathan and Neal [Schon]. It was a true group effort. Then I went to Jonathan’s house and we wrote the lyrics together. There’s no one genius to any one moment. If you’re in a band, what you do is a group effort.”

3. Contrary to widespread rumor, he’s never suffered any vocal issues. “I have my vocal box checked all the time,” he says. “I have no nodules on it. I have a really good doctor. She sticks a camera down my nose. I call it the garden hose. It goes down to the vocal chords and then she grabs my tongue and I have to go, ‘Eeeeeee.’ She’s really able to see them well and, knock on wood, nothing wrong with my voice. The only thing is I didn’t really use if for a while, but it’s like working out when you begin using it again.”

4. His mother pushed him return to Journey in 1985 after he’d taken a long break to focus on his solo career. “I was ready to leave the group because she was so sick,” he says. “She couldn’t speak because she’d had so many strokes. She was also pretty quadriplegic at that point, but she loved my music. I asked her what she thought about it, whether I should make another solo record or go back to Journey. She said one word: ‘Journey.’ I went, ‘Are you sure? Mom, this means I won’t be around you much. Again she just said, ‘Journey.’ Then she died during the making of the record. I dedicated it to her.”

Journey's Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon Reach Resolution in Long Legal Battle

Do stop believin': fake steve perry scams ohio woman out of $122,000.

5. The “corporate rock” label that Journey was stuck with still baffles him. “That was amazing to me,” he says. “Any band that came to America, whether it was Led Zeppelin or anybody, would incorporate in order to create a tax shelter and not leave penniless. The way to do that legally is to form a corporation. Everybody did that, but we got stuck with the label. Isn’t that fascinating?”

6. He enjoyed meeting Arnel Pineda at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2017. “He’s a sweet kid,” he says. “We talked for a while backstage. It was really fun.”

7. But he never even considered singing with Journey at the Hall of Fame. “I heard a rumor that the invitation was open,” he says. “But I’m not the singer in the band anymore. Arnel is. He’s been in the band for ten years. I just wanted to come and thank everybody for everything, including Arnel.”

8. He was the last one in Journey to give his approval for The Sopranos to use “Don’t Stop Believin.'” “I wasn’t too excited by the possibility that it might be used when someone is whacked,” he says. “Everyone else was okay with it, but I wanted to know more. So the girl who sub-licenses my music kept on asking David Chase’s people if they could tell us a little more. But since it was the last sequence in the entire show, they were a little tight with information. I told them I wouldn’t say yes unless they told me that nobody got whacked, which is how [Martin] Scorsese would have used it. So I just waited and Thursday afternoon my girl calls and says she just spoke to David Chase’s people and they told me how it ends, but I couldn’t tell anybody. They didn’t tell me the screen turns to black, but they told me everything else. And I said okay that Thursday and it aired on Sunday.”

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9. Baseball gives him the same sort of satisfaction today that he used to get from music. “The electronic aspect of music just started wearing me out,” he says. “There’s not a lot of live musicians being played on the radio anymore. But when I’m watching baseball, these guys walk out there and hit, play, catch, run…I mean, they’re just killing it. There’s no auto-tune for baseball. They have to play. The musicianship of the music industry used to be that way.”

10. If he does tour, expect to hear a lot of Journey songs. “I don’t know if a tour will happen,” he says. “Right now it’s premature to even guess. But there would be no way in the world I’d go out there and not sing Journey music too. It would be solo and Journey together. But those songs are vocally challenging. They’re challenging for Arnel and everyone else. They’re not easy. They were challenging for me when I wrote the damn melodies, but back then I was young and in my olympic singer mode. [Barbra] Streisand lowers the keys when she does her old songs. There’s nothing wrong with lowering a key We’re not spring chickens.”

11. His time out of the spotlight after he left Journey in 1987 reinvigorated him . “I went back to my hometown and reconnected with old friends,” he says. “I bought a Harley Davidson and rode it around the country roads of my youth. I let the wind hit my face and my hair blowed behind me. There were no helmet laws back then. I disappeared. I went to the fair in the summer. I went to movies. I had dinner with friends. I had relationships. I lived.”

12. Money was never really an issue after he left the band. “I wrote every single song with members of the band with the exception, I think, of one,” he says. “And those songs kept selling. I don’t eat out a lot. I only drive one car a time. I live kind of small, so financially I never really had to work. There were certainly some sweet [royalty] checks as the years went by, but I’ll tell you something else: I was probably one of the only guys who saved his money. A lot of people were living very extravagant lifestyles. I was not raised that way. My grandfather said to me when I was very young, ‘It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you save.’ So I lived small and saved my money.”

13. When pushed, he refuses to make a Shermanesque statement that he’ll never, under any circumstances, return to Journey, even though it’s highly unlikely. “The only thing I’m willing to be definitive about is that at this age I am right now, I have to do things that I feel really great about, that feel life-sustaining and give me passion,” he says. “I really want to continue to move forward. I’m not too excited about going backwards. I’m more excited about moving forward to what is next. I’ve already written a lot more new material, in fact.”

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Ex-JOURNEY Singer STEVE PERRY Was 'Emotionally Stunned' By 'Don't Stop Believin'' Achievement

Former JOURNEY singer Steve Perry has reacted to the news that the band's timeless rock anthem "Don't Stop Believin'" has officially been declared the "Biggest Song Of All Time" by Forbes . According to the RIAA ( Recording Industry Association of America ),the hit rock song likely heard by everyone around the world is now an 18-times-platinum-certified single.

Earlier today (Wednesday, March 20), Perry shared a link to the Forbes article and he included the following message: "When this 'Don't Stop Believin'' , 'The Biggest Song of ALL Time' article came out yesterday {3/19/24}I was so emotionally stunned. To be part of such a moment as this made me reflect on my parents. By that I mean, though I lost them both years ago, I was so happy for them because they are truly the reason this is happening. My dad was a singer and both of them were very musical. So on behalf of my Mom and Dad, I thank every one of you for so many years of support."

JOURNEY co-founder and lead guitarist Neal Schon was one of the musicians who commented below Perry 's post on Instagram , writing: "That's great Steve . God Bless. I myself reflect on the great time we had writing this song. Respectfully Neal Schon ".

You've heard "Don't Stop Believin'" literally everywhere since the 1980s: on the radio of every car you've ever owned, at every major sporting event you've attended in the last 20 years (including a live performance by the band at this year's NFC Championship Game between the Detroit Lions and San Francisco 49ers ),sung by Tom Cruise , Alec Baldwin and Mary J. Blige in the film "Rock Of Ages" , and covered by the cast of the TV show "Glee" . You heard it and then stared at a black screen in horror for a full 10 seconds wondering whether your DVR wasn't set to record the full episode, and then had it running through your head while you argued with friends over whether Tony Soprano got whacked in the diner or not.

Released in October 1981 for JOURNEY 's seventh studio album "Escape" through Columbia Records , "Don't Stop Believin'" quickly became the band's signature song. Critical acclaim was instant, with Billboard praising the "fluid guitar and vocal." AllMusic declared "Don't Stop Believin'" a "perfect rock song" and an "anthem", featuring "one of the best opening keyboard riffs in rock." Schon wrote the instantly recognizable bass line, and keyboardist and rhythm guitar Jonathan Cain had kept the song title from encouragement his father gave him as a struggling musician living on Sunset Boulevard. Decades after its release, the song became the best-selling digital track from the twentieth century, with over seven million downloads.

In a 2009 interview with CBC 's "Q" cultural affairs show, Perry said he always thought "Don't Stop Believin'" had potential as a single. It was always a hit with live audiences, though it didn't get great radio play at the time it was issued, he said.

"When we were doing the song in 1981, I knew something was happening, but honestly, when I saw it in the film 'Monster' with Patty Jenkins , I started think, 'Oh my goodness there's really something.'"

He added: "The lyric is a strong lyric about not giving up, but it's also about being young, it's also about hanging out, not giving up and looking for that emotion hiding somewhere in the dark that we're all looking for. It's about having hope and not quitting when things get tough, because I'm telling you things get tough for everybody."

Current JOURNEY singer Arnel Pineda , who has been fronting the band for 17 years, told CBS News in 2012, "Even before I discovered 'Don't Stop Believin'' , it has been my motto — you know, to never stop believing in myself. The life that I've gone through, all those hardships, I never stopped believing that someday there is something magical that will happen in my life."

In 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, "Don't Stop Believin'" became a rallying call for patients recovering from COVID-19 at two hospitals in New York and Michigan. The 1981 hit was being played at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan and the New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital during celebrations for patients prevailing over the coronavirus.

Perry reunited with JOURNEY for the first time in years as they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April 2017. The iconic singer appeared onstage with his former bandmates as they each gave speeches, but did not perform with the group later in the event.

Perry 's final full concert with JOURNEY took place in early 1987. He later rejoined his bandmates for a brief performance in 1991 to honor late concert promoter Bill Graham . He also appeared with JOURNEY when they received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 2005.

JOURNEY will team up with DEF LEPPARD for a 2024 stadium concert tour of North America. The 23-city tour opens July 6 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis and concludes September 8 at Coors Field in Denver. The opening act for most of the tour dates will be fellow Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer Steve Miller and his band. Two other Rock Hall inductees will alternate as opening acts for the seven shows Miller is not playing — CHEAP TRICK and HEART .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Steve Perry (@steveperrymusic)

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10 Best Steve Perry Songs of All Time

List of the top 10 best steve perry songs of all time.

Steve Perry, the legendary voice behind some of rock’s most memorable anthems, has left an indelible mark on music history. Whether fronting the iconic band Journey or dazzling fans with his powerful solo career, Perry’s unmistakable vocals and emotional delivery have made him one of the most revered singers of all time. His ability to elevate a song—from soaring rock ballads to heart-wrenching love songs—has earned him a place in the hearts of millions across generations. From his early days belting out hits with Journey to his triumphant solo efforts, Perry’s discography is packed with timeless tracks that continue to inspire and captivate listeners worldwide. In this article, we dive into the top 10 most popular Steve Perry songs of all time, highlighting the unforgettable melodies and stirring performances that have defined his career. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or just discovering his music, these songs showcase why Perry remains one of the greatest voices in rock. So, buckle up for a journey through the best of Steve Perry’s career—songs that have stood the test of time and continue to resonate with fans, both old and new!

Table of Contents

1. Oh Sherrie (1984)

Steve Perry’s biggest solo hit, “Oh Sherrie,” is an anthem of love, longing, and vulnerability wrapped in an unforgettable melody. Released in 1984 as the lead single from his debut solo album, Street Talk, the song immediately became a classic, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Oh Sherrie” was inspired by Perry’s real-life relationship with Sherrie Swafford, making the song feel deeply personal. His powerful vocals soar through the song, backed by a driving guitar riff and an anthemic chorus. The accompanying music video, set in a medieval castle, added to the song’s allure, showcasing Perry’s charismatic presence. It’s a timeless track that embodies the grandeur of 1980s rock ballads while staying true to Perry’s distinct style.

2. Foolish Heart (1984)

Released later in 1984 as the fourth single from Street Talk, “Foolish Heart” is a soulful ballad that showcases Steve Perry’s ability to convey deep emotion. With its smooth, mellow arrangement, the song is a slow, heartfelt plea for protection against heartbreak. Perry’s vocals are tender, moving gracefully between vulnerability and strength. It reached #18 on the Billboard Hot 100, proving that Perry could master subtlety just as well as he could power. The song’s simple yet poignant lyrics resonate with anyone who has ever been hesitant to dive back into love after being hurt, making it a poignant entry in Perry’s catalog.

3. Missing You (1994)

A standout track from Steve Perry’s second solo album, For the Love of Strange Medicine, “Missing You” marked his return to the music scene in 1994 after a hiatus. The song is a mid-tempo rocker, with Perry’s unmistakable voice carrying the sorrow and frustration of lost love. Although it didn’t reach the same chart heights as his earlier hits, “Missing You” still resonated with fans who appreciated Perry’s emotional intensity and ability to craft memorable melodies. The song blends rock with a slightly modern edge, reflecting the changing musical landscape of the ’90s while retaining Perry’s signature sound.

4. Strung Out (1984)

“Strung Out,” another gem from Perry’s Street Talk album, is an energetic, guitar-driven tune that highlights his versatility as a solo artist. Released in 1984, the song is filled with dynamic rhythms and expressive vocals, perfectly capturing the emotional turbulence of feeling torn and confused. Perry’s voice is at its most ferocious here, blending rock grit with soulful passion. Though it wasn’t as commercially successful as some of his other solo tracks, “Strung Out” is beloved by fans for its fiery intensity and raw emotion. It’s a testament to Perry’s ability to channel both power and vulnerability into a single performance.

5. You Better Wait (1994)

“You Better Wait” was the lead single from For the Love of Strange Medicine in 1994, heralding Steve Perry’s much-anticipated return after a decade-long break from solo work. The song is a soaring rock anthem, featuring Perry’s signature powerful vocals over a bold, guitar-heavy arrangement. Lyrically, it’s a warning to someone rushing headlong into a situation, urging caution and patience. The song reached #29 on the Billboard Hot 100, a respectable showing in an era dominated by grunge and alternative rock. “You Better Wait” proves that Perry’s voice could still captivate audiences, even in a rapidly evolving musical landscape.

6. Don’t Stop Believin’ (1981)

One of the greatest rock anthems of all time, “Don’t Stop Believin’” was released in 1981 as the second single from Journey’s Escape album. The song’s iconic intro, driven by Jonathan Cain’s piano, builds into a triumphant, uplifting chorus that has transcended generations. Steve Perry’s vocals are at their most inspiring, delivering a message of hope and perseverance. While it didn’t initially reach the top of the charts, the song has since become a cultural phenomenon, particularly after its resurgence in the 2000s thanks to TV shows like Glee and its use in the finale of The Sopranos. It’s arguably one of the most recognizable and beloved songs in rock history.

7. Open Arms (1982)

If there’s one song that epitomizes the power ballad era of the early 1980s, it’s Journey’s “Open Arms.” Released in January 1982 from the Escape album, the song quickly climbed to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Steve Perry’s voice is at its most tender here, delivering lyrics about vulnerability and unconditional love. The lush instrumentation, with its sweeping keyboard melodies and soaring guitars, perfectly complements Perry’s heartfelt delivery. “Open Arms” has since become one of Journey’s most enduring hits, often cited as one of the best love songs in rock history.

8. Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) (1983)

Released in 1983 as the lead single from Journey’s Frontiers album, “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” is a hard-hitting rock anthem that showcases Steve Perry’s vocal prowess and the band’s powerful musicianship. With its commanding guitar riff and synth-driven melody, the song captures the intense emotions of a relationship falling apart. Perry’s vocals soar over the aggressive instrumentation, conveying both anger and heartbreak. The song reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, and its iconic music video, featuring the band performing in a shipyard, has become a beloved (if slightly quirky) piece of 1980s pop culture.

9. Faithfully (1983)

A heartfelt ode to love and loyalty, “Faithfully” was released in 1983 as the second single from Journey’s Frontiers album. Written by keyboardist Jonathan Cain, the song is a deeply personal reflection on the challenges of maintaining a relationship while constantly touring. Steve Perry’s vocals are filled with sincerity, making the song a timeless anthem for couples. The soaring piano melody and orchestral arrangement perfectly complement the song’s theme of devotion. “Faithfully” quickly became a fan favorite and reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remains one of Journey’s most iconic ballads, often played at weddings and other romantic moments.

10. Who’s Crying Now (1981)

Released in 1981 as the first single from Journey’s Escape album, “Who’s Crying Now” is a smooth, mid-tempo ballad that showcases Steve Perry’s rich vocal tone and the band’s knack for combining rock with pop sensibilities. The song’s lyrics tell a story of heartbreak and regret, with Perry’s voice delivering the emotional weight of the narrative. The track is notable for Neal Schon’s expressive guitar solo, which perfectly complements the song’s melancholy feel. “Who’s Crying Now” reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, further cementing Journey’s status as one of the top rock bands of the early ’80s.

Samuel Moore is a frequent contributor to Singers Room. Since 2005, Singersroom has been the voice of R&B around the world. Connect with us via social media below.

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