Steve Perry Fans - Concert Preview

Journey Lead Singer Steve Perry's favorite color is red, and if he had a million dollars he'd "worry how to keep it." His favorite actress is Gilda Radner -- "I want to marry her, I want to bite her kneecaps," -- and he thinks Dustin Hoffman is a genius. His favorite ice cream is from Superior Dairy in Hanford, Calif., (where he grew up) and he says if you want a career in show business, you "do a lot of sit-ups."
    In a more serious vein, two years ago Steve joined Journey, essentially an instrumental band with a cult following and three moderately successful albums. With Perry, Journey recorded Infinity, and things began to happen.
    Combining the instrumental virtuosity of Neal Schon, Aynsley Dunbar, Ross Valory and Gregg Rolie with Perry's vocals added dimension and resulted in the group's first platinum LP. As of this writing, Evolution, the group's fifth and latest album (with drummer Steve Smith replacing Aynsley Dunbar), has been certified gold and is heading toward platinum status.
    Why did Journey (performing Aug. 5 in Comiskey Park) suddenly become so successful? Was its success built on the talents of Roy Thomas Baker who produced the group's last two albums? Or did Steve Perry's vocals do the trick ?
    Sitting in the bar of the Gramercy Park Hotel shortly after the group arrived in New York City, Journey's 26-year-old

singer smiled and said, "A lot of people would like to sit back and say, 'Oh yes, it's all me, I did it,' but it's really a combination of all the elements."
    "The reason why I was able to get into the group was because they wanted to add more vocals. They thought it was an important step to take because they had already taken the instrumental virtuosity as far as they figured they could take it."
    "I put in my fifth, and maybe it was the small missing element that they needed to put it over the top, but it still was only a fifth. It's like a puzzle. You need all five pieces to make the picture."
    Perry admits that Roy Thomas Baker was influential in the success of the Infinity LP, but thinks that the group deserves most of the credit. "We all know what we want," he says, "and we pretty much used him as the instrument."
    "He doesn't do anything really special except multitrack, and Geoff Workman -- his right-hand engineer -- is a very talented man who needs mentioning beyond any engineer I know. Roy doesn't do too much, he just comes and goes. Roy comes in, has a piece of cheese, says, "I love it" or "I don't", then leaves.
    Did that annoy the group? "Yes, it did." Steve admitted. "He was more involved on Infinity. I can't really say what it was. The guy gets the ball rolling, then sits back and says, 'OK, next.'
    "I'm happy with Evolution, because we pulled it through, we did it ourselves."