Steve Perry - Circus Magazine April 1982

Like the dreams and illusions that fueled the Woodstock era, the reputation of the '60s San Francisco rock scene has proven fragile. With San Francisco's psychedelic explosion so decidedly out of vogue in all quarters of the rock tribe, it's ironic that a band which might well claim that era as its heritage is at the pinnacle of its career. The quintet called Journey, now the Bay Area's

biggest band, is the improbable inheritor of rock's psychedelic '60s.
    Six years after the band's Columbia Records debut and a brief two years after Journey's first Top 20 hit, the Escape LP became a #1 smash, spawning more airplay and successful singles (three) than any of its six predecessors. Vocalist Steve Perry, bassist Ross Valory, drummer Steve Smith, guitarist Neal Schon along with newest member Jonathan Cain on keyboards are the rocking lineup that has lifted Journey into the top spot.
    Despite two previous platinum albums (Infinity and Evolution), it was Escape - and a gruelling, continent-hopping tour that kept Journey on the road from August through December - which solidified the band's claim to international stardom and massive popularity. "I don't think we've compromised," Schon contends. "We've just opened our audience by going toward songwriting and vocals."
    While there's no mistaking these millionaire rockers for hippies, the band's roots in psychedelic San Francisco are unmistakable. From the bluesy chords favored by Schon to Steve Perry's soaring vocal style, Journey is a band with its hometown '60s rock experience deeply embedded in its sound.
    The first lineup of Journeymen included four musicians with connections to seminal '60s Bay Area groups. Charter keyboardist Gregg Rolie and Schon both had played with Santana. Original

rhythm guitarist George Tickner, who left shortly after Journey's 1975 debut LP, was a bandmate of bassist Ross Valory in the now little remembered Frumious Bandersnatch, an archetypal combo of San Francisco's psychedelic time in the rock sun.
    Journey's first public performances also seem a nod to the band's roots. New Year's Eve, 1973, Journey took to the stage at the legendary Winterland Ballroom. The next day found the fledgling attraction in Hawaii, performing at an open-air rock festival at Diamond Head crater.
    The band's first album was followed by the personnel changes that have obscured a surprising continuity and musical evolution in its work. It was only after making three LPs that this band of instrumental powerhouses found a real voice in San Joachin Valley native Steve Perry.
    With "Wheel In The Sky," on the singles chart for eight weeks in 1978, and "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin';" Journey's first Top 20 hit, the long-haired tenor made his presence forcefully apparent. It was with the addition of Perry that Journey managed a difficult change of musical identity, transforming itself from a jamming, hard-rock guitar army to a more melodic, song-oriented unit. "We want to grab Europe, Japan and Canada," Schon explains. "And I'm going for everything I can to help the band, and myself."
    "It's not a showbiz thing," maintains Perry. "If something's successful, does that mean it's no good anymore, and it's not to be admired?" With ownership of its own office building in San Francisco and profit sharing and employee benefit

programs, Journey may be rock's most successful business enterprise. Under the management of Walter "Herbie" Herbert, Journey's non-musician "sixth member," it's probably the most professional. "Everybody had bad experiences of exploitation," Herbert explains, and from the start he promised Journey's members "to run this business on traditional standards,"
    Journey's self-contained business empire could be seen as the Haight-Ashbury notion of cooperative enterprise gone corporate; an '80s update of a communal ideal that melted like a burning joss stick in the scared '70s. Certainly Journey makes big bucks, but the band seems to take care of its own. Even after leaving the group, Gregg Rolie drew a weekly salary. And Jonathan Cain is already fully a part of the Journey structure.
    Of course, the ex-Baby brought more to the group than just his control of the keyboards: Along with Steve Perry he wrote "Who's Crying Now," the first of Escape's trio of hit singles.
    As for the future, as any '60s mystic could have told you, it's much like the past. This month, Journey is in Japan for a four-show hop. Next month, the group begins a blitz of the North American circuit, hitting cities missed in the marathon campaign of last year. In June, the band returns to the studio to begin work on the next disc.
    Schon's definition of Journey's goal is a simple one: "We're gonna continue to try and please as many people as we can." Adds Perry, "We are not a commercial product." And as any of its members might tell you, Journey's trip has been a good one.