Steve Perry - City Magazine, 1981

A few girls are milling around the parking lot at local rock station WABX. Another handful are sitting in cars, necks straining and heads bobbing back and forth in search of Journey vocalist Steve Perry who is due to arrive any minute now. No doubt, most are expecting a limosine to pull up and deposit Perry at the doors to the complex that houses the station on the third floor.
    Instead, a nondescript brown car pulls into a parking space. Perry and his road manager, Pat Morrow, emerge from the car. Morrow walks around to the back of the car, unlocks the trunk and produces some Journey paraphernalia to give to selected recipients at the station.
    Dressed in a tailored knee length navy blue wool coat, jeans, tee shirt and red snow boots, Perry looks more like an average "anybody" than a "national rock star," if you'll excuse the expression.
    But there's no fooling the femme fatales as they descend upon their hero from all areas of the parking lot. Not the least bit disturbed by the commotion, Perry is happy to oblige his fans with an autograph or a handshake. He remains calm, handling the situation with ease, but becomes politely firm when it is time to move on. Choruses of "I love you, Steve" and "Oh God, I met Steve Perry" follow him to the doors of the station.

    Accompanying Perry and Morrow is a local CBS record company spokesman and a Journey promotion manager. Perry is in town today to tout the most recent Journey release, a double album package entitled Captured Live. One of the strongest selling points of the album, at least in Detroit, is that three of the four sides were taped during Journey's four night stint at Cobo Hall in May, 1980.
    As Perry indicates in the following interviews, one with deejay Steve Kostan of WABX and the other with music director Jim Ryan of WDRQ, only one studio cut appears on the album. Titled The Party's Over, and an expected single release, Perry made no effort to conceal his affinity for the song during the two interviews CITY was allowed to view.
    The other Journey members are separately touring radio stations across the country. And it's a regular blitz; according to Morrow, each member is scheduled to appear on three different stations a day for five consecutive days.
     Let's roll the tape. The following excerpt is taken from conversations that transpired between Perry and

Kostan on the air at WABX:
Kostan: Hustle and bustle. Steve Perry has arrived.
Perry: Is my mike on?
Kostan: If not, you can blame it on the news department.
Perry: Can I tell you the news?
Kostan: You are the news today. You're doing a bit of a tour.
Perry: A bit of a mini-tour on the east side here and dropping off our new album, the Captured Live album.
Kostan: How much of this was recorded in the Motor City?

Perry: Three entire sides. The other side was recorded in Montreal and Tokyo. But the rest was recorded at Cobo arena in May.
Kostan: You guys always have fun here in Detroit. You have been in the band three years now. Is Detroit developing into one of your home away from homes?
Perry: It seems like I've been here so many times. This room, I remember this room. It seems like my living room. It's getting comfortable here.
Kostan: The 60's was the decade of the deep voice: Jim Morrison, Eric Burdon, Mitch Ryder. The 70's, other vocalists, including yourself, came along with the ability to hit those high ranges. Obviously, Eric Burdon wasn't one of your main influences. (laughs)
Perry: Well actually...(talking in a low voice; laughs) No, I guess it's just the way my range sits. But on some of the new material which we're working on now to be released later in the summer, there's going to be a lot of changes. I'm going to be singing in a different register. We did a sound track in Japan called "Dream After Dream" for a film and I sang in a different register; I tried singing in some lower keys just to try some different vocal textures for fun. I enjoyed it. It was fun so I might be experimenting with that.
Kostan: Did you have any formal training?
Perry: No it was just trial and error really.
Kostan: When is Journey coming back out on the road?
Perry: August. We're going to Europe in June. We'll be back in July. We'll start in America the last of July, first

of August, which means in the summer we'll be coming through Detroit.
Kostan: With your new member...
Perry: Right. The whole story is Gregg Rolie has been with Journey for a total of six years. Before that, he was in Santana for about seven years or so. So there's two platinum groups back to back. He told us the beginning of last year's tour-we kept it a secret-that he was thinking about not wanting to tour anymore and just stay home and produce, possibly record, just a laid back

album with Carlos Santana. He just got married. He wants to raise a family. He wants to produce other bands. We just had a tribute party to him the other day showing old videos of Journey and Santana. It's really something he wanted to do. His first choice for replacement, and our choice also, was Jonathan Cain. He played keyboards for the Babys. He's also a good songwriter and we're all collaborating on the next album at the present time. We just broke to come out here and do this.

Kostan: The Babys were on your tour last year.
Perry: Right and we got to know them real well as friends and as professional musicians. We got to admire and watch their show. We started looking at Jay Cain right about that time. Rolie was really the first one who said that Cain was really a good choice and we just decided to sit back and wait and check out some other people. But we ended up agreeing with Rolie. It was a good choice.
Kostan: I can't wait to see it. We'll have to wait a little while.
Perry: It's a whole new band. Sounds the same yet it's a whole new band. (laughs)
Kostan: Best of luck with the new album. We're flattered.
Perry: Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone in Detroit for letting us be on their album. I'll tell ya, they're louder than we are.

Perry and his entourage now head over to WDRQ, another FM station nestled in a huge data processing center in Southfield. Perry is accosted again in the parking lot by enthusiastic girls seeking autographs, photos and et cetera. He is quicky whisked into the building to give an interview to music director, Jim Ryan.
The following segments were taken from conversations between Perry and Ryan and are especially interesting because they took place off the air while Ryan played cuts

from the new album for his listeners.

Ryan: You are unquestionably one of Detroit's favorite groups.
Perry: I'm glad to hear that.
Ryan: They love you to death. You guys always use one word titles for your albums. Is there any reason for that?
Perry: You can say exactly what you need to say in one word.
Ryan: That's what my boss tells me. (laughs)
Perry: (Laughing) Out! (more laughter) Next! Fired! Later!
Ryan: My girlfriend used that one later. (more laughter)

Ryan: Why did you use Cobo Hall to record the album?
Perry: Mainly, the enthusiasm. The crowd was so enthused that we got enthused. It was one big feedback thing. It captured a genuine energy between the audience and the band. We really noticed it heavily in the Cobo tapes when we started reviewing the tapes and we did tape a lot of places. We didn't tape every city but nearly all of them and we played 108 dates.
Ryan: This is unusual for a group of your magnitude and stature to go out and do a promotional tour.
Perry: Is it? We do it all the time. That's why all of a sudden we have a stature and now we're popular. It's no different for us. We even stop and play baseball with people.
Ryan: I remember the last time you were in town, I listened to you describe the play-by-play on the radio. You could have a future career in radio. (laughs)
Perry: Hey, I wanted to be a deejay real bad. I flunked my third class, though. I figured it was the best place for me to be when I wasn't starving.
Ryan: You don't need a third class anymore. Go down and sign your name and you're safe.
Perry: I know but that wasn't happening when I was looking for it. That was 10 years ago.
Ryan: Maybe we shouldn't tell the audience.
Perry: I don't care.

Ryan: Hey, I'Il get ousted from here in no time at all.
Perry: Oh, they'll want me (laughs)
Ryan: I've been in Detroit for two and a half years. I came to Detroit from Miami and I got to Detroit about the time the hottest thing in town was the Infinity album. Excuse the ignorance, but from living in Miami I didn't know who Journey was.
Perry: A lot of people still don't ... I'm not kidding you.
Ryan: Not in this city.
Perry: No, not in this city.
Ryan: Infinity is still selling like crazy.
Perry: I know it's still selling. Oddly enough, it's still the top seller. I don't know why.
Ryan: I know you'll be back this summer. Where are you going to play?
Perry: We're not quite sure yet. It could be a little bit out of town. You never know.
Ryan: Let's start all the rumors flying.
Perry: Might be at Joe's Pizza. (laughs)
Ryan: Tell me about the new single The Party's Over.
Perry: It was recorded on the road just messing around between soundchecks. We decided to keep it. It's the only studio cut on the album. I hope you like it. I'm anxious to get some feedback on the single.

Steve is greeted again by female chaos in the parking lot, a routine that undoubtedly repeats itself in all Journey territories. CITY didn't meet with Perry again until the