Steve Perry - Faces Rocks October 1982

Raised on radio for radio. That's Journey. One of the most successful pop-rock formulas in the history of rock, and one that made it on the basis of airplay and constant touring. Subject to the derision of rock critics and serous aficionados, the members of Journey laugh all the way to the bank with albums that routinely hit the multi-platinum mark, and stadium concerts that draw in the tens of thousands. The personnel might change, but the hits just keep on coming. Just what distinguished this band from the competition (Styx, Toto, Reo Speedwagon, Foreigner)? Are they faceless yet skilled technicians that care more for commerce than art? Well, it didn't start out that way.
Originally, Journey was envisioned as a kind of San Francisco supergroup, a West Coast version of the Muscle Shoals studio band. As hard as it may be to conceive of it now, Journey was at one time considered the pinnacle of progressive rock; now the same people that once raved over Neil Schon's virtuoso guitar playing groan at the very mention of his name. By some, Journey is considered the ultimate sellout, but there are millions who don't care about making such judgments. The fact is, Journey got tired of its cult status and made a calculated effort to

appeal to a wider audience. Whether or not that's a bad thing is up to the listener.
Journey was formed in 1973 by "Herbie" Herbert, and ex-production manager for Santana, who knew Gregg Rolie and Neil Schon from the Santana band. Rolie was a keyboard player who had supplied the lead vocals on Santana's hit version of the song "Black Magic Woman". Schon a guitar hero protégé of Carlos Santana, had turned down an offer from Eric Clapton and instead joined Santana at the age of 15. (The legend has it that he was discovered while sneaking backstage through the window.) It was apparent even then that he was good with his hands.
Herbert knew Ross Valory from a band called Frumious Bandersnatch, but more recently as bass player for the Steve Miller Band. With session guitarist George Tichner and Tubes drummer Prairie Prince sitting in, the fledgling Journey began rehearsals. As the group began to attract attention on the local club circuit the need for the permanent

drummer became important and they found one in Aynsley Dunbar. An Englishman, Dunbar has played drums with John Mayall, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, and Lou Reed.
After the release of the first album, Journey, Tichner left the group. Journey went on to record two more albums that saw the band becoming a staple of mainstream FM radio and a major concert attraction. As the sound changed from an instrumental base to a more vocal one, they decided it was necessary to bring in a lead singer. Robert Fleischman joined the group but he wouldn't last long. The band's following was growing but it didn't yet extend to the Midwest of the United States, an area that has made superstar acts out of such limited musicians as Styx and Kansas. Journey was still considered a little too musically adventurous to play in Peoria.
That would all change in 1978 when Journey moved over from the FM to AM radio band with the release of Infinity, an album that marked several changes for the group. It was produced by Roy Thomas Baker, well-known for his hits with Queen and the Cars and more specifically for his expertise in recording multi-layered vocal harmonies. The album produced a hit single, "Wheel In The Sky", and was the

first Journey album to go platinum. The band hasn't looked back since. Most importantly, Infinity introduced Steve Perry. Perry, who claims such vocal influences as Sam Cooke, Barbra Streisand, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Joe Tex and Jack Bruce, would prove to be the strongest addition ever made to Journey despite his lack of previous credentials. Perry brought his songwriting talents with him as well as his angelic voice. He wrote 8 out of the 10 songs on Infinity.
Dissatisfied with the move away from improvisational playing, Dunbar left the band after the album was completed in a blaze of negative publicity that found him suing Herbert's Nightmare Productions to the sum of $3.5 million dollars. He was replaced by Steve Smith, who Journey members had witnessed playing in opening act Montrose. Smith's background is primarily in jazz, including a stint with Jean-Luc Ponty.
Journey had now made that all important change from an album status band to one whose singles continually topped the charts. Its first top 20 success was "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" in 1979 from the album Evolution. On the "Evolution" tour, Journey spent time in Japan where it recorded a largely instrumental soundtrack album, Dream After Dream for a film by Kenzo Takada,

Japan's leading designer.
    Journey continued to rely on its heavy touring schedule to build its following and in 1981, it released a double live set called Captured which documented the band's live performance. It was the touring that was to be the cause of Rolie's decision to pull out of the group. He had, after all, been touring for 15 years as a member of both Santana and Journey. Rolie picked his own replacement, Jonathan Cain, the keyboardist for the Babys. Cain recorded an album, Windy City Breakdown for Warner Brothers in 1976 before joining the English group The Babys in 1978. The Babys was floundering, and Cain saw Journey as his ticket to the big-time. In addition to his keyboard prowess, Cain brought his songwriting ability to the band, forming a writing partnership with Perry that has resulted in a series of hit singles.
    With every album Journey became more popular. Escape was the band's biggest to date, selling 6 million copies and producing three hit singles, "Who's Cryin' Now", "Don't Stop Believin'", and "Open Arms". Escape spent more than a year on Billboard's album chart. Journey is a band that maps out its strategy as carefully as a football team and to date, everything has gone according to Herbert's plan.
    Frontiers was a harder rocking follow-up effort featuring the single "Separate Ways". The video for the single found Journey as unescapable a presence on MTV as it had previously been on the radio. Journey's success as a video act was purely an adjunct to the radio airplay and the touring, although it didn't "make" the band in the same way that it made a band like Duran Duran. With Frontiers the Journey sound expanded in two directions at once with softer songs like "Faithfully" co-existing with the band's hardest rock to date on "Chain Reaction" and "Edge of the Blade".
    The merchandising of Journey has been as carefully handled as the music itself. In addition to the usual t-shirts, posters, and tour programs, Journey worked with the video game wizards at Atari to develop Escape, the video game. In the game, the player's job is to get the members of Journey out of the show in one piece with their money, while avoiding groupies, photographers, and evil promoters. Even considering their past history, one wouldn't have expected so crass an admission of the band's purpose.
    In addition to the FM Radio, AM

radio, and television, Journey has conquered the movies. Their songs have been featured in Heavy Metal and Tron and in 1985, the band had a Top 10 hit with "Only The Young" from the Vision Quest soundtrack. The marriage of rock and the movies is this year's mega-trend and true to its marketing savvy. Journey was one of the first to recognize the promotional value of writing music for the movies.
Like all members of supergroups, the members of Journey have naturally felt the need to strike out on their own. Schon has released two albums with Jan Hammer, Untold Passion and Here To Stay, as well as participating in 1984 in a superstar aggregation known as HSAS with Sammy Hagar, Kenny Aronson, and original Santana drummer Michael Shrieve. Free from the limitations of Journey, Schon did a live album with HSAS called Through The Fire, recorded at shows in San Francisco, San Jose, and San Rafael.
Smith has led his own group Vital Information on the side with Dave Wilczewski, Tim Landers, and Dean Brown, musicians he met at the Berklee School of Music. Cain has worked with his wife Tane on her singing career. Not surprisingly, Perry has been the most successful on his own. He co-wrote the song "Don't Fight It" for Kenny Loggins'

High Adventure album, and in 1984 released the self-produced Street Talk. That may have been an ironic title for an album by a member of Journey who is more in touch with the stratosphere than with the street, but that didn't stop it from going double platinum and producing a hit single "Oh Sherrie".
Despite speculation that he would stay solo, Perry returned to Journey and 1986 has seen the release of the group's eleventh album, Raised On Radio and the LP's first single "Be Good To Yourself", written by Perry, Schon and Cain. Journey is now a three-piece unit, Valory and Smith having left the band (although Smith does play on three LP cuts). Perhaps it's a promotional gimmick tied in with the album title, but Journey has decided not to release coinciding promotional videos. In any case, the record's an acknowledgement of the significance of radio in their rise to fame.
Despite what their detractors continue to see as music of the lowest common denominator, Journey fills a niche making music for those who don't take their music all that seriously. It is ironic that a group that started out as serious musos would end up as a hit machine, but the music business is as unpredictable as the stock market, and Journey's stock continues to rise.