Steve Perry Fans - The Gavin Report, 1996

This is the story of a seven year itch.
It was in 1989 that Journey broke up. For over a decade, they had been one of America's most popular rock bands, and, despite their dissolution, their hits-"Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'," "Anyway You Want It," "Who's Crying Now," "Don't Stop Believin'," "Open Arms," "Separate Ways," "Faithfully," "Only The Young," and "Be Good To Yourself," along with favored album tracks like "Lights" and "Wheel In The Sky" - continued to air on the radio. On his own, lead singer Steve Perry scored hits: "Don't Fight It," "Oh Sherrie," "She's Mine," "Foolish Heart."
    The former members of Journey - Perry, guitar wizard Neal Schon. Keyboardist Jonathan Cain, bassist Ross Valory, and drummer Steve Smith - couldn't escape themselves. Still, they hadn't all been in the same room since 1989.
    An itching began.
    Funny thing though. It wasn't Journey that yearned to get back together. It was John David Kalodner.
    One of the better sets of ears in the A&R world, Kalodner, who's scored numerous successful acts at Geffen and, now, as Senior Vice President of A&R at Columbia Records, is a big Journey fan.
    In fact, he says, "Journey was my favorite band. All those years, I had all those big records, they were my favorite. So when the band broke up, I would help Steve Perry when I could. They were all so talented.
    "When I came to Columbia from Geffen, I told Donnie Ienner

and Michelle (Anthony), 'I'm going to put Journey back together.' And I don't really think they quite bought that it was going to happen."
    Steve Perry probably felt the same way.
    As Kalodner recalls, "When I first spoke to Perry about it, he wouldn't even say the name of the band. He would say 'the J word.' That was fine. It takes time and patience. I just said, 'It would be great if you guys got together and played, and if you didn't like playing together, then you shouldn't ever do it again."
    Perry was skeptical. "You can't bring something together if it doesn't want to be together," he told GAVIN. "A band is a relationship between five people. It can be pretty emotionally involved at times…it's volatile at times."
    Kalodner, Perry says, "was instrumental in communicating for us before we could - talking to every individual member and breaking down some of those members. Eventually, we decided we would start talking."
    The reunion process began about a year ago. "Steve started to speak to Jonathan and Neal," Kalodner recalls. "There got to be a rapport, and a lot was told when they got together to play. Whenever they're together, the chemistry is tremendous."
    Perry stresses that the reunion is borne more of that chemistry than of any interest in being yet another '70s rock band comeback.

    "None of the guys needed to do this," he says. "No one should get the idea that this is another effort to stockpile some cash. The truth is nobody from the legacy of Journey is hurting. If the music wasn't honest or pure, I don't know if an 'Unplugged' with a couple of new tunes would have worked. I think Journey was more true to itself than that.
    Perry is friends with Lamont Dozier, the fabled songwriter for Motown and other artists, and sought his advice about a reunion. "He said that if anybody has an opportunity to revive and expose another generation to that kind of music, it makes music in general a better place. He said, 'It couldn't hurt music at all right now, if you guys got back together.'" Perry credits Journey's reunion not only to Kalodner, but also to the band's manager, the one and only Irving Azoff, and Journey's attorney, Lee Phillips.
    From the first rehearsals, Journey seemed more together than they ever were, from their beginnings, with different original personnel, in 1975 as a so-called "space-rock" band out of San Francisco.
    Jonathan Cain hosted the reunited Journey in his recording studio. "We were all miked up - me, Neal, and Steve. It was exciting in the sense that we were happy to be in the circle. We were happy to be part of each other's history. There was a huge respect, after nine years (since their last time in a studio together), that we had for each other, that maybe wasn't there predominantly in the past. There was a lot of laughing that probably never took place in the old days."

    The rapport quickly turned into music for the new album. (Called Trial By Fire, it is due out by the middle of October.)
    "It was pretty impromptu," says Cain. "It's amazing, on a lot of the songs, one of us had the bits that another was missing. For 'When You Love A Woman,' I had the piano part, and it was something Steve had the verse for. Neal would have an idea that Steve was looking to hang his hat on, and Boom!"
    By the time Cain joined Journey in 1981, the band had three multiplatinum albums and, as so often happens with commercial success, began enduring sniping from critics who lumped them with other popular groups. But, as Cain sees it, "We were just a street band that did what we did in an honest and soulful way - and we got lucky. There wasn't any 'corporate' anything. We just went out and did our thing."
    Perry echoes Cain's glowing reports on Journey's reunion. "As soon as we got back together, certain things kicked in. We joked with each other that the good news is, not a lot has changed. The bad news is, not a lot has changed."
    Perry had a sense that the reunion would get a positive response. "When I went out on my solo tour, there were so many Journey fans who were glad to hear the Journey material; it was a learning experience."
    Radio response is, to say the least, encouraging. Jerry Blair,

Columbia's Senior Vice President of Promotion, understands that, with the fragmentation of radio formats, he can't expect every station to jump on the single ("When You Love A Woman"). Then there are programmers like Rob Roberts at Y100-Miami.
"Rob," says Blair, "said, 'This is just amazing. Sometimes, when groups get back together, it's like, 'Yeah, right…whatever.' But when I play this for people, their eyes bug out. They go, 'Wow - Journey!' After we played it, we got over 50 calls before 3 p.m."

Blair reports similar enthusiasm at WPIJ-New York and K101-San Francisco.
Through the years, Blair notes, "If you look at auditorium tests at Top 40 and adult radio, 'Lights,' Wheel in the Sky,' 'Open Arms' are some of the biggest, best-testing songs ever at radio, still."
From the new album, says Blair, 'Message of Love' is aimed at Album Rock. "A3 will play songs. And we're going full-bore with 'When You Love a Woman" at Top 40." That single, he is certain, "is going to get a huge response. When this record comes out, they're going to react, 'Omigod - Journey!' Then, when the lyrics sink in and you see what they're saying, it's what every man who's in love with a woman should be

saying. It's going to touch everyone's heart, and I think it's going to be one of the biggest songs of the year."
Perry is pleased by the attention to the words. "On this album," he says, "I'm most proud of the lyrical content. You sat your standards by where you left off. This project demanded another leap in the lyrics department, and Jonathan and I are very proud we got that."
"When You Love a Woman," he says, "got started on the way to one of the writing sessions with Neal and Jonathan. Out of the blue, I heard a chorus. I had the whole chorus in my head, and I put it on this minicassette player that I keep with me. I showed them the song. We figured out the chords that support the

intervals and the melodies. Then we went into writing verses and bridges, and it was done pretty quick. I had the title and kind of knew where it was going. Jonathan and Neal finished it off."
His times with Cain, Schon, Valory and Smith, Perry says, have amounted to a journey by roller-coaster. "It's had some incredible rushes down, and some valleys, climbs and turns. Right now, I think it's going full circle again. I'm really grateful, and I wouldn't change anything."

    Neither would John Kalodner, the alchemist behind the reunion, the A&R chief who was acting as a fan, who, as he puts it, "just wanted to see Journey." "I think it's great for all the people I know who want to see Journey and who will enjoy this music," he says, "because they really put time, attention, and love into their music, and I don't really see that too much any more."
    In the end, despite the initial hesitancy that Kalodner encountered when he first approached Perry with the R word about the J word, it may have been easier than he thought.
    "It was just a pleasure to put this thing together, and that's the way it was meant to be," says Cain. "We've been waiting for this moment."

    "I'm learning to realize that in life, you never say never," adds Perry. "There was a time when 'never' was said. Time changes everything."
    And yet he adds, "All through the separated times, I truly, in my heart, wanted to be the singer in Journey again, because I knew that was an identity that was the most comfortable to me. The band brought something out in me that I couldn't get out by myself, and it brought something out in them that they couldn't get without me."
    "That is the essence of the band's synergy. It just took a long time for us to look at each other and be grateful."