Steve Perry - Goldmine March 2006

Blessed with one of the most extraordinary voices in rock, as lead singer of Journey, Steve Perry captured the hearts of music fans on signature tracks such as "Anyway You Want It," "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'," "Stone In Love," "Lights," "Separate Ways" and "Who's Cryin' Now." Goldmine recently sat down with the press-shy Perry to discuss his halcyon days in Journey and the new collector's edition double DVD/CD he produced, Journey: Live In Houston 1981 - Escape Tour.

    Goldmine: 1981, the year the new DVD was filmed, was a pivotal era for Journey.
    Steve Perry: Journey had a mission. We had a passion to become one of the best bands in the world. It was a dream, and we always felt like we were the people's band. There was some great new songwriting on Escape. It turned a corner because we had brought in Jonathan Cain, who was with The Babys, and Jonathan and I started writing songs like "Who's Crying Now," "Open Arms," "Don't Stop Believin'," "Mother, Father." The DVD is difficult to watch because it's 24 years later. When I was mixing this stuff, I remember during "Open Arms" is when the first emotional lump in my throat happened. Literally I'm mixing it and I'm hearing for the first time the quintessential version and the vocal performance and band performance that I always wished it could be. I had to put my head back down because it was sad, it was powerful, it was emotional, it was amazing to me. A plethora of emotions hit me all at once.

    Tell us about writing "Open Arms."
    Jon Cain came over to my house with a piano. It was one of the first songs that we ever worked on. He sat down at the piano and started playing the melody. I said, "What is that?" And he said, "Oh, it's just something that I've written. I played it for John Waite but he didn't like it. He said it was 'too syrupy.'" That's what John told him when they were in The Babys. I said, "That's too bad for John and good for use because we're gonna finish this thing. It's amazing."

    Was there a moment that you were on stage with Journey where it hit you that you were in one of the biggest bands in the world?
    When you play a live show every night, you get a very good sense as to what nights are great and what nights are not as great and which nights are off the scale. Every now and then there would be one show that would just be magical. And I swear to God I would come off stage and I knew in my heart that for this performance tonight we were the best band in the world. You could just tell. It had lifted itself into a place where words would not define. It could not be compared to anything. It was just peak performances. That's been my high experience of having those every once in a while.

    Why do you feel the critics never got Journey?
    It doesn't matter. I didn't make music for critics. I made music for people. [laughs] It never bothered me because I never read any of it. I read I think three reviews in my whole career. My feeling was if I believed the bad ones, you gotta believe the good ones. The band members would read them and get upset. I would turn to the guys and say, "What do you care?" At the end of the show when you get your encore and they won't stop 'til you're back on stage, that's my

review. I've just had 25,000 people tell me what they think.

    Critics charged that the band was "faceless."
    As history has proven, we weren't faceless. We were actually a unique band that has stood the test of time. Now what's so wrong about that? As a singer in a band I would love nothing more than be in a band that has that kind of distinction.

    Select a few Journey songs that best display your voice.
    The performance of "Who's Crying Now" on the '81 DVD collection, because it's live and it's got this extended solo. Neal [Schon] plays one of the most beautiful solos, and the band is singing beautiful. This was also the first tour where "Don't Stop Believin'" was being performed. And every time I was mixing this particular live show, when I say on camera, "Here's some new Escape music for you" and Jonathan would start the beginning on piano, the audience would go crazy. And I'd have to keep my head down on the console because it was just too emotional for me. I would get very sad for the mission and the passion that it once had, those things which I thought were worth fighting for. The band was playing so great and we were so good together, and it was all caught on that particular moment.

    When you joined the band, your voice added a crucial commercial dimension to the sound. The song that drove that was "Anyway You Want It."
    "Anyway You Want It" was a song that was very guitar-driven. At that point, Neal and I were doing a lot of writing together. Neal and I had watched very closely all the people who opened for us or who we opened for. I think one of the guys that has some DNA in that song on an inspiration level is Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy. They were such a great band, and I loved Phil. So the guitar part [sings "she loved to laugh, she loves to sing, she does everything" and imitates guitar riff], it's just got this give and take, give and take. Guitar and voice. And it just rocks like

that. So I think it grew into another animal once we got to the chorus.

    How did you handle success?
    I don't think anybody knows what your dreams are gonna do to you if you every reach them. I know that being successful in Journey when we were at our peak moments paid a large toll on my personal life. I'm not complaining, please understand that. What I'm saying is I saw this in the other band members and I saw it in myself. When you want it to work so badly that you can taste it and it's almost yours, then you have a focus that is absolutely maniacal to where you can't let anything get in the way. You want to be the best; you want to keep pushing yourself to get better. You know what the requirements are gonna be to achieve this. And what happens is relationships suffer because they need attention, they need support, too. But at some point your music is your girlfriend and the performing is your girlfriend and she really needs all of your time and you cannot give her anything short of that. So as a result of that I've seen all of the relationships of 1981 when the Escape tour was happening, I've seen all the relationships suffer. Me included. Everybody's gone on to new relationships. But I think that there's a price.

    In 2005, Journey's appeal spans several generations.
    Especially now. I mean right now in iTunes we're the #3 download with "Don't Stop Believin'." What greater honor than to have another generation discover it on their own… and embrace it and take it into their lives. I've already had one pass through that magical window of success, but to know there's another download generation that loves music and they've got their iPods and they're loving music and downloading this stuff, it's just phenomenal to me. It's the greatest thing I could ever want to have been involved with a group like this that wrote and recorded music that has stood the test of time. I don't know what else a singer or band member could ever want.