Steve Perry - Powerplay April 2006

It's not very often that you get a chance to interview a living legend. In this day and age of the "here today, gone this afternoon" mentality of record companies towards their acts, I for one am sure that living legends will soon be a thing of the past� especially AOR ones! So the chance to interview Steve Perry, a man who has to be the greatest AOR voice ever to grace the scene, has to be grabbed with both hands. In a career that has spanned four decades, Steve Perry has done it all. He's reached the multi-platinum heights with Journey, which saw that band become a household name in America, thanks to albums such as "Frontiers", "Raised On Radio" and the album that kickstarted it all, "Escape". That album recently walked away with the top spot in our AOR Underground all-time AOR top fifty, and rightly so. It's an album that defined a genre with its ultra slick hooks, but it was the voice of Steve Perry that really elevated that album to the heights that it so truly deserved. With the recent DVD release of "Live In Houston 1981 Escape Tour", a show that was filmed for MTV and is now fully restored, Steve Perry has been doing selected interviews. The DVD is truly a joy to behold; it captures the band in full flight and features a youthful Steve in all his glory. With a 5.1 surround sound mix, courtesy of Allen Sides, it is the ultimate Journey audiovisual experience. For Steve, it was a real labour of love, but one that he is ultimately pleased with. We caught up with him on a warm San Diego morning in late February. He talked openly and candidly about his time in the band, the DVD, and the fact that he would love to make another solo album. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Steve Perry�

aspect of it because every time we do a project since I'm no longer on Sony and the band's no longer on Sony, it's sorta a new contract. So they came to us and we discussed all of those contract provisions and between the band's attorneys and mine and Sony we all came together with a fair agreement that Sony felt good about. And then we went forward with it. From a producing standpoint I suggested that seeing as I had done the compilation DVD that I would be glad to do this one too. I kinda know, emotionally, where the bodies are buried in these songs, especially in those live performances from Houston. So I wanted to go for the emotion that I know was on those tracks. So I mixed it with Allen Sides.

Sure it did back then. I'll tell you that� ha, ha, ha. When I was looking at the film myself and mixing at the same time I would have my face down on the console because emotionally, I gotta be honest, I couldn't watch it. Some people say I haven't changed much but you know I have had one hip replacement and most of my galloping is not quite that pace anymore. Nevertheless I still can sing, and watching those performances, at a time when the band was at its peak, it was a moment captured on film and on audio. I'm so glad that we captured that show because the group had a peak moment that lasted for only a couple more years.

Yeah, it's a record of a time, a vignette, a painting to me. That's why I kinda got involved because I agonise on that being representative of what I remember it being, and seeing as the band and I are no longer together, they have their own direction that they are going into and we haven't been together since May of 1998, so I'm kinds the one that expects and wants that to be great.

when we had our difficulties and our creative differences, there was no doubt; there was a struggle creatively, but from a result of that is what you are seeing and hearing. So I really do miss the audiences, I really do love to perform. I can't sing like that when I'm in my car or my shower, but put me in front of an audience and they are the ones that take me to the next level. I think that it's an impossibility for most performers to get that extra mile of what they have to offer until they are put in that position, so therefore my voice really belongs to them, and I miss that interaction terribly.

That "Frontiers And Beyond" video has an interesting legacy to it and I'm not sure if this is what you want to hear, but that video was put together by our manager, and at the time the group wasn't that pleased with it. He was sort of on a self-promotion of himself. You'll notice that there is very little to do with the band; he's talking about the crew and himself and his accomplishments. There wasn't a lot to do with the music. So maybe it has

There were definitely times where, on the road, I was a melancholy individual. I would keep to myself and would always be evaluating my life from moment to moment - where am I going, what am I doing, is it good enough, is it right? I mean I don't think I have freed myself from that particular curse; I still do it to this day. I think that it was much more intensive at that time for sure.

Well there was no doubt that when I did my solo album, which was before "Raised On Radio", it had done a certain amount of success with "Oh Sherrie" and "Foolish Heart", it was a total left turn that solo album, it didn't really sound like Journey, it was just sorta an R&B thing that I've always wanted to do. When I got back to San Francisco to start writing with Jonathan and Neal for the "Raised On Radio" record, they had gotten a new item called a drum machine. Back then they were brand new, so all these demos were sitting there with drum pockets that were mesmerisingly consistent, and I think that Jon and Neal, although they probably won't admit it, came up with guitar and keyboard parts that were more R&B orientated. Maybe that was because they thought that because I had a solo album I wasn't coming back, but that wasn't the case. I think that's what happened. It was a musical departure, no doubt. I look back at it and the only thing I would like to do is remix those tracks. I don't think that those tracks are the best that they could have been. I love the songs though.

That's a really great question! And it's going to take some time to answer it, ha, ha. I joined the band in 1978 and I think after the "Raised On Radio" tour, I was just burned. Journey used to tour a hundred and eighty, hundred and ninety shows a year. I'm talking about non-stop. The group had had such an arc of success and it was still very popular - we were still selling stadiums. But in the process of starting the "Raised On Radio" tour (by the way during the making of that album my mother died, she had been one of my biggest supporters all of my life, to pursue my dreams, and no-one else in my family unit had done that) we did the tour and it just wasn't the same after that. It was an incredible sort of ride that I thought had become a parody of itself. There were other extra curricular behaviours that we had fallen into at that point, that were not necessarily good for individuals and the collective unit, and I think that helped fracture the band too. As all groups do go through that arc of behaviour, I think that it just chewed at the core of the band. I said that I gotta get off this and I just jumped ship.

interested in reforming the group. He said that would be great and I should talk to Neal. The three of us got together and that was the beginning of that conversation. Shortly thereafter came "Trial By Fire", which I thought was another great effort on our part after being gone for so long. After that, unfortunately, and after mastering and working on the record with the band and going on a vacation to Hawaii, I was ready to come back, tour and do a video for "When You Love A Woman", when my hip crashed on a hike in Hawaii, a hike I had done a million times. And that's what happened. We had a big falling out at that point because I wouldn't go to surgery and fit in with their timetable. I thought that surgery was not a group decision, of this nature, at least. We had a falling out again.

Well that's kinda hard to hindsight reality because it did happen! My intention was not to not tour, it was not to not continue. My vision was to turn Journey into the cyclic version of the Rolling Stones who tour their hearts out and then they stop for a year. I wanted to have a life and do something that I loved to do, that's what I wanted to see happen. They agreed to it and that was my intention until that happened.

the actual answer that my heart wanted and that was that it wasn't going to require surgery, but they kept saying the same thing no matter which doctor I went to and I didn't like those answers. So because I kept searching for new doctors, and more options, they got impatient and when I got back from my trip in January 98, they left a message on my machine and it was very simple: they wanted to know what I wanted to do, they wanted to go on the road and had checked out a few singers, but Jon Cain said that you are some big shoes to fill, but we want to know what you want to do as we want to get going. And at the time I took that very personally and just called them back, but I didn't fall into the ultimatum, as they thought I would, I'm not wired that way, and I snapped the other way and said that the divorce is about to begin, and so it did.

Okay. I must tell you that around the same time, shortly after I had finished "Against The Wall", Sony had bought Columbia and when I surfaced out of the studio all the bills had continued to be paid and that album was about to be released. The new regime at Sony said something to me that I had never heard before in my entire career, which was, "Gosh, I don't know about the direction!" But I played the record for them and they still didn't like the direction. That was the focus of the new regime and that was to put together outside writers and in-house producers, which the likes of Michael Bolton and many others were the products of. And I really wanted not to get into that creative roadbuilding thing, I wanted to stay true to myself. So they didn't want to release the record. That was the beginning of the biggest rift between myself and the company called Sony Music. What they really wanted was for me to go back to Journey, but I had worked on this and I wanted it released. They wanted more of a rock record, but they were making excuses. I went away and made another album for them, which turned out to be "For The Love Of Strange Medicine", did the solo tour straight after and then went underground. That whole experience has been a painful one until I decided to go back to Journey for "Trial By Fire". Then I thought, "Okay, I'll dip my fingers in the fire again and see if it burns this time." Then I went through the experience with Journey and that all but just finished me off. I thought, "I gotta get away from this."

Well, you know, I do things from time to time. I really help a lot of groups and I'm always involved in something. I've written tons of material, I'm starting to find the honest passion for singing again, because I've emotionally taken a personal hit about certain things. I don't want to sound like a victim; it's just how I'm wired. If I don't enjoy the process then there would be dishonesty in the way it sounds, and I'm not going to do that. So I have to stay true to that and it's only in the last six months that I have been enjoying singing again. I know that sounds insane, but it's the truth. It's been exciting for me. One of my friends is a drummer in a band called Orson, from California, and they are doing really well in Europe. So I've been able to enjoy their success over there; they couldn't get arrested over here in the States. So that's been inspiring to me.

I would love to but there is one issue and the issue is this: I finally got released from my contract with Sony and I'm no longer signed to anybody, and that's a wonderful freedom. I'm not sure whether I would like to go back into another long-term arrangement like that. It's kinda like getting divorced: would you want to go straight back into it again? Some people do, but I'm not one of those kinda guys.

They called me. I'm sorta a fanatic baseball fan. This will be my fourth or fifth season; I hadn't been to a baseball game before five seasons ago. I just wasn't a sports person. The only thing I wanted to do was perform in large venues that had sports involved. So I was never into sports. A friend of mine invited me to a baseball game in San Francisco. I watched the Giants play and I was just stunned as to how cool it was, and I got bitten by the bug. So there I am and four years have gone by and I get this phone call from my attorney saying that the team have been trying to get a hold of me since July because they have adopted the song as their mascot. They invited me down to the World Series and it was the most exciting thing. Oh my God! It's hard to get passes on the field first of all. It's even harder to get them for the World Series. And here I was with the best seats in the house.

I had not planned to go, to be honest with you, because of the legacy of our split. I wasn't sure if I was gonna go. My first impression was that I wasn't going to attend. At the very last moment I thought about my mom again, and if I was to pick up the phone and say, "What would you do mom?" As soon as I asked that question the thought came to mind that if anybody deserves to be here, I do. So I went.

Well you know he said that to shoe me and box me. I was never formally asked like that. He did that for the press and it did help them sell tickets, because people had hoped that that was going to happen, by his words only. I really don't want to send any sort of message that would say that there is hope that we are going to be back together again. At this point I don't feel like that's possible.

I'm not purposely keeping anybody waiting. It's taken me all this time to actually want to do this again. I'm not signed but I have really enjoyed writing with some really creative people lately. I have some things that are motivating me to sing again, and I'm trying to follow that lead. I would certainly hope that before I die that I would make another solo album, too. Life is very short and getting shorter all the time, so we'll see what happens.