Steve Perry Fans - Rockline! February 1983

"Know us through our music" is the motto of many a privacy conscious band-unfortunately, in many cases there's just not enough said on those vinyl grooves to learn ya' too much. Journey, however, is a band set apart - and with RockLine!'s help, you can read between the musical grooves and really understand what's going on in the heads of your favorite rockers.

It started with an idea, this one from Jon Cain - it had to do with vanishing frontiers, a lack of new horizons, no new territory to explore. The burgeoning technology of the '80s was Jon's answer - getting into it instrumentally, musically, lyrically would be the creative whole behind the individual tracks of Frontiers. With that in mind - plus the ever elusive goal of duplicating Journey's live magic on record, they created Frontiers, which debuted late in January and has been gathering successful steam ever since. Though critical reviews of the album have been mixed,

How does a band create an album? Obviously, it starts with the songs - one song at a time. In Journey's case, it's mostly Steve Perry ("the Portuguese thrush," one rock mag labeled him) and Jon Cain - and it's really a case of "the chicken or the egg" as to which comes first-lyrics, or music. Often, Jon dreams up a melody and keyboard part - Steve may then add lyrics. "After The Fall" came into being that way. But just as often, it's Neal Schon who'll start the musical ball bouncing - he'll come in with new riffs and ideas; then Steve and Jon take the ball from there. "Chain Reaction" really was just that - Neal began the original riffs, then the melodies came and then the lyrics - each Journey-man added a little something to that one, with Steve Smith's drums taking center stage in the final cut.
Sometimes, of course, songs come straight from the heart of experience - the two ballads on Frontiers are prime examples. "Send Her My Love" was the musical re-creation of an experience Jon had. He met someone on the street who knew one of Jon's old girlfriends. They got to talking about the young lady and Jon got all choked up. At the end of

the conversation all he could think of to say was, "Send her my love." Not only did those words provide him with the song, but the feelings - Jon was haunted by the memory of that encounter - came across too. "Send Her My Love" is beautiful - hauntingly beautiful.

    "Faithfully" is another composition of Jon's - but every time Neal Schon sings it, he cries. The rigors of touring - and being separated from love ones - was very much on Jon's mind when he wrote "Faithfully," dedicated to his wife, Tane.
    "(Being on the road is) a fantasy world. It's easy for that world to take advantage of you - if you don't put yourself in the right frame of mind..."
    Journey spends a good deal of time out there, and through the years, they've used some of that time to ponder their transient existence. They've come to the collective conclusion that, though it plays havoc with your relationships, "If you really love someone, there is a way."

Yes, they miss their friends family and day-to-day routines, but they try to approach it with a positive attitude. They've come to feel, too, that the true friends they've left behind will indulge them their lapses - missed birthdays, phone calls, anniversaries are all part of the lifestyle when they're on tour. Can lovers and friends really understand and forgive their "spaced out" on-the-road existence? "You find out who your best friends are," Steve asserts. Neal, an only child, tells about one particularly rigorous concert tour, during which he forgot to call his mother - for six months! "She was about to disown me," he understates, but offers "It just goes to show you how far out you are when you're out there - you just forget about things that mean so much to you."
With all that's given up on the road - and all the inherent difficulties in staying faithful - it's still the only way for Journey to bring their music to you. And above all else, that's still where it's at.

Journey's committed to you - and being totally committed to something is the statement behind "Rubicon," the hardhitting song that ends Frontiers. "It's a river," says Jon about the song's title, "one that Julius Caesar dared to cross." The historical leader Jon's referring to made a dangerous decision - and stuck to it. "And that's something we all need to do," Steve Perry feels, "because time is not on our side." Steve opines that as a nation and as individuals "we must stand by what we have become and turn things around."

Journey's been accused of being a formula band - but they deny that accusation vigorously. Indeed, they've stayed away from "catering to other people's ideas" for Journey and doing "what we want to do." ("If we have a formula, it's the mix of individuals who've come together

And if that formula brings them success, so much the better - but the members of Journey don't really take it for granted. "You're only as successful as your last record," says Steve Perry, paraphrasing an old actor's adage. But Journey seems to really believe that. "It's like a horse race," continues Steve, "you buy your ticket and sometimes you win. But that doesn't mean you're going to win again the next time out."
So Journey keeps on-trying to convey their feelings in music and hoping they'll continue to touch responsive chords in the people who listen.

What's next after Frontiers - will the band break up? Will Steve Perry break away? What do all the solo projects mean? Those questions put to Journey don't really elicit any straight answers-because they can't. "If we could predict what's going to happen next, we'd be a formula band!" they say, only half-jokingly.
But there is Steve Smith's new LP, Vital Information, cut with a band of the same name; there's the Neal Schon/Jan Hammer collaboration, Here To Stay plus Neal's association with rocker Sammy Hagar. Jon Cain's got ties to Sammy, as well - he's written and recorded for him. Of course, Jon's instrumental in wife Tane's musical ambitions too. Ross Valory has turned film director - he's working on a video comedy, The New Avocado Review, and he's preparing his own solo album.
So, too, is Steve Perry - a fact which shakes the very foundations of many a Journey fan. But Steve sees it as a chance to expand his own personal frontiers - not as the downfall of Journey, which will rock on, he feels, as long as people want to hear it. And that, by all accounts, ought to be a long, long time.