Steve Perry Fans: Wall Of Sound

As everyone knows, the latest Journey reunion was short-lived, producing just one album, 1996's Trial By Fire. A degenerative hip condition kept frontman Steve Perry off the stage and the band off the road, eventually leading to his split with the group, which continues on with a sound alike named Steve Augeri.
Perry says the other members of Journey offered to wait for his convalescence from his needed surgery in 1996, but only if he went under the knife immediately. "That fractured the reunion," says Perry, whose departure from Journey was made official last May. "I understand this frustration of

wanting to get out on tour, because I was also very upset and frustrated. But I just didn't feel like being hooked up to a mule team after surgery. That's what I was going to feel like. It was kind of an ultimatum. I said, 'hopefully, you're going to do what's right for you, and I guess I'm doing what's right for me.' I also said, 'Why don't you just form a group and leave Journey alone, and we'll see what happens.' But they didn't want to do that.
Perry, meanwhile, busied himself with putting together the just released Greatest Hits + 5 Unreleased. The project gathers songs from his 2 solo albums, 1984's Street Talk which went double platinum, and 1994's For The Love Of Strange Medicine, as well as selections from his unreleased Against The Wall

album. The latter was recorded between the other two projects, but was scratched by Columbia over 'creative' differences.
Perry says he was excited by the idea of compiling his solo work, both as a way of recognizing what he's accomplished and as a method of reestablishing his name with the listening public. "The solo career is something that's sort of always been hiding in the wings," Perry explains, who hopes to work on an album of new material in 1999. "As strange as it sounds, the solo albums were an attempt to change my voice. I started to listen to what the song called for, instead of singing the same voice that came out of me on everything. I would just hope the fans would appreciate my work and open their minds to look into the solo side."