who replaced steve perry in journey

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Steve Perry Gives His Honest Opinion on New JOURNEY Singer Arnel Pineda

• August 20, 2021
• 1 minute read

During a recent conversation with SiriusXM, classic Journey vocalist Steve Perry talked about the band’s new singer Arnel Pineda , who’s been a member of the fold since 2007.

Steve reached the topic while discussing Journey ‘s 2017 Rock Hall induction, saying (via Blabbermouth ):

“When I walked out there, that was a real thrill. They had a whole worked-up thing – they had a big teleprompter, and I said, ‘F that.’ I pulled out my piece of paper. I said, ‘I got some things to talk about here,’ and I just sort of did my thing. The fans, they were so wonderful.”

Asked on why he didn’t perform at the ceremony, Steve replied:

“I’m not in the band. I haven’t been in the band for quite some time. Arnel’s been in the band for almost 10 years, I think. He’s a sweet kid – he’s a wonderful kid. He sings his heart out every night. It’s his gig.

“There was a gentleman who we recently lost named Harry, part of the management team. Harry was there with me and he said, ‘Steve, listen, I don’t know if you know, but Arnel’s running up and down the halls. He heard you’re here, backstage.’

“I said, ‘Well, where is he?’ He said, ‘I think he’s outside.’ I said, ‘Okay, I’ll come out.’ I walked out and he was there, and he comes up to me… there was something endearing about the way he looked at me. He was meeting, like, a grandfather. [Laughs] He’s got the gig. It’s his gig. He’s doing great.”

Related Topics

• Steve Perry

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49 comments.

Bring Steve back, ideots

the idiot is the one who can’t spell idiot

Why couldn’t Paul Rogers be a man like Steve Perry. Paul treated Brian Howe like sh*t.

Maybe he is not as good as Arnel’s voice almost copied almost same voice of Steve Perry that’s all I can say

Savage!!!!!😂😂😂

Both ” Arnel and Steve, and add, ” Taka” the lead singer from,” One O.K. Rock” all three would put on the show of shows!

He really is an edyot…

You’re damn right😁🤪.

You re very right!

Hey Andy, Speaking of IDIOTS!!

Bring back Steve Perry to the group so that Arnel may have substitute for vocal …just like john lennon paul mc cartney combination 🙏🥰💥

Steve doesn’t want to come back. He walked and was done with band. Why don’t you go back to an old job? Idiot

Steve can’t sing anymore. How he can do the things you want?

FUNNY HE JUST CAME OUT WITH A NEW AULBUM . HE CAN’T SING. LMFAO

welll idiot steve does not want back if he did he would be sooooo your the idiot idiot

Steve knew he can’t bring back the voice where the Journey was once before..Great that he recognize Arnel as the new lead singer of the band

Lmafol, how you spell Capital I•D•I•O•T🤣🤣🤣

Before I die, I would love to see the original Steve Perry and Journey together performing we need to do

Are you kidding me? Steve Perry- what grace and dignity you bring with this. Well done. Clearly your spirit, your conscience, is every bit as beautiful as your voice. ???

Got to love a class act like Steve Perry much love and respect ?

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT AND i JUST MET SOMEBODY WHO MET Steve Perry AND SAID HE WAS GREAT AND HUMBLE GUY AND VERY HUMOROUS.

Well done, Steve.

Awe yes, but he’ll never ever be you❤️

Steve Perry can never be replaced!

And can never sing his song exactly the same as what he did when he was at his prime with the band… that’s why he will never want to come back because he can’t do the same thing as what he did before like what arnel do at the present.

I sew him in concert 3 years ago and he was amazing Steve you will allways be number 1 but agree with Arnel is amazing Think journey is in good hands with him I would of like to seen you perform at the rock roll hall fame cearmoney but I think you were varry kind to say this is arnel crow dosin,t want to over well him I think you made a great choice but thir will allways be 1 Steve parry and that’s you. I’m going see them again next month with billy idol I can’t wait.

No one’s trying to replace Steve. He is Steve Perry. He is Arnel Pineda. Immature ppl don’t get it.

ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, DID YOU SEE ARNEL PINEDA FACE OF APPRECIATION WHEN THEY MET BACKSTAGE AT THE AWARDS. ARNEL SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOWN ON THE STAGE DURING THE AWARDS SHOW TOO, BUT HE THOUGHT BECAUSE IT WAS FOR THE ORIGINAL GROUP ONLY. HONESTLY IT SHOULD NOT HAVE MATTER, ARNEL IS THE MAN FOR JOURNEY NOW. THERE IS ROOM FOR A NEW HISTORY MAKING MOMENT FOR TWO FRONT MEN FOR JOURNEY AND THIS WILL BRING ON TOGETHER LEGIONS OF NEW FANS FOR JOURNEY OF BOTH MEN AND EVEN THE UNDECIDED UNDER ONE UMBRELLA TO SQUASH THE DEBATE ON WHOSE BETTER.

DID YOU SEE THE REACTION OF ADMIRATION FOR STEVE PERRY FROM ARNEL PINEDA WHO COVERS STEVE PERRY MUSIC DURING HIS YOUTH AND NOBODY HAS DONE IT BETTER THAN HIM AND i HAVE TRIED MYSELF AS MY VOCALS JUST DON’T MAKE THE GRADE TO COME CLOSE TO THE LIVING LEGEND. IF JOURNEY DON’T JUMP ON A HISTORY MAKING MOMENT TO HAVE TWO GREATIST FRONTMEN TO HAVE LED JOURNEY INTO THE FUTURE SOMETHINING IS WRONG IF YOU CAN’T GET THESE TWO TO WORK TOGETHER. SEAL THE LEGACY WITH AN ENTIRE DUET OF THESE TWO ON ANOTHER REBIRTH OF JOURNEY…WE ALL NEED A NEW FRONTEIR. WE HAVE TWO SUPERHEROES FOR JOURNEY. MAKE BOTH OF THEM A LEGEND BY HAVING THE ONLY GROUP TO EVER HAVE TWO FRONTMEN ACTUALLY WORK TOGETHER. UNLIKE THE FAILURE OF VAN HALEN WITH SAMMY HAGAR AND DAVID LEE ROTH. THAT WAS OIL AND WATER MIX.

Perry isn’t coming back. Isn’t that obvious? He felt he was screwed/betrayed. Schon mentions trying to communicate with Perry, just to say hi. Perry won’t answer. Does that sound like someone who would want to return even if the offer was made?

Every time someone says “Bring back Perry!” I just shake my head.

STEVE WOULD COMEBACK IF IT WAS WORTH SAVING JOURNEY, BUT AS HE SAID IT IS ARNEL TIME TO SHINE TO CARRY JOURNEY. ARNEL HAS PROVEN HIMSELF AS THE FAN HAS APPROVED HIM MUCH BETTER THAN THE PAST REPLACEMENT WHO DID A DECENT JOB BUT NOT THE POINT WHERE THEY MATCHED OR EVEN CAME CLOSE TO STEVE VOCALS THE WAY ARNEL VOCALS SOUNDS SO ORIGINALLY CLOSE. WHY WOULD STEVE WANT TO COMEBACK UNLESS THEY INVITE HIM BACK TO PERFORM WHICH JOURNEY MEMBERS SHOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM LETTING STEVE PERFORM LIVE WHENEVER HE WANTS TO PERFORM AGAIN. IF THIS IS SO TO HAVE TWO OF THE GREATEST FRONTMEN TO REVIVE A GROUP FOR AN EVEN LONGER LONGEVITY FOR FUTURE FANS.

Journey is a great group band but who run the group is stupid. ..we filipinos dont need journey for ARNEL PINEDA..we LOVE ARNEL PINEDA with his GREAT TALENT and his GREAT VOICE n SKILL…if there is no stupidity @ journey why steve perry left the group …🤨🤔

I WANT TO SAY THAT I LOVED HIS STREET TALK SOLO MUSIC AND HIS NEWEST ONE HE RELEASING TO WHAT i HEAR STILL CLASSIC STEVE PERRY. YOU CAN RELATE TO THE WORDS HE WRITE OR SING WHAT WAS WRITTEN FOR HIM. EITHER WAY HIS MUSIC IS ALWAYS GREAT.

Why didnt axl join journey during the nevermind days?

Steve Perry is a real gentleman. I salute him for speaking his heart out.

Schon Lechon is a devil in disguise. He must change his contaminated heart and mind before the Journey becomes NOBODY LIKE HIM.

you are the only ones who think that someone will replace steve even arnel doesn’t think like that infact arnel’s favorite singer is steve perry and he never thinks that he is replacing steve, the only problem is you narrow minded journey fans.

I can’t agree more bro. , a lot of people just keep on complaining and comparing between the which is really non-sense, Steve is Steve no matter what same as Arnel. They are unique in their own way in my opinion. It’s just plain stupid a lot of fans out there keep bashing Arnel for what he is, in reality Arnel has been with the Journey longer than Steve! Since Arnel took over as the front man I think he did the Journey a big favor in joining them as they can’t find any replacement until they discover Arnel on his Youtube channel.

You are one of the greatest artists Please come back to the world The one and only…..no replica No one can ever replace you

Love always B From Canada 🇨🇦

J Cain once said Arnel is not filling in Perry’s shoes. Arnel got his own shoes that shines.

Steve Perry is one of a kind a class act and amazing performer to this day i listen to Journey when Steve Perry sang

THE ONLY SATAN IN THE GROUP IS SCHION. WHO FEELS HE CAN MAKE JOURNEY ALIVE AS IT WERE IF NOT WTHOUT HIM. THANKS TO ARNEL, SCHION WOULD HAVE BEEN IN A NURSING HOME ON ROCKING CHAIR ROCKING HIS WAY TO OBLIVION. SO WATCH UR MOUTH SCHION

People, note that, Arnel Pineda did not replace Steve Perry he replace or took over the position as the lead singer.

Steve Perry really handled that well. Arnel really admires Perry and knows that he’s a legend. Star struck. Steve Perry is not coming back to Journey and can you blame him? It’s a drama and a mess of a band.

Jrny has always been evolving their music, line up ect. Perry was okay with it till it was his turn to take a pause He could have came back after his hiking accident but he didn’t So they moved on and have done well

Steve is Steve and Arnel is Arnel, both are great singers and should not be a topic for a battle of comparison. Steve Perry is done doing Journey and he won’t be back and that’s all there is to it. The international success is just the icing on Arnel’s cake, but with or without Journey he is doing well as a recording artist with his original band “The Zoo”. That “Bring Back Steve Perry” bandwagon is just very immature and silly, to say the least.

Everyone knows that nobody could ever be a “Steve Perry” However, Arnel Pineda—- I must say that you are very impressive and I love the way you came in and Rocked every single Journey song! Arnel, you’re amazingly BLESSED with a powerhouse of a voice, a great demeanor, and swag outta this world! I definitely am super happy that Journey continues!

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Journey’s Jonathan Cain shares the real-life story behind ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ ‘ as band prepares for Spokane show

One of the architects of the massive hit “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” almost stopped believing in Journey when vocalist Steve Perry quit the band in 1998. Keyboardist Jonathan Cain was uncertain that the band could continue after Perry left the group. It was understandable, since Journey said goodbye to a singer with such a big set of identifiable pipes that his nickname is “The Voice.”

“Steve was the best bandleader you can have,” Cain said. “He was magical.”

If Journey failed to replace Perry, the group would have called it a day during its 25th anniversary. However, guitarist Neal Schon refused to give up, and Steve Augeri filled Perry’s role. Jeff Scott Soto followed Augeri. Neither replacement singer approximated the impact of the iconic Perry. And the band was searching for yet another vocalist in 2007. Cain once again wondered if Journey could continue.

Then Schon witnessed Journey cover band singer Arnel Pineda in 2007 belting out “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” in his native Manila via YouTube. An invitation to audition was offered.

“I was skeptical,” Cain said. “I’m a realist. I thought, this kid has never been to America. There will be blowback because of his skin color and his race. I worried about how much of this country would accept him.”

But Pineda was embraced with open arms by Journey fans. A quarter century after Perry bid farewell to Journey, the band is nearly as popular as it was during its heyday.

“We could have never have guessed this would happen,” Cain, 73, said while calling from Los Angeles. “There is life for us at this point. When I look back at all that we accomplished, it’s just amazing to take it all in.”

So Cain and the rest of Journey, which includes drummer Deen Castronovo and bassist Todd Jensen, believe. “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” isn’t just the name of Journey’s biggest hit. It’s also the advice Cain received from his father when he struggled as a musician during the ‘70s.

“ ‘Don’t stop believin’ Jon,’ is what my dad told me,” Cain said. “I wrote it down in one of my notebooks.” “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” is also the name of Cain’s memoir, which was published in 2018.

Journey, which will perform Friday at the Spokane Arena, was massive during its early ‘80s peak with Perry, who is an underappreciated arranger of the band’s many hits. When Journey was putting together songs for its breakthrough album, “Escape,” in 1981, Perry asked Cain for ideas.

“The clock was ticking on us and Steve wanted to know if there was anything in my magic notebook,” Cain recalled. “I shared with him the phrase, ‘Don’t stop believin’.”

Cain proceeds to sing the couplet, Don’t stop believin’/hold on to that feeling. It’s an enduring anthem. The chorus doesn’t arrive until the conclusion of the tune, which is rare.

“Steve came up with that idea,” Cain said. “He said, ‘Make them wait to hear it. That way they’ll always want to hear it.’ I can still hear Steve yodeling the words to ‘Don’t Stop Believin’. ”

Journey has sold 48 million albums and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. “I don’t know how to top that,” Cain said.

There’s often drama and unpredictability over the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mark Knopfler blew off Dire Straits’ induction in 2018. After years of complaining that they were dismissed by the hallowed Rock Hall, Kiss accepted the hardware but surprisingly refused to perform at their ceremony in 2014. According to Cain, nobody knew what Perry would do during the night of Journey’s induction.

“I was hoping he would perform,” Cain said. “I was waiting for him to do so. He didn’t perform, but I was ready if he was up to it. On the plus side, Perry was full of grace and humility. He had a one-on-one for 15 minutes with Arnel, who came out and said, ‘My God, I met him!’ It was an amazing experience.”

Journey played “Lights,” “Separate Ways” and “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Speaking once more of the latter, Journey was ecstatic that Sopranos visionary David Chase selected the hit to cap his iconic show.

“That blew us away,” Cain said. “David Chase notified us a year before it aired. ‘I’ve chosen your song’ is what he told us.”

The members of Journey were sworn to secrecy. “We didn’t say a thing,” Cain said. “It was a feel-good song for Tony Soprano’s character. I loved the show and James Gandolfini (who played Tony Soprano).”

While on vacation in Italy in 2013, Cain was checking out of a hotel in Rome shortly before Gandolfini checked in. Just a few hours later, Gandolfini passed away in his room. “I was freaking out when I heard about it,” Cain said. “That was just too weird.”

But fans might also file Journey adding a cover band singer from halfway around the world as weird. “Who would ever guess that would work,” Cain said, “But it has worked out well.”

Pineda’s tenure with the band has almost matched Perry’s period with Journey, which was 21 years.

“We’re still going strong,” Cain said. “We have more years ahead of us.”

Don’t stop believin’, indeed.

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The Reason Steve Perry Decided To Leave His Journey Band Members

• Steve Perry left Journey the first time due to feeling burnt out after their final show in 1987.
• Perry left Journey a second (and final) time because of debilitating pain caused by a reported hiking accident.
• Journey continued without Perry though, finding other lead singers before ultimately reuniting and releasing new music.

Throughout the '80s, the band Journey enjoyed plenty of success. The band, which consisted of various members depending on the year and pending lawsuits, welcomed Steve Perry in 1977.

At the time, the other members of Journey included Neal Schon, Ross Valory, George Tickner, Prairie Prince, and Gregg Rolie. Though many band members came and went over the years, Steve Perry always seemed like a staple, one of the central attractions as far as drawing crowds (and rounding out the group's vocals).

But by then, Perry had launched a solo act, and at that point, he and Schon weren't getting along very well, either. That resulted in Steve leaving the band (for the first time).

Journey's Legacy Took A Hit After Steve Perry's Reported Lawsuit Against His Former Band Members

Updated April 2024: Many fans were unaware that Steve Perry left Journey because he was dealing with a debilitating degenerative bone condition . It made it hard to do daily routine activities, let alone tour. But, many fans thought that Perry was kicked out of the band so that he could be replaced by Steve Augeri. A fact that the remaining members of Journey denied. They simply believed the music was "bigger than them" and wanted to continue to tour. These days, Journey is still touring, without Perry, with Arnel Pineda on the lead vocals . Tickets are available for their tour, currently taking place in North America.

Why Steve Perry Left Journey The First Time

Steve perry left journey because he was burnt out.

As iHeartRadio explained, Perry was feeling burnt out. He said that he had "an amazing time in an amazing band," but that his last show in February of 1987 with the band had been a turning point of sorts. Setting out on his own, Perry went on to rediscover himself in a way, while his former bandmates went another direction.

Steve did come back later, however, in the early '90s. The guys reconciled, buried the hatchet, and were working on another album together. The band was even about to start touring again when Perry left the group for good.

Why Steve Perry Left Journey A Second Time

Steve perry was dealing with debilitating pain, leading him to leave journey a second and final time.

So what happened that caused Steve Perry to leave Journey a second time, this time for good? He had a good reason: UCR says Steve got hurt during a hiking accident . Rather than undergo hip surgery so that he could get back on stage (and on tour), Steve opted to quit the band. The way UCR tells it, Steve "refused" the surgery and "dredged up" memories of his leaving the band before.

But the way some fans saw it (and clearly the journalists at UCR as well), the move was a power play akin to the one Perry apparently made back in the '80s. His leaving the band at that point was a way to control Journey's fate, the publication suggested. So the second time around, the band cut ties with Perry rather than letting him drag them down.

Is Steve Perry Still Feuding With The Rest Of Journey?

Perry later related that he was both physically ill and "burnt out," noted iHeartRadio , and that after both an illustrious career as a member of Journey and a successful solo run, he was just finished. For the band's part, they soon replaced Perry with a 'soundalike' who did the job well enough, but never propelled the band to the notoriety or net worth of The Beatles .

Journey Got Back Together Without Steve Perry

Journey got back together with steve augeri and steve perry put out new music.

In 1998, the band officially announced that Steve was no longer part of Journey. After that, it would be decades before Steve got back into music again. As iHeartRadio quoted him a few years ago, "I rediscovered my love for music."

Steve released a new album in 2018, including original songs he'd written over the past 30 years. He even included a "reimagined cover" of a Beatles hit, but it wasn't the one John Lennon hated .

Has Steve Perry's Bad Blood With His Former Journey Bandmates Stopped Them From Speaking?

After Steve Augeri replaced Perry for eight years, he too called it quits with Journey. That has not stopped the band from touring, however. The band is currently doing a North American tour with Arnel Pineda on the lead vocals. Tickets are available for purchase for dates around the US.

Source: iHeart Radio

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Steve Perry Walked Away From Journey. A Promise Finally Ended His Silence.

By Alex Pappademas

• Sept. 5, 2018

MALIBU, Calif. — On the back patio of a Greek restaurant, a white-haired man making his way to the exit paused for a second look at one of his fellow diners, a man with a prominent nose who wore his dark hair in a modest pompadour.

“You look a lot like Steve Perry,” the white-haired man said.

“I used to be Steve Perry,” Steve Perry said.

This is how it goes when you are Steve Perry. Everyone is excited to see you, and no one can quite believe it. Everyone wants to know where you’ve been.

In 1977, an ambitious but middlingly successful San Francisco jazz-rock band called Journey went looking for a new lead singer and found Mr. Perry, then a 28-year-old veteran of many unsigned bands. Mr. Perry and the band’s lead guitarist and co-founder, Neal Schon, began writing concise, uplifting hard rock songs that showcased Mr. Perry’s clean, powerful alto, as operatic an instrument as pop has ever seen. This new incarnation of Journey produced a string of hit singles, released eight multiplatinum albums and toured relentlessly — so relentlessly that in 1987, a road-worn Mr. Perry took a hiatus, effectively dissolving the band he’d helped make famous.

He did not disappear completely — there was a solo album in 1994, followed in 1996 by a Journey reunion album, “Trial by Fire.” But it wasn’t long before Mr. Perry walked away again, from Journey and from the spotlight. With his forthcoming album, “Traces,” due in early October, he’s breaking 20 years of radio silence.

Over the course of a long midafternoon lunch — well-done souvlaki, hold all the starches — Mr. Perry, now 69, explained why he left, and why he’s returned. He spoke of loving, and losing and opening himself to being loved again, including by people he’s never met, who know him only as a voice from the Top 40 past.

And when he detailed the personal tragedy that moved him to make music again, he talked about it in language as earnest and emotional as any Journey song:

“I thought I had a pretty good heart,” he said, “but a heart isn’t really complete until it’s completely broken.”

IN ITS ’80S heyday, Journey was a commercial powerhouse and a critical piñata. With Mr. Perry up front, slinging high notes like Frisbees into the stratosphere, Journey quickly became not just big but huge . When few public figures aside from Pac-Man and Donkey Kong had their own video game, Journey had two. The offices of the group’s management company received 600 pieces of Journey fan mail per day.

The group toured hard for nine years. Gradually, that punishing schedule began to take a toll on Journey’s lead singer.

“I never had any nodules or anything, and I never had polyps,” Mr. Perry said, referring to the state of his vocal cords. He looked around for some wood to knock, then settled for his own skull. The pain, he said, was more spiritual than physical.

[ Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder. ]

As a vocalist, Mr. Perry explained, “your instrument is you. It’s not just your throat, it’s you . If you’re burnt out, if you’re depressed, if you’re feeling weary and lost and paranoid, you’re a mess.”

“Frankly,” Mr. Schon said in a phone interview, “I don’t know how he lasted as long as he did without feeling burned out. He was so good, doing things that nobody else could do.”

On Feb. 1, 1987, Mr. Perry performed one last show with Journey, in Anchorage. Then he went home.

Mr. Perry was born in Hanford, Calif., in the San Joaquin Valley, about 45 minutes south of Fresno. His parents, who were both Portuguese immigrants, divorced when he was 8, and Mr. Perry and his mother moved in next door to her parents’. “I became invisible, emotionally,” Mr. Perry said. “And there were places I used to hide, to feel comfortable, to protect myself.”

Sometimes he’d crawl into a corner of his grandparents’ garage with a blanket and a flashlight. But he also found refuge in music. “I could get lost in these 45s that I had,” Mr. Perry said. “It turned on a passion for music in me that saved my life.”

As a teen, Mr. Perry moved to Lemoore, Calif., where he enjoyed an archetypally idyllic West Coast adolescence: “A lot of my writing, to this day, is based on my emotional attachment to Lemoore High School.”

There he discovered the Beatles and the Beach Boys, went on parked-car dates by the San Joaquin Valley’s many irrigation canals, and experienced a feeling of “freedom and teenage emotion and contact with the world” that he’s never forgotten. Even a song like “No Erasin’,” the buoyant lead single from his new LP has that down-by-the-old-canal spirit, Mr. Perry said.

And after he left Journey, it was Lemoore that Mr. Perry returned to, hoping to rediscover the person he’d been before subsuming his identity within an internationally famous rock band. In the beginning, he couldn’t even bear to listen to music on the radio: “A little PTSD, I think.”

Eventually, in 1994, he made that solo album, “For the Love of Strange Medicine,” and sported a windblown near-mullet and a dazed expression on the cover. The reviews were respectful, and the album wasn’t a flop. With alternative rock at its cultural peak, Mr. Perry was a man without a context — which suited him just fine.

“I was glad,” he said, “that I was just allowed to step back and go, O.K. — this is a good time to go ride my Harley.”

JOURNEY STAYED REUNITED after Mr. Perry left for the second time in 1997. Since December 2007, its frontman has been Arnel Pineda, a former cover-band vocalist from Manila, Philippines, who Mr. Schon discovered via YouTube . When Journey was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last April, Mr. Pineda sang the 1981 anthem “Don’t Stop Believin’,” not Mr. Perry. “I’m not in the band,” he said flatly, adding, “It’s Arnel’s gig — singers have to stick together.”

Around the time Mr. Pineda joined the band, something strange had happened — after being radioactively unhip for decades, Journey had crept back into the zeitgeist. David Chase used “Don’t Stop Believin’” to nerve-racking effect in the last scene of the 2007 series finale of “The Sopranos” ; when Mr. Perry refused to sign off on the show’s use of the song until he was told how it would be used, he briefly became one of the few people in America who knew in advance how the show ended.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” became a kind of pop standard, covered by everyone from the cast of “Glee” to the avant-shred guitarist Marnie Stern . Decades after they’d gone their separate ways, Journey and Mr. Perry found themselves discovering fans they never knew they had.

Mark Oliver Everett, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter who performs with his band Eels under the stage name E, was not one of them, at first.

“When I was young, living in Virginia,” Mr. Everett said, “Journey was always on the radio, and I wasn’t into it.”

So although Mr. Perry became a regular at Eels shows beginning around 2003, it took Mr. Everett five years to invite him backstage. He’d become acquainted with Patty Jenkins, the film director, who’d befriended Mr. Perry after contacting him for permission to use “Don’t Stop Believin’” in her 2003 film “Monster.” (“When he literally showed up on the mixing stage the next day and pulled up a chair next to me, saying, ‘Hey I really love your movie. How can I help you?’ it was the beginning of one of the greatest friendships of my life,” Ms. Jenkins wrote in an email.) Over lunch, Ms. Jenkins lobbied Mr. Everett to meet Mr. Perry.

They hit it off immediately. “At that time,” Mr. Everett said, “we had a very serious Eels croquet game in my backyard every Sunday.” He invited Mr. Perry to attend that week. Before long, Mr. Perry began showing up — uninvited and unannounced, but not unwelcome — at Eels rehearsals.

“They’d always bust my chops,” Mr. Perry said. “Like, ‘Well? Is this the year you come on and sing a couple songs with us?’”

At one point, the Eels guitarist Jeff Lyster managed to bait Mr. Perry into singing Journey’s “Lights” at one of these rehearsals, which Mr. Everett remembers as “this great moment — a guy who’s become like Howard Hughes, and just walked away from it all 25 years ago, and he’s finally doing it again.”

Eventually Mr. Perry decided to sing a few numbers at an Eels show, which would be his first public performance in decades. He made this decision known to the band, Mr. Everett said, not via phone or email but by showing up to tour rehearsals one day carrying his own microphone. “He moves in mysterious ways,” Mr. Everett observed.

For mysterious Steve Perry reasons, Mr. Perry chose to make his long-awaited return to the stage at a 2014 Eels show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn. During a surprise encore, he sang three songs, including one of his favorite Eels tunes, whose profane title is rendered on an edited album as “It’s a Monstertrucker.”

“I walked out with no anticipation and they knew me and they responded, and it was really a thrill,” Mr. Perry said. “I missed it so much. I couldn’t believe it’d been so long.”

“It’s a Monstertrucker” is a spare song about struggling to get through a lonely Sunday in someone’s absence. For Mr. Perry, it was not an out-of-nowhere choice.

In 2011, Ms. Jenkins directed one segment of “Five,” a Lifetime anthology film about women and breast cancer. Mr. Perry visited her one day in the cutting room while she was at work on a scene featuring real cancer patients as extras. A woman named Kellie Nash caught Mr. Perry’s eye. Instantly smitten, he asked Ms. Jenkins if she would introduce them by email.

“And she says ‘O.K., I’ll send the email,’ ” Mr. Perry said, “but there’s one thing I should tell you first. She was in remission, but it came back, and it’s in her bones and her lungs. She’s fighting for her life.”

“My head said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Mr. Perry remembered, “but my heart said, ‘Send the email.’”

“That was extremely unlike Steve, as he is just not that guy,” Ms. Jenkins said. “I have never seen him hit on, or even show interest in anyone before. He was always so conservative about opening up to anyone.”

A few weeks later, Ms. Nash and Mr. Perry connected by phone and ended up talking for nearly five hours. Their friendship soon blossomed into romance. Mr. Perry described Ms. Nash as the greatest thing that ever happened to him.

“I was loved by a lot of people, but I didn’t really feel it as much as I did when Kellie said it,” he said. “Because she’s got better things to do than waste her time with those words.”

They were together for a year and a half. They made each other laugh and talked each other to sleep at night.

In the fall of 2012, Ms. Nash began experiencing headaches. An MRI revealed that the cancer had spread to her brain. One night not long afterward, Ms. Nash asked Mr. Perry to make her a promise.

“She said, ‘If something were to happen to me, promise me you won’t go back into isolation,’ ” Mr. Perry said, “because that would make this all for naught.”

At this point in the story, Mr. Perry asked for a moment and began to cry.

Ms. Nash died on Dec. 14, 2012, at 40. Two years later, Mr. Perry showed up to Eels rehearsal with his own microphone, ready to make good on a promise.

TIME HAS ADDED a husky edge to Mr. Perry’s angelic voice; on “Traces,” he hits some trembling high notes that bring to mind the otherworldly jazz countertenor “Little” Jimmy Scott. The tone suits the songs, which occasionally rock, but mostly feel close to their origins as solo demos Mr. Perry cut with only loops and click tracks backing him up.

The idea that the album might kick-start a comeback for Mr. Perry is one that its maker inevitably has to hem and haw about.

“I don’t even know if ‘coming back’ is a good word,” he said. “I’m in touch with the honest emotion, the love of the music I’ve just made. And all the neurosis that used to come with it, too. All the fears and joys. I had to put my arms around all of it. And walking back into it has been an experience, of all of the above.”

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25 Years Ago: Why Steve Perry Left Journey for Good

Journey  lost singer Steve Perry  for a second time on May 7, 1998. The first time, back in the '80s, Perry's exit had been voluntary – the result of recent solo success and growing indifference toward the band.

Left to their own devices at the time, former bandmates Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain formed Bad English with singer  John Waite . (Perry had fired founding bassist Ross Valory and longtime drummer Steve Smith during the sessions for 1986's Raised on Radio .)

A decade mostly gone from bright arena spotlights paved the way for Journey's triumphant mid-'90s reunion. The resulting Top 20 album, 1996's Trial by Fire , swam against the current of the era's reigning alt-rock. Three charting singles, a Grammy nomination and plans for a successful comeback tour made it seem just like the good old days.

Unfortunately, those touring plans were derailed when Perry suffered a hiking accident and refused to undergo the hip surgery necessary to get him back onstage. This opened the door to renewed ill will and undoubtedly dredged up memories of the singer's late-'80s power grab for Journey's fate.

Instead of bending to Perry's whims this time, the other members of Journey banked on their fan base's renewed support and unquenchable hunger for tour dates by recruiting a Perry soundalike Steve Augeri in order to get on with business.

The band's decision appeared to have been vindicated by a successful decade-plus of touring and recording with Augeri and, later, Arnel Pineda. Perry, for his part, maintained a relatively low profile, seemingly satisfied belting out "Don't Stop Believin'" from the bleachers of his hometown San Francisco Giants' baseball stadium, and occasionally showing up as a guest singer. He's only put out one proper solo album since, 2018's Traces . (Perry released a different version of the same LP in 2020, followed by The Season , an album of Christmas standards, in 2021).

Journey joined the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 . Before the ceremony, Schon said he hoped Perry would perform with him again. Instead, Perry ended up taking part only in the acceptance speeches, simply commenting : "I am truly grateful that Journey is being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

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Arnel Pineda

Who Is Arnel Pineda?

After a series of unfortunate events in his childhood, Arnel Pineda found success in Asia as the front man for the group The Zoo. In 2007, he was discovered by Journey guitarist Neal Schon, after a series of YouTube videos were posted of him covering American songs, including the famous hit, "Dont Stop Believin'." In December 2007, Pineda became the new lead singer of Journey. His is noted for having a strikingly similar sound to former Journey front man Steve Perry.

Troubled Childhood

Arnel Pineda was born on September 5, 1967, in Sampaloc, Manila, in the Philippines. Throughout his childhood, Pineda endured grave misfortune. When he was just 13 years old, his mother, who was 35 at the time, passed away after a long battle with heart disease. Her medical costs left the family in serious debt, and Pineda's father could no longer provide for Pineda and his three younger brothers, Russmon, Roderick and Joselito.

While relatives were able to take in his brothers, Pineda was left on his own. He spent the next few years homeless, often sleeping outside in public parks and scraping for any food or water that he could afford. When possible, he would stay at a friend's house, who offered him a cot outside. Eventually, Pineda was forced to quit school and take up odd jobs collecting scrap metal and bottles at the pier and selling newspapers to support his family.

Early Career

Pineda's love of music started at a young age. He began singing at just five years old, and had entered many singing contests as a child. In 1982, when he was 15, Pineda was introduced to a local band called Ijos, and was encouraged by his friends to try out as their new lead singer. He sang the Beatles' "Help" and Air Supply's "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All." Although they were concerned with his lack of training, Ijos members were wowed by Pineda's powerful voice, and took him on as the new front man of the band. One of the band member's friends even offered to pay Pineda's salary, 35 pesos a night, out of his own pocket, and Pineda was offered a tiny room to sleep under the guitarist's front stairs.

In 1986, some members of Ijos joined together to form the new pop-rock band Amo. The group found success covering songs by hit groups Heart, Queen and Journey. In 1988, they turned heads when they won the Philippines' leg of the Yamaha World Band Explosion Contest. Although they were disqualified in the finals due to a technicality, the event was broadcast on TV in Asia, widening their fanbase. The band continued performing at popular clubs and arenas around the Philippines.

In 1990, the members re-grouped yet again, under the new name Intensity Five, and re-entered the contest. The band came in as runner up and Pineda won the Best Vocalist Award. After a series of unfortunate health problems in the early '90s, including the brief loss of his voice, Pineda re-emerged in 1999 with a new solo album with Warner Brothers. The self-titled album had several hits in Asia.

After brief stints with a few different bands, Pineda found success again in 2006 with The Zoo, a band that he formed with Monet Cajipe, a guitarist/songwriter who had been in all his bands during over the previous 20 years. The Zoo performed at several popular clubs in the area and, in 2007, released an album by MCA Universal titled Zoology . Soon the band began covering songs by groups such as Journey, Survivor, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and more, with more than 200 performances uploaded to YouTube.

On June 28, 2007, Neal Schon, guitarist and member of the band Journey, saw a video of Pineda on YouTube and immediately contacted him. The band had been looking for a new lead singer, and Pineda's voice sounded strikingly similar to Steve Perry, Journey's legendary former front man. After speaking with Schon on the phone, Pineda made arrangements to fly to the United States and audition with the band in San Francisco. On December 5, 2007, Pineda was welcomed as the band's new lead singer.

Right away, Pineda went on tour with the band, performing two shows in Chile and two in Las Vegas. Both were a huge success. After a series of guest show appearances and magazine features, Pineda gained popularity within the American public. On June 3, 2008, the newly organized Journey released their first album, Revelation , which came in at No. 5 on the U.S. charts. The album was their highest charting album since Trial by Fire (with Steve Perry), and reached platinum status by October 2008.

Soon after the album's release, the band continued touring around the world with Pineda. The documentary, Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey , slated to be released in 2012, will chronicle the band's "Revelation Tour," and Pineda's first years with the band.

Personal Life

When he is not on tour, Pineda resides in the Philippines with his wife, Cherry, their children, Cherub and Thea. He has two other sons—Matthew, 19, and Angelo, 13—from past relationships.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Arnel Pineda
• Birth Year: 1967
• Birth date: September 5, 1967
• Birth City: Sampaloc, Manila
• Birth Country: Philippines
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Arnel Pineda is best known as the new lead singer for the rock group Journey.
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Nacionalities

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Arnel Pineda Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/arnel-pineda
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: July 20, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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Former Frontman Steve Perry Will Never Reunite With Journey — Here's Why He Left

Updated Aug. 29 2023, 3:51 p.m. ET

The American rock band Journey has cemented their legacy in the world of classic rock music . With power ballad songs such as "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Faithfully," the lyrics continue to be sung throughout generations.

Initially formed in the early '70s, Journey reportedly hit its commercial peak between the late 1970s through the late '80s.

In 1987, frontman Steve Perry decided to part ways with Journey. Given the impact the band had, many were shocked when they learned ties had been severed. So, why did Steve leave Journey? Keep reading to find out more.

Why did Steve Perry leave Journey?

According to iHeartRadio , Steve left Journey in 1987 and pursued a solo career, though he never reached commercial success as an individual artist. In the mid-90s, Steve reunited with bandmates and prepped for an upcoming tour. However, those plans changed after Steve found out he had a hip condition that would require surgery. But, he wanted to try alternative treatments.

“They wanted me to make a decision on the surgery,” he told Rolling Stone in a 2018 interview. “But I didn’t feel it was a group decision. Then I was told on the phone that they needed to know when I was gonna do it ’cause they had checked out some new singers.” 

Though he asked his bandmates to reconsider, they did not. “I said to them, ‘Do what you need to do, but don’t call it Journey,’” he said, adding, “If you fracture the stone, I don’t know how I could come back to it.”

The band found a new singer and the group continues to tour today. While the former lead singer was present during Journey's 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, he has not performed with the band since then.

“What they do is none of my business,” the 71-year-old told the outlet. “When I walked away from it, I did not go to any of the shows, nor did I listen to any of it.”

So, what did he do after leaving behind his music career?

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Steve Perry (@steveperrymusic)

Rumors surfaced that Journey's Steve Perry was a recluse.

After parting ways with the band, Steve took a step back from the spotlight and music. “I didn’t sing in those years,” he explained to Rolling Stone . “I didn’t write music. I must have gained 50 or 60 pounds. I got a butch haircut. I just said, ‘I’m going to just become a plump kid in my hometown again.’ I’d already lived the dream of dreams and didn’t know how I could come close to being anything like what I was before.”

View this post on Instagram One late night, I was sitting in my room thinking about so many things. This song came into my mind, and it brought me some comfort. I hope it does the same for you. Stay safe, Steve A post shared by Steve Perry (@steveperrymusic) on Apr 17, 2020 at 9:02am PDT

The singer revealed that rumors started to surface of the former frontman being a "recluse with long nails." 

Finally, after several decades, Steve decided to release his third studio solo album "Traces," which was a project five years in the making.

As for fans holding out that Steve will one day reunite with his former bandmates, don't hold your breath. The singer told the outlet, "I left the band 31 f--king years ago, my friend. You can still love someone, but not want to work with them."

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Battle of the Journey Vocalists – Steve Perry Vs. Arnel Pineda

Perry vs. pineda.

In 1998,  Steve Perry  was dropped as the front man of the highly popular classic rock group  Journey.  Although it was with Perry that the band had its greatest hits in the mid-late 80’s, his replacements didn’t do so bad in the charts and on tour either. In 2007, after the band dropped Perry’s immediate replacement  Steve Augeri due to a chronic throat infection, they found Filipino singer  Arnel Pineda from YouTube. Journey original veterans,  Neal Schon  and  Jonathan Cain  flew Pineda all the way from Manila to the states to audition for the new position of the band’s lead singer, and eventually winning the part. Pineda was introduced and was received with mixed criticisms, with loyal fans saying he can never sound like Steve Perry, while others saying he’s holding out well on his own. Others are even saying that if they close their eyes, they can actually hear a Steve Perry of the 80’s glory.

Watch the comparison of their vocal stylings side-by-side in the video below:

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JOURNEY's ARNEL PINEDA Says Meeting STEVE PERRY Was 'One Of The Most Glorious Moments' Of His Life

JOURNEY singer Arnel Pineda says that meeting the band's original vocalist Steve Perry was "one of the most glorious moments" of his life.

Pineda and Perry finally crossed paths when JOURNEY and its former singer shared the stage at their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April 2017. While accepting the award, Steve spoke warmly about his former bandmates, as well as the man who replaced him. "I must give a shout-out to a man who sings his heart out every night, Arnel Pineda ," Perry said.

Speaking to the "Infectious Groove" podcast about that unforgettable night four years ago, Pineda said (hear audio below): "[ Steve was] so gracious and so generous. I cannot believe how kind he was, how welcoming he was when he embraced me and I embraced him and I looked him in the eyes. That honesty, I felt it, when he looked at me straight in the eye and he told me, 'It's amazing to meet you.' And then thanking me up on the stage. I was literally just 18 feet away from him, behind him, and he was thanking me in front of a sold-out crowd at Barclays [Center] for my relentlessly and tirelessly singing the [classic JOURNEY songs] for the past 10 years. It was one of the most glorious moments of my life.

"It's like a 35-year wait, and when it happened, it was just, like, 'Oh my God.' I was, like, numb for a while," he added. "For a few seconds, I was so numb."

Although Pineda did not get inducted with his bandmates, he did get up and join them at the Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, singing "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Lights" . He was talked into appearing by JOURNEY 's manager John Baruck .

"For the record, I never really wanted to be there because I respect Mr. Steve Perry so much and I think that Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction, that's for them, you know?" Arnel told the Arizona Republic . "It's for the band and not for me. I was really adamant about not being there.

"And then it was so gracious for Steve Perry that he doesn't want to sing and said that it should be me that should be singing with the band," Pineda continued. "I said, 'It's not right. It should be them playing together and singing together. I was kind of shaky. I mean, how would you feel when your hero is watching you singing his legacy?"

Three years ago, Perry told SiriusXM that he didn't perform with JOURNEY at the Rock Hall ceremony because he is "not in the band. I haven't been in the band for quite some time," he explained. " Arnel 's been in the band for almost 10 years, I think. He's a sweet kid — he's a wonderful kid. He sings his heart out every night. It's his gig."

As for meeting Pineda before the induction, Perry said: "There was something endearing about the way he looked at me. He was meeting, like, a grandfather. [ Laughs ] He's got the gig. It's his gig. He's doing great."

Born in the Philippines, Pineda has been fronting the legendary rockers since 2007 when JOURNEY guitarist Neal Schon discovered him leading a Manila cover band on YouTube .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by arnel c. pineda (@arnelpineda2007)

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The Real Reason Steve Perry Is Getting Paid Not To Sing For Journey

Life is a journey, not a destination. But the band Journey always seemed destined to succeed with Steve Perry at the helm. As Rolling Stone recounts , prior to his joining the group, Journey released three albums that didn't get very far commercially in the 1970s. But Perry had an otherworldly set of pipes that could make listeners turn on the waterworks. His first album with the band , 1978's Infinity , resulted in their first hit, "Wheel in the Sky." From there, the sky seemed like the limit.

Throughout much of the 1980s, life became a highway run into the midnight sun, thanks to schmoopy classics like "Faithfully" and "Open Arms." Rolling Stone writes  that that band "basically invented the power ballad." Naturally, Perry's voice supplied much of the power. Journey sailed on together but drifted apart, and Perry left the group in 1987. His solo career seemed destined for disappointment, and in 1996, he returned to Journey. With the magic rekindled, the group got nominated for a Grammy. Then life took an awful turn.

Journey stopped believin' in Steve Perry

Not long after Steve Perry came back to Journey with open arms, another body part got in the way. While hiking in Hawaii he experienced horrendous pain in his hip. He soon discovered he had a degenerative bone disorder and needed hip replacement surgery. Afraid to have an operation, Perry put it off in favor of ineffective alternative treatments. The band began to get impatient. Speaking with Rolling Stone , Perry recalled , "They wanted me to make a decision on the surgery. But I didn't feel it was a group decision. Then I was told on the phone that they needed to know when I was gonna do it 'cause they had checked out some new singers."

As another goodbye loomed, Perry asked the band not to call itself Journey when they replaced him. But the group kept its name and moved on with "Perry soundalike" Steve Augeri. That marked the end of Steve Perry's journey with Journey but not the end of his profits. Ultimate Classic Rock explains  that when Perry parted ways with the band in 1997, certain stipulations were added to their contract.

Guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain took over the rights to Journey's name, but Perry would receive "50 percent of the net income due Schon or Cain, whichever is higher, from the first two post-Perry Journey albums." For the third album, Perry would receive 25 percent, and for every album after he would get 12.5 percent. Moreover, Journey couldn't claim "less than 20 percent of the total amount earned" as net income. And just to be sure fans knew what they were missing, album labels had to indicate that the band had a new lead singer.

Steve Perry Still Believes

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

It’s a Monday afternoon in August, and Steve Perry is cheerfully belting out the Backstreet Boys’ “As Long As You Love Me.” Perry is visiting a buddy at his house in San Francisco, and the singer — who grew up on Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and the Kingston Trio, and doesn’t listen to much current pop — is giving an example of a relatively modern song that caught his ear. “I love songs like this,” he says of the tune, a Max Martin–penned ballad from 1997. “I’m a sappy guy.”

It’s somewhat surprising to hear Perry, 69, sing a hit by a boy band a generation behind him. What’s really surprising, though, is that Perry is singing at all. Virtually nobody has seen him do this since he parted ways with his band, Journey , 20 years ago. Perry and Journey became famous in the Seventies and Eighties for big, soaring arena-rock hits about devotion, passion and seizing the moment, some of them a little sappy indeed, all of them driven by Perry’s skyscraping vocals, which exerted a massive influence on generations of wasted karaoke warriors. In the process, Journey basically invented the power ballad. Critics often dismissed the band as cheeseballs, but that wasn’t fair; songs like “Faithfully” and “Lights” stand up as beautiful and plainspoken showcases for Perry’s remarkable voice. “We certainly were part of pioneering [the power ballad],” Perry says. “I didn’t care what the critics thought about the band. I really didn’t. All I knew is every night we would get at least one to two encores. That was my critical review for me every night.”

Perry left Journey in 1987, but he never had sustained success as a solo artist. After the commercial failure of his second solo album, he got back together with his former bandmates in the mid-Nineties. They made a comeback album, scored a radio hit with the romantic ballad “When You Love a Woman” and earned a Grammy nomination. Irving Azoff, who had just made the Eagles a fortune for their reunion album, was brought in to manage the band. The future looked bright.

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Everything changed when Perry took a long hike in Hawaii and felt a horrible pain in his hip as he reached the top of a mountain. He was just in his mid-forties but discovered he had a degenerative bone condition that would require hip-replacement surgery. Terrified at that prospect, Perry experimented with alternative treatments that did little to address the problem.

Eventually, Perry’s bandmates started getting restless. “They wanted me to make a decision on the surgery,” Perry says. “But I didn’t feel it was a group decision. Then I was told on the phone that they needed to know when I was gonna do it ’cause they had checked out some new singers.” Perry begged them to reconsider, but then postponed the date of his big surgery. “I said to them, ‘Do what you need to do, but don’t call it Journey,’” he says. “If you fracture the stone, I don’t know how I could come back to it.”

They didn’t listen. Journey found a Perry soundalike named Steve Augeri and launched a tour that continues to this day. In 2008, Arnel Pineda — a Filipino singer they found on YouTube — took over on vocals, and the group began selling as many tickets as it did in its Eighties heyday, quite possibly thanks to Pineda’s uncanny ability to sound more or less exactly like Perry, whom he grew up worshipping. Understandably, Perry is a little uneasy talking about all of this, but he’s never made any attempt to reunite with his former mates. He showed up for Journey’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 and made an acceptance speech, though he didn’t perform with the band. “What they do is none of my business,” he says. “When I walked away from it, I did not go to any of the shows, nor did I listen to any of it.”

While his former bandmates were making millions on the road, Perry was doing, well, not all that much. He rode around aimlessly on his motorcycle and moved from the Bay Area to San Diego, though he routinely flew back for San Francisco Giants games. Perry lived off his royalties (he says he carefully tucked away money from his Journey days) and avoided the spotlight, rarely giving interviews and politely turning away fans who begged for a photo. Basically, he became the J.D. Salinger of arena rock. “I didn’t sing in those years,” he says. “I didn’t write music. I must have gained 50 or 60 pounds. I got a butch haircut. I just said, ‘I’m going to just become a plump kid in my hometown again.’ I’d already lived the dream of dreams and didn’t know how I could come close to being anything like what I was before.”

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Rumors about Perry began to pile up. “They say I’m a recluse with long nails saving my urine in jars and living on an island with a morphine drip,” he says. “They think I’m in a hospital somewhere with cancer. And they say I can’t sing anymore.”

That last one stings the most, and as he sings the Backstreet Boys song it’s clear it’s not true. Perry’s voice is certainly deeper than in his Journey days, when his upper register could rival any rock singer’s, but it’s still unmistakably Steve Perry: rich, raspy, expressive and overflowing with the sort of pulsating emotion that caused even Journey’s fiercest critics to compare him to his idol, Sam Cooke.

Perry hasn’t lost his voice, but he has lost a lot over the years: his grandparents, who had helped raise him in rural Northern California after his mom and dad split; both of his parents; and his stepfather, who gave Perry work in his construction business to help him make ends meet in the pre-Journey days. “You want to know what I did after I left the band?” he says. “I visited my mom’s grave a lot.”

Loneliness could creep in quickly. “One time I parked my car in front of the house I was raised in,” Perry says. “It was raining like crazy, the wipers were going and I was facing the house where I was raised, with my grandfather’s house to the right. I just started crying like a baby. I cried for the times we could have had together. I cried for the times that I took for granted. And they were all gone, and here I am, an only child, just missing them all. I used to think that if I became a performer and everybody loved me, that I wouldn’t have to go through these things. But guess what? There’s nowhere to run. If you’re alive, you have to walk through this eventually.”

All of the loss may explain why the frontman who radiated such passion in his Journey days no longer felt much like singing. There was another big loss to come, but this one would lead him back to music, and, eventually, to his new solo album, Traces. It’s a story about devotion, tragedy and a promise to a dying loved one. It’s so intense and heartfelt, it could be a Journey song.

Much of what happened to Perry in the past decade can be traced back to his most famous song. Perry wrote “Don’t Stop Believin’” with Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain and guitarist Neal Schon in 1981. The title phrase came from Cain’s father, something he’d say to encourage his son to keep going when he was a young musician eking out an existence in L.A.

Cain said he drew inspiration from characters he knew in the Sunset Strip rock scene of the early 1970s: These were the “streetlight people living just to find emotion” of the song’s lyrics. Perry has a different memory. “Jonathan and I scrawled out the lyrics about things that I had seen in Detroit one night after a show, looking way down to the street and seeing the streetlights light the streets,” he says. “I couldn’t see the lights, but could just see the glow of the lights facing down from about the 10th floor. I see people walking around at two, three in the morning. I thought, ‘Wow, streetlight people. That’s so cool.’” (He and Cain do agree on one thing: There’s no such place as South Detroit. They just needed an extra syllable before “Detroit” and weren’t familiar with the city’s geography.)

“Don’t Stop Believin’” hit Number Nine in 1981, though by the turn of the millennium, it was just one of Journey’s many hits, not even important enough to be mentioned by name in the band’s Behind the Music episode. But the song had one very important fan. Today, Patty Jenkins is one of the hottest directors in Hollywood, thanks to the Wonder Woman  franchise. Back in 2003, though, she was just a fledgling filmmaker who needed the perfect song for a scene in her low-budget movie Monster , about the life of serial killer Aileen Wuornos. During a key scene early in the film, Wuornos (played by Charlize Theron) roller-skates with her girlfriend. Jenkins figured that “Don’t Stop Believin’” would be the ideal song to punctuate the moment with a sense of unbridled optimism (before things went very, very bad, that is).

Jenkins had one big hurdle to getting “Don’t Stop Believin’” in her movie: persuading Perry to let her use the song. “Everyone told us the worst things about Steve,” says Jenkins. “They said he had disappeared, said no to everything, would never say yes and was all about the money.” Still, she sent him a rough cut of the scene along with her phone number. Much to her shock, he called her the next day and raved about the clip. “He gave us the song for practically nothing,” she says. “He just laughed at the rumors [I had heard]. The truth was, he said no to everything because he didn’t want the money. People weren’t understanding the song, and he didn’t want it to be sold out in that way.”

Monster became a surprise hit and won Theron a Best Actress Oscar. It also helped kick off the amazing second life of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” All of a sudden, the song was everywhere: On TV ( Glee used it six different times), on Broadway (it was the closing number in the musical Rock of Ages ), and even in the clubhouse of the 2005 Chicago White Sox, who made “Don’t Stop Believin’” their unofficial anthem on the way to winning the World Series. The song’s renaissance went into overdrive when The Sopranos used it in the show’s last-ever scene, in 2007.

There was something weirdly profound in the song’s sudden universal popularity: This slightly goofy Eighties anthem seemed to hit all of America in an emotional sweet spot that went way beyond mere “ironic” nostalgia, wiping out cultural barriers in an avalanche of cheesy optimism. It’s no wonder people literally sang it in the streets the night of Barack Obama’s election. The tune Perry was happy to sell for next to nothing had become the new national anthem. “It’s amazing to me,” says Perry. “All of my songs are like children to me. Once you send them out to the world you hope they’re strong enough to survive out there. All of them got the same attention, but the world decides which ones become the ‘Don’t Stop Believin’s,’ not me.”

For Perry, the song’s rebirth was important in another way. He and Jenkins became friends while she was working on Monster, and with plenty of spare time on his hands in the following years, Perry liked to lounge around the director’s editing suite and watch her work. One day in 2011, she was editing a Lifetime movie about breast-cancer patients when Perry saw a face on the screen that caught his eye. It was Kellie Nash, a Los Angeles psychologist. She was two decades Perry’s junior, and she was battling breast cancer. “I went, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, can you spool back to … stop right there. … Who’s that?’” Perry remembers. “Her smile killed me. I felt like I knew her somehow, and I never met her before.”

Perry asked for her e-mail address, but Jenkins said he should understand her condition before reaching out. Nash’s cancer had spread to her lungs and her bones. There was no exact timetable for how long she had left, but the prognosis was grim. “At that moment I had the opportunity to send no e-mail, pull back, no harm, no foul,” he says. “It just would all die at that moment. I would just go back to my safe life. Instead, I said, ‘Send the e-mail.’”

It placed him in a vulnerable position. “I didn’t want to go through another loss,” he says. “I was trying to continue moving through life on my own. But there was a simple gorgeousness about her that was just stunning.”

They met up at a restaurant near Nash’s house and talked for six hours. Before long, they were living together. For a few months, it was bliss. “Then one horrible day she said she was having headaches,” Perry says. “We got an MRI, and then later the oncologist called the house and said she had brain metastases. She fell apart right there in front of me, screaming and crying. It was the most difficult day in my life because she just melted in my arms in fear.”

Perry and Nash moved to New York so she could have access to an experimental treatment in the Bronx. His favorite time of day came in the evening, when he held Nash as she tried to fall asleep. One evening, she turned toward him with something very serious on her mind. “She said, ‘If something ever happens to me, I want you to make one promise,’” he recalls. “ ‘Promise me you won’t go back into isolation. If you do, I fear this would all be for naught.’” She urged him to make music again.

Nash died on December 14th, 2012. “Ever since I was a kid, and especially since I became successful in the music industry, I just wanted people to love me,” Perry says. “I never knew when someone did for real. I always had a reluctance to believe it. I think it comes out of my youth when my parents split up, but something inside me always had doubts.

“But let me tell you how I know. When you’re in love with someone like Kellie Nash and she looks you right in the eyes and says, ‘I love you.’ That’s how you know. She made me the luckiest man in the world.”

What Perry really wants to talk about — the reason he’s willing to sit down and revisit these parts of his life — is  Traces. It’s the result of five years of work (though there was an extended break in the middle for another hip-replacement surgery). He cut it at his home studio without any record label paying the bills or making him sweat out a deadline. The songs, many of them ballads, reflect on love, loss and the difficult moments in between. Some are directly about Nash, like “October in New York,” where he looks back at their final weeks together, while others are character-driven. The sound is a little more subdued than classic Journey: elegant, tasteful, soulfully autumnal. (Backstreet Boys aside, he avoids modern pop and has a particular aversion to drum machines; when a Top 40 station comes on one day over lunch, he insists on bolting from the restaurant to talk outside.)

Perry’s collaborators were delighted to find out he still had his voice. “When I first heard his demos, I was like, ‘Wow, there’s the voice!’” says guitarist Thom Flowers, a co-producer on the album. “But then in the studio, I got to see it myself. He likes to record in the control room, so we’d both put headphones on and he’d be two feet away from me. Without any warm-up, it just came out of him. It reminded me of watching a thoroughbred horse work.”

Perry almost couldn’t believe it himself when work on the album wrapped. “I told some friends of mine that I actually did something I said I’d never do again,” he says. “I made that commitment to Kellie and then a commitment to myself to actually complete it.”

“I always hoped that he would do this one day,” says Jenkins. “All along he’d been playing me these stunning tracks. I was always like, ‘Steve! What the hell? That’s a masterpiece!’ Hearing him give this to the world again is so moving.”

Perry may be willing to sit down for a series of extensive interviews, but there’s still an aura of mystery surrounding him. For example, his buddy Steve, whose home Perry is visiting. Steve — tall, kind, bald — lives in Mill Valley, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the Bay Area. After answering the door, he offers us coffee. There are photos on the wall of this Steve fellow with the pope. “He’s just a friend of mine,” says Perry, refusing to say anything about him. “An old friend of mine. Keep him anonymous.”

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Perry says he’s had a number of serious relationships in his life, but besides Nash and his 1980s girlfriend Sherrie Swafford (immortalized in Perry’s 1984 solo hit “Oh Sherrie”), he won’t talk about any of them. Perry concedes that he has never been married and is-currently single, but goes quiet when the subject of children comes up. (Internet sleuths theorize that a woman he’s often photographed with named Shamila is his daughter. She bears a striking resemblance to him.) “I don’t want to talk about [kids],” he says. “There’s a private part of my life that I won’t have if I talk about it.”

I notice a gold pendant in the shape of a musical eighth-note around his neck. This gets him talking. “My mom gave it to me when I was 12,” he says. “She always believed in me. I wore it for years and years, but hung it up in May of 1998, just after the band and I legally split and I had a complete contractual release from all my obligations to the band and label. I put it back on about 10 years ago.”

As we spoke, Journey were hours away from taking the stage at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans — on a double bill with Def Leppard — one of 60 shows they played this summer. As they do every night, they’ll dedicate “Lights” to Perry. It’s a gesture of gratitude, and for good reason. When Perry joined Journey in 1977, none of the group’s albums had sold well, and the band was pumping out anonymous jazz fusion. Perry changed everything. In him, Journey found a singer who not only wrote big, concise, catchy songs, but also belted them to the cheap seats. Without him, Journey might well have been a prog-rock footnote.

Perry claims to feel no bitterness toward anyone in the band, even though he’s seen the members only twice, and briefly at that, in the past 20 years, and has rebuffed attempts to reconnect on a social level. Guitarist Neal Schon seems desperate for some sort of reconciliation and often tells interviewers he wants to create new music with Perry — not even necessarily for Journey. Schon has heard that Perry frequents his favorite coffee shop, and the guitarist hopes to run into the singer there. Pressed on this, Perry says he can’t imagine working with Schon in any capacity or even re-establishing the friendship.

“I’m not sure that’s possible without stirring up hopes of a reunion,” he says. “Please listen to me. I left the band 31 fucking years ago, my friend. You can still love someone, but not want to work with them. And if they only love you because they want to work with you, that doesn’t feel good to me.”

When I bring up Cain’s new memoir, Don’t Stop Believin ’ — an innocuous, uncontroversial book where he looks back on his life and heaps endless praise onto his bandmates, past and present — a look of disgust comes across Perry’s face. “I don’t really care to read Jonathan’s book,” he says. “And I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell me about it. I don’t need to know. It’s none of my business.”

But his mind is also on the future. Plans are still unclear, but Perry wants to launch a tour of some sort to promote Traces. He says he’ll sing the Journey hits again, meaning that “Faithfully,” “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” and, yes, “Don’t Stop Believin’” will come out of his mouth for the first time in nearly a quarter century. He clutches the eighth-note his mother gave him, the one he put back on around the time Nash came into his life, and tries to make sense of it all. “I’m not the only one that goes through life,” he says with a deep sigh. “We’re all going through it, and I’m tolerating it the best I can.”

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Why Journey’s Arnel Pineda is Incomparable to Steve Perry

Which Journey Singer Is Better?

It was around 1998 when Steve Perry was dropped out as the frontman of one of the greatest classic rock group Journey. Even though Steve Perry was the very reason that the band had its greatest hits and success in the mid-late ’80s, his replacements did well also in the charts and even on tour. In 2007, after Perry left the group there was an immediate replacement and it was Steve Augeri, though due to a chronic throat infection, Augeri was replaced by a Filipino singer Arnel Pineda whom they found on youtube. Journey original members and co-founders, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain flew Pineda all the way from Manila to the states so he can have his audition for the position as the new frontman of the band, and of course, he won the part.

But why is it that Arnel Pineda is incomparable to Steve Perry? Well to answer that question – Steve Perry is Journey. Steve was the best then, though his voice has changed due to age. Arnel Pineda brings a new life and refreshes Journey songs for this generation of rock fans so that they can experience Journey ‘s music and enjoy it. Journey was Steve Perry but then again, Journey is about its music now and that is why Arnel Pineda is a perfect fit for the band today. There is absolutely no comparison, it was because of Steve Perry why Journey became famous. You might say that Arnel Pineda can take on Perry today, but back in the day though, Steve has so much power and in a more relaxed way – not forced.

As much as the fact that Steve Perry is gone is hard to accept, we have to face it. They needed the replacement and they found a perfect one. Yup, Arnel is great (and no one can say he isn’t) but you can’t just go around saying that he beat the original. He may not be Steve but he does the job pretty well on his own. That being said, let’s just enjoy the music.

What about you, which was the better singer? Tell us what you think.

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