A little back story before we get to the interview. I'd flown in to Kansas City the day before and met Leslie who, despite living in the Kansas City area, decided to stay at a local hotel. We roomed up and due to a screw up with our reservation, we were forced to change rooms on Friday morning. This wound up working in our favor when, while at lunch, we received a call from Journey's PR rep and another from their tour manager asking us where we were going to be interviewing the guys. We had expected to be told to come to some place of their choosing, so were a bit flabbergasted when we had to come up with a location. The only place available, of course, was our hotel room. We'd been cursing the hotel up and down for screwing up our reservation and making us change rooms, but now we were eternally grateful as it meant we had a spotless room as we had yet to unpack from the room change. I'll never forget Leslie and I each sitting on one of the beds in the room waiting for Neal and Jon to arrive. We were both a bit giddy and stunned. When the first knock on the door happened, we looked at each other and took a deep breath before opening it. There on the other side was Jon, as pleasant as could be. We chatted with him a bit about where we were from and what we did for a living while waiting for Neal to arrive. He finally showed up about 5 minutes later and after some cordial greetings we sat down for a great chat. Once the interview was finished, the guys chatted for a few minutes more before heading off to get ready for the show. I don't remember now what those off the record comments were, but I do remember Leslie wishing we'd still had the tape running! After they left, Leslie and I completely geeked out and laughed like a couple of teenagers. "Look I'm sitting in Neal's chair!" "Look I'm sitting in Jon's chair!" And of course we laughed and laughed over having had two rock stars in our hotel room! Oh what would our mothers say!
So without further ado, Part One of the conversation with Neal and Jon.
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With the Main Event tour still rolling across the country, Journey Digest was very privileged to steal a moment or two with Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon of Journey in Kansas City. Freshly awakened at 2:00 PM and clamoring to get more coffee into the body, they were primed to share with us more than we would ever dare ask. I love it when an interview turns conversational. Incidentally, if you haven’t caught one of the concert dates yet, you at least owe it to yourself to catch Michelle Murray’s review of the Kansas City show at Kemper Arena, also here on Journey Digest. We are also privileged to share with you pictures from the concert. Michelle gets the credit for the interview pictures taken here and also for the moral support and background laughter.
Thank you to Jonathan and Neal for spending a little time with us. We hope they know that what was a simple interview to them will kept us smiling all weekend. I would also like to say that having a photo pass at a Journey concert was a big slice of awesome. Please enjoy the concert photos Journey Digest took of our talented guys.
While some fans might take offense at the comments about the Back Talk forum, it's important to note that the comments made are about only that very small percentage of people there who are consistently negative, and not Back Talk users as a whole. The guys love their fans and love that they come to the site every day to show their devotion to the band. With that in mind, please read the remarks as they were intended, as a commentary on their frustration with some, not all, fans on Back Talk.
Leslie: Okay, the tape is on. Don’t incriminate yourselves, it is running now.
Neal: Okay, I’m going to tape at the same time, too…(plays like his cell phone is a tape recorder.)
Leslie: We’re from the Journey Digest, by the way. Pro-Journey. We won’t slaughter you, so don’t worry.
Jon: A friendly web site, so it’s all good.
Neal: Friendly? I’ve never heard of a friendly one (laughs) unless it’s moderated.
Leslie: Oh yeah.
Michelle: It’s the only fan site that is linked off of your site.
Jon: These are the good guys.
Leslie: First of all, let me begin by saying, the Warfield was absolutely magic. Very seldom does a band get to spend an evening with their most hard core fans and playing a lot of songs you guys usually don’t get to play live or haven’t for a lot of years, and we’re just wondering, what are some of your impressions of that weekend?
Neal: Ya know, that was…yeah, you know what? You’re absolutely right. That was one of the best gigs for me too. The music spanned from the early days pre-Journey…you know, when we brought on Michael Carabello and Chepito Areas, you know, and we got to do the Santana stuff with Jon singing, and I got to sing a tune. It was like, it goes way back, and it just shows you how long we’ve been around. And I’m looking forward to, like when we finish up this tour here on a triple bill, you know, we’re talking about staying out a couple of extra months and doing some shows by ourselves. I’m looking forward to going back and getting into that stuff again. And also, what’s really cool about it is on this tour, we’ve found that the audience is very different. I think about close to 45 – 50% of the audience is ours and the rest of it is for Styx and REO. And so, they want to hear greatest hits, and they paid for the ticket, so we gotta play the greatest hits. If we veer too far away from it, it’s…we lose them. It goes over their head, and you can just feel it. We’ve been throwing in stuff every night…yeah, it’s like (whistles and makes motion over head with hand like songs flying past) you know, I mean they just don’t get it, so I mean you have to play what they do get. But I am looking forward to getting back and playing the more obscure songs that we have on this record that we’ve worked up but we haven’t had a chance to play cause we don’t have time to play.Jon: We you know, truly, to have Aynsley with you, and to see Gregg for the presentation of the Walk of Fame there, and then the mayor, and the fans, and all coming together. I think, you know, that night, I mean it really hit me, we really represent San Francisco…all over the country, all over the world. And our video proves that, ya know…with Lights, like there it is. I’ve had people that moved from the Bay Area that live in other places now that start bawling when they see that. You see them going (makes voice and face like crying), “I used to live there.” You know, and so we’ve come to represent a city. And that was kind of a celebration…that night was kind of a celebration of…you know, kind of a thirty-year cap, you know, of something that Neal and Ross and Gregg started so long ago with Herbie. It was an honor for me to go up and sing. An entity that existed and thrived and reinvented itself so many times and yet still has been accepted, you know, with open arms.
Neal and Jon: (both laugh)
Leslie: It wouldn’t be a Journey Interview without a few puns.
Jon: Yeah, there ya go.
Leslie: Of course, everyone and their mother is clamoring for a DVD of that show, and there were cameras…
Neal: Yeah, you know what? The good news is it was all documented. The day before, uh, when we were inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame in San Francisco with Willie Brown and Herbie and Aynsley…the only thing that could’ve made that better is if Smith and Perry had showed up.
Jon: Yeah.
Neal: You know, but they were invited, and they chose not to show up. But uh, it is all documented. It’s recorded. We recorded the whole evening, and uh, we’ve got a lot of stuff in the can right now, and we’re continuing to record every night. So, we’ve got two years ago, right Jon? When we toured with Peter Frampton, when we played a lot of Arrival material that we’re not even playing this tour…at all.
Jon: It’s great. Great footage.
Neal: And we played a TON of that stuff on that tour. And so that is all recorded and sitting there. And all we need to do is go through it. I know the Warfield show is going to be awesome, and we’ve got everything from this tour that we’re still doing. We’ve got like two or three floaters every night that we put in different songs. And so, by the end of it when we get down to it and actually look at it, I think it’s going to be a healthy little DVD.
Leslie: Cool. Even just the Warfield. I think half of us would pay, like hundreds to have the DVD of that night.*
Neal: Well maybe we should just do the Warfield. (laughs)
Leslie: Yeah. Unbelievable.
Michelle: It will truly fly off the shelves.
Jon: Oh, okay.
*Unfortunately this DVD was never produced. The only footage available was assembled by the Journey Past & Present organizing committee which we were only allowed to share with the people who paid to attend our gathering.
Leslie: Oh man. This year more than ever, it seems like your fans have really been involved in Journey. You’ve got Christopher Payne who did your cover and drum artwork with Red 13. There’s Rob Rennert and Rick Stamey who have done artwork for some items in Journey Swag. Cat and CJ you’ve got running the web site. You’ve got fans like Michelle here who get your plaques for ya in the sidewalk. And that same committee is going to be working very hard again this year to get you something else that’s gold and shiny and goes in the ground, aren’t they?
Jon: (starts laughing)
Leslie: So tell me about that.
Jon: We’re excited…it was really…I was shocked to hear it, but that’s just the way you guys are, really. A band that has fans like you guys, it’s like having gold, you know? And uh, people ask me, “Why do you do this?” and I said, “Cause we have this loyal force that just kind of eggs us on. And they show up, and they support us over the years,” and uh, that’s why you’re away from your kids. That’s why you do it. Because you guys you know, you help us.
Neal: You can’t pay for that. You can not hire a publicist. You try. I’m not shitting you. You cannot hire a pub…the highest paid publicist, which we’ve had and we fired…you know, I mean because things were not getting done, and what Michelle and the rest of the girls have done is outstanding.*
*I'm quite sure I was beet red at this point. It was still pretty cool to hear. I wouldn't have minded getting paid for it though!
Jon: Yeah.
Neal: And it just…there’s no type of payment you can get for that. It’s unbelievable….the dedication and devotion and surrender and…shit, forget about it.
Jon: I’m blown away.
Leslie: You pay. You pay in music.
Neal: And also, it’s looking like now that this is all unfolding, right? Like, after this many years I think it’s only a matter of time before you work on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame* (laughs). It’s inevitable that that’s gonna happen now.
Leslie: Don’t say that in front of Michelle, cause she’ll start a nervous breakdown here!
(All laugh)
Michelle: We’ll survive.
*While there was a campaign to get Journey inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that ran from about 2004-2006, the group fizzled out with out much success. Fortunately in 2016 Journey was nominated for and selected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2017.
Leslie: Yeah, we’ll make it. How did you guys find out about it, though? Where were you when you found out?
Jon: Indianapolis, I think. We were in Indianapolis and [our tour manager] JT told me.
Neal: I’d gotten a call from a friend that has a friend that works in the entity there in Hollywood, and uh, left me a message. And then later that day, I talked to our management, Tom Consolo, and he told me the same thing. And I thought it was the Rock Walk of Fame in front of Guitar Center because I just…that’s what I assumed, because a good friend of mine, Dave Weiderman, that manages that store down there, he told me that he’s been wanting us to do that forever.
Jon: Yeah.
Neal: So that, that’s another thing that’s probably going to happen very soon. Um, it’s just once again, you know, you can’t get all the guys in order to show up.
Leslie: Yeah, well ya know, you do what you can.
Neal: Yeah, you do what you can.
Leslie: You guys skipped sound check in Sacramento, and in Michigan you were skipping it, and again today, we’re here instead of sound check. When do you decide when you’re going to do sound check and when not?
Jon: Load in. The load-ins are harry sometimes for a rock and rolling company. And uh, the logistics of the three bands and all those trucks, and the time…the rigging also is a big deal, cause those guys gotta go, you know, a hundred feet up in the air and hang points and stuff for the PA. And each hall is a different kettle of fish, so they’ve gotta like, you know, rumble it together and get the points hung first and the trucks ready to go. It’s a huge, huge, huge job. It’s like a big three-ring circus. This is a three-ring circus.
Neal: It’s hard. You should watch backstage…
Jon: Unbelievable.
Neal: …what these guys do between every set. They are humpin’ it. You would not believe the amount of equipment that’s backstage that comes on and off after every band plays. I watch it every night, and I’m like, “No way.” And it’s amazing how they got so organized and put everything in racks so they can roll everything on, but still, it’s a lot of movement, and it’s a lot of equipment that needs to be rolled on and off.
Jon: Yeah, I mean like my piano is like almost 2,000 pounds with all that crap…
Neal: (laughs)
Leslie: The Whale.
Jon: …it’s a huge condo that moves around, you know, and they just move it. Thank God we’ve got it all on wheels, but that’s why we skip sound check because…they’ve got…like I said, each hall is a different adapt in advance, and they have to look at pictures on the Internet and guys remember all this stuff…where they’re gonna park, who’s gonna load/unload first, how it all goes off. If you go there early in the morning and watch it, it’s just like, “Whoa.”
Neal: Do you guys have a coffee machine in here? You mind if I have some of your coffee? (laughs) I’ll pay you for it!
Leslie: If we don’t we’ll room service it for you.
(The search for coffee ensues.)
Leslie: Jonathan, you caused quite a stir earlier this month when you said in an interview that Journey is watching with interest to see how the Sanctuary label does with the new Styx CD, Cyclorama. One of the things that you said was, “It’s nice to have a record company that believes in you. That’s more important than anything.” Do you think that’s what happened with Sony? My question is, did they just stop believing in the band Journey?
Jon: I think they stopped …see they stopped promoting Journey. Because it stopped being imaginative, you know? When you have a band like us, you need a special kind of unit that can promote to our audience…not just throw it out there, ya know? We…I just think that the record companies are going to have to figure out a way to promote this music because it’s selling on the street. They’re missing the boat. See, the thing is to me, that you have to have a different approach to selling Journey than you do to selling Britney Spears. It’s way different.Neal: And you have to use your imagination.
Jon: Whoa…you know? So, what they’re lacking is that in marketing, you know. And what makes me mad is that, hey, they can go out and sell Journey with the Essentials, right? And do a great job. Why wasn’t that done with Arrival? Why did they waste money in stupid places when they could’ve done the same thing …they just showed me how to do it, you know. They bought that stuff on TV, they sold the heck out of Essentials, right? That’s what makes me mad is that…why wasn’t that done with Arrival? Why wasn’t that same approach…? Why did they waste money…? They told us they spent two million dollars…where?
Neal: Yeah, right.
Jon: We’re like, where did they do it? So that lacks imagination. What my point is…is that they need to figure it out. And until they figure it out, we’re not going to make a record.
Neal: Yeah also, I really believe that major record companies have lost their way. They have shifted gears…um, and you look at a brand new band like Linkin’ Park, okay? They sold eight million records on their first record because the company was behind them. Now the second record comes out, and they’re getting ready to go out on Metallica tour, and their record is dead. It’s a good record. It sounds exactly like them. Okay, I heard a couple songs up, and I went, “What a great record. These guys are going to do well,” but the company, what they do anymore…they are not interested in longevity. And while they were interested in longevity, that’s how Journey did so well, because they went, “This is a longevity band.” And you know, “These guys are going to be around for a long time.” And now we’re considered classic rock, alright? So, they are not interested in that any more. They want the flavor of the month. They grab a band like Linkin’ Park, and pump the shit out of them. And then they get the record out there, and then the next month it’s like, okay, who’s hot this month? And they drop them like a cold potato, and they go on to the next act. And they just move, and they’re not interested in keeping the long-term relationship. I think they’re really fucking up, big time.
Leslie: It’s money driven, not music driven any more.
Jon: Well yeah, when you look at what people are going to see, it kind of proves that there is a demand for this music. Now, the record companies are probably now sitting back going, “Well wait a minute…,” you know, trying to figure out…
Neal: (starts laughing) So’s Clear Channel.
Jon: …you know, it wouldn’t surprise me if, you know, Sony came back to us and said, you know, we want to sign you guys again in the future.
Leslie: And you would say…?
Jon: Well, why?
Neal: Yeah. Why?
Jon: Tell us why.
Neal: You know, the only thing…the only reason I think anybody would sign or anybody should sign with a major label any more is if they’re a brand new band, okay, and they want to get out there, and the label is willing to spend millions of dollars to promote you to make people know who you are. At this point, we have like so many built in fans, as we’re finding out on this tour, and we’re doing…like phenomenal live concert business with the other two bands. And you know, at this point you go, why would we sign back with a major label? They’re not going to put millions of dollars into us because it’s a no-brainer for us…or for them, to sell us. You know, we have a built in audience.
Jon: It’s true, and it used to be where you put out an album, and then you saw…or you toured, and your album would increase in sales. But what’s interesting on Arrival…when we put out Arrival and we went and toured, it didn’t make a difference. People went and saw us, but didn’t buy our record. Well that tells me that the record company didn’t connect with the people coming to see us. There was thousands of people every night that came to see Journey that did not buy the Arrival record. And you go, “Well what happened there,” ya know?
Neal: But they buy the live DVD. Okay, so we found out that was the biggest seller that we’ve done with the new Journey.
Jon: So far.
Neal: They want to see the band live.
Jon: So that’s fine. So we have other ideas. You know, we have other ideas up our sleeve, and at some point, when it’s…
Leslie: DVD ideas?
Jon: …just, yeah, when it’s right, when it’s right, you know, we’ll figure something out. But it’s good that Styx is out there, you know, getting some radio play, and then you can find out, you know, who’s playing it. And that’s the other part of it…the puzzle is, radio has become so programmed, so research oriented, and so pigeon-holed, that a lot of these classic rock stations don’t play any new classic rock. They only play the old stuff. Isn’t it pathetic? You know, they say, well we play Journey. Well you didn’t play Arrival, why not? Well, it’s new.
Neal: Yeah, and you know, the deal like with Clear Channel is, you know, they told us when we went with them when Arrival came out, because they own half…more than half the radio stations, probably more by now…when you go and you work with those guys, they help you, and they put you on their play list on the radio. Well you know what?
Jon: They didn’t do it.
Leslie: And it is kind of political out there. The record pluggers and who gets through.
Neal: A lot of politics. Complete political musical world any more.
Leslie: Which brings us to our next question. Irving Azoff told Rolling Stone that The Eagles would be releasing their next CD on their own label, Eagles Recording Co. II.
Neal: Isn’t that funny he didn’t mention anything about us. I read the same article.
Leslie: Did you?
Neal: And I went, this just sounds like somebody’s following our footsteps. (laughs)
Leslie: Well yeah, you guys are like trendsetters, basically. Natalie Merchant and Pearl Jam…they’re reaching the end of their contracts, and they’re thinking about doing the same thing, too. Have you guys ever thought of forming your own label like The Eagles, and maybe even taking on new artists as an alternative income?
Jon: That’s expensive.
Neal: That’s expensive, but I tell ya what, if we could find somebody that wanted to back us that had the bucks, alright, that would take…go into a percentage with us… Hey, I know, I’m talking business now, and it sounds really boring for a musician to talk business. But, if we found somebody who had the bucks and wanted to put up the bucks who could buy us ads on TV, buy us ads in People magazine, buy us ads in Rolling Stone, sign other acts, pull the office together, ya know, I don’t think any one of us are interested in taking on that type of a job, but if we found somebody that was independent, and was independently wealthy, that was interested in doing a maneuver like that with us, I would be way interested in that. But watch all the calls come in now! (laughs)
Jon: Yeah, but those, you gotta be careful because you can get killed. You can get killed if you go out there. We’ve learned a couple of lessons here, and with Red 13 we’ve tried a couple of things and we got our asses handed to us.
Neal: But you know what, too. What we found out is, too, we tried to buy…we made TV commercials. We tried to buy prime time TV time, and you can’t just go, okay, I’ve got, you know, $100,000 here. I want to buy 30-second spots on VH1 or MTV. It doesn’t happen. There’s other conglomerate companies out there that buy up all that TV time, and that’s what we found out. And then they decide…when you go to them and say, “I want to spend $100,000,” they decide whether they want to spend their time on you and take your money. And then, also they want 50% of your residuals, even though you’re paying for their time, too, so it’s a catch-22.
Leslie: Ouch!
Neal: Ouch is right.
Leslie: Crap. That’s highway robbery.
Jon: Yeah, you know how much an ad in like, Good Housekeeping costs? A hundred grand. One time. One little ad. That’s what they take. Hundred grand. People magazine probably is two hundred [grand].
Neal: That’s what you need, though, unfortunately.
Leslie: Well, I’m going to ask you about the set list, so prepare yourself. There’s been a lot of discussion among the fans about the set list during this tour. With so little time to play, how do you decide on the set list? I know you already said you’re playing the hits because it’s a hits tour, but setting aside set list and time constraints, if you could choose based on what you wanted to play, what would you play?
Jon: We’d play a lot, probably, more of our new stuff. We’d like to play some more new stuff. And, some old, you know, some old deep cuts like, you know. But, we…sort of with the time restraint, it’s not about what we want to do out here. People have waited for two and a half hours to see the band, you know? And some of them haven’t seen the band for ten years.
Neal: That’s right.
Jon: And yeah, and they got baby sitters, and they got their cars parked way the hell out in the north forty, and they paid a lot of money. They’re there. We know what they want. And we put what we want aside on these kind of shows because, you know. When we play our own show, we got two hours…
Neal: That’s when we play what we want.
Jon: …we got two hours, we kind of do it…when it’s an evening with Journey, you’ve got two hours plus to just roll through it, and we gladly do that. It’s more fun for us ‘cause we can be way more creative.
Neal: Plus, you know bottom line, I want to play whatever gets the audience off.
Jon: There ya go.
Neal: ‘Cause it’s about the show. It’s not about, like we said, what we want or what I want. What I want is, like to be fucking Led Zeppelin in 1979 in that new DVD that I’m watching, ya know? (laughs) It’s like where he goes up and down, just like Miles Davis. It’s like Grateful Dead on steroids. I love that type of music that’s really jam oriented. But, that’s not what our fans know about us. It’s not what we became famous for, so like, you know, it’s okay to throw in a bit of that stuff, but there’s no way they can swallow that.
Jon: When you’re a famous steakhouse, you know, you can’t be going selling hot dogs.
Leslie: True. Good analogy, very good. However, we do have a pretty big fan gathering going on here. We’ve got Michelle here, who flew in from Cali, and we’ve got…
Michelle: Forty.
Leslie: Forty coming?
Michelle: Forty.
Leslie: And they did ask if we would request "Higher Place," and I am fulfilling my obligation to ask that they have requested "Higher Place."
Jon: Okay.
Neal: We could maybe throw that in. We have enough time to throw in one more song tonight.
Jon: No we don’t. Last night we went over.
Neal: We went over last night?
Jon: Just a little. Yeah, you gotta substitute one.
Leslie: Well the people all behind us…we’re all in the front rows, so if the people behind us sit down during "Higher Place," we’ll continue to stand.
Jon: Alright.
Neal: We’ll try to accommodate, but we don’t know if we can switch up our set right now. (laughs)
Jon: We’ll throw it in. We have played it this tour. Yeah, we have played it this tour, though.
Leslie: Yeah?
Jon: Oh yeah, we’ve played it a bunch.
Neal: And people kind of looked at us like we’ve got four heads, and we go, okay, well I like playing it, you like playing it, but let’s not play it.
Jon: And they turn to each other and go (shrugs). You can see them going like this (passes hand in front of face and imitates blank stare).
Neal: You see the problem is, you go on our web site, and all our die-hard fans are like, “Fuck! These guys aren’t playing any of my new stuff. They’re walking backwards! They’re, they’re…you know, they don’t know what they’re doing,” you know? They don’t understand. They’re not in our shoes. We understand that they’re our die-hard fans. We want to play them new stuff, but this is not our die hard fans tour. We gotta accommodate the tour, and that’s what we’re doing.
Leslie: But now if you keep scrolling down, you’ll notice that the other half of the die-hard fans are going, “Get off their back, man!” So, you know.
Neal: Once they do, we’ll be able to do that. (laughs)
Jon: Yeah, you just have to remember that the Styx fans and the REO fans are out there.
Neal: And they’ve never even seen us before. Honest to God. I’m seeing Styx tee shirts, REO tee shirts, and people are kind of looking at us like…oh, I remember that song. I don’t think even though the three bands were 80’s bands, and they figured that this tour…the fans would be the same type of fans…I think it’s really segregated. I think you have Styx fans only, you have REO fans only, and then you have Journey fans only. And then I look at half of them, and they’re just digesting. We’re making converts, and they’re making converts. So like, our fans are falling in love with some of the Styx stuff, and vice versa, and the REO stuff, and you know…my kids came to see Styx, and thought, “Hey, they’re pretty good,” and they know some of those REO songs. And you know, so plus the REO guys go in the shower singing "Separate Ways." They told me that. That was funny. Bruce says, “You know what? I was singing 'Separate Ways' in the shower the other day.
to be continued..
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