January 8, 2005: Jon Goes to the Dogs

Walnut Creek, CA
Dean Lesher Center for the Performing Arts
"Stars to the Rescue" Benefit for the Animal Rescue Foundation

It was a dark and stormy night... well, okay, it was still daylight when I left the house and the rain had stopped for the moment, but it was a generally icky January day as I drove across the bay to catch a rare solo performance by Jonathan Cain. He was appearing at the 14th annual "Stars to the Rescue" show benefiting the Animal Rescue Foundation. The bill was eclectic with everything from ballet to country music to comedy to acoustic rock and roll.

I was at the show with one of my JPP partners in crime Leslie and her husband Todd, and we had very good seats in the center of the balcony. (Floor seats being a bit too pricey for our budgets.) We settled in to watch the first half of the show which opened with highlights of the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals season. Such things probably went over a bit better when ARF founder Tony LaRussa was the manager for the Oakland A's, but whoever put it together at least had the good sense not to feature any highlights that might have come at the expense of the San Francisco Giants. The show moved from there to a dance performance, country performer Julie Roberts, and a riotous performance by comedian Vicki Lawrence. The first half of the show ended with an acoustic performance by Kevin Cronin and Dave Amato who put a different spin on the familiar REO tunes.

Jon was to be the first performer up after intermission and the awards presentations to special ARF supporters. We stayed in our seats during intermission and watched as the crew brought out a grand piano for his performance (no, not The Whale, just a plain black Yamaha piano.) After the awards were given out, Tony LaRussa introduced Jon, and he came out on stage joined by a dozen girls from the San Ramon High School Choir. He opened his set with "Back to the Innocence" and then introduced a song he dedicated to "all the pet dogs that have passed" called "Man's Best Friend." During the song ARF volunteers came on stage with a number of dogs that are used in their Visiting Animals Program -- a program that brings dogs and cats to residents of assisted living centers. He followed that up with a medley of Journey tunes which were interesting to hear in slightly different arrangements than we are accustomed to. He closed out the 30-minute set with "Best of What I Got" backed by "The All-Star Band" that was used throughout the show.

Jon was followed by Anastasia Barzee, a Broadway actress, and the show closed with Vince Gill and Amy Grant. Not being a huge country fan, I was only vaguely familiar with their work (and Amy more so due to a cousin being a fan of hers) but they put on a fun, loose set backed by the All-Star Band. Vince Gill was particularly amusing saying he would have been a rocker "if I weren't so fat. Could you imagine my butt in spandex??" The highlight of their performance, however, was the Grammy-nominated song "It's Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long." It sounds like your stereotypical country tune, but is one of the funniest things I've heard in a very long time and the crowd loved it.

The show ended with all the performers returning to the stage and closing out the show with Vince Gill leading in a doubly appropriate performance of "Hound Dog" (Saturday would have been Elvis's 70th birthday.)

Jon's Set list:

Back to the Innocence
Man's Best Friend
Journey Medley:
-- Lights
-- Faithfully
-- Open Arms
-- Who's Crying Now
-- Separate Ways
-- Send Her My Love
-- When You Love a Woman
-- Don't Stop Believin'
Best of What I Got

Kevin Cronin/Dave Amato Set list:

Ridin' the Storm Out
Can't Fight This Feeling
Take it on the Run
Music Man
Roll with the Changes

July 2003: A Conversation with Neal and Jon Part 2

June 2014: On June 21, 2003, a few hours prior to seeing Journey perform in Kansas City, my good friend and JourneyDigest.com collaborator Leslie White and I had an opportunity to sit down with Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain for an interview to be posted on the website. A few days prior to this interview, the Hollywood Walk of Fame announced that Journey would be getting a star in the famed walk which eventually happened in 2005. Leslie is the author of this piece (I served as photographer and proof reader) and I am reprinting it as it appeared on JourneyDigest.com with her permission with a few editorial comments of my own.

So without further ado, Part Two of the conversation with Neal and Jon.

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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: Well, Neal and Jonathan, we’ve heard you say in one interview or another that you are very grateful for the success you’ve had and the experiences you’ve had. But with more than 30 years in the business, you guys have to have sacrificed some things on the altar of rock and roll. So tell me, is there anything you would have done differently or do you feel like you’ve missed out on anything?

Neal: Oh, you know what? When I look back now, anything that I would’ve done differently, I wouldn’t have wasted any time, okay? We sat, when we went on the hiatus after we came off our Raised on Radio tour, you know, Steve Perry said he wanted to take a break, alright, that he didn’t want to finish out the tour, that he was toast. And so, said, okay two years, one year. Well, three years went by, you know, and nothing was going on. And so then, you know, Jon and I moved on, and we did Bad English. We had to do something, but three years went by. And if I could walk backward right now, I would have taken…went back to that era and moved on with this band…like we have now. I think we wasted a lot of time sitting around for ten years…in hiatus.

Jon: Amen to that.

Leslie: I agree.

Neal: Hindsight is beautiful. Hindsight is beautiful, though, right?

(All laugh)

Leslie: Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? Okay, Neal. This one’s just for you. You left home at fifteen to go on the road with Santana. Miles is fourteen now.

Neal: He’s almost fifteen. In August he’s fifteen.

Leslie: What would you do if your children came to you and said, “Hey Dad, I’m going out on the road. I’m going to be a rock and roll star just like you.”

Neal: Well you know what? He is playing the heart out of the guitar right now, and I won’t be surprised if he ends up going out on the road, but you know, I’ve cautioned him about the industry and how it’s changed so radically. And the type of music he likes right now is like older style, heavy music that is really not selling, you know, and labels are really not interested in it. You look at MTV, and that’s what’s going on. He’s like, “Well, I don’t like that. I want to do what I want to do.” I said, “Join the club, buddy!”*

(laughs)

*You can check out what Miles is playing now on Facebook.

Jon: So do I.

Neal: Yeah, so if he got a great offer from an already famous band, that was already big like I did like Santana or Clapton, then I would say, “You go, and I give you my blessings.” And I would caution him about everything that I did that I shouldn’t do (laughs).

Leslie: Do you think it would work?

Jon: Probably not.

Neal: Probably not. He’s a hard head. You know, you have to have thoughts so you remember what not to do.

Jon: That’s right.

Leslie: And Jonathan, you’ve got daughters. What if your daughter said, “Hey, I want to be a keyboardist in an all girl band. I’m going on the road.”

Jon: Um, I would wish them well. You know, I mean I would. I would wish them well. I think they…you know…it sounds pretty far fetched, actually. Madison likes home too much. She’s a homebody.* Liza I could see doing it, “Goodbye, Dad.” (laughs). But yeah, I’d wish them well. Yeah, that’d be great. I’d be honored, man.

*I love this comment since things have changed so much since then. Madison is trying to get a music career going. You can check out her website here.

Leslie: Okay, but they have to practice for the recital first, though, right?

Jon: That’s right.

Leslie: Being out on the road touring can get pretty grueling sometimes. Jon, we know you get in a round of golf now and then. What are some of the things the rest of you do to pass the time when you’re not on stage.

Neal: God, this tour all’s I’ve been doing is sleeping. You know, honest to God, I’m like a really…a morning person when I’m at home. Like, the last six months I just had home, I got up at six in the morning, and I had the whole day to do whatever I want to do whether it’s doing something with my kids or I’m working in the studio…whatever. I take a bike ride, you know. This tour, we are going on so late. I’ve never gone on this late before in my whole life, I think, of any tour. God, like last night, we went on at 10:30, okay, and I was like falling asleep before we were going on. I’m drinking coffee.

Jon: I’ve got a cappuccino and espresso maker now.

Neal: Jon is the coffee man, he makes me like this rocket fuel that wakes my butt up, but man!

Leslie: So having a shot before a concert has a whole new meaning now.

Jon: It does have.

Neal: Look, I just woke up. I…the reason I was late getting down here…I just woke up, and if Aaron had not called me, I wouldn’t have been here. You know, I sleep till two, three in the afternoon now because of this concert schedule. And I really miss…I hate missing the days because I get a lot of energy out of being outside in the sun and stuff. But man, for me to be awake at night, I feel like I have to sleep until two or three in the afternoon.

Leslie: We’re glad you’re here. Let’s see, how would you say being out on tour now at this stage in your lives is different from when you first started getting famous? How’s it different backstage?

Neal: Well, it’s more comfortable. Everybody’s older, more together, so there’s less conflicts…personal conflicts. It’s an easier time, it’s a better time. You know? I mean, getting along in a band is like getting along in a marriage, okay? When things work, they work, and when they don’t, they don’t. It’s about that simple. We’ve got a lot more admiration and respect for each other, I think, than we ever did in the hey day when we had too much F-you money, and you know, just taking advantage of situations. I think we really look at a situation any more, and we go you know, we’re extremely grateful to be here, and that we have gigs, and that we CAN do this, and that people come to see us. You know, there’s a lot of people out there that wish they could be doing what we’re doing that were around in the past, and they can’t do it. So, you know, I’m just grateful. I’m like completely…and I love all these guys. They’re like my best friends.

Jon: Yeah, we have less, uh, we have less conflict. And the other thing I should point out is that there’s less sexual conquest going on.

Neal: ‘Cause we’re all married.

(Both laugh)

Jon: And happy, and got kids and stuff. You know, in the old days, man, there was all kind of stuff going on back there.

Neal: And you know, it was cool because we lived it for a long time. You gotta live it, otherwise, you just kind of wonder what would it have been like if I didn’t do that? I say if you got hitched up too soon and you never experienced all that backstage wildness…but we did, you know. We lived it, and we did it, and it’s like been there, done that, time to move on.

Jon: That’s it man. You asked the question, I’m telling ya. You gotta throw that in and spice it up a little bit!

Neal: Okay, spice it up! Okay.

Leslie: If you had to choose a career that’s different from what you’re doing now, what would you do if you didn’t do rock and roll?

Neal: You know, I used to say in the old days as a joke that I would sell ladies shoes. (Laughs)…you know, like Italian French pumps. But any more, I would have to say that I think that I could be a designer, you know. I could design like clothes, cars, whatever. I have like a designing type mind…or like a painter, artist. Something like that.

Jon: I would probably be a shrink. (Neal laughs) Or a chef.

Leslie: A shrink or a chef?

Jon: A shrink or a chef.

Leslie: Okay. I’m going backwards now to some other questions that we skipped. With each member of Journey being at the absolute top of their craft…I mean, let’s face it, you guys are at the top of your craft…Journey songs seem to really have a lot of layers to them. What’s the writing process that you go through for the different parts? The vocal, the song as a whole, the keyboard parts? And what does production add to that layering? Because all of your songs are really deep and have a lot of texture and…

Neal: I think some of our best sounding records, the voices were more layered than anything else. The bg…the backgrounds…you know, we used to do like, for instance, all the records that we did with Roy Thomas Baker, we took the Queen approach and there was ten million Steve Perry’s back then in the background vocals. I mean, he would do four times one part, four times another part, four times another part, four times another part. So it’s just at then end, it’s just STACKED. And that’s what gives you that huge vocal…that background vocal sound. But in general, the band…I don’t think beyond the record that we just did with Kevin Shirley, like Arrival, that was very layered, I think we were pretty nuts and bolts. It’s like the one rhythm guitar, two at the most, and one lead and keyboards…a couple of keyboard overdubs…

Jon: Well, it’s the parts, though. The parts all fit together, and they play in tune like an orchestra. Neal’s got kind of an orchestrated approach. I’m very much an orchestrated kind of keyboard player. I’ll listen before I go, you know, trudging into a song. In the old days, I would listen to Neal very carefully before I decided what I wanted to play, so I didn’t just fill up the space with stuff, you know. We’re interested in the holes and the space, you know sometimes space is really cool. So, the choreography, I think, is very much an orchestrated approach. We’re looking for a bottom, and we’re looking for a top. We’re looking for a balance, and we’re looking for changes, and mood swings. You know, I think Journey is very cinematic, you know, in the sense that it flies, and it soars like a movie soundtrack. And I think the sounds have to evoke the image if we’re singing about something sad or we’re singing about the love, then you want to have that passion in the song. And Neal has all these very classical things that come out. He’s very Germanic, you know, and when he plays, there’s things that roll and conjure up things. So we go with each other in the cinematic approach, and that’s where you get the layers…where this emotion that’s evoked, you know, in each song. We like orchestration.

Neal: Definitely, my guitar sound has evolved through the years. I’ve been working on my guitar sound ever since I can remember. Probably this year is the best, I think, that I’ve ever had. As a guitar sound, I mean, it’s…it’s HUGE. And I like that, I really like being able to hitting a note on stage and having it soar and not sound like a little buzz saw, you know.

Leslie: Do you feel like you have the freedom to do that now more in the new lineup?

Neal: No, really, I would’ve had the same freedom in the old lineup. It’s just that I hadn’t gotten this far on the sound quest.

Jon: On this better technology.

Neal: Yeah, yeah. And you know, I’m using a bit of new technology, but a lot of it’s old technology. I sort of went back …to the cord. You know, no more cordless guitar. I toured with Jeff Beck, we toured with Jeff Back, I played with Jeff Beck, and I go, “God damn it, how do you get that fucking guitar sound?” and he’d say, “A cord.” (Laughs)

Jon: Plug it in.

Neal: Yeah, and it’s pretty much…it’s that simple sometimes. You have to give up having the freedom to be mobile and run around stage, but you know what, when it comes down to it, I’d rather have the sound than being able to run up on the ramp over here, run up over there. You know, I mean I think that’s cool when you’re in your twenties, but for me right now, I don’t see Eric Clapton doing that. I don’t see Jeff Beck doing it. I never saw Jimi Hendrix do that, and he was a tremendous performer. All my favorite guitar players have always used a cord and nothing but a cord, so I went back to the cord. Now I’m like, spoiled.

Leslie: Very good. Continue to plug it in. Trial By Fire was a very spiritual CD. Arrival seemed to be really reflective of where you guys are in your lives. You’re married, you’re happy. There was a lot of really good love songs on there and everything. Red 13 was generally regarded as the freedom project…

Neal: It was freedom, ya know. It was like old Journey mixed with new Journey like what they used to call us in San Francisco. We were like the favorite house band in San Francisco before we were selling any records. They said we were like the Grateful Dead on steroids, you know? It was total freedom. You know, I just walked into Jon’s studio one day, and I said, “Let’s do something like this. I just want to play something like this this summer.” So you know, "State of Grace" came out. And it was like we went for it. It was a very experimental project in a lot of ways.

How I describe it, it was like feeling out how now that we’re not on Sony…I said, why would we waste all our time and energy on creating another full CD, right? When it’s all going to be experiment to get it out there anyway. So it was a total experimental concept, and we learned from it, you know? And I still like a lot of stuff that’s on there. It’s very raw, and it’s what we are live, you know? A lot of people love it or they hate it. And I think that we missed the boat just a little bit by not putting the main hooks in the choruses, but we purposely didn’t go there. We just purposely did not go there to have freedom, and let’s not do that cause we always do that. That’s what they expect, so let’s not do that. And now it’s like, looking back at it, we should probably have done a little bit of both. I think 50% of what we did on there and 50% of what we’ve done in the past is probably the chemistry.


Leslie: If Red 13 was the freedom project, what’s going to be the flavor of the next CD?

Neal: Who knows, man? We’ll know when we get there. (laughs)

Jon: We really, yeah, we’re not even there yet. You know, Neal and I have talked about some possibilities of mixing it up a little bit. You know, we certainly want to carry on a tradition, you know, of our sound. We got to keep that woven in, you know. On the other hand, we’re interested in world music, and maybe we’re gonna, you know, head off maybe into the land of that.

Neal: We might all of a sudden come left field and add percussionists to our music and add world sound, you know. We’re interested in breaking the European market. We’ve been to South America for the first time, what, three years ago?

Jon: Yeah.

Neal: And we had a tremendous experience there. Ya know, it was our first time ever playing there in Mexico City, South America. We had a huge turnout, and we had tons of fans there that we never knew about. And, you know, Jon and I came back from that and we were talking. And I was like, you know what, I really think that if we added some percussion…not to sound like Santana, but just add percussion because the percussion is just… You know, from my experience of working with the Santana band, you get somebody like Chepito Areas and Michael Carabello going with a drummer, and it’s hypnotic. The rhythm is hypnotic. It’s undeniable, and people love it. They love it without music on top of it.

Jon: Yeah, you know this dance thing, there’s something cool about exploring that rhythm. And certainly we’ll do that. And if it comes out and it doesn’t, you know, work, we can say at least we tried. And then we’ll try other ways. But there’s a lot of different ideas we’ve been scratching on, and just playing with different concepts, and we’ll see what happens.

Leslie: You guys might steal Carabello from Gregg, eh?

Neal: Either that or Sheila E. (laughs). Sheila E from…who’s she out with? Tom Jones. She’s awesome. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen her, but man, she can…she not only plays like regular drums, like Billy Cobham. Billy Cobham was the drummer from Mahavishnu Orchestra. The early John McLaughlin band from the 70’s. And Billy Cobham is the most amazing drummer, and he taught her how to play. And she hits hard. I’ve jammed with her, man, and she hits harder than most men. She really plays.

Leslie: It’d be really cool to see a woman in Journey, too. That would definitely throw off the backstage chemistry there.

(Coffee finally arrives)

Neal: Thank you. Thanks.

Leslie: I actually have one last question, then if Michelle has anything she wants to ask…

Jon: Okay.

Leslie: Going back to Spank, Kevin Shirley. I interviewed him last year, and I did a free association thing with him, and I asked him, you know, “I’m going to say a name, and want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.” I gave him each of your names, and everything. I should have printed that out so you could see what he said about you, but you’ll have to go to Journey Digest to read that. So, if I say a name, tell me the what the first thing that comes to your mind.

Neal: This is a very in depth interview. You’re very well organized. (laughs)

Leslie: Well thanks. Okay, Ross Valory.

Neal: Nut. (laughs)

Jon: Wacky.

Leslie: Okay. Deen Castronovo.

Neal: Wired.

Jon: Yeah, I’d have to say fiery wired. Yeah.

Leslie: Okay.

Jon: Fiery and wired.

Leslie: Not you, Jon. (to Neal) Jonathan Cain.

Neal: Intelligent.

Jon: Oh no, here’s twenty bucks. (both laugh)

Leslie: Okay, turnabout’s fair play. Neal Schon.

Jon: Oh, wings. Don’t ask me why, wings.

Leslie: Okay. Steve Augeri.

Neal: New York. (laughs) Brooklyn!

Jon: Relentless. Just relentless.

Leslie: New York in what way?

Neal: Oh well, you know how…the attitude of the New Yorker. He’s got the Brooklyn thing going on all the time. And when he first came into the band, I’d be listening to him, and he’s like jiving me all the time. He sort of like throws out the hook, pulls you in, and all of a sudden you’re listening to this bullshit lingo, and he’s just BS-ing you. You know, and it’s like…

Jon: New York.

Neal: It’s a New York thing.

Leslie: Kevin Shirley.

Neal: Fun.

Jon: Uh, tireless. Yeah. He’s just devoted…devoted.

Leslie: When we turn the tape off, I’ll have to tell you what he said when I gave him Steve Perry’s name.

(All laugh)

Neal: He’s writing a book, by the way.** Kevin Shirley is writing a book, and he says that we’re in a big piece of it. And he’s going to talk all about it. He doesn’t have a gag order.

Leslie: He might by the time the lawyers get through with him. Irving Azoff.

(Neal and Jon both suck in a large breath at the same time.)

Leslie: WHOA! That was an audible intake of air!

Jon: Powerful. It would be powerful.

Leslie: (to Michelle) Did you hear that?

Michelle: Mhmm. (laughs)

Neal: Irving is very powerful. He’s also, if he’s not on your side, he’s a man you love to hate….

Leslie: Is he on your side?

Neal: …and we’re very…yeah, we’re lucky he’s on our side, definitely. Irving has done amazing things for us. Every once in a while I read some stuff on the Internet, and people are like…Irving as opposed to Herbie. I mean, Herbie is still awesome. He was always awesome, always will be. They’re two different people, but Herbie loves Irving. His first choice when he stepped down was Irving.

Leslie: When he stepped down, did he recommend Irving, or was that already in place?

Neal: Well…

Jon: We did interviews.

Neal: Yeah, we did some interviews…different interview with different managers, and Irving was the guy that we like.

Leslie: Cool. John Kalodner.

Neal: Eccentric, (laughs) but nice. Actually, he’s coming…he’s here. He flew out here to see us tonight, so who knows what he’s going to have to say. I’m kind of curious. I think he’s just coming to hang, you know?

Leslie: He is definitely more from the music matters than the money matters era.

Neal: Well, he is so fed up with the music industry. He’s really…he feels like he’s shackled. He’s not allowed to do what he wants to do, like we’re not allowed to do what we want to do, like no artist does…you know, I mean it’s frustrating. Unless you’re on your own. And we’re on our own now, and we found that this is the best place to be is on tour. You’re don’t have to worry about selling CD’s and how you’re going to market yourself. People can’t download you when you go play live, you know?

Jon: They’re learning, they’re learning, though. I heard something very frightening where they actually can record your in-your-monitor signal outside in the parking lot.

Leslie: Oh sure.

Jon: And make a mix out of it. I was like, you’re kidding me, you’re kidding me.

Neal: And then it sounds like crap, too.

Michelle: It has to be with your wireless, though.

Jon: Huh?

Michelle: It has to be with your wireless.

Jon: I know, they intercept your signal, then they make a CD out of it.

Neal: You hear the thing about Frank Sinatra, man? That they now are selling forty- to sixty-dollar tickets per person to go watch Frank Sinatra, and he’s a hologram. They reincarnated him with hologram. The full-on band is sitting there, the real band is playing in time, and he’s there in hologram form. And they’re talking about doing that with Jimi Hendrix, with everybody else that has died. And they’re selling forty to sixty dollars a ticket. It’s like going to a movie, basically, but you’ve got a live band. But you don’t have the real singer. You know, that is a sick, sick concept.

Jon: That’s spooky. But you know, that music was so good.

Neal: We’ll see if that flies.

Jon: That music was great. And you know, I’d pay to see that. I would, they were cool. I love his voice. It’s great.

Leslie: A couple more. Sony.

Neal: You know what, I’ve got nothing bad to say about Sony. Especially CBS before they were Sony. You know, I spent more than half of my life there from Santana on through Journey. I was signed at Sony since 1970 since Santana. They were a monster, and they still are a monster company. I think that some of the best people have come and gone that were there at one point. But we have a lot of friends there. So what that they didn’t perform for us on the last record. I think the way they looked at it is that the big mother ship is the old band, okay? Like the greatest hits record, Escape, you know, Frontiers. Those are our biggest records out there, and I think they did not want to…at the eleventh hour, they were ready to jump aboard on the new ship. But they did not want to mess up what was already happening for them…you know, confuse the issue to a mass audience. So I think that’s why they dropped the ball. But you know what? They’re a great company. If they get behind you and they want to promote you, they’re going to do it. But I still think that they have lost their way, and that they need guidance now. And that they’re too much for the flavor of the month and not longevity. I think you need…in the music world, you need to think longevity. When you see a talented band, you need to stand by them and be there for them because you believe in them. You know, like our fans do believe in us. You need a company that believes in you that’s going to stand there by you. And I think unfortunately, all companies are not there any more like that.

Jon: Two words. Stumbling Giant.

Leslie: Apropos.

Neal: That’s what I was thinking.

Jon: I could see this big…(puts arms out in the air and pretends to be a big, stumbling giant). Which way do we go? Okay, go ahead.

(All laugh)

Leslie: Back Talk.

Jon: Oh.

Neal: What’s that? (laughs)

Jon: One word for Back Talk.

Neal: (Imitating Perry singing) “Don’t give me no, no, no, no back talk!”

Jon: Three words for that…three words. Get a life.

Neal: Oooooooooooooh…you’re gonna get crucified. Now I already said that like a few years ago. You know, what kills me about…now I’m gonna tell ya. What kills me about the Internet is that, you know, when I first got in to the computer, which was like…I was a late comer, and then I was addicted on it. You know, and I was on our site all the time, and I’m reading. Everybody’s got an opinion, you know? And they’re gonna tell you what you should be doing and what you’re not doing, and everybody’s a critic. But, you know they can criticize, they can tell you what you’re supposed to be doing, they can call me whatever they want to call me for moving on without Mr. P. And then, when I go to defend myself and call it like I see it, I get crucified. Okay, and I’m not allowed to do that in the public domain because I’m somebody that is looked up to by all these fans, and how can you say that to your fans. Well, you know what? I didn’t say that to all fans. It was directed to one or two people on there. And this is what really pissed me off royally. It still does, and I refuse to go on there any more. I just…I can’t be bothered with it. It is too frustrating to me to read the obnoxious shit. Not on our site, but on other sites that have recently been taken down.

Leslie: Thank God.

Michelle: Yaaaaaaaaay!

Neal: VH1, since they’re sponsoring this tour, they finally got wind of what’s going on over there. And I’m telling you what, this is a music site. It’s not a site to go in and crucify people because they’re pissed off they didn’t do what you wanted them to do. Or make allegations that are completely untrue. It’s not right.

Jon: You know, the word that comes to mind, other than get a life, would be fanatic. And the word fanatic is based on “fan” and “addict” is what it sounds like. They’re addicted to being a fan. And you know, fanatics are like Neal said. They are very misguided in the sense that they think they have all the data and they think they know everything about everybody, and they don’t. You know? They couldn’t possibly.

Neal: It’s America. It’s freedom of speech, but so much for that. Look what happened to the Dixie Chicks, when they said something about they don’t agree with President Bush and what he did with going to war, you know? So much for freedom of speech. I think that maybe the timing was wrong. You know, we have troops over there, and that did not sit well with their families. I would surely not go there. I would like, veer away from that. But my true feelings…you also cannot speak your mind sometimes in political issues like that when you are looked up to and you have just tons of fans looking at you. You just cannot…and that’s just the way it is.

Jon: And that’s again, being so involved in what you want, and what you want to say instead of what, you know…when you’re thinking about the fans. And you wouldn’t want to hurt anybody out there. And I think before they said that, they have to realize why they were there. The fans were the number one reason why they were there, and what they said was hurtful to some of the fans and their families like Neal said. So, when you’re in the public eye like that, you know, there’s thing that…

Neal: But the pisser of it all is they’re going to crucify us, right? And they’re going to say anything they want to say about me. I’m like the person they love to hate, 'cause its all my fault that we’re still here, Jon. You know that, right?

Jon: Yeah, yeah.

Neal: And it was nobody else in the band that agreed with me to move on. It was just me. And so, you know…

Jon: Which is nothing further from the truth because, well, I’m just as deep as him, cause I was the messenger. I delivered the message to you know who. You know, I called him and said, “We’re moving on.” So if it was just him, why was I the one that called…made the phone call?

Neal: You know, when he said don’t crack the stone, the stone was already cracked.

(Michelle laughs uncontrollably, then Jon laughs)

Neal: Oh, she got it.

Jon: Wasn’t it fractured?

Michelle: Fractured.

Neal: Whatever.

Jon: Fractured?

Neal: Fractured. He fractured it a long time ago when he let go Smith and Ross, ya know? That was the demise of that band right then.

Jon: Yeah. Yeah, that was a bad move. I think that if you asked me again the question of anything that you regretted, that’s what I regretted the most is seeing that go down.

Neal: Yeah, if I thought of that when she asked me that, I would’ve said something.

Jon: That really, you know to this day, just stunk up the joint. I tell you what. And then, you know, not that he…(stops himself) we can’t go there, but…

Neal: And also with Herbie, you know. It was an ultimatum that he made to us. We need to get a new manager, or I’m not going to do it. And it was like…(sucks in breath)

Jon: Those two things are really not…they don’t sit well.

Neal: Yeah.

Jon: And thank God Ross is back.

Neal: Playing with his squirt gun. (laughs)

Jon: Smith still likes to…cash his checks. (laughs)

Leslie: Speaking of cashing checks…no, I won’t ask that. You can’t answer it anyway. But anyway, that’s all I have for you guys.

Jon: Awesome.

Leslie: I hate that I don’t have anything else.

Jon: No, that’s awesome. That was a good interview.

Leslie: Thank you, and Great to interview you guys!

Never have I been so disappointed to have all my questions answered. I wanted it to last longer! We had such a great time. Many thanks to Jon and Neal for spending an hour with us. Journey Digest would also like to thank tour manager, Aaron Dilks, for waking up Neal, and thanks to Amanda at ABC PR for helping us set up the interview. We do have one suggestion for Neal, who remains disillusioned with the whole Internet communication scene. If reading is too frustrating for you, just post! We would love to have some frequent updates from the road and more of the thoughts and experiences of the band. It might be one way to increase perspective and understanding on the part of the fans who see only the results and none of the process. It would also provide a way to bring fans back to your site consistently in addition to Back Talk. Finally, many congratulations to Neal, Jon, Ross, Deen, and Steve (as well as all the past members of Journey), on being selected to receive their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is a well-deserved culmination of thirty years of wonderful. May you continue to rock until your hologram days!

**Incidentally, I wanted to give Kevin Shirley a chance to comment on the book he is writing so we didn’t give anything away before he was ready for the world to know about his upcoming project. He sent along this comment...

“I have a real love for all the members of Journey, without exception, which is rare for me, with any band. They are such wonderful musicians that I have continued to maintain a relationship with them, even though the "cool factor" of being associated with them may have hampered me professionally; and will continue to, if they were to ever ask me. Most importantly, I hope my friendship with them lasts until I die, 'cos they are some of the realest motherfuckers in the whole world!”

July 2003: A Conversation with Neal and Jon Part 1

June 2014: On June 21, 2003, a few hours prior to seeing Journey perform in Kansas City, my good friend and JourneyDigest.com collaborator Leslie White and I had an opportunity to sit down with Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain for an interview to be posted on the website. A few days prior to this interview, the Hollywood Walk of Fame announced that Journey would be getting a star in the famed walk which eventually happened in 2005. Leslie is the author of this piece (I served as photographer and proof reader) and I am reprinting it as it appeared on JourneyDigest.com with her permission with a few editorial comments of my own.

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..

April 14, 1998: Jon Plays San Jose

San Jose, CA
Guitar Center

As posted to the Steve Perry Mailing List.

Well, I see Liz and Debbie got their comments on Jon's show in last night. Now here's mine. Liz and I had been emailing back and forth all day because I wanted her to deliver your messages (Donna, I'd left the office before your message arrived, so it didn't get to him. I'm sorry!) in case I had another attack of brain lock like I did last time.

Anyway, I left work about 15 minutes early so I could grab a snack since I wouldn't be having dinner until after the show. I got to the Guitar Center really early (around 5:45) and since I was meeting my cousin Denise (at 6:15) I sat in my car in the parking lot listening to Body Language while I waited for her. I figured, what the heck am I gonna do in a guitar store for half an hour? Well, if I'd gone in I would have seen Jon warming up. I found out from someone else there that he was warming up until about 6:10 when he left for dinner. D'oh!

Jon finally arrived around 7:30 (he got stuck in traffic. Classic California for ya!) and played for about an hour and a half. As Debbie said, I jotted down the set list, and I'll add that at the end of this post. The feeling of this show was different from the one in Petaluma last month. It was more the "public" Jon than the "private" Jon, but I rather expected that. Most of what he played was from Body Language and For a Lifetime, and I think it's just amazing what technology can do. Jon was there with a baby grand piano and behind him was the electronic equipment (which wasn't very big at all) that had his "band" playing -- which really completed the sound.

Towards the end of the set he did a Journey medley. Jon sang a verse of each of the following songs -- "Who's Cryin' Now", "Separate Ways", "Send Her My Love", "When You Love a Woman", and "Don't Stop Believin'." This segment got a huge cheer, particularly DSB. Jon called these songs his "kids" and said "Hopefully there will be more stuff soon." -- which is what Debbie told me to write down. It was neat hearing these songs in an acoustic setting. A little slower, a little softer, but old friends. Of course, in my head I was hearing the missing instruments and filling them in where needed. It also got me thinking that Jon wouldn't be a bad substitute for Steve on lead vocals. I'm not sure if he could pull it off in a large setting, but he sure did a great job in a small one.

After he finished, Liz, Debbie, Denise and I were right in the front of the line for autographs. When Liz handed over the messages I'd printed out, he promised he'd read them later. I didn't really ask him anything much, just "How are you?" ("Burned out. I was up all last night with a sick kid.") but I was nowhere near as panicked as I was last time. No shakes, no heart pounding, no brain lock. If there hadn't been such a line behind me, I probably could have stood there and chatted all day! Guess this meeting heroes is routine now! LOL!

It was another fun evening of great music!

Set List:

Paradiso
Winds of Carnivale
Body Language
Moonlight at Marabella
Cry for Love
With Your Love
Faithfully (which he sang of course, big cheer from the crowd)
For a Lifetime
Open Arms
Loved by You (unreleased vocal. He did this one at the Petaluma show too. It's great.)
A Day to Remember
Song of Calabria
One Look
Precious Moments

March 20-21, 1998: Neal & Jon -- Compare and Contrast

San Francisco and Petaluma, CA
Maritme Hall and a Petaluma church

Here I am, as promised, with my report of my wonderful wonderful weekend. This is likely to get a little long, so be prepared.

We’ll start with Friday night. Actually, let’s start with Friday morning. For the previous few weeks my body had decided that 5 hours of sleep was enough, so I had been waking up at 4 and 5 a.m. for a while, which is not a good thing. That Friday morning was no exception. I woke up at 5, and despite my best efforts, couldn’t get back to sleep for the remaining hour & a half until my alarm goes off. All this meant was that by around 3 Friday afternoon I was getting quite tired, and was really wondering how I’d make it through the show. Sugar and caffeine helped, thank goodness.

I left work Friday night and drove to pick up my friend who had graciously agreed to go with me. We had dinner and got to the Maritime Hall around 8:45 or so, as the show was to start at 9. Now, remember, I had no clue who I was going to see or what kind of music, exactly, was going to be played. When we got into the hall, there were maybe 150 people scattered about, or in other words, more empty than full. We got a couple drinks (the worst margarita I’ve ever had in my life) and stood around waiting for the first band to hit the stage. I looked around at the sparse crowd, and realized that we rather stood out looking fairly like the white suburbanites we are. That’s when we knew for sure it was a reggae show.

Now, my knowledge of reggae can be summed up in one sentence. I have heard of Bob Marley. That’s it. So, I figured okay, something new. The first act hit the stage a little after 9, and they were pretty good. While my friend and I are kinda boppin’ along to them, I notice this kinda short, curly haired guy with a big nose walk in front of me. Before I get a chance to get a good look though, this big Rastafarian guy came up to me and said something, the only word of which I understand is “dancing”, and walks off. I look around again, but I can’t see him. I am 99.99% certain it was Neal. Damn. (After the show, I’m 100% sure.)

So the first band plays for about an hour. This was our first clue we are in for a looooooooonnnnnngggg night. The whole bill had 4 acts and Strictly Roots is act number 4. By this time the hall is getting fuller, and my friend and I don’t stand out quite as much and I notice a couple handfuls of people who don’t look like they’re there for the reggae either.

The second band got up and played their hour long set, and I’m beginning to tire out. My friend and I go into the ladies room where there’s a couch and an open window, so we can sit down and get some fresh air. (My throat was sore from all the smoke for days. It is really rare to go any place in California and have smoking of any kind, and this place was filled not only with the expected pot, but cigarette and incense. I reeked by the time I left.) We were both a little weary, and were wondering how on earth we would make it through two more bands.

We went back out for the third band, and managed to find a couple of the few chairs along the wall so we could sit through one. Both of us were kind of nodding off at this point. I’m tired, my eyes and throat are burning, and it’s 12:30 when the third band finally finishes their hour long set. Okay, this means, thank god, Strictly Roots and Neal are up next so we’re closing in on the end of the evening.

I got up to go stand near the stage, and my friend asks if I’d mind if she just stayed in the seats and I find her after the set. She was really tired and had come as a favor to me, so I told her it wasn’t a problem and walked over to the stage. About the same time I get in front of the stage, who should walk out, but Neal! He started setting up his equipment and, finally, at around 12:45 he began playing with a guy on the conga drums.* Neal played three or four songs of his own, that were really quite cool, and there I was standing about 10 feet away right in front of him. That was quite a thrill. Meanwhile, I started looking around at the crowd, and they looked very puzzled since MOST of them are there for the 4 reggae acts and these are definitely NOT reggae tunes.

*I now realize that Neal's conga player was Michael Carabello formerly of Santana, most recently of the Gregg Rolie Band.

I wish I could describe the songs Neal played better, but I was soooo tired that they didn’t register enough to be able to remember them. One was rather interesting as it sounded like he was playing ochestral strings, but that’s about all that I can remember about it. It was a little distracting since he kept walking over to the side of the stage to make adjustments to his equipment, so I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. Well, he played for about 20 minutes, and then thanked the audience for allowing him to play “some experimental stuff” that he’d been working on.

Then Strictly Roots came on stage and I got to witness one of the stranger sights I have ever seen. Picture, if you will, Neal on stage with his guitar and wearing a denim overall kind of thing with a denim jacket over it. Now picture six guys with dreadlocks wearing sorta camoflauge pants and jackets. Very bizarre. So, the band starts playing and they’re doing their reggae thing and Neal’s playing along, but it’s not like Neal’s playing reggae. It’s more like he’s doing his thing and the band is doing their thing, and they just happen to be playing at the same time. It worked okay, but it was definitely Neal playing WITH a band as opposed to playing IN a band.

After about 20 minutes of this, I looked over to see how my friend was doing, but she isn’t where she’s supposed to be. I got a little worried, so I worked my way out of the crowd to go look for her. She had gone to sit on the couch in the ladies room because Neal was just too loud for her and she was half asleep. Since I was pretty tired myself, and four hours of reggae music was more than enough for my ears, I said “let’s go home”. As we left Neal was playing a very nice solo, which actually, was a nice way to head out.

Leap ahead in time now to Saturday afternoon. I had somewhat recovered from the late, smoky evening before, and my cousin Denise came over to drive up to Petaluma with me for Jon’s show. As we’re driving up I play For a Lifetime for her so she can hear it, and tell her about Neal’s show the night before. I was fully expecting that Jon’s show would be 180 degrees different than Neal’s.

The drive to Petaluma wasn’t as bad as I had expected, and we found the church easily. We had left in enough time to go have dinner first, so that’s what we did before heading back to the church. We got inside and noticed it was a fairly small church, which was good, and that the crowd has a lot of older folks (read, church members, not Jon fans). As we walk in, I notice an attractive brunette woman holding the hand of a little girl and another woman behind her holding the hand of a little boy. I figure this must be Jon’s wife Liz and their twins.

After chatting for a few minutes with a few fellow fans, Denise & I went to find some seats. Denise, who is a pianist & until recently was a music director at a San Jose church, wanted to be where she hoped she could see Jon’s fingering. Unfortunately the way the piano was set up didn’t allow for this. While we’re waiting for the show to start I look around at the clean white walls and notice the very intimate “church-y” feel of the place, and laugh to myself at how different it was from the smoky filled hall the night before.

The pastor of the church gets up and starts his introduction. He got a signal from someone in the balcony to stretch it a little, but while he was talking a door on the altar opened up and Jon looked out then walked out very quietly. The pastor concluded his introduction, and the show started.

He opened with “For a Lifetime”, and I sat there in awe and thought, “My god, I’m going to recognize all of these songs really easily!” I hadn’t had For a Lifetime out of my CD player since I bought it the week before! He finished that piece and then thanked the audience. He then introduced a “song I’m sorta famous for” and launched into “Open Arms”. He played a lot of tracks from the CD, which I just love to death, but he also sang “Faithfully”, “Little River” (which he introduced with the story of how he wrote and sang it for his daughter Madison’s baptism), “Distant Shores”, and did a slightly reworked version of “When I Think of You” which he dedicated to the pastor, who apparently is leaving. (I really liked it. His voice sounded better live than on recording. At least better than I remembered “Back to the Innocence” being.)

Throughout the whole show I was thinking how real he seemed. I’ve always thought Jon was the most down to earth member of the band, and watching him that night really solidified that opinion. It also brought home to me the fact that this person, whom I’ve idolized since I was a teenager, is really just a person and not a super-hero. You don’t usually think of a “rock star” as someone who goes to church or has a more spiritual side. You just picture this big flashy sign that says ROCK STAR, and forget that really, the rock star is just another human being.

After the show, CDs were available for sale and Jon was standing around signing autographs and talking to people. I bought another copy of For a Lifetime (heck, the money was going to charity, it’s the least I could do!) and Denise and I got in line to get our CDs signed. I was standing in line, and my brain was just going on overload, but basically the same thought is running through my head—“oh, my god. I get to meet Jonathan Cain!” So much for my rock star as a human being!

Denise and I got up to Jon and told him how much we enjoyed the show and his music in general. I really don’t remember what I said, but at least I’m fairly sure I didn’t make a fool of myself. When I handed him my CD for him to sign he asked “Do you want me to personalize this?” My brain did register that (barely), so I said yes and told him my name. As he autographed that and my ticket, Jon mentioned that he’d only played the little show in the city the week before, and that it would be a good idea to do this show too. I told him how great I thought it was he did the show, and thanked him.

It was really neat seeing him interact with the fans and the church members (which you could tell were two different groups), and I didn’t stop smiling for days. It was just such a great evening.

Driving home, Denise and I just rehashed the show over and over, and she thanked me for kind of nudging her to go. She’d hesitated for a bit when I asked her, since she wouldn’t be seeing her boyfriend at all that weekend if she went, but I think she kinda figured she could see her boyfriend anytime she liked, but Jon performing was rare. As an added bonus to the whole thing, Denise and I had more fun together than we’d had in years. When we got home, I pulled out all my Journey/Steve/Neal/Jon, etc. CDs, and we played a couple then watched the Raised on Radio documentary, and just talked and talked about the music and our lives for a few hours. Our friendship was a little strained for a while, and only in the last year or so have we been putting it back together. Journey was what helped us become good friends when we were kids, and it seems they’ve helped bring us back together.

Jon's Set List
(special thanks to Scott Cannon who sent this to the Perry List and to the gods of pack rats everywhere that made me save it on my computer!)

For a Lifetime
Open Arms
A Day to Remember
Faithfully
Precious Moments
Song of Calabria
Just to Love You
Distant Shores
From the First Look (combined with Blue Nocturne)
One Look
Bridal March
Living on Love (A unreleased song he wrote with a friend)
Olema Waltz
Loved by You (A new song with vocals, dedicated to his wife Elizabeth)*
With Your Love
When I Think of You
Little River
From Wings of Love

Encore:
When the Spirit Comes

* yes, THAT "Loved by You" -- same as appeared on Arrival three years after this memorable night!
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After Jon's show, I was floating on air for days. Here's a follow up to my original post.

I so so wish everyone on this list could have seen Jon's show. I feel a little guilty going on and on about it because I was one of a very select few. I haven't been able to stop talking about it for days. Literally. Virtually everyone I've talked to in the last three days has gotten some version of my weekend. (I keep saying things like "I had such a GREAT weekend!" or "Last weekend was the best couple of days in the world!" You know, comments intended to get people to ask "Oh really, what did you do?" That's all the opening I need, and I'm off!)

Actually, yesterday one of the women I work with arrived at work around 3 p.m. after a harrowing day. She's been taking a math class in the mornings and usually doesn't arrive until noon, but yesterday she called around 1:30 to say her car had gotten a flat tire and she was going to be later than usual. When she finally arrived in the office, she was just so stressed out I told her "I wish I could bottle the way I'm feeling and give some to you." I don't usually start talking about Journey or Journey-related topics with my co-workers since most of them are at least 15 years older than me and have totally different tastes in music, but I told her about going to see Jon and how wonderful it was, and when she heard the excitement and happiness in my voice she told me that it helped relax her. The feeling spreads!

Man I could make a fortune if I could just bottle it! LOL!