Journey Interviews - 3/17/07

Great interview from Neal! We can see how Jeff is very well integrated in the band and all the goods he brings to it!

Schon is delighted with the new energy which Soto has brought to band, which was a real bonus on the US dates with Def Leppard, where initially Soto stepped in temporarily to replace the stricken Augeri before landing the job full time.

“It’s a different audience when we play with Def Leppard and I think that we did very, very well with their audience,” Schon explains.

“We had played just the year prior and we were playing good sized venues just ourselves with no support. I think our audience, the die-hard fans, if they were not into Def Leppard they didn’t want to come, so I think the audience was pretty much split about 40:60, something like that, when we first started playing.

“And I think after Jeff came in it actually went the other way and it was always 50:50 and the 50 per cent of the audience that was not ours, that were pretty stone faced before he came in, all of a sudden were ours at the end of the night. So I think that we’ve attained a whole new audience besides our own.”

Schon is also bubbling with enthusiasm about new songs he and Soto have started working on.

Another Journey Interview, Ross Valory talk about JSS in :

http://www.getreadytorock.com/rock_stars/journey.htm


How did you hook up with Jeff Scott Soto?

He's been performing with Neal's band Soul SirkUS and he's performed with several bands such as Talisman and Yngwie Malmsteen. It was a timely and fortunate call that we made to Jeff. He began with us two weeks into the Journey/Def Leppard tour and stepping into a repertoire that is as demanding for a vocalist as that of Journey was quite an undertaking. But he survived: he's quite energetic and with a strong stage presence and a significant vocal range.

What do you think Jeff will bring to the band apart from this incredible vocal range?

Well it's his influences too. Jeff approaches it differently: he has some of the common influences and roots that Steve Perry has. He doesn't necessarily sing it like Steve Perry does but he has an affinity with singers like Sam Cooke, Sam & Dave, and he sings in a unique and original way. In terms of the band's future, he comes to us as a strong writer and he and Neal have already started to write the next album.

FROM LEA!!

From MR.com...

http://www.expressandstar.co.uk/2007/03/08/neals-rock-journey-goes-on

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2007/03/06/journey_live_feature.shtml

Personne wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2007/03/06/journey_live_feature.shtml

Hmmm... this is weird.
I feel very violent all of a sudden....

HAHA
Gah.
Can't win them all I guess, right?