Fireworks magazine 27: Journey Interview

Featured Interview
ISSUE 27
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Journey
Phil Ashcroft
For the last few years Journey have been touring the USA with singer Steve Augeri taking the place of the great Steve Perry, and outside of their fanatical supporters hadn't really been noticed by the rest of the world – or so the band thought! A short exploratory tour of Europe in 2006 changed all that, and the band were shocked to find they still had fans outside of their comfort zone. A mere eight months down the line and we're on the verge of another, more extensive tour, and with singer Augeri having to bail out mid-way through a joint tour of the US with Def Leppard due to vocal problems, Neal Schon called his Soul SirkUS bandmate Jeff Scott Soto, who stepped in and saved the day. With Soto now confirmed as their new singer permanently, a decidedly upbeat Neal Schon was on the phone from an Francisco to update the situation – although maybe my timing wasn't the best?

"I just got out of the dentist's office, if I'm talking funny it'll be because my mouth is numb," says the guitarist apologetically.

You're coming back to Europe again in a couple of weeks, were you surprised with the reaction you got last year?

"Yeah absolutely, we were very surprised."

So you weren't expecting that at all? Did you think people would have forgotten who you were?

"I didn't think anyone in Europe ever knew about us, let alone had forgotten" (laughs).

So with the success of the dates you played last year do you think the promoters have been a little less cautious this time?

"Completely! That was the break we'd been waiting for – finally some promoter stepped up to the plate and was not scared of us, and losing his ass. It went very well so some other promoters took a look at that and now all over Europe we're the hot ticket."

What kind of setlist will you be doing this time, will it be less of a Greatest Hits set than last time?

"You know what? I don't know what we're doing!" (laughs). "We're going to get together very shortly and work it out but I think we'll definitely play the hits, that's something we have to do. That's what the majority of people want to hear, but we'll also play some obscure stuff and some old stuff – we're going to mix it up a little bit."

So is that going to be another two hour set?

"I doubt it, I don't think that we need to play that long. We got so used to playing very long sets, the year before last we did three hours – which was my idea – and everybody hated me at the end of the tour. It was like "You asshole, what a terrible idea". The fans loved it but then once you've played to them for three hours it's like they never want to hear anything else again. I think an hour and a half or one hour forty-five is plenty."

I imagine there must have been widespread panic in the camp when you had the tour with Def Leppard booked and Steve Augeri couldn't carry on?

"Well... it was for everyone except for myself. The management, the band, the promoters – everybody was kind of wigging out y'know, so basically it was "Are we going to go home, or are we going to continue with another vocalist?"

So I presume it was your idea to bring in Jeff?

"Yeah, I had worked with Jeff before of course, I knew that he could handle it and I knew that it would only be a matter of time before he slipped into a groove. The register was much higher than he'd been singing for years even though he'd had the range before, but I knew that he would be able to nurture it and get up there to reach those notes, and after a while he did. Not immediately - but Jeff is a great musician and a great singer and the notes that he couldn't hit he would know what to substitute. That's what you do, you have to improvise when you can't quite hit everything that was there on the record since that wasn't him initially – you substitute other notes for it, every singer does it. He instinctively knows what's correct and what's not correct to use for whatever notes – it's all very natural for him, so it's all good."

So were the management and the other guys in the band up for this idea, or did they take some convincing that it was the right thing to do?

"Everybody was very sceptical at first, but I said "You know what? We don't have too many choices here. We either check this out or we go home!" So we ended up checking it out and it worked out fine. Management and promoters were scared and so were other band members, and they were waiting for tickets to get returned because the tour was pretty much sold out, especially the second leg. They were saying that tickets would be coming back because fans would be disappointed that it wasn't Steve, but I said "I don't think so". It turned out that there were two tickets returned throughout the whole tour. If it wasn't for Steve Augeri we wouldn't be here eight years later – he helped us get to that plateau with his vocal ability and song writing – but in the end it's about the songs and conveying them to people who want to hear those songs."

So what do you think Jeff brings to Journey that wasn't there before?

"I think he's bringing quite a lot to tell you the truth. First of all there's the song writing ability he has and that I have with him – I have chemistry with him – and I think Jonathan now realises that he has chemistry with him as well. He can sing any type of music that you want to play, be it R & B or rock or whatever – he's there, he can do it all. Also what he brings to the table that we've never had before is a very, very strong frontman – an entertainer – a guy who knows how to carry himself on stage and work an audience – he's real. A lot of singers just do the Vegas type thing – you know, they rehearse a show and they say exactly the same thing every night. I've noticed when I've toured with other bands that a lot of singers just lock into a thing that works and they just stay there, and Jeff doesn't do that, he's very off-the-cuff – he feels out the audience and whatever they're like defines how he talks to them. He's just awesome – it shouldn't be like a Vegas show, just set in stone – he just makes the show up as he goes."

This tour has brought you some of the best reviews you've had for a long time.

"Yeah, some of the best reviews we've ever gotten, period. No matter who was singing." (laughs)

Do you read stuff about yourselves on the internet?

"I check it a lot more when I'm on tour than when I'm off tour. When we're playing live I like to read what people are thinking and what they're saying about the show, but it's only on a tour that I do that. I'm not really an internet geek."

You must have been happy reading that your gamble had paid off and people were liking it?

"Absolutely! I wanted to know. I knew just from playing and the reaction from the audience that they liked us, but it was nice to read it also."

You've been quoted as saying that you want to stay out of America this year, do you think you've overdone the touring in the last few years?

"Well, you know what? I think with the change in the band now with Jeff, we have to get out and see what interest is out there in the rest of the world – I think it's the right thing to do. We've toured extensively in the States for the last eight years without a break and I think we need to give it a rest, and now that things are picking up for us in Europe and in South America – we're going to concentrate on different parts of the world this year. We'll come over there and play the dates and then come back for a writing session and make a new CD. We're also re-recording all our Greatest Hits and some of the more obscure songs that are on our big records, with Jeff in the studio. That's probably the first thing we'll put out and then we'll come with a brand new record as well, and then we're coming back over to Europe to headline some festivals. How about that? We're headlining!"

So what's the mood in the camp at the moment, you must be pretty positive?

"We're very, very up. We're getting ready to do a lot of live TV, which we haven't done in years – we're playing Mardi Gras in New Orleans, which will be nationally televised. Plus I have a friend from New York who's involved in a huge new benefit concert – kinda like Farm Aid but it's for World Peace, and it's a huge thing that they're doing in numerous cities across the United States which will be televised worldwide to something like three point five billion people. I think we're going to be doing that as well. We're going to be doing as much TV as we can and set ourselves up for what is to come."

I've been reading some comments that some fans are worried that new material might sound more like Soul SirkUS than Journey.

"It won't sound like Soul SirkUS! When you're about to write a record you've got to kind of see it before you write it, and think about what you're going to do – and I think we have a great direction in mind. We've been talking about it for quite a bit now, during the whole last tour – we wrote some stuff whilst we were on the bus and recorded bits onto a computer, and it's going to sound like Journey – it doesn't sound like Soul SirkUS. I mean Soul SirkUS wasn't supposed to sound anything like Journey – it's so funny that people went "So that's what he sounds like with that guy!" but that's not necessarily true. We can go in a zillion different directions and we chose to go in a harder vein because I didn't want it to sound like Journey. The new album is definitely going to sound like Journey – it's going to have big hooks and choruses and many memorable parts, much like our older hits. I think the only change will be that there will be more upbeat songs and a more live sound – I'm not saying heavy, but more upbeat, fun, party, and with a sound more like our live show."

Going back to ‘Generations', reading all the feedback, in hindsight what do you think about the criticism it got for having everyone singing on it?

"Well, it was just something that we happened to be doing at our shows at that time because we were playing the three hour show, we were playing everything from our first record on. We were doing a musical biography of everything we had done and we were all singing because we all HAD to sing to do a long show like that – there's not one singer who could sing this kind of stuff for three hours straight every night. There was nothing more to it than that, and people read into it that Augeri obviously couldn't sing and that's why everybody else was singing – it's so funny what people read into things and think they understand everything and what the reason is for it. It had nothing to do with that, we had all been singing and just said "You know what? Screw it, let's all sing a song on the record" - big deal!"

So Steve wasn't having any vocal problems at that time then?

"He's been having them for the last four years to tell you the truth, and Deen, our drummer, was saving him from night to night. Deen was singing all the high stuff – although Steve was singing along – and Kevin (Elson – producer and live sound engineer) was switching to Deen's microphone out front."

So in hindsight what did you think of "Generations" in relation to your back catalogue?

"I thought it was a very good record. I thought the vocals on it were so-so, and I thought it was not the writing that was at fault but the actual performances. I thought Steve didn't really have the voice that he had when we first got him, to perform on the songs, and I also thought that the sound of the record was not good. I was not happy with that at all. I mean we spent a frickin' small fortune on that record too – I didn't think the studio sounded good that we recorded it in and then I don't think the mixes ended up sounding right. I was not impressed with the sound quality at all."

Around the time of Arrival you were saying some very nice things about Kevin Shirley, why didn't you get him to produce the album?

"You know what? I don't know!" (laughs). "We wanted to go back to the way we had done things in the past. Kevin Elson had not done a record with us in years - he was involved in all our biggest records that we had on Columbia back in the day - and the mix engineer Mike Stone had passed away so we decided to use Mike Fraser, who I completely respected from his past and had worked with in Bad English. It just wasn't the right studio I think, with the wrong board – the funny thing was that I went back there recently and used the studio next door to record a track, and it sounded brilliant. I think it was just the wrong studio and the wrong board."

How have you found working with Frontiers Records rather than a major label?

(Pauses) "I think...Frontiers – I would not go back there! I think initially they do a great job with their packaging, but the problem with them is they do a great job getting it out and promoting for the first month and then as soon as they make their money back they drop the ball. I think any indie label - they don't have a lot of money to spend and they're looking to make their money back, or maybe double their money, and then the promotion stops and they just move on to the next thing."

Most of your back catalogue has been re-mastered again, sometimes with bonus tracks, but most of the bonus tracks were already on the ‘Time' boxed set – are there any more unreleased tracks out there sitting on a shelf somewhere?

"I don't even know what's on the re-releases, that was Steve Perry and Sony working together, and to tell you the truth I'm so far removed from that that I don't know what's on them. I really doubt that there's anything left on the shelf, there are a few live recordings and stuff like that but I don't think there's anything recorded in a studio that hasn't been put out already."

So Ross, Jonathan and yourself weren't asked to be involved with those, or the Houston DVD?

"We're busy playing while he's busy re-releasing everything we've ever done" (laughs). "We spent seven months of last year on tour."

Do you think that's him still looking back whilst you're looking forward?

"I guess so – I don't know what I'm really saying" (laughs), "but we're playing live and making new records and he's recreating the past. I think in a sense he's going "Remember me, remember me?" It's not like anyone's going to forget about him, but if that's what he wants to do – keep repackaging and re-releasing old stuff instead of new stuff – I guess that's what he wants to do, you'd have to talk to him about that."

Did you not speak to him about this when you all attended the unveiling of your star on Hollywood's Walk Of Fame?

"I didn't speak to him at all. I had done some radio interviews two days before that happened – one that goes all over the USA, and another big radio show with Mark & Brian – point blank inviting him down because I felt he should be there. It was up to him, but he said that my interviews had nothing to do with him being there."

Were you surprised that he showed up?

"I was glad. He put in the work during our most successful years and deserved to be there with us."