Journey

All Music Guide:

During their initial 14 years of existence (1973-1987), Journey altered their musical approach and their personnel extensively while becoming a top touring and recording band. The only constant factor was guitarist Neal Schon, a music prodigy who had been a member of Santana in 1971-1972. The original unit, which was named in a contest on KSAN-FM in San Francisco, featured Schon, bassist Ross Valory, drummer Prairie Prince (replaced by Aynsley Dunbar), and guitarist George Tickner (who left after the first album). Another former Santana member, keyboard player and singer Gregg Rolie, joined shortly afterward. This lineup recorded Journey (1975), the first of three moderate-selling jazz-rock albums given over largely to instrumentals.

By 1977, however, the group decided it needed a strong vocalist/frontman and hired Steve Perry. The results were immediately felt on the fourth album, Infinity (1978), which sold a million copies within a year. (By this time, Dunbar had been replaced by Steve Smith.) Evolution (1979) was similarly successful, as was Departure (after which Rolie was replaced by Jonathan Cain). Following a live album, Captured (1981), Journey released Escape, which broke them through to the top ranks of pop groups by scoring three Top Ten hit singles, all ballads highlighting Perry's smooth tenor: "Who's Crying Now," "Don't Stop Believin'," and "Open Arms." The album topped the charts and sold millions. Frontiers (1983), featuring the hit "Separate Ways," was another big success, after which Perry released a double-platinum solo album, Street Talk (1984). When the group got back together to make a new album, Valory and Smith were no longer in the lineup and Raised on Radio (1986) was made by Schon, Perry, and Cain, who added other musicians for a tour.

Following the tour, Journey disbanded. Perry went into a prolonged period of seclusion as Schon and Cain formed Bad English with vocalist John Waite. Bad English had several hit singles, including the chart-topper "When I See You Smile," before breaking up. Perry returned to recording in 1994, releasing For the Love of Strange Medicine. Although the album went gold, it was a commercial disappointment by previous standards. In 1996, Perry, Schon, Cain, Valory, and Smith staged a Journey reunion, releasing the million-selling Trial by Fire, which featured the gold-selling Top 20 single "When You Love a Woman," and going on tour. Perry and Smith opted out of the reunion after the tour, but Journey continued, hiring a new lead singer, Steve Augeri (formerly of Tall Stories), and a new drummer, Bad English's Deen Castronovo, who made their debuts on "Remember Me," a track on the 1998 Armageddon soundtrack. The band next reconvened in 2001. Arrival, Journey's 11th new studio album, was released in April, followed by a national tour.

The band received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on January 21, 2005. That same year they released a new album, Generations, and embarked on their 30th anniversary tour. Shows on the tour stretched over three hours long and were divided into two sets -- one focusing on pre-Escape material, the other on post-Escape material. The archival release Live in Houston 1981: The Escape Tour appeared on both DVD and CD in 2006, the same year that the group brought Jeff Scott Soto aboard as a replacement for Augeri, who developed a throat infection that prevented him from singing.

However, Soto's time with the band was limited; in 2007, Journey announced that they had parted ways with the singer and were once again seeking a frontman. They found him in Arnel Pineda, a Filipino vocalist that they discovered after seeing him perform on YouTube. Pineda made his debut with the band in 2008, the same year that Journey released Revelation. Fueled by the adult contemporary hit "After All These Years," Revelation was a surprise hit that wound up going platinum. Journey returned in the summer of 2011 with Eclipse, a concept album that saw the band tie together its progressive rock beginnings with its '80s arena rock peak.

Wikipedia:

Journey is an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1973 by former members of Santana and Frumious Bandersnatch. The band has gone through several phases; its strongest commercial success occurred between 1978 and 1987, after which it temporarily disbanded. During that period, the band released a series of hit songs, including 1981's "Don't Stop Believin'", which became in 2009 the top-selling catalog track in iTunes history. Its parent studio album, Escape, the band's eighth and most successful, reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and yielded another of their most popular singles, "Open Arms". Its 1983 follow-up, Frontiers, was almost as successful in the United States, reaching No. 2 and spawning several successful singles; it broadened the band's appeal in the United Kingdom, where it reached No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart. Journey enjoyed a successful reunion in the mid-1990s, and later regrouped with a series of lead singers.

Sales have resulted in two gold albums, eight multi-platinum albums, and one diamond album (including seven consecutive multi-platinum albums between 1978 and 1987). They have had eighteen Top 40 singles in the US, six of which reached the Top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and two of which reached No. 1 on other Billboard charts, and a No. 6 hit on the UK Singles Chart in "Don't Stop Believin'". Originally a progressive rock band, Journey was described by Allmusic as having cemented a reputation as "one of America's most beloved (and sometimes hated) commercial rock/pop bands" by 1978, when they redefined their sound by embracing traditional pop arrangements on their fourth album, Infinity. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Journey has sold 47 million albums in the US, making them the 28th best selling band. Their worldwide sales have reached over 80 million albums. A 2005 USA Today opinion poll named Journey the fifth best American rock band in history. Their songs have become arena rock staples and are still played on rock radio stations across the world.

History [edit]

Formation, 1973–76 [edit]

The original members of Journey came together in San Francisco in 1973 under the auspices of former Santana manager Herbie Herbert. Originally called the Golden Gate Rhythm Section and intended to serve as a backup group for established Bay Area artists, the band included recent Santana alumni Neal Schon on lead guitar and Gregg Rolie on keyboards and lead vocals. Bassist Ross Valory and rhythm guitarist George Tickner, both of Frumious Bandersnatch, rounded out the group. Prairie Prince of The Tubes served as drummer. The band quickly abandoned the original "backup group" concept and developed a distinctive jazz fusion style. After an unsuccessful radio contest to name the group, roadie John Villaneuva suggested the name "Journey." The band's first public appearance came at the Winterland Ballroom on New Year’s Eve, 1973. Prairie Prince rejoined The Tubes shortly thereafter, and the band hired British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who had recently worked with John Lennon and Frank Zappa. On February 5, 1974, the new line-up made their debut at the Great American Music Hall and secured a recording contract with Columbia Records.

Journey released their eponymous first album in 1975, and rhythm guitarist Tickner left the band before they cut their second album, Look into the Future (1976). Neither album achieved significant sales, so Schon, Valory, and Dunbar took singing lessons in an attempt to add vocal harmonies to Rolie's lead. The following year's Next contained shorter tracks with more vocals, and featured Neal Schon as lead singer on two of the songs.

New musical direction, 1977-80 [edit]

Journey's album sales did not improve and Columbia Records requested that they change their musical style and add a frontman, with whom keyboardist Gregg Rolie could share lead vocal duties. The band hired Robert Fleischman and transitioned to a more popular style, akin to that of Foreigner and Boston. Journey went on tour with Fleischman in 1977 and together the new incarnation of the band wrote the hit "Wheel in the Sky", but fans were lukewarm to the change and management differences resulted in Fleischman leaving within the year.

In late 1977, Journey hired Steve Perry as their new lead singer. Perry added a clean, tenor sound and the band became a true pop act. Their fourth album, Infinity (1978), reached No. 21 on the album charts and gave the band their first RIAA-certified platinum album plus hit singles "Lights" (#68 U.S.) and "Wheel in the Sky" (#57 U.S.).

In late 1978, manager Herbie Herbert fired drummer Aynsley Dunbar, who joined Bay Area rivals Jefferson Starship shortly thereafter. He was replaced by Berklee-trained jazz drummer Steve Smith. Perry, Schon, Rolie, Smith, and Valory recorded 1979's Evolution, which gave the band their first Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 single, "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" (#16); and 1980's Departure, which reached No. 8 on the album charts and included the top-25 hit "Any Way You Want It".

Journey's new-found success brought the band an almost entirely new fan base. During the 1980 Departure world tour, the band recorded a live album, Captured. They also recorded the soundtrack to the film Dream, After Dream while in Japan.

Keyboardist Gregg Rolie now left a successful band for the second time in his career. Keyboardist Stevie "Keys" Roseman was brought in to record the lone studio track for Captured, "The Party's Over (Hopelessly in Love)," but Rolie recommended pianist Jonathan Cain of The Babys as the permanent replacement. With Cain's replacement of Rolie's Hammond B-3 organ with his own synthesizers, the band was poised for a new decade in which they would achieve their greatest musical success.

Height of popularity, 1981–83 [edit]

Journey released their eighth and biggest-selling studio album, Escape, in 1981. The album, which has thus far sold nine times platinum, went to number one on the album charts that year, and included three top-ten hits: "Who's Cryin' Now", "Don't Stop Believin'", and "Open Arms". The last is Journey's highest-charting single to date, staying at No.2 for six consecutive weeks and ranking at No.34 on Billboard's 1982 year-end Hot 100. MTV videotaped one of their two sold-out shows in Houston on November 6, 1981 in front of over 20,000 fans.

Capitalizing on their success, the band recorded radio commercials for Budweiser and sold rights to their likenesses and music for use in two video games: the Journey arcade game by Bally/Midway and Journey Escape by Data Age for the Atari 2600.

This success was met with piqued criticism. The 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide gave each of the band's albums only one star, with Dave Marsh writing that "Journey was a dead end for San Francisco area rock." Marsh later would anoint Escape as one of the worst number-one albums of all time.

Journey's next album, 1983's Frontiers, continued their commercial success, reaching No. 2 on the album charts, selling nearly six million copies. The album generated four Top 40 hits, "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)", which reached No. 8, "Faithfully", which reached No. 12, "Send Her My Love", and "After the Fall", both of which reached No. 23. By this time Journey had become one of the top touring and recording bands in the world. During the subsequent stadium tour, the band contracted with NFL Films to record a video documentary of their life on the road, Frontiers and Beyond. Scenes from the documentary were shot at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with more than 80,000 fans in attendance.

Break-up, 1984–94 [edit]

After the Frontiers stadium tour, Journey decided to take some time off. Lead singer Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon both pursued solo projects between 1982 and 1985. The band released two songs previously intended for Frontiers – "Ask the Lonely", on the soundtrack to the movie Two of a Kind in 1983; and "Only the Young", on the soundtrack to the movie Vision Quest in 1985. "Only the Young" reached No.9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. When Journey finally returned to record their 1986 album Raised on Radio, bass player Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith were fired from the band for musical and professional differences. Studio musicians handled the two vacant slots, including future American Idol judge Randy Jackson and established session player Larrie Londin. The album went multiplatinum, selling over two million copies. It also produced four top 20 singles, "Be Good to Yourself" (#9), "I'll Be Alright Without You" (#14), "Girl Can't Help It", and "Suzanne," both of which reached No. 17. The tour featured Jackson on bass and Mike Baird on drums, and was videotaped by MTV and made into a documentary, which included interviews with the current band members and concert footage of the Mountain Aire Festival show in Angels Camp, California. But with Perry unable or unwilling to remain actively involved, the band canceled the rest of the tour and went on an extended, indefinite hiatus in 1987.

Schon and Cain would spend the rest of 1987 collaborating with artists such as Jimmy Barnes and Michael Bolton before teaming up with Cain's ex-Babys bandmates John Waite and Ricky Phillips to form the supergroup Bad English with drummer Deen Castronovo in 1988. Steve Smith devoted his time to his jazz bands, Vital Information and Steps Ahead, and teamed up with Ross Valory and original Journey keyboardist Gregg Rolie to create The Storm with singer Kevin Chalfant and guitarist Josh Ramos. After the collapse of Bad English in 1991, Schon and Castronovo would form the glam metal band Hardline with brothers Johnny and Joey Gioeli, before joining Paul Rodgers' backing band in 1994. Cain would spend the next few years focusing on his solo career.

Between 1987 and 1995, Columbia Records released three Journey compilations, including the 1988 greatest hits album, which remains the band's best-selling record. It continues to sell 500,000 to 1,000,000 copies per year, and as of December 2008 was the 6th best selling greatest hits package in the United States.

Reunion, 1995–97 [edit]

In 1991 Perry, Schon, and Cain briefly reunited to perform "Faithfully" and "Lights" at the tribute concert for promoter Bill Graham. In October 1993, Kevin Chalfant (of The Storm) performed with Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain at a roast for manager Herbie Herbert. After that, Schon, Cain, Valory, Smith and Rolie briefly considered reuniting the band with Chalfant as lead singer. But in 1995, Steve Perry agreed to a reunion on the condition that they seek new management. Herbie Herbert was fired, and Eagles Manager Irving Azoff was retained.

In 1995 the Escape and Frontiers lineup (Perry, Schon, Cain, Valory, and Smith) reunited to record Trial by Fire. Released in 1996, the album included the hit single "When You Love a Woman", which reached No.12 on the Billboard charts, ranked at No.36 on Billboard's 1996 year-end Hot 100, and was nominated in 1997 for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The album also produced three top 40 mainstream rock tracks, "Message of Love" reaching No. 18, "Can't Tame the Lion" reaching No. 33, and "If He Should Break Your Heart" reaching No. 38.

Plans for a subsequent tour ended when Perry injured his hip while hiking in Hawaii in the summer of 1997, and could not perform without hip replacement surgery – which he for some time refused to undergo. In 1998, Schon and Cain decided to seek a new lead singer, at which point drummer Steve Smith left the band as well.

Lead singer replaced, 1998–present [edit]

In 1998, Journey replaced Steve Perry with Steve Augeri, formerly of Tyketto and Tall Stories. The band hired drummer Deen Castronovo, Schon's and Cain's Bad English bandmate, and drummer for Hardline, to replace Steve Smith. The band released their next studio album, Arrival, in 2001. "All the Way" became a minor adult contemporary hit from the album. In 2002, the band released a four-track CD titled Red 13, with an album cover design chosen through a fan contest. In 2005 the band was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Steve Perry surprised many attendees by showing up for the event. Also in 2005, Journey embarked on their 30th anniversary tour, and released their twelfth full-length studio album, Generations, in which each band member performed lead vocals on at least one song.

In July 2006, Steve Augeri was dropped from the band while they toured with Def Leppard, the band citing a "chronic throat infection." Augeri had been suffering from vocal attrition problems since 2003 and Journey had been accused of using pre-recorded lead vocals. For nearly a year Jeff Scott Soto from Talisman filled in, with the band for several months referring to Soto as Journey's official lead singer. But in June 2007 the band announced that Soto was no longer the lead singer. That spring HBO aired the finale of the series The Sopranos, concluding with Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" emanating from a diner jukebox. Without a lead singer, the band found itself unable to tour to capitalize on the heightened nostalgia for 1980s music demonstrated by the show.

In the summer of 2007, Journey began searching for a new lead singer. After Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon found videos of Jeremey Hunsicker performing with his Journey tribute band Frontiers on YouTube, they made a last minute decision to fly across the country to Charlotte, North Carolina to watch Hunsicker perform. After the show, Schon and Cain approached Hunsicker and invited him to fly out to California and audition for the position as lead vocalist for Journey. Hunsicker rehearsed with the band and they wrote songs together for the band's upcoming album Revelation. Ultimately things did not work out between Journey and Hunsicker. Although he did not become the new singer for the band Hunsicker did receive credit for helping to write the song "Never Walk Away" which was the leading track on the album Revelation.

In December 2007, Journey hired Filipino singer Arnel Pineda of the cover band The Zoo after Neal Schon saw him on YouTube singing covers of Journey songs. Their next album, Revelation, debuted at No.5 on the Billboard charts, selling more than 196,000 units in its first two weeks and staying in the top 20 for 6 weeks. Journey also found success on billboard's adult contemporary chart where the single "After All These Years" spent over 23 weeks, peaking at number 9. Receipts from the 2008 tour made Journey one of the top grossing concert tours of the year, bringing in over $35,000,000. On December 18, 2008, Revelation was certified platinum by RIAA. The band's second album with Pineda, Eclipse, was released on May 24, 2011, and debuted at No.13 on the Billboard 200 chart. In November, 2011, Journey released their second greatest hits compilation titled Journey: Greatest Hits: Volume 2 which features songs picked by former frontman Steve Perry.

Although Pineda was not the first foreign national to become a member of Journey (former drummer Aynsley Dunbar is British), nor even the first non-white (former bass player Randy Jackson is black), the transition resulted in what Marin Independent Journal writer Paul Liberatore called "an undercurrent of racism among some Journey fans." Keyboardist Jonathan Cain responded to such sentiments: "We've become a world band. We're international now. We're not about one color."

In 2012 the TriBeCa Film Festival premiered a Documentary titled Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey, directed by Ramona A. Diaz. The documentary tells the story of how Journey found lead singer, Arnel Pineda, and follows the band on the road for a year.

Logo [edit]

After featuring the members of the band in various poses for the first three studio albums, in 1980 Journey adopted the logo of the scarab beetle, a symbol borrowed from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Timeline [edit]

In popular culture [edit]

Over the years, Journey songs have been heard or referred to in numerous films, television shows, video games, and even on Broadway. The band's songs have been covered by multiple artists and adopted by sports teams. Most notably, "Don't Stop Believin'" was heard in the final episode of The Sopranos, adapted by the television show Glee, sung by the Family Guy cast, adopted as the unofficial anthem of the 2005 and 2010 World Series champion baseball teams, performed by The Chipmunks in their 2008 album Undeniable, and sung by the cast of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages.