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Journey (band)

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Journey is an Arena rock band formed in 1973 in San Francisco, California.

The band has gone through several phases since its inception by former members of Santana. The band's greatest commercial success came in the early 1980s with a series of power ballads and soaring classics such as "Don't Stop Believin'", "Any Way You Want It," "Open Arms", "Separate Ways", "Wheel in the Sky" and "Faithfully." Many credit the group's success to Steve Perry's powerful vocals and Neal Schon's complex guitar work.

Contents

Origins

See Santana for additional background of the people who would become Journey.

In December 1971, Gregg Rolie, the organist and vocalist and co-founding member of Santana, decided that it was time to leave the band, due to longstanding disagreements with Carlos Santana about the musical direction of the group. He went home to Seattle and opened a restaurant with his father.

While all this was going on, there was another face on the scene; the road manager for Santana, Walter "Herbie" Herbert. After an abortive South American tour, Herbert was on Carlos’ bad side. Herbie and Santana guitarist Neal Schon had become good friends on the tour. Herbie had the idea to take Schon and form a new band around his guitar-playing talents. After Schon parted ways with a Larry Graham side project that would eventually become Graham Central Station, he agreed. Herbert was able to get George Tickner (guitar) and Ross Valory (former bassist for the Steve Miller Band) who were at the time playing in Frumious Bandersnatch (another band that Herbie managed) to join Schon and form a new band. Prairie Prince (drums), who was already with The Tubes, was recruited to join the new effort.

Meanwhile, Rolie's restaurant in Seattle was not doing well. Rolie sold a majority of it, but still was on the hook financially. Herbert and Schon agreed that they should also bring in Rolie, and Herbie made the call. In June 1973, the Golden Gate Rhythm Section was formed. Their initial plan was to be a ready-made studio band for anyone wanting to cut a record in San Francisco. While waiting for a job to come along, Tickner started submitting ideas for the band's own original material. Tickner was leaning toward very progressive material, material that was probably not commercially viable, but was pushing musical boundaries. They recorded some demo tapes and sent them to KSAN-FM, the Bay Area rock station. After listeners heard the tapes, and were given some background on the band, they were invited to submit names for the band. There is some dispute as to who actually came up with the name Journey, but John Villaneuva, a Herbert associate, put it forward to Herbie, and the band had a new name.

First incarnation

The band's first public appearance came at Winterland New Year’s Eve 1973. The next day, they flew to Hawaii and played the Crater Festival. Prince, while he didn’t mind helping the band out, was still tied to his other band, The Tubes. He did not really want make a commitment to join formally, so Herbert, having become manager of the new band, arranged for auditions for a new drummer, but nobody clicked. Herbert thought of Aynsley Dunbar, a drummer who played with Frank Zappa, John Mayall, Jeff Beck, Bonzo Dog Band, Mothers of Invention, Lou Reed, and David Bowie. Schon remembered seeing him play with Zappa, and the hunt was on. Although Dunbar didn’t know the members of Journey, he saw the potential and joined the band. On 5 February 1974, the new line-up made their debut at the Great American Music Hall. The band was off and running.

Signed to Columbia Records, Journey released its self-titled first album Journey in 1975. It showcased their considerable talent as musicians on jazz-flavored progressive rock epics.

Guitarist George Tickner was tired from touring and left the band by the time of their second album, Look into the Future (1976), which toned down a little the overt progressiveness of their first release but still retained a jazz fusion base. The following year's Next tried for shorter tracks to increase accessibility, but didn't find commercial success (although it did start a pattern of trademark one-word album titles).

A new vocalist, phase one

With the mediocre sales of the album Next and the difficulties Gregg Rolie was having maintaining his dual role as keyboardist and lead vocalist (in fact, Neal Schon sang on a few of that album's tracks), the band was pressured by the studio to change direction and find a new lead singer and frontman. As a result, Journey enlisted Robert Fleischman. Fleischman, a southern California native, had been playing with a Chicago-based touring band when his manager, Barry Fey, brought him to Denver in early 1977 for a showcase with studio executives. "It was completely snowing and we didn’t know if people were gonna’ make it, and then all the people from the west coast and the east coast made it," Fleischman recalls [link]. He was "discovered" by a CBS executive at the showcase, and within two weeks was flown out to San Francisco for an audition with Journey.

Told that the band was transitioning to a more popular style, akin to that of Foreigner and Boston, Fleischman knew that his Led Zeppelin-inspired vocal style would be an asset. But he was taken aback by the sheer power of the band he was hooking up with. In their first studio session, Fleishman recalls, "It was like...having rockets on the back of your pockets. And they’d been together so long and they were so tight that it was great to play with people that way." [link] The sessions that winter ultimately produced "For You," which later appeared on the Time3 box set, and "Wheel in the Sky," later recorded--without Fleischman--for the Infinity album.

Fleischman went out on the road with Journey that spring, but his tenure in the band was short-lived. He kept his own manager, Barry Fey, a constant affront to the authority of Journey's manager, Herbie Herbert. Additionally, Herbert seemed unwilling to let the band's new direction play out immediately, and Fleischman often found himself relegated to shaking a tambourine while the band played its classic numbers to its diehard core of fusion fans. Fleischman also apparently clashed with other band members when he failed to finish new songs promptly [link].

A new vocalist, redux

Manager Herbie Herbert had heard of singer Steve Perry, and when the singer's demo tape (from his previous band Alien Project) of a song called "If You Need Me, Call Me" (which later appeared on Perry's Greatest Hits album) was put in his hands by roadie Jack Villanueva, Herbie knew he needed to make a change. After an interesting interlude in which Perry was covertly introduced to the band (with Fleischman being told Perry was Villanueva's Portuguese cousin), Fleischman was fired. Perry made his public debut with Journey in October 1977 in San Francisco.

In Perry's first meeting with Schon, the pair quickly penned their first song together, "Patiently", which would appear on the new album Infinity in 1978. Perry added his signature vocals to now-classic tracks such as "Lights" (written by Perry as an ode to San Francisco but originally written as an ode to Los Angeles) and "Wheel in the Sky" (written by Fleischman, Schon and Valory's then-wife, Diane) and "Anytime". In addition, Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker was brought in by Fleischman to provide a more layered sound. The changes worked, and Journey achieved their highest chart success to date, reaching No. 21 on the album charts.

In 1979 Dunbar was fired, due to what Herbie claimed was "incompatibility of the first order," and joined Jefferson Starship. His replacement on drums was Steve Smith for the album Evolution, and the band got its first Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 single, "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'".

1980 saw the album Departure, which continued the trend toward increasing commercial success, reaching No. 8 on the album charts. "Any Way You Want It" was a Top 25 single and received solid FM radio airplay. At this point, the band had a solid concert following as well. They were poised for large-scale success.

Exhausted from extensive touring, Rolie departed. Before leaving, he recommended a successor for keyboards: Jonathan Cain, a former member of The Babys, a band that had just previously toured with Journey.

Massive commercial success

Scene from the music video for Separate Ways.
Scene from the music video for Separate Ways.

In 1981, Journey's seventh studio album, Escape, went to No. 1 on the album charts and would go on to become their most popular (nine times platinum). The hits "Who's Crying Now", "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Open Arms" all reached the Top 10 as singles. The band's polished sound, fronted by Perry's distinctive and soon-to-be widely imitated voice, became a popular radio presence.

In particular, "Don't Stop Believin'" showcased how well Perry's soaring tenor could interlace with Cain's full piano chords and Schon's dynamic guitar work, while "Open Arms" — which spent six weeks at No. 2 on the charts — helped establish Perry as the standard for 1980s arena rock power ballad vocals.

Such success did not help Journey with rock critics, who for the most part had not liked any edition of the band. The 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide gave all their albums only one star, saying "Journey was a dead end for San Francisco area rock ... utter triviality ... banality ... reek[s] of exploitative cynicism." Fairly or not, critics often lumped Journey together with other one-word-named "corporate rock" bands such as Boston, Foreigner, Asia, Survivor and so forth.

In 1982, the band contributed two tracks ("Only Solutions" and "1990's Theme") to the Disney feature film Tron. Coincidentally, later that year the group became the first rock band to inspire a video game, with Journey and [[Journey: Escape]].

Journey's next album, 1983's Frontiers, continued their commercial success. It reached No. 2 on the album charts and scored four hit singles, with "Faithfully" and "Separate Ways" reaching the highest at Nos. 12 and 8, respectively. Cain's presence was more felt on this album, both in his songwriting (he was the sole writer of "Faithfully") and in the greater use of keyboards in the sound.

It was now the MTV era, and Journey's popularity was boosted by a documentary-like music video for "Faithfully", which showed various band members and their families on tour and which helped place the song up with Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" and Jackson Browne's "Load Out/Stay" as a life-on-the-road favorite.

Turmoil

Album cover to She's Mine single
Album cover to She's Mine single

Lead singer Steve Perry received much of the credit for Journey's success. In 1984, he released a solo album, Street Talk, which was successful and scored a very popular song and MTV video with "Oh Sherrie". Much to the dismay of Herbert, who had a falling out with Perry at that time, original member and bassist Valory and drummer Smith were fired from the band. The two were replaced by various studio musicians for the recording of the 1986 album Raised on Radio (which Perry produced), including future "American Idol" judge Randy Jackson (bass) and Larrie Londin (drums). Smith recorded two tracks with Journey on the album before departing.

Production on Raised on Radio was stop-and-go, due to the poor health of Perry's mother, Mary Perry. However, the classic Journey sound still can be heard on "Girl Can't Help It" and "Be Good to Yourself", which made the Top 10 singles chart. The album closer, "Why Can't This Night Go on Forever", also achieved chart success. Overall, the album sold 2 million copies. This is one of the least mentioned records, due to many believeing that this was just an extension of Perry's solo career.

A tour followed, which featured Jackson on bass and Mike Baird on drums. Afterward, Perry, exhausted from the constant touring, grieving from the death of his mother, and the collapse of his six-year relationship with Sherrie Swafford, walked away from Journey in 1987, ending the band's ride at the top. Perry, despite working on a solo project in 1989 that was shelved, left the industry for several years before officially returning in 1994.

Schon and Cain left in 1989 to join Cain's ex-Babys bandmate John Waite, forming Bad English, and to record solo albums. Schon then joined his brothers-in-laws' group, Hardline. By 1991, Valory, Smith and Rolie joined The Storm; all the members had moved on with their lives and careers.

Perry also recorded "Don't Fight It" (1983), with Kenny Loggins. He has recorded with other groups since then, and released another solo album in 1994 (For the Love of Strange Medicine) and a solo greatest-hits collection in 1998. Schon has created two albums with Jan Hammer (1981 and 1983, plus a compilation album of the two in the 2000s) and in 1985 was part of the HSAS (Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve) project. He also continues to record solo work.

Attempts to re-form

Compilations and live albums were released while Journey was inactive. Mariah Carey's version of "Open Arms" gained Journey some attention in the mid-1990s (both Smith and Jackson had worked with Carey).

In 1993, Kevin Chalfant of The Storm performed with members of Journey on a few shows, and a reunited Journey was in the works with Chalfant, Schon, Cain, Valory, Smith and Rolie. That lineup did not come to fruition, when Perry announced he was rejoining Journey in 1995. This produced the reunion album Trial by Fire in 1996, which included a hit single, "When You Love a Woman".

Following the success of Trial by Fire, the members of Journey prepared for a much-anticipated tour, cancelled when Perry injured his hip while hiking in Hawaii. The rest of the band members waited over two years for Perry to make a decision to either have surgery or decide to go on tour. In 1998, the band was beginning to get impatient and pressed Perry for a decision about his hip injury. When Perry refused, Cain and Schon reluctantly decided to continue the band without him. Drummer Smith, believing Journey would not survive without Perry, decided to leave the band as well, in favor of a longstanding jazz project (Vital Information) on which he'd been working prior to the reconstitution of Journey.

These decisions left Journey without a drummer and a lead vocalist. The drumming position was filled by Deen Castronovo, Schon's and Cain's Bad English bandmate, and the drummer for Hardline. The lead vocalist position would later be filled in 1998 by Steve Augeri, former Tyketto and Tall Stories vocalist. Augeri had dropped out of the music business and was working at The Gap in New York City. He received a phone call from Schon, who had heard a tape of Augeri's vocals. Schon invited him to audition for the band, and, despite having not sung much in recent months, he impressed Journey members enough to land the gig. At this point Perry was legally no longer a member of Journey. Ironically, Augeri is sometimes confused with Perry, as they physically resemble each other, are both named Steve, and have similar vocal styles. In fact, Cain tells a story of how fans reacted angrily to Journey using Perry-led live tracks to advertise the new lineup's tour, when in fact the tracks featured Augeri.

The band members promptly went to work recording a track for the soundtrack to the movie Armageddon, called "Remember Me". Not long after, the band began recording their next studio album, Arrival. The album originally was released in Japan in late 2000, but due to its leakage onto the internet and fans' negative reaction to its ballad-heavy sound, the band decided to delay its U.S. release and record two more harder tunes for the American version. "All the Way" became a minor adult contemporary hit from the album.

In 2001, the band participated in an episode of VH1's Behind the Music, but statements made during the interviews only exacerbated tensions between Perry and the group.

Recent

Journey's critical reputation did not improve with the passage of time: The 2004 edition of the Rolling Stone Album Guide mentioned above calls Journey the perfect karaoke act and gives no studio album of theirs more than two-and-a-half stars out of five; the greatest-hits albums did fare a little better.

Although cynically written off by many as a corporate pop act, Journey has become a half-ironic, half-reverent touchstone of sorts among some who would have been too young to see the band's original success, with semi-cultish references—at least to their greatest hits popping up on Family Guy and Beavis and Butthead, among other places. The anthem "Don't Stop Believin'" became a public rallying cry for the 2005 World Series champion Chicago White Sox (Perry was invited to the celebration parade in Chicago, where he sang "Don't Stop Believin'" with members of the team). On February 6, 2005 "Don't Stop Believin'" was heard in a FedExKinko's commercial starring Burt Reynolds that aired during Super Bowl XXXIX. The revitalized song even appeared in the widely-watched 2006 American Idol finale.

Journey and Steve Perry gained new attention in the 2000s due to Randy Jackson, who since his Journey involvement had become a successful recording-industry figure and then an American Idol judge. Film clips of Jackson with the band on tour were shown, and various contestants on Idol attempted to measure up vocally by singing Journey numbers, exposing the songs to a new generation of listeners. The best remembered of these attempts were Clay Aiken's take on "Open Arms" in a key semifinal round of the show (and later in a duet with fellow Idol Kelly Clarkson on their joint concert tour), and Elliott Yamin's praiseworthy performance of the same song in the 2006 semifinal round, but no attempts fully reached the high bar for singing set by Steve Perry.

On January 21, 2005, Journey received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where Perry made a surprise appearance at the ceremony. Relations between him and the rest of the group improved, but Perry said there was no chance of rejoining his former band in the foreseeable future. Ten current or former Journey bandmates appeared that day, including Perry and the current line-up, plus Steve Smith, Aynsley Dunbar, George Tickner and Robert Fleischman (Gregg Rolie was unable to attend the induction ceremony due to prior commitments). Two years before, Journey was inducted into the San Francisco Music Hall of Fame, with Rolie, Cain, Smith, Valory, Schon, Dunbar, Castronovo and Augeri appearing at that ceremony.

In 2005 the band embarked on their 30th anniversary tour, giving away free promotional copies of their new studio album, Generations to numbered ticket holders at most concerts, and eventually released the album commercially in October 2005. The shows on the tour each ran an three hours in length, and were divided into two sets — the first set included material from the early years (some of it being played live for the first time), while the second was based on material from Escape and onward.

In December of 2005 Journey's hit from 1981, Don't Stop Believin', rose to #13 on the "Hot Digital Songs" chart.

Journey was nominated for two categories on VH1's Big in '05 awards show: "Big Old-School Triumph" and "Big Download" (for "Don't Stop Believin'").

Journey embarked on a mini-european tour taking in two 2hr performances in Edinburgh Playhouse and Manchester Apollo. There were four appearances at European festivals (UK, Sweden, Germany & Holland). Following this Journey is on tour in America with Def Leppard during the summer of 2006.However Augeri experienced problems with his voice shortly after the tour began and was forced to step down.Journey announced he was temporarily leaving the tour due to a throat infection which requires that he rest his vocal chords; Jeff Scott Soto will fill in for him while he recovers.

Augeri is still a regular member and has not actually left the band:

The next day, Journey performed at the Nissan Pavillion in Bristow, Virginia with Def Leppard without Steve Augeri, using a replacement to fill in for him. Journey have gone on record as saying they will return to do a larger scale European Tour in 2007 following sell out concerts, rave reviews and the bands own admission that they were "totally blown away by your tremendous and positive response to our shows and songs, and that we had no idea how much you have missed seeing us, but even more so, how much we’ve missed seeing you and visiting your great countries"

On June 10, 2006 Sirius Satellite Radio named Journey's "Faithfully" the top prom song of the '80s.

Band members

Current Members

Former members

Discography

Albums

These are all studio albums unless stated otherwise:
  1. Journey (1975)
  2. Look into the Future (1976)
  3. Next (1977)
  4. Infinity (1978) - first album featuring Steve Perry
  5. Evolution (1979)
  6. In the Beginning (1980) - features selections from their first three studio albums
  7. Departure (1980)
  8. Dream After Dream (1980) - Japanese movie soundtrack
  9. Captured (1981) Live recordings of performances on the Departure tour
  10. Escape (1981)
  11. Tron (1982) - film soundtrack
  12. Frontiers (1983)
  13. Two of a Kind (1983) - film soundtrack
  14. Risky Business (1983) - film soundtrack
  15. Vision Quest (1985) - film soundtrack
  16. Raised on Radio (1986) - featuring only Perry, Schon and Cain with studio musicians
  17. Greatest Hits (1988)
  18. The Ballade (1991) - compilation of 1977-1986 ballads; Japan only
  19. Time3 (1992) Box set spanning 1974-1986; includes 11 previously unreleased tracks
  20. Trial by Fire (1996)
  21. Greatest Hits Live (1998) - recorded during '81–'84 touring
  22. Armageddon (1998) - film soundtrack; first appearances of Augeri and Castronovo "Remember Me"
  23. Arrival (2001)
  24. The Essential Journey (2001) - 2-disc compilation
  25. The Journey Continues (2001) - Greatest Hits collection; Japan only
  26. Red 13 (2002) EP
  27. Open Arms~Greatest Hits (2004) - Greatest Hits collection; Japan only
  28. Generations (29 August 2005)

DVDs

  1. Frontiers and Beyond (1984) - NFL Films documentary about the band's Frontiers tour; later released for a short time on DVD through Journey's official site in 2002
  2. Journey 2001 (2001) - concert footage from Las Vegas in 2001
  3. Greatest Hits 1977-1997 (2004) - collection of music videos from 1977-1997
  4. Live In Houston 1981 (2005) - DVD of MTV-aired Escape show; also includes a CD of the same concert

Singles

From Journey:

From Look Into the Future:

From Next:

From Infinity:

From Evolution:

From Departure:

From Captured:

From Escape:

From Tron Soundtrack:

From Frontiers: 

From Two Of A Kind:




From Vision Quest:




From Raised On Radio:




From Trial By Fire:

From Armageddon:




From Arrival: 




From Generations:



References in popular culture

In the 1980 movie Caddyshack, the Rodney Dangerfield character's golf bag has a stereo that plays "Any Way You Want It" at an inopportune moment.


This reference was used again in the "Simpsons" episode 'Burns, Baby, Burns' (#157, 1996), where 'Any Way You Want It' is played in the final scene as Dangerfield's character, Larry Burns, proclaims 'let's party'.


Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of the animated comedy South Park, have chosen to use references to the band Journey, Steve Perry, and their music as jokes in both their television shows and movies. In Episode 909 of South Park, entitled "Erection Day," a little girl playing piano in the talent competition begins to sing the opening to "Open Arms," beginning "Lying beside you, here in the dark...," before the show cuts onto another aspect of the plot.


In the movie BASEketball, a Stone and Parker movie, one of the competitors in the game of baseketball, in an attempt to "psyche out" his opponent, is heard singing "And I should've been gone", a line from the Steve Perry song, "Oh Sherrie."  Upon his opponent missing his shot, he declares, "Dude, I thought we said no more Journey psyche-outs."


In the fourth season episode of Family Guy entitled "Don't Make Me Over," Peter, Cleveland, Joe and Quagmire sing "Don't Stop Believin'" with a karaoke machine, inspiring the quartet to form a rock band, "Fat, Horny, Black, and Joe." Incidentally, the airing of the episode caused a spike in iTunes online music sales for the song, placing it in the Top 10 most downloaded tracks for that week and the Top 25 for that month (August 2005). Since then it has remained highly downloaded and is still in the Top 5 most-bought for "Rock Music." The popularity and its resultant newsmaking further served to renew interest in the band and its recordings.


Further encouraging nationwide downloads of the song, MTV's [[Laguna_Beach:_The_Real_Orange_County|Laguna Beach]] aired a segment featuring the teens singing to "Don't Stop Believin'" in 2005.


The Chicago White Sox baseball team adopted "Don't Stop Believin'" as their theme song for their playoff push towards the 2005 World Series [link], after players Joe Crede and A.J. Pierzynski went to a bar and screamed "Play some freakin' Journey!" to a bad lounge singer. On October 28, 2005, Steve Perry led the team and the crowd in an a capella rendition of the song, on the podium at the World Series Championship celebration in Chicago.


In the "The Shield" season three episode "Safe", Detective Ronnie Gardocki comments that he was planning to go see Journey in concert when asked by one character as to his evening plans.     


In the third season episode of Scrubs entitled "My Journey," JD mentions to Carla that he knows a great Journey cover band called "The Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin's" and that she should book to play at her and Turk's wedding reception. He then begins to sing the first verse of "Don't Stop Believin'."  The episode concluded with the song played in full.


"Don't Stop Believin'" was also featured in the 2003 film "Monster," starring Charlize Theron, who won an Academy Award for her performance.


Popular Fox Network television show The OC has featured Journey numerous times as character Ryan Atwood's favorite artist.


In the movie The Wedding Singer, the scene in which Adam Sandler's character, Robbie, is left at the altar features a string ensemble at the wedding playing "Don't Stop Believin'."


On the "Tsst" episode of South Park, Cartman sings a part from "Don't Stop Believin'."


On an episode of Saturday Night Live, "Don't Stop Believin'" is played by the studio band. The skit was about a man who loved himself so much, he re-recorded all of his favorite music with his own voice.


In the film Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle, the song "Anyway You Want It" is played at the end before the credits



See also



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