November 15, 2018 • 48 mins
At the height of Journey’s success, frontman Steve Perry walked away from the band and his life as a rockstar in search of a quieter existence. Now, 30 years later, he’s back with the solo album Traces. Katie caught up with Steve about what he’s been doing on his very, very long vacation, why his journey with Journey had to end, and the late-in-life love whose death inspired the new album. Plus, the story behind the lyrics of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Journey’s smash hit that went on to be the most downloaded song of the twentieth century.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Brian, Hi Katie. You know, the past couple of
weeks we've been all about politics, but we thought it
would be nice to take a little break from it all,
which is kind of fitting because that's what today's guests
might be best known for, Brian, at least until recently,
taking a very long break. That's true. Our guest today
(00:24):
is Steve Perry. He was the frontman for the band
Journey in the nineteen eighties, and unless you're truly living
under a rock, you've heard Steve's lead vocals on the
most downloaded song of the twentieth century. St Just hearing
(00:53):
a few seconds of that transports me to another time
and place, specifically Atlanta, Georgia, when I was work keen
as an associate producer for CNN and this song came
on the radio and I loved it. Yeah, and I
would have loved it had I been born at the time.
But thanks, Brian, that is real. Welcol You're very welcome anyway.
(01:15):
Steve Perry always wanted to be a musician, but by
his late twenties he felt he'd run out his music
career playing for small time bands in dusty bars. He
left his musical dreams two men turkey coops on a
farm in California. But then one day he got a
call from a band manager named Herbie Herbert that would
change his life. That's an understatement, because Herbie asked Steve
(01:37):
if he'd be the lead singer in a band called Journey,
alongside guitarist Neil Seawn Now with Steve at the mic.
The band went on to record eight multi platinum albums
Toward the World, but the life of a mega star
grew kind of old for Steve. It was really hard
on him, so following his mom's death, he walked away.
(01:57):
The last time he performed live, which Journey, was in
n seven, more than thirty years ago, and Steve has
pretty much stayed out of the spotlight since then until
last month. That's right, after decades of keeping a very
low profile, Steve came out of retirement and recorded a
new album called Traces. He was motivated by a late
(02:20):
in life love who made him think twice about how
he was going to spend the next thirty years. So
we'll get to his music, his career, and why he
felt the need to walk away, or I should say, Katie,
you will get to all of that since I wasn't
able to join you for your conversation with Steve, we
missed you, Brian. I think you really would have liked him, Hi, Beat,
I would have, and honestly, I could have used some
(02:41):
backup vocals. You'll hear that a little bit later on.
But we talked about so many things. So let's get
right to my interview with Steve Perry. Are you having
fund Steve, where we talk about your life and what's
(03:02):
been going on and how you got to this moment
in time. Is it nice to be back. I'm having fun.
It's a lot of work and I haven't been working
for a long time, so I had a nice vacation.
I think that's probably you had a twenty year vacation.
Actually I left years ago. Yeah, I can't it. Wow,
And here we are February. I was home and that
(03:27):
was it. You just walked away from everything. And before
we talk about all that, I'm curious what your life
has been like since you left the band. You went
from such an intense, extreme grueling, high profile schedule right
and so many demands on you to being able to
(03:48):
kind of get up in the morning and say, what
am I going to do today? Was that a huge adjustment?
Did you love it? Tell me everything? It was? It
was very, very difficult just to go back to, uh,
the simplicities of life when as a child I reached
for so much more. I don't know why I needed more.
(04:12):
I think it was something that started when I watched
my father sing when I was about four or five
years old, and I saw him singing at the Hamperd
Civic Auditorium and my mother was performing in her big
can can dress in the same production. I can't remember
what it was, but I remember looking at my father
and he's singing, and I knew I had that inside
of me. I just knew I had it inside of
me because I said to myself, I can do that.
(04:36):
And so I would sing around the house. And then,
of course I discovered music. That was a big part
of my life. I started playing at an early age.
I guess it drove me. The discovery of music and
the songwriting, the recording, the sound of their voices, the
(04:57):
string parts, that it lifted me in such a way
emotionally that I wanted to get closer to it. I
was drawn to it. Now, you gotta know. Of course,
my dad was a musical guy. Did he play instruments?
You know? The only instrument I remember is he had
a forty nine Ford and he had this big steering
(05:19):
wheel and he literally had a ring on each finger.
And he was sitting there and you know, when some
swing song was on the radio, he'd be tapping away
like a drum pocket thing and um. And I would
just pay attention to certain things like that, simple things
at a very early age, like I'm I'm three or
(05:41):
four years old, like I said, you know, and everything
seemed musical to me at that point. You just had
that I guess I think I had a hyper connected
to you know, maybe it's an auditory auditory You're correct,
is auditory more than it is. I'm not trained. I
don't know how to really play in truments. I was
(06:01):
a drummer for years. That's my main instrument. Drummer, singer.
Do you play the piano a little bit? A little
enough to write, but I don't play. You were the
voice of Journey, so I mean it sounds like a
very difficult life. Your tour schedule was so relentless, the
demands on you as the voice were so But I
(06:25):
was a singer and the demands of the same. You're right, right,
but I mean I know you just performed, you went home,
and then you never went back. Let's talk about sort
of what led you to to make that decision and
what was it that brought you to that breaking point.
I would love to mind that a little bit. I guess, Well,
(06:47):
we weren't getting along very well. I mean, the band
is a band, and that happens to groups, right of course.
You know. Well, it's like you spend so much time together, right,
and and you have so many different opinions about the
direction you want things to go. H you disagree, and
you agree on so many levels. And um, as it's
(07:10):
moving forward and growing and becoming this other big thing
called success. Um, everybody digs in for their own I
think opinions, and it becomes a bit collidive. You collide
and I think that's a new word. I'm making up
words collidive, like collidive. I like it. And uh, um,
(07:39):
so we're writing songs here today, um, and that's what happens.
And uh we weren't talking much. We were just colliding
with each other a lot. And that was going on
for a while. And that's stressful and it was and
U and the touring schedule was intense, and I would
have liked to have slowed that all down a bit
(07:59):
and been a little bit more. How do I say? Um,
you know, if you go to a hardware store to
get a cart in the milk, you're probably in the
wrong place. It's not there. So you just felt like
your your visions weren't aligned. Yeah, I think I was
asking it to be something, is what I'm trying to say.
What did you want it to be? I wanted to
be more spaced out. I thought we would tour for
(08:20):
a while, stop for a while, have some life in
their tour for a while, stop for a while. And
when you would suggest that, suggest that what would be management?
And most of the members their lifestyles required more dare
I say? Cash flow? And and you know my upbringing
was Portuguese. My grandfather taught me when I was very young.
(08:41):
He said, it's not how much you make, it's how
much you save. And I went, what does that mean?
He says, if you make forty dollars, I want you
to put twenty in the bank, and I want you
to forget about it, and I want you to try
to make that work. Forget about the twenty I think, Dad,
I mean, really, it's such It's such wise stuff to
(09:02):
hear as kids. You know, I was raised that way,
so I was saving my money along the whole time.
So your lifestyle was clearly very different than a lot
of members, very different. Did you succumb to all the
sort of tropes that we associate with rock and rollers
and people you know on the road, like sex, drugs, alcohol,
(09:27):
lavish spending I had, I have had occasional for the
first three but lavish spending. It was not my game, right,
you know? Uh yeah, I thought that that was just crazy.
In fact, I kept my yellow Volkswagen that was so
beat up. I just thought it was fine. You know.
(09:51):
That was the way I was raised. When I came
off tour, I went home to my mom's house and
I remember coming down, going back in the back bedroom
and and crashing for a couple of days, and the
phone ring, and I swear this is the truth. I
ran down the hallway completely naked as a as a
as a jay bird, grabbing the phone, thinking I'm I'm
late for the bus because I was in deep sort
(10:15):
of like sleep. So that was how roadburn we used
to call it roadburn to where you're so burnt, because
this is what you do. You get a cycle. You know.
It seems to me from a business perspective if the
band heard your cries of help, that they would not,
as my dad would say, I want to kill the
goose that laid the golden egg. Right. Well, I think
(10:36):
at the time it was interpreted as just whining, you know,
you know, and maybe I was whining a bit because
it was hard work. Well, let's talk about the hard
work it was because when I mentioned that your voice
is your instrument, it required really an obsessive it sounds
to me amount of attention paid to it to keep
(10:59):
it Roger is the word. It's an erotic, obsessive feeling
that you just don't know what you have from one
night to the name. It sounds like it almost took
over your life. Steve, it does. It does take over
your life, because explain that to people who don't sing
for a living. Well, because if the instrument you have
(11:20):
is you, it's not just the vocal cords in your throat.
It's you and the vocal cords and their inflammation issues.
And if one vocal cord is slightly inflamed more than
the other. They don't line up. You've got trouble. If
you don't get enough sleep, if you don't drink enough water,
if you stay up too late, if you're just completely
(11:42):
burnt out and fatigue. That's enough on its own. And
if you if you ask anyone from striisand to anyone
about this, they will say, gosh, finally somebody's talking about it,
you know, because the truth is it is it is
an eurosis into itself. Do you think it is for
all singers or are more for you? Well, okay, I
(12:02):
guess I should speak for myself. I mean, I'm just curious.
You've probably talked to a lot of singers. Did you
find this commonality um most among nother heads to say?
Nobody gets it? Do they know? Nobody? Does? I understand?
That's so interesting. I wonder why don't people talk about
how much care and attention and neurosis often a company.
(12:25):
I think I think the word fear. The fear is this, Katie.
People have been waiting for a long time for you
to sing the songs that they have decided to embrace
and bring into their lives and make part of something
that enriches their emotional part of their lives. And you're
coming to town and you pull in the day of
(12:47):
the gig, and you go to the sound check and
you open your throat, you feel crumby and grumby, as
I call it our crusty. It can be really scary
to think that you're going to fall short of what
these people have been waiting so much for you to
give them. It's it's not fair to them, and at
some point then it is not fair to you to
put yourself in that position all the time. That's a
(13:09):
lot of pressure. Now, now I want to make clear
I'm not complaining. I'm not whining. Please anybody listening out there,
I'd like to talk about things that people don't talk about,
and this is certainly one of them. Have you ever
been performing and felt that you disappointed the crowd and
I'm curious what was their reaction and how did you
feel I did. Now that's a whole nether landscape of neurosis,
(13:32):
because sometimes what do you get? By the way, no, no,
only once I think I was in I was in
Toledo and I said Cleveland because I was so tired.
So from that point on, between the two bass drums
with a little led like the city would have to
be written on a piece of paper, because I didn't
want to make that mistake again. That's how tired I was.
(13:53):
That's what I got. The only time I got booed.
The only other time I could recall was I was
so fatigued that all I could remember it was the
first verse of Oll Sherry. I couldn't remember the second verse.
So I did the first verse twice, and I looked
at the answer and put my palms in me here,
like I don't know what to tell you. So you
were pretty much just completely burnt out, Steve, and you said,
(14:14):
I can't do this anymore. So so for all those years,
and obviously you had a a solo career after that,
but for for much of that time, you were just
living in California doing your thing. So what would you
do all day? Well, first I went to my hometown
(14:34):
and I hung out with friends, and I went to
the old ice cream parlor and went out to a cemetery,
and I would spend solitude moments when my departed parents
and grandparents and uh um. And then I had a
step grandmother, and I had my father's sister, my aunt Betty,
and I really I went back and took care of them,
to be honest with you, but that's that. That probably
(14:57):
wasn't your entire day. I mean, did you did you
still make music? Did you still think about songs? Did
you mean? I know you spent some time at the
carnival when it came at the fair. Well, the fair
would come to town in June in my hometown, and
I always dreamt of running away with that with the circus,
(15:18):
so to speak, because it would show up and it
would be so amazing and it looked like the island
on Pinocchio, you know, the Sperris wheels and the lights
and everything, and I thought it was so amazing, and
next thing I know, they're gone. So I thought, gosh,
some day I'd like to, you know, run away with
the circus. And being in a rocket roll band is
a circus life, you know, you do run away with
(15:39):
the circus, so to speak, and you do travel just
like that. When you were off and it turned like
the clock struck eight pm wherever you were, did you
ever think, wow, I you know, in my old life
I'd be stepping onto a stage right now. I mean,
did you miss the rush the adrenaline of course, of
kind of just being in that moment. To me, that
(16:00):
would be I wish I could could sing. And the
idea of just being able to sing something a song
you love and that people really respond to it, that
just must There must be nothing like it. Yeah, to
be able to write music that you believe in and
(16:22):
have someone else love it as you initially sort of
feel like it's worth being loved. Nothing like it, nothing
like it, and then and then to record it and
they embrace it, and then to go out and perform it.
It's just the whip cream on the cheesecake, you know,
it really is. It's just it's just something I can't explain.
(16:44):
And yes, to answer your question, I really did miss
it terribly, but it came with too much. I think
returned to our baggage together. I think that you know,
look were tired of me, and I was kind of
tired of them, you know, and I think we needed
just to go our ways. That's all. Well, you did
(17:06):
then go onto your solo career, right, and was that
more satisfying for you? You did? I really didn't go
into a solo career at that point. I did the
solo career because Neil Sean had done two solo albums
while I was in the band. I told the manager,
why is Neil doing a solo album? Well, I can't
(17:26):
stop him. He said, he wants to record it, you know.
So we did a song and a whole record with
John Hammer. Then we do another journey. I'm another tour,
and then I told the manager, look, I'm gonna do one,
and you shouldn't keep doing this because you know it's
gonna I think you could damage the band at some level.
Next thing, I know he's doing a second one beyond Hammer.
So I turned the manager and I said, Okay, I
(17:46):
told you I'm going to do one. So that's when
I went to l A and did street Talk and
wrote O's Sherry and full Shart with Randy Goodram and
strung out with with Craig Cramp and a bunch of
friends and and and Nicole Bolos as the engineer. We
recorded that record so fast at this little studio in
the valley, and we had a great time and the
(18:08):
record came out and it was just a great moment.
Then I asked my mother what should I do? Because
she was already sick at that point. She was very sick,
and I asked her what I should do. Should I
go back to Journey, should continue my solo career? Just
to think about it? Please Mom? Because she was so
instrumental in my early years of of being in bands
(18:32):
in high school and everything. I just wanted her opinion,
And honestly, she couldn't talk very well because her speech
was severely impaired. The next day she said, you and
I want, are you sure, Mom? Because that means I
won't be able to hang out with you. If I
do the solo stuff, I can. I can do it
at my own pace, she said, YOUNI just like that.
(18:55):
So I went back and did the record. Uh, and
you look at that record. It says this one's for
you Mom. After you left Journey, why wouldn't you just
do a solo career? Because that's not why I left
the band. I left the band for all kinds of reasons. Okay.
(19:15):
I didn't leave the band to hurt anybody or run
away from him. I left the band to go back
to my life, I think, and reconnect with some foundational
things um that I felt. I think we're slipping away.
I think we're slipping away. Thank you. I think we're
slipping away. Like I just I think that it was
(19:38):
such an amazing ride that I was on. There was
no room for anything else in my life. So I
think I had to leave it all to open up
and have some room for something else. And so that
meant to go back and find out what that is.
Any regrets that you that you left, or any regrets
the way your life unfolded? Mmmmm, I don't. It was
like tempering steel, to be honest with you. You know,
(19:59):
steel's kind of often to heat it up. I had
to get heated up and then putting the cold water
and heat it up, putting the cold water, and it
kind of tempered me at this point in my age.
Right now, I don't have any regrets. I can tell
you that, though others may not agree with me, I
think it was the best thing for everybody. I really do. Um.
(20:22):
But before we get a break, Um, at what moment
did you think, Wow, I have a good voice. Probably
singing into the into the well out the ranch. It
was so beautiful to hear that echo. I just loved
the way it sounded. And then also I used to
(20:43):
sing when I couldn't get to the ranch, I would
unplug mom's hose from the vacuum cleaner and put one
in my left ear and singing the other end. And
I love the way that sounded. What would you sing? Um?
I would just make things up. I don't know, I
would just I love the way it sounded. Those are
the young I do remember, though, um ah angels listending,
(21:07):
listen me crying. You know, I remember those guys. I
think it was the Crests. You know. I think it
was the crest You must have been singing some Sam
cooked too back in the day, and I worshiped him
because that was what was your favorite Sam Cooke song?
The first one would be, Um, Cupid came on the
(21:29):
radio and my mom's shifty six Thunderbird, and oh man, uh,
the whole world got so small, it got so tunnel vision.
I'll never forget it. And I was just captivated by
the emotion coming out of that speaker and how it
was landing. And so I think that's what got me
(21:50):
reaching for music from the very beginning, was why does
this make me feel this way? Why is what is
happening here? You know it connected with me. You know,
do you sink? Can you sing? Cupid? I know that
all the word Cupid, drawback your boat and let your
aero flow straight to my love is hot for me,
(22:14):
nobody even me. Now, I can't sing now, I'm criticizing
that just to show you. I just criticized for phrases
that I just sang at the same time I was
singing them, okay, And I really got to tell you
without echo, I'm singing dry in this room. I don't
sing dry. Well, thank you for singing dry for us
quick pro quo no no no, no, no no no.
(22:38):
But my favorite Sam Cook is I don't know much
about his story, don't know much blogy, I don't know
much about the French I took. I don't know much
about But I don't know that I love you right
(22:59):
and know that if you love me too, want a
wonderful world, this would be harmony. I'll never forget when
that was in the movie Witness and Harrison Ford and
Kelly McGinnis were dancing. It was so sexy, And isn't
(23:20):
that what it's about? It? It really is about the
intimacy of music is so personal. Well, I'm excited to
talk to you more about this new album and the
genesis of this album. We'll talk about that right after this.
(23:42):
Now back to my interview with Steve Perry. So, Steve,
you're back after all these years, after all still crazy
after a Yeah, I know, it's been a long time
coming since I saw your face. I know. So let's
talk about this new album, Traces, and it comes from
a deeply, deeply personal place. You fell in love with
(24:05):
someone who unfortunately was diagnosed with breast cancer, was in
remission when you first learned about her, and then when
you met her it had come spread and come back,
and uh, you decided to jump into the relationship anyway.
(24:25):
What was it about that relationship that just almost had
the same attraction for you as music? It was it
was just almost terrifyingly wonderful because I could not stay
away from her and I knew she was sick. It
was like it was like what am I doing? There
was times I would talk to a therapist that what
(24:46):
am I dooling? I was going to say. I wonder
if there was something about the potentially ephemeral nature of
that relationship that somehow attracted you not to be fleeting,
you know, not not permanent. Wow, I don't know. All
I know is that the connection was so strong and
(25:10):
it was very, very difficult to not run. At the
same time, there was this incredible connection that said, you
have nowhere to run, there's nowhere else you want to
be like. I talked to Nico Bollis, the front of
Mine Engineer, and one day I was watching him work
when I just started seeing Kelly, and he said, what
(25:32):
are you doing here? I said, well, I'm I'm hanging out,
but you're watching you mix a little bit on this
this cool band. He said, Man, you should be with
your girl. I said, well, we went on a few times.
Because I'm not sure what to do about that. I'm
just very confused about it because it's scary because she's
not well. I don't want to fall in love and
lose again. I don't I just don't want to. I
don't know what to do, you know. He said, Dude,
(25:55):
I've never seen you like this before. He says, I
have never see you're so happy with anyone. There's something
else going on for you and her. He said, men,
you should be with your girl. Man, that's your girl.
I could tell that, and so I left called her
when at luncheon that kept continued. How long were you together?
A year and a half. How long was she sick?
(26:18):
Really sick during that period of time, often on the
whole time, but not as bad as God. Of course
the last um I would say, the last six months,
especially for the last three months. Of course, we're the worst.
But there was a time here in New York where
she was on this incredible clinical trial treatment that didn't
(26:39):
make her sick, that was invented by this guy, and
it was doing amazing things for her. And she had
tumors in her lungs and she had um some in
her bone marrow. And we would do the scans and
the tumors would have scar tissue where the m r
I would show there's, well there was scar tissue there,
(27:00):
but I don't see the tumors anymore, they would say.
And we look at each other, said what what do
you say? What do you say? You know? And we
would go from not being able to ride bicycles in
New York to riding bicycles in the park and just thinking,
oh my god, this is insane, this is so great,
you know, And then come around September of that year
(27:21):
as when she said, you know, honey, something's not right.
I don't know what it is. I know my body,
believe me. I. So it's not right to just scan
and and come back, you know. So cancer is so cruel,
you know. And well, you know, let's talk about the
promise you made to Kelly Steve. You said that you
would not go back into isolation, that you would put
(27:44):
out some of the music that you were writing and
thinking about. Tell me about the promise you made to her. Well,
my favorite time we would spend together was, you know,
at the end of the day, we would kind of
lights down and give each other a smooch and I'd
either talk her to sleep or she talked me to sleep.
(28:05):
And one night she said, I, I need to ask
you to make me a promise and I and I said, well,
what's up. I want you to promise that if something
ever happened to me, that you would not go back
into isolation, for I think it would make this all
for not. So I was never given such an amazing
(28:31):
long sentence, was so in encompassing value of my whole
everything like that. But remember she was a PhD psychologist,
so she she was very good assembling her words and
and very clear when she had something to say or feel,
You're gonna hear pretty much to the to the bone
(28:53):
what it is, and this was one of those moments.
So I said, of course, I promise I won't go
back into isolation. But look, it wasn't like we weren't
hanging out or going on trips or having dinner with friends.
We were living our lives. But she knew that I
was isolating from music. She knew I was isolating from singing.
I never really sang much, So that's what she was
(29:15):
talking about. Your new album, Traces is full of ballad
summer sad. Others are nostalgic, and I think people listening
to this one song called No More Crying would assume
it's about losing Kelly. Let's listen to a little bit
and you can tell us how that song came about. Good,
(30:04):
let's talk about that song. Well, actually that song is
more of a of a of a of a different
sort of dyslexic version of what you're saying. That meaning
he's trying to convince himself the answer to not crying
is to just not love again and basically to shut
(30:25):
down his heart. Now, there is that component in there.
It is a relationship song. But if you listen to
the second verse, I'm so free. I need nobody, no
more lies, no surprises, no confrontations. It's a peaceful life
behind closed doors. But in the dark of the night,
I start to remember. Okay. So that whole arc of
(30:47):
all those lyrics right there is about isolation and how
just pull away from it all and you won't have
to deal with lies and and by the way, there's
a bit of my past past and there. Okay, but
lies and confrontations and you know, surprises. I mean there
was a lot of surprises that when you're in a band,
(31:09):
you're being told to do and go and perform and
do places that you just don't want to do. But
guess what, it's been booked in your stock. So there
was always this stuff I didn't like too much either.
So there's a bit of my past in all this.
But let me tell you the song I think you're
really looking for is most of All Now. If they
have most of All here, if you were to hear
(31:31):
the opening line of most of All, he says, promises
that won't fade away. Um, it's about reflecting all those memories. Uh,
it's about the whole thing. To the ones who have
lost their most of all many years won't heal when
tears still call their most of all, you know that
(31:54):
song I worked with any good Room before I met
Kelly and turned out it ended up becoming a song
of Let's listen to it for a second. From that
wall facely golden members read that will lave raise all
(32:25):
the plants and treads so hard to replace. From another
place to another town, still drifting to the minds fathers plenty,
(33:10):
still where you surprised Steve that a song that you
had already written before you met Kelly seemed to look
I have goose bumps on my arms. I can't. I
can't make that happen. It's something that happens to me.
(33:31):
Where that comes from is life sustaining, and He's the
most important thing of my life right now, Katie. I
mean to connect with music like that, and even if
it's my own music, it means so much to me
at this time in my life. I'm not a spring chicken, honey, okay,
you know, and I need this so more than I've
(33:54):
ever needed it in my whole life. This connect, this
connection with emotion in music and songwriting, nothing means more
to me than reconnecting like a song like that. Uh,
the lyrics of that. I'm so proud of him because
he's just being honest about the memories and everything is
going on. And then he says, from another place to
(34:16):
another town, still drifting, That's what I did when I
was home. He just shifts, He goes he's being memorable.
Then he shifts to like just drifting around again. Lost.
But to the ones you've lost their most of all
many years, won't heal when tears still call their most
of all? That means so much to me. I need
(34:37):
that out there for me, And I just hope it
touches somebody, but for me, I mean I need it.
I think that also there's some very up tempo songs,
kind of of course rock songs, like like Noah Racin,
which is about a high school reunion. Let's listen to
that song for a second. Sorry, offend together you'll call
(35:12):
what is it about high school that keeps drawing you
back there? Steve? I think we're all in high school still,
I think emotionally, if we look honestly within ourselves, some
of our teenage years, the foundation of our hearts and
soul were completely fed by all the fantasies. These teenage
fantasies of our youth. I read that you don't like
(35:34):
to dissect songs because you say, if you talk too
much about what they mean, it takes away the ability
for everyone to interpret it for themselves and for have
it to make it meaningful for them experience their own experience. Yeah,
that's right. Having said that, I love the story behind,
don't stop believe it. So you have to tell us
(35:56):
a little bit about the circumstances. You're in a hotel. Yeah, okay,
I'm in a hotel in Detroit, and we just finished
a show at the Cobo Hall and uh, I think
it was the Poncha train. Somebody brought it to my attention.
Hotel and I'm at the top floor looking down and
I'm not sleepy. It's like three in the morning. I'm
seeing the street lights glowing the entire streets from the
(36:19):
top down and they're sort of a of a rust
colored amber color, and I just could not believe it.
Everybody's still milling around, you know. Uh, I thought these
are like street light people. They're like people living under
these street lights. And it's three in the morning, so
I remember that street light people. And then down the
(36:40):
boulevard up and down the boulevard. That's right. And then uh,
and then I remembered, Um, there was this place in
my hometown called the l Rancho Hotel that had a bar,
a terrible bar and club with a little stage in
the corner. That's where I used to play all my
cover band music with the band I wasn't at the time.
(37:02):
And you'd walk into this place and it had a
red carpet that was just stained with all sorts of
alcohol and wine spilling and everything, and they never washed it.
And they're the smell of wine and cheap perfume. Women
would wear the cheapest perfume, okay, and to show up,
you know, to try to have a smile and share
of a night, right. So that came from it came
(37:25):
from there, you know. And that was just sort of
reflections of a bunch of different places in your life.
That's right. And this city motel or hotel, that's right.
And and and ultimately though it's a love story, isn't it. Well,
it's it's about not giving up. It's really about you know,
you've got to keep believing. It's about a city boy
and a city girl and and just taking the world. Well, yeah,
(37:48):
I'm making a midnight taking the midnight train to anywhere.
It's about throwing yourself to the wind and and just
living your life. You know. I think that is what
resonates with the youth of today because the song really
is about it's okay where you're at right now. You're
doing what you're supposed to be doing. You're throwing your
life to the wind and just follow the wind. You know,
(38:12):
it must be fun for you to see a whole
new generation fall in love with Journey. I think we
can give a little credit possibly to the cast of Glee,
which covered Don't Stop Believing. So let's listen for a second.
Stop hold on to that. When you saw that on Glee, Steve,
(38:46):
did you get such a kick out of it? Because
I remember my daughter we were super you know, glee freaks.
I guess they call them gleeks. We used to watch it,
you know, it was there a thing we did together,
and Kara used to record herself and put herself on YouTube.
She since taking it down, uh singing don't Stop Believing?
And I mean it really did you get a kick
(39:07):
out of that? Did I did? Because it was a
whole new generation and again a high school generation. You see,
it's that, it's that it's that period that I'm talking
about that is an important period in any evolution of
a human being. It just is a magical time our
teen years and and to see that song become part
(39:27):
of the joys of that generation really really warmed my heart.
And then it continued by the way, you know, I
mean it continued all sorts of places, sporting events and
ended up with sopranos of course, well, of course, and
and and that was a thrill for you. I know
that they reached out that you knew before the rest
of the country. I didn't know that it was going
(39:48):
to happen at the end of the Sopranos because I
held out. I was the only one who held out.
You know, there's three writers and everybody said yes, but me.
And the only reason I held out was because I
want to make sure if that David Chase wasn't gonna
whack the family with the song playing, you know, because
Scorsese would do that. You know. Going to the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, was it great senior bandmates
or did you? Were you conflicted? I was conflicted, and
(40:11):
I and I almost didn't go because I was so conflicted.
But what happened was I started going online and I
remembered the times I had spent away in my hometown
and we spoke of earlier and all my heroes that
I grew up with on those forty fives were inducted,
and I thought, oh my god, this is where I'm going.
This is this. I'm gonna goose bumps again, stee my
(40:33):
arms because I really felt like, oh my god, this
is real. I'm really going to be inducted with my heroes,
the ones that I looked up to. So I felt
a sense of purpose and insistence within myself that I
must be there because at that point, no matter what
we did or didn't do, or you know, you could
still love somebody and not hang out with him, by
(40:54):
the way, you know, I really think that needs to
be said, all right, And so the point is that
I still have feelings because we were in the trenches
together as a group, trying to accomplish a mission that
you know, the concept of a band is when you
band together to do collectively what you can't do by yourself.
It would have been so epic if you had just
(41:15):
done one song. But I didn't understand that. But but
instead I wanted to pay tribute to everyone who had
done so much for giving this kid, a San Joaquin
Valley kid from the Hanford, California a chance to live
his dream and chase after it. That meant more to me.
(41:37):
I think Greg Rowley, I think Neil Sean, I think
the manager for believing me. And then I had to
thank Arnell for for pouring his heart out every night
for ten years. You're the guy who, I can't say
your replacement, but the guy who became the lead singer.
But he but he's so good. He's a good kid.
He's he really has been pouring his heart out in
that band for ten years and generous about it. Look
(42:00):
why not? I mean, I mean that's the way I
see it. If you you know, you had some good
times with these band members, obviously didn't see eye to eye,
obviously got on each other's nerves, and you were happy
to walk away. But you know, a lot of this
is about friendship, and I don't know I have friends
that I have I'm no longer friends with me. Why well,
it's no, no, I mean, it's too complicated. But in
(42:26):
my heart, well it leaves a hole in your heart,
but it is too complicated. Why why can't you go
back to your friends because it's complicated. I should. I
want to and hope it will, but it's but it's
very to you. But it's very complicated, very difficult. I should.
I hope to and one day I will, and you,
I don't know if I can. Why not? It's too complicated.
(42:51):
I just can't. Can't go back. No, I don't think
people can go back. I think that's one of the
things I learned when I was away that if I'm
to push through life, I like the adventure of always
going somewhere I've never been and growing with that. And
the biggest thing, Katie, the biggest thing is a second ago.
I just played most of all for you, and I
(43:14):
got goose bumps on my arm. I have not had
that connection with something I lost when I left the
group in years, remember thirty one years I left. Then
somewhere in the middle, I came back to them again, tried.
I tried to go back. It didn't work a second time.
Why should I try a third time if it didn't work.
And I'm not even talking about music, I'm talking about
(43:35):
a relationship. I guess Steve, Look, if relationships were possible
like that, I just don't know if people can separate
there their motives from their relationships, if you know what
I mean, I think I know what you mean. Yeah, really,
I mean it's it's friendships are private and intimate and
(43:57):
protective to themselves. When they get spilled into motives, it
doesn't feel like a friendship. It seems like you're afraid
to rekindle a relationship for fear it will be exploited
for something else. Pretty much, if it's going to be
a friendship, exploitation of a friendship is just not a friendship.
(44:19):
I don't know. Time. Time tells everything. You know. Life
is a very strange place. And I think that the Eels,
that the lead singer of the Eels set, Yeah, he said,
Steve Perry moves in mysterious ways. Do you think you're
going to do another album? I mean, is this is this,
is this reconnection with music going to last? Or do
(44:43):
you think that this is a new chapter and we'll
be hearing a lot more from you? How much stuff
I want to do? I've got songs started, I've got
songs already recorded that are sketched. I've got more material.
I have more material than I need, and maybe that
I have time left in my life to finish. To
be honest, it's a commitment to continue to make music
(45:03):
for the time I have left. I tell you from
the bottom of my heart, this is life sustaining to me.
And I need that right now because Katie, have lost
my mother and my dad, my grandparents who raised me.
I'm an only child. I need this. Why didn't you
ever get married, Steve? Scared? Scared, And I'll tell you
(45:25):
With Kelly, I was really close, so close. I just
didn't like what happened and what I saw growing up,
and I just don't think it was for me. And
then I wasn't deposed, and so many divorces with the
band members, one after another, and the next time I
turned around, this guy is marrying a new one. And
(45:46):
now I've been across at least three wives with one
guy while I was in the band, and a couple
with others, and and deposed because you're in a partnership together.
So I watched them lose half of every thing every time,
and I'm thinking, it's not how much you make, it's
how much you save. So maybe I should stay single.
(46:08):
Or have a good prenup, Steve, Well, I hear they're
not so great, and I know the album is doing great.
I'm so happy, so happy. Nothing makes me happier right
now than the people here this music and hopefully love
it and feel it. That's all I want, that's all.
I don't care if they stream it. I don't even care.
(46:28):
I'm so happy for this new chapter in your life,
and I wish you a lot of happiness, but I
also wish you a lot of peace, Steve Perry. On
that note, that wraps up my interview with Steve Perry,
such a treat to talk with him and to sing
with him too. Well, Katie, we've gotten a lot of
(46:50):
listener emails asking for more singing from you, not from me.
I have to get the people what they want, then, Brian,
you do you do? Before we go, I want to
thank the team that produces this pot cast Producer Emma
morgen Stern, associate producer Noura, Richie Jared O'Connell, our engineer,
and special thanks to my good friend Matt Lombardi who
really helped me so much with this episode. Matt reunited
(47:13):
and it feels so good. Also, thank you, Gianna Palmer
for your help, and Casey Holford for putting up with
Steve and me on a Saturday morning in the studio.
Thanks to everyone at Katie currk Media Beta. Mas is
Katie's assistant and a fabulous one at that, and Julia
Lewis is the social media whiz. Jared Arnold composed our
(47:34):
theme music. You can find Brian on Twitter under Goldsmith
b and I am everywhere Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all as
Katie CURRC. If you've thoughts about the show, or questions
for Katie or me, or guest suggestions, or really anything,
please reach out our email addresses comments at currect podcast
dot com, or you can leave us a voicemail by
(47:54):
calling nine to nine two to four, four six three seven.
We'll talk you next week. M
Hi, Brian, Hi Katie. You know, the past couple of
weeks we've been all about politics, but we thought it
would be nice to take a little break from it all,
which is kind of fitting because that's what today's guests
might be best known for, Brian, at least until recently,
taking a very long break. That's true. Our guest today
(00:24):
is Steve Perry. He was the frontman for the band
Journey in the nineteen eighties, and unless you're truly living
under a rock, you've heard Steve's lead vocals on the
most downloaded song of the twentieth century. St Just hearing
(00:53):
a few seconds of that transports me to another time
and place, specifically Atlanta, Georgia, when I was work keen
as an associate producer for CNN and this song came
on the radio and I loved it. Yeah, and I
would have loved it had I been born at the time.
But thanks, Brian, that is real. Welcol You're very welcome anyway.
(01:15):
Steve Perry always wanted to be a musician, but by
his late twenties he felt he'd run out his music
career playing for small time bands in dusty bars. He
left his musical dreams two men turkey coops on a
farm in California. But then one day he got a
call from a band manager named Herbie Herbert that would
change his life. That's an understatement, because Herbie asked Steve
(01:37):
if he'd be the lead singer in a band called Journey,
alongside guitarist Neil Seawn Now with Steve at the mic.
The band went on to record eight multi platinum albums
Toward the World, but the life of a mega star
grew kind of old for Steve. It was really hard
on him, so following his mom's death, he walked away.
(01:57):
The last time he performed live, which Journey, was in
n seven, more than thirty years ago, and Steve has
pretty much stayed out of the spotlight since then until
last month. That's right, after decades of keeping a very
low profile, Steve came out of retirement and recorded a
new album called Traces. He was motivated by a late
(02:20):
in life love who made him think twice about how
he was going to spend the next thirty years. So
we'll get to his music, his career, and why he
felt the need to walk away, or I should say, Katie,
you will get to all of that since I wasn't
able to join you for your conversation with Steve, we
missed you, Brian. I think you really would have liked him, Hi, Beat,
I would have, and honestly, I could have used some
(02:41):
backup vocals. You'll hear that a little bit later on.
But we talked about so many things. So let's get
right to my interview with Steve Perry. Are you having
fund Steve, where we talk about your life and what's
(03:02):
been going on and how you got to this moment
in time. Is it nice to be back. I'm having fun.
It's a lot of work and I haven't been working
for a long time, so I had a nice vacation.
I think that's probably you had a twenty year vacation.
Actually I left years ago. Yeah, I can't it. Wow,
And here we are February. I was home and that
(03:27):
was it. You just walked away from everything. And before
we talk about all that, I'm curious what your life
has been like since you left the band. You went
from such an intense, extreme grueling, high profile schedule right
and so many demands on you to being able to
(03:48):
kind of get up in the morning and say, what
am I going to do today? Was that a huge adjustment?
Did you love it? Tell me everything? It was? It
was very, very difficult just to go back to, uh,
the simplicities of life when as a child I reached
for so much more. I don't know why I needed more.
(04:12):
I think it was something that started when I watched
my father sing when I was about four or five
years old, and I saw him singing at the Hamperd
Civic Auditorium and my mother was performing in her big
can can dress in the same production. I can't remember
what it was, but I remember looking at my father
and he's singing, and I knew I had that inside
of me. I just knew I had it inside of
me because I said to myself, I can do that.
(04:36):
And so I would sing around the house. And then,
of course I discovered music. That was a big part
of my life. I started playing at an early age.
I guess it drove me. The discovery of music and
the songwriting, the recording, the sound of their voices, the
(04:57):
string parts, that it lifted me in such a way
emotionally that I wanted to get closer to it. I
was drawn to it. Now, you gotta know. Of course,
my dad was a musical guy. Did he play instruments?
You know? The only instrument I remember is he had
a forty nine Ford and he had this big steering
(05:19):
wheel and he literally had a ring on each finger.
And he was sitting there and you know, when some
swing song was on the radio, he'd be tapping away
like a drum pocket thing and um. And I would
just pay attention to certain things like that, simple things
at a very early age, like I'm I'm three or
(05:41):
four years old, like I said, you know, and everything
seemed musical to me at that point. You just had
that I guess I think I had a hyper connected
to you know, maybe it's an auditory auditory You're correct,
is auditory more than it is. I'm not trained. I
don't know how to really play in truments. I was
(06:01):
a drummer for years. That's my main instrument. Drummer, singer.
Do you play the piano a little bit? A little
enough to write, but I don't play. You were the
voice of Journey, so I mean it sounds like a
very difficult life. Your tour schedule was so relentless, the
demands on you as the voice were so But I
(06:25):
was a singer and the demands of the same. You're right, right,
but I mean I know you just performed, you went home,
and then you never went back. Let's talk about sort
of what led you to to make that decision and
what was it that brought you to that breaking point.
I would love to mind that a little bit. I guess, Well,
(06:47):
we weren't getting along very well. I mean, the band
is a band, and that happens to groups, right of course.
You know. Well, it's like you spend so much time together, right,
and and you have so many different opinions about the
direction you want things to go. H you disagree, and
you agree on so many levels. And um, as it's
(07:10):
moving forward and growing and becoming this other big thing
called success. Um, everybody digs in for their own I
think opinions, and it becomes a bit collidive. You collide
and I think that's a new word. I'm making up
words collidive, like collidive. I like it. And uh, um,
(07:39):
so we're writing songs here today, um, and that's what happens.
And uh we weren't talking much. We were just colliding
with each other a lot. And that was going on
for a while. And that's stressful and it was and
U and the touring schedule was intense, and I would
have liked to have slowed that all down a bit
(07:59):
and been a little bit more. How do I say? Um,
you know, if you go to a hardware store to
get a cart in the milk, you're probably in the
wrong place. It's not there. So you just felt like
your your visions weren't aligned. Yeah, I think I was
asking it to be something, is what I'm trying to say.
What did you want it to be? I wanted to
be more spaced out. I thought we would tour for
(08:20):
a while, stop for a while, have some life in
their tour for a while, stop for a while. And
when you would suggest that, suggest that what would be management?
And most of the members their lifestyles required more dare
I say? Cash flow? And and you know my upbringing
was Portuguese. My grandfather taught me when I was very young.
(08:41):
He said, it's not how much you make, it's how
much you save. And I went, what does that mean?
He says, if you make forty dollars, I want you
to put twenty in the bank, and I want you
to forget about it, and I want you to try
to make that work. Forget about the twenty I think, Dad,
I mean, really, it's such It's such wise stuff to
(09:02):
hear as kids. You know, I was raised that way,
so I was saving my money along the whole time.
So your lifestyle was clearly very different than a lot
of members, very different. Did you succumb to all the
sort of tropes that we associate with rock and rollers
and people you know on the road, like sex, drugs, alcohol,
(09:27):
lavish spending I had, I have had occasional for the
first three but lavish spending. It was not my game, right,
you know? Uh yeah, I thought that that was just crazy.
In fact, I kept my yellow Volkswagen that was so
beat up. I just thought it was fine. You know.
(09:51):
That was the way I was raised. When I came
off tour, I went home to my mom's house and
I remember coming down, going back in the back bedroom
and and crashing for a couple of days, and the
phone ring, and I swear this is the truth. I
ran down the hallway completely naked as a as a
as a jay bird, grabbing the phone, thinking I'm I'm
late for the bus because I was in deep sort
(10:15):
of like sleep. So that was how roadburn we used
to call it roadburn to where you're so burnt, because
this is what you do. You get a cycle. You know.
It seems to me from a business perspective if the
band heard your cries of help, that they would not,
as my dad would say, I want to kill the
goose that laid the golden egg. Right. Well, I think
(10:36):
at the time it was interpreted as just whining, you know,
you know, and maybe I was whining a bit because
it was hard work. Well, let's talk about the hard
work it was because when I mentioned that your voice
is your instrument, it required really an obsessive it sounds
to me amount of attention paid to it to keep
(10:59):
it Roger is the word. It's an erotic, obsessive feeling
that you just don't know what you have from one
night to the name. It sounds like it almost took
over your life. Steve, it does. It does take over
your life, because explain that to people who don't sing
for a living. Well, because if the instrument you have
(11:20):
is you, it's not just the vocal cords in your throat.
It's you and the vocal cords and their inflammation issues.
And if one vocal cord is slightly inflamed more than
the other. They don't line up. You've got trouble. If
you don't get enough sleep, if you don't drink enough water,
if you stay up too late, if you're just completely
(11:42):
burnt out and fatigue. That's enough on its own. And
if you if you ask anyone from striisand to anyone
about this, they will say, gosh, finally somebody's talking about it,
you know, because the truth is it is it is
an eurosis into itself. Do you think it is for
all singers or are more for you? Well, okay, I
(12:02):
guess I should speak for myself. I mean, I'm just curious.
You've probably talked to a lot of singers. Did you
find this commonality um most among nother heads to say?
Nobody gets it? Do they know? Nobody? Does? I understand?
That's so interesting. I wonder why don't people talk about
how much care and attention and neurosis often a company.
(12:25):
I think I think the word fear. The fear is this, Katie.
People have been waiting for a long time for you
to sing the songs that they have decided to embrace
and bring into their lives and make part of something
that enriches their emotional part of their lives. And you're
coming to town and you pull in the day of
(12:47):
the gig, and you go to the sound check and
you open your throat, you feel crumby and grumby, as
I call it our crusty. It can be really scary
to think that you're going to fall short of what
these people have been waiting so much for you to
give them. It's it's not fair to them, and at
some point then it is not fair to you to
put yourself in that position all the time. That's a
(13:09):
lot of pressure. Now, now I want to make clear
I'm not complaining. I'm not whining. Please anybody listening out there,
I'd like to talk about things that people don't talk about,
and this is certainly one of them. Have you ever
been performing and felt that you disappointed the crowd and
I'm curious what was their reaction and how did you
feel I did. Now that's a whole nether landscape of neurosis,
(13:32):
because sometimes what do you get? By the way, no, no,
only once I think I was in I was in
Toledo and I said Cleveland because I was so tired.
So from that point on, between the two bass drums
with a little led like the city would have to
be written on a piece of paper, because I didn't
want to make that mistake again. That's how tired I was.
(13:53):
That's what I got. The only time I got booed.
The only other time I could recall was I was
so fatigued that all I could remember it was the
first verse of Oll Sherry. I couldn't remember the second verse.
So I did the first verse twice, and I looked
at the answer and put my palms in me here,
like I don't know what to tell you. So you
were pretty much just completely burnt out, Steve, and you said,
(14:14):
I can't do this anymore. So so for all those years,
and obviously you had a a solo career after that,
but for for much of that time, you were just
living in California doing your thing. So what would you
do all day? Well, first I went to my hometown
(14:34):
and I hung out with friends, and I went to
the old ice cream parlor and went out to a cemetery,
and I would spend solitude moments when my departed parents
and grandparents and uh um. And then I had a
step grandmother, and I had my father's sister, my aunt Betty,
and I really I went back and took care of them,
to be honest with you, but that's that. That probably
(14:57):
wasn't your entire day. I mean, did you did you
still make music? Did you still think about songs? Did
you mean? I know you spent some time at the
carnival when it came at the fair. Well, the fair
would come to town in June in my hometown, and
I always dreamt of running away with that with the circus,
(15:18):
so to speak, because it would show up and it
would be so amazing and it looked like the island
on Pinocchio, you know, the Sperris wheels and the lights
and everything, and I thought it was so amazing, and
next thing I know, they're gone. So I thought, gosh,
some day I'd like to, you know, run away with
the circus. And being in a rocket roll band is
a circus life, you know, you do run away with
(15:39):
the circus, so to speak, and you do travel just
like that. When you were off and it turned like
the clock struck eight pm wherever you were, did you
ever think, wow, I you know, in my old life
I'd be stepping onto a stage right now. I mean,
did you miss the rush the adrenaline of course, of
kind of just being in that moment. To me, that
(16:00):
would be I wish I could could sing. And the
idea of just being able to sing something a song
you love and that people really respond to it, that
just must There must be nothing like it. Yeah, to
be able to write music that you believe in and
(16:22):
have someone else love it as you initially sort of
feel like it's worth being loved. Nothing like it, nothing
like it, and then and then to record it and
they embrace it, and then to go out and perform it.
It's just the whip cream on the cheesecake, you know,
it really is. It's just it's just something I can't explain.
(16:44):
And yes, to answer your question, I really did miss
it terribly, but it came with too much. I think
returned to our baggage together. I think that you know,
look were tired of me, and I was kind of
tired of them, you know, and I think we needed
just to go our ways. That's all. Well, you did
(17:06):
then go onto your solo career, right, and was that
more satisfying for you? You did? I really didn't go
into a solo career at that point. I did the
solo career because Neil Sean had done two solo albums
while I was in the band. I told the manager,
why is Neil doing a solo album? Well, I can't
(17:26):
stop him. He said, he wants to record it, you know.
So we did a song and a whole record with
John Hammer. Then we do another journey. I'm another tour,
and then I told the manager, look, I'm gonna do one,
and you shouldn't keep doing this because you know it's
gonna I think you could damage the band at some level.
Next thing, I know he's doing a second one beyond Hammer.
So I turned the manager and I said, Okay, I
(17:46):
told you I'm going to do one. So that's when
I went to l A and did street Talk and
wrote O's Sherry and full Shart with Randy Goodram and
strung out with with Craig Cramp and a bunch of
friends and and and Nicole Bolos as the engineer. We
recorded that record so fast at this little studio in
the valley, and we had a great time and the
(18:08):
record came out and it was just a great moment.
Then I asked my mother what should I do? Because
she was already sick at that point. She was very sick,
and I asked her what I should do. Should I
go back to Journey, should continue my solo career? Just
to think about it? Please Mom? Because she was so
instrumental in my early years of of being in bands
(18:32):
in high school and everything. I just wanted her opinion,
And honestly, she couldn't talk very well because her speech
was severely impaired. The next day she said, you and
I want, are you sure, Mom? Because that means I
won't be able to hang out with you. If I
do the solo stuff, I can. I can do it
at my own pace, she said, YOUNI just like that.
(18:55):
So I went back and did the record. Uh, and
you look at that record. It says this one's for
you Mom. After you left Journey, why wouldn't you just
do a solo career? Because that's not why I left
the band. I left the band for all kinds of reasons. Okay.
(19:15):
I didn't leave the band to hurt anybody or run
away from him. I left the band to go back
to my life, I think, and reconnect with some foundational
things um that I felt. I think we're slipping away.
I think we're slipping away. Thank you. I think we're
slipping away. Like I just I think that it was
(19:38):
such an amazing ride that I was on. There was
no room for anything else in my life. So I
think I had to leave it all to open up
and have some room for something else. And so that
meant to go back and find out what that is.
Any regrets that you that you left, or any regrets
the way your life unfolded? Mmmmm, I don't. It was
like tempering steel, to be honest with you. You know,
(19:59):
steel's kind of often to heat it up. I had
to get heated up and then putting the cold water
and heat it up, putting the cold water, and it
kind of tempered me at this point in my age.
Right now, I don't have any regrets. I can tell
you that, though others may not agree with me, I
think it was the best thing for everybody. I really do. Um.
(20:22):
But before we get a break, Um, at what moment
did you think, Wow, I have a good voice. Probably
singing into the into the well out the ranch. It
was so beautiful to hear that echo. I just loved
the way it sounded. And then also I used to
(20:43):
sing when I couldn't get to the ranch, I would
unplug mom's hose from the vacuum cleaner and put one
in my left ear and singing the other end. And
I love the way that sounded. What would you sing? Um?
I would just make things up. I don't know, I
would just I love the way it sounded. Those are
the young I do remember, though, um ah angels listending,
(21:07):
listen me crying. You know, I remember those guys. I
think it was the Crests. You know. I think it
was the crest You must have been singing some Sam
cooked too back in the day, and I worshiped him
because that was what was your favorite Sam Cooke song?
The first one would be, Um, Cupid came on the
(21:29):
radio and my mom's shifty six Thunderbird, and oh man, uh,
the whole world got so small, it got so tunnel vision.
I'll never forget it. And I was just captivated by
the emotion coming out of that speaker and how it
was landing. And so I think that's what got me
(21:50):
reaching for music from the very beginning, was why does
this make me feel this way? Why is what is
happening here? You know it connected with me. You know,
do you sink? Can you sing? Cupid? I know that
all the word Cupid, drawback your boat and let your
aero flow straight to my love is hot for me,
(22:14):
nobody even me. Now, I can't sing now, I'm criticizing
that just to show you. I just criticized for phrases
that I just sang at the same time I was
singing them, okay, And I really got to tell you
without echo, I'm singing dry in this room. I don't
sing dry. Well, thank you for singing dry for us
quick pro quo no no no, no, no no no.
(22:38):
But my favorite Sam Cook is I don't know much
about his story, don't know much blogy, I don't know
much about the French I took. I don't know much
about But I don't know that I love you right
(22:59):
and know that if you love me too, want a
wonderful world, this would be harmony. I'll never forget when
that was in the movie Witness and Harrison Ford and
Kelly McGinnis were dancing. It was so sexy, And isn't
(23:20):
that what it's about? It? It really is about the
intimacy of music is so personal. Well, I'm excited to
talk to you more about this new album and the
genesis of this album. We'll talk about that right after this.
(23:42):
Now back to my interview with Steve Perry. So, Steve,
you're back after all these years, after all still crazy
after a Yeah, I know, it's been a long time
coming since I saw your face. I know. So let's
talk about this new album, Traces, and it comes from
a deeply, deeply personal place. You fell in love with
(24:05):
someone who unfortunately was diagnosed with breast cancer, was in
remission when you first learned about her, and then when
you met her it had come spread and come back,
and uh, you decided to jump into the relationship anyway.
(24:25):
What was it about that relationship that just almost had
the same attraction for you as music? It was it
was just almost terrifyingly wonderful because I could not stay
away from her and I knew she was sick. It
was like it was like what am I doing? There
was times I would talk to a therapist that what
(24:46):
am I dooling? I was going to say. I wonder
if there was something about the potentially ephemeral nature of
that relationship that somehow attracted you not to be fleeting,
you know, not not permanent. Wow, I don't know. All
I know is that the connection was so strong and
(25:10):
it was very, very difficult to not run. At the
same time, there was this incredible connection that said, you
have nowhere to run, there's nowhere else you want to
be like. I talked to Nico Bollis, the front of
Mine Engineer, and one day I was watching him work
when I just started seeing Kelly, and he said, what
(25:32):
are you doing here? I said, well, I'm I'm hanging out,
but you're watching you mix a little bit on this
this cool band. He said, Man, you should be with
your girl. I said, well, we went on a few times.
Because I'm not sure what to do about that. I'm
just very confused about it because it's scary because she's
not well. I don't want to fall in love and
lose again. I don't I just don't want to. I
don't know what to do, you know. He said, Dude,
(25:55):
I've never seen you like this before. He says, I
have never see you're so happy with anyone. There's something
else going on for you and her. He said, men,
you should be with your girl. Man, that's your girl.
I could tell that, and so I left called her
when at luncheon that kept continued. How long were you together?
A year and a half. How long was she sick?
(26:18):
Really sick during that period of time, often on the
whole time, but not as bad as God. Of course
the last um I would say, the last six months,
especially for the last three months. Of course, we're the worst.
But there was a time here in New York where
she was on this incredible clinical trial treatment that didn't
(26:39):
make her sick, that was invented by this guy, and
it was doing amazing things for her. And she had
tumors in her lungs and she had um some in
her bone marrow. And we would do the scans and
the tumors would have scar tissue where the m r
I would show there's, well there was scar tissue there,
(27:00):
but I don't see the tumors anymore, they would say.
And we look at each other, said what what do
you say? What do you say? You know? And we
would go from not being able to ride bicycles in
New York to riding bicycles in the park and just thinking,
oh my god, this is insane, this is so great,
you know, And then come around September of that year
(27:21):
as when she said, you know, honey, something's not right.
I don't know what it is. I know my body,
believe me. I. So it's not right to just scan
and and come back, you know. So cancer is so cruel,
you know. And well, you know, let's talk about the
promise you made to Kelly Steve. You said that you
would not go back into isolation, that you would put
(27:44):
out some of the music that you were writing and
thinking about. Tell me about the promise you made to her. Well,
my favorite time we would spend together was, you know,
at the end of the day, we would kind of
lights down and give each other a smooch and I'd
either talk her to sleep or she talked me to sleep.
(28:05):
And one night she said, I, I need to ask
you to make me a promise and I and I said, well,
what's up. I want you to promise that if something
ever happened to me, that you would not go back
into isolation, for I think it would make this all
for not. So I was never given such an amazing
(28:31):
long sentence, was so in encompassing value of my whole
everything like that. But remember she was a PhD psychologist,
so she she was very good assembling her words and
and very clear when she had something to say or feel,
You're gonna hear pretty much to the to the bone
(28:53):
what it is, and this was one of those moments.
So I said, of course, I promise I won't go
back into isolation. But look, it wasn't like we weren't
hanging out or going on trips or having dinner with friends.
We were living our lives. But she knew that I
was isolating from music. She knew I was isolating from singing.
I never really sang much, So that's what she was
(29:15):
talking about. Your new album, Traces is full of ballad
summer sad. Others are nostalgic, and I think people listening
to this one song called No More Crying would assume
it's about losing Kelly. Let's listen to a little bit
and you can tell us how that song came about. Good,
(30:04):
let's talk about that song. Well, actually that song is
more of a of a of a of a different
sort of dyslexic version of what you're saying. That meaning
he's trying to convince himself the answer to not crying
is to just not love again and basically to shut
(30:25):
down his heart. Now, there is that component in there.
It is a relationship song. But if you listen to
the second verse, I'm so free. I need nobody, no
more lies, no surprises, no confrontations. It's a peaceful life
behind closed doors. But in the dark of the night,
I start to remember. Okay. So that whole arc of
(30:47):
all those lyrics right there is about isolation and how
just pull away from it all and you won't have
to deal with lies and and by the way, there's
a bit of my past past and there. Okay, but
lies and confrontations and you know, surprises. I mean there
was a lot of surprises that when you're in a band,
(31:09):
you're being told to do and go and perform and
do places that you just don't want to do. But
guess what, it's been booked in your stock. So there
was always this stuff I didn't like too much either.
So there's a bit of my past in all this.
But let me tell you the song I think you're
really looking for is most of All Now. If they
have most of All here, if you were to hear
(31:31):
the opening line of most of All, he says, promises
that won't fade away. Um, it's about reflecting all those memories. Uh,
it's about the whole thing. To the ones who have
lost their most of all many years won't heal when
tears still call their most of all, you know that
(31:54):
song I worked with any good Room before I met
Kelly and turned out it ended up becoming a song
of Let's listen to it for a second. From that
wall facely golden members read that will lave raise all
(32:25):
the plants and treads so hard to replace. From another
place to another town, still drifting to the minds fathers plenty,
(33:10):
still where you surprised Steve that a song that you
had already written before you met Kelly seemed to look
I have goose bumps on my arms. I can't. I
can't make that happen. It's something that happens to me.
(33:31):
Where that comes from is life sustaining, and He's the
most important thing of my life right now, Katie. I
mean to connect with music like that, and even if
it's my own music, it means so much to me
at this time in my life. I'm not a spring chicken, honey, okay,
you know, and I need this so more than I've
(33:54):
ever needed it in my whole life. This connect, this
connection with emotion in music and songwriting, nothing means more
to me than reconnecting like a song like that. Uh,
the lyrics of that. I'm so proud of him because
he's just being honest about the memories and everything is
going on. And then he says, from another place to
(34:16):
another town, still drifting, That's what I did when I
was home. He just shifts, He goes he's being memorable.
Then he shifts to like just drifting around again. Lost.
But to the ones you've lost their most of all
many years, won't heal when tears still call their most
of all? That means so much to me. I need
(34:37):
that out there for me, And I just hope it
touches somebody, but for me, I mean I need it.
I think that also there's some very up tempo songs,
kind of of course rock songs, like like Noah Racin,
which is about a high school reunion. Let's listen to
that song for a second. Sorry, offend together you'll call
(35:12):
what is it about high school that keeps drawing you
back there? Steve? I think we're all in high school still,
I think emotionally, if we look honestly within ourselves, some
of our teenage years, the foundation of our hearts and
soul were completely fed by all the fantasies. These teenage
fantasies of our youth. I read that you don't like
(35:34):
to dissect songs because you say, if you talk too
much about what they mean, it takes away the ability
for everyone to interpret it for themselves and for have
it to make it meaningful for them experience their own experience. Yeah,
that's right. Having said that, I love the story behind,
don't stop believe it. So you have to tell us
(35:56):
a little bit about the circumstances. You're in a hotel. Yeah, okay,
I'm in a hotel in Detroit, and we just finished
a show at the Cobo Hall and uh, I think
it was the Poncha train. Somebody brought it to my attention.
Hotel and I'm at the top floor looking down and
I'm not sleepy. It's like three in the morning. I'm
seeing the street lights glowing the entire streets from the
(36:19):
top down and they're sort of a of a rust
colored amber color, and I just could not believe it.
Everybody's still milling around, you know. Uh, I thought these
are like street light people. They're like people living under
these street lights. And it's three in the morning, so
I remember that street light people. And then down the
(36:40):
boulevard up and down the boulevard. That's right. And then uh,
and then I remembered, Um, there was this place in
my hometown called the l Rancho Hotel that had a bar,
a terrible bar and club with a little stage in
the corner. That's where I used to play all my
cover band music with the band I wasn't at the time.
(37:02):
And you'd walk into this place and it had a
red carpet that was just stained with all sorts of
alcohol and wine spilling and everything, and they never washed it.
And they're the smell of wine and cheap perfume. Women
would wear the cheapest perfume, okay, and to show up,
you know, to try to have a smile and share
of a night, right. So that came from it came
(37:25):
from there, you know. And that was just sort of
reflections of a bunch of different places in your life.
That's right. And this city motel or hotel, that's right.
And and and ultimately though it's a love story, isn't it. Well,
it's it's about not giving up. It's really about you know,
you've got to keep believing. It's about a city boy
and a city girl and and just taking the world. Well, yeah,
(37:48):
I'm making a midnight taking the midnight train to anywhere.
It's about throwing yourself to the wind and and just
living your life. You know. I think that is what
resonates with the youth of today because the song really
is about it's okay where you're at right now. You're
doing what you're supposed to be doing. You're throwing your
life to the wind and just follow the wind. You know,
(38:12):
it must be fun for you to see a whole
new generation fall in love with Journey. I think we
can give a little credit possibly to the cast of Glee,
which covered Don't Stop Believing. So let's listen for a second.
Stop hold on to that. When you saw that on Glee, Steve,
(38:46):
did you get such a kick out of it? Because
I remember my daughter we were super you know, glee freaks.
I guess they call them gleeks. We used to watch it,
you know, it was there a thing we did together,
and Kara used to record herself and put herself on YouTube.
She since taking it down, uh singing don't Stop Believing?
And I mean it really did you get a kick
(39:07):
out of that? Did I did? Because it was a
whole new generation and again a high school generation. You see,
it's that, it's that it's that period that I'm talking
about that is an important period in any evolution of
a human being. It just is a magical time our
teen years and and to see that song become part
(39:27):
of the joys of that generation really really warmed my heart.
And then it continued by the way, you know, I
mean it continued all sorts of places, sporting events and
ended up with sopranos of course, well, of course, and
and and that was a thrill for you. I know
that they reached out that you knew before the rest
of the country. I didn't know that it was going
(39:48):
to happen at the end of the Sopranos because I
held out. I was the only one who held out.
You know, there's three writers and everybody said yes, but me.
And the only reason I held out was because I
want to make sure if that David Chase wasn't gonna
whack the family with the song playing, you know, because
Scorsese would do that. You know. Going to the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, was it great senior bandmates
or did you? Were you conflicted? I was conflicted, and
(40:11):
I and I almost didn't go because I was so conflicted.
But what happened was I started going online and I
remembered the times I had spent away in my hometown
and we spoke of earlier and all my heroes that
I grew up with on those forty fives were inducted,
and I thought, oh my god, this is where I'm going.
This is this. I'm gonna goose bumps again, stee my
(40:33):
arms because I really felt like, oh my god, this
is real. I'm really going to be inducted with my heroes,
the ones that I looked up to. So I felt
a sense of purpose and insistence within myself that I
must be there because at that point, no matter what
we did or didn't do, or you know, you could
still love somebody and not hang out with him, by
(40:54):
the way, you know, I really think that needs to
be said, all right, And so the point is that
I still have feelings because we were in the trenches
together as a group, trying to accomplish a mission that
you know, the concept of a band is when you
band together to do collectively what you can't do by yourself.
It would have been so epic if you had just
(41:15):
done one song. But I didn't understand that. But but
instead I wanted to pay tribute to everyone who had
done so much for giving this kid, a San Joaquin
Valley kid from the Hanford, California a chance to live
his dream and chase after it. That meant more to me.
(41:37):
I think Greg Rowley, I think Neil Sean, I think
the manager for believing me. And then I had to
thank Arnell for for pouring his heart out every night
for ten years. You're the guy who, I can't say
your replacement, but the guy who became the lead singer.
But he but he's so good. He's a good kid.
He's he really has been pouring his heart out in
that band for ten years and generous about it. Look
(42:00):
why not? I mean, I mean that's the way I
see it. If you you know, you had some good
times with these band members, obviously didn't see eye to eye,
obviously got on each other's nerves, and you were happy
to walk away. But you know, a lot of this
is about friendship, and I don't know I have friends
that I have I'm no longer friends with me. Why well,
it's no, no, I mean, it's too complicated. But in
(42:26):
my heart, well it leaves a hole in your heart,
but it is too complicated. Why why can't you go
back to your friends because it's complicated. I should. I
want to and hope it will, but it's but it's
very to you. But it's very complicated, very difficult. I should.
I hope to and one day I will, and you,
I don't know if I can. Why not? It's too complicated.
(42:51):
I just can't. Can't go back. No, I don't think
people can go back. I think that's one of the
things I learned when I was away that if I'm
to push through life, I like the adventure of always
going somewhere I've never been and growing with that. And
the biggest thing, Katie, the biggest thing is a second ago.
I just played most of all for you, and I
(43:14):
got goose bumps on my arm. I have not had
that connection with something I lost when I left the
group in years, remember thirty one years I left. Then
somewhere in the middle, I came back to them again, tried.
I tried to go back. It didn't work a second time.
Why should I try a third time if it didn't work.
And I'm not even talking about music, I'm talking about
(43:35):
a relationship. I guess Steve, Look, if relationships were possible
like that, I just don't know if people can separate
there their motives from their relationships, if you know what
I mean, I think I know what you mean. Yeah, really,
I mean it's it's friendships are private and intimate and
(43:57):
protective to themselves. When they get spilled into motives, it
doesn't feel like a friendship. It seems like you're afraid
to rekindle a relationship for fear it will be exploited
for something else. Pretty much, if it's going to be
a friendship, exploitation of a friendship is just not a friendship.
(44:19):
I don't know. Time. Time tells everything. You know. Life
is a very strange place. And I think that the Eels,
that the lead singer of the Eels set, Yeah, he said,
Steve Perry moves in mysterious ways. Do you think you're
going to do another album? I mean, is this is this,
is this reconnection with music going to last? Or do
(44:43):
you think that this is a new chapter and we'll
be hearing a lot more from you? How much stuff
I want to do? I've got songs started, I've got
songs already recorded that are sketched. I've got more material.
I have more material than I need, and maybe that
I have time left in my life to finish. To
be honest, it's a commitment to continue to make music
(45:03):
for the time I have left. I tell you from
the bottom of my heart, this is life sustaining to me.
And I need that right now because Katie, have lost
my mother and my dad, my grandparents who raised me.
I'm an only child. I need this. Why didn't you
ever get married, Steve? Scared? Scared, And I'll tell you
(45:25):
With Kelly, I was really close, so close. I just
didn't like what happened and what I saw growing up,
and I just don't think it was for me. And
then I wasn't deposed, and so many divorces with the
band members, one after another, and the next time I
turned around, this guy is marrying a new one. And
(45:46):
now I've been across at least three wives with one
guy while I was in the band, and a couple
with others, and and deposed because you're in a partnership together.
So I watched them lose half of every thing every time,
and I'm thinking, it's not how much you make, it's
how much you save. So maybe I should stay single.
(46:08):
Or have a good prenup, Steve, Well, I hear they're
not so great, and I know the album is doing great.
I'm so happy, so happy. Nothing makes me happier right
now than the people here this music and hopefully love
it and feel it. That's all I want, that's all.
I don't care if they stream it. I don't even care.
(46:28):
I'm so happy for this new chapter in your life,
and I wish you a lot of happiness, but I
also wish you a lot of peace, Steve Perry. On
that note, that wraps up my interview with Steve Perry,
such a treat to talk with him and to sing
with him too. Well, Katie, we've gotten a lot of
(46:50):
listener emails asking for more singing from you, not from me.
I have to get the people what they want, then, Brian,
you do you do? Before we go, I want to
thank the team that produces this pot cast Producer Emma
morgen Stern, associate producer Noura, Richie Jared O'Connell, our engineer,
and special thanks to my good friend Matt Lombardi who
really helped me so much with this episode. Matt reunited
(47:13):
and it feels so good. Also, thank you, Gianna Palmer
for your help, and Casey Holford for putting up with
Steve and me on a Saturday morning in the studio.
Thanks to everyone at Katie currk Media Beta. Mas is
Katie's assistant and a fabulous one at that, and Julia
Lewis is the social media whiz. Jared Arnold composed our
(47:34):
theme music. You can find Brian on Twitter under Goldsmith
b and I am everywhere Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all as
Katie CURRC. If you've thoughts about the show, or questions
for Katie or me, or guest suggestions, or really anything,
please reach out our email addresses comments at currect podcast
dot com, or you can leave us a voicemail by
(47:54):
calling nine to nine two to four, four six three seven.
We'll talk you next week. M
Host
Katie Couric
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