Guitarist Neal Schon Never Stopped Believing in Journey's Potential

Though Journey began as a prog rock act in the 1970s, the group's sound evolved over time as it churned out radio friendly hits such as "Don't Stop Believin'," "Any Way You Want It" and "Who's Crying Now."  Inducted into the Rock Hall in 2017, the group famously recruited Filipino singer Arnel Pineda to take the place of Steve Perry in 2007 and has continued to play stadiums and arenas with Pineda as its frontman.

In a Zoom call during which he sat in his home office with a few of the band's gold records hanging on the wall behind him, guitarist Neal Schon, a founding member of the band, spoke about the group's decades-long history and Journey's current tour with Def Leppard that brings it to Progressive Field on Tuesday, July 30.

Your Rock Hall induction came years after the band was eligible. How frustrated were you that it took so long?
I wasn’t frustrated at all. I had just forgotten about it. We had already attained so much success on account of how many albums we sold. That was the main thing. When we finally got in, the coolest thing about it besides being inducted was the fact that a lot of the older members were there and we could congregate and get together again and talk about how cool it was. It wasn’t anything that I was sitting around looking at my watch for.

I heard rumors that Steve Perry was going to sing with the group at the induction. Was that even a remote possibility?
It was never even brought up. Of course, I was ready to do whatever at any given time. If he said he wanted to sing and needed to sing in a certain key, I was ready. It never happened. It was okay. We had a very positive meeting, and it was the first time we had seen each other in years.

Will you attend the ceremony this fall to see your contemporaries Foreigner inducted?
We have done tours with them in the past. We toured with them through the years and all the personnel changes. We’ll probably be busy. We have a busy schedule this year. We’re playing all over the place. We’re in the Orient, and we’re playing the UK. We just got back from Scandinavia, and more dates keep coming, and we’re getting reading to head out on summer stadium tour. We’ve got a busy year in front of us. I won’t have any time to attend any ceremonies.

I think they should've been inducted years ago.
One that I’m just dumbfounded about is Paul Rodgers because of Free and Bad Company and everything he has ever done. He is one of the greatest rock 'n’ roll singers in the world. I have worked with him, and I was completely amazed by his ability night after after night to sing as good live as he does on a record. That is a fricking sin [that he is not in the Rock Hall].

Your debut self-titled album wasn’t a huge hit when it came out in 1975, but it ultimately showed great promise. Talk about it.
I don’t go back and listen to it all the time. I have played it since then. it’s funny. The amount of records we sold in those early days would be considered high in this day’s market. Had it come out now, everyone would say it was a hit record. We’re past gold now. It took many years to get there. That [version of the] band was only together for three-and-a-half or four years. We moved on and went on to more a vocal area with Steve Perry singing, and we wrote completely different material. It was actually the first time I wrote a song with someone like Steve singing, and I was unsure of the waters and if I knew how to write like that. We did have immediate chemistry when we first got together, and it was amazing and different.

You’d have a breakthrough with 1978’s Infinity . What was the key to establishing your sound and attracting a bigger audience?
Radio was key. It’s not so key anymore because there is hardly any radio. Back then, radio was everything. It’s what I was raised on. Everything you heard was on the radio. Getting on the radio was a major ordeal. [You wanted] to get played and picked up in major markets, so it would snowball. It never happened before Steve Perry was involved in the band. There’s a lot to do with record labels. Now that I’ve been away from labels, I can see how you need to have a label behind you that is ready to drop a lot of cash. They were not ready to do that for us, but we were attaining visibility in the early days by opening up for everyone. When we met Lynyrd Skynyrd, that was the audience completely accepted us for who we were back then.

I’m surprised since they are a Southern rock band, and you came out of Northern California.
I would have never imagined it either. We really struck their audience. We were a guitar and drums and sign of a jam band. we were one of the originals besides the Dead. We were like the Dead on steroids. Their audience understood our music as it was back then. We would get three encores. At just about that time, CBS had come to our manager and said they were ready to pull the plug if we didn't get a frontman who can get us on the radio. We had to make a hard decision. Luckily, we made the right decision through listening to our manager, and it stuck and withstood the test of time. I’m proud of everything we’ve done from the beginning until now, and our audience continues to grow.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” has became a huge anthem. What’s the story behind the tune.
The lyrical content that [keyboardist] Jonathan [Cain] came in with was something that his father had given him. It was about don’t stop believing in yourself. That was the nucleus. It was a song about hope and resilience and all that and to make it to the end and don’t give up. It’s a strong, positive message. We all created it together. Jon came in with the piano riff, and I started looking for a Motown bass line. I wanted a Smokey Robinson-type of thing because Steve [Perry] and I had an R&B background. I came with that moving bass line, and we helped each other finish it. I came up with the chords that the vocal melody follows and the train signature solo that goes by you that’s like a symphony line. That, in turn, inspired everyone to finish the lyrics. It was the three of us really correlating and coming up with all the missing bits and pieces. The greatest songs come from sitting in a room with a band. You’re all together. Everyone puts their little bits in and that adds to the chemistry and magic. The greatest songs come really quickly. You don’t overthink it. You just go, “That’s it.”

What was the recording session like?
When we we recorded it, we recorded it exactly as we rehearsed it. When the label heard it, the A&R section wondered if they should chop it up. The arrangement is very odd. It has one chorus, and it’s at the end of the song. It’s not traditionally what works on radio. They didn’t 100 percent believe in the song but pushed other songs. In the same way, they didn’t push “Lights” from Infinity or “Wheel in the Sky” like they could have. Those are massive hits when we play them live. “Any Way You Want It" is the biggest downloaded song next to “Don’t Stop Believin'.” Just because it didn’t chart doesn’t mean anything. It’s fictional. Half of it is bought. The true test of time when we are playing now all these years later and the audience sings every song.

In 2022, you released Freedom , your first studio album in 11 years. Talk about your approach on that album.
It wasn’t planned. The pandemic had hit. I don’t think anybody thought we’d be in lockdown for three years and not able to tour and not able to get together and write in a studio together. That was the situation. After a couple of years, I got antsy to do something. I just started writing. I started sending Jonathan ideas. I thought we could make a record and everyone could overdub their parts but it isn’t optimum. The magic comes from when you play live in the studio together. we rehearsed before we went into a studio. We really rehearsed well before we went into the studio. With Escape , we wrote and rehearsed for a month and a half and got ready to play live without thinking of production. There was no production. It was like, “What do you do live to make this work?” We made it for 85 grand. That’s what we’re capable of doing if you get in a room together and rehearse. With Freedom , we’re not able to do it. I was working remotely from San Rafael, and we would have Zoom sessions with everyone. I think it came out fairly well. The songs are greater than the actual performances together. You refine your performances. You got go in and kick the ball around. It’s like you’re a team and you need to throw it around it and do your due diligence. Without doing that, the song ideas are far greater than the actual album. We took great time and energy in putting together the sequence so they hit you when the come right after another. I had a different sequence than Jonathan did. I had more of the rockin' stuff spread out. his was softer and not so abrasive. We have always been at opposite ends of the bookshelf, but it works even though sometimes we hear things differently.

The show here with Def Leppard should be a good one. Talk about it.
I couldn’t be more excited than to get back on tour with those guys. It’ll be our third tour with them. The last one we did was in 2018 and was the most successful tour we had done either apart or together. There has always been great chemistry. Their audience loves us, and we love them. It’s going to be a party. It’s a great way to get back into stadiums for us. We came off of three years of touring with Toto, a band I chose to go out with, to secondary markets. We were sold out for three years straight. Judging by that, I think this tour is going to do very well.

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