Trials and Tribulations of Journey Lead Singer Steve Perry

Trials and
Tribulations of Journey Lead Singer Steve Perry

December 20, 2011
Monique M
Journalism

Whenever you think of Steve Perry, you think of his dark, good looks, deep, sensuous voice and famous career as the lead singer for Journey. But have you ever looked at things from Steve’s point of view?

Stephen Ray Perry is a very special kind of guy. He goes out on that stage even if he's feeling sick or maybe kind of low and puts on a razzle-dazzle show the envy of many a lead singer. Steve's professional attitude is quite admirable, but when you think about his basically shy and private nature you realize just how incredible a job he really does. With the commercial success of Journey ever since Steve joined up in 1977, Steve's life has been led on the road. It's what he's always wanted what he dreamed of! But Steve's paid a price for wanting to get out there and perform he’s given up a lot of his own life and privacy for the sake of his art. You just have to take a look at his bitten-to-the-quick fingernails to see how that has taken its toll.Steve Perry was an active, even mischievous boy; an only child of Ray Perry, was a big band singer and very well-known. His mom, Mary, was a homemaker, dancer, but was also a great singer, "Until they took her tonsils out," explained Steve. His parents' divorced when he was only seven years old, which made him especially aware of the value of personal relationships and his musical talent and special sensitivities helped him appreciate the use of contemplation as a
creative tool. What he didn't always understand was just how much of the time to contemplate and "recharge one's batteries" is taken away by success. Steve Perry is a serious, extremely private individual, and perhaps less able to trust others after his solitary childhood experiences, he's careful with people till he gets to know them better. The great thing about this part of his life though, was that his mom re-married, and his new step-dad,Marv, a contractor, was really the greatest. He taught Steve many of his carpentry skills, and served as a big, strong, knowledgeable guide in his life. It was great having a new dad, but he had also gained a friend. He gave Steve a job on his turkey ranch where he worked with him building sheds and doing other odd jobs, there he learned a lot about working with my hands, and about how important it is to take pride in your work.

Steve Perry stands 5'8" tall and 140 pounds with greener- than- green eyes and sports a brown mane that occasionally varies in length. He is slim and in good physical condition after he turned to a vegetarian diet due to a bad experience with beef. When Steve joined the band Journey he made a giant leap from struggle, starvation, pyorrhea (a gum disease resulting from severe vitamin deficiencies) and malnutrition to now living comfortably in a three-bedroom lovely new home in Sausalito, California that features resident squirrels and woodpeckers. After all these years of driving his folks "nuts," now Steve is being driven batty by his noisy animal friends. He also has a tabby cat he calls “Kitty,” the cat came with the house he. Although, he recently bought himself a shiny Mercedes sports car, but still hangs on to his beat-up old 1973 Volkswagen for sentimental value, driving it every chance he gets. He visits his family in Southern California, along with listening to his stereo and watching a bit of television. He’s still a workaholic when it comes to writing and singing music, even though he can’t read music.

Steve Perry was born in the Northern California city of Hanford on January 22, 1949. Being raised in a famous family isn't what gave Steve the desire to become a big success himself. It was the thrill he got from singing. That's all he ever really wanted to do, and he admits he starved trying to get there.He gave his family a really hard time when he was growing up, exasperating his mom by putting up with all his energetic shenanigans and some of the stunts he pulled. It was basically a very normal childhood for Steve though, with the best proof being his continued warm and very close relationship with his folks. As an only child, Steve learned early on that it was possible to "get away with murder" in any situation, but discovered later, that being an only child could be lonely too especially on those long, rainy days.He established a life-long pattern in those early years of his life. Steve was always brimming with energy hyperactive with a wanderlust that was never satisfied. He was always on the lookout for greater adventures.All that running around left him on the "thin and scrawny" side, but Steve was too busy having fun to notice. He had so much "fun" then, in fact,
that he really didn't start doing well at school until after the third grade; a matter he regrets very much today.

At age seven, Steve and his mom were in the Azores Islands off the coast of Morocco. They went sightseeing, and while at the top of a huge open crater (a sheep herder and his flock were all the way down inside it), Steve decided to go exploring. By the time his mom noticed he was on the other side and in real danger of falling into the enormous hole. Another time, he crawled out on a rock over the ocean and not realizing he was in serious danger of falling in. In an effort not to frighten him so he wouldn't lose his balance, Steve's mom crawled out after him and saved him. Grabbing him yelling, you took 20 years off my life!"

During junior high and high school there were all the usual adolescent problems. Steve was teased about being thin; he wore braces,he was small, and of course, he was teased about the size of his nose. There was his very long hair - in those days, the mark of a kid who loved rock 'n roll. Not everyone approved! That made him shier than he already was, but music helped him come to terms with himself and his friends. He joined many clubs in high school including band, choir, and track.

Steve didn't lack for adventure and never got over all that silliness. One particular incident with friends Doug, Judy and Rose, the foursome were in a condemned house shooting at hubcaps with their B-B guns. They accidentally broke the window of a passing car! The driver stopped; they ran; he caught them and drove them directly to their parents. They had to pay for all the damages with their hard-earned money. Needless to say they never engaged in such dangerous "play" again.The thing that really stopped all the childhood pranks in Steve's life was his ever-developing love of music. He was in many bands including The Nocturns, Dollar Bills, Sullies, Pieces, and Alien Project. The Sullies won the battle of the bands in Calaveras County, playing against 80 other bands. Alien Project was close to signing a record deal when their bass player was killed in an auto accident on July 4th. Steve almost gave up on music for good. It was his total involvement with them that made those adolescent years worthwhile. Although he was never one to make many, many close friends, Steve has maintained his musical relationships for all these years.

When he was seventeen he was wanted to be D.J at a radio station. Back then you had to have a third class license to be a D.J. and then you could work certain hours. Steve wanted to get into that so he went to San Francisco to try to take the test with the F.C.C. The test which included learning all kinds of equations, including a slide rule was very difficult. Steve stated in several interviews “at the time I was about as bright as a pink plastic soap dish on a slide rule so I flunked the test.”

Steve spent two years at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California, which he decided to leave the security of the classroom and seek a music career in Los Angeles. Although; he never learned how to write and read music, he says he writes songs, working by feel and gets the main ideas coming out of my mouth. Steve began his rock career as a drummer-singer doing a lot of country western songs. To get by, Steve took many odd jobs that would still leave him plenty of time for his music; he helped his dad re-build sheds on a turkey ranch, he did general carpentry work, he made big lamps with grape clusters all over them and sold them for extra cash. Eventually, when Steve became an engineer in a recording studio - working the control board and handling tapes - he got just a bit closer to his goal. He saw many a lean day back then, but even when it seemed he'd finally found his niche with a group called Alien (Project) they were 'closerthanthis' to a recording contract when bassist was tragically killed in a car crash. Steve moved to Los Angeles and
spent a long time bouncing around from rock club to rock club. Very few of them would allow him to come in and sing his own songs - they wanted people who sang well-established hits. That wasn't exactly what Steve had in mind, and he spent a lot of that excess energy of his keeping a roof over his head and talking his way into new jobs. Disillusioned with the rock world, Steve considered throwing in the towel right then and there, or at least returning to the technical engineering he'd mastered to support himself. But he couldn't squelch the musician in his soul no matter the hazards. Later,while he was in a group with rocker Tim Bogert of Vanilla Fudge fame, when he heard that Journey was looking for a lead singer. Journey was trying to make a name for itself,plus, they'd just tried out a lead singer who'd not been able to shape up, so when they heard Steve's rich voice wrapped around some really way out musical notes, they knew he was their missing link. Shortly he was contacted by Herbie Herbert, who said the band Journey listened to a demo tape and liked his singing style. Since then he's helped give Journey some direction and three very popular albums - "Infinity", "Evolution" and "Departure.” Fame is being able to play to a crowd of 16,000 fans night after night. Some of the hazards are being mobbed by a group of fans who've gotten out of control - having his hair ripped out, his clothes torn.

Steve is probably the most private member of Journey, everyone in the band agrees. He's always been private. Even with all the pressures and criticisms of the press, he still loves his job. In fact, when he's asked about the bands outside projects and admits that, "No matter what projects we do outside the group, Journey will always be the mother ship. It'll go on and on. Journey is ready to rock its brains away and make a lot of people happy." They became the hardest working, touring band in history. Of course, not everything which goes on is Steve's
responsibility, but being the front man - the person who speaks to the audience every night during a concert, the person most people identify with when they think of Journey - does have its downfalls. Whenever a critic takes a stab at the band, they nearly always mention Steve -rarely the other guys. Whenever a rumor is linked to the band, the rumors are usually about Steve - not the other guys - and it's all because Steve's the front man, the lead singer, the person everyone identifies with.

Obviously, even with all the pressures, the rumors, and the frequent lack of privacy, Steve is still doing it all for one reason - to sing and "make a lot of people happy." Was there animosity between Gregg Rolie and Steve? No. Gregg allowed Steve to move into his basement and showed him the ropes of the music industry. Gregg and Steve became good friends until they became competitive over songs.

Steve’s vocal range was described as a kind of operatic falsetto, a round tone. He describes it as a trick to get so you can bridge the upper register of your normal voice to the lower register of your falsetto. I use silent H's on the vowels sometimes to get across that bridge.Steve explains what he had to go through daily for a show by using glycerin,like you buy at the drugstore, half glycerin and half fresh lemon juice. Using it to gargle with it, and aerates to get some moisture to the chords. Then he didn’t talk. Between the lemon making him salivate, and the air sending it back, causes his throat to get some extra lubricant on those chords. This is what they need. If they go dry, you start to get into nodules. Steve’s quoted as saying, “You know you talk about drying your chords out and all that. Liquor is very bad, and smoking. I do not smoke - not pot very much anymore, or cigarettes. The smoke is as hot as the flame and it goes right across your chords. What better drying agent than hot smoke and flame. A guitarist can be sick with the flu and go out and play. The singer can't go out and buy a new voice or strings. You have the voice you came with and that is all you are going to get. Of course, there are kinds of surgery these days; you will never be the same, though. You are better off
keeping what you have, and making sure you have it for a while. That takes discipline and it is frustrating. I enjoy going out partying and drinking with the guys as much as anybody. There are times I just have to go out and have a good time. ” He would fight all the time for lower volume.

With the mist of fame came heartache. His girlfriend Sherrie left and his mom suffered a stroke. Spending all the time he could, he would catch a plane and fly home to take care of her. His mother was very ill and he was taking her to all kinds of clinics. She had a lot of neurological problems because of strokes, so they would always be in x-ray wards, CAT scan wards. People wouldn't see her, they'd see Steve. So a rumor got started that Steve had cancer because he had canceled a show. In reality he had laryngitis, so he had to cancel a show in Dallas. One time Steve related that his grandfather called him crying on the phone because he had gotten a phone call from a friend of his who had seen Steve at a medical Centre. The rumor got started that he had throat cancer and that he was in the x-ray ward. His grandfather was crying and so upset saying, "Why didn't you tell me?" Steve explained to him, "Grandpa, I don't know what you are talking about." He explained to him he was there with his Mom. So, to dispel the rumor again, he held a press release stating, “God willing I know what I'm saying now, I don't have anything wrong like that. I'm sure people wonder what happened to me.” After losing his Mom, changed and then Journey sort of went it's separate ways. His personal relationship at that time fell apart. That meant turning his back for a while on a lot of things...not just singing, songwriting, touring,and making records, but a lot of things.

During this time you would have found Steve Perry riding his softail Harley in the San Joaquin Valley a lot, between the orange trees and the mountains. Steve’s dad had a Harley; you would see them riding together. He sold the Harley due to the helmet laws in California. Most of Steve’s downtime was spent tinkering around the house, fixing up his property, or riding in his '74 Coupe Deville...a huge Cadillac his grandfather had given him, that he referred to as his Love Lounge because it was so big. That was until one December day he was stopped at a red light at Sunset waiting for it to change. Somebody yelled, "Hey, you-re on fire!" Smoke was coming out from under the hood. So there he was parked on the right hand side of Sunset Boulevard facing east. By then the flames were coming up the hood and it was turning from white smoke to black smoke, so he jumped out of the car and ran thinking it was going to blow up at any minute. I really thought it was going to blow up. Watching about a block down the street and he stood there watching it burn. There was nothing he could do. But the fire extinguisher was in the trunk but he had just filled the tank with twenty-five gallons of gas so he had to just stand there and watch it burn.
Here was Steve Perry walking around in circles in front of a social services building and this little short Hispanic lady comes up to him and she says,"Don't worry, God take care of you, while watching the car burn and the fire department hadn't gotten there yet. By the time they got there it was really full blown flames and black smoke for miles. She looked at him and said, "Don't worry. You're okay. That's what's important. You can get another car, but you .. You’re okay." He laughed and said, "You're right." That thought hadn’t crossed his mind because all he could think about was saving his Love Lounge.

You can also find Steve Perry doing abstract paintings. He doesn’t sell them, just loves to paint. He also takes helicopter flying very seriously. Even though he hated flying on airplanes due to several close calls. Often you will find him on a tropical island swimming, scuba diving, hiking, or fishing. He loves hot air ballooning.

Steve Perry has had a very successful career. He has lead one of the most successful bands of the 70's, 80's, and 90's while continuing a prosperous solo career. He recorded 10 albums with Journey that sold more than 45 million copies. With this Steve also recorded two highly successful solo albums. With Perry on vocals, Journey's style would change. Their fourth album, Infinity (1978), became their first
successful album. They would go on to record nine more albums. Journey with Steve became one of the late 70's early 80's "Stadium Bands". That means they could fill any stadium in any town and that is just what they did.Steve, while still with Journey, also releases a solo effort to rave reviews.The name of the record was "Street Talk". Perry also appeared on numerous soundtracks (with Journey) and on the record "We Are the World" by USA for Africa.

After recording Journey's 9th album "RAISED ON RADIO" Steve took time off from music to help take care of his ill mother. With Perry not there Journey disbanded. In 1994, Steve emerged from out of what seemed like nowhere to release his second solo album "For the Love Of Strange Medicine". On the record was a song entitled "Any Way"
which was about the time apart from the band. After Perry came back it was only a matter of time before Journey was back. In 1996 Journey reformed to release their 10th and final album with Steve called "TRIAL BY FIRE". The band finally received their first Grammy nomination with the release of their reunion album. The song "When You Love a Woman" was nominated in the category for 'Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.'

In May 1998 Steve Perry announced that he was officially leaving Journey. The split came in the wake of a conversation between Perry and Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain in which it was decided that, if Perry's health issues prohibited him from committing to a tour at that time, Cain and original Journey guitarist Neil Schon would reform the band with a new singer. Drummer Steve Smith also left Journey. Perry has recently worked with David Foster and Carole Bayer-Sager in writing and recording "I Stand Alone," the principle track for the soundtrack to the animated feature film Quest for Camelot.

You can find him hanging out at the Giants baseball games next summer. He has only recently gotten into sports. At one time offered to purchase a NASCAR Craftsman Truck but with the expenses backed out of the deal. You can also find him at the horse track. ometimes in the summer you can find him in Hanford for a whole week going to the fair. Checking out pigs and the cows, junk food and also checking out the rides.

Steve doesn’t seem to mind being recognized these days. It
doesn't affect him in the same way it used to. If people recognize him and they are nice, it is a great experience. He is a very patient man and will spend the time talking with his fans.

Steve loves meeting his fans! He can go on and on about a particular audience. He's tickled pink with the love and loyalty he gets from Journey's admirers but he needs just a little time all alone, every once in a while. Whether it's an hour alone in his hotel room or a chance to putter around his home making minor repairs, those tiny pockets of time are the stuff that Steve Perry's creativity is made of. Those special holiday moments with his family; the reunions with school friends and band mates; meeting fans who were fans way-back-when are all experiences that add up to be the Steve Perry you know and love.

Steve looks back on those times with the patience and understanding of the young adult he is. He knows that he had to get a lot out of his system in order to get on the right track, and he's sincerely thankful to his folks for standing by him in even the most trying of times. Steve sees the entire experience as such a loving, learning experience. His statement to his fans is always “Don’t Stop
Believing.”








REFERENCES
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Steve
Perry: Lead Vocalist Of Journey - 1980

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A
SESSION WITH JOURNEY - 1980

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Journey's
Rise To The Top - 1981

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Rockline!
Spotlights...Journey's Steve Perry - 1981

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Journey's
Steve Perry: Rocker On The Run! - 1981

·
Growing
Up With Steve Perry - 1981

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Journey's
Steve Perry: "A Private Kind O' Fella" - 1982

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Journey's
Steve Perry and Steve Smith - 1983

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Journey's
Steve Perry Spreads His Wings - 1983

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Steve
Perry: Evolves... 1983

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Steve
Perry's Fame & Rumors - 1983

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Journey
Force: Street Talk Interview

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Journey
Force: "A Chat With Steve Perry"

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Off
The Record w/ Joe Benson - 1999