In early 2013, Journey leader Neal Schon sat down with AOR Magazine to talk about the band's past, present and future, about his relationship with Steve Perry, his spat with former Bad English bandmate John Waite, his experiences with drugs in the 70s, and the role of the guitar hero in the modern era. This interview has not appeared online before.
As the guitarist and founding member of Journey, Neal Schon is a genuine AOR legend. And right now, he’s more famous than ever, due to his high-profile romance with his new fiancée, the socialite and former reality TV star Michaele Salahi, to whom he proposed on stage during a Journey concert in Baltimore in October 2012.
But music has always been at the centre of Neal Schon’s life, and this year is no exception. In May, Journey embark on a UK tour with special guests Whitesnake and Thunder. And following the release of Schon’s latest solo album The Calling in 2012, work has already begun on a new Journey album, with an R&B influence harking back to the band’s 1986 classic Raised On Radio.
Article continues belowSchon has even hinted at the possibility of a ‘farewell’ reunion tour with former singer Steve Perry sometime in the future. But following two albums with current vocalist Arnel Pineda, the guitarist states emphatically: “There’s a lot of life left in this band.”
Firstly, let’s settle a long-running debate. Does your surname rhyme with ‘on’ or ‘own’?
It rhymes with ‘on’. People say it both ways, and really, I go with both, because I get called both so often. The only thing I wish they would do is spell my first name with an ‘a’… That still pops up every day. But as long as people know who they’re talking about, who cares?
It also has to be said that in the early 70s, you had the best afro ever seen on a white man…
You’re right [laughs]. I had a manager at the time, Herbie Herbert, and his whole thing was, “Man, we gotta get your ’fro looking good!” He’d be backstage with me, brushing the thing out, getting it as big as possible.
Is it true that Carlos Santana introduced you to LSD when you were a member of his band in the early 70s?
Well, no. I’d already taken it before I met him [laughs]. I was a teenager hanging out with some friends and we all dropped acid when we went to see The Beatles’ movie Yellow Submarine. That was a trip. I couldn’t stop laughing the whole movie. That’s all I remember.
Back in the mid-70s, before Steve Perry joined Journey, the band made three albums of jazz-influenced rock: 1975’s self-titled debut, Look Into The Future (1976), and Next (1977). Those albums sound like they were made by a bunch of potheads. Were they?
There was a lot of that going on. You know, there was a lot of that going on everywhere – and especially in San Francisco. It was no big deal. In the music scene, smoking pot was like eating a ham sandwich.
Did you get into cocaine in the 80s, like so many of your peers did?
No, never went there. I’d been in other bands where people were really messed up on hard drugs, and, unfortunately, a lot of people just drop off and die. And I was never one to want to go down – I never wanted to take anything that made me go down. And now I’m glad to say I don’t do anything at all, and I’m more active in every sense – my writing abilities, my playing abilities, everything in my life is so much better.
So when was the last time you listened to those first three Journey albums?
I listen to it all. Just recently I downloaded all of our records into my iPhone. I loaded it with all my favourite music and in the midst of loading it all up, I grabbed every single one of our records. Which is how I’ve come up with an idea for the next Journey record as a synopsis of everything.
Can you elaborate?
Well, we’ve experimented with a lot of different directions on the first two records with Arnel [2008’s Revelation and 2011’s Eclipse]. And right now, I think, we’re definitely going to go back into the R&B thing – with power guitar.
Like back in 1986 with Raised On Radio?
Something like that, yeah.
For many fans, Raised On Radio is part of a holy trinity of Journey albums, alongside 1981’s Escape and 1983’s Frontiers. Which is your own personal favourite?
Obviously, Escape is one of our best records, but also I felt that Frontiers was – in a different seam. With Frontiers, the band was going boldly where nobody had gone before. It was an experimental record for us. I think some of it really hit right on the money and then some of it was a bit of a miss.
The band recorded two classic songs for Frontiers that didn’t make the cut for the album – Only The Young and Ask The Lonely…
That’s correct. One of the biggest mistakes we ever made [laughs].
Which songs shouldn’t have been on the album?
Back Talk, definitely.
You recently told Classic Rock that a reunion tour with Steve Perry was still possible – that “the door is always open”. What are your best memories of working with him?
Steve and I had some really amazing times together – when we first got together, and for years after that. He was a very funny guy, and he liked to party with the best of us. In the beginning, when we wrote Lights and Patiently, the first two songs we wrote together, we realised immediately that we had chemistry.
And the guy was really funny to be around, so we hung out all the time. We were very tight and close for years and years.
So what went wrong between you? Things happen along the way – women come and go, and things sometimes go sideways, which it did, and I was sorry to see that happen, but it did. It wasn’t really a fault of anyone’s. We all had a lot of different things to deal with: you’re growing up, you’re in a big band, and you’re making lots of money. You’re doing whatever you’re doing and it’s not helping the situation. It’s hard to keep it all together. But things happen for a reason.
Did Perry leave Journey, or was he pushed?
I never kicked him out of the band – he chose not to perform. He didn’t want to sing with us. He didn’t want to do a record. He didn’t want to do anything. That was pretty much where he was at. And he wanted us to sit still and not do anything too. But we all wrote the music together, and I think we’re all entitled to play it if we wish.
Well, you know better than most that singers can be a little strange. Only last year, John Waite, the singer for your 80s supergroup Bad English, made some pretty outrageous comments about Journey, calling the band’s music "super white".
It really caught me off guard when he said that. I love John’s voice – it’s very soulful. And the way he kind of talks through his lyrics, he’s a very cool singer. But he was talking like he’s Otis Redding or Sam Cooke! And isn’t John Waite one of the main pop-meisters?
So why do you think that John hates Journey so much?
I think the real problem lies between him and Jonathan Cain [Journey keyboard player and former member of Waite’s 70s band The Babys]. John was really pissed off that I grabbed Jonathan for Journey after The Babys opened for us in 1980.
I became good friends with Jonathan on that tour. I’d watched him from afar and I admired him as a band player. I saw that he was really like glue to The Babys, the way he played he glued everything together in that band. He played keyboards and he played guitar – he was just a solid person in the band.
And when Gregg Rolie [original Journey keyboard player] decided that he’d had enough of the road and wanted to bow out and go have a family life, Jonathan was my first pick to replace Gregg. And I think John Waite, for whatever reason, has always resented Jonathan for leaving The Babys.
It’s well documented that John Waite rejected Open Arms, a song that Jonathan Cain wrote for The Babys, because he thought it "too sugary". He must have been kicking himself when Journey’s version of Open Arms was a number one hit in the US.
John Waite always criticised Jonathan. He listened to Open Arms and said: “Total crap.” John is very outspoken. You know, sometimes I get a kick out of the way he is, but he really needs to get himself out of the funk, man.
You believe he has ‘issues’?
I just wish John would find his niche. He’s always miserable, you know? I love the guy, and we were very good friends when I worked with him. And actually, we left off being very good friends. He opened on a tour we did six or seven years ago, and I went to the gig early, he had a very good band, and I sat in with him and played on this country-type bluesy song he had that I dig.
You know, my hat’s off to him. I’ve rebuilt our band a bunch of times and paid my dues over and over, so I understand if John is frustrated by starting at the bottom again – you know, playing at a big show with not so many people in it yet. I did a duty out of respect for him. I played with him out of friendship. But in some of the things I’ve read, he does manage to give me a compliment every now and again. The bottom line is: I’m here for you, John.
You also reached out to another former bandmate recently, when you had ex-Journey drummer Steve Smith playing on your 2012 solo album The Calling.
It was great playing with Steve again. Making that record, we’d go in the studio with no music written down. Steve would lay down like eight bars on drums, and then he’d go out for lunch and I’d arrange a song around his drum loop just with one guitar. It was all on the spot.
You also played bass on the album.
That’s right. The guitar goes on first and then you put the bass to the guitar and have the bass walk around the guitar a bit. I had a lot of fun with that on this record. I’m not playing any flashy bass. But I’m definitely moving with the guitar. I played the solos on the record before I put the bass on, so the bass is really walking with the solo.
And you made the whole record in four days?
Well, Steve had to get in and out. He’s always on tour with his Vital Information project. So yeah, we did bang everything out. We did a lot of overdubs. And then I stayed to finish it. So all together I spent maybe two weeks on it.
A bit different to a Journey record?
Well, we’ve done some Journey records where we make up stuff on the spot and just go for it The last two with Arnel were kind of like that. And some of the early records with Steve Perry.
What music inspires you as a guitar player?
I love John McLaughlin’s stuff, all those great Mahavishnu Orchestra records. When I listen to that stuff, there’s so much there musically. He’s such a creative person. I just really admire real musicians, you know?
Hendrix was a big influence on you – in 1993, you even recorded a bunch of his songs with Paul Rodgers for an EP, The Hendrix Set.
I felt very at home playing those songs. I was weaned on that stuff as a kid, and I learned every little nuance that I could off the records, as well as Cream and Clapton and Jeff Beck’s stuff and Jimmy Page’s stuff. And then I had a lot of deep roots in blues – Albert King, B.B. King, Michael Bloomfield. I had my jazz guys, I had my blues guys, my fusion guys. I really did a lot of studying as a kid, to try to embed it in my own soul as much as possible. If you live and breathe it, you sometimes become a part of it.
Have you ever felt intimidated by another guitar player?
[Laughs] Maybe one time. I was working with Michael Bolton in the late 80s at the Record Plant in Sausalito. We were recording his version of (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay. And right in the next room was Steve Cropper, who wrote the song with Otis Redding and played guitar on the original version. I’m going, “Shit!” I was kind of nervous…
Despite the pressure, were you happy with how the song turned out?
I wanted to put in a guitar solo on that song because the original didn’t have one. Usually when I do solos, they pop out – good, bad or indifferent. And the earlier they pop out, the better they feel. Even if there’s something wrong, they have more heart to them. And the more you work on them, you might clinically and technically get better, but lose a bit of the heart. And for me, I’ll always go with the heart and soul.
As a guitar hero in the classic tradition, do you sense that this is a dying art?
I think it’s never dying, as long as there are guitar players out there aspiring to be great. The old-day guitar heroes, most of those guys are still with us. And the newer guys… I don’t know if I would call them guitar heroes, but there are a lot of excellent guitar players out there with amazing dexterity that can pretty much play anything – and quicker than the human ear could possibly hear [laughs]. But that has kind of had its run too, and now it’s back to point A, where you need more than just guitar thrills, you need an overall artistic statement. But you can still make a classic guitar record if you’ve got the songs.
Is that how you see The Calling – as a classic guitar record?
Most of all, I wanted something that didn’t sound like everything else that’s been out there. That’s why The Calling has a lot of different musical sides to it, which I’m really pleased with. It’s jammy, yet there’s a lot of melody to hold on to. True Emotion has a really deep and melodic classical blues with a lot of inspiration from Hendrix. I don’t think it sounds like an old song, though. It sounds like an old soul in a new place. I managed to find some great melody, and the guitar really sings.
And in that sense, True Emotion is reminiscent of the brilliant but little-known Journey song With A Tear, which was included on the 1992 box set Time3. You cut it as an instrumental after Perry had quit, with your guitar taking up the original vocal melody…
I remember writing that song, I was working on it with Steve, and it was just a cool little R&B tune, you know?
And there’s more of that soulful stuff coming with the next Journey album?
Absolutely. I think we could go in any direction at this point. But Jonathan has always had his R&B roots, and that’s the kind of thing we’re thinking about right now.
Let’s hope John Waite approves.
Ha-ha! When we finish the record we’ll have to send him a copy. Then we’ll see how white he thinks it is!
This interview originally appeared in Classic Rock Presents: AOR 8, published in March 2013.
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