The Journey That Found Me
A Band. A Sound. A Lifeline.
Journey. Image source: Observer.
Every city has its music.
Not just songs that happen to mention the place. I mean the music that becomes woven into the identity of the people who live there. Songs that can start playing in a stadium, a bar, a car or somebody's backyard and instantly create a collective response.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.
We had a lot of music.
We had Santana. We had Jefferson Airplane. We had the Grateful Dead. We had Tower of Power. We had Sly and the Family Stone. We had an extraordinary musical history unfolding around us.
And we had Journey.
Journey holds a special place in my heart.
Not simply because I loved the band.
Not simply because they were from home.
Journey found me during a period when I needed music to do something more than entertain me.
I've written before that Queen gave me permission to be weird.
Journey made me feel whole.
But before we get to that, I have recently learned something about Journey's history that absolutely delights me.
Before Journey Was Journey
Once upon a time, there was a group called...
The Golden Gate Rhythm Section.
GGRS.
I'm sorry. 😂
I understand the name. I respect the name. It makes perfect sense considering what they originally intended to do.
But GGRS sounds considerably less like an arena-rock powerhouse and considerably more like the band playing Thursday nights at a seafood restaurant in Sausalito.
Journey's beginnings reach directly into another great Bay Area musical institution: Santana.
Guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Gregg Rolie had both played with Santana. Schon had been astonishingly young when he joined Carlos Santana's band, still a teenager. By 1973, Schon and Rolie were part of a new project with bassist Ross Valory, guitarist George Tickner and drummer Prairie Prince.
The original idea was essentially to create an elite group of musicians capable of serving as a backing band for other artists.
Hence:
Golden Gate Rhythm Section.
GGRS.
I promise I'll stop.
Eventually. 😂
The concept evolved into something else. These musicians weren't going to be somebody else's band.
They were becoming the band.
Even the Bay Area got involved in the naming process. San Francisco radio station KSAN solicited suggestions from listeners as the group searched for an identity. The contest didn't ultimately produce the winning name. According to accounts of the band's history, roadie John Villanueva suggested one simple word.
Journey.
Much better.
And considering everything that followed, strangely perfect.
Journey Before Steve Perry
There's another thing that's easy to forget if your introduction to Journey begins with the voice most of us associate with the band.
Journey existed before Steve Perry.
And early Journey sounded different.
The first incarnation leaned heavily into progressive rock, jazz fusion and instrumental exploration. The musicianship was already formidable, but the sound most people now immediately recognize as Journey hadn't arrived yet.
Their first three albums, Journey, Look into the Future and Next, established the band, but they didn't turn Journey into the commercial powerhouse Columbia Records was looking for.
Something was missing.
Eventually, Journey went looking for a dedicated lead singer.
After a brief period with Robert Fleischman, a young singer from California entered the picture.
His name was Steve Perry.
Steve Perry. Image source: Biography.
And everything changed.
That Voice
There are singers you recognize after a verse.
There are singers you recognize after a line.
Then there are singers who need about three notes.
Steve Perry is one of those.
His arrival helped move Journey toward a more melodic rock sound without sacrificing the musicianship already inside the band.
Neal Schon could still make that guitar roar.
The rhythm section could still drive.
The music could still get big.
But now there was this voice floating above it all.
Journey's 1978 album Infinity introduced Perry as the band's lead vocalist and gave us songs including “Wheel in the Sky” and a little hometown number called “Lights.”
And if you're from the Bay Area...
you already know where I'm going.
Lights: Our Song. Our City.
Every city has its songs.
There are songs about cities.
And then there are songs that somehow become part of the city itself.
For us, Journey gave us “Lights.”
Interestingly, Steve Perry began developing the song before joining Journey, originally imagining a different city. Once he joined this San Francisco band, however, the geography changed.
Thank goodness.
Because when Perry sings about the sun shining on the bay?
That's what we call it.
When the lights go down in the city?
That's what we call it.
Home.
You don't have to explain that to somebody from the Bay Area.
We know that view.
We know that water.
We know those hills.
We know what San Francisco looks like when the light begins changing and the city starts glowing across the bay.
And somewhere along the way, “Lights” stopped being merely a Journey song.
It became ours.
Years later, I would see just how deeply that connection remained.
But first, Journey had to find me.
The Night Escape Found Me
I grew up listening to the radio.
A lot.
The radio was my friend.
I wasn't one of the popular kids. I didn't have a huge circle of friends. I was bullied, and there were periods when being young felt considerably heavier than adults sometimes realize it can feel.
Music gave me somewhere else to go.
And we had a local rock DJ who used to do something that seems almost unimaginable in today's streaming world.
Every once in a while, he would play...
an entire album.
Not one single.
Not a playlist inspired by the artist.
The album.
Beginning to end.
One night, I was lying in my bedroom in the dark. I was having a particularly difficult time in my life, and the radio was doing what the radio often did for me.
Keeping me company.
The DJ announced that he was going to play the new Journey album.
Escape.
So I listened.
And somewhere during that record...
I fell completely in love with Journey.
A Safe Place to Sit in Rock and Roll
Journey. Escape. Image source: Spotify
There are records we love because they're great records.
Then there are records connected to something deeper.
Escape became a safe place for me.
It didn't demand that I stop feeling sad.
It didn't tell me everything was wonderful when everything didn't feel wonderful.
It simply gave me somewhere to sit inside the music for a while.
And what an album to sit inside.
“Who's Crying Now.”
Oh, come on.
If you're young and somebody has done you dirty, that song makes perfect emotional sense.
You're hurt.
You're devastated.
Life is unfair.
Then one day you look across the proverbial street and discover that perhaps life has introduced that person to a little karma.
Well...
Who's crying now? 😂
Then there's “Stone in Love,” which just moves.
And Neal Schon.
Good grief.
Schon was one of my bridges into harder rock and metal (we'l talk about that later). Journey wasn't metal, but there were moments when that guitar pushed into territory that made me curious about what else might be waiting beyond the melodic-rock neighborhood.
Apparently Iron Maiden was waiting down the street.
Who knew? 😂🤘
Then there was “Still They Ride.”
I loved that song.
I still love that song.
Do not ask Young Angel to provide you with an academic analysis of what it meant.
I had no idea.
It took me somewhere.
That was enough.
Sometimes music doesn't require explanation.
Sometimes it simply creates a place inside you.
And Then There Was “Open Arms”
One of Journey's most enduring songs from Escape was the enormous ballad “Open Arms.”
And I have another association with that song that has always made me laugh a little.
It was in Heavy Metal.
Yes.
That Heavy Metal.
The 1981 animated science-fiction anthology.
Spaceships.
Monsters.
Violence.
Sex.
The glowing green Loc-Nar spreading evil throughout the universe.
And...
Journey. 😂
“Open Arms” appears in the movie, and perhaps the reason I've remembered it so clearly all these years is simply because it felt like such a strange place to encounter this soaring romantic ballad.
But in retrospect, it also feels wonderfully appropriate for me.
My science-fiction world and my rock-and-roll world were already colliding.
Even the Albums Took You Somewhere
Journey. Captured. Image source: Wikipedia
And then there was the artwork.
Oh, Journey's album covers were off the chain.
They weren't merely photographs of five guys looking serious.
They were mythical.
Cosmic.
Strange.
Expressive.
The famous Journey scarab became part of the band's visual identity, appearing and evolving across the records.
And look at the names:
Infinity.
Evolution.
Departure.
Escape.
Frontiers.
Tell me that doesn't sound like the chapters of a science-fiction saga.
For a girl already obsessed with fantasy, science fiction and other worlds, those albums offered more than music.
The artwork invited imagination.
You have to remember that albums were physical things then.
We held them.
We stared at them.
We studied the artwork.
We read the liner notes.
We turned them over and examined every little detail.
The cover was part of the experience.
And Journey's covers seemed to be taking us somewhere.
Each title.
Each image.
Each world.
Each part of the Journey.
And of all those titles, there is something almost painfully appropriate about the album that found me alone in my bedroom being called...
Escape.
Because that's exactly what it gave me.
For a little while, I could go somewhere else.
Then Came Frontiers
By the time Frontiers arrived in 1983, Journey was enormous.
Jonathan Cain had joined the band before Escape, replacing Gregg Rolie on keyboards, and the combination of Perry, Schon, Cain, Ross Valory and Steve Smith produced one of rock's defining runs.
And Frontiers gave us another song I loved.
“Faithfully.”
When I was young, “Faithfully” was a beautiful Journey ballad.
Then I grew up.
And I understood it.
Faithfully: The Road I Came to Know
Later in my life, I became a professional performer.
I toured.
I played clubs.
And suddenly “Faithfully” wasn't merely a love song anymore.
I understood the road.
The strange hours.
The traveling.
The temporary places.
The waiting.
The performance.
The enormous energy of being surrounded by people while you're working, followed by the strange quiet after the show is over.
Jonathan Cain wrote “Faithfully” out of the experience of being on the road and separated from the people he loved.
Years after first hearing it, I understood that world from the inside.
That's one of the beautiful things about keeping music throughout a lifetime.
The song doesn't change.
You do.
And sometimes you grow into a song you thought you already understood.
Then I Finally Saw Them
I've already told this story in another Rock ’n’ Roll Angel.
My birthday.
My graduation present.
Day on the Green.
I walked into the Oakland Coliseum alone.
I bought my concert shirt.
Five strangers adopted me into their tribe.
And eventually we worked our way toward the front of the stage.
One of those new friends held the jacket I'd been dragging around all day so I could have my hands free.
Then Journey came out.
Steve Perry was right there.
And I lost my mind. 😂❤️
But now you understand why.
I wasn't simply seeing a famous band.
I was seeing the people who had been in that bedroom with me.
The band whose album had given me somewhere safe to sit when I needed it.
And they weren't simply playing another city on another tour.
This was the Bay Area.
Journey had come home.
And Then Journey Changed
This is where being a fan gets complicated.
Bands are made of human beings.
Human beings change.
Relationships change.
Bodies change.
Careers change.
And sometimes the version of a band we love can't stay frozen forever.
Steve Perry eventually left Journey.
For those of us who associated that voice so completely with the band...
it was hard.
Journey tried to move forward.
There were different singers.
Different configurations.
Some things worked better than others.
Fans debated.
Fans compared.
Fans waited.
Because replacing the person who sang “Open Arms,” “Lights,” “Faithfully” and “Don't Stop Believin'” isn't exactly a low-pressure job opening.
WANTED: Lead singer. Must replace Steve Perry. Good luck. 😂
Journey kept moving anyway.
And eventually one of the strangest chapters in their story began on the Internet.
Then Came Arnel Pineda
Arnel Pineda. Live Performance. Image source: Rolling Stone
Neal Schon discovered videos online of a Filipino singer named Arnel Pineda performing with his band.
And this guy could sing.
Schon contacted him.
Pineda reportedly thought the message might be a prank.
Understandable.
Imagine checking your messages and discovering Neal Schon would like to discuss whether you'd be interested in singing for Journey.
Sure.
And I'm the Queen of England. 😂
Except it was real.
Pineda auditioned.
And in 2007, he became Journey's lead singer.
Think about the assignment he accepted.
Stand in front of audiences filled with people who have spent decades associating these songs with one of the most distinctive voices in rock history.
Then sing them.
No pressure.
But Pineda did something remarkable.
He helped Journey find another chapter.
He didn't erase Steve Perry.
He couldn't.
Nobody could.
But Journey didn't have to erase its past in order to continue its future.
And nearly two decades later, Pineda's tenure itself has become a substantial part of Journey's history.
The journey continued.
Steve Perry Never Really Left Us Either
Which brings me back to the San Francisco Giants.
Years after Perry left Journey, I was watching a Giants game.
And there he was.
Steve Perry.
Sitting in the audience.
One of us.
Then the stadium played “Lights.”
The crowd started singing.
The camera found Perry and put him on the giant screen.
And he stood.
He joined in.
He moved with the fans through the song.
Steve Perry leads Giants fans in a singalong during Game 3 of the 2014 NLCS at AT&T Park. Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images.
And I remember watching it and feeling something I don't think requires much explanation if you're from the Bay Area.
Because whatever happened between Steve Perry and Journey...
whatever happened professionally...
whatever happened personally...
this was still home.
The song was still ours.
And Steve Perry knew it too.
For a few minutes, none of the complicated Journey history mattered.
It was San Francisco.
It was Steve Perry.
It was the fans.
It was “Lights.”
Home.
“Lights” Belongs to the Bay
That's the distinction I keep coming back to.
Journey has one song that belongs deeply to those of us from home.
“Lights” belongs to the Bay.
But Journey has another song that somehow got away from all of us.
It got away from Journey.
It got away from the Bay Area.
It got away from Gen X.
It became...
everybody's song.
You already know which one.
Those Opening Notes
The keyboard starts.
That's all it takes.
You don't need the vocal.
You don't need the chorus.
You barely need the second chord.
A few notes play and an entire room knows what's about to happen.
Then Steve Perry comes in.
A small-town girl.
A lonely world.
A train going somewhere.
And we're off.
“Don't Stop Believin'.”
The song came from Escape in 1981.
But something extraordinary happened to it.
It refused to stay in 1981.
It became a sports anthem.
A karaoke anthem.
A wedding anthem.
A television anthem.
A movie anthem.
The Sopranos famously used it in its final scene.
Glee introduced it to another generation.
I've watched Snoop Dogg lip-sync it.
I've heard it while football teams were fighting toward championships.
And recently, after completing a film project, it became an anthem for what we were trying to accomplish together.
Everywhere that song goes, the same thing happens.
Those notes begin.
Heads turn.
People smile.
Somebody starts singing.
Then everybody starts singing.
That's the reflex.
Don't Stop Believin'
And maybe the reason the song survived is simpler than we sometimes make it.
The message isn't complicated.
Life gets dark.
People get lonely.
Things don't work.
You don't know what's coming.
You don't know whether you're going to get where you're trying to go.
You don't know whether the thing you're holding onto is going to work out.
Okay.
Don't stop.
Hold onto something.
Keep going.
Believe that there's something beyond the room you're standing in right now.
When you're young and hurting, sometimes that's enough.
I know because once there was a young girl lying alone in a dark bedroom.
She didn't know where her life was going.
She didn't know about all the concerts ahead.
She didn't know she'd eventually stand at the foot of a stage looking up at Steve Perry.
She didn't know she'd become a professional performer herself and one day understand “Faithfully” from the other side.
She didn't know about the work she'd create.
The places she'd go.
The people she'd meet.
The things she'd survive.
She didn't know she'd eventually sit down decades later and write about the night an album called Escape came through her radio and gave her somewhere safe to be.
She only knew that sometimes life hurt.
And music helped.
Queen taught me that it was okay to be weird.
Journey made me feel whole.
And somewhere along the way, a song told that lonely young girl something she desperately needed to hear.
Don't stop.
Hold onto that feeling.
Keep going.
She did.
I did.
And all these years later?
Those opening notes still get me.
Still believing.
❤️🤘
Thanks for taking this trip back with me.
What do you remember? Were you there too, or did this story bring back a memory of your own? I’d love to hear it. Share your stories in the comments, and if this made you smile, laugh, cringe, or turn up an old favorite song, share it with someone who remembers too.
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Until next time...
Keep the memories alive. Keep the stories coming. And whatever you do... turn it up.
— Dr. AY Heath (Angel)
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