Could Journey be finding its way back to Steve Perry again? A new Vulture interview with Neal Schon has some holding out hope. When the outlet asked the guitarist about his most endearing memory with the former frontman, Schon admitted the two are “talking and getting to know each other again.”
However, don’t get too excited just yet. Schon followed up his response noting that they “are not trying to get together musically again” and explained their interactions have been mostly related to obtaining a Journey trademark since, shockingly, the band has never owned the rights to one.
Schon also recalled seeing Perry (who hasn’t performed with the band since 1998) for the first time in a while backstage at Journey’s Rock And Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2017. Schon said, “I managed to get into his room, which was locked down like Fort Knox. We had a good hang in there. I felt like I still knew this guy and we were still really great friends.”
Part of the reason for the band breakdown, according to an interview Schon gave with The Eddie Trunk Podcast in 2020, may have been industry “politics,” as noted by Ultimate Classic Rock.
“When he first came out and started doing the very first interviews, he had a lot to say about him and I, and it was all very positive, what he was talking about — our friendship and what we wrote together and what he cherishes in his heart,” Schon said during the interview. “And then things dramatically changed, whether it was edited out by higher-ups or whatever, but it went from completely one way to another. I was, like, ‘Wow! That’s just too bad.’”
And if it comes to a reunion, current Journey singer Arnel Pineda is totally fine with stepping aside. As he told Rolling Stone last year, he likes to joke with Schon and fellow bandmate Jonathan Cain about inviting Perry back in. “That’s how much I adore him and I adore Journey and how much I adore Steve Perry,” he said.
If Guns N’ Roses can mend pretty broken fences and reunite, really anything is possible.
11 Bands That Never Reunited With Their Classic Singer
Pour one out for these former vocalists.