Unearthing The Mysterious Disappearance Of Journey Singer Steve Perry

As I cranked up "Precious Time" by Journey, I couldn't help but get swept up in memories of my rebellious college days, complete with a basement apartment eviction due to my penchant for late-night radio and music at maximum volume. Journey's 1980 album 'Departure' provides the soundtrack to this episode, where I also share an enlightening conversation with Journey's original keyboardist and lead vocalist, Greg Rolie. His reflections on the band's transformation and the music industry's pivot from vinyl to digital form the backdrop of our auditory excursion.

The aura of Steve Perry is undeniable, much like his decision to step out of the limelight after the 'Trial by Fire' era, leaving behind a trail of rumors and a legacy of awe-inspiring vocals. This chapter peels back the layers of curiosity surrounding Perry's current endeavors, or rather, the lack of them. The perfect embodiment of a private life, Perry's sporadic public sightings are akin to rare celestial events, leaving us to wonder about the man whose voice once dominated arenas and airwaves alike. Join us, as we trace the echoes of a voice that continues to resonate through the annals of rock history.

Transcript

Blade: 0:25

As always, we start with the record of the day. It looks like a lady from Journey, departure 1980. And I say record, not song Record, in deference to the untouchable diamond stylus as opposed to the hard MP3. Now, mp3 is better than nothing because it's quick and it's easy and it's digital and it's lossless, I guess. But it's already lost so it can't get any worse. So I guess that's good. Like I said, it's better than nothing, but barely. Episode number five whatever happened to Steve Perry? To me in my head? He disappeared After trial by fire, the last Journey album, 1996, he just disappeared. Where is he? What is he doing now? I would sit in my little basement apartment while I was in college at UNCW, north Carolina, wilmington in 1980 and play that album from Journey with my headphones on sometimes, sometimes not, and smoke a little, toke a little, and I loved the whole thing and I played over and over. But the song that I truly, truly loved with this track called Precious Time.

Speaker 1: 1:38

I was captured by the light of a wayward smile when she said to me move slowly, sun, and touch the sky. Very soon you'll see. Oh how precious time place to turn on me. Oh how precious time how it rescued me.

Blade: 2:07

And I listened to it now and I realized why I loved it, because it has everything on it. It's an incredible composition Steve Perry and Journey, and the way the guy sings it's. I don't know if there's a better rock voice or pop voice, you know later in Steve Perry's career, but I think it was. It was John Lyle who was a disc jockey and WQDR and I just remember him saying one night, way back then in the day he was saying like if you ever had a singing voice, if you ever wanted a singing voice, you'd want to sing in voice, just like that. And I went, yeah, you know, and I, you know, some 40 years later. I still remember that and it's true.

Blade: 2:48

But the girls that rented me that little apartment which was one room and had a little baño in it, you know, and I had a, you know, a turntable in there and a chest of drawers, possibly in a bed, and that's about it. But I was only there three months because they came to me one day and said they were selling the house, right, and I was going to have to leave, and I knew that wasn't the real reason. They weren't going to sell no house. You know, I played loud music and I had girls over and and you know, smoked a bunch of cigarettes and other things and and I was not an ideal render, I understand that I came in late at night. You know I was working overnight at radio station then, so I had all these weird hours and they lived directly in the part of the house above me. So again I can see why they you know.

Blade: 3:34

But anyway I was out in 1980, but whatever did happen to Steve Perry, I had a conversation on the phone with a very big gun with Santana and journey. His name was Greg Rolie and he was a h keyboard player, incredible keyboard player and a singer. He was very open with me about Santana and Journey. What a great conversation that I had. That I'll never forget. I just loved the guy. He was one of those open book people and I love open book people because they're always fascinating. I love people's stories. But Greg Rolie joined Santana in 1966. They were the Santana blues band and they finally switched it over to Santana and he was the original lead singer. You could hear his voice on the songs like Black Magic Woman and Oya Como Va No One To Depend On Evil Ways, those songs. He left Santana in '73.

Blade: 4:41

Over the famed and acclaimed music direction differences and I love that. Almost every band goes through that with their band members. They wanna go this place and the band doesn't wanna do this, and I always think of Styx when I think of that. And Tommy Shaw wanted to rock guitar player and singer and Dennis DeYoung wanted to go off and do pop songs and believe me, he's a pop guy and he would never, as Tommy Shaw once said, he would never wanted to play along. So that's why they split up. But that's just an example and Greg's recount of Woodstock in 1969, Greg Rolie at the age of 22, when he was with Santana wow, yeah, yeah, Woodstock.

Greg Rolie: 5:24

The story I've always told about that is we flew in there because people parked on the highway and they just closed everything off. Upper state of New York was a mess. 500,000 people descended on there like a field of dreams if you build it, they will come, and that's pretty much what happened. It came from everywhere. I heard about it. I gotta go.

Greg Rolie: 5:47

So we flew in there and looking down on 500,000 people is really not to me. I was always 22. Didn't really phase me. I had nothing to judge it by. I had a lot of people and we had played for 30,000 people before the festivals were all around.

Greg Rolie: 6:07

So this was another gig. It was a big one, but it was just gonna be another. It was just gonna be another gig and we flew in and we played earlier than we were supposed to. It was Helter Skelter. We're signing things before going on. Bill Graham actually signed the contract. He wasn't even our manager. He signed the contract for us to play and be in the movie and all that stuff. So we played while you're playing and I was the first 30,000 which I'd already seen. You can kinda see. You know, it's like going to a coliseum. There's a coliseum, there are 20,000 maybe, and then past that. It's just a sea of brown hair and teeth, it's just. There's no real connection other than it's massive. So it didn't there, wasn't so frightening, but when we drove out, man, if I had driven in there I think it would have scared me to death.

Blade: 7:04

At 22 years old. Woodstock, 500,000 people, just another gig. Okay, 1973, Greg Rolie joins up with Journey, jazz Fusion kinda band, prog rock, I wanna say and I hate saying that because they're their own thing, but for the sake of a podcast you gotta call it something and you just picture a bunch of musicians playing their guitars and their keyboards and singing along and doing exactly what they wanna do, literally playing to their hearts' content. You know, that's basically what Prog Rock I guess is to me.

Blade: 7:38

But they had a band manager and his name was Herbie Herbert and he came to them in 1977 and said look, we're not making any money and I'm gonna give you a new singer and songwriter. And the guy's name is Steve Perry, a no name basically. And let me just rephrase that he didn't say give them a new lead singer and songwriter. He told them they were getting a new singer and songwriter Again, he was a no-name by the name of Steve Perry, and I guess he played a tape of Steve Perry that he had for the band and all of them were like no, we don't, I don't think so, that's not our style.

Greg Rolie: 8:16

And then he found he found Steve Perry through Columbia and played the stuff for Neil and I and we were just going Perry's voice and we're going, man, I don't think so this guy's corona. We wanted somebody to you know really do some rock.

Blade: 8:40

Because I guess he had somewhat of a pop flavor to him. But the band manager said well, I'm sorry, it doesn't matter, he's going to be in the band. And when I talked to Greg Rowley he wasn't happy about it at the time and I'm not sure they ever were. Frankly, no matter how huge they were and I always say this that guy, herbie Herbert, the band manager, never gets any credit for this huge move that he made by adding Steve Perry to Journey. Mega is not even a big enough work. That first album with Steve Perry was incredible Infinity 1978. So Wheel in the Sky is what we just heard, wheel in the Sky from Journey 1978. And you can see it still has a little bit of the old journey feel to it. Steve Perry wrote all the songs on it and sang all the songs on it and did the harmonies, no less.

Greg Rolie: 9:47

Steve had. He had songwriting capabilities, four vocals. We had never done it that way. We wrote songs for soloing on and made, you know, heavy lines. And it was a different, different type of band. But he was a singer and he had songs written to sing on and so we were trying to meld the two together and that was the Infinity album. It kind of did both, but it had more. There was more of the everybody has told me more of the rock element when I was in the band to it and it became kind of pop when I left.

Blade: 10:24

Okay, they did Infinity in 1978. Evolution 1979. Departure, 1980. Captured 1980. A live album, escape 1981. Frontiers 1983. Raised on radio 1986. And then nothing for 10 years. And they did the reunion album, trial by Fire in 1996.

Blade: 11:04

Just a side note, greg Rowley was in Ringo Starr's All Star Band All Star, you know, starr. Imagine what it would be like to have Greg Rowley have Ringo Starr, a Beatle, call you up and say listen, I want you in my band. That is just super, really super cool. Okay, steve Perry is known as a pop guy, make no mistake about it. But that early journey sound was completely rock, make no mistake about that. I mean, it became more of a pop rock as journey went on, but it still had this incredible kind of fusion rock feel to it, not pop at all. Early Over the years Steve Perry carved it really basically into a, into a pop band. But he just did this amazing job of writing all these hundreds and hundreds of songs and a track from 1979 from evolution, love and Touch and Squeezin'.

Blade: 12:12

Now, in 1996, the band reunites, after 10 years of nothing, to record Trial by Fire. And it was huge, I mean, it went right to the top of the album selling charts because, hey, it was Journey and everybody loved them. And I went back and listened to the song list and listened to a few tracks and it didn't really hit me. You know, nothing really stood out to me. It doesn't matter, I mean, it was Journey, but they recorded that album, released it and then 1996, steve Perry disappears, disappears In my head. I was like where is the guy? Is he still alive? And and and he does. He does this before Journey could tour to support that reuniting album, completely disappeared.

Blade: 12:53

So I found out a few things during that disappearance. One he suffered a hip injury right after that album was released. So he had this degenerative bone condition, they say, and he needed a hip surgery. But he didn't want to do it. But he tells the band that I can't perform, I don't want to go on tour because my hip is so bad. Okay, we all get that.

Blade: 13:11

So Journey waited him out for two years, almost two years, until 1998. And finally, a couple of guys in the band, I think it was Jonathan Kane and Neil Sean and they go to Steve Perry and say, look, we got to have you on tour so we can support this thing and make a buck, this new album. And and if you don't want to come out, get your hip surgery and do it, then we're going to replace you with another singer. So then at that point dissension between the two Steve Perry says I'm quitting and he leaves the band permanently. Here's a brief resurface. Steve Perry was in an episode of VH Ones behind the music 2001. I remember seeing a bit from that and he says this I never really felt like I was part of the band.

Steve Perry: 13:53

I told him I just don't think I can do it anymore. I think I just want to stop. The joke was. You know? Elvis has left the building.

Blade: 13:59

There's no more Steve. He would just sort of tune out and walk away and I'm like Hello.

Steve Perry: 14:06

I never really felt like I was part of the band. I know I know that's difficult to see, but I really always felt that I was the outside guy.

Blade: 14:15

Okay, and Greg really told me that, even after like eight years with Steve and the band, that he never really knew the guy. The band didn't know their own band mate and the band mate didn't even particularly like the band, proving it once again you don't have to like your band mates to make a buck, a big buck. Another brief resurface. During the 2005 baseball season, the Chicago White Sox adopted journeys. Don't stop believing. You may remember that it was their unofficial team anthem and, as a result, steve Perry who is a baseball fan, and a good one, but he's a Giants fan he, he was dug up. They found him somehow, as it says in the cut.

Steve Perry: 14:57

Were you a Sox fan before all this? You know it's funny, I've always liked the Sox, but I was really a Giants fan. I got to say the NL, you know. But now you're a White Sox, now my AL team. So do you miss singing with the band? I do miss singing, period. I think these guys you don't know what these guys have done for me emotionally I think they're gonna get you know my life back together in some ways through baseball. Gonna write a song about it, maybe so.

Blade: 15:20

But he ended up traveling with the White Sox. He attended the World Series. He was a big guy in the 2005 White Sox thing and he even traveled to Houston with him as they played Houston and they joined. He joined the players in the locker room and they celebrated their championship and you can say the big hurt Frank Thomas there in the video and really fun so he resurfaced in 2005 for the Chicago White Sox. Don't stop believing.

Steve Perry: 15:46

They asked me to come out on Saturday when they clinched the AL they I guess Przenski said you got to get Steve Perry to come to the first game and Scott Riefert got a hold of me. He went through all these channels I don't know how he found me, but he's very clever and I got all these messages and the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Chicago and can you even disappear.

Blade: 16:10

You know, until now in my book, I don't know what he's doing. Well, man. So what is Steve Perry doing these days? How come we never hear from him?

Greg Rolie: 16:18

I have no idea what he's doing. You know, you probably opened up a dress shop somewhere.

Blade: 16:24

So I found out just through talking to people that he does and did mostly out of the limelight kind of little things that music people do. I guess he produced some music for some friends. He co-produced a thing or two, song or two here and there Really nothing. And he did a couple of Christmas albums in 2018 through 2020. I mean, the guy's about 74 years old now and I still don't know what he does or where he lives. And I dug, dug, dug, dug. Where does the guy live? I couldn't find out.

Blade: 16:54

I just want to say this that guy was a master and is a master of secrecy. Nobody knows anything about him. There are very few photos about him and the photos that you do see that are all over the internet are maybe like three or four of the same pictures. You know. I found like a couple of him in his later years, one or two with gray hair. Other than that, you just see his promotional photos all over the internet. I mean, how does he do that? And, especially this day and age, stay away from the quote unquote media. Listen, I apologize as much as I can apologize.

Blade: 17:28

I hope I didn't lead anybody on, but that really is the finale, the punchline of the whole story is that it's amazing that I don't know whatever happened to Steve Perry. Nobody knows what happened to Steve Perry. His bandmates don't even know. He could be a consultant, you know. He could charge thousands and hundreds of millions of dollars to celebrities on how to stay out of the media, how to avoid the paparazzi. He could hold seminars, I'll bet maybe he's got like five houses somewhere and he moves from house to house to stay away from the paparazzi, I suppose. But man, he did it successful. He reserved his own privacy. One thing I do know about Steve Perry, since he has disappeared in 1996, that he is alive. I do know that, don't I? I think he is, I don't you know it's.

Speaker 1: 18:30

If we can't rely to survive the time, happy night. Someday love will find you. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.