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Steve Perry Gives His Honest Opinion on New JOURNEY Singer Arnel Pineda

• August 20, 2021
• 1 minute read

During a recent conversation with SiriusXM, classic Journey vocalist Steve Perry talked about the band’s new singer Arnel Pineda , who’s been a member of the fold since 2007.

Steve reached the topic while discussing Journey ‘s 2017 Rock Hall induction, saying (via Blabbermouth ):

“When I walked out there, that was a real thrill. They had a whole worked-up thing – they had a big teleprompter, and I said, ‘F that.’ I pulled out my piece of paper. I said, ‘I got some things to talk about here,’ and I just sort of did my thing. The fans, they were so wonderful.”

Asked on why he didn’t perform at the ceremony, Steve replied:

“I’m not in the band. I haven’t been in the band for quite some time. Arnel’s been in the band for almost 10 years, I think. He’s a sweet kid – he’s a wonderful kid. He sings his heart out every night. It’s his gig.

“There was a gentleman who we recently lost named Harry, part of the management team. Harry was there with me and he said, ‘Steve, listen, I don’t know if you know, but Arnel’s running up and down the halls. He heard you’re here, backstage.’

“I said, ‘Well, where is he?’ He said, ‘I think he’s outside.’ I said, ‘Okay, I’ll come out.’ I walked out and he was there, and he comes up to me… there was something endearing about the way he looked at me. He was meeting, like, a grandfather. [Laughs] He’s got the gig. It’s his gig. He’s doing great.”

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• Steve Perry

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49 comments.

Bring Steve back, ideots

the idiot is the one who can’t spell idiot

Why couldn’t Paul Rogers be a man like Steve Perry. Paul treated Brian Howe like sh*t.

Maybe he is not as good as Arnel’s voice almost copied almost same voice of Steve Perry that’s all I can say

Savage!!!!!😂😂😂

Both ” Arnel and Steve, and add, ” Taka” the lead singer from,” One O.K. Rock” all three would put on the show of shows!

He really is an edyot…

You’re damn right😁🤪.

You re very right!

Hey Andy, Speaking of IDIOTS!!

Bring back Steve Perry to the group so that Arnel may have substitute for vocal …just like john lennon paul mc cartney combination 🙏🥰💥

Steve doesn’t want to come back. He walked and was done with band. Why don’t you go back to an old job? Idiot

Steve can’t sing anymore. How he can do the things you want?

FUNNY HE JUST CAME OUT WITH A NEW AULBUM . HE CAN’T SING. LMFAO

welll idiot steve does not want back if he did he would be sooooo your the idiot idiot

Steve knew he can’t bring back the voice where the Journey was once before..Great that he recognize Arnel as the new lead singer of the band

Lmafol, how you spell Capital I•D•I•O•T🤣🤣🤣

Before I die, I would love to see the original Steve Perry and Journey together performing we need to do

Are you kidding me? Steve Perry- what grace and dignity you bring with this. Well done. Clearly your spirit, your conscience, is every bit as beautiful as your voice. ???

Got to love a class act like Steve Perry much love and respect ?

YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT AND i JUST MET SOMEBODY WHO MET Steve Perry AND SAID HE WAS GREAT AND HUMBLE GUY AND VERY HUMOROUS.

Well done, Steve.

Awe yes, but he’ll never ever be you❤️

Steve Perry can never be replaced!

And can never sing his song exactly the same as what he did when he was at his prime with the band… that’s why he will never want to come back because he can’t do the same thing as what he did before like what arnel do at the present.

I sew him in concert 3 years ago and he was amazing Steve you will allways be number 1 but agree with Arnel is amazing Think journey is in good hands with him I would of like to seen you perform at the rock roll hall fame cearmoney but I think you were varry kind to say this is arnel crow dosin,t want to over well him I think you made a great choice but thir will allways be 1 Steve parry and that’s you. I’m going see them again next month with billy idol I can’t wait.

No one’s trying to replace Steve. He is Steve Perry. He is Arnel Pineda. Immature ppl don’t get it.

ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, DID YOU SEE ARNEL PINEDA FACE OF APPRECIATION WHEN THEY MET BACKSTAGE AT THE AWARDS. ARNEL SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOWN ON THE STAGE DURING THE AWARDS SHOW TOO, BUT HE THOUGHT BECAUSE IT WAS FOR THE ORIGINAL GROUP ONLY. HONESTLY IT SHOULD NOT HAVE MATTER, ARNEL IS THE MAN FOR JOURNEY NOW. THERE IS ROOM FOR A NEW HISTORY MAKING MOMENT FOR TWO FRONT MEN FOR JOURNEY AND THIS WILL BRING ON TOGETHER LEGIONS OF NEW FANS FOR JOURNEY OF BOTH MEN AND EVEN THE UNDECIDED UNDER ONE UMBRELLA TO SQUASH THE DEBATE ON WHOSE BETTER.

DID YOU SEE THE REACTION OF ADMIRATION FOR STEVE PERRY FROM ARNEL PINEDA WHO COVERS STEVE PERRY MUSIC DURING HIS YOUTH AND NOBODY HAS DONE IT BETTER THAN HIM AND i HAVE TRIED MYSELF AS MY VOCALS JUST DON’T MAKE THE GRADE TO COME CLOSE TO THE LIVING LEGEND. IF JOURNEY DON’T JUMP ON A HISTORY MAKING MOMENT TO HAVE TWO GREATIST FRONTMEN TO HAVE LED JOURNEY INTO THE FUTURE SOMETHINING IS WRONG IF YOU CAN’T GET THESE TWO TO WORK TOGETHER. SEAL THE LEGACY WITH AN ENTIRE DUET OF THESE TWO ON ANOTHER REBIRTH OF JOURNEY…WE ALL NEED A NEW FRONTEIR. WE HAVE TWO SUPERHEROES FOR JOURNEY. MAKE BOTH OF THEM A LEGEND BY HAVING THE ONLY GROUP TO EVER HAVE TWO FRONTMEN ACTUALLY WORK TOGETHER. UNLIKE THE FAILURE OF VAN HALEN WITH SAMMY HAGAR AND DAVID LEE ROTH. THAT WAS OIL AND WATER MIX.

Perry isn’t coming back. Isn’t that obvious? He felt he was screwed/betrayed. Schon mentions trying to communicate with Perry, just to say hi. Perry won’t answer. Does that sound like someone who would want to return even if the offer was made?

Every time someone says “Bring back Perry!” I just shake my head.

STEVE WOULD COMEBACK IF IT WAS WORTH SAVING JOURNEY, BUT AS HE SAID IT IS ARNEL TIME TO SHINE TO CARRY JOURNEY. ARNEL HAS PROVEN HIMSELF AS THE FAN HAS APPROVED HIM MUCH BETTER THAN THE PAST REPLACEMENT WHO DID A DECENT JOB BUT NOT THE POINT WHERE THEY MATCHED OR EVEN CAME CLOSE TO STEVE VOCALS THE WAY ARNEL VOCALS SOUNDS SO ORIGINALLY CLOSE. WHY WOULD STEVE WANT TO COMEBACK UNLESS THEY INVITE HIM BACK TO PERFORM WHICH JOURNEY MEMBERS SHOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM LETTING STEVE PERFORM LIVE WHENEVER HE WANTS TO PERFORM AGAIN. IF THIS IS SO TO HAVE TWO OF THE GREATEST FRONTMEN TO REVIVE A GROUP FOR AN EVEN LONGER LONGEVITY FOR FUTURE FANS.

Journey is a great group band but who run the group is stupid. ..we filipinos dont need journey for ARNEL PINEDA..we LOVE ARNEL PINEDA with his GREAT TALENT and his GREAT VOICE n SKILL…if there is no stupidity @ journey why steve perry left the group …🤨🤔

I WANT TO SAY THAT I LOVED HIS STREET TALK SOLO MUSIC AND HIS NEWEST ONE HE RELEASING TO WHAT i HEAR STILL CLASSIC STEVE PERRY. YOU CAN RELATE TO THE WORDS HE WRITE OR SING WHAT WAS WRITTEN FOR HIM. EITHER WAY HIS MUSIC IS ALWAYS GREAT.

Why didnt axl join journey during the nevermind days?

Steve Perry is a real gentleman. I salute him for speaking his heart out.

Schon Lechon is a devil in disguise. He must change his contaminated heart and mind before the Journey becomes NOBODY LIKE HIM.

you are the only ones who think that someone will replace steve even arnel doesn’t think like that infact arnel’s favorite singer is steve perry and he never thinks that he is replacing steve, the only problem is you narrow minded journey fans.

I can’t agree more bro. , a lot of people just keep on complaining and comparing between the which is really non-sense, Steve is Steve no matter what same as Arnel. They are unique in their own way in my opinion. It’s just plain stupid a lot of fans out there keep bashing Arnel for what he is, in reality Arnel has been with the Journey longer than Steve! Since Arnel took over as the front man I think he did the Journey a big favor in joining them as they can’t find any replacement until they discover Arnel on his Youtube channel.

You are one of the greatest artists Please come back to the world The one and only…..no replica No one can ever replace you

Love always B From Canada 🇨🇦

J Cain once said Arnel is not filling in Perry’s shoes. Arnel got his own shoes that shines.

Steve Perry is one of a kind a class act and amazing performer to this day i listen to Journey when Steve Perry sang

THE ONLY SATAN IN THE GROUP IS SCHION. WHO FEELS HE CAN MAKE JOURNEY ALIVE AS IT WERE IF NOT WTHOUT HIM. THANKS TO ARNEL, SCHION WOULD HAVE BEEN IN A NURSING HOME ON ROCKING CHAIR ROCKING HIS WAY TO OBLIVION. SO WATCH UR MOUTH SCHION

People, note that, Arnel Pineda did not replace Steve Perry he replace or took over the position as the lead singer.

Steve Perry really handled that well. Arnel really admires Perry and knows that he’s a legend. Star struck. Steve Perry is not coming back to Journey and can you blame him? It’s a drama and a mess of a band.

Jrny has always been evolving their music, line up ect. Perry was okay with it till it was his turn to take a pause He could have came back after his hiking accident but he didn’t So they moved on and have done well

Steve is Steve and Arnel is Arnel, both are great singers and should not be a topic for a battle of comparison. Steve Perry is done doing Journey and he won’t be back and that’s all there is to it. The international success is just the icing on Arnel’s cake, but with or without Journey he is doing well as a recording artist with his original band “The Zoo”. That “Bring Back Steve Perry” bandwagon is just very immature and silly, to say the least.

Everyone knows that nobody could ever be a “Steve Perry” However, Arnel Pineda—- I must say that you are very impressive and I love the way you came in and Rocked every single Journey song! Arnel, you’re amazingly BLESSED with a powerhouse of a voice, a great demeanor, and swag outta this world! I definitely am super happy that Journey continues!

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Arnel Pineda

Who Is Arnel Pineda?

After a series of unfortunate events in his childhood, Arnel Pineda found success in Asia as the front man for the group The Zoo. In 2007, he was discovered by Journey guitarist Neal Schon, after a series of YouTube videos were posted of him covering American songs, including the famous hit, "Dont Stop Believin'." In December 2007, Pineda became the new lead singer of Journey. His is noted for having a strikingly similar sound to former Journey front man Steve Perry.

Troubled Childhood

Arnel Pineda was born on September 5, 1967, in Sampaloc, Manila, in the Philippines. Throughout his childhood, Pineda endured grave misfortune. When he was just 13 years old, his mother, who was 35 at the time, passed away after a long battle with heart disease. Her medical costs left the family in serious debt, and Pineda's father could no longer provide for Pineda and his three younger brothers, Russmon, Roderick and Joselito.

While relatives were able to take in his brothers, Pineda was left on his own. He spent the next few years homeless, often sleeping outside in public parks and scraping for any food or water that he could afford. When possible, he would stay at a friend's house, who offered him a cot outside. Eventually, Pineda was forced to quit school and take up odd jobs collecting scrap metal and bottles at the pier and selling newspapers to support his family.

Early Career

Pineda's love of music started at a young age. He began singing at just five years old, and had entered many singing contests as a child. In 1982, when he was 15, Pineda was introduced to a local band called Ijos, and was encouraged by his friends to try out as their new lead singer. He sang the Beatles' "Help" and Air Supply's "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All." Although they were concerned with his lack of training, Ijos members were wowed by Pineda's powerful voice, and took him on as the new front man of the band. One of the band member's friends even offered to pay Pineda's salary, 35 pesos a night, out of his own pocket, and Pineda was offered a tiny room to sleep under the guitarist's front stairs.

In 1986, some members of Ijos joined together to form the new pop-rock band Amo. The group found success covering songs by hit groups Heart, Queen and Journey. In 1988, they turned heads when they won the Philippines' leg of the Yamaha World Band Explosion Contest. Although they were disqualified in the finals due to a technicality, the event was broadcast on TV in Asia, widening their fanbase. The band continued performing at popular clubs and arenas around the Philippines.

In 1990, the members re-grouped yet again, under the new name Intensity Five, and re-entered the contest. The band came in as runner up and Pineda won the Best Vocalist Award. After a series of unfortunate health problems in the early '90s, including the brief loss of his voice, Pineda re-emerged in 1999 with a new solo album with Warner Brothers. The self-titled album had several hits in Asia.

After brief stints with a few different bands, Pineda found success again in 2006 with The Zoo, a band that he formed with Monet Cajipe, a guitarist/songwriter who had been in all his bands during over the previous 20 years. The Zoo performed at several popular clubs in the area and, in 2007, released an album by MCA Universal titled Zoology . Soon the band began covering songs by groups such as Journey, Survivor, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and more, with more than 200 performances uploaded to YouTube.

On June 28, 2007, Neal Schon, guitarist and member of the band Journey, saw a video of Pineda on YouTube and immediately contacted him. The band had been looking for a new lead singer, and Pineda's voice sounded strikingly similar to Steve Perry, Journey's legendary former front man. After speaking with Schon on the phone, Pineda made arrangements to fly to the United States and audition with the band in San Francisco. On December 5, 2007, Pineda was welcomed as the band's new lead singer.

Right away, Pineda went on tour with the band, performing two shows in Chile and two in Las Vegas. Both were a huge success. After a series of guest show appearances and magazine features, Pineda gained popularity within the American public. On June 3, 2008, the newly organized Journey released their first album, Revelation , which came in at No. 5 on the U.S. charts. The album was their highest charting album since Trial by Fire (with Steve Perry), and reached platinum status by October 2008.

Soon after the album's release, the band continued touring around the world with Pineda. The documentary, Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey , slated to be released in 2012, will chronicle the band's "Revelation Tour," and Pineda's first years with the band.

Personal Life

When he is not on tour, Pineda resides in the Philippines with his wife, Cherry, their children, Cherub and Thea. He has two other sons—Matthew, 19, and Angelo, 13—from past relationships.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Arnel Pineda
• Birth Year: 1967
• Birth date: September 5, 1967
• Birth City: Sampaloc, Manila
• Birth Country: Philippines
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Arnel Pineda is best known as the new lead singer for the rock group Journey.
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Nacionalities

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Arnel Pineda Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/arnel-pineda
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: July 20, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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The Truth About How Arnel Pineda Joined Journey

Arnel Pineda's path to Journey is something out of a Hollywood movie, complete with tragedy and triumph.

Pineda, who became the lead singer of the band in 2007, was discovered by lead guitarist Neal Schon on Youtube and the rest was history. According to Pineda's official website biography, Schon saw Pineda singing with his then band The Zoo on Youtube and was impressed by how much he sounded like former Journey lead singer Steve Perry. But his path to stardom was very different.

Pineda grew up in the Philippines, where he began his career from the very bottom. He said in a 2010 interview that he left school early after his mother died and his family had to leave their old apartment. He lived in the streets of Manila for two years, working odd jobs, bathing out of gas station water barrels, and surviving off sardines and rationed biscuits. By the time he was 15, he had joined a band and began making a name for himself.

Over the next decade, he would continue performing to larger audiences, which eventually led to gigs in Hong Kong. A friend of Pineda's uploaded one of these performances to Youtube and a star was born.

The journey to Journey

Pineda told Rolling Stone  that Schon found his friend's email and asked how he could contact the singer. When news reached Pineda that Journey's guitarist was looking for him, he thought it was a joke.

"When my friend forwarded the email to me, I was just laughing," Pineda told Rolling Stone in 2017. "I just told him that this is one of the biggest jokes I have ever received from someone. 'It's a hoax,' I tell him. 'You shouldn't believe it.'"

But Pineda did email Schon back and flew to California to meet with him for a week of intense, nerve-wracking auditions. Finally, in December 2007, Journey announced Pineda as its new lead singer.

Now, Pineda's story may soon be turned into Hollywood film, directed by Crazy Rich Asians director Jon Chu. According to the Philippine news website ABS-CBN , Pineda met with the director and other producers to get the ball rolling, stating in Filipino that he's excited for the movie to happen so that other dreamers like him can find much-needed inspiration, and that it might open more doors for other Filipino and Asian artists.

If it pans out, this won't be the first time Pineda's story was told on film. The 2012 documentary Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey followed the band on one of its tours, including Pineda's homecoming concert in Manila.

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Silverdocs: How Journey Found A New Lead Singer And Made Friends In Manila

Linda Holmes

Arnel Pineda became the lead singer of Journey in late 2007. Silverdocs hide caption

Arnel Pineda became the lead singer of Journey in late 2007.

One of the oddest things about the story of Arnel Pineda is that it's not actually quite as odd as it might seem.

Pineda was a bar and club singer working in Manila in 2007, doing some original material but finding an audience mostly for his covers, when he got an e-mail from Neal Schon, the guitarist from Journey. Schon had seen videos of Pineda performing on YouTube and asked him to come to San Francisco and audition to become the band's new lead singer. From Journey fan to Journey member, because of YouTube.

That's the hook of Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey , which opened Silverdocs on Monday night. Director Ramona S. Diaz followed Pineda and the band from the time shortly after he started rehearsing with them through their very successful 2008 tour and their – the word is a cliché, but it applies – triumphant show in Manila in March 2009 when they brought him back home a hero, the successful lead singer of an iconic American band.

There is a certain fairytale quality to all of it – the guy who was singing Journey covers when he suddenly got The Call – but really, it's not that weird. Schon didn't stumble on him accidentally or get an e-mail from someone that said "You've got to see this guy!!!"; he found Pineda while specifically searching YouTube for lead singers, because it's a not-unusual way to find musicians. Maybe he was even looking for lead singers doing Journey songs. Maybe even for lead singers doing Journey songs who sounded a lot like former lead singer Steve Perry – which Pineda surely does. Other than the fact that he was in the Philippines, Schon found his guy the way he set out to find him.

Pineda isn't quite as young as he sometimes seems in the film; he can seem like a kid, but he turned 41 during the 2008 tour. He's a stretch younger than guys like Schon, who's pushing 60, but he's not Justin Bieber being plucked from YouTube because he's never done anything. The story threatens at times to become a wacky internet novelty, but at its best, it's something a bit more satisfying than that. At its best, it's about a working singer – not a YouTube fluke, but a working, day-in-day-out singer who's been playing for years and years – can suddenly find himself jumped to the head of the line, playing to 22,000 people with musicians he's admired all his life. It doesn't have a lot to do with YouTube; the better story is about a band taking a huge risk on a completely unknown quantity because they need a guy and they found one they think will be a fit.

(As a side note, as tempting as the "Don't Stop Believin'" title is, I would have gone with a variation on "Journeyman." Just a suggestion, pun-wise.)

The best parts of the film focus on Pineda; he has a playful attitude toward his own sometimes overwhelming anxiety about the situation into which he's been thrust. He turns out to be a terrific fit for the band, despite his own comment that partly because he's "so Asian," he looks like they Photoshopped him in when Journey has photos taken. In fact, one of the guys in the band comments that bringing something a little more "international" to the "all-American" group is probably an advantage – a prediction that proves true when Pineda helps the band develop an impassioned following of Filipino-American fans in addition to the people back home in Manila. (The security team notes at one point that for some of Arnel's fans, he's "like Elvis.")

But at almost two hours, the film feels long. It comes to what seems like a natural ending at one point, and then it goes on for probably another 20 minutes. There are some background segments on the general history of Journey that don't seem to have been made with the love that went into the Pineda-era stuff, and a persistent subplot about Pineda getting colds and drinking tean — while care of the voice makes a nice tour detail — keeps coming back and back and back but never really goes anywhere.

Then there is also the problem of "Don't Stop Believin'" itself. I don't think it's a spoiler – I really, truly cannot imagine how it could be – to tell you that the film builds to the performance of that particular song. This tour happened after The Sopranos put "Don't Stop Believin'" in the spotlight but before Glee put it there again, and the closing titles of the film point out that it's now the most downloaded song written in the 20 th century. But at some point, waiting for it becomes a bit of a tease, and the build to the performance (and the holding out on playing much of that song after playing most of Journey's others that are well-known, sometimes more than once) turns into a game. I would have dropped the bomb a little sooner, just to avoid the sense of inevitability.

But the film is fun, and it's worth seeing, not because it's the tale of an internet sensation, but because it's the tale of a bunch of guys who really, really want to hear crowds scream – either again or for the first time ever. As much as it's about how a band lifted an unknown singer into a dreamlike world of screaming crowds and far more money than he'd ever known, it's also about how a band found just the right guy at just the right time to help capitalize on the surprise comeback of one of the band's most famous songs. Pineda says at one point that it's like hitting the lotto, what happened to him, but in truth, Schon hit the lotto, too. You can see the guys standing around him at certain moments, looking at him or watching him perform, realizing that he's incredibly grateful to them, but in fact, without him, they are out of luck .

There's an argument to be made that when you set out to find your new lead singer looking specifically for someone who can sing your existing hits and make them sound just like they did when your old lead singer sang them – rather than being primarily focused on a guy who can contribute to whatever your next identity is – you run the risk of essentially covering your own music. Under this theory, Pineda was originally recruited to be the lead singer of the most famous Journey cover band in the world – the one called Journey. But they have since released two albums of new material, and it seems to be a little more than that. It may even be a little more than Schon expected to find on YouTube.

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He Didn't Stop Believin'

arnel pineda, who turns 41 this year, has been performing in bands since he was a teenager, and by now he has mastered virtually every kick-ass lead-singer move known to rock. He can launch his compact body off the drum riser and land without twisting an ankle. He plays excellent microphone-cord air guitar. He knows when to do the reach-out-and-touch with the fans in the front row and when to turn the microphone stand upside down and lift it above his head, as if calling down the lightning. He knows how to do these things because he is a professional lead singer and a good one, which means he is a virtuoso whose instrument is his own charisma. He is also adept at the parts of the lead-singer job that involve singing.

Until recently, the only place you could see Pineda doing any of this stuff was in Manila, where he and his band, the Zoo, appeared regularly at bars and nightclubs, or on the YouTube channel of an industrious Zoo fan named Noel Gomez, who has uploaded more than sixty video clips of the band performing live, usually on stages that resemble discarded sets from early-'90s late-night talk shows. It was thanks to those videos, in which Pineda sings the songs of Deep Purple, the Goo Goo Dolls, Heart, Stryper, Styx, Toto, Aerosmith, Bob Marley, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Simple Minds, Bryan Adams, Men at Work, the Beatles, and REO Speedwagon, that he wound up here at the Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas on a Saturday in early March, playing his first U.S. show as the new lead singer of the legendary '80s rock band Journey.

It's a little after 8 p.m., and we've reached the point in "Any Way You Want It" where lead guitarist Neal Schon, who cofounded Journey in 1973, plays a precise yet impassioned hairspray-torch of a solo. This is Pineda's cue to sidle up to Schon and make your-guitar-playing-is-rocking-me-so-hard faces at him, prompting Schon to make equally ridiculous not-as-hard-as-it's-rocking-me-my-brother faces back. It's the kind of thing singers in arena rock bands have been doing during the guitar break since arenas were invented, and usually it's only entertaining if you know, for example, that the guitarist and the lead singer actually hate each other. But when Pineda does it, it's more than a gesture. He has performed this song live many times before, but he's still getting used to performing it with the band that made it famous, so when he does the grooving-on-the-solo thing, he appears genuinely awed,1 not only by the force of Schon's rocking but by the fact that he, Arnel Pineda, is actually being rocked by Neal Schon. When he turns to the audience—where fans have been waving the Philippine flag and their own homemade banners (arnel for president) in his general direction all night long—the look on his face is equal parts glee and disbelief.

"My life is a fairy tale," Pineda told me earlier. "But I'm awake, and I'm dreaming it."

if you're in a long-running classic-rock band and you find yourself without a lead singer, as Journey did last summer, you have several options, aside from retirement. The minute it's announced that you and your frontman have parted ways, aspirants to the position will begin sending you their CDs, whether or not you have asked for them.

But if you're Journey, at least a few of the innumerable bedroom karaoke-ists, tennis-racket axpersons, and car-dashboard drummers your music has inspired will have gone semipro, forming tribute bands that play your music in a Civil War–reenactment kind of way, which means you've also got a vast pool of ready-on-day-one understudies from which to draw. When Judas Priest made their first album without original lead singer Rob Halford in 1996, they drafted Tim "Ripper" Owens, an Akron office-supply salesman who sang Halford's parts in a Priest tribute band; thanks to the 2001 film Rock Star, in which Mark Wahlberg played an Owens manqué named Chris "Izzy" Cole, this is probably the most famous example of a band calling a singer up from the farm team.

It's a major crossroads, this frontman decision. You can bet on the future by tapping a singer who may have his own thing happening, or you can reinvest in your legacy by recruiting a singer who's been practicing your stuff for years. But when Journey parted ways with frontman Jeff Scott Soto last summer, Neal Schon began to wonder if there was another way to go.

What you need to know here is that the lead-singer slot in Journey has always been a high-turnover position, somewhere between "Mr. Pamela Anderson" and "drummer for Spinal Tap" on the volatility scale. Soto was either the third, fourth, or fifth guy to have the job, depending on whether or not you count keyboardist Gregg Rolie (responsible for some of the vocals on the band's first three albums) or Neal Schon (ditto) or Robert Fleischman (who sang live with the band and cowrote "Wheel in the Sky" but never appeared on a studio album). But as far as Journey's fans are concerned, there is but one true Journey vocalist, and his name is Steve Perry. Before Perry, Journey were a chops-flaunting jazz-rock outfit whose first three albums had sold poorly; when Columbia Records threatened to drop the band, their manager, Herbie Herbert, prevailed upon them to hire Perry, who had a supple tenor, a gawky, earnest stage presence, and one of the worst haircuts in rock. Together, he and Journey began writing new songs that showcased two of these three qualities, and by the turn of the decade they'd become one of the biggest bands on earth.

Sometimes pop songs are poetry, and sometimes they're art, and sometimes they're poetry transformed into art and written in airbrush on acid-washed denim. During the Perry years, Journey sang about dreamers on the run, about summer nights, about the lonely road. They once rhymed "walkin' a high wire" with "caught in a cross fire." They made videos so singularly ill-conceived—like "Separate Ways," which is clearly supposed to take place in the kind of gritty urban environment where one might find oneself caught in a cross fire while walking on a high wire but appears to have actually been filmed in the parking lot of an Ikea—that they now resemble_ Flight of the Conchords_ skits. Pete Townshend once said, "If you steer clear of quality, you're all right," but Journey played everything with an aerobic professionalism that suggested that quality was Job One. Most rock critics despised them; they were frequently lumped in with Styx and Foreigner and characterized as "faceless," an allegation the members of Journey say they neither appreciated nor understood.

They were never cool, and they were never dangerous. Cool, dangerous bands advocated the use of drugs, or at least testified to their allure; Journey signed a then groundbreaking endorsement deal with Budweiser and once arrived at a St. Louis gig in a carriage pulled by the brewer's iconic team of Clydesdales. Cool, dangerous bands lured their fans to the dark side using satanic iconography; Journey tempted their fans into arcades to pump quarters into Bally Midway's Journey video game.2 Cool, dangerous bands made parents nervous; any kid who tried to rebel by cranking the soaring and saccharine sounds of Frontiers or Escape deserved to be laughed at through his or her bedroom door (and sat down by an elder sibling for a stern talking-to about the greatness of Black Sabbath).3

But for about a decade, they could basically do no wrong in the eyes of the record-buying public, who fell hard for future classic-rock radio staples like the shamelessly inspirational "Don't Stop Believin'," the shamelessly sentimental "Faithfully," and the shamelessly self-explanatory "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'." 4 Cool, dangerous bands are rarely accessible; Journey wanted to speak to as many people as possible. It didn't matter what kind of car you drove; if you'd ever wished it were a Trans Am, Journey were singing to you. Between 1978 and 1986, every record they made went platinum.

In 1984, Perry made a solo album, _Street Talk, _which spawned the hit singles "Foolish Heart" and "Oh Sherrie"; Schon says its success put a strain on Perry's relationship with the rest of the band. Perry returned to the Journey fold to make one more record, _Raised on Radio, _before taking an indefinite hiatus in 1987, citing vocal and emotional burnout. Journey didn't play together again until 1995. They made a comeback album, Trial by Fire, and scheduled a reunion tour; then Perry injured his hip on a hike in Hawaii. He needed to replace the hip in order to play live, but put off getting the surgery; Schon says the band waited until they couldn't wait anymore. The next time Journey toured, their singer was Brooklyn-born Steve Augeri. He took flak from hard-core fans for sounding too much like Steve Perry, and then he stepped aside, citing a chronic throat infection, and handed the mike to Jeff Scott Soto, who took flak for not sounding Perryish enough. A subtext was developing: Journey's fans felt that no one other than Steve Perry was fit to sing Journey songs in the shower, let alone onstage.

In conversation, the members of Journey jokingly refer to Steve Perry as "He Who Cannot Be Named," like the evil wizard in the Harry Potter books. Later, I ask Schon about this, after reading an interview with their former manager in which it is alleged that Journey are somehow legally enjoined from speaking on the record about Perry.

"Oh, y'know," Schon says. "There's no legal issue. We just try not to. I mean, I didn't say anything inflammatory. I didn't talk about how he still gets paid like a motherfucker even though he shouldn't be. It's stuff like that I'm not allowed to talk about. He sorta just bitches and moans and whines about everything. And he just assumes that every time we bring up his name, that we're sayin' bad things."

no one in journey was excited about auditioning new singers, and none of the tribute-band Steves they looked at seemed like the answer. "I didn't think they had anything new to offer," Schon says, "other than making us a nostalgia act, and I wasn't interested in that."

Instead, Schon says, "I sat in my house for a couple days, hoping the almighty Internet would bring some relief."

He trawled YouTube, looking at all the live footage of male rock vocalists he could find. "You never know what you're getting on a CD," Schon says. "It can be all doctored in Pro Tools. You never know if somebody can sing unless you're watching something live." He found a few singers with potential—a couple of guys in England, doing "a Justin Timberlake–type thing." And then he stumbled on Noel Gomez's Zoo videos.

There are a few clips on YouTube of Pineda singing Journey songs like "Faithfully." His Steve Perry is almost eerily flawless; he nails both Perry's girlish quaver and the grit and pacing Perry borrowed from soul singers like Sam Cooke, and the fact that you can occasionally hear his accent makes the rest of the performance that much more uncanny. But Schon insists that what grabbed him about Pineda was his range. He slam-dunked Survivor. He tore up Toto. He made something out of "Makin' Love out of Nothing at All," and—spoiler alert—what he made out of it was love .

"The hair stood up on my arms," Schon says. "I got up off the computer and told my girlfriend, 'No way—this guy sounds too good. I don't believe it.' "

He went for a motorcycle ride. Thus are important rock-star decisions made. When he got back, he watched the clips again. Then he started calling his band. "I said, 'I found the singer,' " Schon says. "And they go, 'Where is he' And I'm like, 'He's in Manila!'

"And they go, 'Great—so you found a singer who can't speak English.' "

pineda's english is actually fine.

Right now he is trying to save his voice for tomorrow's show, so he speaks softly, which makes him seem as if he's in a state of perpetual awe (and maybe he is).

Pineda may have the most Dickensian backstory in rock history. His mother died when he was 13; his father took Pineda's siblings to live with relatives, and Pineda struck out on his own. He collected scrap metal, bottles, and old newspapers, usually bringing home the equivalent of thirty cents a day. Sometimes he'd sleep at a friend's house; more often than not, he'd sleep in Manila's Luneta Park, alone or with a group of other homeless kids. They drank from a fountain there and bathed in it, too; most mornings, Pineda would wake up sick from the dew. ("All clogged here," he says, pressing two fingers to his sinuses.)

His friend Monet Cajipe played guitar. Sometimes when Pineda wasn't working, he'd go over to Monet's house and they'd sing songs together. "He would bring me to his family," Pineda says, "and say, 'Come on, give some food to my friend,' because I was starving. They would make me sing, and then they would feed me. They would just bribe me with food."

At 15, Pineda tried out for a group called Ijos Band. He'd never sung with a real band before; during the audition, his voice was strong but his timing was weak. The bandleader saw something in him anyway, and when the other members of Ijos groused about having to split their nightly take with an extra man, one of the bandleader's friends came to the rescue, offering to pay Arnel's salary—thirty-five pesos a night—out of his own pocket. Perks of the job included a tiny room under the guitarist's front stairs, where Pineda could sleep.

He went on to cofound a band called Amo, which evolved into a band called New Age, featuring Cajipe on guitar. Like many Filipino bands, they played a mix of original material and covers of American and British rock and pop. While the U.S. occupation shaped Filipino musical culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Philippines truly became a cover-band nation in the '60s, when the islands served as a way station for troops en route to or from the Vietnam War and every nightclub needed bands who could entertain American servicemen with Top 40 rock 'n' roll. To this day, Pineda says, "if you only play original songs, [audiences in the Philippines] will not appreciate you 100 percent. They want to hear you singing other bands' songs that made it to number one. Like Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Journey."

In the early '90s, New Age relocated to Hong Kong, a time-honored path for -Filipino musicians seeking their fortune. It didn't go so well. Playing the same cover tunes every night began to drive Pineda crazy. He was bored, so he drank, took drugs, and generally pursued any and all forms of rock 'n' roll self-destruction available to a boy from Manila adrift on the Hong Kong bar circuit. Before long, he'd wrecked his voice. When he found he could no longer hit the high notes in Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight," he went to a doctor, who told him to retire. He was 27.

"He said, 'You're finished. Your vocal is just done,' " Pineda says. "I did not believe him. I told myself, I can get it back."

He returned to the Philippines, got straight, learned to sing again. He recorded a self-titled solo album in 2000; he and Cajipe started the Zoo. They recorded their first album,_ Zoology_. For a man who'd been told he'd never sing again, it was a happy enough ending. Then, last summer, the phone rang.

When Pineda went to get his visa, the guy who interviewed him at the embassy—"His name is Ben. I can't forget his name," Pineda says—was a fan who'd seen him play with the Zoo a couple of times, so Pineda took a request, and everybody in the office looked up from their desks at the guy singing "Wheel in the Sky."

He flew to San Francisco, spent a day jamming with the band at their rehearsal space. He hadn't slept much on the flight over, so his voice kept cracking, and he assumed he'd blown it, but he almost didn't care. He'd come to America and sung with a band he'd loved since he was 12 years old. He'd shot some home movies of them on his camcorder—a YouTube-able epilogue to his crazy YouTube adventure. He was ready to settle for that. But that jam session led to a long day in the studio, where Pineda sang two new songs and four or five of the Dirty Dozen—nailing most of them in one take—and by the time it was over, he'd passed the audition.

"Arnel cared about getting it right," band member Jonathan Cain says. "There wasn't this arrogance—the Lead Singer Disease that so many guys have when they have fantastic voices."

let us consider the New Guy.

In life, the New Guy gets the office that was once a closet full of printer paper, or maybe still is; the New Guy is told about bogus traditions involving the New Guy picking up the lunch tab; the New Guy spends a lot of time wondering what's so funny.

The New Guy's phone rings, but it's not for him. He disappoints people just by picking it up. _No, I'm sorry—he's not here anymore. Is there something I can help you with _

In rock, being the New Guy is the same, except harder. The jokes you don't know go back to some long, snowy between-concerts bus ride circa 1984. And you're trying to inhabit a stadium-sized myth, not a cubicle. You might win over a few late-to-the-party fans, but your presence alone will always be proof to some people that the band has outlived its awesomeness. A band with a New Guy on vocals is like a late-period Happy Days episode, one of the ones where nobody's left except Ted McGinley and a middle-aged Fonz who can barely zip the leather jacket. And because the only way for a band in this position to shake off the taint of the glue factory is to reunite with its original singer, the New Guy in a rock band is always a dead man rocking.

Tim Owens got seven years with Judas Priest before Rob Halford returned. Anyone not named David Lee Roth who agrees to sing for Van Halen is basically keeping the leather pants warm for Diamond Dave. And however comfortable Pineda's been made to feel during the past few months, he must know on some level that Steve Augeri and Jeff Soto once felt comfortable, too. Toward the end of our interview, as dusk bleaches the color from the desert outside the window, I ask him if he's thought about how long this is going to last.

"Well, of course," he says. "Of course I did. I'm a very realistic person. I like to plan. I like to see the future. If I'm lucky, if I'm still strong, I want to be with them for the next three years. And if they still like me after that, I still want to be with them. And hopefully we will create new Journey music that people will love."

And at some point, I suggest, you'll become essential. People will say Journey without Arnel, who wants that

"I just want to be a part of a band that will be able to reinvent themselves, you know" Pineda says. "And I think they will be able to help me build a future, with my family. They will help me financially. They can help me with that. Because all of us need a good future for our children, for our families."

It's true, we do. The members of Journey talk about Pineda like he's given them their youth back, the way thrice-married men talk about the young wives who've got them doing wheatgrass shots and yoga, listening to the Killers. It's never too late to feel like you're going to live forever. "I think we're reborn, right now, with Arnel," Schon says.

He talks about the band's first show with Pineda in Chile, how Arnel was all over the stage, jumping around, surprising everyone, and making Schon—who's playing a cordless guitar for the first time since the '80s—feel the need to step his game up. "I'm gonna be riding my bicycle a lot, and skating," he says, "and getting myself in tip-top shape so I can keep up with this little guy."

When Journey were off the road last year, during the gap between singers, it gave Schon time to get sober. When we talk, it's been nine months. "I believe I was a functioning alcoholic," he says—he'd stay straight for shows but kill a bottle of vodka on the tour bus afterward, and that went on for years. So this moment is also a rebirth for Schon; he's facing all of it straight for the first time. "I feel like I have 100 percent of myself here," he says, "and I'm really excited about getting out there and being completely in control."

Pineda's arrival lets them zero out the odometer. "Had I known Arnel was around fifteen years ago," Schon says, "singing even better than he is now—Goddammit, I would have called him!"

journey may not want to be thought of as a nostalgia act. But they are clearly totally fine with being an act that benefits from nostalgia. When I ask Cain why people still care about Journey in 2008, his response is basically a definition of the term:

"It's music they grew up to," he says. "Fell in love with. Had sex with. Got married to. Graduated from high school or college with. It's a moment frozen in time, and when they remember those moments, they remember those songs. Y'know, the '70s and '80s were awesome times. There was a lot less trouble in the world. And it's like people wanna go back to that simpler place and time. We see these housewives—they used to come to our shows when they were teenagers, and now it's like The Big Chill. They come back, they get a room, and they come see Journey. And I see 'em in the bars and buy 'em a drink and talk to 'em. Or there'll be a daughter that's bringing her mom to a Journey show as a birthday present, because she didn't get to see us back then. And you're like, 'Oh my God—I'm part of this.' "

How Journey's fan base will respond to the band's new incarnation is another question. Journey's new album, Revelation, will be available in June, exclusively at Wal-Mart. In this regard, they're following in the footsteps of the Eagles, who've sold 2.9 million copies of their album Long Road out of Eden through the big-box retailer since last October.

The album package will consist of a CD featuring eleven new Journey songs with Pineda on vocals, a DVD of the Planet Hollywood show, and a third disc featuring Pineda-sung rerecordings of eleven Journey classics whose original iterations featured you-know-who. Depending on how you look at it, this rewrite of the band's history is either a huge vote of confidence for Pineda or the rock 'n' roll equivalent of trying to prove to yourself that you're over your ex-girlfriend by dating a woman who looks exactly like her. And it's a move guaranteed to piss off more than a few Journey fans—even the album's producer, Kevin Shirley, compares it to "roxing the Holy Grail."5

I get a hint of the backlash that may be on the way when, a week or so before the Vegas show, I post a thread on the Journey message board at Melodicrock.com, an Internet forum for people with strong opinions about power balladry and Night Ranger side projects. I ask people to tell me their Journey stories; I ask people what they think of Pineda. I give out my e-mail address. Within minutes, my in-box fills up with e-mails—angry, passionate e-mails.

I hear from a few thick-and-thin super-fans, from plenty of reasonable people ready to give Arnel a fair shake, and even a few early Pineda converts. But I also hear from people frustrated by the band's -inability to hold on to a lead singer and from people who resent the band for continuing on at all. But mostly, I hear from people who have not stopped believing in Steve Perry. They compare him to Elvis, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, and God. They describe the post-Perry band as "a second-class rendition of Journey." They send me all-caps e-mails—Steve Perry really brings out the caps-lock in people—that begin "IT HAD BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOU ARE LOOKING TO WRIGHT AN ARTICLE ABOUT WHY JOURNEY IS NO LONGER JOURNEY BUT NOTHING MORE THEN A TRIBUTE BAND TO THE BEST SOFT ROCK BAND EVER." They send me photomosaics of Steve Perry created out of many, many tiny little pictures of Steve Perry.

"You want to know why the 'fascination' with Journey all of a sudden" writes Thomas Cordea of Fort Wayne, Indiana. "With the hiring of a blatant 'sound-alike' singer, the world is 're-awakening' to the fact that THEY MISS STEVE PERRY LIKE MAD.… That is the real 'hidden' storyline of your article, not this latest frontman hire."

Maybe. But this latest frontman hire still seems like the first smart move Journey have made in years. They've got a guy who can sing the Perry material on tour. They're excited about making new music with him. And the fact that they discovered Pineda on YouTube has given them a ready-made PR hook. In a clicky, viral, cell-phone-delivered media moment where even the twice-weekly cult-of-the-amateur hour that is _American Idol _seems like a rusty piece of star-making machinery and Simon Cowell like a snooty gatekeeper, Journey—Journey!—seem like innovators, in touch with the forces shaping the culture. For a band prominently featured in people's memories of the Carter administration, this is pretty impressive.

This doesn't change the fact that they're Journey —emblematic of the way '70s rock betrayed the '60s in the '80s, part of the problem that punk's loogie-hawking historical rebuke supposedly solved. The middleman-eliminating YouTube story line can't make them cool; neither can the existence of a Journey-branded "Virtual Island" in the online nerdiverse Second Life. But coolness accrues in unexpected ways; once-verboten things slip out of cultural jail under cover of irony.

five signs the journey revival is imminent or possibly already here, in descending order of cultural impact:

1. David Chase uses "Don't Stop Believin'" in the last scene of the last episode of The Sopranos. It either is or isn't the last song Tony Soprano ever hears. (A week after the episode airs, Hillary and la famiglia Clinton parody this scene, right down to the onion rings, in a viral-video campaign ad.)

2. Drolly doleful indie rockers—Badly Drawn Boy, Of Montreal—begin slipping ironic-but-maybe-sincere "Don't Stop Believin'" covers into their live sets. Kanye West does, too—at the shows he played in Europe shortly after his mother's death, it often followed "Hey Mama," the one he couldn't get through without crying.

3. Literate classic-rock obsessive Craig Finn and his Brooklyn-via-Minnesota meta–bar band, the Hold Steady, reference Journey in song: My name is Steve Perry, but people call me Circuit City.… My name's Neal Schon, but people call me Nina Simone.

4. Petra Haden, formerly of the late, lamented three-girls-and-a-guy alt-rock band that dog., records an a cappella cover of "Don't Stop Believin'." Haden: "My favorite part is singing that guitar solo. I always end up laughing at the end. I shouldn't, because it's supposed to be so serious. But I always do."

5. Some aspiring George Romero with access to a camcorder and a backyard uploads a no-budget horror short called "Journey of the Dead" to YouTube. Synopsis: "Steve Perry (former lead singer of Journey) saves a Rock and Roll loving couple from an attack by Rock Star Drummer Zombies. After a violent and bloody battle with the zombies, Steve Perry emerges victorious (as always) and then finds himself engaged in a karate showdown with the ultimate evil lead singer mastermind, Freddie Mercury!" Best quote: "Hey, zombie-breath—you picked the wrong day to not be dead! Now you're going to have to face Steve Perry!"

tapping somebody who can do Perry as well as Pineda can may indicate that the band want that uncomplicated approval they got from their audience during the Perry years, as opposed to the problematic tough love they're getting now. Or maybe Neal Schon—who started Journey, spent years building an audience through tireless touring (traveling, in the early days, in four-door station wagons, rolling into the venue just in time to jump onstage and play—who says Journey weren't punk) before having Perry foisted upon him in 1977 for reasons of commercial expediency, and has spent the post-Perry years being accused of sacrilege for daring to continue playing in the band he founded in the first place—wants to prove that it is he and his bandmates who make it Journey.

But when I ask Schon if he's at all tired of Journey being defined by Perry's presence or absence, he answers, "Um, no. I think he contributed so much to the sound of the band. Those songs are gonna be embedded in everybody's heads and hearts forever."

I get a slightly different take from Steve Perry, who calls from his home near San -Diego. Perry, who's finally started working on his first album of new material since leaving Journey, doesn't want to talk about the vocalists who've followed in his footsteps, Pineda included. "I only know that they've been through three guys," he says, "and I've never heard any of them. I stay away from it, because it's really none of my business now. We have children together, which are the songs we wrote, but that's about all."

But he will talk about what it was like when he joined a Journey already in progress in 1977, shedding a little light on what it might feel like to be Pineda now. "You've got to remember, they didn't want to make it with a lead singer," he says. "They wanted to make it without one."

I ask him about the scene in VH1's Journey_ Behind the Music _episode in which Perry declares that he "never really felt like part of the band." Was that because Schon resented having to hire a frontman

"What that meant," Perry says, "was that there was a period of time where I always felt that I had to prove myself. But along with that, you have to print that I can't blame them. It was [Neal's] band. Herbie Herbert built that band around Neal because he's a star on his own, from a guitar standpoint. There's nobody who plays like Neal Schon, to this day. I still miss his playing. We don't get along, but I love his playing.

"They wanted to make it on their own goalposts that they had in mind. There's nothing wrong with that. And I hope you print that, because it's important that people know that. I'm not bitchin'. I'm not whining. I completely understand how they felt and why."

the security people at the Planet Hollywood show—even the women—have the hired-muscle intimidation factor of pit bosses. For all I know, they are pit bosses. But at the end of the Planet Hollywood show, when Journey come back out to redo a couple of songs for the DVD—"We have to do one of the new ones again," Schon says cheerfully, "because we fucked it up!"6—the crowd-control policy is relad and people are allowed to come down the floor-seat aisles and up to the stage to scream and clutch at Pineda, presumably because this will make the show look more exciting on-camera. Someone hands him up a tiny Philippine flag on a wooden stand, the kind a diplomat keeps on his desk, and he stares at it for what counts, in rock-show time, as a long moment, before handing it back.

The do-overs end the night with a sort of anticlimactic thud, but overall it's been a good show, particularly for Pineda. Almost half the crowd—and this is an unscientific estimate based on what the nonwhite people looked like when I turned around—appeared to be Filipino, and from the first note he sang, they were his. And while none of the new Journey songs will make anybody forget "Don't Stop Believin'"—as always, the words "Here's another one from the new album" are the classic-rock-show audience's cue for a bathroom break—some of them are pretty affecting.

Kevin Shirley described "After All These Years" to me as "like 'Faithfully: Part 2'—it's a gem," and it kind of is. Like "Faithfully" (Journey's greatest gift to wedding DJs), it's a soaring, soulful ballad, readable as both a pledge of eternal fealty and a love letter to the fans. But the "all these years" theme adds the weight of long-term commitment to the mix; a song like this is how you tell your audience you'd marry them all over again. And while it's not anywhere near as good as "Faithfully," you can imagine it someday becoming part of the canon. Someday it will be performed by a singer in a smoky room—some Hong Kong piano bar, maybe—and traveling salesmen far from hearth and home will shed a tear or two, and maybe that's all that matters.

Afterward, there's a bottleneck in the lobby of the theater. As everyone shuffles slowly toward the doors that lead to the mezzanine above the casino, someone in the crowd starts singing the Nah nah, na nah nah / Na na na nah nah refrain from "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'," the last song of the night. (It's the one song in Journey's catalog where you can most clearly hear the Sam Cooke mannerisms in Steve Perry's delivery, and Pineda nailed it—an Asian guy imitating a white Californian imitating a black guy from Chicago, on a stage in a Las Vegas hotel with "Hollywood" in the name. The mind reels.)

Then, as if the air-conditioning has started pumping karaoke spores, other people join in and start singing Nah nah, na nah nah / Na na na nah nah, too. It only lasts for a few seconds, but those seconds are maybe the most sincere moment of community I've experienced at a rock show in a long, long time—and they feel like proof that the Pineda-fronted version of Journey has succeeded in giving people the kind of life-affirming Journey experience they were looking for.

Later there's a VIP meet-and-greet in a high-ceilinged Planet Hollywood banquet room. Trickling in like they've timed their entrances, the band pose for pictures and sign T-shirts, albums, ticket stubs. The energy is a little flat until Arnel appears, wearing a shiny long-sleeve T-shirt, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. People immediately crowd around him, waving digital cameras; somebody shouts, "Move back, move back!" He makes it to the other side of the room, still swarmed by fans—many of them Filipino, many of them girls. I try to ask Arnel a couple of questions about the show, which yields a brief interview, reproduced here in its entirety:

Q. How's it going, Arnel A. Hey, man!

Then someone else gets his attention and he's off, posing for another photo. Instead, I interview Patty Zaragoza, who's a flight attendant "representing the Cathay Pacific cabin crew." She doesn't know much about Journey, but she's a fan of Pineda's—she used to see him perform in Hong Kong, at a bar called Grammy's. She gives me a blue Cathay Pacific lanyard, in case the one that came with my Journey backstage pass ceases to function. I turn around to try to get another word or two with Pineda, but he's mobbed. The crowd swallows him. He is, at least for now, a rock star.

the day before the show, I ask Kevin Shirley if he feels Pineda has fully processed everything that's happened to him during the past few months.

"No," Shirley says. "No, I don't think he has. I think the record needs to come out. I think he needs to go on tour. I think he still has a lot of fear about whether he can play this set every night. But he can. I feel very confident. But yeah—once all that settles in, and maybe once he gets his first royalty check. In the meantime, it's like, 'Can you buy me a sandwich I'm the lead singer of Journey!' "

alex pappademas is a GQ staff writer.

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Journey singer Arnel Pineda on fronting his favorite band

The 54-year-old Pineda, who has taken over for Steve Perry with the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, is tearing up Las Vegas as Journey wraps up an eight-show residency.

S imilar to that famous song, Arnel Pineda’s fairy tale goes on, and on, and on, and on …

The Journey singer, who has taken over Steve Perry’s former domain, is tearing up Las Vegas. The band is entering its second and final weekend of an eight-show residency at the Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. Journey performs at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Next up is a Dec. 18 date at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

As rock fans are readily aware, Pineda grew up impoverished in Manila. As he says, “I sang my way out of poverty,” first from the streets and then landing a spot in local rock cover bands in his early teens.

Pineda was able to eat, but he never imagined rock stardom.

But in 2007, guitar great Neal Schon caught a YouTube video of Pineda and his band, The Zoo. The singer’s life changed immediately. Within months, he was singing for 20,000 fans at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Chile.

The 54-year-old Pineda took time from his vocal warmup (keeping the humidifier humming throughout) at the Theater to talk of his rise to fame:

Johnny Kats : Do you look around you and wonder “How did I get here?”

Arnel Pineda: (Laughs.) Yeah, no kidding. I’ve been with them for 14 years now, and I still do. But I’m still remembering the day Neal called me in and said that I am in the band. It was Dec. 5, 2007, at the Hilton hotel in Healdsburg, California. That was when I became a member of Journey.

What was that first show in Chile like for you?

I was nervous, scared. They were nervous. We were all nervous. There were thousands of people, and it was broadcast all over Latin America. But I was just telling myself, psyching myself up, “I can do this. I need to do this right.” But I also thought, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

You had one show with Journey, guaranteed, right?

Yes, I mean, you’ve only been dreaming to be with this band, even for one song. And now you’re doing the whole thing, the whole set. So, even if you fail, you have four, five good songs you’ve performed with them out there onstage. I’m already happy, like, fulfilled if that happens.

You have cover band cred then, right?

True! And then I can go back to the Philippines, and I can brag about it forever and ever. You know what I mean? Like a kid, you know, it was like that. It was not about fame and fortune. It’s about me being a big fan and being grateful to have this magical moment.

You have talked about being homeless in the Philippines as a kid. You still often think about that period of your life?

Of course. I am a parent now. I am a father now to my kids. I don’t want them to go through what I went through, because it was bad. I mean, no kids in the world should deserve a life like that.

What was life like in those days?

Oh, my God. Imagine you’re living in a space about 20 square feet, and you have six kids, and you’re squatting on a riverside, which is so dirty and so polluted you can’t drink. There is a hole where you open up a piece of wood and go to the bathroom, and that’s it. When you all need to sleep, you just get out a very thin, like, mattress to sleep on, all six of you.

It happens everywhere, doesn’t it?

It’s not only happening in the Philippines, certainly. It’s happening all over the world. This is why I have my foundation (Arnel Pineda Foundation Inc.) to help these little angels. It is one thing for adults to suffer, but don’t bring these little angels into it.

How did you become a singer?

When I was 5 years old I was hearing (sings) “Great balls of fire!” and “Go, Johnny, go!” Then it was the mighty Beatles. Then there was a transition when I heard the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson, his voice. “Ben” and “I’ll Be There,” those songs, I loved singing. I just kept listening to rock songs, rock bands. Journey, of course, always. Also Judas Priest. Iron Maiden. I love Rush. I met Geddy Lee at the Rock &Roll Hall of Fame. I grabbed his hand and said, “I just want to say, I am a big fan!” He was so surprised, he was actually speechless.

You met Steve Perry there, too, yes?

Yes, yes I did.

How did that go?

He was super-nice, very friendly. I didn’t know what to expect, because I had never met him, and I had been waiting for 35 years to meet him. But he was so gracious, and super-helpful to me.

Did he have any advice for you?

He whispered something to me, through my assistant, Yul (Sessions), which I learned after the meeting. He said, “Tell him to take care of his voice.” He wants me to sing for a long time.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts . Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.

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Neal Schon Finally Speaks Up About Replacing Arnel Pineda

via Music Mad / Youtube

The future of Journey has been clouded by uncertainty ever since Arnel Pineda, the band’s Filipino vocalist, spoke out against racist remarks and pledged to keep singing, even if it meant parting ways with the iconic group.

Now, guitarist and founding member Neal Schon has stepped into the spotlight, aiming to silence the deafening rumor mill surrounding Pineda’s potential exit. 

Schon’s intervention comes at a crucial juncture, following Pineda’s heartfelt address that resonated deeply with fans and ignited discussions about inclusivity and respect within the music industry.

With tensions simmering and fans eagerly awaiting answers, Schon’s voice holds the potential to either soothe anxieties or exacerbate the drama. 

Arnel Pineda (left) and Neal Schon of Journey – the Classic West concert; Dodger Stadium; Los Angeles, CA (7-16-17). @NealSchonMusic @arnelpineda @JourneyOfficial Photo: Jeff Bliss https://t.co/XkblC3Lvm9 pic.twitter.com/yQrL7uYGQt — JCBliss (@JCBliss) July 31, 2020

“We are better than ever!”

Journey’s guitarist and founding member, Neal Schon, has shut down rumors circulating online about Arnel Pineda’s potential departure from the band. In a fiery Facebook post, he denounced “idiotic, relentless rag mag bulls**t articles” and emphasized that the band “are better than ever!”

Schon’s message serves as a much-needed dose of clarity for fans concerned about the band’s future. He reaffirmed their commitment to each other and expressed excitement for their upcoming tour, starting February 9th. This news comes after Pineda’s recent statement about facing racism and his dedication to continuing his music journey, regardless of the band.

Journey’s 2024 promises to be packed with action. Not only will they embark on their own tour, but they’ll also reunite with rock legends Def Leppard for a summer stadium tour, building on their successful collaborations from the past.

With Schon’s statement and the upcoming shows, it’s clear that Journey is ready to rock on, silencing doubts and fueling anticipation for their next chapter.

Neal Schon on Journey’s ‘New Strut,’ Possible Arnel Pineda Biopic, and His New Solo LP https://t.co/Lt39dAPgTe #Music #MusicFeatures pic.twitter.com/HNbgbJal27 — Siglov Freudivan (@DerangedRadio) January 7, 2021

“I won’t stop singing with or without Journey”

Pineda has faced a barrage of negativity since joining the band in 2007. His Asian heritage, coupled with the iconic band’s predominantly white lineup, sparked a wave of racism and doubt from some fans. However, Pineda refuses to be silenced.

In a recent Instagram post, Pineda addressed his critics head-on, calling out “bashers, foes, racists, bigots, haters,” and declaring: “No matter what or how you will name me, I won’t stop singing with or without Journey… It’s in my blood…”

His message resonated with many, highlighting his unwavering passion for music and his determination to overcome prejudice. He acknowledges his desire for a better life and recognition but emphasizes that being part of Journey was never a calculated move, but rather a dream come true.

Pineda’s defiant stance speaks volumes about his character and talent. Whether it’s “fate, destiny, divine intervention, or pure luck,” his journey with Journey is an inspiration to anyone facing discrimination or doubt. 

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by arnel c. pineda (@arnelpineda2007)

The Filipino vocalist remained humble and forgiving

Against the backdrop of John Lennon’s “Love”, Pineda continued addressing his detractors, offering an apology for any perceived pain while emphasizing his unwavering belief in unity and forgiveness. His poignant message, echoing Lennon’s call for peace and love, highlighted his resilience in the face of prejudice.

This spirit of acceptance wasn’t confined to Pineda’s own words. The band members themselves, along with their legendary former vocalist, Steve Perry, had extended a warm welcome to the Filipino singer.

Perry’s public acknowledgment of Pineda during the 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony symbolized the band’s embrace of their new frontman. Even Pineda’s predecessor, describing their first encounter, spoke of it as a “glorious moment”.

This chorus of acceptance stands in stark contrast to the negativity Pineda faced. It serves as a powerful reminder that even in the face of adversity, true talent and genuine connection can find a welcoming haven.

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Arnel Pineda: Journey lead singer talks solo tour, meeting Steve Perry

It’s been a decade since Arnel Pineda stepped into a spotlight once held by his hero, Steve Perry.

He'd been recruited by Journey guitarist Neal Schon, who was duly impressed by the young singer's eerily Perry-esque vocals on classic-rock staples by Journey, Survivor and more at the helm of the Zoo in a series of YouTube clips.

This discovery led to an email from Schon, then a phone call, a two-day audition and eventually his first gig – a Chilean music festival, in which they opened the set with a song he'd covered many times, "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)."

As Pineda recalls with a laugh, it was "nerve-wracking," as were his first several years in the band.

“But as soon as you started to sync in with the band and get accustomed with their lifestyle and the way they tour, it’s still not easy but it’s more of getting in the groove with them, the rhythm. You don’t have to worry all the time over what are you gonna do and how are you gonna face a crowd. You have become a part of the band already.”

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They’ve been “gelling good,” he says, for six or seven years now.

“We don’t have to look at each other and wonder ‘What the hell are we doing?’” says the Philippines-born singer with a laugh. “It’s like we just go out there, hit the crowd, play the legacy and have fun with each other, have fun with the crowd. That’s how it is these days.”

Journey fans are good for self-esteem

Singing with Journey has helped him become a more confident frontman and conquer his fears.

"My self-esteem is just way up there,” he says. “I’m more confident with my songwriting now. It’s like they gave me that , that confidence. And the way I present myself for the crowd now. Six or seven years ago, it was like ‘Oh my god, how do I do this?’ I was always terrified and pinching myself, like 'My God, is this really happening?'”

He’s especially thankful, he says, that the fans were so quick to embrace him when he stepped into that daunting role as Journey’s lead singer.

“I was not expecting that at all,” he says. “It’s just such a huge blessing. I’m still so amazed that they have embraced me like this because, I mean, it’s pretty clear that I’m not Steve Perry. And it won’t happen anytime soon that I will be Steve Perry. But you know, they embraced it. It’s a miracle.”

Steve Perry at Hall of Fame induction

To say he was thrilled to meet Perry last year at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony would be something of an understatement.

“Like I claim on my IG post, I waited 35 years for that,” Pineda says. “And of course, it was one of the most momentous days of my life. It’s like meeting the pope, you know? He’s one of my heroes when it comes to music – one of the few singers that I have adored all these years, along with Robert Plant and Ann Wilson.”

What did he and Perry talk about that day?

Pineda laughs.

“Oh, just some random things, you know,” he says. “We were just talking about the gig – How is it? How do I feel? And he joked to me saying ‘Are the boys treating you nice? If not, I’m gonna call them and straighten them out,’ you know?”

Pineda did not get inducted with his bandmates, but he did get up and join them at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, singing "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Lights."

As Pineda recalls, "For the record, I never really wanted to be there because I respect Mr. Steve Perry so much and I think that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, that’s for them, you know? It’s for the band and not for me. I was really adamant about not being there"

But Journey's manager John Baruck talked him into it.

"And then it was so gracious for Steve Perry that he doesn’t want to sing and said that it should be me that should be singing with the band," Pineda says. "I said, 'It’s not right. It should be them playing together and singing together. I was kind of shaky. I mean, how would you feel when your hero is watching you singing his legacy?"

Journey hiatus, solo work, 'AP'

Asked how things are in the Journey camp these days, Pineda says, "It’s started to go back to where they really started, where they came from, which is really like brothers in music. It should be that way. I mean, oh my God, the legacy that they have built together."

With Journey taking next year off, Pineda says he plans to do a lot of songwriting and spend time with his family.

He'll also perform the occasional solo gig, like his upcoming concert in Phoenix.

"I like to keep my voice going," he says. "I don’t want it to lose its chops. You know, as you age, it’s easier for you to lose it."

Pineda has released two solo albums, a self-titled effort in 1999 and "AP" in 2016.

"It makes me happy," he says of his solo career. "I hope that it will get noticed by a bigger crowd eventually but I have no expectations. It’s just a part of me that I’m trying to fill up. My own creativity."

He's pretty sure the crowd size at his solo gigs may have a lot to do with him being the singer for Journey. 

"And I’m really grateful," he says. "Because if my solo music came first, before Journey, I don’t think I’d make it this far."

He's especially grateful that his Journey bandmates took a chance on him and welcomed him into the fold.

"These boys, they’ve been really generous to me," he says. "I mean, sharing their legacy with me?! It’s really helped me a lot. It carried me through to where I want to go right now, you know, with my solo career."

Arnel Pineda

When: 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2.

Where: Celebrity Theatre, 440 N. 32nd St., Phoenix.

Admission: $58-$118.

Details: 602-267-1600,  celebritytheatre.com .

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How Journey’s Arnel Pineda Fixed His Vocal Woes

Journey  are in the homestretch of their current tour , which wraps up this week. The trek, which includes  Toto , has been “nonstop,” drummer Deen Castronovo tells UCR. But w ith the July 8 release of their 15th album,  Freedom , the roadwork will pick up again and continue through 2022 and beyond.

The drummer says they’re ready for the challenge, especially and notably, singer  Arnel Pineda , who's been  showing increasing signs over the past year that the band’s classic catalog was starting to take its toll. But fans who've seen the band on their new Freedom tour have witnessed a revitalized Pineda at the mic.

A soundman change and help from a vocal coach has made a huge difference, says Castronovo. “He’s soaring every night,” the drummer notes, adding that Pineda went to a "totally different place" with his voice on the band's upcoming album.

It's been a real revelation watching Arnel Pineda on this tour. It seems like things have turned around. He’s been struggling, and we brought a vocal coach out who is fantastic. He came out and was coaching Arnel with how to deliver a little bit differently. A lot of it was mental as well as physical, but once we got [a new] soundman and once things got turned down and he was able to hear, [everything was different]. To think that he’s been struggling with this for 14 years, he said. I had no idea. I think it was something that he didn’t know if he had the liberty to say, “Hey, I need to fix this” or “You guys need to try something different here,” either get a new soundman or whatever. But once we got this guy, Tom, everything changed. He’s a different guy. [Pineda’s] a different guy. Oh, my God, it blew us away. I think it’s been 15 shows since that [change], and every night, he sounds amazing.

Before, he was always trying his best and he would get there, but it was just him not being able to hear. Once they got that fixed, you can see the weight lifted off the kid. He’s just happy again. He and I are goofing around onstage, probably more than we should. [Laughs] We were goofing off all night because it’s just like a weight has been lifted. To have that kind of pressure stuck on you and not knowing what to do, it’s like, “How come I can’t do this?” That’s what it took.

The difference between last year's performance and some of the gigs from this year is striking. I’ve got to give credit to Dave Stroud, the vocal coach. He helped him a lot. It wasn’t just trying to get him to sing better or any of that, it was a lot of mental [thoughts]. Because I’m sure if you’re struggling, you’re going, “Why is this happening?” He had to get out of his head. Dave has worked with everybody. He was recommended by Randy Jackson. That helped a ton. Getting him out of his head and going, “Try this.” But once the soundman came, you put both of those elements together - David’s teaching and being able to hear - he’s soaring. He’s soaring every night.

It's something hearing Narada Michael Walden and Neal Schon play together on this new album. His drum parts on the record are perfect and they’re amazing. He brings that swing. There was this one song, “After Glow.” Neal was like, “Dude, I want you to sing on it.” He wanted me to do backgrounds. So I did the backgrounds. Then, he goes, “Why don’t you try and put a lead vocal on this?” It’s like, “Oh, boy, OK.” I’d never heard the song and didn’t know anything about it. But I went in there and we did a Zoom. He walked me through the entire song, him and Narada. I did it, and I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” It actually came out really good. Do you have the record? Have you heard it?

It’s pretty cool stuff! But I hadn’t heard it! I only heard that one song. I finally got the record about a month ago. So I’m still listening to it. We’re doing “ You Got the Best of Me ” now live. I had to learn that, and I’m listening to Narada’s parts and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” It’s not just straight ahead. He’s doing some different tom parts in the verses, so I had to try and cop his stuff. But I’m going to have to do the same thing that I did with [Steve] Smith when I first joined Journey. I’m going to have to go to his house and go, “Show me what you’re doing here!” There’s some stuff [on the album] that I’m like, “What’s he doing?” I know it’s amazing, but I’m not catching it with my puny little mind. It’s one of those things that I’ll just go back and woodshed with him, which will be really cool.

Listen to Journey's 'You Got the Best of Me'

Jonathan Cain   told us earlier this year that the band steps "out a little bit" on the new album. You can hear that. I agree. I love this stuff. It’s definitely not your typical Journey [music] or Escape , Frontiers or even Revelation . Arnel’s vocals on this ... . There are songs on there, I was listening and going, “Who is that singing?” I really did. I forget what the song was, but [I thought] that doesn’t even sound like Arnel, because he took it to a totally different place. I never knew that he could sing like that. He had that really bluesy, thick and syrupy blues thing. He’s really come into his own. It sounds amazing. He’s definitely not the Steve Perry clone. He’s made this stuff his own.

How did Narada Michael Walden help when it came to working on the song you sang on the album? He’s so meticulous. But he’s got a sweet spirit about him. Another great big old soul and a teddy bear. For me, I’ve never sang [that kind of vocal]. It was kind of gospel-sounding with the backgrounds. I had to layer all of those backgrounds. I would do part by part. We did a couple of lows, a couple of mids and then a couple of the highs to thicken it up. But I’d never done it [like that] before. The lead vocal, I was like, “OK, what am I going to do here?” Obviously, I can’t get away from Steve Perry. He’s my biggest influence vocally. My inflections, obviously, it’s going to be him. I just robbed him blind. [Laughs]  I don’t have my own style per se. Narada helped me with that and guided me through that. That was a huge thing. Because you know, he’s [worked with] Aretha Franklin . I mean, Mariah Carey , Whitney Houston  - those are real singers. It was daunting, but he was so good to me and they worked through it with me, and it was great. It just came out great.

Journey Albums Ranked

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JOURNEY's ARNEL PINEDA Says Meeting STEVE PERRY Was 'One Of The Most Glorious Moments' Of His Life

JOURNEY singer Arnel Pineda says that meeting the band's original vocalist Steve Perry was "one of the most glorious moments" of his life.

Pineda and Perry finally crossed paths when JOURNEY and its former singer shared the stage at their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April 2017. While accepting the award, Steve spoke warmly about his former bandmates, as well as the man who replaced him. "I must give a shout-out to a man who sings his heart out every night, Arnel Pineda ," Perry said.

Speaking to the "Infectious Groove" podcast about that unforgettable night four years ago, Pineda said (hear audio below): "[ Steve was] so gracious and so generous. I cannot believe how kind he was, how welcoming he was when he embraced me and I embraced him and I looked him in the eyes. That honesty, I felt it, when he looked at me straight in the eye and he told me, 'It's amazing to meet you.' And then thanking me up on the stage. I was literally just 18 feet away from him, behind him, and he was thanking me in front of a sold-out crowd at Barclays [Center] for my relentlessly and tirelessly singing the [classic JOURNEY songs] for the past 10 years. It was one of the most glorious moments of my life.

"It's like a 35-year wait, and when it happened, it was just, like, 'Oh my God.' I was, like, numb for a while," he added. "For a few seconds, I was so numb."

Although Pineda did not get inducted with his bandmates, he did get up and join them at the Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, singing "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Lights" . He was talked into appearing by JOURNEY 's manager John Baruck .

"For the record, I never really wanted to be there because I respect Mr. Steve Perry so much and I think that Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction, that's for them, you know?" Arnel told the Arizona Republic . "It's for the band and not for me. I was really adamant about not being there.

"And then it was so gracious for Steve Perry that he doesn't want to sing and said that it should be me that should be singing with the band," Pineda continued. "I said, 'It's not right. It should be them playing together and singing together. I was kind of shaky. I mean, how would you feel when your hero is watching you singing his legacy?"

Three years ago, Perry told SiriusXM that he didn't perform with JOURNEY at the Rock Hall ceremony because he is "not in the band. I haven't been in the band for quite some time," he explained. " Arnel 's been in the band for almost 10 years, I think. He's a sweet kid — he's a wonderful kid. He sings his heart out every night. It's his gig."

As for meeting Pineda before the induction, Perry said: "There was something endearing about the way he looked at me. He was meeting, like, a grandfather. [ Laughs ] He's got the gig. It's his gig. He's doing great."

Born in the Philippines, Pineda has been fronting the legendary rockers since 2007 when JOURNEY guitarist Neal Schon discovered him leading a Manila cover band on YouTube .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by arnel c. pineda (@arnelpineda2007)

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A Front Man’s Journey | Arnel Pineda, After All These Years

• A.C. DE QUINA
• September 1, 2021

“It’s actually fourteen years ago this month. I consider my start (with the band Journey) from the time I was asked to audition.” Arnel Pineda recalls as two of his musician friends work on a Tagalog song they’re about to re-release. 

It’s definitely been quite a ride for Filipino musician Arnel Pineda. In his early life, Pineda was once homeless and would take on the oddest jobs for daily survival. He would shower at gas stations and go to random wakes for free coffee and snacks until eventually joining his first band at fifteen years old. He later worked in Hong Kong for a decade, and then in 2007 that one (now famous) YouTube video of his was discovered while he was singing at a bar in Manila. The same guy who would sing for free food and would ask for free water at gas stations suddenly found himself auditioning to be the lead vocalist for one of the most iconic bands in rock and roll history. He recalls, of his audition, that he brought all his Journey albums to be signed in case he didn’t get the gig. But he did! He booked the gig of a lifetime. A rock and roll fairy tale if you will, Pineda’s first TV appearance as Journey’s lead singer was on the Ellen DeGeneres show, followed by an interview with Oprah, CNN, Rolling Stones and many others. 

At 54 years old Pineda is still actively touring. Journey will be performing at the I Heart Radio festival in Las Vegas on September 18 th along with some of today’s super stars like Billy Eilish, ColdPlay, Dua Lipa and Maroon 5 among others. He also has a US tour this Fall with Filipino rocker Bamboo, followed by Journey’s residency at The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas this December. And of course, Arnel’s biopic is in the works, to be directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ acclaimed director Jon M. Chu. 

I sat down with Arnel in Los Angeles a few days after Journey headlined at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. A major performance in front of a new and younger generation with high praise coming from Rolling Stone magazine: “Arnel Pineda earned audible praise from teens in the back with his festival outfit: flashy sunglasses, bleached white jeans, and a white designer sweatshirt emblazoned with a red apple bearing the Gucci logo.” The sweatshirt was sold out on Gucci’s website a day later according to Pineda’s road manager and stylist, Yul Session. 

Take us back to that feeling when you stepped foot on stage in Chile where you played as Journey’s front man for the first time in 2008.

Definitely & understandably terrified & very nervous, to the point that I told Neal (Schon) that I can’t do it, yet in the middle of those feelings, subconsciously, I kept reminding myself this desire of mine to get this job done cause who gets to get this kind of a ”one in a million chance” to sing for one of the most iconic bands in America?

Journey songs aside, can you tell us a couple of your top favorite songs of all time?

Honestly? Too many to mention…but ok, I’ll mention a few:

Bohemian Rhapsody, Who Wants To Live Forever, Show Must Go On,

Killer Queen, by Queen & most of their other songs

Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, The End, For No One by The Beatles & most of their other hit songs

Black Dog and Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin

Without You version by Heart

Shape Of My Heart – Sting

And many, many more

You’ve shared the stage with many artists in the past but who else would you love to collaborate with in the future?

Bruno Mars, Ann Wilson, Steve Perry, Bono, Paul McCartney

You have been fortunate to meet many living legends in the music industry and beyond; aside from Steve Perry, name someone you’ve met that made you completely star struck.

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin

Waiting / hoping for the day to meet Paul McCartney & Sting

In your earlier years as a musician, you worked in Hong Kong for almost a decade. Tell us about that time in your life.

Now that’s my decadent and wanton era…not too proud of a lot things that I did there in HK back then. I was carelessly stupid …I’ve hurt a lot of people too and some are so dear to me. The only best parts of my life there was my night after night of performing with my band mates…my beautiful world but my escape too from all the sins, guilt and anxiety I brought to myself.

What advice would you give to struggling artists who are on the verge of giving up and to those still waiting for their “big break”?

You know what? No one can really tell if it’s your time to shine or fall further…for me the most important thing is not to lose your passion, heart and desire to master your craft, getting the big break or not…

I remember me back in the late 80’s…earning only 10usd a night in Olongapo, Subic Bay…each night, my band mates and I played like we’re not gonna play the next night…and at the end of each night, since we know we gave our best, we were so happy and full.

Life has thrown you a lot of trials and obstacles, from losing your mom at an early age, being homeless and getting into drugs. What are your thoughts as you look back on your complicated past?

I wish I didn’t go through the kind of life I went through. But then again, I guess I have to live the life fate chose me to have to be who and where I am now…I’m still a work in progress… I guess I’ll stay flawed and it’s ok.

To the young lives out there though, do not take for granted your gifts, use it wisely, cause otherwise, you’ll live the rest of your life with a lot of regrets.

In your interview with Oprah, you said your mom was your biggest influence. If you could talk to her right now, what would you say to her?

I’ve told her many, many things then and now…every time that I’m feeling down especially when there’s no one who seems to understand what I’m going through, I talk to her…

The one though that I keep telling her is to stay by my side, be my light and guide me, cause like I said, I’m still a work in progress.

You seem to be a very positive guy. How do you deal with negativity and your detractors?

I just graciously learned the art of tolerance & respecting them trolls’ point of views. Where I am now, I can’t afford to get distracted, there’s too much at stake. My job / my family are more important than their negative opinions about me.

What life lessons have you learned from these past fourteen years as Journey’s lead singer?

It’s the classic “not everything and everyone you meet and feel are real”.

Yeah, call me cynical & yet it didn’t protect me from getting fooled every now & then.

The name of the magazine is “Hiraya” which means fruit of one’s hopes, dreams and aspirations: What do you still hope for, dream of, and aspire to become?

I’m hoping for an unconditional “world peace”. I’m dreaming of a peaceful and united world and I aspire to be with my family living a simple but happy life til the day our Maker claims my life.

Please tell our readers briefly about the Arnel Pineda foundation and where they can know more about it.

My foundation, with the amazing help of our generous donors, we’re able to support at least, for now, thirty five scholars and to those who want to extend their support to my foundation, called Arnel Pineda Foundation Inc please go to Facebook and just type our foundation’s name. Thank you so much in advance.

4 Responses

I applaud you for admitting your mistakes and moving on to be your best self. Acknowledging our creator, loving your family. Love your quiet music. Not a fan of having to plug your ears because the band is too loud. May God guide you and be by your side.

Awesome interview! He’s such a humble guy & a real talent & a great addition to the Journey family! Looking forward to see them again real soon!

Great interview! I’m a huge fan of Arnel! He’s such a talented, sweet and humble person. He deserves all his good fortune. He’s loved by many. Rock on po!

Great interview, brief, concise and yet entertaining. It’s a light hearted info on Arnel’s life, success and struggles. Nothing heavy, just an easy interview of an easy going guy. Loved it!

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Journey Recount Singer’s Wild Ride in ‘Don’t Stop Believin” Doc

By Steve Appleford

Steve Appleford

It’s never been easy to replace the singer of a hugely popular rock band. After Steve Perry left Journey in 1998, the platinum-selling Bay Area act moved on with a series of vocalists to varying degrees of success, but it wasn’t until guitarist Neal Schon landed at an obscure video on YouTube late one night that he knew he’d found his man — in Manila.

See Journey and 14 Other Bands That Hired New Lead Singers

The voice singing Journey hits in the lo-fi video belonged to Arnel Pineda, a Filipino singer who grew up in poverty and sang in local cover bands with no expectations of rock stardom. All Schon knew was that the guy sounded just like Perry, and he soon had Pineda on a plane to San Francisco to audition for the gig in late 2007. Months later, Pineda made his debut as the band’s new singer in front of 20,000 fans at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Chile. “He’s a clutch hitter, this kid,” guitarist Jonathan Cain tells Rolling Stone . “He comes through.”

The story of Pineda’s dramatic first year in the band is told in the documentary Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey , which is set to air September 30th on the PBS series Independent Lens . Directed by Ramona Diaz, the film won raves at festival screenings last year and will be released August 20th on DVD and Blu-ray.

Pineda’s first year was a grueling trial for the singer, whose dream gig came with the physical challenge of international touring and the expectations of Journey fans as he ran through an FM radio hit parade of “Faithfully,” “Any Way You Want It” and “Who’s Crying Now.” He faced moments of loneliness, stage-fright and genuine racism, but still remains with the band after six years, and will be back on the road when Journey tours next year with the Steve Miller Band and Tower of Power.

He has yet to meet Perry, but knows what he’d say if that encounter ever happened, and without a hint of sarcasm: “Can I have your autograph?”

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In Los Angeles, Pineda, Schon, Cain and bassist Ross Valory spoke with Rolling Stone about the documentary and Journey’s new era as a truly international rock act.

The lead singer position is historically a very hard spot to fill. Neal Schon: There were guys being pitched to us — people in L.A. and New York that have been doing the classic rock thing for a long time — and I really was not moved by it. I was looking for some serious talent, somebody that we could move forward with — and have serious pipes and go in new directions with us as well as cover our old stuff very well. When I found Arnel, I went, “That’s the guy.” I’d never heard any singer cover that broad of a spectrum. He’ll do Nat King Cole for you right now, and you’ll go no way. Sing for him, Arnel. . .

Arnel Pineda: [ Singing ] Unforgettable, that’s what you are . . .

It seems like a crazy idea to find your singer that way from across the world. Schon: I didn’t think it was that crazy. Everybody was concerned that he was in Manila and does he speak English? I’d go, “I just watched 40 videos and he’s singing all songs that are in English. If he doesn’t speak good English, he can always learn.”

Jonathan Cain: Ironically, the Internet proved to be a friend. When Arrival first came out [in 2001], Napster stole the album. We spent a ton of money flying to New York making this record only to have it up there for fans to get it for free, so I hated the Internet. Then it comes around to serve us well in the future. It’s quite a tool and for us it was a blessing.

What was it like for you to suddenly be immersed in Journey’s world? Pineda: It was my world being turned upside down — but in a good way, a fantastic way. I’m still in disbelief. I’m in front of thousands of people singing all these songs that I listened to when I was 18 years old. Now I’m with the big boys and it’s such a blessing. It’s one in a million.

Schon: He brings it. He sings his heart out every night, and it’s not an easy menu. Our songs are so difficult to sing. It’s going on six years now and we’ve toured a lot.

What was it like as a new performer to be faced with all the pressure that comes with playing to large audiences? Pineda: I had to give up a lot of foods that I’m accustomed to eating: dairy products, beer, wine, spicy food. And no talking. I like talking. It’s become a luxury to last even through a 10-minute talk with you. I have to go back to my room and my silence — until the next gig happens.

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Was there another downside to having this all happen at once? Pineda: I get really homesick inside. I would miss my life with my wife.

Schon: In the very beginning, we threw him in the fire, no doubt about it. I remember we’re getting ready to go on in Viña del Mar and it’s sold out and it’s live to 25 million people all over South America. Arnel is like, two seconds before we go on: “Can I go home? I don’t want to go out.” It was fear and loathing to the max, but then he went out and he went for it and the audience went nuts.

How nervous were you? Pineda: I was terrified to death. It took years, but I survived it. I’m still here.

Other bands have tried to replace a popular singer with an unknown and failed. Cain: It is rare that the audience goes with you like that.

Schon: The good news is that when he came in, it was a breath of fresh air for all of us and every scenario that went with it. All of a sudden, instead of us being a band from the U.S.A., we became a worldwide band. We’re accepted worldwide everywhere we went with him in markets we were never accepted before. There’s always going to be the naysayers who cant live with anything but exactly what it was from the beginning. You can’t please everyone.

In the film, it shows that some of the early reactions were very negative, even racist. How did you deal with that? Pineda: I just didn’t bother to get intimidated with those words. I’m not trying to compete with Mr. Perry. I’m trying to help out here. I am so blessed to be in this position, to be the one to carry the legacy.

Cain: Back in ’98, when we started with Steve Augeri [as singer 1998-2006], I was worried about him getting shot. We took a lot of flack. We used to get hate mail. Somebody got my number and would call me: “You son of a bitch!” They were reading us the riot act because how dare us be Journey without Steve Perry?

Schon: It was vicious, man.

Pineda: This is the first time I’ve said this — my wife was so freaked out with all these racist comments that she told me to bring a bulletproof vest: “You might get shot there!”

Because of your history together, you must still have business with Steve Perry. Ross Valory: Steve has been really, really cooperative. He helped produce the greatest hits video. It’s unfortunate we don’t have a physical relationship with him.

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Schon: Working on it though. I have ultimate respect and love for the guy this many years later. I’m getting older, man, and you don’t want to hang onto all the stupid things that you do in your life. You start looking back and I’m cherishing all the good times that we had — and the first time I sat in a room with him and wrote “Patiently” in 10 minutes. The door’s always been open. Arnel’s even open. If he ever wanted to come onstage with us and do a song, we’d be like, “Come on!”

What was your reaction to the documentary? Pineda: I’m so happy that it’s out there. I think it’s going to give a tremendous amount of inspiration for all of these hopeless musicians out there — especially those we will never learn about how fantastic they are. Second, it’s like I’m not supposed to be there — I look at it and it’s an ill fit. But it’s how I look and how I was born, so I’m going to live with it. It’s my journey. I’m so grateful for what’s happened, and it’s still going strong.

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What are you looking for?

The story of arnel pineda: from the streets to the journey stage.

Many names in the music world come from a challenging background surrounded by physical or sexual abuse, childhood traumas, several illnesses, and accidents. The early years of legendary names, such as Kurt Cobain and Ray Charles, were tough, and music became their savior . Some didn’t even have homes before they became world-renowned and were desperately looking for something to sustain themselves, from friends’ couches to street benches.

One of these names was Arnel Pineda until the time Neal Schon asked Noel Gomez for his contact information in 2007. The fate of Pineda, who had never lost his devotion to music, even for a moment despite all the dark times, would begin to change in the early 2000s. Despite everything, music was always a part of his life, but in 2007, he finally found the chance to reach and convey this childhood passion to millions of people.

A Life On The Streets

Josefina Manansala Campaner and Restituto Lising Pineda welcomed Arnel Pineda into the world on September 5, 1967. Even as a child, his family, especially his mother, had already begun to instill a passion in Pineda, which would seal his fate for years to come. His parents encouraged him a lot, even getting him to join singing competitions.

Yet, the story starts to get tough after that. Pineda lost his mother when he was only 13 years old. Josefina had a serious heart disease, so all the efforts to save her failed in the end. The family, already devastated by her passing, was also in considerable debt.

From then on, the family started to fall apart. They could not pay their house rent, and Restituto could no longer cope with this burden. Arnel left school to work to ease his father’s pain a little. This is how he started living on the streets for about two years sleeping anywhere he could, whether in parks or on friend’s couches. He collected and sold recyclable materials and cleaned ships to survive. However, his passion for music was always there for him.

A Journey From The Streets To A World-Known Band

Arnel Pineda wanted a life filled with music no matter what. After several failed attempts in the early 90s, Arnel and his friends founded Intensity Five and then New Age. Pineda had begun to reach a relatively small audience. Years passed, and after one solo album and many different other projects, the Zoo formed, which would change his destiny forever. After the Zoo released its first album, Zoology, their cover songs were already circulating on Youtube.

The members of Journey were looking for a new vocalist at the same period since Steve Perry had left the band. It was going to be difficult to fill his place, and they had a really long list ahead of them. Here, the internet came into play, and Neal Schon, who saw the Zoo’s videos circulating on Youtube , took the first step to reach Arnel.

Soon after, Pineda received an email invitation from Neal Schon to try out for Journey. Pineda initially thought the email was a prank, which isn’t an unexpected reaction considering Journey’s reputation. Noel Gomez convinced Pineda that it was true, although it was hard to believe. Pineda replied to Schon, and within just 10 minutes, he and Schon were already on the phone discussing the details.

He went to Marin County for the audition. It was pretty stressful, but he did an excellent job. Journey members were already convinced that he was really good at what he was doing. And so, in 2007, he became the new lead singer of Journey. And this is the story of how Arnel Pineda, coming from the streets, became the frontman of a worldwide-known band.

Cansu Cobanoglu

I am interested in rock and metal music, horror literature and movies, and philosophy; and currently doing research in the sociology of science and technology. [email protected]

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Arnel Pineda – Age, Journey & Songs

Arnel Pineda is perhaps most recognized for his role as the new lead singer for the rock band Journey.

Who Is Arnel Pineda?

Arnel Pineda’s upbringing was marred by a string of terrible occurrences, but he went on to become the front man for the band The Zoo and achieve success in Asia. After a series of YouTube videos were uploaded in which he recreated American songs, including the well-known classic “Don’t Stop Believin’,” he was spotted by the guitarist for the band Journey, Neal Schon, in the year 2007. Pineda was officially brought on as Journey’s new lead singer in December of 2007. His sound has been compared to that of the previous lead singer for Journey, Steve Perry, and found to be quite similar.

Troubled Childhood

Arnel Pineda was born on September 5, 1967 in the neighborhood of Sampaloc, which is located within the city of Manila, in the Philippines. Pineda was plagued with terrible adversity throughout his formative years. His mother, who had been battling heart disease for a long time, passed away when he was just 13 years old. At the time of her passing, she was 35 years old. Due to the high cost of her medical care, the family was forced into significant debt, and Pineda’s father was no longer able to pay for Pineda and his three younger brothers, Russmon, Roderick, and Joselito.

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Pineda, on the other hand, was forced to fend for himself while his brothers were taken in by relatives. He lived on the streets for the subsequent few years, frequently sleeping in public parks and scrounging for any scraps of food or water he could get. He eventually became homeless. He would, whenever it was possible, stay at the home of a friend who had offered him a cot in the backyard. In order to provide for his family, Pineda was ultimately compelled to abandon his education and accept odd jobs such as collecting scrap metal and bottles at the shore and selling newspapers.

Early Career

Pineda’s love of music began when he was still very young. He began singing when he was only five years old and competed in a number of singing contests during his childhood. In 1982, when Pineda was 15 years old, he was introduced to a local band called Ijos by some of his friends, and he was persuaded to try out as the band’s new lead singer by those same friends. The Beatles’ “Help” and Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” were among the songs he performed. Ijos members were impressed by Pineda’s powerful voice, and as a result, they decided to hire him as the band’s new front man despite their reservations over his lack of prior musical experience. Pineda was offered a teeny, little room to sleep in under the guitarist’s front stairs, and one of the band member’s buddies even offered to pay Pineda’s nightly payment of 35 pesos out of his own pocket. Pineda was also promised a job with the band.

In 1986, several members of the band Ijos decided to start a new band called Amo, which was more in the pop-rock genre. Cover versions of songs by popular bands such as Heart, Queen, and Journey brought the band much acclaim and success. In 1988, they won the Philippine portion of the Yamaha World Band Explosion Contest, which catapulted them to the forefront of the music scene. Despite the fact that they were kicked out of the competition in the finals because of a technicality, the event was shown on TV in Asia, which helped them get more followers. The band carried on with their performances at well-known clubs and arenas all throughout the Philippines.

The band members got back together once more in 1990, this time going by the moniker Intensity Five, and they competed in the competition once more. Pineda took home the award for best vocalist, and the band finished in second place overall. Pineda made his comeback in the music industry in 1999 with a brand new solo album that was distributed by Warner Brothers. This followed a string of unfavorable health issues that he experienced in the early 1990s, one of which was a temporary loss of his voice. The record that just bore the artist’s name was successful in several Asian countries.

Pineda gained success once more in 2006 with The Zoo, a band that he founded with Monet Cajipe, a guitarist and songwriter who had been in all of Pineda’s bands for the previous 20 years. After brief runs with a few different bands, Pineda found success in 2006 with The Zoo. In addition to releasing an album in 2007, named Zoology, which was distributed by MCA Universal, The Zoo played at a number of well-known local venues. Soon after, the band began performing cover versions of songs originally performed by other bands, including Journey, Survivor, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, and more; more than 200 of these performances were uploaded to YouTube.

On June 28, 2007, guitarist and member of the band Journey Neal Schon noticed a video of Pineda on YouTube and instantly contacted him. Pineda went on to play with Journey. Pineda’s voice was auditioned for the role of lead singer for the band, and it was immediately apparent that he had a strong resemblance to Steve Perry, the iconic former front man for Journey. After having a phone conversation with Schon, Pineda made the necessary preparations to travel to the United States in order to participate in an audition with the band in San Francisco. Pineda was officially welcomed into his new role as the band’s main singer on December 5, 2007.

Almost immediately, Pineda joined the band on tour and played four gigs overall, two in Las Vegas, Nevada, and two in Chile. Both were a tremendous amount of success. Pineda rose to prominence in the eyes of the American public following a string of guest appearances on various television shows and magazine features. The reformed version of Journey released their debut studio album, Revelation, on June 3, 2008, and it debuted at position No. 5 on the album charts in the United States. The album gained platinum status by October 2008 and became their biggest charting album since Trial by Fire (with Steve Perry), who was their previous album collaborator.

As soon as the CD was made available to the public, the band continued their tour with Pineda all over the world. Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey is a documentary that is scheduled to be released in the year 2012, and it will capture the band’s “Revelation Tour,” as well as Pineda’s early years with the band.

Personal Life

Pineda lives in the Philippines with his family, which consists of his wife Cherry and their daughters Cherub and Thea, while he is not on tour. Matthew, who is 19, and Angelo, who is 13, are his two additional boys from previous marriages.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Arnel Pineda
• Birth Year: 1967
• Birth date: September 5, 1967
• Birth City: Sampaloc, Manila
• Birth Country: Philippines
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Arnel Pineda is best known as the new lead singer for the rock group Journey.
• Astrological Sign: Virgo

Popular Keywords

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Def Leppard, Journey, and Steve Miller Band bring familiar fanfare to Fenway Park

T here’s nothing quite like the retirement of your city’s most famous rock group to put the summer’s umpteenth co-headlining tour into perspective.

It’s not that Def Leppard, Journey, and the Steve Miller Band needed Aerosmith to step back in order to pack Fenway Park for their “Summer Stadium” tour Monday night — they didn’t. It’s just that every time one rock titan hangs up their guitars for good, it’s easier to appreciate the groups who are still on the road, even if they’re battling a show-threatening setback onstage. But we’ll work up to that.

To make ample room for the rock triple-header, Steve Miller Band’s midnight toking and similar activities were rescheduled to 5:30 p.m. to open the night — “It’s early for us too,” Miller noted, almost self-consciously.

The space cowboy’s got an avuncular flair for storytelling these days, regaling the audience with stories about Eminem, who sampled “Abracadabra” on his newest record, and his godfather, Les Paul, to whom he dedicated “Jet Airliner.” Most impressively, the mighty wingspan of “Fly Like an Eagle” hasn’t diminished over the years, and Miller’s gloriously reverbed riffs took flight with ease as the highlight of his set, with the palpable, infectious sway of “Rock’n Me” marking a close second.

Journey swiftly roared into what sounded like a well-mastered greatest hits album, for better or for worse. While meticulously polished to match the band’s recorded sound across every power ballad, their set lacked many memorable off-script moments. Then again, few stage antics could top current singer Arnel Pineda’s gobsmacking ability to mime the vocal range of former Journey frontman Steve Perry. Pineda delivered every hook as if he wrote it himself, even fully owning “Don’t Stop Believin’,” guiding that rocket-launcher of tireless optimism over the Green Monster and into the stratosphere.

As the evening’s anchor band, Def Leppard promised to pour some kerosene on their catalog in honor of the 40th anniversary of their hit album “Pyromania.” Yet it quickly became apparent that the band’s own “Rocket” was faltering mid-flight, as lead singer Joe Elliott struggled to hit his raspy high notes.

After a satisfactory but noticeably off blitz through songs like “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop),” “Foolin’,” and new single “Just Like 73,” (a surprisingly seamless fit among the “Pyromania” pile-on) Elliott revealed that he was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection just 30 hours prior to the show. Instead of canceling the gig, he enlisted the crowd’s assistance for the stripped-down — and vocally vulnerable — portion of the set, namely the chorus of “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak.”

“Can’t wait to see this on YouTube, [expletive] hell,” Elliott muttered after his explanation, but otherwise maintained a steely cool in the face of his illness, mustering the remainder of his voice for a finale of glam-metal GOAT tunes: “Rock of Ages,” “Photograph,” “Hysteria,” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

It was a rollickingly imperfect conclusion to the evening, albeit a familiar one. But when slapped with the reality that no farewell tour is guaranteed, an evening with three iconic bands becomes a luxury, no matter how well-worn the material.

DEF LEPPARD AND JOURNEY: THE SUMMER STADIUM TOUR

With Steve Miller Band

At Fenway Park, Monday