ARNEL PINEDA
on Journey, Steve Perry and more
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 his band 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.”
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 after they parted ways with Perry, following Steve Augeri and, however briefly, Jeff Scott Soto.
“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.”