As Journey prepares to release its latest studio album, Freedom, this Friday, founding guitarist Neal Schon reveals he’s working on becoming friends again with the group’s famous former lead singer, Steve Perry, who parted ways with Journey in 1998.
In a new interview, Schon tells Vulture that he and Perry have had the chance to connect more since he recently took a more active role in Journey’s business dealings.
“We’re talking and getting to know each other again — though not trying to get together musically again,” Schon says. “But he’s learning who I am now, through a portion of our business that I’m kind of controlling now. I’m talking about a Journey trademark that I’ve obtained, as we’ve never owned our own trademark.”
Schon continues, “All these years, many people lied to us [with regard to Journey’s business]. My wife and I finally got to the bottom of it after investigating for years. We were fought hard by everybody, but we managed to obtain the trademark. So we’re talking about that and figuring out the future of that, but we’re talking.”
Schon says that he and Perry were “very, very tight” during Perry’s early years with the band.
“I have great memories of when Steve and I first met,” he notes. “We hung out all the time, man. We were like brothers. We were crazy. We spent a lot of nights out way too late doing things we shouldn’t be doing. Drinking and whatnot … But bottom line, we had a really good time for many, many years … He was a really funny guy.”
Schon also mentions how well he got along with Perry during the 2017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, adding, “I hope that we can become even better friends in the future.”
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