It’s Finally Happening …
Neal Schon has repeatedly announced over the years that Journey was always open to working with Steve Perry. Even Steve has always declined him at every opportunity he gets, especially at the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, though the guitarist had its hopes to bring Perry into another project.
Schon shared during an episode of Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon,
“He still feel[s] like there’s only one Steve Perry, even though I haven’t heard him sing in years.”
“I’m dying for him to put out his own record,” Schon noted. “And I’d love to correlate with him on something that’s different than Journey; something more R&B, because I love playing soul and R&B and blues and that’s something that a lot of people don’t really know, because I’ve been doing all these rock records.”
Schon also revealed that he had also tried to contact his other former singer, Bad English vocalist John Waite, to perform at Schon’s Journey Through Time benefit concert in San Francisco in February of next year. But it never went through because the singer had another offer for the same date. Still, Schon never loses hopes to work with his former singer, — he has an idea for another album with Waite.
“I’m more interested in doing a really rocking blues record with Waite, more so than another Bad English record,” he said. “I think the force that’s there is John and I get each other. I think Bad English was Bad English; that was then, this is now. We had some great songs [but] my favorite stuff was not the stuff that went big for the band. … I always liked the other material that’s not necessarily a hit. I liked ‘Rockin’ Horse’ and I liked the tougher side of that band.”
Schon also told Lafon he’s recorded another instrumental album as well and was joined by Narada Michael Walden producing and playing drums and keyboards:
“It’s been ready since we started touring, but I thought Jon [Cain]’s got his book out there and he’s releasing one record after another, and I’m like, ‘I’m just gonna wait ’til we’re done and I’m gonna put it out maybe at the beginning of next year.'”