Nothing was bigger for Journey than 1981's 'Escape' album. a voice in a million' - says the new direction made things 'tense' in the beginning, the increased sales and big hits certainly smoothed things over. And although Perry - who Queen's Brian May once called 'a truly luminous singer. Perry's addition instantly gave Journey more commercial appeal his first album and Journey's fourth, 1978's 'Infinity,' went triple-platinum. Perry was in a band called Alien Project when he was recruited by Journey manager Herbie Herbert to join the band, which Santana alumni Neal Schon and Greg Rolie had formed as a more instrumental-oriented group exploring rock-jazz fusion. But when I was really young, it was R&B.' 'Of course, I was a Beatles fan, too, and then I got into Led Zeppelin and all that later on. I just resonated with what their musical sensibility was about, and it really lifted me up. All that stuff was just so sincere and so believable and so grand and so majestic and so proud. 'I loved the Four Tops Levi Stubbs was one of my favorite singers forever. got me believing in the power of music,' Perry recalls. She also turned him on to Sam Cooke, while another R&B sound from the east also caught his ear. His mother, Mary, gave him an eighth-note necklace as a 12th birthday present, which he still wears as a good-luck charm.

It's only now, this much later, that I can appreciate what I was part of.'Ī native of Hanford in California's San Joaquin Valley, Perry didn't have to look beyond his home for musical inspiration.

It wasn't a lot of analyzation or digestion. 'We're a band - we record, we rock, we instinctually reach for what we believe is a good idea and argue about stuff, disagree, agree and move forward. 'I think everybody was following their heart and their nose and just doing what we do,' Perry explains. But Perry says the group's frantic schedule, particularly between 1977 and '84, made it hard for him and his bandmates to savor their triumphs. During his 21 years fronting Journey, the group notched nine consecutive platinum or (mostly) better albums, 13 Top 20 singles and record-setting concert box office figures. It's not like Perry wasn't aware of Journey's success when he was in the band, of course.

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