Hi, Brian, Hi Katie. You know, the past couple of weeks we've been all about politics, but we thought it would be nice to take a little break from it all, which is kind of fitting because that's what today's guests might be best known for, Brian, at least until recently, taking a very long break. That's true. Our guest today is Steve Perry. He was the frontman for the band Journey in the nineteen eighties, and unless you're truly living under a rock, you've heard Steve's lead vocals on the most downloaded song of the twentieth century. St Just hearing a few seconds of that transports me to another time and place, specifically Atlanta, Georgia, when I was work keen as an associate producer for CNN and this song came on the radio and I loved it. Yeah, and I would have loved it had I been born at the time. But thanks, Brian, that is real. Welcol You're very welcome anyway. Steve Perry always wanted to be a musician, but by his late twenties he felt he'd run out his music career playing for small time bands in dusty bars. He left his musical dreams two men turkey coops on a farm in California. But then one day he got a call from a band manager named Herbie Herbert that would change his life. That's an understatement, because Herbie asked Steve if he'd be the lead singer in a band called Journey, alongside guitarist Neil Seawn Now with Steve at the mic. The band went on to record eight multi platinum albums Toward the World, but the life of a mega star grew kind of old for Steve. It was really hard on him, so following his mom's death, he walked away. The last time he performed live, which Journey, was in n seven, more than thirty years ago, and Steve has pretty much stayed out of the spotlight since then until last month. That's right, after decades of keeping a very low profile, Steve came out of retirement and recorded a new album called Traces. He was motivated by a late in life love who made him think twice about how he was going to spend the next thirty years. So we'll get to his music, his career, and why he felt the need to walk away, or I should say, Katie, you will get to all of that since I wasn't able to join you for your conversation with Steve, we missed you, Brian. I think you really would have liked him, Hi, Beat, I would have, and honestly, I could have used some backup vocals. You'll hear that a little bit later on. But we talked about so many things. So let's get right to my interview with Steve Perry. Are you having fund Steve, where we talk about your life and what's been going on and how you got to this moment in time. Is it nice to be back. I'm having fun. It's a lot of work and I haven't been working for a long time, so I had a nice vacation. I think that's probably you had a twenty year vacation. Actually I left years ago. Yeah, I can't it. Wow, And here we are February. I was home and that was it. You just walked away from everything. And before we talk about all that, I'm curious what your life has been like since you left the band. You went from such an intense, extreme grueling, high profile schedule right and so many demands on you to being able to kind of get up in the morning and say, what am I going to do today? Was that a huge adjustment? Did you love it? Tell me everything? It was? It was very, very difficult just to go back to, uh, the simplicities of life when as a child I reached for so much more. I don't know why I needed more. I think it was something that started when I watched my father sing when I was about four or five years old, and I saw him singing at the Hamperd Civic Auditorium and my mother was performing in her big can can dress in the same production. I can't remember what it was, but I remember looking at my father and he's singing, and I knew I had that inside of me. I just knew I had it inside of me because I said to myself, I can do that. And so I would sing around the house. And then, of course I discovered music. That was a big part of my life. I started playing at an early age. I guess it drove me. The discovery of music and the songwriting, the recording, the sound of their voices, the string parts, that it lifted me in such a way emotionally that I wanted to get closer to it. I was drawn to it. Now, you gotta know. Of course, my dad was a musical guy. Did he play instruments? You know? The only instrument I remember is he had a forty nine Ford and he had this big steering wheel and he literally had a ring on each finger. And he was sitting there and you know, when some swing song was on the radio, he'd be tapping away like a drum pocket thing and um. And I would just pay attention to certain things like that, simple things at a very early age, like I'm I'm three or four years old, like I said, you know, and everything seemed musical to me at that point. You just had that I guess I think I had a hyper connected to you know, maybe it's an auditory auditory You're correct, is auditory more than it is. I'm not trained. I don't know how to really play in truments. I was a drummer for years. That's my main instrument. Drummer, singer. Do you play the piano a little bit? A little enough to write, but I don't play. You were the voice of Journey, so I mean it sounds like a very difficult life. Your tour schedule was so relentless, the demands on you as the voice were so But I was a singer and the demands of the same. You're right, right, but I mean I know you just performed, you went home, and then you never went back. Let's talk about sort of what led you to to make that decision and what was it that brought you to that breaking point. I would love to mind that a little bit. I guess, Well, we weren't getting along very well. I mean, the band is a band, and that happens to groups, right of course. You know. Well, it's like you spend so much time together, right, and and you have so many different opinions about the direction you want things to go. H you disagree, and you agree on so many levels. And um, as it's moving forward and growing and becoming this other big thing called success. Um, everybody digs in for their own I think opinions, and it becomes a bit collidive. You collide and I think that's a new word. I'm making up words collidive, like collidive. I like it. And uh, um, so we're writing songs here today, um, and that's what happens. And uh we weren't talking much. We were just colliding with each other a lot. And that was going on for a while. And that's stressful and it was and U and the touring schedule was intense, and I would have liked to have slowed that all down a bit and been a little bit more. How do I say? Um, you know, if you go to a hardware store to get a cart in the milk, you're probably in the wrong place. It's not there. So you just felt like your your visions weren't aligned. Yeah, I think I was asking it to be something, is what I'm trying to say. What did you want it to be? I wanted to be more spaced out. I thought we would tour for a while, stop for a while, have some life in their tour for a while, stop for a while. And when you would suggest that, suggest that what would be management? And most of the members their lifestyles required more dare I say? Cash flow? And and you know my upbringing was Portuguese. My grandfather taught me when I was very young. He said, it's not how much you make, it's how much you save. And I went, what does that mean? He says, if you make forty dollars, I want you to put twenty in the bank, and I want you to forget about it, and I want you to try to make that work. Forget about the twenty I think, Dad, I mean, really, it's such It's such wise stuff to hear as kids. You know, I was raised that way, so I was saving my money along the whole time. So your lifestyle was clearly very different than a lot of members, very different. Did you succumb to all the sort of tropes that we associate with rock and rollers and people you know on the road, like sex, drugs, alcohol, lavish spending I had, I have had occasional for the first three but lavish spending. It was not my game, right, you know? Uh yeah, I thought that that was just crazy. In fact, I kept my yellow Volkswagen that was so beat up. I just thought it was fine. You know. That was the way I was raised. When I came off tour, I went home to my mom's house and I remember coming down, going back in the back bedroom and and crashing for a couple of days, and the phone ring, and I swear this is the truth. I ran down the hallway completely naked as a as a as a jay bird, grabbing the phone, thinking I'm I'm late for the bus because I was in deep sort of like sleep. So that was how roadburn we used to call it roadburn to where you're so burnt, because this is what you do. You get a cycle. You know. It seems to me from a business perspective if the band heard your cries of help, that they would not, as my dad would say, I want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Right. Well, I think at the time it was interpreted as just whining, you know, you know, and maybe I was whining a bit because it was hard work. Well, let's talk about the hard work it was because when I mentioned that your voice is your instrument, it required really an obsessive it sounds to me amount of attention paid to it to keep it Roger is the word. It's an erotic, obsessive feeling that you just don't know what you have from one night to the name. It sounds like it almost took over your life. Steve, it does. It does take over your life, because explain that to people who don't sing for a living. Well, because if the instrument you have is you, it's not just the vocal cords in your throat. It's you and the vocal cords and their inflammation issues. And if one vocal cord is slightly inflamed more than the other. They don't line up. You've got trouble. If you don't get enough sleep, if you don't drink enough water, if you stay up too late, if you're just completely burnt out and fatigue. That's enough on its own. And if you if you ask anyone from striisand to anyone about this, they will say, gosh, finally somebody's talking about it, you know, because the truth is it is it is an eurosis into itself. Do you think it is for all singers or are more for you? Well, okay, I guess I should speak for myself. I mean, I'm just curious. You've probably talked to a lot of singers. Did you find this commonality um most among nother heads to say? Nobody gets it? Do they know? Nobody? Does? I understand? That's so interesting. I wonder why don't people talk about how much care and attention and neurosis often a company. I think I think the word fear. The fear is this, Katie. People have been waiting for a long time for you to sing the songs that they have decided to embrace and bring into their lives and make part of something that enriches their emotional part of their lives. And you're coming to town and you pull in the day of the gig, and you go to the sound check and you open your throat, you feel crumby and grumby, as I call it our crusty. It can be really scary to think that you're going to fall short of what these people have been waiting so much for you to give them. It's it's not fair to them, and at some point then it is not fair to you to put yourself in that position all the time. That's a lot of pressure. Now, now I want to make clear I'm not complaining. I'm not whining. Please anybody listening out there, I'd like to talk about things that people don't talk about, and this is certainly one of them. Have you ever been performing and felt that you disappointed the crowd and I'm curious what was their reaction and how did you feel I did. Now that's a whole nether landscape of neurosis, because sometimes what do you get? By the way, no, no, only once I think I was in I was in Toledo and I said Cleveland because I was so tired. So from that point on, between the two bass drums with a little led like the city would have to be written on a piece of paper, because I didn't want to make that mistake again. That's how tired I was. That's what I got. The only time I got booed. The only other time I could recall was I was so fatigued that all I could remember it was the first verse of Oll Sherry. I couldn't remember the second verse. So I did the first verse twice, and I looked at the answer and put my palms in me here, like I don't know what to tell you. So you were pretty much just completely burnt out, Steve, and you said, I can't do this anymore. So so for all those years, and obviously you had a a solo career after that, but for for much of that time, you were just living in California doing your thing. So what would you do all day? Well, first I went to my hometown and I hung out with friends, and I went to the old ice cream parlor and went out to a cemetery, and I would spend solitude moments when my departed parents and grandparents and uh um. And then I had a step grandmother, and I had my father's sister, my aunt Betty, and I really I went back and took care of them, to be honest with you, but that's that. That probably wasn't your entire day. I mean, did you did you still make music? Did you still think about songs? Did you mean? I know you spent some time at the carnival when it came at the fair. Well, the fair would come to town in June in my hometown, and I always dreamt of running away with that with the circus, so to speak, because it would show up and it would be so amazing and it looked like the island on Pinocchio, you know, the Sperris wheels and the lights and everything, and I thought it was so amazing, and next thing I know, they're gone. So I thought, gosh, some day I'd like to, you know, run away with the circus. And being in a rocket roll band is a circus life, you know, you do run away with the circus, so to speak, and you do travel just like that. When you were off and it turned like the clock struck eight pm wherever you were, did you ever think, wow, I you know, in my old life I'd be stepping onto a stage right now. I mean, did you miss the rush the adrenaline of course, of kind of just being in that moment. To me, that would be I wish I could could sing. And the idea of just being able to sing something a song you love and that people really respond to it, that just must There must be nothing like it. Yeah, to be able to write music that you believe in and have someone else love it as you initially sort of feel like it's worth being loved. Nothing like it, nothing like it, and then and then to record it and they embrace it, and then to go out and perform it. It's just the whip cream on the cheesecake, you know, it really is. It's just it's just something I can't explain. And yes, to answer your question, I really did miss it terribly, but it came with too much. I think returned to our baggage together. I think that you know, look were tired of me, and I was kind of tired of them, you know, and I think we needed just to go our ways. That's all. Well, you did then go onto your solo career, right, and was that more satisfying for you? You did? I really didn't go into a solo career at that point. I did the solo career because Neil Sean had done two solo albums while I was in the band. I told the manager, why is Neil doing a solo album? Well, I can't stop him. He said, he wants to record it, you know. So we did a song and a whole record with John Hammer. Then we do another journey. I'm another tour, and then I told the manager, look, I'm gonna do one, and you shouldn't keep doing this because you know it's gonna I think you could damage the band at some level. Next thing, I know he's doing a second one beyond Hammer. So I turned the manager and I said, Okay, I told you I'm going to do one. So that's when I went to l A and did street Talk and wrote O's Sherry and full Shart with Randy Goodram and strung out with with Craig Cramp and a bunch of friends and and and Nicole Bolos as the engineer. We recorded that record so fast at this little studio in the valley, and we had a great time and the record came out and it was just a great moment. Then I asked my mother what should I do? Because she was already sick at that point. She was very sick, and I asked her what I should do. Should I go back to Journey, should continue my solo career? Just to think about it? Please Mom? Because she was so instrumental in my early years of of being in bands in high school and everything. I just wanted her opinion, And honestly, she couldn't talk very well because her speech was severely impaired. The next day she said, you and I want, are you sure, Mom? Because that means I won't be able to hang out with you. If I do the solo stuff, I can. I can do it at my own pace, she said, YOUNI just like that. So I went back and did the record. Uh, and you look at that record. It says this one's for you Mom. After you left Journey, why wouldn't you just do a solo career? Because that's not why I left the band. I left the band for all kinds of reasons. Okay. I didn't leave the band to hurt anybody or run away from him. I left the band to go back to my life, I think, and reconnect with some foundational things um that I felt. I think we're slipping away. I think we're slipping away. Thank you. I think we're slipping away. Like I just I think that it was such an amazing ride that I was on. There was no room for anything else in my life. So I think I had to leave it all to open up and have some room for something else. And so that meant to go back and find out what that is. Any regrets that you that you left, or any regrets the way your life unfolded? Mmmmm, I don't. It was like tempering steel, to be honest with you. You know, steel's kind of often to heat it up. I had to get heated up and then putting the cold water and heat it up, putting the cold water, and it kind of tempered me at this point in my age. Right now, I don't have any regrets. I can tell you that, though others may not agree with me, I think it was the best thing for everybody. I really do. Um. But before we get a break, Um, at what moment did you think, Wow, I have a good voice. Probably singing into the into the well out the ranch. It was so beautiful to hear that echo. I just loved the way it sounded. And then also I used to sing when I couldn't get to the ranch, I would unplug mom's hose from the vacuum cleaner and put one in my left ear and singing the other end. And I love the way that sounded. What would you sing? Um? I would just make things up. I don't know, I would just I love the way it sounded. Those are the young I do remember, though, um ah angels listending, listen me crying. You know, I remember those guys. I think it was the Crests. You know. I think it was the crest You must have been singing some Sam cooked too back in the day, and I worshiped him because that was what was your favorite Sam Cooke song? The first one would be, Um, Cupid came on the radio and my mom's shifty six Thunderbird, and oh man, uh, the whole world got so small, it got so tunnel vision. I'll never forget it. And I was just captivated by the emotion coming out of that speaker and how it was landing. And so I think that's what got me reaching for music from the very beginning, was why does this make me feel this way? Why is what is happening here? You know it connected with me. You know, do you sink? Can you sing? Cupid? I know that all the word Cupid, drawback your boat and let your aero flow straight to my love is hot for me, nobody even me. Now, I can't sing now, I'm criticizing that just to show you. I just criticized for phrases that I just sang at the same time I was singing them, okay, And I really got to tell you without echo, I'm singing dry in this room. I don't sing dry. Well, thank you for singing dry for us quick pro quo no no no, no, no no no. But my favorite Sam Cook is I don't know much about his story, don't know much blogy, I don't know much about the French I took. I don't know much about But I don't know that I love you right and know that if you love me too, want a wonderful world, this would be harmony. I'll never forget when that was in the movie Witness and Harrison Ford and Kelly McGinnis were dancing. It was so sexy, And isn't that what it's about? It? It really is about the intimacy of music is so personal. Well, I'm excited to talk to you more about this new album and the genesis of this album. We'll talk about that right after this. Now back to my interview with Steve Perry. So, Steve, you're back after all these years, after all still crazy after a Yeah, I know, it's been a long time coming since I saw your face. I know. So let's talk about this new album, Traces, and it comes from a deeply, deeply personal place. You fell in love with someone who unfortunately was diagnosed with breast cancer, was in remission when you first learned about her, and then when you met her it had come spread and come back, and uh, you decided to jump into the relationship anyway. What was it about that relationship that just almost had the same attraction for you as music? It was it was just almost terrifyingly wonderful because I could not stay away from her and I knew she was sick. It was like it was like what am I doing? There was times I would talk to a therapist that what am I dooling? I was going to say. I wonder if there was something about the potentially ephemeral nature of that relationship that somehow attracted you not to be fleeting, you know, not not permanent. Wow, I don't know. All I know is that the connection was so strong and it was very, very difficult to not run. At the same time, there was this incredible connection that said, you have nowhere to run, there's nowhere else you want to be like. I talked to Nico Bollis, the front of Mine Engineer, and one day I was watching him work when I just started seeing Kelly, and he said, what are you doing here? I said, well, I'm I'm hanging out, but you're watching you mix a little bit on this this cool band. He said, Man, you should be with your girl. I said, well, we went on a few times. Because I'm not sure what to do about that. I'm just very confused about it because it's scary because she's not well. I don't want to fall in love and lose again. I don't I just don't want to. I don't know what to do, you know. He said, Dude, I've never seen you like this before. He says, I have never see you're so happy with anyone. There's something else going on for you and her. He said, men, you should be with your girl. Man, that's your girl. I could tell that, and so I left called her when at luncheon that kept continued. How long were you together? A year and a half. How long was she sick? Really sick during that period of time, often on the whole time, but not as bad as God. Of course the last um I would say, the last six months, especially for the last three months. Of course, we're the worst. But there was a time here in New York where she was on this incredible clinical trial treatment that didn't make her sick, that was invented by this guy, and it was doing amazing things for her. And she had tumors in her lungs and she had um some in her bone marrow. And we would do the scans and the tumors would have scar tissue where the m r I would show there's, well there was scar tissue there, but I don't see the tumors anymore, they would say. And we look at each other, said what what do you say? What do you say? You know? And we would go from not being able to ride bicycles in New York to riding bicycles in the park and just thinking, oh my god, this is insane, this is so great, you know, And then come around September of that year as when she said, you know, honey, something's not right. I don't know what it is. I know my body, believe me. I. So it's not right to just scan and and come back, you know. So cancer is so cruel, you know. And well, you know, let's talk about the promise you made to Kelly Steve. You said that you would not go back into isolation, that you would put out some of the music that you were writing and thinking about. Tell me about the promise you made to her. Well, my favorite time we would spend together was, you know, at the end of the day, we would kind of lights down and give each other a smooch and I'd either talk her to sleep or she talked me to sleep. And one night she said, I, I need to ask you to make me a promise and I and I said, well, what's up. I want you to promise that if something ever happened to me, that you would not go back into isolation, for I think it would make this all for not. So I was never given such an amazing long sentence, was so in encompassing value of my whole everything like that. But remember she was a PhD psychologist, so she she was very good assembling her words and and very clear when she had something to say or feel, You're gonna hear pretty much to the to the bone what it is, and this was one of those moments. So I said, of course, I promise I won't go back into isolation. But look, it wasn't like we weren't hanging out or going on trips or having dinner with friends. We were living our lives. But she knew that I was isolating from music. She knew I was isolating from singing. I never really sang much, So that's what she was talking about. Your new album, Traces is full of ballad summer sad. Others are nostalgic, and I think people listening to this one song called No More Crying would assume it's about losing Kelly. Let's listen to a little bit and you can tell us how that song came about. Good, let's talk about that song. Well, actually that song is more of a of a of a of a different sort of dyslexic version of what you're saying. That meaning he's trying to convince himself the answer to not crying is to just not love again and basically to shut down his heart. Now, there is that component in there. It is a relationship song. But if you listen to the second verse, I'm so free. I need nobody, no more lies, no surprises, no confrontations. It's a peaceful life behind closed doors. But in the dark of the night, I start to remember. Okay. So that whole arc of all those lyrics right there is about isolation and how just pull away from it all and you won't have to deal with lies and and by the way, there's a bit of my past past and there. Okay, but lies and confrontations and you know, surprises. I mean there was a lot of surprises that when you're in a band, you're being told to do and go and perform and do places that you just don't want to do. But guess what, it's been booked in your stock. So there was always this stuff I didn't like too much either. So there's a bit of my past in all this. But let me tell you the song I think you're really looking for is most of All Now. If they have most of All here, if you were to hear the opening line of most of All, he says, promises that won't fade away. Um, it's about reflecting all those memories. Uh, it's about the whole thing. To the ones who have lost their most of all many years won't heal when tears still call their most of all, you know that song I worked with any good Room before I met Kelly and turned out it ended up becoming a song of Let's listen to it for a second. From that wall facely golden members read that will lave raise all the plants and treads so hard to replace. From another place to another town, still drifting to the minds fathers plenty, still where you surprised Steve that a song that you had already written before you met Kelly seemed to look I have goose bumps on my arms. I can't. I can't make that happen. It's something that happens to me. Where that comes from is life sustaining, and He's the most important thing of my life right now, Katie. I mean to connect with music like that, and even if it's my own music, it means so much to me at this time in my life. I'm not a spring chicken, honey, okay, you know, and I need this so more than I've ever needed it in my whole life. This connect, this connection with emotion in music and songwriting, nothing means more to me than reconnecting like a song like that. Uh, the lyrics of that. I'm so proud of him because he's just being honest about the memories and everything is going on. And then he says, from another place to another town, still drifting, That's what I did when I was home. He just shifts, He goes he's being memorable. Then he shifts to like just drifting around again. Lost. But to the ones you've lost their most of all many years, won't heal when tears still call their most of all? That means so much to me. I need that out there for me, And I just hope it touches somebody, but for me, I mean I need it. I think that also there's some very up tempo songs, kind of of course rock songs, like like Noah Racin, which is about a high school reunion. Let's listen to that song for a second. Sorry, offend together you'll call what is it about high school that keeps drawing you back there? Steve? I think we're all in high school still, I think emotionally, if we look honestly within ourselves, some of our teenage years, the foundation of our hearts and soul were completely fed by all the fantasies. These teenage fantasies of our youth. I read that you don't like to dissect songs because you say, if you talk too much about what they mean, it takes away the ability for everyone to interpret it for themselves and for have it to make it meaningful for them experience their own experience. Yeah, that's right. Having said that, I love the story behind, don't stop believe it. So you have to tell us a little bit about the circumstances. You're in a hotel. Yeah, okay, I'm in a hotel in Detroit, and we just finished a show at the Cobo Hall and uh, I think it was the Poncha train. Somebody brought it to my attention. Hotel and I'm at the top floor looking down and I'm not sleepy. It's like three in the morning. I'm seeing the street lights glowing the entire streets from the top down and they're sort of a of a rust colored amber color, and I just could not believe it. Everybody's still milling around, you know. Uh, I thought these are like street light people. They're like people living under these street lights. And it's three in the morning, so I remember that street light people. And then down the boulevard up and down the boulevard. That's right. And then uh, and then I remembered, Um, there was this place in my hometown called the l Rancho Hotel that had a bar, a terrible bar and club with a little stage in the corner. That's where I used to play all my cover band music with the band I wasn't at the time. And you'd walk into this place and it had a red carpet that was just stained with all sorts of alcohol and wine spilling and everything, and they never washed it. And they're the smell of wine and cheap perfume. Women would wear the cheapest perfume, okay, and to show up, you know, to try to have a smile and share of a night, right. So that came from it came from there, you know. And that was just sort of reflections of a bunch of different places in your life. That's right. And this city motel or hotel, that's right. And and and ultimately though it's a love story, isn't it. Well, it's it's about not giving up. It's really about you know, you've got to keep believing. It's about a city boy and a city girl and and just taking the world. Well, yeah, I'm making a midnight taking the midnight train to anywhere. It's about throwing yourself to the wind and and just living your life. You know. I think that is what resonates with the youth of today because the song really is about it's okay where you're at right now. You're doing what you're supposed to be doing. You're throwing your life to the wind and just follow the wind. You know, it must be fun for you to see a whole new generation fall in love with Journey. I think we can give a little credit possibly to the cast of Glee, which covered Don't Stop Believing. So let's listen for a second. Stop hold on to that. When you saw that on Glee, Steve, did you get such a kick out of it? Because I remember my daughter we were super you know, glee freaks. I guess they call them gleeks. We used to watch it, you know, it was there a thing we did together, and Kara used to record herself and put herself on YouTube. She since taking it down, uh singing don't Stop Believing? And I mean it really did you get a kick out of that? Did I did? Because it was a whole new generation and again a high school generation. You see, it's that, it's that it's that period that I'm talking about that is an important period in any evolution of a human being. It just is a magical time our teen years and and to see that song become part of the joys of that generation really really warmed my heart. And then it continued by the way, you know, I mean it continued all sorts of places, sporting events and ended up with sopranos of course, well, of course, and and and that was a thrill for you. I know that they reached out that you knew before the rest of the country. I didn't know that it was going to happen at the end of the Sopranos because I held out. I was the only one who held out. You know, there's three writers and everybody said yes, but me. And the only reason I held out was because I want to make sure if that David Chase wasn't gonna whack the family with the song playing, you know, because Scorsese would do that. You know. Going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was it great senior bandmates or did you? Were you conflicted? I was conflicted, and I and I almost didn't go because I was so conflicted. But what happened was I started going online and I remembered the times I had spent away in my hometown and we spoke of earlier and all my heroes that I grew up with on those forty fives were inducted, and I thought, oh my god, this is where I'm going. This is this. I'm gonna goose bumps again, stee my arms because I really felt like, oh my god, this is real. I'm really going to be inducted with my heroes, the ones that I looked up to. So I felt a sense of purpose and insistence within myself that I must be there because at that point, no matter what we did or didn't do, or you know, you could still love somebody and not hang out with him, by the way, you know, I really think that needs to be said, all right, And so the point is that I still have feelings because we were in the trenches together as a group, trying to accomplish a mission that you know, the concept of a band is when you band together to do collectively what you can't do by yourself. It would have been so epic if you had just done one song. But I didn't understand that. But but instead I wanted to pay tribute to everyone who had done so much for giving this kid, a San Joaquin Valley kid from the Hanford, California a chance to live his dream and chase after it. That meant more to me. I think Greg Rowley, I think Neil Sean, I think the manager for believing me. And then I had to thank Arnell for for pouring his heart out every night for ten years. You're the guy who, I can't say your replacement, but the guy who became the lead singer. But he but he's so good. He's a good kid. He's he really has been pouring his heart out in that band for ten years and generous about it. Look why not? I mean, I mean that's the way I see it. If you you know, you had some good times with these band members, obviously didn't see eye to eye, obviously got on each other's nerves, and you were happy to walk away. But you know, a lot of this is about friendship, and I don't know I have friends that I have I'm no longer friends with me. Why well, it's no, no, I mean, it's too complicated. But in my heart, well it leaves a hole in your heart, but it is too complicated. Why why can't you go back to your friends because it's complicated. I should. I want to and hope it will, but it's but it's very to you. But it's very complicated, very difficult. I should. I hope to and one day I will, and you, I don't know if I can. Why not? It's too complicated. I just can't. Can't go back. No, I don't think people can go back. I think that's one of the things I learned when I was away that if I'm to push through life, I like the adventure of always going somewhere I've never been and growing with that. And the biggest thing, Katie, the biggest thing is a second ago. I just played most of all for you, and I got goose bumps on my arm. I have not had that connection with something I lost when I left the group in years, remember thirty one years I left. Then somewhere in the middle, I came back to them again, tried. I tried to go back. It didn't work a second time. Why should I try a third time if it didn't work. And I'm not even talking about music, I'm talking about a relationship. I guess Steve, Look, if relationships were possible like that, I just don't know if people can separate there their motives from their relationships, if you know what I mean, I think I know what you mean. Yeah, really, I mean it's it's friendships are private and intimate and protective to themselves. When they get spilled into motives, it doesn't feel like a friendship. It seems like you're afraid to rekindle a relationship for fear it will be exploited for something else. Pretty much, if it's going to be a friendship, exploitation of a friendship is just not a friendship. I don't know. Time. Time tells everything. You know. Life is a very strange place. And I think that the Eels, that the lead singer of the Eels set, Yeah, he said, Steve Perry moves in mysterious ways. Do you think you're going to do another album? I mean, is this is this, is this reconnection with music going to last? Or do you think that this is a new chapter and we'll be hearing a lot more from you? How much stuff I want to do? I've got songs started, I've got songs already recorded that are sketched. I've got more material. I have more material than I need, and maybe that I have time left in my life to finish. To be honest, it's a commitment to continue to make music for the time I have left. I tell you from the bottom of my heart, this is life sustaining to me. And I need that right now because Katie, have lost my mother and my dad, my grandparents who raised me. I'm an only child. I need this. Why didn't you ever get married, Steve? Scared? Scared, And I'll tell you With Kelly, I was really close, so close. I just didn't like what happened and what I saw growing up, and I just don't think it was for me. And then I wasn't deposed, and so many divorces with the band members, one after another, and the next time I turned around, this guy is marrying a new one. And now I've been across at least three wives with one guy while I was in the band, and a couple with others, and and deposed because you're in a partnership together. So I watched them lose half of every thing every time, and I'm thinking, it's not how much you make, it's how much you save. So maybe I should stay single. Or have a good prenup, Steve, Well, I hear they're not so great, and I know the album is doing great. I'm so happy, so happy. Nothing makes me happier right now than the people here this music and hopefully love it and feel it. That's all I want, that's all. I don't care if they stream it. I don't even care. I'm so happy for this new chapter in your life, and I wish you a lot of happiness, but I also wish you a lot of peace, Steve Perry. On that note, that wraps up my interview with Steve Perry, such a treat to talk with him and to sing with him too. Well, Katie, we've gotten a lot of listener emails asking for more singing from you, not from me. I have to get the people what they want, then, Brian, you do you do? Before we go, I want to thank the team that produces this pot cast Producer Emma morgen Stern, associate producer Noura, Richie Jared O'Connell, our engineer, and special thanks to my good friend Matt Lombardi who really helped me so much with this episode. Matt reunited and it feels so good. Also, thank you, Gianna Palmer for your help, and Casey Holford for putting up with Steve and me on a Saturday morning in the studio. Thanks to everyone at Katie currk Media Beta. Mas is Katie's assistant and a fabulous one at that, and Julia Lewis is the social media whiz. Jared Arnold composed our theme music. You can find Brian on Twitter under Goldsmith b and I am everywhere Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all as Katie CURRC. If you've thoughts about the show, or questions for Katie or me, or guest suggestions, or really anything, please reach out our email addresses comments at currect podcast dot com, or you can leave us a voicemail by calling nine to nine two to four, four six three seven. We'll talk you next week. M