"Music really saved my life. It was the one place I could go where there was sanity and beauty": Steve Perry on being inspired, and being an inspiration

22 Jan 2024, 23:04 · louder

By Dave Ling
( Classic Rock )
published 22 January 2024

Former Journey frontman Steve Perry was raised to manage the family farm, but Sam Cooke and his parents' divorce set him on a different path

(Image credit: Myriam Santos)

To celebrate the 200th issue of Classic Rock, we interviewed 200 different musicians about the big topics in life: love, family, legacy, religion, money, the works. And we asked former Journey frontman Steve Perry about the music and people who'd inspired his path through life.

You were a white kid in California who grew up listening to soul while those you around you were into rock’n’roll.

Yeah. I was raised in a farm community. When my grandfather trained me to take over his farm, I resisted heavily. My dad was a singer and I watched him from an early age. At four I recall looking up at him on stage and thinking: “I can do that.”

Who were your earliest inspirations?

I remember loving the Kingston Trio [folk revivalists] and Buddy Holly before getting into soul via Sam Cooke. I also loved a song [popularised by Dorothy Moore] called Misty Blue.

You first heard Sam Cooke on the car radio.

It was Chain Gang [1960] and it changed my life. My mum had an old Thunderbird with a six-by-nine-inch speaker on the dashboard. What an inspirational moment that was. And it led to my love affair with Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, and then came The Beatles and Robert Plant.

Was Journey guitarist Neal Schon a big influence on you, or vice versa?

I think that we influenced each other pretty severely. I had always loved his playing before I joined the band, in Santana and on the first three Journey albums.

You wrote so many songs of love and loss. Who or what was the biggest influence in your life that wasn’t a musician?

I’ve such a big answer to that question. It started when my mother and father divorced when I was seven years old. When they split up, my whole world imploded. My mother was left pretty emotionally damaged by my father. That’s when music really saved my life. It was the one place I could go where there was sanity and beauty.

Did it affect the way you wrote lyrics?

I think so. I’ve always been a hopeless romantic. I always wanted love to return. When I heard that song Misty Blue it revived all of those feelings, stirring up the longings of romance and the hopeful fantasy of it all.

Your vocal style became synonymous with the hard rock groups that followed Journey. You must have heard yourself in a lot of songs on the radio?

[Laughs] That is such a loaded question.

Well, we’re not asking you to name names. Unless you want to.

That’s good, because there were a few. But honestly, I’m not sure if they were emulating me. In that era there were an awful lot of tenor rock singers. I wasn’t the only high-voiced singer, quite a few of us went to that astronomically high level to be heard above the guitars. I don’t know what I was thinking. When I try to sing those songs today… oh my god. It’s the like baseball pitchers that throw at ninety-eight miles an hour. You know why they do that? Because they can.

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 200, published in August 2014.

Classic Rock Newsletter

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors

Dave Ling

Dave Ling was a co-founder of Classic Rock magazine. His words have appeared in a variety of music publications, including RAW, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Prog, Rock Candy, Fireworks and Sounds. Dave’s life was shaped in 1974 through the purchase of a copy of Sweet’s album ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’, along with early gig experiences from Status Quo, Rush, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Yes and Queen. As a lifelong season ticket holder of Crystal Palace FC, he is completely incapable of uttering the word ‘Br***ton’.

More about classic rock

“Us and them doesn’t exist any more”: How The Cult's Ian Astbury tried to break down genre barriers with his pre-Lollapalooza festival Gathering Of The Tribes, and claimed he got “ripped off” for his trouble

10 metal bands with obscenely long gaps between albums
Latest

"If everyone could go to a psych ward for a couple of weeks, the world would be a better place": Ginger Wildheart on recovery, rejuvenation, and why the next Wildhearts album will be your favourite
See more latest ►

By Polly Glass22 January 2024

I was like, ‘I ain’t been in another band, I ain’t done this for anybody else before'”: Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders on the time he joined Iggy Pop’s band

By Niall Doherty21 January 2024

The 10 worst Metallica songs

By Matt Mills21 January 2024

The 10 greatest slide guitar moments in rock

By Joe Daly21 January 2024

"We were scared to death about working with him": The Killers on the time they recorded a song with Lou Reed