Reasons why Steve Perry sucks...

Ok Dan, here you go! I completely disagree with you about the TBF album BTW. Yes, his voice has seriously degraded, but he can still sing. I've heard his outtakes on TBF, and he sounds better on his screw-ups than most people do on the finished studio takes. He has amazing pitch and tone, and always has. While he can't hit the notes he used to be able to, he still has an unrelenting talent. I really liked his vocals on the David Pack song, and he can still bring it homie!

Now is your turn to bring out the "I hate Steve Perry Because..." laundry list.

TBF is almost complete dog shit. Message Of Love would be a fantastic song, had they been able to find someone with a good rock voice to sing it. When You Love A Woman and If He Should Break Your Heart are 2 excellent songs, complete with vocals, but the rest of the songs range from mediocre to dreadful. And the back half of the album is just plain embarrassing. It makes Seals & Croft sound like a metal band.

This guy remains a world class shitbag simply because he's a compulsive liar. He never took steroids (lie), he fired Herbie because Azoff seemed better because of his successful Eagles reunion (lie) and he was going to tour in support of TBF (lie). The first lie has been exposed through Jon Cain's comments to Jeremey. I'm simply going to take Jon Cain at his word. The latter two lies outline Herbie Herbert's hunch that the guy never intended to tour and simply wanted to break up the reformed lineup of Schon, Rolie, Valory, Smith, Cain and Chalfant. Never touring one show with Journey or doing a solo show since makes that theory about as close to fact as you can get.

The other instances of this guy being a total maniacal dickbag include:
- the forced liquidation of assets. The property they sold is now some of the most expensive real estate in the world and they sold it simply because he wouldn't sing with them if they didn't.
-selling Nocturne. Thankfully, Herbie grabbed Neal's arm and convinced him not to sell the cash cow. They did work for the Eagles, Metallica, Madonna, McCartney and tons of other huge acts.
-Firing Ross Valory and Steve Smith. Smith because he didn't know how to play to a click track and Valory because he was sniffing everything in sight. Funny how patience is a *must* when you're waffling about a fairly simple surgery, but when Smith needed time to learn a new way of playing and Valory needed his nose stapled shut, time meant nothing. This idiot was allowed to take YEARS off, but waiting perhaps a month or two was completely out of the question. Hypocrisy, perhaps?
-selling Journey Force to Tim McQuaid. This is simply maniacal. Selling off the most influential fan club in the world as if it was nothing. Nothing more than the continuation of the internal sabotage of Journey. There would simply be no way of continued communication with fans once it was realized he was gone for good, something only he knew at the time.
-Perpetuating this shameless myth that he can "sing as well as anytime in the mid-80's." To have your blowhard cronies say that and not immediately dispel those outright exaggerations/lies is simply pathetic.
-Not touring with the rest of Journey in 1993 and 1994, and completely shitting on the guys that shut the Journey name down until he was ready to come back.
-Baiting them into a "reunion" that was a lie from day 1. Unfortunately, I have no sympathy for most of the band in this instance (aside from Rolie and Chalfant), as they should have been privy to his decades-long pattern of lying.
-other minor instances include the exclusion of Mouse and Kelly from artwork (2 of the world's most renowned album artists), the forced removal of one word album names (Raised on Radio and Trial By Fire, rather than Freedom and ???) and the desecration of what so many people worked so hard for over many years, explained by Herbie Herbert in his interview with Andrew:

" We had incorporated Journey, or Nightmare to furnish the services of Journey in March of '73. So here's eleven years of building a brand and a business and he (Nostrildamus) wants to eclipse it with his first release (Street Talk) ... I remember one time he phoned me at my house and just went nuts about Be Good To Yourself having been the first choice of a single off of Raised on Radio. And I said, it's a great song, it's a great production, it's great sound, it's Journey. That was the problem. It sounds too much like Journey. Well too many of the other songs sound too much like a glorified Steve Perry solo record."

Nostrildamus makes the rest of the guys in the band, namely Schon and his penchant for debauchery and putting his *feet* in his mouth, look like fucking heavenly angels. The difference is that Schon is a product of the road. A guy that simply never grew up in a home, and learned that life consists of more than of gigs, booze, drugs and pussy. His ignorance is blind. Nostrildamus, on the other hand, is methodically cold, calculating and passive-aggressively sinister. And that makes him the worst kind of friend and bandmate. Which is exactly why he has neither.

There is an FB page called •Steve Perry's Nose• true story !

Wow!!! While sounding pretty harsh, I think you've pretty much nailed the truth. I don't know that he INTENDED on recording TBF without touring so much as that he is eccentric and is just too nervous and overly critical of his own talents to get back on stage again. Who really knows? I don't think there will ever be a definitive answer about his motives.

All I know is that if I had the chance to interview him (and was told "go ahead... ask me anything"), I would have asked him a little more pressing questions than "what's the name of your favorite cat".

Dan, that was hilarious. But TBF is awesome.

Gideon wrote: TBF is awesome.

Trial By Fire is right at the bottom of the Perry-era Journey with Departure. I never imagined a Journey album wouldn't have one good rock tune on vocals. Then came TBF. This album is just trash, vocally. Take away When You Love A Woman and If He Should Break Your Heart, and you're left with an album that is devoid of of a rock singer and drenched in vocal mediocrity.

I always shuddered at terms like "mature," "adult" and "sophisticated." Um, what?!? You can come up with all of the clever synonyms you want for boring, but it doesn't change the album one iota. It's like screwing a 90 year old Betty White and calling sex with her prehistoric and petrified sausage wallet "great" because she's "mature," "adult" and "sophisticated." No thanks, dude. I'll stay away from TBF and 90 year old granny growlers. But you go ahead and rock on.

Meh. Vocals just have to be passable/decent for me to still be able to really enjoy the album; Perry's voice was serviceable and the production and musicianship made up for it. IHSBYH is my favorite Journey song ever. Message of Love, One More, I Can See It In Your Eyes all are badass tunes from start to finish.

Gideon wrote:Meh. Vocals just have to be passable/decent for me to still be able to really enjoy the album; Perry's voice was serviceable and the production and musicianship made up for it. IHSBYH is my favorite Journey song ever. Message of Love, One More, I Can See It In Your Eyes all are badass tunes from start to finish.

I Can See It In Your Eyes and Message Of Love are vocally decrepit. In hindsight, and I really mean this, they would have been better served with lesser musicality on those 2 songs, simply because the vocals are so far below the musicianship. If He Should Break Your Heart and When You Love A Woman showcase songs that allow crooning and Perry's penchant for emotional balladry to shine. Songs with balls and/or tempo simply did not, though.

Trial By Fire would be a good record to listen to in your car.......in the garage.........with the car running.........and a hose from the tailpipe into a gas mask. Or at a Bred Delp BBQ.

Ed wrote:Trial By Fire would be a good record to listen to in your car.......in the garage.........with the car running.........and a hose from the tailpipe into a gas mask. Or at a Bred Delp BBQ.

Lol. Brad Delp seemed like the whiny sort of bitch that would probably also say he "never really felt like part of the band." I think it would be hilarious if Weber Grills came with a circular picture of Delp in his bathroom with a slash through it. I'd buy one.