Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely You Can't Be
Serious Podcast, discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten
of eighties and nineties pop culture with your co hosts
Jane D. Graves and Jason Caliban.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everybody. Here we are for our second part
in the Synchronicity Versus Frontiers debate. And Jason, I've got
a great idea for a video. You should play the
air keyboards and I will play the air guitar and
we'll get somebody else to play the air drop.
Speaker 3: We think invisible instruments. Yes, that sounds incredible on a
wharf and have a lady walking around.
Speaker 2: Now, now, wait a minute, a minute, that would be
absolutely the worst video in the history of the world.
We can't do that. I don't know what I was thinking.
Speaker 3: Let's hang out. We'll be out there in our jeans
and tennis shoes. We'll get some lady off the street just.
Speaker 2: To walk around. Awesome tank top.
Speaker 3: That you got it Target last night.
Speaker 2: And I'll get my haircut right beforehand. Well, welcome back everybody.
As you can see, we're already having fun with this one. Today.
We're here to talk about Journey if you didn't catch
our last episode, we talked about The Police and we're
comparing the two albums that came out in nineteen eighty three.
The Police had Synchronicity and Journey had Frontiers Synchronicity. That
album was released in June of nineteen eighty three. Frontiers
is actually released in February of nineteen eighty three. Yeah,
so today we will cover Frontiers and then finish up
with our decision on which one we think is the best.
Speaker 3: I'm anxious to hear what you think I really am
because most of the time I have kind of an
inkling of where you are. I have no idea where
you're on these two.
Speaker 2: So it is very, very difficult because these are two
phenomenal albums. Like I said last episode, Police was the
best band in the world, and this was their best
album with the most hits. And the Journey this one
has a ton of hits. It's got my favorite of
all Journey songs to kick things off, and so it's
a hard choice. I'll tell you when we get there. Okay,
stay tuned, Okay, So let's jump in. You know, the
only member of Journey that was an original member of
Journey is Neil shown. You know Neil shown story.
Speaker 3: The only thing I really know about him is that
he picked up the guitar at like age five, and
he was born at Tinker Air Force Base, which is
about twenty miles from where we're recording right.
Speaker 2: Now, So right right, yeah, I doubt he remembers Oklahoma,
but we'll we'll claim him anyway, right, He.
Speaker 3: Is in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, so we're claiming.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, Neil Shwan. I'm sure he tells everyone he's
from Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: This band was very nearly named Oklahoma City, but instead
they settled on Journey.
Speaker 2: Well, they had some wild names to go through. But
let's back it up a little bit. So Neil shown
after Obviously the big important part about being born on
Tinker Air Force Bace here in Oklahoma. He ends up
in California, has a turntable in his room, listens to
Jimmy hendrickson Cream every night, falls in love with the guitar.
And I guess that's sleep hypnotism work, because at fifteen
years old he is an amazing guitar player already, He's
a professional guitarist by age fifteen.
Speaker 3: You and I have talked. We both have fifteen year
old boys in our house right now. The idea of
him going out on the road and playing in a
rock band.
Speaker 2: It's kind of weird how that fifteen thing keeps coming up.
I mean, you had Eddie Murphy doing stand up when
he was fifteen. You had Rick Allen who started playing
with def Leopard at age fifteen, and then you have
Neil Shoan who's playing the guitar at fifteen. It's crazy,
but he got noticed. Of all people, he got noticed
by Greg Rawley, who was the keyboardist and lead singer
for the band Santana.
Speaker 3: I mean Santana. I mean that's a big time band.
Speaker 2: It's huge.
Speaker 3: Joins them at age fifteen.
Speaker 2: I mean we're talking. They played at Woodstock. I mean
this is this is not small potatoes here. I mean,
these guys are an amazing band. And this guy, Greg
Rawley was so impressed with Neil Show's ability at age fifteen,
he would go and pick him up from high school
in the morning, not after our school was done, because
it was like, listen, dude, you don't need to bother
with school because you were going to be a rock god. Okay,
so come on. Herbie Herbert was manager for Santana at
the time, and he heard Neil shown play and he
was like, we need to have this come around a
little bit because he was blown away, blown away by
a fifteen year old.
Speaker 3: Neil Showan is a phenomenal guitar player, and I think
he's vastly underappreciated. We talked in our Van Halen podcast
about Eddie is a rock god, but when he wants to,
he can make his guitar scene and Neil is that
type of guitar player. It always compliments the song. He
never stands out there and says, look at me, watch
me go crazy. His guitar always helps the song.
Speaker 2: In might opinion, Yeah, absolutely, And to say that means
a lot because this time and history was it was
all about the guitar solos, and so he definitely had
that opportunity to be out there and being that guy.
But I would say that it took some doing, but
he appreciated what they were and where he needed to
be in the scheme of things and didn't try to
didn't try to take that spotlight over. So he joined Santana,
and I mean, it's crazy you watch some of the
old Santana videos that they have that are all psychedelic
and weird technicolor DreamWorks things going on. And he's just
a baby out there with his guitar playing with these
guys who are veterans of the hard rock scene. But
he's amazing. I mean, he's a baby, but he's like,
as they said in Bull Durham, the gods reached down
and touched his hand and his arm became a lightning bolt.
Speaker 3: You know. So he doesn't stay with Santana.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, Herbie Herbert says, hey, guys, you know, we
need to do something different. He and Greg Rawley they
split off. This was kind of like part two of Santana.
And obviously they're not going to be Santana because Carlos
Santana and Santana. You can't really take that from right.
So they go out on their own and they start
this band called Golden Gate something or other. I don't
even rhythm section. We think, yeah, I think so that
sounds good. It was not a good name. It was
a horrible but he at.
Speaker 3: Air Force Base would have been a better name.
Speaker 2: But yes, or Oklahoma City better names. And so they're
a band unlike the Journey that we know today. I mean,
they are a band that is in the kind of
fusion rock progressive rock scene, which is a lot of
instrumental solos. That's the band that they were for a
long time, and they developed a significant following. Is that
kind of.
Speaker 3: Band they did, But they didn't have any hits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were selling tickets, they weren't selling any records.
The CBS was like, hey, guys, you want us to
keep paying for your concerts, you better give us a hit. Something.
Speaker 3: We need, something we can play on the radio.
Speaker 2: And Herbie Herbert realized, we need a singer. We need
a singer who can sing well. And they went through
a couple of guys that just didn't quite have it.
And in the meantime, while all of this is going on,
you got young Steve Perry who's been playing in rock bands,
going through those same motions that early rock and rollers
go through, and he actually gets in with the band
called Alien Project. Looks like this band is going to
be good. You know, they've they've got a decent song.
They are just about to sign their record deal, and
then the bass player gets killed in a car crash
with a train, and when he dies, the band dies.
Speaker 3: I mean, Steve Perry at that time, felt like, man,
just when I'm on the cusp of my dreams coming
true whatever it is, the universe is stacked against me. Yeah,
you feel like that was my chance and now it's dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he went back home. I mean he was done.
Speaker 3: We're talking about Steve Perry, who who arguably has the
greatest singing voice of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Journey is arguably the definitive eighties band, at least the
definitive early eighties band in my book. I mean, if
you want to say what was the sound of nineteen
eighty through nineteen eighty five for bands, I'm gonna go, well, Journey.
Journey's pretty darn good example.
Speaker 3: You could do a lot worse than Journey, that's for sure.
They had this formula of pumping out hits that everybody liked.
Bon Jovi was kind of that towards the latter half
and just everybody sort of mainstream like these songs.
Speaker 2: But before they get there, Herbie Herbert is thinking, what
do we gotta do to get a decent hit? We
got to have a singer. And he's going through these
demo tapes and he hears this tape and he's like, no,
tell me that this is Steve Ferry because I just
keep running into this guy, and sure enough it was
Steve Perry. And he's like, all right, where is he?
And somebody's looking and they're like, uh, looks like he's
living back with his parents and working on a turkey ranch.
He's like, no, really, what's he doing the Nope, that's
what he's doing. He went back home, he had no
money and he's working on a turkey ranch.
Speaker 3: And he was grateful to have that job. His step
dad's like, hey, come back home, you can fix the
turkey cages. I'll give you a paycheck. And he was like, oh,
thank god.
Speaker 2: So when Herbie Herbert calls him up, he's like, nah,
I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I'm good, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. Now, you know,
I gotta pay rent.
Speaker 3: I got a I don't know where, I got a
guy on the other line sowing some white walls.
Speaker 2: So Herbie Herbert says, I tell you what, I'll pick
up your paycheck for a week. I mean, you know what,
in the seventies was probably like thirty five bucks. Right,
So he Herbie Herbert is making plans to fly him
out there, and so he plays a demo of Steve
singing for Greg and for Neil, and both of them
are like, no hard pass, no, no, no, this guy's
a crooner, right, we don't we want somebody who screams,
and we want to play our music loud and we're
going to rock. And Herbie Herbert says he's going to
be the lead singer this band. That's the end, and
thankfully he did that.
Speaker 3: I mean, where would we be without Steve Perry. I
mean this band would be in obscurity? Right, So Steve
gets flown out, he meets Neil. They actually kind of
hit it off. Surprisingly, Neil's obviously against him at the beginning,
but they get to know each other. They end up
hanging out at a hotel room in Denver and Neil
starts playing a little bit on his guitar and Steve
starts singing some lyrics and they literally in five minutes
write the song patiently nice.
Speaker 2: So it looks like it's going to be a good fit, right,
Neil decides, Okay, I don't need to be the rock god.
I don't need to be the guitar hero. I want
to put my stuff in there, but I'm not going
to overpower this guy, because this guy's got chops. I mean,
he's got a great voice, and the audience, you know,
their diehard fans are like, what's going on a little bit,
but a whole lot of people were like, hey, these
guys sound good with this new lead singer. They're getting
some more radio play, they were getting more tickets sold,
and it looked like it was going to go well.
Speaker 3: It's funny because a band is kind of like a
basketball team. You get one or two great players, and
all of a sudden you've got a great team. You
get Neil Sean who is an amazing guitar, and you
pair him up with a voice like Steve Perry's mean
I could play drums and they could pump out hits,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Right, So, both Neil and Greg Rawley both kind of
pulled themselves back, you know, they said, Okay, this is
a new direction that we're going and it seems to
be working. That sounds good. We'll do that. Unfortunately, the drummer,
Ainsley Dunbar didn't really feel the same way. I mean,
he was a hard rocking drummer and he wanted to
bang his drums, and as the band went on, Steve.
You know, Steve was a kind of a reserved guy.
He's not a cocky, in your face kind of guy.
But when they start having more success with him singing,
he starts to assert himself and say, listen, you know
the drums are overpowering. What's going on. You need to
pull it back, And Ainsley Dunbar is like, no, I don't.
I like drum and hard and I'm going to drum hard.
And eventually it just you know, came down to an
ultimatum and ains Dunbar didn't win that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's out for sure.
Speaker 2: So then they replace him with the drummer from montros
throw Back, Steve Smith. Then they do a tour. Things
are going well, they're actually having a whole lot of success,
write and some really great songs, and Greg Rawley comes
to Herbie Herbert and says, I don't want to do
this anymore. Yeah, what you know, we're having the biggest
success we've ever had. He's like, I know, and I
don't understand it either, but I just don't want to
be in this band anymore. And I'll just tell you what,
I don't think that you're going to be with these
guys very long anymore.
Speaker 3: Either, that's interesting. I mean getting off the train as
it's leaving the station. It's always an interesting decision looking back,
you know, Well, I mean he was I mean they
were on their way to the destination. I mean he
was there where they're making some big hits. But his
departure ends up being a huge blessing because what happens
is Jonathan Kane joins the band to replace him, and
Jonathan Kane is responsible for so many of their hits.
He really really adds that hit making formula to the band.
Speaker 2: He's got a very similar personality to Steve Perry. They're
very much about the music. They're very kind of self conscious,
but very good at what they do, and so they
immediately form camaraderie. And at one point, Cain starts playing
this melody and I'll play it for you right now,
and Steve Perry's like, hey, that's good. What is that?
And He's like, oh, it's just something I've been messing
around with. You know. I played it for John, but
he wasn't really interested in it. So John is John
Waite from the band Baby and Bad English as well
later on. But yeah, so John Waite, here's this melody
that ultimately ends up becoming Open Arms, and he was like,
it's kind of sentimental rubbish. I'm not interested.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous. I mean, he turns down one of the
greatest power ballads of all time and then goes on
to make Missing You, which is one of the biggest
wienie songs of the eighties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean talking about sentimental rubbish.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: But when Steve Perry hears this melody for Open Arms,
he puts the lyrics to it, He's like, yeah, this
is good, this is just I know it's gonna be hit.
And Jonathan Kaine's obviously in love with that idea, and
Neil Sean's like, this sounds like Mary Poppins. What is
his crap? And I'm like, okay, because I don't know
what what am I supposed to do in this song?
And they're like, Neil, just chillax man, It's just you
don't have to be the guy in every song. He
butted heads with him during the recording like he was mad.
It was one of those standard Prima Donna tantrums. And
then once they have it down, they played in concert
later on and the crowd goes nuts. Of course, and
then Steve looks at Neil, and Neil is just like
in shock. He's like, what it had no anticipation of
how they were going to react to this song. Thankfully,
he said, you know what, I changed my mind. I
think I can play this song and I think we
can do more like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right. So the song that we've just been
talking about, Open Arms, was off their Escape album, which
came out in nineteen eighty one, huge, huge power ballad.
You've heard it a billion times. That album also contained
a song, Oh you may have heard of it. It's
called Don't Stop Believing.
Speaker 2: I think God, let me think about that. Pretty sure?
I heard that one. Could you have a few bars?
Speaker 3: No? So I mean you have these two major, major
songs right at the beginning of the eighties. So that
brings us to nineteen eighty three. We're going to talk
about Frontiers.
Speaker 2: Right, And I got a question. I failed to look
this up. I feel like it was not nineteen eighty three.
I feel like it was nineteen eighty four. But do
you know what year the Journey video game came out?
Speaker 3: It had to be eighty three. It had to be
eighty three. I played that game in the arcade.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I played. Actually in Fort Smith, Arkansas. They had
that game in the arcade for a little while and
then it went away and it was devastating. And then
the big new movie theater opened up, the AMC and
they had the game in the movie theater, and I
found myself going to the movie theater just to play
the game. I probably missed out on the beginning of
a few movies because of that game.
Speaker 3: I mean, you walk around with Neil Sean and he's
You're shooting out of the end of your guitar.
Speaker 2: Favorite song, favorite part of the game.
Speaker 3: I think would they play? They played? They played like
Separate Ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Neil Sean was the one doing Separate ways and
shooting things with his guitar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: It was out of nineteen eighty three Bingo Bongo and
it has the logos. It has the same logo as
the Frontiers.
Speaker 3: Yep, sure does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which to me is I mean that's every time
I think of Journey, I think of that logo. I
don't think of the Beatle or anything else like that.
It's always the large blue head which that game. You
are one of our listeners, Karlon Bullard pointed out to
me that that game and the Tron game are very similar, which,
thinking back, they are, Yeah, definitely, very very similar. Yeah,
and so you even that Big Head is kind of
similar to the Tron Giant Head and the Rainbow Spinny
thing both awesome soundtracks on a video game. I mean
I could just stand there and listen to people play
the game.
Speaker 3: Yes, for sure, for sure. I gotta give a quick
shout out to I tell you, I've got these two
women that I go to church with who are eighties
music freaks. One was Melissa Mingle and she helped me
with synchronicity. The other is Cindy Smith and she was
a big Journey fan. And I was asking her what
she remembered about Frontiers.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: What she told me She was a freshman in high school.
She got caught sneaking the car out at a friend's
house and got grounded and could not attend the Frontiers
concert in Oklahoma City. Ohn devastating to her, and I
thought that is a very eighties moment. She said, her
friend didn't get in trouble, still got to go. She
couldn't go to the concert.
Speaker 2: Oh that's rough. That's rough.
Speaker 3: All right. Frontiers was released February first, nineteen eighty three.
Are you ready to dive in and talk about the tracks?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it, all right.
Speaker 3: So the first song, the first track in the album,
Separate Ways.
Speaker 2: I'm banging my head right now, so freaking good. Such
a good song. I mean, I don't care about any
other song on this album. This song seals the video
for him fan freaking tast two.
Speaker 3: It's a great song. It's a pump your fist sing along.
Top down, turn it up, summertime, crank it out.
Speaker 2: You know, I've said it before. I was listening to
this when I've been running. This song gives me legs
more than any like if I'm if, I'm like even
and I'm like I can't make it, I'm like, okay.
Siri plays several ways.
Speaker 3: Several ways, has this great i mean pounding chorus, you know, yeah,
the synthesizers and the guitar.
Speaker 2: This is one that I was like, Perry's vocals, My gosh,
You've got this very interesting thing where you've got this
melody playing the and so it's the same melody, but
then the chords change. So despite the fact that the
chords are changing, the melody stays the same even over
different chords, sounds perfect. And then the bass keeps pumping
this same bassline throughout the whole thing. It's a beautiful,
beautiful mixture of musically that I you know, I just
sound like Chris Farley, right, I love it. It's really great.
Speaker 3: Okay. So this this song was actually written in nineteen
eighty two while they were on the Escape tour. Yeah,
I said, that's kind of unusual for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jonathan Caine wrote this on a thirty dollar Cassio keyboard.
That's insane. I mean he had the same keyboard that
like I had at my house.
Speaker 3: The thirty dollars one you get a radio shack, right.
So this song reached number one on the Hot Rocks,
number eight on the Hot one hundred, number one that week.
Billy Jeanie by Michael Jackson, gosh one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that guy's always in there spoiling people's fun.
Speaker 3: He's he blocked paramania, he blocked synchronicity, and he's blocking
Journey right now.
Speaker 2: It was a good thing the police blocked him for
at least a little bit.
Speaker 3: For a little bit before I take that over.
Speaker 2: Right, So this one, the basis for this song while
they were on tour, Neil Showen and Ross Valerie were
both going through painful and expensive divorces, and Perry said
to Kaine, hey man, there's got to be a more
soulful way to look at what's going on. And they
worked up. After Jonathan had put the music together on
his thirty dollars cassio keyboard. Perry does the melody and
the lyrics and they're like, yeah, this is actually this
is actually pretty decent. And so they show it to
the band. They were, like you said, they were on
tour while this was going on. They work on it
during their sound check, you know, like before the concert starts,
they're like, okay, let's see if we can play this.
They work on it for a little I mean, you
don't have that long on stage. They work on it
for a little bit, and they played it that night,
played it that night live, love it. I mean, I
think I think Steve Perry even had to like mumble
through half the lyrics because he couldn't remember what he
was just three hours before. But people went insane.
Speaker 3: Listen to what Neil Sean said about the song. He said,
like many other songs from this band, Motown mixed with
R and B and blues. So that's what Separate Ways is.
But it's got heavier guitar than an R and B.
But he said, that's what I think makes it sound
like Journey.
Speaker 2: And then they decided to make the video.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the video.
Speaker 2: I have an idea. We let us have the band
that some of the best musicians of all time play
the air. Jonathan Kine is like, he looks like a
bear or something so hard I can't even imagine being
the band. And the direct you get. Got to remember
this is early early eighties, so you know, you get
guys who the day before were directing like a bud
Light commercial or something. I mean, those are the directors
you have because because nobody's thinking, nobody's gone coming out
of USC going, let's think I'll make us a music video.
Because nobody cared. Nobody knew what that was. It was insignificant.
And so you get this director who's like, Okay, you guys,
let's put your instruments away. Okay, what are we gonna do.
You're gonna play your instruments? Wait a minute, what, No,
it's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 3: They're invisible and then we'll flash them in and then
all of a sudden you'll be playing them for real.
Speaker 2: Oh and then oh.
Speaker 3: Hey, honey, you're you're one of the guy's girlfriends. Okay,
I want you to walk across the screen, Just just
walk across the screen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually, when Steve Perry showed up and he had
just cut his hair, like, I mean, he had his
fresh mullet going on, and his girlfriend Sherry, who the
song Oh Sherry is all about, who he dated all
the time, and he was in Journey. She was livid
about the fact that there's another girl in the video
and she's a good looking lady. But I mean, how
do you come to the video. I mean, you're not
like a world renowned actress or something. How do you
come in and say, I don't like that some other
girls in this video.
Speaker 3: It's crazy crazy.
Speaker 2: And then you see the video and I don't even think.
I don't even think. Steve Perry and the random, very
very eighties looking girl, even in the same.
Speaker 3: Scene one dime, it's like he was kissing her. My gosh,
she just walked in front of him while he was singing.
Speaker 2: Screaming in somebody else's face as she walks in between him.
So Ross Valerie has the porn stash and porn glasses on,
yes he does. And Steve Smith is wearing a foosball switch.
I mean, these guys, I just I'm looking at this
video and I'm like, did you guys like fall in
the mud and have to stop at Walmart on the
way over to the video.
Speaker 3: It looks like it's just as like they got the call.
Hey guys, listen, be down the wharf in twenty minutes.
I'm playing now, I'm at the arcade. That's okay, just
come on over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where's it gonna be. It's gonna be at the
wharf at this well, good news. There's a giant sign
this is wharf across the building. It's a big important
part of the video.
Speaker 3: It's an industrillar area. Nobody bothers there, don't worry. It's
it's gorgeous.
Speaker 2: Listen, dogong, is that you god awful video?
Speaker 3: Okay, let's talk about that because we talked during the
def Lebert Hysteria podcast a few weeks ago. Yeah, Poor
some Sugar on Me had a terrible video along with
this great, great song, Yes, and we questioned whether or
not Poor Some Sugar on Me would be as remembered
as it was as it is because of that crappy video.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, the difference, well, but the difference here of
five years is huge as far as music videos are concerned.
Speaker 3: Well, that's true, but this video has a great song
and a horrible video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this this song is great because of the radio.
I mean, it wasn't much longer before songs had to
be great on MTV before they were going to be
great on the radio. But this was still when the
radio waves ruled the day.
Speaker 3: Oh man, And this song is great. This song was great, Okay,
second track of the album Center My Love. This was
the fourth single released in September of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one was written by Jonathan Kane. He had
been listening to a lot of Beatles albums and he
had this experience like he was on stage and he
got called backstage and somebody said something about Virginia, and
Virginia was like this girl he dated when he was
a teenager. And they said, you know, she still talks
about you and your relationship. And he said, you know,
it was just one of those off handed comments that
you make. And he said he looked at her and
just said send her my love. Wait a minute, that's
a song. That's a song. We got to make that song.
And my gosh, break out the cassio.
Speaker 3: This song has that wonderful eighties synth rock mix. I mean,
it's just I mean, how many people learned to skate
backwards to this song. It's just one of It's one
of those roller skating ring specials, you know, Yeah, right,
a couples back out to the center of the drink,
turn it on, crank it up.
Speaker 2: This one. He says. I went home and I called
Steve Perry up and I said, I came up with
this idea and I wrote it on the spot, and
a lot of stuff was just on the spot, very spontaneous.
We kind of wrote with an urgency because we didn't
have a lot of time together and the road was
hard enough. And when we did write, we wrote very intensely,
and all the lyrics were like within hours, which didn't
mess around. And so once again they have I have
this amazing song that they put together spur of the moment,
off handed comment, beautiful song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. I love it. This reached number
twenty three in the US charts. I'm surprised didn't get higher. Frankly,
it's a great It's on the Makeout Mix of nineteen
eighty three.
Speaker 2: From Both People. Right, I'll give that tape back to
you next week.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're adding to our makeout mix list here. Okay,
the next song. This song is called Chain Reaction.
Speaker 2: This song I told you before, I listen to these
songs running and as listen to this one, I feel good.
But I'm like, I feel like I'm in a rocky
montage moment right now, Like I'm rocky running along this song,
and I'm pretty sure that it's gonna We're gonna do
a fast cut to me getting punched in the stomach
or something. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think this is kind of a fist pumping song.
This would be great in concert. They released this. It
was a video but not a single. It was a
hit on the Hot Rocks chart. It's featured in the
Journey video game that we talked about a few mens ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but unfortunately, this one is a song that is dated,
Like its dated. Yeah. If I listen to this song now,
it just says eighties to me. These are other songs
I'm like, I don't care when this came out. It's
still good now this one. I'm like this. This is
stuck in the eighties right here.
Speaker 3: See, I like this song. Okay, and I didn't have
a relationship with it before we dove into this podcast,
but I like it. It's catchy. Once again, anything Steve
Perry sings automatically kind of has a head start with me. Yeah,
but I like it. Have you seen the video? Do you,
George the video for this?
Speaker 2: No, I haven't seen the video.
Speaker 3: Okay, so picture this. All the guys that you saw
in the Separate Ways video are now in tuxedos. They
look like they're at the senior prom though they don't
look like James Bond. They look like my seventeen year
old guns right. And there's this you know, it's this
pumping sort of rock or chain reaction, and Steve and
Neil are sort of like yelling at each other and
they're in the course of the video, Neil actually pushes
Steve to the ground.
Speaker 2: It's weird, it's eighties. But does anybody have a tuxedo
shirt on? Tuxedo teach?
Speaker 3: No, No, it's actual tuxedos.
Speaker 1: I like it.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 3: All right. Next The number four track on the album
single is called after the Fall. Now it's what'd you say?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Okay? This is another song written by Jonathan Kane Steve Perry.
Peaked at number twenty three on the Hot one hundred.
This song appeared in Risky Business. You might recognize it
Risky Business.
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonna say. Yup, it appeared in
the film Risky Business. Is the only fact that about
this song.
Speaker 3: Did you see this video?
Speaker 2: Nope?
Speaker 3: All right, this video same guys from the Separate Ways video.
The band, yes, all dressed in khaki pants like Jake
from the State Farm. Right now, they're all falling out
of the sky past an open window. What they're falling like?
You see this open window and they're like falling. They
keep falling right after the fall and you get told
they're diving into a swimming pool or something, fully dressed
in their khakis.
Speaker 2: Oh my word. Yeah, that was the That's the other
thing about directors of early eighties music videos. Let's treat
this song as literally as we possibly can.
Speaker 3: But I like the song. It's catchy, that sort of
power ballad.
Speaker 2: This one, like a lot of these songs, kind of
falls into that category of it's the filler. To me,
this is another this is a filler.
Speaker 3: It doesn't stand out, it doesn't belong in their greatest
hits for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Now, then fifth song on the album. This song's called
Faithfully where You're Wrong, You've go along.
Speaker 2: And round, So beautiful, so so beautiful. We covered this
one when this was one of the songs my band
covered in high school. And just the way, the way
the piano comes in and then then the guitar comes
in leading over the piano is just if it doesn't
pull out your heartstrings, you are a soulless creature. I don't.
I have no pity for you.
Speaker 3: Every time I listen to this song, it blows me away.
It crescendos, and when Steve Perry is singing that whoa
you know, yeah, I want to pull over and light
up my lighter and like wave to nobody. You just
sway with the crowd. You know, it's so good.
Speaker 2: This one was written completely by Jonathan Kane and he says,
God gave me that song.
Speaker 3: He said this, this is interesting to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said. He's on a bus heading to Saratoga
Springs and then he wakes up the next day and
there's a napkin on his nightstand and he looks at
the lyrics which are in his handwriting, but he doesn't
even remember writing him. He just sees Highway run into
the midnight sun and he says, I got this supernatural download.
And that was the rest of the song. He said.
He wrote like frantically, trying to get it to it
as quickly, put it down as quickly as it just
seems to supernaturally come into his brain. And in thirty
minutes he had written the entire song on that napkin,
which he then took to his piano. This wasn't on
this gassio. This one. He had his big grand piano
and played it through and thought to himself, this is good.
If somebody were to say, name a song by Journey
that is divinely inspired, I wouldn't have any hesitation but
to say, Faithfully, Yeah, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 3: Brian Adams opened for Journey on their nineteen eighty three
Frontiers to her Yeah. During that time he wrote the
song Heaven, which he believes was heavily influenced by Faithfully,
and actually on that track, Journey drummer Steve Smith plays.
Speaker 2: The guy who directed this video was found by Herbie Herbert,
and it was a guy who shot NFL films, like
playing footage that you just see. So like the guy
who's shooting Walter Payton scoring touchdowns is now filming Steve
Ferry shaving his mustache.
Speaker 3: Right exactly. That's cool. I thought this was super interesting.
After recording the song purple Ring, Prince called Jonathan Kane
worried that it might sound too similar to Faithfully and
asked him to listen to it. Kane reassured Prince and
told him that the songs only shared the same four chords.
I'm not a musician, but it's that just as interesting
the video. It's like the first road video you actually get.
I mean throughout the eighties, I mean Bonjovi does it,
Guns of Roses does it, Genesis does it, Poison does it,
Richard Marx, Motley Crue, I mean, everybody has this sort
of here we are out on the road making a video.
It kind of became a staple for the eighties.
Speaker 2: I got to say that that bon Jovis Wanted It
or Alive is my favorite of this. I'll take Motley
Crue home, Sweet Home, so journey hated making videos and
I can talk because they're not good that they don't
look like they like being there for the most part,
but they couldn't ignore how much of an impact MTV
was having, and MTV loved them because they were a
huge favorite with the audience, and as we've mentioned before,
they were really trying to promote that rock format which
was just coming back into style again.
Speaker 3: Here's the deal when with Steve Perry's voice, and I
know I keep harping on this, but his voice is
made for arena rock. So when you show this song
being played to tens of thousands of people and you
get the feel of being at the concert, I mean
the video really I think helped launch the song. It's
just they go together well and I like the video.
I love the song. If they'd have made this in
tuxedos in a sound stage, it would not have worked
as well.
Speaker 2: Right the road videos are they're classic, they're good too,
and it kind of it sounds like this one was
the one that kind of set the stage for that.
You know. We talked about Jonathan Kane being a devout Christian,
he had actually wanted to be a priest, went to
the Lady of the Angels School in Chicago about this, Yeah, no,
and he actually there was a huge fire there that
killed ninety five people. He survived that, but he stepped
away from his faith for a while. And then when
he was going through turmoil with Journey and going through
two failed marriages, he had this epiphany on the road
to Florida and he found himself calling out to God
and he joined this church down in Florida. In twenty fifteen,
he married the pastor there, Paula White, and twenty sixteen
he released an album of worship music called What God
Wants to Hear. It's a cool story. Yeah, well, and
he said, he said, looking back on faithfully, he started
to see it in a different light. And if you
replace the words oh girl with oh God, you've got
a Christian song, all right.
Speaker 3: So interestingly enough, Jonathan Kane wrote this song about his
then wife Tony Kane, this beautiful ballad professing his love
to her, I will stand by you faithfully. They divorced
like shortly after the song was released.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's terrible, which is terrible.
Speaker 3: And then he's kind of go up there on stage
and play this wonderful song that everybody loves about a
woman that is dumping you. You know, I feel bad
for him and it is what a terrible thing to happen,
all right, So that ends side one. Pushed up on
your tape player, Kick out your tape, flip it over.
First song on side two is called Edge of the Blade.
Edge of the Blade. To me, this is like the
biggest rocker on the album. I would call this heavy
for them. Neil Shown's guitar playing on full display on instrum.
Speaker 2: They're introing side too with a big heavy fist pumping. Yeah,
this is rocking out and it's an isn't angry song?
This isn't angry? Elf step here.
Speaker 3: He's not using his love song voice on this one, and.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you know, it almost seems to me
like he's singing to some record exec or somebody who's
making money off of it. Doesn't seem like he's singing
to a girl. To me, you know, the contracts and
lawyers and the champagne downtown. You're caught up in the
power and you better see which side of the blade
you're holding. I don't know, man, that's to me, he's
kind of angry at somebody who's taken advantage of their
fame or something.
Speaker 3: This is a head bomber. I really like Nilshawn's guitar
on this one. He's demonstrating what he can really do
with the guitar. All right. So the second song on
side too is a song called Troubled Child. Okay, to me,
this track sounds like it needs to be played on
Miami Vice after Crockett gets somebody killed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking. I was thinking. Okay, so if
Chain Reaction is like the working Out montage, this is
the song that plays whenever Rocky is doubting himself. You know,
at some point he's throwing his helmet, his motorcycle helmet
at the statue of it. That's the song. This is
the song that should be playing it is. I think
that'd be a great idea if we could just like
re engineer all of the music in the old movies
and just throw in completely different So totally could Yeah, Yeah,
that'd be FANTASTICA. So I'm gonna put this on. Two
songs off of Frontiers are gonna go onto Rocky three.
Speaker 3: Okay, that sounds like playing.
Speaker 2: This one is. Yes, it's sad and it's sweet, and
I knew it complete when I wore a younger man's clothes.
But to me it does again. It doesn't sound quite
like Journey. It sounds like the group's trying to sound
like Journey.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's got a darker tone, but the chorus is great,
and I think the vocals are great. It is very dated, Okay,
it's the synse and the tone sounds. I mean, like
I said, it belongs in Rocky three or Miami Vice.
Speaker 2: It's probably that sound on the tape that you.
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, if you skip past this one,
I'm worried about the next two on this side.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. So the next track that we have on
the album is Backtalk.
Speaker 3: Backtalk, heavy drums. I think this sounds similar to Jon
Jet's bad reputation.
Speaker 2: So this is the song that I play when I
get home from work every day, not for me, but
for my kid. Right, no bit of right. I worn't
all day, Megan A. Liven, No one needs your kind
of attitude, your sharp tongueece. This is this is another
angry song. We got a couple of angry ELF songs
on this one. And this is a guy who's he's
had his day and he doesn't want any of the
nonsense that he's getting. He walks through the door tonight.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm not a fan of this song. This
is just silliness. I mean Neil Showan's guitar solo, I
mean it's pretty good on this song. The drums are
a little bit heavier, you know, Steve Smith gets a
chance to show off a little bit. But for me,
this is a stinker.
Speaker 2: I really wish I mean the drums. For me, the
drums on this one. I'm thinking to myself, these could
be good drums if we had a better recording, like
if Mutt Lang were there and had the perfect sampling
of drums or something. I don't know, but that he's
hitting him hard. But the recording on this is just
not good for the sound of the drums.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't want to bash it. It just
lacks heart, But I do want to make mention. Okay,
Troubled Child is the one we listened to previously. This
is the one that belongs in Miami Vice in my opinion.
Then we have backtalk which we both agree. You know,
not that great, right, Doggy? Are those because those were
last second additions to Frontiers? Okay, and the songs that
they replaced. I want to talk about here once we
get to the end of this tape.
Speaker 2: It sounds good. Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 3: All right. So the fourth track on side too is
a song called Frontiers.
Speaker 2: We Thank You. This is I mean, this song really
had the potential, I think to be a big hit
for a Journey. I mean, it's got that, it's got
that solid lead, it's got Steve doing his great voice.
The only problem I think is that I have no
idea what he's talking about. I can't understand what he's saying.
Speaker 3: It's funny that you say that to me. This is
my least favorite song on the entire album. There's no
real course, there's nothing to scene with on this one.
It gives the album a good title, but it's my
least favorite track on the entire album.
Speaker 2: This is your least favorite track on the whole album. Yeah,
you like this less than Edge of the Blade and
less than back Talk?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Wow? Yeah, Now we're on different pages on this one,
my friend, we're on the same page as far as
there's a problem because you don't have anything to sing
along with her. And that is the difference that this
that makes this song not a big hit, had you
had a something that is understandable and sing alongable. The
rest of this song is great. The melody is great,
the instruments are great.
Speaker 3: That's why I listen to Journey. I want to sing
along with Steve Perry, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I guess, but but I mean, even if I
get yeah, yeah, I'd pick listening to this song one
hundred thousand times over either one of those last two.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that brings us to the last song on
the tape, song called Rubicon. Rubicon, in my opinion, is
the best song on site too, and it's not even close.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I don't dislike the song. I mean it's
it's all right. I guess side too is just not
a really a very good side. Honestly, this song's okay.
I can't say that it blows me away. I like
the guitar as it comes in. The melody for the
verse is kind of humdrum for me. The chorus is solid,
and it's got this junglesque kind of feel. I don't
know why I said that word. It's just got this.
It's got this. It has an eye of the tiger.
Not the song, but just kind of the attitude feel
about it, I guess. But this to me, again, it's
one that doesn't stand the test of time. It's still
gonna be one of those ones that I go, Okay,
this is a generic eighty song. You know, we're just
picking generic eighty songs.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay. In my opinion, I think this could have
been a successful single. I think it's every bit as
good as After the Fall. For instance, crossing the rubicon
means to make an irreversible decisions, kind of like burning
the ships. I like it.
Speaker 2: This song is good.
Speaker 3: This is a foot tapper for me. Put a cool
video with it. I think it's everybody as good as
After the Fall.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned that the two songs that we find
the least favorite on the album were last minute throw ins,
and they actually ended up replacing something else.
Speaker 3: Right, Troubled Child and backtok were last minute additions. This,
to me is the most interesting story regarding this album.
This was a huge success. I mean, this sold six
million albums in the US right charted as high as
number two on Billboard. But they put in two crappy
songs and took out two potentially I mean huge songs.
They removed at the last second. They took out a
song called only the Young Yes, and they took out
a song called Ask the Lonely. Both of these were
top ten hits down the road that.
Speaker 2: Right, And maybe who knows, maybe they maybe that was
their thought. Maybe they're like, there's too many good songs
on this one when I don't know that we're going
to have a hit on the next album, Let's save
these to be hits. You think.
Speaker 3: I think that that is a legitimate theory. Yes, we know,
we've got faithfully, we've got separate ways, we've got chain reaction.
Why would we try to make thriller when we can
stretch this thing out and make more money. I think
that's a legitimate idea. But only the Young you may
recognize it's it's on the soundtrack for Vision Quest. Yeah,
I had the soundtrack for Vision Quest. I love this song.
It is a fantastic song.
Speaker 2: So at some point, the band gets this letter from
a mother who's frantic. In her letter and she explains
that her little boy, Kenny loves the band. He loves
loves the band. All he wants to do all day
is listen to the band, and he's dying. He is
dying of cystic fibrosis, which is a terrible lung condition
makes it difficult to breathe, but like hearing Journey play
gives him light in his life. And she writes the
band to say, he doesn't have much longer and it
would mean the world to him if you guys would
come to see him. They read this letter and they
said let's go. Let's go right now, and so they
go and he's I mean, he's in his hospital bed
and they come in and his eyes light up and
his breathing improves, and he feels, you know, he's just
he's ecstatic at being able to meet these guys who
were his heroes, and it's like the pain goes away
for a little while. And then as it happens, they
happen to have a tape with only the young on
the tape and no one else other than the band
has heard this song yet right nobody's heard it. They
haven't released it didn't come out on Frontier. It's Vision
Quest isn't out yet. This is going to be this
is an up and coming and so they're like, would
you like to hear the song that we that were
going to release next, you know, on our next album.
He's like, oh, that'd be great, and they put the
headphones on him. And the way that Jonathan Kane describes it,
it's like it looks like he has gone to heaven
and twenty four hours later he went to heaven for real.
It a momentous and life changing moment for every member
of the band.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Jonathan kan when they asked him about this,
I mean he breaks down and not just not just
wipes tears, but is broken over this event. It's incredibly touching.
But the song has an interesting history. They actually sold
it to the band's Scandal, which it was on their
Warrior album in nineteen eighty four, which really yeah and
has Patty Smythe who I think has a one of
the best female rock voices of the eighties. Check it
out all right, So Only the Young would become a
top ten hit in nineteen eighty five. The other song
that was left off is a song called ass the Lonely.
This song was left off at Frontiers and placed on
the Twist of Fate soundtrack. Twist of Fate was a
movie that starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton. John remember that.
Speaker 2: One, No, did you say grease because I thought you
said something else.
Speaker 3: The song is grease lighting. No, I'm just kidding, but
this would become a hit from that soundtrack as well.
So so you have two vastly better songs. Ask the
Lonely and Only the Young left off of Frontiers and
replaced with Troubled Child, which used a term they're stinkers.
Speaker 2: These are stinkers.
Speaker 3: They're stickers. But for the sake of this argument, we've
got to leave only the Young and Ask the Lonely off. Okay,
they don't count.
Speaker 2: Nope, we're talking about the albums that came out in
nineteen eighty three and not the re issues that came
out in two thousand and six. We got to compare
apples to apples here.
Speaker 3: Right, yes, all right, so are we ready to get
down to it.
Speaker 2: Let's do this. It is nut cutting time, if you will,
think about Stuart Copeland's shorts, and that's what time. I
can remember coming over to your house for a run
one day, and I had the shorts that were like
a little the shorts are really usually wore, and your
wife went, we call those nutcutters. Here. We got to decide,
you know, looking at these two I'll go ahead, I'll
go out there, all right. So let's just let's let's
start with Frontiers. We've just to do a quick track listing.
We've got Separate Ways, Send Her My Love, Chain Reaction
After the Fall, Faithfully, Edge of the Blade, Troubled Child,
Back Talk, Frontiers, and Rubicon. To me, I'm really only
excited about the songs that have lasting value on this,
which are Separate Ways, Send Her My Love and Faithfully.
I mean, the other songs are all right, and I'm
okay to listen to them, but it's not like I
turn them up when the radio would play them if
the radio still played them, which it doesn't. So really three,
I'm looking at three songs here, Separate Ways, cent Her
My Love, Faithfully, whereas I enjoy the other songs and
don't enjoy a couple of them at all. Only three
songs doesn't make this a strong enough album for me. Now,
I will say Separate Ways is the best song by
the definitive early eighties rock band, and so that has
a lot of clout with it. I mean that weighs
heavy on the scales for me. But overall, when I
then look at synchronicity, I mean you have got several,
so it's kind of like it's kind of like, you know,
separate ways weighs heavy as almost as much as Mother
weighs against ony, right right, Okay, So then on synchronicity,
you have Synchronicity one, Walking in your Footsteps, OMG, Mother,
Missus Grindenko, Synchronicity two, Every Breath you Take, King of Pain,
Wrapped Around your Finger, t in the Sahara, and Murder
by Numbers. Okay, so one of those songs is definitive
for the band, and that is Every Breath You Take,
and it's the most played song on the radio. In
addition to that, you've got King of Pain, You've got
Wrapped around your Finger, and you've got Synchronicity two. All
of those are mind blowing hits. And I really enjoy
Synchronicity one, and I really really enjoy Murder by Numbers,
and I dig Tea in the Sahara. I won't skip
past tea in the Sahara. Walking in Your Footsteps is
one of those acquired tastes OMG and Mother. I'm gonna
fast forward through them probably every time. Miss Grindenko. It
just depends on the mood of the man. But overall,
Synchronicity is a better album. It's got more, it's got again,
a monstrous hit. You got monstrous hit on Frontiers, but
it's not enough to save the totality of the album
in my opinion, What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3: Sadly you've stolen my thunder. But here's the deal.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now, can I say this? Can I say that
when we started this out, well, the way this conversation began,
you were going year by year and You're like, here
are the bands that I didn't like, and when you
hit eighty three, you put the Police and I went
what And that's how this that's how this podcast became
a thank so go ahead, go.
Speaker 3: Ahead and talk about that. Okay. Yeah, So when we
started this podcast the first time, and like we said,
we had not had a prior relationship really with either
of these two albums, I would call myself a journey
greatest Hits type of guy. Right, give me the greatest
Hits album. I'll listen to Awesome, I had it, I
owned it, Police, I the Police. I had never really
had an album by them, Okay. I was familiar with
their hits, but never really fell in love with them.
They seemed a more mature band that was somebody my
mom or my uncle might listen to. Okay, So when
we started this, I listened to the first four songs
of Synchronicity. I texted you, and I'm like, this is
a landslide for Journey.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, I did.
Speaker 3: And I fully I thought, Man, what are we even
wasting our time thinking about debates on this? But I
listened to Synchronicity too. Then every breath you take, king
of pain wrapped around your finger. You know, I'm not
big on ten the Sahara, but Murdered by Numbers is
fun and interesting and sophisticated. Those are mammoth songs. And
when I look at Frontiers, if you have only the
young and you have asked the lonely in there instead
of backtalk, we've got a discussion.
Speaker 2: But I'm with you.
Speaker 3: Separate Ways and Faithfully are mind blowing songs. Chain Reaction
I think is good. I even like Trouble.
Speaker 2: Child a little bit.
Speaker 3: I like Rubicon a little bit, but everything else is
just kind of filler. So very surprisingly, I am going
to say Synchronicity is the better album.
Speaker 2: Cow I'm doing my little happy dance right now. Yes,
I'm my mind is blown. I'm just like, what what what?
Speaker 3: I'm surprised to hear myself say that.
Speaker 2: I really I can't believe it, Like I I, this
is must this must have been how you felt when
I picked Pyromania over Hysteriaiz, even though you still pick
Hysteria over Pyromania. It just the idea that that that
taking the time with both of these albums that you've
you went from. I don't like these guys too. They
have the better album than the guys that I loved
at the time. That's that's amazing. That's that's awesome. Man,
that's great.
Speaker 3: I think I think I texted you about a week
ago and I said, Synchronicity's got it sucks in me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I missed that one, because yeah, you
texted me today and You're like, do you know which
one you're picking? And I'm like, yeah, of course I do.
I mean, and and you had me convinced. You sent
me that Landslide text and I called or texted back
and I said, I don't know. After listening to the
first four songs, I don't know that I can argue
for Synchronicity. But once you hit Synchronicity two, it's a
clear winner. And then again I went back just it
just takes it a little bit of time with some
of those other songs, and you're like, no, these are
actually good too. Synchronicity one is a real good song.
Speaker 3: One of the things that kind of helped me make
my final decision is today I was listening to Frontiers
in my car and I wanted to switch to Synchronousity Nice.
Speaker 2: So it's nice.
Speaker 3: I mean, how can you really argue with that? I mean,
that's that's what my heart wanted to do.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, wow, Well that's fantastic. I cannot wait
to hear what you are listeners think about these decisions
and your opinions on it. Where do you put it?
Does Frontiers hold up for you? Do you think we're
crazy on picking the police? Please check with us on Facebook,
tweet us on Twitter that you can reach us at
Shirley Podcast on both of those formats, or email lists,
so you can email us at Shirley Podcast at gmail
dot com. But we'd love to hear what you think
as well.
Speaker 3: I have had a fantastic time getting to know these albums,
and I'm having a blast doing this I hope you
guys are having fun listening to us. Send us some
suggestions that you think would be good matchups. We'd love
to have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, we've gotten We've had quite a few folks
sending ideas and some of them, some of them were like, Yep,
that's right, that's what we need to do. Yep, yep.
Speaker 3: D appreciate you, ma, yeah.
Speaker 2: Youtuboe man, it's been great. We'll look forward to the
next one.
Speaker 3: Okay, we'll talk to you later.
Speaker 2: All music images and movie clips are used for the
purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with the Fair
Use Agreement under the US copyright law.