‘I do want to get out there’: Journey’s Neal Schon cooking up plans for special solo tour

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Neal Schon issued his seventh project away from Journey late in 2012, and he already has another one on the way — and, perhaps, a solo tour, as well.

Last year’s well-received instrumental project The Calling found Schon reuniting with old friend Steve Smith, drummer in Journey through its biggest chart successes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The next album, set for release some time this summer, will feature Journey’s current drummer, Deen Castronovo.

Schon tells Backstage Axxcess that he’s hoping to tour behind the releases with both drummers, and perhaps some other very special guests. Marco Mendoza played bass on The Calling, while Jan Hammer and Igor Len provided keyboards.

“I’m actually talking with my booking agency CAA right now about doing a tour around September,” Schon tells Backstage Axxcess in the attached video. “I’ll have to see where Marco is, right now I know that Smith has got some time put aside — and Deen will definitely be available. But I’m talking to a lot of other guitar players. I’m not really talking about a G3-type tour. I’ve got a whole concept for it and they really like what it is, but I don’t want to tell you exactly what it is because somebody will beat me to it. I do want to get out there, solo wise, and I’m going to take the time and energy to do it.”

Schon added that he hopes to play music from older non-Journey projects like Bad English, as well as cuts from his two current solo releases, both for the Italian rock label Frontiers.

“I can’t wait to play this stuff live on stage,” Schon says, “because it’s really built for that.”

Next up for Schon, however, are another round of dates with Journey, the band he co-founded in 1973 after a stint in Santana. March will being shows in Australia, with concerts to follow in Japan, the Philippines and elsewhere.

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