‘He yearns to do his own music’: Is Journey’s Arnel Pineda tiring of the Steve Perry comparisons?

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Arnel Pineda has recorded two albums of original music with Journey, dating back to 2008’s Revelation. Still, the bulk of the band’s legacy — and his performances — are rooted in the Steve Perry era.

The director of Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey, which chronicled Pineda’s meteoric rise from unknown Filipino singer to Journey frontman, won’t go so far as to admit that he chafes in this situation. But Ramona Diaz says it ultimately puts an expiration date on the collaboration.

She says Pineda wants to make his own mark, free of the Perry mystique, one day.

“He knows that there is life after Journey,” Diaz says. “He talks about: ‘After this, I’m going to make my own music.’ So, I think he’s looking forward — not like looking forward, and every day yearning — but I think he knows there will be a Chapter 2 of Arnel Pineda, which will be his own music.”

Pineda has had his own successes with Journey along the way. 2011’s Eclipse became his second consecutive Top 15 album with Neal Schon and Co. Revelation has gone platinum — the first such success for Journey since the Perry finale Trial by Fire, back in 1996. But comparisons remain, even as Pineda establishes his own stage persona. After all, night after night, he’s primarily reanimating someone else’s work in concert.

“Arnel, in a way, will never be satisfied — and he says that in the film,” Diaz says. “So, I think he yearns to do his own music.”

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