This book was an eye-opener for me. I knew Journey had lots of big hits but, until reading Journey: Worlds Apart, I still considered them to be a Santana splinter group. And while that lineage is not inaccurate, Journey was beholden to no one but themselves for fame and success.
But no, that too is wrong. Manager Herbie Herbert ensured that Journey made it big. He never doubted and he never wavered. The story of Journey’s origins belongs as much to Herbert as to any of the band’s musicians, and his story is one of the many highlights of this book.
Author Nick DeRiso carefully tracks Journey’s history, which does begin with roots in Santana. Both organist Gregg Rolie and guitarist Neal Schon played with Carlos’ famous Latin rock group. Rolie was Journey’s frontman in the early days, but Columbia Records wanted a more visible focal point than someone sitting at the organ. Enter Steve Perry. The band never looked back. For a while, anyway.
That thumbnail sketch doesn’t do justice to the band’s tangled history, of course. But DeRiso’s book does. Actually, it’s two books. While the 400+ pages of Journey: Worlds Apart offer an unblinking prose narrative of the band, the very edges of the pages are also crammed with information, making this a first-rate reference tool.
Band members’ extra-curricular recording projects are documented in these sidebars, such as Neal Schon’s work with fusion keyboardist Jan Hammer. The pre-Journey background of each member is also detailed. Other band-related vignettes are found here with cameos by unlikely people, from Sylvester Stallone to the Foo Fighters. With the author’s ability to multi-task on these pages, Journey: Worlds Apart becomes a book you can either pick up and browse through for a minute, or one you can read with care. I suggest both since each approach is rewarding.
Every Journey release is discussed, including their first single “To Play Some Music,” which was ignored by radio. As someone interested in the charts, I found the attention to detail about the band’s records to be useful – including release dates, peak chart positions, and sales figures. Speaking of details, Journey: Worlds Apart is well researched and has more than 900 Endnotes of documentation to prove it.
Journey: Worlds Apart is also visually arresting. Along with album artwork and photos of the band members from different eras, an index of illustrations that Stanley Mouse created specifically for Journey is included. Visual references for bandmembers are especially useful when discussing some of the lesser-known musicians who pass through, such as early departures George Tickner and Robert Fleischman. By doing so, Nick DeRiso humanizes a group that some felt was interchangeable with other arena rockers of the late ’70s and 1980s.
The guys in Journey were individuals. The author makes a strong case for the abilities of guitar prodigy Neal Schon and for the charismatic stage presence of Gregg Rolie. Steve Perry needs no introduction here, but the book treats him as a member of the collective, and not as the reason for the group’s existence or the sole reason for its popularity.
All bands eventually have problems, and Journey was no exception. The book recounts how the group dissolved and rebuilt itself. Repeatedly. Perry was the most famous departure, but Journey has been dealing with personnel changes almost from its beginning. It’s a messy story, to be sure, and DeRiso does not try to hide the unpleasantness.
Fortunately, the unlikely discovery of lead singer Arnel Pineda on YouTube gives the band’s history a Hollywood twist. But it’s true – Schon saw a video of Pineda performing in Manila, contacted him, and Journey suddenly had a new frontman. Nobody was more surprised than Pineda. Except maybe the fans.
Pineda joined Journey more than 15 years ago, so the story doesn’t end there. And Journey: Worlds Apart takes the reader the rest of the way, through the highs and lows of an amazingly resilient band. Journey hits the road again this summer. See you there – I’ll be the guy up front yelling for “To Play Some Music.”
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