'Melody, soul and some fire': Neal Schon of Journey talks about stadium tour headed here

PITTSBURGH ― Perhaps you've already seen Journey excite arena and amphitheater audiences, though the group's upcoming stadium show, July 27 at PNC Park, will be a fresh experience for many.

Journey guitarist Neal Schon promises Pittsburgh area fans will be delighted.

"I have high aspirations for this tour," Schon said. "I think it's going to be amazing, and our fans are going to walk away very, very happy."

Journey will follow a 6 p.m. opening set by Steve Miller Band, stationed as the middle band setting up the evening-ending performance by Def Leppard.

Tickets are $49.50 to $259 with VIP packages nearly $550 at mlb.com/pirates.

"The chemistry is great. We know that," an enthusiastic-sounding Schon said in a mid-June phone interview. "We've already done two tours with Def Leppard, and they're great guys. It's going to be a lot of fun."

The last Journey-Def Leppard stadium co-headline, in 2018, sold 1 million tickets.

"It completely sold out and the audience had a blast," Schon said. "The whole place was lit up like a giant Christmas tree each time.

"Def Leppard decided this time they did not want to flip flop with us as we did back in '18, so we agreed to play in front of them; it is co-headline," Schon said. "But we've tested our music in the daylight as well as the night when you have all the frills, but it comes out just as good in the daylight."

Over the past three years, Journey has headlined arenas, supported by Toto, including a June 2022 stop at PPG Paints Arena.

More: Journey delivered what Pittsburgh fans wanted, and Toto did, too

On this summer's tour, concertgoers aren't likely to hear any new Journey songs, although the band's been working on a musical project.

"It's not quite done. And I'm not certain how do you get it out that quick anyway before a tour starts? So, we're not really concerned about it now," Schon said.

Fans can buckle up for Schon's fiery fretwork on favorite songs from Journey's Steve Perry days, like "Stone in Love," "Faithfully," "Separate Ways," "Wheel in The Sky," "Open Arms" and "Any Way You Want It." Schon keeps things fresh for himself by improvising solos and licks.

"I'm one of those guys who improvises quite a lot, night to night. I never play the same thing twice. You find ways of making new."

Journey's seasoned lineup, including '80s alum Jonathan Cain (keys), Deen Castronovo (drums since 1998) and Arnel Pineda (lead vocals since 2007) adapts to improvisation and any new surroundings.

"We have what we have, and it does work," Schon said. "We just got back from Scandinavia. where we played pretty much like a heavy metal festival in Sweden, and we headlined that. Everyone who was on before us was pretty heavy and we like killed the audience. You know what I mean? We do what we do. And don't try to reinvent the wheel. If we need to turn up the gas a bit, we do. And we have the material for it."

Schon's the lone original member, joining Journey in 1973, after two years in Santana.

"I'm here 51 years, and things are bound to change. They have changed," he said. "Fortunately, they've changed in a good way for us, so we're still kicking hard and having fun with it. But nothing ever stays the same. You see fans once in a while that are just glued onto the original band. I'm even talking prior to Steve Perry. And there's fans just not willing to move on from Steve to what we are now. And then there are fans who love what we're doing now. They are a lot younger fans, which is really great because they're really open to everything. They're not like, 'well-I-heard-this-back-in 1973 and you're not going to ever be the same.' Well, who the (heck) is the same. Nobody's the same. Nobody from that band is the same. Things change, and you've got to change with it."

Released in October 1981, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" remains evergreen, regularly getting a boost from new fans, as in 2009, when the Fox comedy-drama "Glee" pushed it to the top of the download charts.

Early this year, the Recording Industry Association of America announced that “Don’t Stop Believin’” set a new worldwide mark by reaching 18 million sales.

"'Don't Stop Believin' has become the biggest song in history, in every genre of music ever," Schon said. "That's just incredible and I feel very privileged and honored to have written just one-third of that song with Steve (Perry) and John (Cain). "Obviously, we got some things right."

When released originally, "Don't Stop Believin'" only reached No. 9 on the Billboard charts.

"Our whole catalog is like that. It's not all about chart position," Schon said. "It's about how our audience now perceives those songs. A song like 'Lights' will light the whole place up. Everyone sings at the top of their lungs. And it wasn't a big chart stomper. Neither was 'Wheel in the Sky' or 'Any Way You Want It.' And they're all hits now. There's very little radio left. People are just liking what they're liking, and I'm not complaining."

One of Schon's legacies is being a master of blistering solos that electrify power ballads.

He explains, "My style evolved. I started much more in a blues-R&B fusion vein as a young guitarist before I joined Santana in 1971. Santana was very much on the fusion side and all types of African rhythms and Latin rhythms and world music that they turned me onto. When Journey first started, it was like a spinoff. We were a high-energy fusion jam band from San Francisco. When I met Steve Perry and we got together for the first time we wrote 'Patiently' in a half hour. It was something brand new for me, and I felt at that point I followed my gut instinct."

Perry brought beautiful melodies to work with "that I really never heard before," Schon said. "I felt if I'm going to play a solo after he sings a beautiful melody then I should convey and take off of where he left off, and set him up where he comes back in. So, I just thought more symphonic, more melody and try to put some blues in it with some fire, too. And that's how I came up with the sound I've attained all these years. Melody, soul and some fire. Everything thrown into one basket."

Schon said Journey's 1980 rock radio breakout "Any Way You Want It" was inspired by the band's love for Thin Lizzy, with whom they had toured.

"There's just three chords to the song. I started with the rhythm that is on the record and we just felt there was no need to write any other sections. We just have it plow through and get a little choppier in the verses," Schon said. "Steve did an amazing job orchestrating that really well to where he didn't need a bunch of different musical pieces to that song. It was just more of a power rocker with some chunky rhythm and then opening up in the chorus and just becoming huge. A very simple idea but very effective. Rock and roll doesn't need to be that brainy, it needs to feel good. And sound good. If you can manage to write something where somebody's going to walk away and hum the melody, you've got it."

Schon hadn't turned 18 yet when he co-wrote three songs on Santana's 1972 album, a year after joining the band and playing on its hit "No One to Depend On."

How does a 17-year-old kid get thrust onstage alongside Woodstock guitar hero Carlos Santana?

"I was kind of known as this machine gun kid guitar player who played electric-style blues," Schon said. "Back then, I didn't really have a style, there was just a lot of fire. I borrowed a lot of licks off records like everyone does. The saying goes, 'once it's on wax it's up for grabs.' That's what I was doing. I was a kid sitting in my bedroom with a little record player just dissecting albums like Cream's 'Wheels of Fire" and all Jimi's (Hendrix) records. I learned as much as I could by ear by just trying to play their parts exactly, and then Zep came into play and Jeff Beck and I wanted to do a Cajun soup of everyone I was listening to including fusion guys like John McLaughlin and Miles Davis."

By choosing to join Santana, Schon turned down an offer from Eric Clapton to join Derek & The Dominoes, though not until after jamming one night with Clapton.

"Clapton said, 'Who do you listen to?' and I said 'Man, I pretty much learned everything I'm playing from you.' And he didn't believe me and so he handed me an acoustic guitar and I picked it up and played "Crossroads" note-for-note from 'Wheels of Fire' that I basically stole off that record."

Schon tries to steer clear of Internet arguments, though admits he occasionally gets drawn into a debate where someone suggests his guitar style isn't so original.

"I say yeah, man, it's all been done before; I never claimed I'm the originator of it, but neither are the people they believe originated it. It all comes from somewhere. And it's all been done."

People also wonder if it bothers him when Rolling Stone or other publications don't rank him among the greatest guitarists.

"I don't really care. I have tons of fans and when we play live, they love it," Schon said. "So really, being in a poll means nothing to me. John McLaughlin's not in the Top-20 guitarists' poll and he's one of the greatest guitarists in the world. I'm in really good company where a lot of my favorite guitar players are not in there. I agree with my old friend Eddie Van Halen who used to say you can't compare one guitar player to another. It's either good or it's not. You either like them or you don't. It's so stupid that people compare people, because it's an emotion, and everyone has their own way of conveying their emotional side through the instrument. It's personal preference for whoever's listening on the other side. It's all there for people to enjoy."

What does he enjoy most about rocking a stadium filled with people?

"Connections. That's the high point of when you're on stage knowing that you're connecting with them and they're getting it. You know when you have them when they erupt," Schon said. "You can make them erupt with a guitar solo; you can make them erupt with a hit song. It comes from a lot of different energy points the band has at given points of our set. It can be a ballad; it can be a rocker. It's just connecting with them. That's what we're there to do."

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Journey guitarist Neal Schon has 'high aspirations' for July 27 show at PNC Park