The tour that destroyed Journey: “I honestly had to stop”
Everyone loves the thought of being in a band, but actually executing that plan and living that supposed dream in real life is a whole different story. Never mind just the perils of fame and fortune, but vying for that attention alongside a whole group of other bandmates is bound to cause its fair share of tension, and it’s the reason that, for many, it often all ends in flames. Take the case of Journey as the prime example.
For a band that was propelled to fame so startlingly quickly in the late 1970s and early 1980s, capturing the rock imaginations of the world with monster hits like ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’. But what came after the seismic success of records like Frontiers was, funnily enough, a whole new breakneck sonic adventure that ensued. It sounded great on the surface, but the reality was that the speed and the hedonism eventually took their toll, until the band reached the point of no return.
The breaking point came specifically as their Raised on Radio tour reached its culmination in the early months of 1987. After the best part of a decade pushing things to their limit, the mental effect ultimately proved too much for the band’s original frontman, Steve Perry, who was dead set on pulling the plug on at least his part of the operation.
He retrospectively told The Spokesman Review in 1995: “At the end of that tour, I honestly had to stop,” before adding, “I was suffering from serious fatigue, job burnout and all sorts of other things happening in my personal life as the result of the ten-year burn.”
One of the “all sorts of other things” which Perry glaringly omitted to mention was the increasingly rising tensions between himself and the rest of the band at this point – and the storm clouds weren’t anywhere near clearing from there.
Ever since, Perry’s relationship with Journey has been tenuous at best, and fairly nasty at worst. Indeed, perhaps what prompted his mid-1990s reflections on his original exit from the band was his decision to rejoin them that year, but this transpired to be only a short-lived romantic affair. Leaving Journey for good in 1996, Perry vowed never to look back over his shoulder, except, of course, where money was involved.
This was ultimately the cause of his most strained period with his former band, when, as relatively recently as 2022, he set about suing its current guitarist, Neil Schon and keyboardist, Jonathan Cain, as he argued that their trademark on the band was invalid. Although Perry eventually conceded and withdrew the lawsuit the following year, perhaps indicating that the worst of the storm has now passed, it seems unlikely that the original frontman would ever be seen rejoining Journey’s ranks.
As such, the sweet success of Journey’s 1980s heyday has been left with a highly dour aftertaste, all due to the wreckage thrown up by one man’s burnout from the band. That speaks volumes about the mental tolls and pressures of fame, but also exposes the classic sonic warning – that although bands can seem to be fighting for attention, ultimately all the heat often lands at one person’s door.
