Steve Perry

music after a two decade absence. We talked about the loss of a loved one that motivated that return, and we talked about the pressures and pains that led to that long absence, a time when he found he couldn't even listen to music, let alone make it. When Perry joined Journey in seven, he was twenty six and he had already been through several bands but never landed an album deal. For their part, Ernie had already recorded three

albums to not much notice. They were technically gifted. Guitarist Neil Showan and keyboardist Gregg Rolie had played with Santana, and at that point Journey was a slightly proggy band that sang about walking across the clouds and then backed it up with five or six minutes of skyscraping guitar solos, so they had chops. What they lacked was a rock

and roll hert. Perry provided just that. Yea, so how The first song he ever wrote with Neil Shane, Patiently, was packed with personal longing, both for loves and success. You listen to the lyrics, it's really a story about where I'm at at that moment, talking to them, about patiently waiting to join that banner, to be under the lights that they were under, or your lights inside of me.

This we bring to you. The opening track on the first album Perry recorded with Journey Infinity was Lights, which is familiar to anyone who's seen a San Francisco Giants game, and you can hear the classic soul music that Perry grew up loving in those opening chords. Once again, this song is packed full of longing, except in this case, it's not about wanting to be under the spotlight. It's

about wanting to return home. In some sense, those two impulses and the contradiction between them, would define everything Perry and Journey did over the next decade. He helped create a stadium packing monster of rock. Seven consecutive multi platinum albums, eighteen top forty singles, from the speeding ticket inducing stomper me Way You Want It Where to the slow waltzing Open Arms, which will be one of the cornerstones of the power Ballot Hall of Fame if they ever get

around the building. One should have been done. No Hall Magic feels. And then there were songs that combined both stomping and power balloting, like Don't Stop Believing or Oh Sherry single from Perry's first solo album, Street Talk. So Steve Perry was a guy who could combine prog rock with soul music, or the classicism of Bruce Springsteen with new wave synths and drums. He had a voice that

was operatic Freddie Mercury style. But one reason his music became a soundtrack to everyday life is that it actually felt rooted in it. It really doesn't matter that there is no such place as South Detroit. What matters is that there are lonely people who feel the way the small town girl and the city boy and Don't Stop Believing feel, and who want to both experience that feeling and get some relief from it. For the four minutes in nine seconds, that that song lasts. Now, there were

a lot of those kinds of people. Journey's Greatest Hits has sold better than ten million copies. But in February, Steve Perry played the last of seventy four dates on Journeys tour for their ninth album, the aptly named Raised on radio, and he returned home and for a long while that was it. He was done. Perry was suffering from what he describes his PTSD, and he went back to the San Joaquin Valley in central California where he

grew up in order to recover. And PTSD is actually something other musicians I've spoken with referred to when they talk about how difficult it can be to adjust to the real world after life on the road. In Perry's case, it was something more than that, a burnout so severe that initially he found himself unable to listen to any music other than the soothing sounds of ambient He spent time writing as Harley, caring for family, and trying to

reconnect with himself. Though he'd make another solo album in four it was a little out of step with things at the height of grunge, and though he'd reunite with Journey for an album in nine six. He did not want to tour for it. He seemed to be done with the hot light that he had been longing for back when he wrote patiently in ninety seven. But something

happened during Perry's time away. The music he made with Journey, critically dismissed at the height of its popularity, is corporate rock began to be more beloved, which is the kind of thing that does happen as cultural gatekeepers begin to change and the people raised on radio when it was defined by Journey to begin to make culture of their own.

In Perry's case, Patty Jenkins, whould go on to direct the blockbuster Wonder World, contacted him about using Don't Stop Believing in a scene for her two thousand and three independent film Monster, and shortly after she made the request, Perry turned up on set, asking how he could help her with her movie. The two became friends. Four years later.

Don't Stop Believing turned up again in the two thousand and seven finale of The Sopranos, after which it shot right up the iTunes chart, becoming the number three selling download twenty four years after its release, and the Journey revival would only continue from there. It's that that revival did nothing to coax Perry back into public life, but eventually he met a woman who would ultimately do so.

In two thousand and eleven, Patty Jenkins directed an episode of five, an anthology of TV movies about breast cancer and its impact on people's lives. Perry was visiting Jenkins one day when she was editing, and he was struck by one of the extras in a scene that featured real cancer patients. It was Kelly Nash, a Los Angeles psychologist. Perry asked for an email introduction, but Jenkins wanted him

to know Nash's condition before reaching out. She had been in remission, but her cancer had returned and spread to her lungs and bones. At that moment, I had the opportunity to send no email, pull back, no harm, no foul, Perry told Rolling Stone recently. I would just go back to my safe life. Instead, I said, send the email, and an email turned into a phone call that lasted more than five hours, and soon enough the two were living together. They had just a year and a half

together before Nash passed away in December. Dot wolf Fly Golden before her death Nash asked Perry for a promise that he would not return to isolation. In fact, she urged him to return to music. That's part of the remarkable story behind Traces, and Perry had already been working on some music before he began recording Traces To. The most heartbreaking songs on the album, Most of All and in the Rain, were actually written before he ever met

Kelly Nash. But one reason the recording of this album took five years is that Perry actually built a home studio so that he could work his own way, at his own pace, and he did that work very much

in private. Those who participated signed nondisclosure agreements. The album certainly has music of loss and heartbreak, but it also has songs that that had that healing vibe of Perry's return to his hometown, like Nowhere Racing, which involves the high school reunion, reconnection and some time in the backseat of a car. And then there are songs that involved both heartbreak and healing, like Perry's remarkable cover of the Beatles I Need You. That cover was actually a long

time coming. Perry had been thinking about what he might want to do with that song, written by George Harrison since he first heard it on the soundtrack to Help in nineteen. He told me about playing his version of it for Harrison's widow, Olivia, and about how music, something he swore he'd never returned to, became once again the most powerful focus of his life. Here's what else he had to say to me. I'm lonely, could be Steve Perry. Welcome to inside the studio. Thank you, it's nice to

be here. Oh, you've got the motorcycle boots and you actually ride. I do have motorcycle boots, but I sold my bike. I had to get rid of it. I was afraid I was gonna kill myself, but I did save my life. When I first left the band, first thing I did was go back to my hometown and jump on Harley that I bought. I never owned before. I bought a soft tail Custom was a beautiful motorcycle. I bought it and by Salia, California, and I drove it to Hamford, California, put it in a storage unit

which I rented, and it lived there. So every time I could have had hometown of mine, I just parked the car and jump on that bike and I'd ride it. Out in the country where the Vince posts and the jack Rabbits were of my youth. To be honest with you, man, I did that a lot back then. There was no helmet law. I was just long hair flying behind you. You know. I kind of helped put my head back

together again. Did you grow up riding? No, But I did have a Honda when I was a young kid, I had a Honda trail bike, so I used to drive to school. So I kind of like scooters like that. You know. Wait, so this Harley, this is like the fulfillment of some sort of it was it was. I finally bought a Harley and it was an Evolution engine, beautiful and soft tail custom had a Cabernet color tank

and fenders, just really beautiful. I used to drive out in the country and then after it helped put my brain back together and give me that comfort, I actually just gave it to somebody about a year because I just didn't think I should be on it more because

I'm I'm just not that talented writing anymore. Were in an accident, well, when I used to drink, I certainly would lay it down a couple of times, right because the truism is that there are two kinds of motorcycle riders, those who have been in an accident and those who will be in an accident. That's right, that's right. How bad was it when you laid it down? Well, I

was actually just coming out of a bar. I had had too many drinks, and I just went to write it and started and I lost my balance and then dropped it. With people who don't ride don't realize no matter of pounds, it's heavy, it's heavy. I had to have two buddies help me straighten it up. So that's kind of taught me that, remember when I and drink and ride. The thing Number two is that to maybe I'm just not that skilled of a writer. You've said that when you left the band thought this Harley had

helped put your head back together. But you've talked about that as a period where you had a kind of PTSD. I did what form did this PTSD take for you? For me, I could not listen to music of any kind, and I could not sing or write music of any kind. The only thing I could listen to was stuff that was called ambient at that time, which was like liquid mind. Steve Roach had some music out This was like ambient and there was no drums, there's no guitars, there's no voices,

there was no you know, anything like that. And it was just something I thought that, especially liquid mine, the changes of liquid mind, sort of we're emotionally putting me back together a little bit at a time. But it was quite some time before I could listen to the music of my youth, which was the R and B and said Cooks and all that. It took a while just to get back to that and just to stick

with that notion of putting your mind back together. That PTSD it sounds like also you were self medicating at that point, self medicating. I was not medicating. There's no doubt that before I even left the group, there were all in some sort of behaviors, okay, And that contributed to the emptiness. That was a feeling of disconnected with the passion for music. It was a pretty scary thing. So I didn't just go back to my hometown and disappear.

I I reconvened with some feelings and streets and the country roads and the old ice cream parlor. Plus I had at that time my father's sister was still alive, and I went and helped take care of her because she was in her nineties, and got her situated and visited her a lot because she was going from from one home of assisted living to another as her needs became more required for assistance. So I was taking care of her too. I was a thing I was doing

at the time. You mentioned the music that had first met a lot to you, the music that you grew up on. Tell me more about that. Who were the singers that you learned from. Oh, my goodness, the ones I learned the most from. We're pocket singers. They had rhythm in their phrasings. The Sam Cooks, the Jackie Wilson's, the Levi Stubbs from the Four Tops. Even Smokey Robinson in his own way was very light and lilty, but so so full. Marvin Gay of course, then later came

Glady's Night. Um. I love the Supremes. When I was growing up, you know, I was really big Motown fan. So besides the songwriting and recording of the music I grew up with, there was this other factor of what were they doing? Meaning, how are they recording it? How does it sound that way? And why does it feel that way? And how did they get that drum sound, and what kind of echoes on the voice of Levi Stubbs and the song Bernadine or Baby I Need Your

Loving There or the Marvin Gay Troubled Man. I mean, there was just another focus that started to show up in my heart of trying to learn from all that at an early age are production engineering. They were, but they were invaluable things that I thought I needed to pay attention to. And I started really early on listening to to the whole thing because I realized very early on, like about seven eight years old, why does it feel in sound that way? It wasn't just a forty five?

What went into this? Why does it come out like that? I wanted to know what's behind it? So I slowly started to just go to school, so to speak, with going into these tracks, listening to the echoes, is it stereo?

Isn't mono? My goodness's mono? Wow? Okay? And started really getting into why it works the way it does, you know, And then all of a sudden years later when the Beatles showed up, what I found fascinating is if you listen to Motown, most of those are done on four track, and if you listen to the early Beatles for sale record. It's four track because you can hear that they've recorded like three tracks and bounced them to the left of the band. Then you can hear that they have on

no Reply. For instance, they have Ringo and I think George and maybe Paul in the distance on the right side on one track, accentuating the downbeat of the chorus no we plan do. Okay, So you got ring on the right going and pinching the symbol with a bassed on boom. Okay. See you get that in time with what's already there on the left side when they get the basic. So they're accentuating with an accent stuff that works with the main track in the most cool way.

And then they have two tracks left of them to mess around and do vocals down the middle. Now what's really fascinating is if you listen to lead vocal of John in the middle, the echoes on the right, it's not on the left. So when they're mixing this stuff, these are the things. These are the decisions I've decided to make to give it spread, to give it this inclusive feeling. Dude. Four channels, four channels. What that means is that they had to really make a commitment. Once

you commit to these tracks, you can't go back. It isn't like today where you got tracks to choose from. You know, like we're recording right now, you've got multiple tracks we can choose from. No, you got four channels. Since we're talking about the Beatles, there's a Beatles song on Traces on your new album, Yes there is I Need You. How did you come to choose that one? What drew you to it? When I was really younger?

I love the help her, but there was one song by George Harrison called I Need You that was so beautiful and it was a Bossanova field. They were kind of into that Bossanova thing at that time. They did a lot of tunes like that. Though I liked it, I thought it was a bigger song than that. I wasn't being there rative. I just thought, my goodness, this is such a great song. I think it needs a

different treatment. And I knew that as a kid, so that when it came time to do the Traces record, So this is when you've been thinking about her feeling for a long time, then well that has been in the back pocket for years since I was a kid. So I turned to my co producer, engineer Tom Flowers, and said, Tom, you know, I got this idea. I got the sketch of me just with acoustic voice on one of my drives. Can I play for him? It's a Beatles song called I Need You by George Harrison.

So I played it for him and he loved it. So the next thing I know, Vinny cal Udo was over there recording some drums I think for no more crying. I said, Vinnie, I got this other song. Would you mind just doing a pass on it? She? Sure, Man, what do you got? I played it for him and says, oh, yeah, you know, Vinny Caludo has got a feel from heaven. So he went out there were the past just nailed it.

So from that point on, that song became what I always envisioned it to be, which is the piano and voice at the beginning, then coming in and growing and growing with background vocals. I wrote different background vocals at the outro then are on the original and with a drum break going into them. And it's on my record now. I wouldn't have that if it wasn't for Olivia. By that because I was only going to put it on my record if I got her. So you played her

the finished version. So I brought the CD into Olivia and uh, she turned it on and listened to the whole thing top to bohm. And I was very nervous because this is Olivia Harrison, you know, and I loved George so much. She listened to the whole track one time and she grabbed the remote and quickly restarted it.

And I went, oh, my goodness, that she hears something she wasn't pleased with, I thought, you know, And she got halfway through the second listen, turned the volume down and said, George would have just loved this so much. And I'll tell you what, I felt his soul just give me approval through Olivia, and I needed her blessing. So that's why it's on the record. You know. It's also interesting as well that this is a song you've been thinking about since you first heard it, that you've

had in your back pocket. As you say, emotionally but thematically fits a record that often deals with love loss, a record that you said would not exist without a heartbreak. I think that's very true. I've said it before, and I guess I should say it again. The heart isn't complete until it's completely broken, and until you lose somebody that completely breaks your heart, you're just not probably as seasoned or complete as a human being as you could be.

And I can only tell you that's been my experience. It didn't feel great losing Kelly. It was horrible. From time to time, I still go through the the heartbreak like it was yesterday. But that's just, I think, an affirmation of the strength of what we had. It's just an affirmation of that. But the record Traces is not all heartbreak. It's about rocket roll, it's about class reunion moments.

It's it's about we're still here, it's about you know, there's a lot of great music on the record, but there are a couple of songs that do deal with the loss of someone. Well, you just mentioned a reunion moment. I think you might be referring to the first track on the record, It's been Coming Sweat Again in the back seat of You'll call You Still Beck and the first words I know it's been a long time coming since I've seen your face, which is an interesting way.

It's a reintroduction for you. It's been a minute since we've heard from you. But that song tell us what inspired that song in Originally just started as a sketch with David Spring at my house, and it started to grow. And I love the words no eracin. I felt this way before no eracin no running anymore. That's how it started. And then it came time to do the verse that just came out. I know, it's been a long time coming since I've seen your face. Uh, since I saw

your face. I you can't remember now. So the song itself evolved into a reunion song where these two people meet each other at a class reunion and they get together, go outside and talk a little bit about old times. And they both have lives in different cities in the world, but they're together by themselves, and they get into her car and they go for a drive. And in my town, people would go smoothe at this once particular place. Is

that all they do? They just go for a drive in, they jump in the backseat of the car and you know, I don't know you. Lets you figure that out, Okay, I'm gonna tell you what happens, all right, Okay, Um, you were saying that where you grew up there was such a spot, Oh yeah, where I grew up. There was a place called Pier nine where four or five canals, irrigation canals converged, and in that spot there was actually a few oil drums out there where people could leave

their beer cans or whatever. So it was a very well known spot to park and smooch or whatever. And so that's kind of the the vision of what the spot is that they would go to in the backseat of her car, you know. I mean, I can't be the only one to feel this way because I grew up on your music and I grew up on my music. Interesting, well put, but to start with that kind of return to the high school smooching spot, as it were, right, there's something very fitting about that. Don't you think that

everything comes from high school? Don't you think that after we leave high school, all we're trying to do is become a little more powerful, a little bit more monetary. But the truth is we're still all in high school emotionally. I mean, there is the old saying about Hollywood being like high school with money. You know, I think that's true. I think rock and roll is high school and money. Oh yeah, well, the emotionally, I think the whole thing

Hollywood and rock and roll can be wow. Now that you mentioned I have a theory about, for instance, Hollywood, when you go to a set, which I did a lot while I was on vacation, by the way, because I love film and I love directing, and so many of my friends are directors, so I've been hanging out a lot of sets. If you walk onto a set, what's fascinating is the food that's on a set. It's children's food. It's a cookie. Ye always cookies doughnuts a day.

It's children's food. It's like a dream come true, kind of like candy store. So I think it's fulfilling this dream that you're living, the dream which starts with you can have anything you want, almost like a Pinocchio or they all go to the island where they can do whatever they want and they grow ears. You know. I really think there's some truth to that. So there's never never land quality and backstage can be the same, by the way, presumably along with the M and m's, you

have other delicious things that you can have. No sure, backstage famously can be that way. Let's talk about rock and roll. I want to go back to a moment April seventeen the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. It was the first time some of us had seen

you for a long while. And I want to go back to something you said in your induction speech talking about growing up being in Los Angeles in the mid seventies and going to see Journey at the star Wood before you were a member of the band, and I quote, are you fucking shitting me? Any singer would give his ass for that ship? I mean, they played so well. Now, Steve, let me ask you a question, Okay, is that the way you wrote it out in advance? I was up there and I just kind of turned into Joe Pesci

for a minute. Tell me a little bit about what it was like to see those guys at the star Wood whenever they were amazing. I mean, it was Greg Role, it was Neil Sean, it was Ross Valerie. He needs to be dunbar. I think George Tickner at that point had already left the group. So that was the lineup. Now you know that the band was originally built around

Neil Sean and that Greg Role. He used to pick him up in high school when he was like sixteen and brought him into Santana so that when Gregor left Santana, he brought Neil with him and they formed this group around Neil. So that was the beginning of Journey. And I would see them play all the time, and I knew people could get me backstage, and I got to sort of hang around and meet him and just sort of like, you know, make my presence like high, you know.

But they're thinking, who's this big nose kid, you know, what's he doing back here? All I know is I remember the Star with like it was yesterday. I can see that stage in the corner. They would be just cranking it and Neil would have one of these Finder amps leaning back and he'd have one strap plugged into a wal Wap pedal and we'd only use the wal Wap pedal for a tone enhance. He really didn't do a lot of my mom watch stuff. He just used it to like have its scream at spots or pulled back.

It's like a tone change. It was very, very creative. Killing his guitar was sore over the whole city of Los Angeles. He really was. It was amazing. So when I got the call from Don Ellis, who was running Columbia Records at the time. He loved my demo, but my basse player of it in the band I was in that he loved. I got killed in a car wrect the fourth of July weekend. So the next thing I know, I get this call from Don Ellis and he wants to know if I'm interested in the band

that's on the label. Sorry to hear what happened to your band, But Journey is looking for a singer and they want to write songs. They want to make up musical change. That's exactly what I was told. Sauce. Yeah, Okay. The next thing I know, I'm in Denver, Colorado with Neil Sean and we're rooming together after they had opened for Emerson Nakel Palmer, and we wrote Paciently. That was our first song. So what song? Shot? This? Sweep by?

And that's the song that you sat down and wrote together because you had this other band, So I imagine you might have had some songs in your back pocket already. Did I had great songs in my pocket, but they were not the kind of songs that the Journey was probably going to be good at writing or playing. Just out of curiosity, what kind of songs were they if you listen to my Steve Perry Greatest sits up and you'll hear that demo that got me the gig with

Journey is on there. It's called if you need Me Call Me. You should play that and we will say the truth. I started a pack when I heard if you need Me Call Me is a song. That was the first song that got me the demo action with Columbia Records. And that's the one that Herbie Herbert, the band's manager, heard and convince them to fly me out to right So you flew out to write with them. They were for LP and so you had yet to

perform with them. You just sit down. It's literally after a show and you sit down and start writing, just sketching, just catching some ideas. And I mean, he had these changes that were just beautiful. So I just started singing, here I stands so patiently, you know, for your lives to shine at me, for your song inside of me, this we bring to you. It just started to go.

That song just came quick. If you listen to the lyrics, it's really a story about where I'm at at that moment talking to them about patiently waiting to join that banner or to be under the lights that they were under for your lights inside of me, this we bring to you. You know, when you were writing these songs

that have never left the radio, did you know? No? No, I think that only anyone can do is chase after the honest emotion of making it the best it can be, just making it great and then turning it over and hoping that people get what you're trying to put into it. They all got that kind of concerted effort, including don't stop believing that one didn't get any more than any of the other ones, Like there's so many other songs that I love just as much, but that one has

been embraced by a large amount of people. So when you came back to recording, when you came back to writing for this record, when and how did things start? Because you've been working on this for a number of years, and several songs were written before you knew Kelly, Well, they were written before I met Kelly. The two you're mentioning is actually most of all and in the Rain, and those are the two songs I never played for

because they were about laws. Especially in the Rain is about grieving and laws, and I did not want to bring that energy into her struggle. She was already going through plenty, so that was the only secret I kept from her. Really, I wish you. After I lost Kelly, I found those songs on the hard drive and decided they now are about my life after losing her, and I wrote them before I met her, so it was kind of an interesting, bizarre thing, and so that's why

they're on the record. Then I built a studio and that took some time, and getting that dialed in the way I wanted it took some time. Once that was up and running with the proper equipment, UH started recording.

So this home studio is something you built to make this record, And when you were recording writing demos before that, I was recording in a pro tool rig on a laptop, but I had outboard gear annoy him and M forty nine is a Mike, and I had an a p I would call it a lunch pail, which has a pre amp and e Q and a compressor limitter in it so I can go right into the inbox into

my computer. And so the vocals on this record, a lot of them are just some of the rough sketches because the first time I sang it and had a magic to it. And then I started surrounding musicians around some of those vocals. I mean, I have to say, when you listen to this record, my first reaction was, holy sh it, it's Steve Perry again. It had been a minute. But the vocals are there. There is a certain difference to them. You've got a little more wisdom

in the vocals. Now. Yeah, they're a little bit more grainy, a little bit more spicy. I think, a little bit more soulful. I think in a lot of ways. I gotta tell you, I think Patty Jenkins is a big part of that. Who is one of my close friends. And I had played her one of my early sketches and I didn't know if she would like it or not. And I was afraid to play it for anybody but her, because I trust her. She had seen me go through

a lot. We were close friends, and so I played it for after we had lunch one day in the car and I looked out of the window to the left because I didn't want to watch her reaction. And after it was over, I looked at the right and I said, so, what do you think She said, I think it's amazing, I said, but the vocals aren't done and it's just there's a lyrics. I'm just mumbling this and that's that. She said. I know all that, but it just sounds so much like you. I know, I know.

I guess I had to turn all that thinking off because there was no way for me to leave if I was going to keep that going. Turn what thinking off? What do you mean? I guess to walk away from an amazing ride and leave the group and look at

anything that you're saying. I had to turn my heart off to keep walking away from the music business and including the fact that people love me perhaps and I just couldn't look at It's like any relationship, you know, if you're leaving a relationship and you need to leave even though it's I you love it, but it's painful how many people have done that, no matter what the relationship is. Bands are no different relationship and relationship. Sometimes

to walk away, you've got to keep walking. You can't fall back into it. And in order for me not to fall back in at that particular time when I left, I had to turn the volume down on my heart. But it's so interesting because absolute we understand what you're talking about. And at the same time, when you leave a relationship, you don't always walk away from a relationship thinking that's it. I can never have another relationship. But you left music, and for a moment that was it.

You couldn't hear it only because I was toast. I mean I was so ptsd burnt that whenever I started getting back into music, I would twinge, you know at that one. So when did that begin to change? And how a couple of years? It took good two years, honestly, two years out of leaving the group. I started to listen to music again, and and the music of my youth and and radio again. And you know, by then, by the way, Nirvana showed up, and I'm going, Wow,

good for you guys, man, Now it's your turn. Fantastic grudge love it, garage band, go get it, We'll get some. And so here came all the Seattle groups. So the music had turned another corner. I was just happy for everybody. I just thought, well, I had my time, now they're having there. So what began to draw you back into songwriting?

I think that the passion for sketching some rough ideas gave me a moment occasionally where I go, wow, that could be cool, and I would do what I call going under where I wear the headphones and I turned the echoes up in very very large amounts to where I can just zone out and pretend there's a landscape of possibilities in my mind, and I just love some of the interaction of the harmonics of changes and my voice melodies and see what actually becomes complimentary to those.

And then I listen and I wait, and I start to follow those little moments whenever they cross like that. That started to feed me some hopeful possibilities that maybe I could write somewhere music again. What about performing. That's something we're gonna talk about when I get back to the West coast. Right now, I'm just talking about this record,

and I'm so glad it's finally out. It's really been a long time coming, really, to be honest with you, and that's the most powerful focus of my life right now, is that I actually have completed something that there wasn't time I saw i'd never do again. And it's really crazy. Never say never, sometimes be careful. I gotta tell you, Steve, we're so happy to have you back, and we're so happy to have you here. It Inside the Studio. Boy, It's been my pleasure and thank you very much for

having me. We'll still for shot us fun. It's calling of you. We're Still. Inside the Studio is an I Heart Radio original podcast. This episode was written in did by me Joe Levy. We'd like to give a big thank you to Steve Perry and Fantasy Records. You can follow Inside the Studio on I Heart Radio, or you can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.