Had a gal pal back in the mid-’90s. She knew every single Journey lyric, which was a little creepy. I only knew the lyrics from the songs on Escape. We were foraging around at the local Salvation Army when she hit pay dirt: A complete Journey anthology, factory sealed. On cassette — how juicy is that? We both pitched in and bought the sucker. Next thing I knew we were were roaring down the highway in her Miata convertible bleating over the aural fall-out of semis and five o’clock traffic. Anyway you want it, that’s the way you need it — cue that heavy 80’s guitar. Crank up the volume, put the pedal to the metal, and remember all those Friday nights drinking Mickey’s widemouths in the cornfields just outside of town.
So. What happened to Steve Perry anyway? There’s only gossip and conjecture. I remember hearing something about a hip disorder that put a serious kibosh on his impressive on-stage shenanigans, then next thing I knew, Journey as I knew it was kaput. Somewhere in the cluttered jumble of virtual tributes to formidable lead singers of the 80’s, there’s a fairly decent fansite designed in his honor, StevePerryOnline.net. With lots of pictures. Talk about back in the day. To date, Steve Perry is the only human male alive who made muscle shirts and mullets sexy. He still kinda does. Okay, pretend I never said that (but only if you don’t agree).
Let Steve Perry be no woman’s guilty pleasure. Generation-X girls might have played lip service to bands like REM and Nirvana, who made relationships sound as exciting as popping boyfriends’ boils, but we cut our teeth on Steve Perry crushin’. Steve could whoa-ee-whoa rings around emulators who gave it the old college try. His readily recognizable whoa, in fact, deserves its own patent. Business method. Nothing sanguine or nonchalant about this man, oh no. After being fed a steady diet of passionate power ballads pertinent to pubescent heartbreak, no wonder the ennui of Smashing Pumpkins confused me. Au contraire, Steve sang straightforwardly about foolish hearts, open arms, and lovin’, touchin,’ squeezin’ another; he presented his case so plaintively and painfully you could feel it shudder through the walls like the college kid having really good sex next door.
We gals hated Sherrie, too. Sherrie, as in “Oh.” She of the tussled Carol Brady ‘do. Our well-contained chastity might have been the only thing that came between us and our Calvins, but we knew what hurt, and it was on MTV wearing polka-dotted tights. That and the knowledge that Steve was only slightly younger than most of our fathers was enough to make us facepalm.
But it was about more than just a sexy-sandpapery voice; it was the trade dress. Steve Perry, with his Bay Area sensibilities, personified the fashion of the 1980s in a rather unique way. While other lead singers were swaggering around in parachute pants and couture that could only be described as Flashdance for Men, Steve was pranced in tux tails, kimono shirts — perhaps a nod to Queen’s Brian May — and jeans that looked a little too tight. Well, okay. Sometimes way too tight in a way that made you wonder what Mama would have thought. Steve also had the easy photogenic quality of Edie Sedgwick and the hair of a Breck Girl. Joe Elliot, you don’t rock around here no more.
While Journey drifted into the annals of hard rock history, Steve Perry released a couple of solo albums, but he didn’t try to milk the life out of his former success. God bless the man for that. No genre hopping or impromptu career reprisals. No guest appearances on American Idol or Dancing with the Stars. Now, I don’t know Steve personally, but he seems like too much of a class act for that. He stepped away from the spotlight the way most of us wish our rock heroes would retire: Quietly, gracefully, and at the point at which his career has run its course. And because of that, he still has fans wondering.
Journey’s still tooling around the tour circuit with another lead singer in tow, a whippersnapper compared to Steve’s majestic maturity. Oh geez, okay — the whippersnapper would be my age, wouldn’t he? Old school Journey fans probably want to know the mastermind that greenlighted such a blatant hi-jacking of a wild success that had been laid to rest, at least to the public’s mind. This road show holds all the appeal of going to see Led Zepplin sans Plant or The Doors without Morrison. Or Chris Cornell singing rap. Oops.
Steve’s fansite features a picture of him with shorn locks, beaming complacently and cudding a tabby kitten rather than a girl wearing polka-dots. Aw. He looks like a man who’s simply pleased to have had more than his fair decade in the sun. To paraphrase Feynman’s wife, what does he care what other people think? He probably has enough gold records to use as a formal place setting for twelve.
I say keep ’em wondering, Steve.
