It’s me again…

Wow…I can’t believe I fell asleep and woke up and it’s already almost May! Amazing how time flies. It’s been an incredibly busy first quarter though, and despite the fact that things are going to get even crazier soon, it’s time I took up the pen again, just to keep up appearances and the like…

So…Does anyone read this? Testing?

Anyway, the big news over the past several months is that the song I co-wrote with Neal and Jonathan during my brief tenure over at Nomota, LLC (otherwise known as Journey), has been recorded by the new lineup and included on the new 3 disc package! The CD/DVD package is titled Revelation, and it consists of 11 new songs, 11 rerecorded Journey classics, and a live DVD from a recent performance in Las Vegas!

The song, “Never Walk Away,” is an upbeat, classic sounding Journey tune reminiscent of “Be Good To Yourself.” At first I detected strains of “Beverly Hills 90210″ in there as well, but I don’t notice that anymore. It’s one of the first singles released to radio, so there will be airplay on this record, and I WILL cross my fingers that Journey gets a hit with this one!

So a little back story on the tune…Neal had demo’d this tune and another one on his Boss home recording setup and brought the instrumental into rehearsals…I think the consensus right away was that this had a real Journey vibe to it, but had a little more of an edge…Neal was feeling some Foo Fighters on this one…With maybe a bit of The Fray thrown in for good measure. I really felt the “Be Good To Yourself” theme throughout the song, which is obvious when you listen to it. But my initial thought was, “What a great idea…Go back to the classic Journey sound with a song that will be immediately recognizable as Journey when it comes on the radio!” Let’s not confuse folks, let’s make it clear that there’s a new Journey CD out!

So Neal laid out some basic ideas for Ross and Deen, and Jonathan put his patented piano/synth pad throughout the tune, and it was basically run through about 3 times before Jonathan recorded a really decent take of the band. I hung out with a SM58 mic with Neal and Jonathan in the control room while Ross and Deen did their stuff in the drum room. What was surreal was standing next to Neal Freakin’ Schon, who was kicked back in a Herman Miller office chair with his strat plugged into a Vox Tonelab pedal, just chugging along and playing this song just as naturally as if he were breathing. It was pretty thrilling, actually.

So I da-da-da-da-da’d a melody along with the guys, keeping the tag line “da da da, Never walk away…” and just figured I’d work on some lyrics that night…We plowed through another tune that was already finished, “Where Did I Lose Your Love,” (which is also on the new record), and came back the next day to really work on some vocals.

So Jonathan had listened to “Never Walk Away” that evening and put together a pretty good lyrical outline based on that premise. I was amazed that the guy could spend a few hours with an idea and come up with such a fully fleshed out outline. We went over the lyrics and pulled some things out, changed around some others, and came up with a background vocal element that I thought paid homage to that classic Perry sound, and did a rough vocal take. After singing for 4 days nonstop, it wasn’t my best studio voice, but hey…I’d get back to it and really flesh it out when I got back to Virginia.

So fast forward to March, and I haven’t heard from Journey in about 5 months…I get a phone call while I’m in a regional sales meeting from Nancy in Journey’s accounting office, telling me they recorded “Never Walk Away,” and I’m in for a third of publishing! That was one of those “I’ll never forget where I was” moments…Anyone in corporate america understands the grind of regional sales meetings and strategy seminars and the endless hours of corporate hotel ballroom tables and notepads, and can appreciate the feeling I had for the remainder of that meeting.

So the record’s coming out June 3rd. Exciting news. I actually talked to Jonathan today for a good while on the phone about some publishing questions, and just catching up in general. We had a really good conversation, and I’m optimistic that we’ll continue some sort of relationship in the future. I even got a text from Neal this weekend as well…It’s been a good weekend.

So now on Tuesday I go under the knife…Removing a nasal polyp the size of an almond, doing a deviated septum removal, and opening my turbinates, whatever the hell those are. The good people at Duke Voice Center know what they are doing, but I’m not looking forward to someone putting a jackhammer up my nose.

Somebody wake me up by Memorial Day…

~ by bullmuse on April 28, 2008.