Journey- Frontiers- Neal Schon, John Cain, Steve Perry

When you are as talented, top-heavy with songwriters, and as hard working as Journey was from 1978 to 1983, a lot can happen in five years. You see, it was only five years time after their fourth album  Infinity, broke the band until  the deepest part of Winter 1983, when the San Francisco-based American juggernaut Journey released Frontiers amidst intense anticipation.

The rock world knew that Journey’s preceding album, 1981’s Escape, had spawned three Top Ten hits on its way to stunning #1 sales. Journey had already established itself as a tireless touring enterprise, a real “people’s band”, a perception validated when the national Gallup  Poll determined that the Bay Area quintet was voted America’s favorite band then. That fame in turn prompted the first computer video game named after a rock band. It was no surprise then when that success increased the demand to extend the already lengthy Escape tour, but what we outside the band’s inner circle had no way of knowing is that the extended time away from home was straining several marriages of Journey band members.

The skyrocketing album, merchandise,  and concert ticket sales were obvious, but  far less apparent were the exceedingly high musical standards to which any new Journey member, such as ex-Babys keyboard player/songwriter Jonathan Cain, would be held. Cain, band co-founder/guitarist Neal Schon, and former singer Steve Perry reveal considerable personal pathos during the Big Payday provided by  “Separate Ways”, “Faithfully”, and two more Journey hits which were inexplicably bumped off of Frontiers, “Only the Young” and “Ask the Lonely”.- Redbeard