A Conversation with Neal Schon – HuffPost 7.7.14

Mike Ragogna: Neal, what is it creatively that satisfies you, playing solo or with Journey?

Neal Schon: Well, Journey is more about well-crafted songs and well recorded and produced songs, and I think that what I enjoy about my solo songs is that I’m sort of more of a painter with a blank canvas and a bunch of paints and materials to work with and I kind of throw everything on there and see how it lands. It’s more experimental, definitely. In Journey, we do experiment from time to time, usually when we’re all playing in a room, which doesn’t happen a lot. We were fortunate to get together at Fantasy this time. We were there for about three weeks rehearsing and recording and listening back to everything that we were doing. It helped us sort of hone in on our older songs. A lot of times, when you’ve played something for this many years, they drift. Everybody starts playing different things, you get bored, so we pulled everything back and now I think we’re having really great shows because of fine-tuning stuff like that again.

MR: On So U, you recorded with Marco Mendoza, Deen Castronovo and wrote some of the songs with Jack Blades. What was behind the collaborating this time out?

NS: It was mainly a time issue for me. I didn’t have a lot of time in the studio to do this, it was kind of at the last-minute. I was just finishing up The Calling record, my solo record before this one. I was in Santa Fe and I was really enjoying myself and I just happened to call Deen and Marco to see if they were off because Marco’s always touring, he’s never around. But he just happened to be around and I said, “Do you guys have like, two or three days available?” and they said, “Yeah.” I was astounded that they were both available at the same time. I said, “Want to come up Santa Fe? We can work on something, I think we can work out a record.” Working with Jack in the past, he’s always very quick and energetic. I always come up with something great with Jack. I figured while we’re writing music and we’re in there kind of winging it, he can be listening to it and getting a jump on it lyrically. Some of the songs I had melodies for. I’d hum them to Jack and then he’d write lyrics.

MR: During the process, were there any surprises, like songs changing drastically from their original versions?

NS: There were only a couple songs that I had really sketched out with Jack before we got there. I had actually written the music for “Take A Ride” a long time ago when I was working with Paul Rodgers but it never happened. I just said to myself after I heard Marco’s voice, “Well, I think he’s got a bluesy quality in his voice and he could hold this up,” so we went at that lyrically, but I had the music already. “What You Want” was something that I had already done a demo of with Jack at his house and we pretty much just laid it down like the demo. I worked on “On My Way” up at Jack’s house, too. That one was put together very well. The rest of them were just kind of like winging it when we went in there.

MR: Were there any songs in particular where you might have used a new technique or technology than you’re used to? Did you take any different or bigger stretches onSo U?

NS: The song “So U” itself is over nine minutes long. It all started with this sound that I was getting through the effects axis–a piece of gear I use now–and there was this very cool sound. It almost sounds like a synthesizer with bouncing echoes, kind of like in a U2 sense, but a little bit more surreal. It started out with that sound and I just kind of jammed with Deen all the way through the nine minutes of it. I was going to chop it up and take some of the bits out, but then after I started overdubbing with it I said, “Wow, this is really cool.” I really like that it falls down and goes into this Electric Lady land vibe where it floats around for a second with a wah-wah guitar. I got it to do the 1970s Echoplex, slowing down the tape machine a little bit so it sounds like the spaceship is moving around from side to side, to simulate some of that stuff. I had fun with that track, stretching it out and making it make sense. It didn’t make sense when we cut it with just one guitar and drums, but with a little bit of imagination and some overdubbing, I thought it really took shape. Then we figured out where the vocals were going. I sang the verses and then I had Marco do his freestyle Curtis Mayfield-type bluesy stuff on the intro and the ending. Then Deen does all the high vocals when a track is up and moving after I sing the verses, he’s got that wailing voice that sits there on top. It was fun to do, man. I hadn’t sung in a long time and I’m not even close to Deen and Marco. Deen is an amazing singer, he’s been killing every night. People are wowed.

MR: What’s the story on Deen?

NS: Deen has been singing live with Journey forever. He’s like the little secret weapon back there. If Arnel is struggling some night, if he has a cold or a virus or something, Deen will help everyone get through the show. I think it’s so mindf**king when Deen does “Mother Father,” which is a song that goes way back. I wrote the music with my dad and then John and Steve finished it years ago in the eighties when we did it on the record. But the drum parts are very difficult, Steve Smith’s drum parts, and the vocals are very difficult, and Deen does both of them effortlessly. Deen is somewhat of a freak that he can do that, he really is. He’s so talented. There are other singing drummers out there like Phil Collins, Don Henley, and a bunch more. But those two come to mind and I haven’t seen either of them play intricate drum parts like on “Mother Father” or high vocals that are all completely removed from the drums. He’s kind of like Sting. When I first saw Sting, he was playing bass pedals and singing completely off the beat, playing these syncopated reggae bass parts and I thought, “Wow, this guy’s dexterity is sick.” Deen is like that. He’s kind of like an octopus, he’s got all the limbs going and the vocals going and they’re all doing different things. It’s pretty amazing to watch.

MR: Neal, you got a lot of critical acclaim for the album The Calling.

NS: Yeah, and there’s one in the can that I feel is the best of all of them. It’s just waiting for me to get a break and get better and get off tour and rest up and then I’ll head in and finish mixing that. It’s sort of my follow-up to The Calling. We’re taking it a few steps further. Actually, when we recorded the record, I was thinking more about playing live. It’s a little more of an organic record in the sense that it’s really jam-y. You can tell it’s a live performance-type record when you listen to it. As soon as I heard it I said, “I’m going to love playing this stuff live,” and I will do that. It’s Steve Smith again on drums and I played bass again. Jan Hammer is all over this record, he’s totally on fire more than I’ve heard him. The whole record is kind of like that. Igor Len, my other keyboard player, did some of the writing and embellishments and orchestrations. It’s not quite as layered as The Calling, it’s not as produced in a sense. It sounds great, it doesn’t sound raggedy, and I did less overdubs and left it more raw. I think it works with a record. That’s going to be called Neal Schon Vortex.

MR: You recorded a couple of albums with Jan Hammer a while back. Might this be a musical reunion for you guys or do you still get together for projects often?

NS: Well, Jan has been pretty quiet, not really doing much at all, so when I reached out to him with The Calling, I didn’t know if he would get back to me or not. I sent him the couple of tracks that he played on for the record and asked if he’d do a couple of solos and he never got back to me. But two weeks later, he sent a track to me that he’d played on. He’s kind of like that, you know? This time, I reached out and I sent him the tracks and he had them for a few months before he actually played on them. I think he just wanted to sit on it and think about it for a while. He just smoked, completely smoked the tracks.

MR: Does Vortex musically come close to the Schon/Hammer days?

NS: Playing-wise, I think it’s a step further than that. Everybody’s playing is quite a few steps further than that. There’s some stuff on here that’s really on the ceiling. I think it’s going to twist a lot of heads when this comes out, just from the performances. Everybody’s on top of their game on this record. There are no vocals, it’s just instrumental. Right now, I have eighty-five minutes worth of music, so it’s a double CD.

MR: Neal, you’re pretty famous for being a member of Journey, but your time with Santana is pretty important as well. And lately, you’ve gotten together with Carlos to make some music together.

NS: I love playing with Carlos and the guys. It was so much fun, and we’re going to do more. Carlos has a very busy schedule as well as me this year. When we get off tour in September or maybe closer to November, we’re supposed to both be off and we’ll go back in the studio again around that time and cut some more stuff. We went in the studio and had nine tracks before we both went on tour. This stuff sounds amazing and we know what we both need to come up with after listening to that. We cut a lot of stuff that was sort of inside the box and song-oriented, very good. But Santana is known for the other side as well, so I think we’re going to go back in and get a little more outside and up tempo. We’ll do about four tracks like that. When I talked to Carlos, we were both on the same page. I love going back and getting into that music, that’s some of my favorite music ever.

MR: When you get together with Carlos or Paul Rodgers or any other artists, do you soak in what happens during the experience playing with them and take it into your own projects?

NS: Absolutely! You’re as good as the people who you’re in the room with. That’s what I’ve always found. I’ll sound completely different as a guitarist playing with different people. When I play with Paul, because I was a big fan of Free, I go more towards blues and my roots, more of a flashed-up Paul Costas. I was a big fan of his playing, so it’s a natural thing to hear from me because as a kid, I was turned on to Free and that’s imbedded in my system. I’ll never forget that stuff.

MR: And a couple of your other stops along the way were being in Bad English and HSAS.

NS: Yeah, I love all those projects. Bad English, we were extremely successful for a brand new band. John Waits was a tremendous singer and we had some great songs. I actually went back and listened the other day and was like, “Wow, this is a Goddamned good band.” We didn’t quite see eye-to-eye on where we wanted to travel musically, which I think inevitably broke up the band. But our first record was very strong. The second record is very good, too. We went through a very weird recording process with producers and stuff during that record, it wasn’t as smooth. The first record was very easy.

MR: Where do you feel Journey is heading? Is there a game plan when it comes to Journey or, at this point, are you guys just getting together to have fun?

NS: We are talking about getting together and recording a new record. We just don’t know quite what we’re going to do. I think musically, we know where we’re going to go. We’re not going to try and reinvent the wheel, yet we’re not going to try and repeat anything we’ve done either. We did some experimental records back a ways, even with Steve Augeri. We had this record called Red Thirteen, it was this little EP, and then we did this record called Generations and Arrival. There are three records there and I feel like–maybe not all the way through the three records–there are some great songs there that could be redone, re-looked at and re-recorded with Arnel. That’s one idea that I’ve been tossing around with Jonathan [Cain] and he sort of agrees with me. Once we get going and the music is going, I know that we’ll write some brand new stuff as well. That’s just a given.

MR: Here’s a delicate question and it’s out of curiosity, not gor gossip. You guys are on a great path with Arnel, but will Steve Perry fit into Journey’s world anymore?

NS: I had been collaborating with Steve on a friendly basis just through email…it seemed like we were on a friendly basis. But he wasn’t ready to get together and he isn’t ready to get together. He’s said numerous times now that there’s no reunion and that he’s not interested in doing anything like that. When Steve left, he wanted to do his solo thing and I think he remains there. We’re fine, we’re doing great the way we are. I don’t think you’ve seen the massive crowds that we’ve had, but we’ve continued the legacy amazingly well. The door has always been open. I’ve approached him to work on a couple of things with me that were not even Journey-oriented, but he wasn’t interested in doing it. It’s fine, man. I wish him well and he says that he wishes us well.

MR: I’ve seen many iconic bands release projects that feature guest artists paying tribute to the older hits with re-recordings. Has that ever been a thought for Journey’s catalog?

NS: Nah. We’re not really interested in that. I think people resort to that when they really run out of steam and ideas. I’ve seen it happen. There are a lot of different artists that end up doing these records and it’s whoever’s album and it’s everybody on the planet on the record except for that artist. Sure, I see it happen all the time, but I’ve never been interested in doing it solo-wise or in Journey.

MR: Neal, what advice do you have for new artists?

NS: It’s a rough business out there. It’s very, very difficult to get notoriety as a new artist. What I tell my son who’s an amazing guitar player is just be seen as much as you can be seen, play wherever you can play and if you play well enough, I’d hit up every studio in the area and say you’re available for session work and just play with as many people as you can play with and be heard. With the demise of record companies and even clubs… Smaller clubs are the place for a new artist to play because you can’t play anything bigger than that with clubs for the most part. It’s really rough, man, everything is in the digital domain. Try to make decent recordings and use what you have. With the new equipment out there, you can actually make a great-sounding record in your bedroom off a computer…Pro Tools and a computer. I think it’s possible; the thing is just getting it out there. I think the best means of doing that is through all the media. Everything is media driven, It’s so different than it used to be. You don’t have record companies working it and A&R guys. It’s very difficult.

MR: Is there any technology out there that you’re liking these days?

NS: I love the Fractal unit that I’m using, the Axe-Fx. That unit is monstrous. I use it live, I use it in the studio, I have rows and rows of amplifiers, you can do studio effects on it, it’s a pretty amazing piece of gear that you can plug in and use in any instance. You can be live, I can literally just leave without a back line, take that box and a small case and a couple of guitars and head to Europe or wherever and plug directly into a PA and have all my sounds there. Traveling light is really a great way to go. It’s very road-trustworthy. I’ve used it on tour now for years and have never had a problem, which means everything.

MR: With The Calling, So U, and Vortex, it looks like you’re ramping up the Neal Schon part of your career. Is that where you’re heading now?

NS: It’s inevitable that I’m going there, yeah. It’s something I’ve been working at my whole career. It doesn’t mean this is the demise of anything. It just means that I keep adding more and more to it and I will find a place to go do that solo stuff, and when I do a solo thing this time, I’m going to have so much material to pick from that’s going to be brand new material and there’s a lot of old stuff sitting there that I could also play. The main thing for me will be being able to put together the right band of whom I’m going to play with and have enough time set aside to actually rehearse and learn the stuff properly and put the show together. But at this point, I feel like when I do go out, I’m going to have monstrous material to play live. Most of it probably will be instrumental. I think that the So U record, if we were to do anything with that… It was really more a band record than a solo record, except for the instrumentals that are on it. But Deen is all over the place , he’s doing so many projects. Marco’s in like three or four bands. I’m going, “I don’t know if I could put a band name on this record because I don’t know if it will ever be a band,” so I decided to make it a solo record featuring those guys. But if we were ever to do anything together, I think the band name would be So U.

MR: It must be hard to keep on a straight line with a solo career.

NS: With all the solo material I have out there now, I think the right thing to do before even trying to play any dates would be to do a live DVD in a controlled area, whether it be a studio or wherever, in front of a live audience. Do a live DVD and make sure it sounds really, really good and then you’ve got something for people to actually latch on to and watch and go, “Oh, I dig this,” or “I don’t dig it,” and “I want to see that,” or “I don’t want to see it.” That’s kind of where my head’s at.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne