By Gary Graff for Billboard.com | October 31, 2016
With several weeks of voting still left Journey’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is hardly fete accompli.
But keyboardist-guitarist Jonathan Cain is thinking a bit about what will happen if the group — on the ballot for the first time ever — makes it into the Class of 2017, including whether glory days front-man Steve Perry will join the band for the occasion:
“Y’know, that would be a management question. We’re kind of on a break now so can’t really say, speak for him in that regard. Certainly the door’s always been open for him to join us any time he wants.”
Perry joined the band for its fourth album, Infinity, in 1978 and was with the band until 1998. Arnel Pineda has been singing with Journey since 2007.
Meanwhile, Cain tells us that Journey, long considered one of the Rock Hall’s greatest slights over the years, is happy to finally be on the ballot:
“It’s been a little bit of a wait. I think it was patience. We just had to be patient. I figured it would come around…We’ve never been the critic’s choice, come on. Y’know, they bash us in the 80s and every album we put out they just pretty much laughed at and it sold trip-platinum, and so much of that Hall is writers, critics. But what we’ve done over the years is quietly just continue to be relevant, so maybe they weren’t right about us.”
The Rock Hall’s five inductees for 2017 are expected to be announced during early December. The ceremony takes place during April in Brooklyn and will be filmed by HBO for subsequent broadcast.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist based in Detroit. In addition to Billboard, Billboard.com, and Billboard.biz, he also writes regularly for the New York Times Features Syndicate, Journal Register Newspapers, Revolver, Music Connection, United Stations Radio Networks and more, and for radio stations in Detroit and Milwaukee. He has written books about Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, rock ‘n’ roll myths and other subjects.
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