![]() ![]() “I am excited to be bringing the audience along on this incredible story with my partners at Warner Bros who have been a leading champion of diverse voices in front and behind the camera,” he told Deadline. Plus I have been a fan of Journey’s music since I can remember.”īefore Crazy Rich Asians, Chu directed other Hollywood films such as Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, Now You See Me 2, Step Up 2: The Streets, and G.I. He added: “An unlikely hero, an undeniable talent, the power of music and a worldwide stage (literally) has (sic) all the ingredients I love about movies. When Pineda became part of the band - which also includes Ross Valory, Jonathan Cain, and Steve Smith - the group sold tickets as much as it did in their glory days in the 1980s.Ĭhu’s Crazy Rich Asians was one of this year’s highest-grossing films and earned more than $35million at the United States box office in its first five days. Perry officially exited the band in 1998 due to a hip injury which prevented him from touring. Pineda was then hired as the band’s new lead singer in 2008 after Schon found that he had a strikingly similar sound to Steve Perry, the band’s former frontman. Journey guitarist Neal Schon found Pineda on YouTube after seeing him cover American songs which included the band’s hit Don’t Stop Believin’. Pineda began his career singing at a pizza parlor in Manila as a teen and suffered from drug addiction while he was still a struggling singer. “ need to reach out to me #MrJonMChu coz I’m right here waiting,” he said. He shared that he was just waiting for Chu or Warner Bros to contact him. but you need to reach out to me #MrJonMChu coz im right here waiting. I think it’s gonna be an interesting evening.If this article is even just half-true …im quite honored.and should be an exciting movie to do. Who knows? I would be surprised if it didn’t happen, but I’ll deal with it whichever way. “I suppose we’ll hear something about it a day before or the day of. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” Schon said. It was enough to dispel rumors that his voice is shot, and now that Journey is getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame there’s a tremendous opportunity for him to finally get back onstage with Journey, even if it’s just for a couple of songs. He’s kept a very low profile since wrapping up a short solo tour in 1995, but in 2014 he did reappear to sing a few songs with the Eels. Hovering over all of this is the mystery of Steve Perry. Now that people know him and have seen him so many times, they understand him and they believe it. “If it wasn’t for me finding Arnel, who knows where we’d be right now,” Schon recently told Rolling Stone. The band even got booked on Oprah and became a subject of a documentary, helping Journey sell more tickets than they had since Perry left. Dates were soon booked all over the world, and the story of an unknown Filipino fronting a major rock band was an irresistible story for the media. Check out video right here of “Don’t Stop Believin'” from that big night. It was a bold move to debut a new singer in front of such a large audience, but Pineda was quite up to the task. Journey’s first gig with Pineda took place February 21st, 2008 at the Viña del Mar Festival in Chile. (Check out this interview for Hunsicker’s take on the situation.) They flew him to California for an audition and came close to having him on the dotted line, but it ultimately collapsed. Out of desperation they turned to YouTube and discovered Jeremey Hunsicker, the frontman of the Journey tribute band Frontiers. The public was hungry for more Journey, but they were a band with a major lead singer problem. The season finale of The Sopranos later that year kickstarted a wave of “Don’t Stop Belivin'” mania that continued in the following years when the song appeared in Rock of Ages, Glee and every karaoke bar on the planet. By the end of 2007 he was gone and Journey seemed to be headed into oblivion. Jeff Soto stepped in for a couple of years, but he didn’t sound much like Perry and the fans never really accepted him. Frustrated with the wait, they hired a soundalike named Steve Augeri (nicknamed “Steve Perry with a perm” by the fans) and toured steadily for eight years, but vocal problems and allegations of lip-syncing surfaced in 2006 and Augeri’s tenure ended. They came close to their first tour since 1986 just a couple years earlier, but Perry injured his hip during a hike in Hawaii and needed major surgery. Journey faced a very hard road back to the top after parting ways with Steve Perry in 1998. ![]()
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