MR

https://youtu.be/TmTuynp-P_Y?si=laRtP3GhT6pspC3G

From JSS's social media:

"A couple pics from the jam last night, video coming soon, I'm waiting for the quality clips to post...I sang Stone In Love (Journey) 1st dueting with my bro Paulie Z, Nuno Bettencourt, Phil X, Billy Sheehan, Matt Starr and Sven Martin."

Couple things.

Love JSS. Dang it.
Idea...hire two lead singers to share the load and some backup singers and a rhythm guitar player. This, plus Deen and you would have an awesome sounding vocal sound to go along with Neal's playing. Be like a full Pink Floyd production.
Hearing accomplished guitar players trying to play Neal gives me even more appreciation for Neal.

Having JSS back in Journey would be most welcome. Deen and him together would be a great vocal team plus he's got great stage presence, which is lacking in the band today. Basically, they would have a frontman again. Perry, Augeri and JSS are all natural frontmen. Arnel is doing a lot of jumping around but his stage presence is closer to that of an excited fan being let up onstage than actually being the frontman.

danielb wrote:Arnel is doing a lot of jumping around but his stage presence is closer to that of an excited fan being let up onstage than actually being the frontman.

Brave opinion. You're not wrong tho.

If someone is both a great singer and a great frontman at the same time, then that's great. But singing should always be without question the most important aspect of being a lead singer in a band. I ultimately don't care how great of a frontman someone is if they aren't a great singer. Or, even if they are a great singer in general, but can't do justice to the songs that they are singing.

Which raises the question, does Arnel do the songs justice? The combination of not having English as his first language and Jon writing the lyrics for him makes it an uphill climb. He's great at covering the back catalogue but I don't hear him owning it.

danielb wrote:Which raises the question, does Arnel do the songs justice? The combination of not having English as his first language and Jon writing the lyrics for him makes it an uphill climb. He's great at covering the back catalogue but I don't hear him owning it.

I will say that he has been struggling a lot lately. But was he doing them justice for most of his time in Journey? Yes, absolutely he was!

danielb wrote:Which raises the question, does Arnel do the songs justice? The combination of not having English as his first language and Jon writing the lyrics for him makes it an uphill climb. He's great at covering the back catalogue but I don't hear him owning it.

Arnel did the songs justice for a long time

danielb wrote:Which raises the question, does Arnel do the songs justice? The combination of not having English as his first language and Jon writing the lyrics for him makes it an uphill climb. He's great at covering the back catalogue but I don't hear him owning it.

Starting out, he hit the notes and threw his heart into the soaring ballads, but I share some of the same reservations you mentioned. Always have.

Granted, the songs on Freedom are not strong enough musically, but the combination of Arnel not being a native English speaker and Jon’s lyrics being so full of cliches, sends the music straight into Muzak land. In through one ear and out through the other. In that sense, Journey has really suffered from the lead singer change and Neal’s and Jon’s fractured relationship. They should have stuck with JSS and assisted him vocally (Deen and Jason).

I love JSS, but I think he would’ve cooked his voice a lot sooner than Arnel. I’m happy JSS didn’t get the job just because he’s released a lot of excellent music since moving on.