The World According to… Neal Schon

[tater1977]

The World According to… Neal Schon

Michael Leonard|02.24.2012

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Neal Schon turns 58 on February 27. Remarkably, Schon has spent 43 of his 58 years as a professional guitarist and songwriter. Prodigiously talented, Schon joined Santana at just 15 years of age, after reportedly turning down an invitation to join Eric Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos. Schon’s recorded debut with Santana was on the Santana III album of 1971, followed by 1972’s Caravanserai release, on which he also shared three co-writing credits.

But he left in 1973 and – with fellow Santana departee, keyboardist Gregg Rolie – Schon formed Journey. Schon has been the mainstay of Journey ever since. The only member of Journey to have stayed a constant in 39 years, he has overseen 30 platinum awards for U.S. album sales, 47 million-plus album sales, and iTunes’ most-downloaded song ever (the ubiquitous “Don’t Stop Believin’”).

Along the way, Schon also has recorded albums with Jan Hammer, Soul SirkUS, Bad English and many more.

Here’s a 101 for a guitarist who has never stopped believin’…

On joining Santana at age 15…

“My folks were very supportive because they knew that I was into it and that was what I wanted to do. I made up my mind when I was 13-14 that that was exactly what I wanted to do and I wasn't doing much else at that time except playing a lot of guitar. So when the opportunity arose, I jumped on it – and what a great experience!

“I would say to anybody who’s young and chasing what they want to do, if you have a great opportunity like that, do it! The best experience you can get is playing live and touring. The live playing really does wonders for someone’s ability to hone in on any instrument that they're playing.”

On his method of recording…

“Journey has never really gone into the studio, with the exception of a few songs, and ever cut rhythm tracks, or like laid down the drums and a bass and a rhythm guitar and then go back and overdub. We always just go in and play live, and I play live solos and then I go back and put rhythm guitars on later.”

On his use of wah pedals…

“I use it as a filter, and I did even back when I was 15 with Santana,” Schon told the Dinosaur Rock Guitar website in 2011. “ I’m not really using the wah wah like Cream or Hendrix, more like a filter to make it pop out. In Santana with all the percussion going on there were so many things going on, I needed to find that little tonal niche with the wah-wah.”

On his role in Journey…

“I’m not a pop meister,” Schon told MelodicRock.com in 2009. “I mean, we do play pop music but except for on a few little occasions here and there, is to play like a really melodic solo over Jonathan Cain’s songs like ‘Faithfully’ or ‘Who’s Crying Now.’ My role in the band is always to bring in the ass-kickin’ rock.”

On his guitar style…

“When you’ve been playing as long as I have you acquire a style, you do a lot of the same things that makes people realize it’s you who are playing,” Schon told Fuzz. “It can’t be like a bunch of fast riffs all rumbled together. There needs to be some breathing between notes, melody and a couple of blues notes here and there. Then all of a sudden, it sounds like me…. A lot of modern guitarists are excellent players that have unbelievable dexterity, but I don’t want to sound like that, I still prefer the older players that inspired me when I was younger.”

On Journey’s beginnings…

“We were known as the San Francisco jam band on steroids,” Schon told Dinosaur Rock Guitar.

On Journey’s journey…

“I think it’s important that we move in different directions. In the future I would like to be more experimental. I love the time period in the band when we were doing Frontiers and Escape: we were really experimenting a lot.”

On Journey’s rockers vs. ballads dilemma…

“I like playing it all,” Schon told MusicRadar in 2011. “But if I were given my choice, I’d pick eight rock songs and two power ballads. That’s the way I’ve always been.”

On the persistent questions about whether Steve Perry would ever rejoin Journey as singer…

“I tell them: Ask Steve. There was always an open door here,” Schon told Guitar Player. “It wasn’t like we kicked him out or anything. He just chose not to want to work. It was either we don’t work without him, or we move on and we do work. Everybody wanted to work, so we moved on.”

On his favorite records…

“They’re all really old records. Any one of the three Jimi Hendrix records, the first three,” Schon told MelodicRock.com. “I love all of Led Zeppelin’s stuff, but I really like the first record. I love all of Jeff Beck’s stuff, but I really love Truth. For rock records with vocalists, I think that him and [Rod] Stewart were really great in that time era. And I love the first Small Faces record with Rod Stewart.

“…I loved all the Cream stuff. I particularly loved Wheels of Fire, because that was the record that really sort of took me and stuck me in the improvisation world of guitar. Listening to that record I sort of figured out how I could move around on the guitar