MR

Here's Neal Schon discussing how "Don't Stop Believin'", "Open Arms", and "Wheel In The Sky" were written on Fuse TV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1aJ2X8IRZg


Neal Schon interview at NAMM 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JmSM0YI9o

Neal Schon Budokan 1983 Japan interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mCWssDp11w

Jonathan Cain talks about Neal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTKIJVijmpk

Barbara Schon interview from Winter Wonderland Wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuLeed56nRU

Neal should start more of his answers with "You know what?" or "You know?"

Sounds like a lot to look forward to. Thanks for sharing the article!

Not a peep about new Journey tunes. You got Neal, Jack Blades, and Deen Catronovo jamming and writing together - those three guys could make a kick-ass Journey record.

They interviewed all the members of HSAS. I only included Neal's here. It's a lot to copy and paste.




Neal Schon

Neal Schon’s idea of “taking some time to stop and smell the roses” is clearly different than most people’s. When he’s not on the road, chances are he’s locked himself into a studio somewhere to record another album or three. His tireless work ethic hasn’t changed a lot in the three decades since he found a bit of time to work on the HSAS project, in between touring and recording commitments with Journey — who, as you might recall, were rather insanely popular in 1983 when the HSAS idea was conceived:

Let’s talk about the HSAS project. How did it all come together?

Sammy had a little time period where he was off and so did I. I think we had about a month altogether or three weeks. We always wanted to collaborate and work on something together, because I’d been jamming with Sammy forever, you know? If he was in town, I’d go play with him, whether it was Winterland or even the Cow Palace in San Francisco. We usually would jam on a Montrose song like ‘Rock Candy.’

Then I played on a couple of Sammy’s records. We just decided to work together and do something and at that point, I suggested Michael Schrieve — because I wanted it to be a bit progressive and not so straight ahead. Michael did bring that to the table, which I was happy about. Kenny Aaronson, I’d seen him — he had opened up with Billy Squier numerous times for Journey in the ‘80s, so I thought Kenny was a very strong player and he had a cool vibe.

We just called the guys and we got together, pretty much like I did on these last two records. At that time, I had a rehearsal place in Oakland that Journey used for years and before that it was Graham Central Station, Larry Graham’s place. When Larry moved out of it, I took it over and basically Journey rehearsed all of the records there for years and years, before we would go in the studio. We’d get ready for touring in there. I went in there with Sammy, Kenny and Michael and we just started writing on the spot. We wrote for a week and then we rehearsed for a week, just playing all of the material from beginning to end like we were going to go play live because that’s definitely what we did. We went in the studio and added some overdubs at the end, but really pretty much it was [live]. We had two shows to get it right and some of it I think we got right, and some of it got close to being right.

So we recorded two shows and we played I believe, three shows. One was at the Warfield, a club in San Francisco, and then one was in Marin County and then one was in San Jose. I believe we used most of the San Jose show, if not all of it. You know, we threw it together. We wrote it in about a week and we rehearsed for a week and then we went and we played. That was that. Then Sam left me in the studio to mix everything. [Laughs.]

Watching the live video, the chemistry between the band was really evident. How long did it take for you guys to find the groove and for things to gel?


Really, no time at all. It was just a matter of trying to write very quickly and tighten up the arrangements. It was a lot to remember in two weeks, just to write it from nowhere and then arrange and rehearse it to where we could play live. Some of it could have been actually much better had we had a little bit more time. You know, [to] get in the studio before we went to play live. A lot of times I listen to it and I really love it, but I wish we would have went in and made a studio record. But it is what it is — it’s real. It’s definitely for real.
What led to the idea of recording the material live?
We thought it would be the quickest way to actually record. When you’re in the studio, obviously you work at things and try to get it sounding better, and we figured that nobody had the time to do that and by the time we would get back to it and [all] be available to work on something — nothing looked even remotely close for my schedule or Sammy’s, so we just chose to go live with it. We said, “It’s a live progressive rock record. Let’s just go live and what we get is what we get.” I kind of like it that it’s just kind of like, “Throw it out there and see what happens.”
Why do you think it was such a short-lived project?
Well, because of my schedule and Sammy’s schedule — and then of course, you know, Sammy got into Van Halen shortly after that, and it was really wild. [Eddie Van Halen] and I used to hang out all of the time when he was in town and this one particular night, I had just finished the record and I went to the Cow Palace to see Van Halen and we were hanging out because he wanted to go back to the hotel and hang and I said, “You know, I’ve got some new music I want to play for you.” He had a boombox in his room and we were hanging in there in his room partying and listening and he was like, “Who’s that vocalist?” I’m like, “That’s Sammy Hagar” — and he was like, “Wow, I’ve never heard of him before, but he sounds amazing.”
He kept on rewinding and going back and listening to one guitar riff over and over, and then the vocal over and over and the next thing you knew, it was the wee hours of the morning — like 6:00AM or something in his room. I drove home and he was moving on to the next city. [Then] the next thing you knew, Sammy was in Van Halen. It was wild. I think had I not played the material for Ed, it might not have come down like that, because he didn’t know who Sammy was at that point.
Then he went in and listened to all of the solo stuff and you started seeing him show up at Sammy’s gigs and jamming on some of his material shortly after that, after I had played him HSAS. Sam and I have talked about it and he said that he felt that had he never done the record with me that he didn’t know if he would have been prepared or ready to do a Van Halen record.



We can thank you for Van Hagar. I’ll give you a thumbs up for that.

You know, things happen because other things happen. That’s the way life is and that was a cool correlation. I always enjoy working with Sammy.

Years later after HSAS, you and Sammy got together to do the brief Planet US project. Was that a bit of an attempt to finish what you’d started with HSAS?

Well, you know, it was the beginning of a new era and it was wild, man. The two songs that I wrote with Sammy and recorded with Deen [Castronovo] and Michael [Anthony], I thought just sounded monstrous. We had the opportunity to play once. We played in the Bay Area at the Bammies and just ripped the place apart. I’m telling you, it was like nothing I’d ever seen, and I’ve played live with a lot of different bands at the Bammies.
This audience had never heard that material before and the place went ballistic when we got done playing those two songs onstage and I went, “Wow.” I was going, “This is really going to do something” and then Sam kind of started [saying] that we should add another guitar player just to make it big and fat — another name guitar player. So I recall that we were talking to Slash and I spoke to Slash a bunch of times.

That almost actually happened and then Slash was going to be doing what he was doing, and it just didn’t work out. I kept on mentioning to Sammy about Joe Satriani, and Joe and I being friends and that I thought Joe would be great. We did get together and we played a little bit. But it wasn’t happening in the studio where we went in Sausalito when we jammed together for the first time. It wasn’t the opportune place for us to hear each other and play. So it was kind of weird and my rig was kind of messed up. I don’t know what was wrong with it, but it just wasn’t what it could have been had we just gone into a regular rehearsal unit and kicked it around for a bit. But you know, there came Chickenfoot [years later] and before that, the only reason that Planet US didn’t happen was because Sammy went back into Van Halen (in 2004).


Read More: Sammy Hagar and Neal Schon's Forgotten Team-Up: The History of HSAS | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/hsas-int ... ck=tsmclip

Think Neal pretty much had that Hagar story wrong. That could not possibly have been the first time Eddie heard of Sammy...hell, they played on the same bill before, and Eddie even mentioned how he would go say "hi" to Sam and how Dave didn't like Sam even back then.

Pacfanweb wrote:Think Neal pretty much had that Hagar story wrong. That could not possibly have been the first time Eddie heard of Sammy...hell, they played on the same bill before, and Eddie even mentioned how he would go say "hi" to Sam and how Dave didn't like Sam even back then.

I think he meant "heard"...as in "heard" Sammy sound like he did in HSAS...making him a good fit for VH...versus how "heard" in the 70's with Montrose and his first solo work?

Eric wrote:

Pacfanweb wrote:Think Neal pretty much had that Hagar story wrong. That could not possibly have been the first time Eddie heard of Sammy...hell, they played on the same bill before, and Eddie even mentioned how he would go say "hi" to Sam and how Dave didn't like Sam even back then.

I think he meant "heard"...as in "heard" Sammy sound like he did in HSAS...making him a good fit for VH...versus how "heard" in the 70's with Montrose and his first solo work?

If I'm not mistaken the Van Halen guys used to be big fans of the first Montrose cd with some guy named Sammy Hagar as the singer.

Ronnie Montrose - Open fire Apr 3, 1978: New York City

http://youtu.be/Ow4jEuQosaY

Final Frontiers wrote:

Neal Schon

... [Eddie Van Halen] and I used to hang out all of the time when he was in town and this one particular night, I had just finished the record and I went to the Cow Palace to see Van Halen and we were hanging out because he wanted to go back to the hotel and hang and I said, “You know, I’ve got some new music I want to play for you.” He had a boombox in his room and we were hanging in there in his room partying and listening and he was like, “Who’s that vocalist?” I’m like, “That’s Sammy Hagar” — and he was like, “Wow, I’ve never heard of him before, but he sounds amazing.”

If you've ever hung out in a rock band hotel room after a show into the wee hours of the morning, it's entirely believable that Eddie may have said "Woah, I've never heard of him before ..." despite covering a Montrose song with Van Halen years before that, doing festivals and shows with Montrose, and even Sammy having a pretty big solo career before that point.

Eddie had heard Sammy and knew who he was long before then, but given that it's Eddie Van Halen and Neal Schon in a hotel room until 6 AM, I absolutely believe that Eddie would say he'd never heard of the guy before ...

Besides, it's always been one of those "facts" that Sammy and Eddie were introduced by their mutual Ferrari mechanic, right?

I think it was more of the mechanic telling Eddie he should call Sammy, not that he actually introduced them. He did give one of them the other's number, though.