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[The_Noble_Cause]

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Journey, Def Leppard unite for
another summer of rocking
stadiums
Gary Graff
PUBLISHED: July 14, 2024 at 6:59 a.m

Journey was eight years and six albums old when Def Leppard released its first album.

They came from a world away — in San Francisco and Sheffield, England, respectively — and with markedly different sensibilities about the kind of music they were making. But that hasn’t kept the two bands from becoming good friends and strong touring partners.

The Def Leppard-Journey alliance — which comes to Detroit’s Comerica Park on Thursday, July 18 — has become a dependable fit of stadium-sized magnitude, especially for fans who want to hear a night filled with some of mainstream rock’s biggest hits.

The two bands first hit the road together during the summer of 2006 when Def Leppard was promoting its then-new “Yeah!” album and Journey was still supporting its “Generations” album from the previous year, though it had to replace frontman Steve Augeri, who was battling throat issues, with Jeff Scott Soto. The pairing played mostly amphitheaters that summer, but in 2018, they co-headlined in stadiums as they’re doing this year.

“We love those guys,” says Neal Schon, Journey’s founding guitarist. “We’ve always had an amazing time with them. We’ve proven that we have great chemistry together going way back to that first tour we did with them. And 2018 was one of the most successful tours we’ve ever done. We sold the places clean, and lots of cellphone lights, which was great.”

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen concurs “we always get on great with them,” remembering that he once joined Journey on stage years ago to guest on a version of its “Dixie Highway.” “They were great and they are great. They always sound really cool, so I’m always looking forward to that.”

Journey’s Jonathan Cain adds that between the two, the night is “just a full-on rock ‘n’ roll experience” and certainly one that has the goods to bring tens of thousands in each night.

Both have sold more than 100 million records worldwide. They each have two Diamond-certified albums for more than 10 million copies sold. Journey has scored 19 Top 40 hits — including “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a sports anthem that introduced the world to the nonexistent South Detroit — while Def Leppard’s had 15.

Both groups are Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, with Journey in 2017 and Def Leppard two years later.

“We met them a long time ago,” Schon recalls. “I was listening to their albums that (producer) Mutt Lange had done, and I was like, ‘Wow, quite a piece of work they did there — amazing songs, amazingly well put-together and produced albums.

“So we’re hoping we’re just going to reunite where we left off with those guys, which was on a really, really great note.”

Still Believin’
Journey has good reason to have fond memories of its last time out with Def Leppard.

During the interim, the band dissolved into legalities and infighting. Original bassist Ross Valory and longtime drummer Steve Smith were fired after they attempted an alleged “coup” to take control of the band. Management changed a couple of times. Schon and Cain jousted, publicly, with each other over business issues and they also battled with former singer Steve Perry over trademark issues.

The good news now, according to drummer Deen Castronovo, is that “everybody has mended fences. They’ve made amends and it’s all for one and one for all.” And that’s the way Schon and Cain prefer it.

“You have to forgive and you have to move forward. We’ve chosen to do that,” explains Schon, 70, who’s now co-managing the band with Cain and their wives. “Journey comes first, and I’m gonna do anything I need to do to prevail and make sure that ship does not go down.” Cain, 74, adds: “The music is louder than the noise of the grumbling and the arguments and the disagreements and stuff. The show must go on, right? It’s just the drive of knowing that there are fans out there that don’t care about our differences. They care that we carry on, so we’ve got to put aside our differences for them.”

Despite the tumult, Journey has toured in what’s been an ongoing celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary, and it managed to record “Freedom,” its 15th album and first new set in 11 years, in 2022. The group isn’t quite ready to eyeball another one, however. Cain predicts “a single here, a single there. Albums don’t really matter much anymore. You have to accept reality and adapt to it.” Schon concurs, though he notes that Journey “recorded way more than what ended up on (‘Freedom’), which may someday see the light of day.

“I continue to be creative. We all do,” he says, “but the business now is really about live performances and about whatever you can do with merchandise.”

Rock, rock til you drop
Def Leppard has seen its share of turmoil, too, though it’s largely in the past — drummer Rick Allen losing his left arm in a New Year’s Eve 1984 car crash and learning to play without it, founding guitarist Steve Clark’s death in 1991, and his replacement Vivian Campbell’s cancer battles. But the group has been fundamentally solid during the past 30 years and released its own new album in 2022, “Diamond Star Halos,” as well as a 40th (technically 41st) anniversary boxed set of its 1983 breakthrough album “Pyromania” earlier this year.

Collen, 66, predicts that “there’ll be an album at some point,” but for now, the group is working on individual songs as they’re created without an overarching plan.

“I’ve got a couple of new songs that are just killer, so everyone’s putting their parts on them,” he says. “I think it’s a great way to do it, to get super excited about a song as opposed to having an overwhelming, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do all these songs for an album.’ It’s a good mentality.”

He adds, however, that Def Leppard is still driven by an abundance of ambition, even after all these years.

“We haven’t achieved what we set out to do yet,” Collen explains. “We’re all aware of that. We’ve kind of achieved it a bit with some of the records, but we’ve still got a lot to do. So we can’t stop rocking at this stage.”

Journey, Def Leppard and the Steve Miller Band perform at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 18 at Comerica Park, 2100 Woodward Ave., Detroit. 313-962-4000 or 313presents.com.

[brywool]

The "albums don't really matter these days" sentiment drives me nuts.
Yeah, they do.

[FamilyMan]

The "albums don't really matter these days" sentiment drives me nuts.
Yeah, they do.

Do they? While Def Leppard has had ten times more creative output than Journey in recent years, I couldn't name a single Leppard tune that's stuck with me.

[Onestepper]

The "albums don't really matter these days" sentiment drives me nuts.
Yeah, they do.

They matter to some of the super stars out there (and that may even be doubtful as they can just release songs as they go and do fine), he's not wrong.

[Journey/Survivor]

The albums absolutely do matter...... To artists who are still creative and don't want to just be a damn jukebox.....And of course to the true fans!

The reason that Cain doesn't want to make albums anymore is simply a matter of greed. A new album won't make his massive pile of money even higher yet. He doesn't have enough millions yet for his liking. Instead of making an album that won't turn him much a profit margin, he can be out on the road making his massive pile of money even more massive.

[Loneman1]

Instead of making an album that won't turn him much a profit margin, he can be out on the road making his massive pile of money even more massive.

The band is pretty happy touring the greatest hits plus a few interchangable songs here and there so I kinda get that line of thinking, especially at their age. Would I kill for another "Journey Through Time" or like an '05 "An Evening With..." kind of setlist? Of course! But realisticially its not gonna happen since the casual fans wanting the dirty dozen are padding their bank accounts year after year, and at this point I'm ok with it since its not likely to change. It didn't even change much with Freedom which came and went with only a couple songs played.

Another single here and there I can see happening since thats no real huge effort, but a full on album probably isn't in the cards due to how bad Freedom fared on the charts. Unfortunately we will never know if they got an actual producer to mix and produce the album whether or not it would have been more well received since there were some good moments on there but having the production completely up to Neal and Narada (I think he was co-producer?) was a bad experiment.

[Archetype]

The albums absolutely do matter...... To artists who are still creative and don't want to just be a damn jukebox.....And of course to the true fans!

The reason that Cain doesn't want to make albums anymore is simply a matter of greed. A new album won't make his massive pile of money even higher yet. He doesn't have enough millions yet for his liking. Instead of making an album that won't turn him much a profit margin, he can be out on the road making his massive pile of money even more massive.

Would you abandon a lucrative project to take one on that’s virtually guaranteed to not make you any money or even cost you money? I didn’t realize Jonathan owes people his time and energy for nothing in return.


It’s not greed. It’s intelligent financial decision making.

[Eric]

I think they matter because the tour that follows a new album always has more energy in my opinion. I feel like the creative juices inject energy into the greatest hits. Their 2022 tour with Toto was far superior than 2023 or 2024's.

[Monker]

The albums absolutely do matter...... To artists who are still creative and don't want to just be a damn jukebox.....And of course to the true fans!

The reason that Cain doesn't want to make albums anymore is simply a matter of greed. A new album won't make his massive pile of money even higher yet. He doesn't have enough millions yet for his liking. Instead of making an album that won't turn him much a profit margin, he can be out on the road making his massive pile of money even more massive.

Would you abandon a lucrative project to take one on that’s virtually guaranteed to not make you any money or even cost you money? I didn’t realize Jonathan owes people his time and energy for nothing in return.


It’s not greed. It’s intelligent financial decision making.

That is what I have always understood. Why put all of this time, effort and money into creating an album when nobody is going to buy it? Therefore, you are doing it for a loss.

But, as I have said before, there are other ways to do this. They can simply write the songs, perform them in concert, record the concert. Release live versions of the new songs for download and streaming. That has to be a 1000 times simpler than spending a lot of time in the studio creating a new album. If they are interested in new music, that is a simple way to do it.

Also, if Styx and Def Leppard can release albums...there is no reason Journey can't. It simply needs to be a better product than "Freedom". Styx' last album was outstanding. Journey can't just throw out mediocrity and expect anybody to buy it. It' not 1985 where anything Journey does has a guaranteed level of success.

[Journey/Survivor]

The albums absolutely do matter...... To artists who are still creative and don't want to just be a damn jukebox.....And of course to the true fans!

The reason that Cain doesn't want to make albums anymore is simply a matter of greed. A new album won't make his massive pile of money even higher yet. He doesn't have enough millions yet for his liking. Instead of making an album that won't turn him much a profit margin, he can be out on the road making his massive pile of money even more massive.

Would you abandon a lucrative project to take one on that’s virtually guaranteed to not make you any money or even cost you money?

Quite honestly, yes, I would if I already had the money that Cain already does. There are a lot of starving artists for a reason. It's about the art! If you're super rich and can afford to lose a very small amount of money for the sake of your art, you should be willing to do so. But I've never been a greedy person.

Should anyone be expected to give up a massive amount of their overall wealth for art's sake? No, of course not. But if you have any integrity as an artist and can easily afford to lose a very small amount of money, then do it for the sake of artistry and for the fans who you claim that you love.

And it's extremely debatable if he would lose any money at all.

A friend of mine is a huge Leslie West fan, and he has told me that in fairly recent years that West was releasing a new CD about once every six months. And my friend speculated that West was selling so few albums by that point in his career that there was no way that West was making any significant amount of money off of them. But he still did make them because he was being creative and pleasing his fans.

[jrnyman28]

Record a new album in home studio, play a couple songs on your, sell the CD at the merch table. Should be able to break even at least.

[Journey/Survivor]

Record a new album in home studio, play a couple songs on your, sell the CD at the merch table. Should be able to break even at least.

Exactly!!!

There have been a lot of artists who've recorded albums in the last 20 years or more who have only spent a relatively small amount of money to record the album, and they are at least breaking even.

Journey even did what you mentioned with their Red 13 disc.

[jrnyman28]

Journey even did what you mentioned with their Red 13 disc.

Except it didn’t sound very good at the time. Of course, that is comparing it to the big bucks pro days. I honestly love RED13 and don’t hear anything wrong with it anymore.