I searched half the damn night and I finally found the article that talks about Steve's almost venture into rap. If Neal would not of been such a TOTAL prick Street Talk would of been titled Street Cred and it would have been a completely different album. Some of the info that I presented yesterday was wrong. It wasnt intentional, I just remembered it wrong. This may get a little lengthy and I may have some typos but here it is.
The following article apperaed in Billboard Magazine.
www.billboardmusic1985/sperry/st.credinter/bostic.com. The article was written by a Larry Bostic. It is Titled 'Oh Steven- Steve Perrys Missed Opportunity'. I will skip the intro.
'Neal said the solo albums were cool as long as we both steared clear of the Journey sound. I knew Neals album would sound nothing like Journey shi t I didnt even want to hear it. It was just going to be one long ass guitar jam anyhow. Neal, Angus Young, Eddie Van Halen, who ever, its just guitar licks. Granted Neals awesome, but the Journey sound is my voice, singing some good guitar, keyboard driven music. Any good guitarist can play his parts. He even knows that. For me to make an album that didnt sound like Journey that would be a trick.
' Neal and one of our guys at Columbia Bruce Lundvall suggested that I do a rap album. They knew a guy who was into the west coast rap sound his name was Dre. Dre knew of me from my association with Michael Jackson. He knew I was a baseball fan so at our first meeting there is some black former batboy at the meeting. He is some up and coming rapper. At the time he is going by the name Drill Bit. Later he changes it to Hammer. We work on a few songs and its going well. We are going to start the album with a song called Cant Touch This.
'Next Dre brings in this white boy called Vanilla. We do a remake of a song called Play That Funky Music. It sounds great. I then pen a song called Ice Ice Baby. It sounds nothing like Journey. On my way out of that session some big ol' fat bastar d throws a few shots over my head. I heard it was some one named Smalls. Anyway, that night after the Giants game the Village People are doing a reunion show. Bruce, Dre , and Neal think it might be a good idea if I join em on stage. I dress up as The Butcher and I hammer out Macho Man and San Francisco with em. I was actually invited to go on tour with em, but I was to into my upcoming Street Cred album.
'The next day Dre brought in a young hot shot guitarist that was going by the name Swish. Neal was at this session and it pissed him off to no end because he felt that this guy was trying to copy his playing. I later heard that Nike stopped him from using the Swish title and that he hooked up with some singer that has some sort of flower name. Anyway, we did two songs called Give It To Me and Dirty Diana.'
'That night I was invited to a sleepover at the Neverland Ranch. Sice I arrived after 9 pm I knew the gates would all be locked. I cried over that. After I ran out of tissue I went home.'
' I then added four more songs Go Away, Captured By The Moment, She's Mine, and Strung Out. One month later the album was completed. I sent Neal a copy and he went through the roof. He demanded that I cut Strung Out, She's Mine, & Go Away. When I told him no, I knew Journey would never be the same. I had to get away and I headed to the farm.'
' While fixing a couple of coups drive by number two occured. It killed Joey Gobble, who was my favorite. I cried and cried. It was at that point that I knew I had to get out of the rap business. I called Dre and told him that other artists could have my songs. I change Street Cred, to Street Talk and the rest is history. Could I have made it as a rapper. I think so.
'After Joey( favorite Turkey) was killed I penned the song I Stand Alone. If you listen closely you can hear a gobble at the end.'
I'm out of time, but this is a great article. It tells alot about Steve Perry. It also shows that Neal indeed is a prick by putting Steve Perry through all of this.
All this Psychology talk is giving me college flashbacks!
She is pretty cool.
I guess anything is possible, but it doesn't seem probable. Again we can all choose for ourselves what we want to believe, I personally do not believe everything I read or hear.
