Deb wrote:Liquid_Drummer wrote:Lets face the facts folks. Steves voice was/is very broken. His term was toast I think.. I am only going to say this once and leave it for what it is.
I have met a couple of very nice people online that claim they WERE in the know about Steve and Journey in the later half of the 90's. They don't know him personally however one of these people was a freelance journalist in CA at the time and that is all I will say about that. I still take it with a grain of salt but I have to admit that these individuals seem to know enough people in the buis that I can give it a pretty high confidence factor and I have seen one of their names in print so unless they are imposters which I find very doubtful this may have some validity to it. .
They would not tell me any specifics because they don't trust me (our meeting was recent) and journalistic trusts can not be violated. All that I was told was that my opinion about Steve's "condition" was pretty close and that was ALL that was said about that. In one of our email exchanges I was told, "You seem to be doing a pretty accurate job drawing your own conclusions. Unfortunately I dont know the answer to your last question or be any more specific about the matter".
That question was about the hip injury. I have always thought that it was bullshit. He knew he could not tour the old material (FTLOSM tour proved that to him) and had to find a way out. Just my opinion there.
To me you can hear it in his speech, especially his laugh. His laugh shows the extent of the damage . When you laugh your voice goes up in pitch. This is automatic. Listen to Steve laugh in his most recent interviews vs old interviews and you can hear the Uh Oh... His cords are very separated and not closing well at all. This is crucial for singing in any pitch. Even his low speaking voice is very raspy. Also take note of the fact that he speaks much softer in the newer interviews vs old interviews. When you suffer from that type of vocal damage you lose volume in your speaking voice as well.
Im just calling it like I hear it.
My opinion is that Steve has polyps or a broken blood vessel that went untreated on one or both cords and as a result his cords do not close all the way which in the early stages causes rasp (Frontiers) that gets progressively raspier over time (ROR) and if left untreated results in vocal fatigue or further damage.(FTLOSM performance issues from bootlegs and finally the tour cancellations).
There are techniques and procedures to fix a lot of these issues and they carry a lot less risk than they did 15 years ago. I am pretty sure that Steve would have to have something done to be able to sing at a level he himself could be happy with and I am thinking that maybe he did. We all know he has high expectations of himself and if you look at the evidence with objectivity it makes sense. Or it makes a good story in the Enquirer..
Everybody's entitled to their opinions, but all I know at the end of the day.....is, if he can sing half as good as his little impromptu sing along with that white sox reporter (00:50 second mark on this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPxX0VwHu-I ) after screaming and partying for a few days and no warm up..........then this fan is definitely putting her $$ down on anything he puts out!
Amen to that Deb------
