Arnel Pineda is “the business” and the durable American band Journey has gotten a new lease on life with the all-Pinoy singer. And if it weren’t for the video-sharing site YouTube, Arnel would still be hustling gigs around Manila today, instead of making waves on some of rock’s biggest stages.
A friend from Las Vegas, Dennis Cendana, writes to enthuse about Journey’s sold-out concert at the Planet Hollywood theater last weekend. Arnel, the new frontman for the band formed by the original members of Carlos Santana’s group in 1973, wowed the crowd with his soaring tenor as Journey reprised it hits “Any Way You Want It,” “Revelation,” “Wildest Dreams,” “After All These Years,” “Faithfully” and others, Dennis reports.
“After the encore, Arnel took the opportunity to thank all Filipinos in the audience,” Dennis writes. “He took a Philippine flag from someone in the audience and waved it. He was so excited.”
Parts of the Planet Hollywood concert will be included in the new Journey album scheduled for release in June this year, Arnel’s first record with the legendary rock/jazz fusion band, that will be put together by legendary rock album producer Kevin Shirley. And the current band members— Neal Schon (guitar), Jonathan Cain (keyboards), Ross Valory (bass), Deen Castronovo (drums)—and their managers and producers have nothing but praise for the 40-year-old Quezon City native and Manila band veteran.
“Arnel brings a soulful and passionate voice to Journey,” says keyboardist Cain in one interview. “His personality is very well-suited to our music. He’s a sincere, authentic person with a great smile and a big heart. I think fans are really going to love him. With Arnel’s soaring tenor, Journey returns to our heritage sound.”
Schon, who discovered Arnel on YouTube, agrees. “We feel reborn,” he explains. “I think there’s a lot of chemistry between the five of us. At first we were going to go into the studio and just write four songs, but now it’s escalated to a lot of great new and diverse material. The stuff sounds tremendous. Everyone’s so stoked about it. We feel very fortunate to have found Arnel.”
In his blog, Shirley wrote: “Just got back from Vegas after mixing seven new Journey songs. They are outstanding. For the record, Arnel can really sing! He handles the ballads with so much heart, and belts the rockers as hard, and as melodically, as anyone I have heard.”
The story of the first all-Filipino lead vocalist for an established concert act began last year, when Journey singer Jeff Scott Soto left after replacing an earlier frontman, Steve Augeri, who had to leave the band in 2006 for medical reasons. Schon decided to widen the band’s search for a new singer by checking out videos on the Net instead of using the old ways of finding one.
“I went on YouTube for a couple of days and just sat on it for hours. I was starting to think I was never going to find anybody. But then I found The Zoo [Arnel’s band in Manila] and I watched a bunch of different video clips that they had posted. After watching the videos over and over again, I had to walk away from the computer and let what I heard sink in because it sounded too good to be true,” Schon says.
“I thought, ‘He can’t be that good.’ But he is that good, he’s the real deal and so tremendously talented. Arnel doesn’t sound synthetic and he’s not emulating anyone. I tried to get a hold of him through YouTube and I finally heard from him that night [by e-mail], but it took some convincing to get him to believe that it really was me and not an imposter.”
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03-24-2008, 06:58 PM
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