Talk:List of Journey band members

Timeline Mistake

Not sure what I did, but I seemed to have screwed up the album lines on the timeline. Someone with more experience with timelines, please fix. Dave Golland (talk) 14:59, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Any source on that Journey reunion?

Someone has been making a ton of edits implying that Steve Perry and Gregg Rolie will be returning to Journey in 2020. Do we have a source behind this, or is it BS? --134.126.253.100 (talk) 01:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

1987 Breakup/Split, or lack of?

Can someone explain the legal documents from the recent court battle and why the band did not officially break up? EPBeatles (talk) 17:21, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

There were competing claims about the documents. What's clear is that Nightmare (currently consisting of Herbert, Perry, Schon, Valory, Cain, and Smith) owns the Journey name but back in 1986 they authorized Elmo Partners (then consisting of Perry, Schon, and Cain) to have the exclusive use of the name so long as they continued working as Journey. Then in 1998 Perry left Elmo Partners.

The dispute was whether or not Perry, Cain, and Schon stopped "working as Journey" during the hiatus when Schon and Cain formed Bad English and Perry focused on his solo stuff. Valory contended they had, which meant that the ownership of the name devolved back to Nightmare--and he produced documentation from a 1995 Nightmare meeting chaired by Herbert where all apparently agreed that was the case (although the public version of that document did not include all the necessary signatures). Schon and Cain contended that since they continue to work as Journey today, Elmo (currently Schon and Cain) still exists and still controls the name.

If Nightmare controls the name and Elmo no longer exists, then Schon and Cain were not permitted to fire Valory and Smith. If Elmo still exists and controls the name, then they were within their rights to do so.

My take is that the documents Valory produced were compelling, but because Schon said in 2020 (in the heat of the moment) that he'd never work with Valory and Smith again, all parties realized that if Valory had won the case, Schon would have to quit Journey. They probably settled because they realized that there's a lot more money for all of them in letting Schon and Cain continue to perform as Journey. But I'll be curious to see what happens with "Journey through Time," the 2019 Schon-Rolie collaboration that seems to have started the whole kerfuffle.

The bottom line for the Wikipedia entry as regards the 1987 hiatus is that since the lawsuit has been settled and Journey is continuing with Schon and Cain and without Valory and Smith, the Elmo argument has de facto won out. So they never broke up and Perry, Schon, and Cain continued "working as Journey" from 1987-1995.

Dave Golland (talk) 03:21, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Membership as of July

So, just putting this out there because I'm sure it's going to come up when Freedom is released.

I expect that the new album will include Schon, Cain, Pineda, Derlatka, Jackson, and Walden.

The 2022 tour that preceded the album included Schon, Cain, Pineda, Derlatka, Jensen, and Castronovo. The performance lineup for the dates this summer has not been announced.

Meanwhile, the official band website lists only Schon, Cain, and Pineda as members of Journey.

There were press releases in 2020 stating that Jackson and Walden were officially in Journey and no band statements since then have announced any official changes. Cain says that the "Narada thing" did not work out for the tour, hence Castronovo plays alone (as opposed to with Walden, as he did last summer for Lollapalooza). But that's not the same as saying "he's out of the band." Maybe he's a permanent studio member? Maybe they'll see if the "Narada thing" will work with the next tour? Walden is incredibly busy as a producer. As for Jackson, all that's been mentioned is his surgery. Perhaps he, too, is still considered a member, but unlikely to tour for health reasons? He also seems incredibly busy with his TV work. But all this is just conjecture.

We have long distinguished between "studio only," "tour only," and "full" members on this page, both in terms of current and former members. But we've never had a tour with one lineup precede the release of an album with a different lineup that was recorded before the tour.

Derlatka, Mendoza, and Jensen appear easy to categorize (for now). When the album comes out, if Derlatka is on it, he gets listed on the entry as a "full" member." If not, and until then, he's listed as a "touring" member--like Mendoza (former) and Jensen (current).

Castronovo has appeared on previous albums and tours, but (from what we're told) does not appear on the Freedom album. Does that mean we define him as a former "full" member and a current "touring" member? Jackson has appeared on a previous album and tour, but has not appeared live with the band since 1987. Does that mean we define him as a former "full" member and a current "studio" member?

And because the album follows the tour rather than precedes it, even though it was recorded before the tour, how do we define "current?" Since Walden played live at Lollapalooza '21, and appears on the Freedom album, clearly he is or was a "full" member. But between the album release and the next tour (where he presumably will not perform), will he be a current member or a former member?

I don't have the answers, I'm just thinking that people who edit this entry may want to think about this between now and July.

Dave Golland (talk) 13:49, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

2017 and 2023 regarding Gregg Rolie

Should we classify 2017 and 2023 as a year that Gregg Rolie was a member of Journey as part of ocassional reunions as he did perform with them in those years. GTAGamer245 (talk) 00:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I would have to say "No". I say that because they were more one-off appearances, but he hasn't been noted as an official member for those shows since he departed in 1980. At the moment, I don't think anything really needs to change, as there have been no sources that counted him as an official member for those shows as having stated before: were one-off. HorrorLover555 (talk) 00:20, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree with HorrorLover555. Dave Golland (talk) 15:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)