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| Journey lead singer Arnel Pineda |
The iconic rock band Journey was without summer Deen Castronovo, but lead singer Arnel Pineda, lead guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain came through.
By now, Pineda's remarkable rags-to-riches story from poverty to world-wide fame is familiar to Journey fans but others may not have heard of how he was discovered on a Youtube video sounding just like Steve Perry, who had left the band Journey to strike out on his own.
The remaining band members sought him out in Manila, brought him back to San Francisco and started working with the amateur singer. Months later in 2007, Pineda made his debut as the band's new singer in front of 20,000 fans at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Chile.
He's been with the band ever since. Pineda's first year with Journey can be seen in the excellent award-winning documentary, Don't Stop Believing.
It tells about the initial racist reaction of some fans to the fact that he's Asian and some of that showed up again in tweets after his Monday night performance. They complained that he doesn't sound like Steve Perry, but his bandmates, who's opinion matters, back up their lead singer.
"He's a clutch hitter, this kid," guitarist Cain tells Rolling Stone. "He comes through."
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