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"Thank you, Rob Light. Now, most of you don&amp;#x27;t know Rob Light. Before last night, I didn&amp;#x27;t even know Rob Light. But now I consider him one of the coolest people in the world (and not just because he managed to raise over $5.5 million for City of Hope this year, which is the leading research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening diseases). No, in this case, it would be because without him being one of the most powerful and respected men in the industry (he&amp;#x27;s head of music and a managing partner at CAA), I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have had the opportunity to meet and interview the one person I honestly never thought I would&amp;amp;#8212;former Journey frontman Steve Perry. The story ends well: Me with Steve Perry, and Heart&amp;#x27;s Nancy and Ann Wilson. But read how it all happened. I don&amp;#x27;t remember exactly when I became so obsessed with Journey and Steve Perry. I never even saw him in concert, and I think I was all of seven when he left the band. My parents were never die-hard Journey fans. I remember being so happy that The O.C.&amp;#x27;s Ryan Atwood loved them just as much as I did. Whenever it was though, I wondered why it took me so long to notice them in the first place. And although &amp;quot;Don&amp;#x27;t Stop Believin&amp;#x27;&amp;quot; is and always has been one of my favorite songs, it was songs like &amp;quot;Faithfully,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Separate Ways,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Ask the Lonely&amp;quot; that really got to me. But since Steve Perry decided to take a break from the music industry&amp;amp;#8212;he recorded such hits like &amp;quot;Oh, Sherrie&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Foolish Hearts&amp;quot; as a solo artist post-Journey&amp;amp;#8212;he&amp;#x27;s stayed out of the limelight. So you can only imagine when I saw his name on the tip sheet for the City of Hope Gala. Forget about it&amp;amp;#8212;I was so there. (Oh, did I forget to mention that Stevie Wonder would be performing and classic musicians like Heart, Michael Bolton, and others were attending?) But aside from being a huge admirer of Journey and Steve Perry, I&amp;#x27;ve also had another reason to want to meet the &amp;quot;The Voice,&amp;quot; as he&amp;#x27;s called. I&amp;#x27;ve been telling people, half-jokingly now for years, that Steve Perry is going to sing at my wedding one day&amp;amp;#8212;he just doesn&amp;#x27;t know it yet. But here&amp;#x27;s the thing: I&amp;#x27;m not engaged or even dating anyone seriously right now! But I always thought no pressure because honestly, when was I going to meet Steve Perry anyway? Funny how life catches you off-guard when you least expect it. Glamour: Steve, it is so nice to meet you! I have to tell you, I don&amp;#x27;t even know how to start this interview off, but to tell you that I&amp;#x27;m having a bit of a freak-out moment right now. You are the one person I&amp;#x27;ve always wanted to meet and interview. Steve Perry: What?! Glamour: Seriously?! You&amp;#x27;re the Steve Perry! Steve: I find that fascinating! I don&amp;amp;#8217;t understand that! Glamour: See, I wish I grew up more in the &amp;#x27;80s... Steve: I wish I grew up more in the &amp;#x27;80s too! [Laughs] Glamour: By the time I was old enough to actually go to concerts and appreciate your voice and what you did with Journey, you weren&amp;amp;#8217;t with the band anymore. Steve: Right, I understand. Glamour: Your voice is just incredible. And you&amp;amp;#8217;re going to love this part because this is probably the most embarrassing thing out of it all... Steve: [Laughs] Glamour: But here&amp;amp;#8217;s the thing: I&amp;amp;#8217;ve been saying to my parents, to friends, to celebrities&amp;amp;#8212;I said it to Jerry O&amp;amp;#8217;Connell and the guys on the set of We Are Men yesterday&amp;amp;#8212;that, &amp;quot;Steve Perry is going to sing at my wedding one day. He just doesn&amp;#x27;t know it yet.&amp;quot; [Let&amp;#x27;s pause for a second while I realize what I&amp;#x27;ve just said to Steve Perry. The fact that he&amp;#x27;s now hearing the ridiculous statement that has come out of my mouth. And the fact that he&amp;#x27;s not running away either. I, on the other hand, think that I might. OK, let&amp;#x27;s continue.] Steve: You never know! [Laughs] Glamour: No way. Don&amp;amp;#8217;t tease me like that! I&amp;amp;#8217;m serious! Steve: You never know! Glamour: I&amp;#x27;m not even engaged, but I&amp;#x27;ve ridiculously convinced myself that if I could just meet you, I could one day try to convince you to sing at my wedding! That, and Sprinkles cupcakes is going to make the cake. And I am so NOT one of those girls that plans their wedding! Steve: You&amp;amp;#8217;ve got work to do! Glamour: Sometimes I&amp;amp;#8217;ll run in to people that are like, &amp;quot;Oh, I&amp;amp;#8217;ve met him, or I knew him,&amp;quot; and I said, &amp;quot;No, but do you really know him because there&amp;amp;#8217;s going to be a day when I need to get in touch with him for real.&amp;quot; Steve: Well, we&amp;amp;#8217;ll talk! Really, we&amp;amp;#8217;ll talk! Glamour: Well, you didn&amp;#x27;t say no, so we&amp;#x27;re off to a good start! But seriously, your voice is just insane. How is your voice by the way? Steve: It&amp;amp;#8217;s out of shape! [Laughs] I haven&amp;amp;#8217;t sang much. That&amp;amp;#8217;s the problem. But I&amp;amp;#8217;m starting to warm it up. Glamour: OK, so let&amp;amp;#8217;s say you&amp;amp;#8217;re in the car and one of your songs comes on. Do you sing along to it? Steve: No. Because to sing that stuff, I gotta warm up! It&amp;amp;#8217;s kinda high. And I&amp;amp;#8217;m older too. It takes a lot of work. Glamour: Oh, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t buy the age thing. Stevie Wonder is going to sing tonight and look at him. Steve: But he never stopped. I stopped. I stopped for years. I stopped to get away from it all. We were kinda big when I stopped. I was fortunate to have had an amazing career. I just didn&amp;amp;#8217;t want to do it anymore. My mother had passed away the year before and family stuff was going on, and I just didn&amp;amp;#8217;t want to miss life. There&amp;amp;#8217;s a whole thing called life, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s not just about the entertainment industry. There&amp;amp;#8217;s more to life than singing and touring. The beautiful thing about this business is if you&amp;amp;#8217;re fortunate enough to get in it, it&amp;amp;#8217;s amazing, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s a choke chain if you don&amp;amp;#8217;t know how to put the brakes on for yourself because it keeps rolling like crazy. The management kept on booking us, and I had to get off [eventually]. Glamour: Was there a favorite song that you loved to perform live? Steve: They were all some of my favorites, they really were. I would say that &amp;quot;Separate Ways&amp;quot; was a strong song I liked doing. I loved &amp;quot;Send Her My Love.&amp;quot; That had some vibes to it. &amp;quot;Open Arms&amp;quot;...I remember the first time we played &amp;quot;Open Arms,&amp;quot; and Neal [Schon] won&amp;amp;#8217;t remember this, but he didn&amp;amp;#8217;t want to play the song because it was a ballad and it was going to be our fifth single. I said, &amp;quot;We gotta play it.&amp;quot; So we played it, and as soon as Neal played the opening notes, the whole place screamed. Neal was very happy. It went from that to &amp;quot;that song really kicks ass,&amp;quot; even though it was a ballad! Glamour: &amp;quot;Faithfully&amp;quot; is one of my absolute favorites. Steve: Jonathan Cain wrote that song all by himself, which you can tell by the lyrics is very emotional because he was going through a tough time with his wife, and they ended up breaking up. So the song is really strong. Glamour: I know the band has Arnel [Pineda] now, and he&amp;amp;#8217;s great, but there is no one like Steve Perry. Steve: Well, that&amp;#x27;s very sweet. It&amp;amp;#8217;s a great gig, and he&amp;amp;#8217;s doing great. Glamour: With all respect to Arnel, would you ever consider down the line any type of reunion or is it too hard to even think of? Steve: It&amp;amp;#8217;s too hard to even talk about to be honest with you. It&amp;amp;#8217;s too hard to talk about. But God only knows. One thing about life that I realize more and more is you can never say never, although it&amp;amp;#8217;s probably better to say no. Glamour: I totally get it. Now, City of Hope. Tell me about your relationship with Rob Light and your involvement with the organization. Steve: When I did my solo album, Rob Light was the one person who stood by me and convinced promoters that Steve Perry&amp;amp;#8217;s solo album/solo tour is something they want to embark on. He convinced a bunch of people to take a chance, and they did. So because of Rob Light, people took a chance on me. Glamour: On a personal note, my condolences because I know you recently lost a very important person in your life to cancer, and I know you had skin cancer earlier this year. Steve: It&amp;amp;#8217;s getting better. As long as it&amp;amp;#8217;s off my body, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t care [if there is a scar]. Glamour: Listen, I&amp;amp;#8217;m the sunscreen queen, bringing it with me on every red carpet I go to. Steve: Let&amp;amp;#8217;s do an ad for sunscreen! It&amp;amp;#8217;s just not safe anymore to be in the sun anymore. It&amp;amp;#8217;s not safe. Glamour: Exactly. So lastly, I know you joined forces with the Chicago White Sox in 2005 when they won the World Series and adopted &amp;quot;Don&amp;amp;#8217;t Stop Believin&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;quot; as their anthem through it all. Then last year, you sang it for the San Francisco Giants, who beat my beloved Cardinals in the NLCS. So... Steve: Here it comes! Glamour: So which team are you singing it for this year? Steve: A-ha! I knew it! Well, I&amp;amp;#8217;m shocked the Dodgers are doing so well. I&amp;amp;#8217;m shocked. Now, they did load the team up. They bought some great players because they have the budget, but I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know. And listen, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not a Dodgers fan. I&amp;amp;#8217;m a Giants fan, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s a rivalry, but I gotta tell you, the Dodgers are really kicking some ass and they have a really good shot at this. Glamour: They play &amp;quot;Don&amp;amp;#8217;t Stop Believin&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;quot; at Dodger Stadium, so I&amp;amp;#8217;d like to think that since you&amp;amp;#8217;re a Giants fan, if they came to you and asked there&amp;amp;#8217;s no way you could say yes. That&amp;amp;#8217;s like if the Cubs asked me to do something for them. It&amp;#x27;s a non-negotiable! (Sorry, Cubs fans, I do love Chicago!) Steve: Do you know that the Dodgers play [Don&amp;amp;#8217;t Stop Believin&amp;amp;#8217;] in the middle of the eighth inning? Glamour: Yes! Yes! Steve: Do you know when I leave? [Laughs] I leave at the top of the 8th! I wanna beat traffic too! [Laughs] OK, so then this happened. Let me just say, Steve could not have been cooler. Beyond down-to-earth, so sweet, and incredibly gracious. That, and the fact that he didn&amp;#x27;t run away from me speaks volumes. And then Randy Jackson came along and this conversation took place. Glamour: Do you remember when I told you I wanted Steve to sing at my wedding back when we were at the Clive Davis party? And then you screamed out on the red carpet, &amp;quot;Find this girl a boyfriend now! Steve Perry needs to sing at her wedding!&amp;quot; Randy Jackson: Dude, I love him. Don&amp;amp;#8217;t you love him? [Randy starts singing the lyrics from &amp;quot;Faithfully&amp;quot;...&amp;quot;Highway run...&amp;quot;] Glamour: Oy, look what I&amp;#x27;ve created. Anyway, I asked, and he said we&amp;#x27;ll talk! Randy: Dude, he said he&amp;amp;#8217;d perform at your wedding?! Is he well? Is he sick? [Laughs] Glamour: Are you jealous? Do you want to perform too? Randy: So me and Steve can perform at your wedding, but you&amp;amp;#8217;re not getting married yet? Glamour: Right. But getting you guys seems like the hardest part, so if I can cross that off my list, getting the guy should be a bit easier, right? Randy: Yeah, we need to find you a guy! Later, I found myself telling Michael Bolton that I listened to &amp;quot;Time, Love and Tenderness&amp;quot; at the gym the other day. (I wish I was kidding, but I&amp;#x27;m not). That was after I gushed to Heart&amp;#x27;s Ann and Nancy Wilson that I was belting out &amp;quot;Never&amp;quot; on the way to the event. It was like 1985 decided to show up tonight, and turned me into a five-year-old. So, when the time comes, Steve said we&amp;#x27;ll talk. And he gave me every reason to believe him. Maybe I&amp;#x27;m nuts (well, OK, don&amp;#x27;t answer that), but you know what they say... I&amp;#x27;ll let you fill in the blank. ;) *Steve donated three guitars at last night&amp;#x27;s City of Hope event, which he will sign personally. He also donated 40 vinyl greatest hits and Steve Perry solo&amp;#x27;s on 180 gram virgin vinyl. He&amp;#x27;ll personalize them for fans who end up purchasing the items. Visit City of Hope&amp;#x27;s website to find out more. *On a somewhat related note, PBS&amp;#x27; &amp;quot;Independent Lens&amp;quot; series picked up a documentary about Arnel Pineda&amp;#x27;s road to becoming Journey&amp;#x27;s current lead singer. Don&amp;#x27;t Stop Believin&amp;#x27;: Everyman&amp;#x27;s Journey is set to make its TV debut Sept. 30 (check your local PBS listings). Are you a Steve Perry fan? Which musician would you most want to sing at your wedding? Photos: Michael Kovac; Getty Images Special Thanks: Dominique Grignetti"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/09/that-time-i-talked-to-steve-pe>