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THE JOURNEY ZONE
http://www.journey-zone.com
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Steve Augeri |
NAME:
Steve Augeri
DATE OF BIRTH:
January 30, 1959
HOMETOWN:
Brooklyn, New York
CURRENT RESIDENCE:
Brooklyn, New York
MARITAL STATUS:
Married to Lydia
CHILDREN:
Adam
CONTRIBUTION TO JOURNEY:
Lead vocal
YEARS WITH JOURNEY:
1998-2006
ALBUMS WITH JOURNEY:
Arrival, Red 13
BANDS BEFORE JOURNEY:
Tall Stories, Tyketto
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
Steve replaced Journey's legendary Steve Perry following the release of Trial by Fire (1996) as Journey's new permanent frontman and lead vocalist. In December, 2006, he resigned from the band to pursue a solo career.
REVIEWS:
JRNYDV's Review of Steve Augeri at The Bottom Line in New York City, 12/21/01.
BIO:
By LAWoman
Steve Augeri is proudly a Brooklyn Boy, born (January 30, 1959) and raised in an Italian-American neighborhood in Brooklyn where he still lives with his wife, Lydia, and son, Adam. The way Steve tells it, he always wanted to sing and be involved in the music business. It all started when as just a little tyke he saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show (February 9, 1964). Since then Steve has been involved in music in one way or another, from singing in Glee Club in grammar school to playing in garage bands (or basement bands as he calls them, thanks to his grandmothers) as a teenager.
Coming from a supportive, close-knit family, Steve recalls that at about the age of five his late Uncle Andy bought him and a cousin a couple of Sears & Roebuck guitars. Uncle Andy had won a Roy Shmeck Model guitar in a card game overseas in World War II along with a Hank Williams songbook. Steve recalls playing guitar with Uncle Andy every Saturday night without fail through his childhood. Perhaps it is thanks to Uncle Andy that many people, including producer Kevin Shirley, say that aside from being a great singer, Steve is a great guitarist.
Steve recalls his first public performance was in the fourth or fifth grade. One of his music teachers obviously saw his talent and taught him "La Donne Mobile" phonetically. Steve performed the piece accompanied by his teacher, Frederic Torregrossa, at the piano, for the entire school assembly.
Steve's early musical influences were Italian favorites (thanks to his father) including, of course, Frank Sinatra, with a little Motown and Sam Cooke thrown in. He was smitten with the British invasion and listened to Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie, Cream, Deep Purple with a preference for things coming out of England with a blues flavor. He recalls the first record he ever owned was the 7 single "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart.
For his very first concert he saw Steve Marriott and Humble Pie from the first row when his older brother, Joe, took him to the show in NYC for his 15th birthday. Steve recalls that show made a great impression on him as he felt a connection with Steve Marriott. As Steve explains, "Thats when I knew, I've got to do this. I really have to do this." Perhaps due to his early concert-going experience, anyone who has seen Steve perform live has felt his effort to reach out and connect with the audience. In his words, "The communication between performer and audience is the difference between an average show and a spiritual experience."
Always musically inclined, as an aspiring sax player he attended the High School for the Performing Arts in New York (made famous in the film and TV show FAME) for a time and went on to graduate from New Utrecht High School in 1977. He intended to pursue a career in music education, but when his college tuition check bounced, he took that as an omen and returned home. "All I really wanted to do was come home and work on a rock n roll band, and have this dream of performing in front of thousands of people."
For the next few years he was involved in various local bands while working side-jobs as a construction worker, bank teller, and bartender. He recalls becoming a Journey fan while working in a record store in Brooklyn. When Escape was released he recalls opening case after case containing Escape and playing the album three times per day at the store. "That left an amazing impression on me. Hearing the record, it made a huge impression on me musically, vocally and I was hooked back then," Steve says.
Steve achieved some success with a band he started in 1988, Tall Stories. Tall Stories began as a band consisting of three Brazilian musicians and Steve. One by one the Brazilians got homesick, left, and were replaced by other NYC boys. In the end, the band consisted of Jack Morer (lead guitar & vocals), Tom DeFaria (drums), Kevin Totoian (bass), and, of course, Steve (lead vocals and guitar). Even back then, Steve's sound was being compared to Steve Perry and Journey. One of the demos submitted to Columbia Records at the time came back with the comments that the band sounded like "Journey meets Sade." Although Steve says he just didn't see the comparison to Perry, even Jack Morer used to jokingly tell him to lay off the Perryism. Tall Stories ended up doing many demos until Epic records (with Frank Filipetti producing) was finally sold and a self-titled CD was recorded. Unfortunately, the release of the CD was delayed about a year and was finally released in 1991, coinciding with Pearl Jam's release that brought grunge to the forefront. Along with many other great AOR releases around that time, the Tall Stories CD was ignored. It is still a gem, however, and definitely worth adding to anyone's collection. (The Tall Stories CD is available through the link in the JRNYDV store.) Tall Stories did tour after the release of their CD. In particular, Steve recalls they did two months with Mr. Big on the road and ironically, their reception in Seattle, the home of grunge back in 1992, was one of the best of the tour.
By 1994-95 the state of the music business and lack of support from their record company drove Tall Stories to try doing songs that Steve described as "absolutely out of my style...as much as we tried, I was just feeling like I wasnt true to myself any longer." One day he got a call from Brooke St. James of Tyketto (the name Tyketto came from graffiti Brooke saw painted on a wall in Brooklyn and they have no idea what it means). The band members of Tyketto and Tall Stories had gotten to know each other as they tended to play the same tri-state area in and around NYC. Brooke said the Tyketto boys were writing a new record and wondered if Steve might have some time to drop around, play some guitar and write a few songs. So Steve drove over to New Jersey and began writing with Brooke St. James (guitar), Michael Clayton Arbeeny (drums) and Jamie Scott (bass). After a week or two went by, Steve said he got the vibe that Tyketto's lead singer, Danny Vaughn, was no longer in the picture. As it turns out Danny had, in fact, left the band for personal reasons including the fact that his wife had contracted leukemia. Three weeks into the writing sessions Michael asked Steve if he would consider singing with the band.
Although Steve was still friendly with the members of Tall Stories and still loved their music and musical ideas, Tall Stories had been getting such negative responses from their record company and management that Steve decided it was time to move on. The experiences Steve was having with the remaining members of Tyketto were positive and he felt a great energy around the band so he agreed to join up with them. Originally, they were not even going to keep the name Tyketto, however, just before the release of their new record, Shine, the record company informed the band that they would not release it unless it was released as Tyketto .
Their CD, Shine, was released in 1995 and the band toured, primarily in Europe. Shine is another gem if you can find it. (Shine is currently available through www.rockdreams.com). A 1996 show recorded live in London provides half the material for Steve's only other CD with Tyketto, Take Out and Served Up Live. Take Out consists of eight live songs with Steve as well as seven other songs with Tyketto's original singer, Danny Vaughn. (Take Out is available through the link at the JRNYDV store).
According to Michael Clayton Arbeeny, Tyketto never formally called it quits. They just knew Tyketto was done when they returned from Europe in 1996 and the members went their separate ways, although they still remain friends and Steve is even friendly with Danny Vaughn, the man he replaced. Steve says his stint with Tyketto taught him some useful lessons about how to step into the shoes of a vocalist established with a band.
With the demise of Tyketto, Steve took stock of his situation. After many years of varied success, some disappointments, and dead-ends in the music business, he decided it might just be time to "grow up" as he put it, and put aside his dreams for the sake of his family. He did have a wife and a child to support. So Steve got a steady nine-to-five job as a maintenance manager for the Gap stores in Manhattan. In 1997, he was very happy and content being a family man, enjoying steady employment, and waiting for his 401k retirement plan to kick in while approaching his one-year anniversary with the Gap. Then, out of the blue, he got what turned out to be a life-changing phone call.
One day he got a call from a fellow Brooklynite, Joe Cefalu. Joe had moved from New York to the San Francisco Bay area and had become friends with fellow guitarist Neal Schon. Through Neal, Joe knew that Journey just happened to be looking for a new vocalist to replace Steve Perry, who had been sidelined with health problems. At that point Steve had not sung for two years and had really begun to settle into his life as a family man with a steady job. So Steve said thanks, it was flattering to be thought of, but Journey was out of his league. Joe persisted and got Steve to agree to send a tape of his work with Tall Stories. As it turned out, Steve still thought the whole idea was just crazy and never sent a tape. Fortunately for all the fans, Joe Cefalu took matters into his own hands and put a tape together of Steve's work and submitted it to Neal.
As it turns out, Neal was already familiar with Steve's work. Neal recalls that when he was in Bad English and living in L.A., he was out driving in his truck one day, heard the Tall Stories song "Wild On The Run" come on the radio, and had to pull off the road. He thought it was a Journey song he had forgotten. Fortunately that song and Steve's voice stuck in Neal's brain and when Neal and Jonathan heard the tape passed on by Joe Cefalu, Neal made the fateful call to Steve Augeri.
As Steve tells the story, when he got the call from Neal, he thought it was a joke. Then he got a call from Jonathan. He still wasnt sure so he called his friend, Joe, who said, You better sit down, Steve. Steve ended up begging Neal and Jonathan for a couple of weeks to get his voice in shape. He asked for a leave of absence from his job at the Gap and before he knew it, he was on a plane out to Jonathan's studio in the Bay Area for a week-long audition.
The rest is history. Steve spent a week with Jonathan and Neal auditioning and checking out their chemistry. They prepared three main songs, "Don't Stop Believin'," "Faithfully" and "Separate Ways" which were going to be submitted to John Kalodner to get his opinion. Steve says that as he had one foot out the door back to New York, he turned around and said he wanted to give "Open Arms" a try. Apparently everyone was impressed because as we all know, Steve, who had taken one last run at his lifelong dream, got the job.
The reality that his dream was coming true hit Steve during his first public performance with Journey at the Marin Civic Center in the spring of 1998. The show was specifically for friends and family and he recalls his wife and son were sitting in about the 20th row. Somewhere during the first song he caught a glimpse of his family out of the corner of his eye and he thought "I can't believe this is actually happening." He says he remembers tears welling up in his eyes and momentarily he had trouble going on and singing, realizing he was living his lifelong dream. The show did go on and everyone was impressed with Steve. From that moment on, Steve has been helping the Journey continue.
Since joining Journey in the spring of 1998, Steve has toured with Journey and recorded "Remember Me" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Armageddon (released June 1998) as well as the CD Arrival (released April 2001) and a live DVD, Journey 2001 (released December 2001). Steve and the band are currently working on new material that will be released as an EP for their Summer 2002 tour with a full-length CD to follow near the end of the year.
As Jonathan Cain puts it, "Steve is the guy that goes to the next plane. He's an ambassador who represents the legacy of what Journey's about. He's a great guy to have at the helm. He's got moxy. He's tough. He's humble and he's talented. He's just one of those guys who are very passionate and dedicated to his craft."
As Steve puts it, "I was thinking to myself just how much I love doing what I`m doing and how incredibly fortunate I really am. Music is everything to me. It`s with me when I`m with my family, when I`m doing dishes, throwing out the stinking garbage. It`s there when I lay my head down on my pillow, when I first open my eyes in the morning. It was there during my dreams, it in fact it was my dream. Is it fun? It`s the best kind of fun. I`m smiling just thinking about it now."
Steve gives every one of us hope that dreams can come true and that the good among us sometimes finish on top.
You can purchase albums by Tall Stories and Tyketto, Steve's previous bands, in the MERCHANDISE Section.
Last Updated 07 December, 2007 (DHG)
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