Steve Perry Reveals Plans To Release ‘Emotional’ Solo Album This Year

Steve Perry may have skipped singing with Journey at the band’s recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, but the former lead singer says he’s making some music of his own and working on a new album. In an interview with ABC Radio, Perry admitted he went his “separate way” from the band that made him famous in the late 1970s and early ’80s, but that he was amazed to be inducted into the Rock Hall with them.

“I’m just amazed,” Perry told ABC Radio. “To be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the people I grew up with — Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, the people I love listening to — it’s beyond a dream come true. It’s kind of surrealistic.”

Steve Perry giving his speech for Journey's induction at #RockHall2017 pic.twitter.com/5Pey6tcuNr

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) April 8, 2017

Steve went on to say that while he’s been gone for a long time, the fans have always been in his heart, and that “they are the ones that put us here in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

“It’s all about them,” Perry said of Journey’s longtime fans. ” It’s always been about them…I have been gone…I kind of went my separate way. And I had all kinds of reasons that were important to me to do so. [And] though I’ve been gone…the fans have always been in my heart.”

As a way to give back to his fans, Steve Perry said he has plans to release a new solo album later this year. Steve told ABC the album has been inspired by a personal tragedy of a girlfriend who passed away, and that writing and recording the music has been “cathartic” for him.

“I met someone and I feel in love with this person,” Steve revealed.

“And I lost this person to breast cancer four years ago. In the midst of that, I had written some songs, and before I met her I had sketched some. And so about a year ago, I started recording.”

Perry went on to say that making the record has taken him back to “that emotional place that I thought I would never go back to.” Steve also said that he is doing his best “to capture what I think are some timeless songs.”

In 2013, Steve talked to the Hollywood Reporter about the death of his girlfriend of nearly two years, psychologist Kellie Nash, saying, “I fell in love with her as a person and as a soul — it was a connection I never had before in my life.”

At the time, Perry revealed that Nash had been documenting her life and imminent death in a series of journal entries meant to be her memoir. After his girlfriend’s death, Steve revealed he “decided to pick up the book and finish it.”

Steve, who has described himself as “a recluse,” credited Kellie with bringing him back to the public because “when you’re in love with a psychologist, you get a lot of help.” Perry also talked about returning to songwriting, saying Nash’s death inspired him to write “for the first time in three years.”

In 2015, Steve Perry confirmed he was back in the recording studio working on a new album.

“I’m in the studio,” Perry told Los Angeles radio station KSWD-FM. “You know, actually, I started — there’s been so many rumors going around that I’m in the studio, that I’ve been there for years. The truth is, I finally went into the studio in March, and I’ve been in there ever since, just trying to finish this record.”

@RembranceOfPast Steve Perry & Sherrie #80s pic.twitter.com/ogBZJduxN0

— Kathy Dove (@movie_gal_10) December 6, 2015

Steve Perry famously recorded his first solo album, Street Talk, in 1984, during the height of his Journey heyday. The album spawned the MTV heavy rotation hit “Oh Sherrie,” which was written about Perry’s then-girlfriend Sherrie Swafford. Perry’s last original studio record came in 1994 when he released For the Love of Strange Medicine.

You can see the extended version of the music video for Steve Perry’s solo hit “Oh Sherrie” below.

[Featured Image by Mike Coppola/Getty Images]