01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 14, 2005

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

Journey's show at the Ryan Center on Wednesday is part of the group's 30th-anniversary tour, and guitarist Neal Schon promises a three-hour "Journey festival."

That means something for the fans of the group's early hits "Wheel in the Sky" and "Anyway You Want It," the massive early-'80s hits "Separate Ways" and "Don't Stop Believin'," the 1998 hit "When You Love a Woman" and a whole lot more. The songs date back to Journey's first record, released in 1975, and all the way up to its latest album, which isn't even out in the U.S. yet.

"It's an education on what we've done" throughout the years, Schon says from a tour stop in South Dakota.

The band has been re-creating its greatest hits for the last seven or so years, Schon says, and it was time to branch out. Members wanted to do this kind of tour for five years now, but met with resistance from booking agents and promoters. Finally, this year, Schon told them, "Look, I want to do this or I'm not going."

Digging through the back catalog, particularly the songs from the group's first three albums when it was a first-generation jam band that proudly wore its Santana influences, was interesting, Schon says. "It feels brand-new again. And people are really digging it.

"I had no clue how people would react to it, because it's obviously not something that most of the fans who are there have ever heard. So it's somewhat like brand-new music to them."

With 30 years of songs to choose from, making a set list has been difficult: "Even though it's three hours long, you still can't play everything."

Schon thought keyboardist Jonathan Cain would want to "yank" the early material that predated his joining the band. "And he says, 'No, you can't touch that.' . . .

"I think he enjoys that because he's covering stuff from the [original keyboardist Gregg] Rolie era. He's singing and taking organ solos and everything."

Free CDs to all comers

Journey's latest CD, Generations, will be given out free to all concertgoers Wednesday. Schon says it's a continuation of the guitar-heavy direction the band took when it resumed making new records after Steve Perry, the singer on all its biggest hits, left in the late '90s.

Schon calls the new record "not quite as heavy" as the previous Red 13, "but it's a rocker." He adds that each member of the group sings lead on at least one song.

He's also planning a remix of Red 13, to eventually be sold in a package with Generations.

Generations is only available at the shows for now, though Schon says that a deal with Sanctuary Records is in the works.

"The industry is just completely upside-down right now. And it's getting worse. So I've just been looking for new avenues to get our music into our fans' hands."

He saw Prince give away copies of his Musicology CD at each show of his tour last year, and figured, "what better way? That way your true fans have your new music, whether it's getting played on the radio -- which is all completely payola. . . .

"It's a different decade, with lots of different things out there."

He looks forward to hooking up with satellite radio, he says, and is working out a deal with his other band, Soul Sirkus, whereby Sirius would become its label.

Two split from Santana

Schon formed Journey with Rolie in 1973 after they both parted ways with Carlos Santana, whose band Schon had joined at age 15.

"I wanted to do something that was a bit more rock 'n' roll," Schon says. A big Mahavishnu Orchestra fan, Schon wanted to do a rock equivalent. "Because, believe me, I did not have the brains or the dexterity on the instrument to be so complex as John McLaughlin was. So I think we did a rock 'n' roll version of that."

After three ambitious records that didn't sell very well, CBS Records demanded the group get a lead singer and make a more popular-sounding record. The results were Steve Perry and 1977's Infinity, and they were on their way.

Evolution was next in 1979, and 1981's Escape completed and confirmed the transformation with three Top-10 hits.

"Our original fans really had a hard time," Schon says. "But then we gained a whole slew of brand-new fans that outweighed the initial fans."

Schon's happy to report that the band's delving into its back catalog for this tour has brought back some graybeard original fans, and that younger fans are getting into it as well, perhaps recognizing the roots of today's jam-band scene.

The Perry factor

The two hinges in Journey's history would involve Perry -- getting him in 1977 and leaving him behind in 1998.

After 1986's Raised on Radio album, Journey parted ways. When talk of a reunion started in 1996 and Steve Perry contacted Cain to do a new record, Schon wanted no part of it.

"I was done with it," Schon says. " 'Dude, it's way over.' I had moved on. . . .

"I got this call that 'Steve wants to do a record,' and I'm like, 'Why?' "

But once they got together and got to work on what would be 1996's Trial by Fire, "it was such an automatic thing." After an "effortless" recording process, the album came out ("too many ballads, and too long of a record, but I thought it was a good record" says Schon) and garnered a Number One Adult Contemporary single for "When You Love a Woman."

The next logical step was a tour, but Perry suffered an injury in Hawaii just before it was to begin.

"We waited around for about a year and a half," Schon says, and suddenly Perry not only couldn't tour but didn't want to do any more projects, such as movie-soundtrack songs or another album.

"At that point, I'm frustrated" and regretting his decision to get Journey back together, Schon says. "You've got this great car to drive and you've got no keys."

Eventually, the idea of replacing Perry reared its head. "We all talked about it and said, 'We have nothing to lose.' . . . I'm happy that we made the move, and I think our fans are too."

Singer Steve Augeri sounds an awful lot like Steve Perry, and while Schon says he considered getting a singer who sounded nothing like Perry and striking out for completely new territory, they'd then have had "the conflict of our catalog.

"We've got a tremendous catalog of lots of hit songs, which I wrote either a half or a third of" with Cain. "So we felt that those songs were ours as well as Steve's, and we had every right to do those songs.

"[And] everything wasn't written around the guitar, like in Van Halen." Switching singers from David Lee Roth to Sammy Hagar, Schon says, "was a much easier move for them, because everything was based around [guitarist Edward Van Halen].

"In Journey, all the hit songs we had were based around Steve Perry's vocals. And so in order to play those songs, someone has to have resemblance."

Schon adds that drummer Deen Castronovo "sounds more like Steve Perry than Steve Augeri does," and is singing a few songs on these shows.

Too much touring

Augeri comes from a rock background, from the band Tall Stories, which Schon describes as "a rocked-out Journey," while Perry came from a Motown-R&B axis. "Perry had an amazing voice. You cannot take that away from him."

So if Steve Perry called and said he wanted back in, what would Schon say?

"I don't know. I'd have to think about it when he called. . . .

"If he wanted to be here, he'd be here. I think he'd just really had it with touring. . . . He's always known that there's been an open door."

Schon says he invited Perry to join Journey for a TV show. "And he said, 'You never know.' And I said, 'I guess we won't, unless you do the show.' "

He doesn't sound like he's holding his breath. Besides, the Journey festival rolls on.

Usually (though not always), classic-rock acts travel the country in the summer in twos and threes. Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire, for example, have been touring together for several years. But Journey's out alone this summer. The group had contacted Santana, Steve Miller, Def Leppard and others about going out together, but all the possibilities fell through.

Which was fine with Schon. "I'm really glad to be standing on our own ground out there."

Journey plays at the Ryan Center, at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets, at $52 and $32, include a copy of Generations. Tickets are available at The Ryan Center box office, at all Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling Ticketmaster at (401) 331-2211.