If you have listened to “Don’t Stop Believin’,” you know the legendary classic rock music band, Journey. Having phenomenal hit singles and blockbuster albums, fans were in for a shock when the lead singer, Steve Perry, decided to leave Journey after spending almost twenty-one years with the band. Although the band didn’t go through a breakup and continued to be active, they replaced their lead singer. Before diving into the reasons why this happened, let’s take a look at the events that led to Steve Perry Leaving Journey.
The Journey is an American Rock band that was formed in 1973. The best years of the band’s success were with Steve Perry as the lead singer, where their stardom and musicality peaked with twenty-five gold and platinum albums and chart-topping hit singles. They have mostly been a classic rock band that enjoyed a more pop influence with Steve Perry, who was a part of Journey from 1977 to 1998, with the last few years being more on-and-off. Although fans were originally not fans of Perry’s sound, he eventually won them over. And the band not only garnered commercial success but also built a strong and loyal fanbase.
Now let’s take a glimpse of the lead vocalist, Steve Perry. Steve Perry was a major contributing factor to the success Journey got to have in their career. His music not only charted the music charts but also became a part of several milestones in America’s music and rock music history. So it is understandable that the news of him leaving his music band, Journey, the face of music’s greatest successes, was shocking for the fans.
Why Did Steve Perry Leave Journey?
Steve Perry Left Journey: What We Saw
Steve Perry gave the leading vocals to nine of Journey’s albums in his entire stint with them. His vocal range is well-known among the industry and fans. In 1984, Perry began dabbling with releasing solo music albums, his first one being ‘Street Talk.’ When the band reunited in 1987, difficulties began to rise. Perry’s mother became very ill, and the singer found it extremely hard to manage the recordings and be there for his mother.
This eventually took a toll on the band because the lead singer was absent for so much of the time, which led to Journey going on a hiatus. Although the band did get to reunite in 1996 for another album, Perry had an accident while hiking in Hawaii and suffered a hip injury. He was thus not in the condition to perform on his tour, and this led to rising tensions between the members.
This hip injury led to a degenerative bone condition requiring hip replacement surgery. As Steve Perry didn’t want to get the surgery done immediately, he requested a tour postponement. However, he refused to get it done even after 17 months since this announcement led to his band members giving him an ultimatum saying that if he did not get the surgery done, the band would hire a new replacement singer. Tensions between the members rose.
Why Did Steve Perry Leave Journey?
Steve Perry Left Journey: Here is Why
As revealed by the singer in an interview in 2018, the decision about the hip injury surgery was the core reason for his leaving the group. The singer did not feel like his personal decision about an injury that was affecting him and his family was not something that the band had any business getting involved with.
And Perry officially announced that he would be leaving the band permanently. The band did go ahead and replace him with Steve Augeri. In another interview, he had commented that he had never really felt like he was “part of the band,” to which the former manager Herbie Herbert sent out a statement positively disagreeing with him.
Why Did Steve Perry Leave Journey?
Rumors of his disagreements with their manager eventually pushed him to make this decision. However, there is no actual clarity on how true these rumors are. What did happen was that despite having a successful career as an artist, including his solo works, Steve Perry stopped making music for a long time.
Steve Perry Left Journey: Where Is He Now?
After the split from his band and the album release of “For The Love of Strange Medicine,” Steve Perry vanished from the music industry. Although he made a few appearances over the years in interviews, the artist claimed that he had lost the ability and purpose behind writing music, much to the dismay of his fans.
Over the years, he has also sued his bandmates over the copyrights of his music, indicating bad blood between them. However, in 2018, Perry decided to complete his long unfinished album, “Traces,” with which he stepped back into the music world with a solo career.
And although he has not announced any tour and has clarified that he will not be rejoining his bandmates, fans continue to hold their candles for him. We wish him the best in his future endeavors!
Zoro is one of the iconic characters in all of Manga despite not being a protagonist. Throughout the series, he has gone through many shifts and has overcome many battles to become the best swordsman in all the Grand Line. But like every character in Luffy’s crew, he has quirks and weaknesses. For one, you should never give him a map or ask for directions, you will be lost in both cases, and he will blame you for that! But one thing all his fans would admit is this, he is a straight-laced who does his uttermost to become the best and would do anything to save his friends.
The best instance of this case was when Zoro took all of Luffy’s pain after Kuma totaled the rubber pirate. Kuma is a devil fruit user with the ability to push anything. Arbitrary in nature, Kuma easily defeated and then exhausted Straw hats with ease. And when Kuma was ready to take Luffy to the world government, Zoro offered to switch with him. But Kuma had a sadistic idea.
Kuma was a different character from the people working for the government. When confronted by Zoro, he offered to take neither of them to the government, surprising Zoro. Instead, he proposed he would push all of Luffy’s pain onto him knowing that would kill Zoro. And to show how deadly that pain would be, he pushed a little of Luffy’s Pain to Zoro.
Zoro screamed in agony but asked him to throw all the pain at him anyway. And Kuma asked if he still wanted to go forward with this, to which Zoro said yes. What followed was when one of the coolest scenes in One Piece and an iconic meme format.
CC: One Piece Franchise
So Why Is Zoro Called Zolo In The Manga?
There are two reasons for this, first the language barrier. The Japanese language has three scripts; Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Kanji are borrowed Chinese words, so it comes down to the other two. However, neither of the other two scripts has an ‘L’ sound, and in all the instances L sound is replaced with the ‘R’ sound. This is why when you hear the character say the word ‘Love,’ it sounds like ‘rove.’
Moreover, that doesn’t stop people from making the distinction between the two syllables, as Katakana is for this very purpose. The main purpose of Katakana is for the use of foreign words. This brings us to the next reason that helps the creator avoid a lawsuit. And a sad side of the publishing industry.
In one of the Interviews Oda listed the inspirations he took for every character and how the series came to be in the first place. The main inspiration for the story from a pirate story that anyone hardly talks about these days, with a big influence being Dragon Ball. For his characters, however, Oda took inspiration from a lot of places all over the world. While Luffy is based on Goku, other characters’ inspiration comes from many places. Like Captain kid based on William Kidd, Black Beard based on William Teach, Jewelry Bonney based on Anne Bonny, and so on.
And Zoro, to is based on a real-life pirate named François l’Olonnais, a french pirate in the 1600s. However, due to the similarity of the name with the character Zorro created by Johnston McCulley in 1919. The English publication decided to change Zoro’s name to Zolo to avoid copyright issues, to which Oda agreed. And this is not the only case of the name change. For similar reasons, stand names from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure version are different in the English localization.
CC: One Piece Franchise
What Is With Zoro’s Left Eye?
Every character changed after the two-year time-skip in One Piece. The main reason Oda did it was to have grown-up designs for characters, but also to give them the ability to use Haki. Zoro, too, was able to use Haki after his return, but he also had a cut on the left side of his face.
The first assumption of everyone was Zoro had lost it, but Zoro clarified and said he couldn’t open it for the time being. This will be one of the things that will play a role later in the story, and since the series has entered the final arc, we will soon learn why he keeps his eye shut and why. And will they have bounty even after the finale?
“One Piece” is a beloved Japanese manga and anime series that chronicles the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his pirate crew. Luffy, imbued with rubber powers from a mystical fruit Hito Hito no Mi, aspires to become the Pirate King. To achieve this, he seeks the ultimate treasure, the “One Piece,” hidden at the Grand Line’s end. Along the journey, Luffy gathers a diverse crew, confronts formidable foes, and uncovers world-altering secrets, all while promoting themes of friendship, freedom, and adventure.
