Journey‘s first studio album in 11 years, Freedom, was released last month.
The 15-track collection includes songs that sound like they could have come from various periods in Journey’s history, and features a mix of power ballads, hard-rocking tunes, sensitive love songs and even a funk-influenced track.
Guitarist Neal Schon oversaw Freedom‘s recording with drummer Narada Michael Walden, who co-produced the album with Schon and collaborated with Neal in the studio on most of the basic tracks.
Schon tells ABC Audio that some of his favorite songs on Freedom are the ones that rock the hardest, including “Come Away with Me,” “All Day and All Night,” “Holdin On” and the heavy funk-rock tune “Let It Rain.”
“[T]hose four tracks there, I felt they were some of the louder ones that I wrote,” Neal says. “And once I got into that vibe with Narada, when we were recording guitar and drum tracks, I felt like I wanted to come with more of it, because it’s actually what we could use in our live show.”
Journey has incorporated two of those songs into their concert sets this summer, with “Let It Rain” being played at the band’s last eight concerts, while “Come Away with Me” got its live debut at the group’s most recent performance, on August 8 in Canandaigua, New York.
Speaking about “Let It Rain,” Schon says, “[T]hat’s my Cajun soup deluxe of probably [Jimi] Hendrix and Prince and Chaka Khan and a little bit of Sly [Stone influences]…those R&B and funk roots that I don’t get to explore a lot in the Journey realm.”
Journey has four more confirmed shows on its 2022 tour schedule, all taking place in September. Visit JourneyMusic.com to check out the band’s full schedule.
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