NEAL SCHON Says JOURNEY Is 'Talking About Doing Another Record Before Next Year'

JOURNEY guitarist Neal Schon was interviewed yesterday (Monday, May 19) by Derek Madden of the KLOS 95.5 FM radio station in Los Angeles, California. You can now watch video footage of Schon's appearance below.

On the possibility of JOURNEY releasing a new studio album:

Schon: "We are talking about doing another record. One of the main reasons that we haven't done a record is we go, like, 'How do you get it out anymore?' It's very difficult. If you make a new record today, it's basically because it's something that you need to do and wanna do. And we certainly wanna do that, but pooling us all together… I mean, Arnel [Pineda, vocals] is in the Philippines and everybody is all over the place, and it's not as easy if we all lived in San Francisco, like we used to. But we are talking about doing another record before next year, and definitely I'm doing a record with the SANTANA guys; we've been in the studio already. And I wanna come out with a new JOURNEY record as well."

On whether the current music market and emphasis on social media has made making records more challenging:

Schon: "I think it's all challenging, you know what I mean?! You have to think about when you go in and make a record, I don't think you're ever gonna see the money back, ever. It's kind of, like, out of pocket, but you've gotta do it just for the art. Otherwise you've got attorneys sitting on duty all day long and all night long just taking down links of everybody downloading it for free. And that's been happening forever. I mean, it's, like, you've gotta just say, 'Well, I want new music out there.' And we've got some new ideas of getting it out there and making sure we get a little residual from it. So I think we're ready to check it out again."

On JOURNEY's touring plans:

Schon: "We're playing all through the summer. But it's actually a relatively light year for us compared to what we usually do. But it's because we're planning a big year next year and playing everywhere. I don't know exact specifics about where we're gonna be playing besides the U.S., but I know that we're gonna be playing a good portion of the whole year. And I've reunited with the original SANTANA band as well, and so, we've been talking about doing co-headline dates with JOURNEY and SANTANA, which would be very, very interesting as well. Anything could happen on that show — [Gregg] Rolie [JOURNEY and SANTANA co-founder] with us, and we could go back and play some of the early stuff. Who knows what'll happen? But it'll be festive, man, and it'll be fun. And I'll have double duty, and I'll love that."

JOURNEY's most recent studio album, "Eclipse", was released in May 2011. The Walmart exclusive debuted on The Billboard 200 album chart at No. 13 — eight spots lower than the band's previous album, 2008's "Revelation" — which also went on to hit No. 1 on Billboard's Top Independent Albums chart.