[USA] JOURNEY with Arnel Pineda performs on the Ellen show

May 31, 2008 by Dennis Amith

Arnel Pineda has been getting a lot of publicity. The Filipino vocalist discovered from YouTube was selected by Journey to be the new vocalist of the band is currently featured in this month’s GQ magazine and was featured several days ago on the American talk show “ELLEN” hosted by Ellen Degeneres.

In a recent article on ABS-CBN.com, Ramil Digal Gulle wrote, “It’s hard to believe that only a year ago, Pineda was singing with his Manila band The Zoo at different venues, doing covers of various high-pitched pop and rock crowd pleasers. On YouTube, you can watch Arnel’s covers of stuff like Survivor’s “Ever Since the World Began” or even Air Supply’s “Makin’ Love out of Nothing at All”. And of course, his cover versions of hits by Journey.”

“Journey’s lead guitarist and founding member Neal Schon (he’s also a former member of Santana) found clips of Pineda on YouTube in 2007. He told GQ magazine that during his search, he deliberately tried to avoid a Steve Perry clone.”

“I didn’t think they had anything new to offer,” Schon says, “other than making us a nostalgia act, and I wasn’t interested in that,” he told GQ, explaining the he wanted a singer who could not only sing the hits made popular by Perry, but also help take the band in a new direction.