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It's amazing to watch this humble little guy from the Philippines. He speaks English but it's very broken, and then he goes up and effortlessly blazes these songs. And the whole band, every night, is just knocked flat. We found him on YouTube. I kid you not. Neal was getting tired and said, 'We're not gonna use a tribute singer and do this tribute band crap. I'm just gonna look around some more.' Thank God for the mighty Internet. -Deen Castronovo on Arnel Pineda |
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Life Before Journey
 Deen Castronovo |
The first time I saw Castronovo with Journey I did a double take. I'd seen him years earlier with short lived but beloved hard rock band GZR led by Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler.
"Most people see me as the drummer for Journey but I'm a metal kid, through and through. The guys in the band [Journey] don't always get that. They let me go when they can but they usually keep the reins on [laughs]. If I'm doing too much, playing too hard, Neal just turns and looks at me with a squinted eye and shakes his head, as if to say, 'You better not do another lick like that again' [laughs]. I've done a lot of stuff; I've played on over 57 records. I've worked with Hole and Social Distortion," recalls Castronovo, who recognizes the big drum shoes he stepped into with Journey, whose pedigree includes one of the illest fusion percussionist of all-time (Steve Smith) and an English gentleman rocker who's played with Lou Reed, David Bowie and John Mayall (Aynsley Dunbar).
"Steve Smith has been and always will be a god to me. To me, he's by far the finest drummer on the planet because he can do no wrong. I'm a fan. He can play anything. Tell him to play a samba in 7/6 time and he'll say, 'How fast do you want it?'" continues Castronovo. "As a metal drummer when I was playing with Ozzy and GZR, Journey was like the guilty pleasure. You never admitted it. I did an interview with Kerrang! when I was with this band Wild Dogs, and when we admitted to liking Journey they said, 'You can't like that!' Turns out Wayne Static of Static-X is a huge Journey fan. The guys in Children of Bodom, too; my kid was at their concert the other day and he said when they broke into 'Don't Stop Believin' the crowd went crazy."
Change For The Better
"[With the new album], I got a sudden call saying, 'We wrote 20 songs and we're going into the studio.' I wondered when Jon and Neal had written 20 songs but the stuff was just magical. Jonathan writes what he sees and feels, and there's one song called 'Change For The Better' that he wrote for me. Nine months ago I was almost dead from drug and alcohol abuse, and Jon saw me get back on my feet and come together. Jon writes from his heart, and I remember him playing it for me and we both ended up in tears. I said, 'I fuckin' hate you' [laughs]," says Castronovo, spotlighting Cain's gift for undisguised sincerity. "I've made a lot of records but this one I'm especially proud of."
 Journey |
Schon and Cain are the band's primary composers in recent years, though each has helped shape each chapter of Journey's career from the inside out. Though not often name-checked by other artists, you can hear their sensibilities rippled throughout contemporary popular music.
"[Jon] just writes the greatest stuff. He's just got that thing. That guy can come up with a fantastic riff in a minute and ten minutes later the song is done. Neal is very underrated, too. Zakk Wylde [Ozzy Osbourne] says great things about Neal's playing, Dimebag Darrell loved Neal, and still he doesn't get a lot credit. First he'll do something nice and melodic, then he tears your face off and then he makes you cry," says Castronovo. "It's like the yin and the yang, Neal and Jonathan, two polar opposites. Jon's the balladeer and Neal's the rocker. That's the way it works when they write and then they color each other's stuff. Journey is their baby and sometimes I just watch in awe."
There's myriad pleasure buttons in their catalog, and most of their faithful aren't happy unless they get to hear all the biggies at every show. While some of us long for a taste of their early '70s space rock exploration – something they delved into during the 2005 two-set tour, much to the bafflement of audiences only familiar with their "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" side – they're lifelong pros that understand it's usually best for a band like Journey to give the people what they want.
"The hits go without saying. We have to do what we call 'The Dirty Dozen' [just look at one of their Greatest Hits collections to make an educated guess], which are the ones everybody requests. So, we have to stay in that realm and then we have six or seven other songs we can pick. We've got a catalog of 80 songs so we switch it up nightly. When we go on this European tour [which just concluded] we're doing a lot of dates in the U.K. so we're gonna switch it up, play some really old stuff like 'Kohoutek' [off Journey's self-titled 1975 debut] and 'Nickel And Dime' [off 1977's Next] which people over there just love," says Castronovo, acknowledging the greater freedom to explore all parts of the group's history overseas. However, there's not a hint of ungratefulness to Castronovo or his bandmates, who have one of the closest, most sincere relationships with fans a band can have.
"There's not a lot of people that get to do what I do and get paid for it. I get paid to do what I love, and that's a gift from God, a gift from Jesus Christ above," says a suddenly subdued Castronovo. He perks up immediately when Journey's detractors come up. "[Critics] don't like us at all, bro. Rolling Stone has dissed us since day one, and they still will diss us. But you know what? We're still going. Do we sell out every place we go? Yeah. We may not sell out every record we make but we have a new single, 'After All These Years,' climbing the charts [and Revelation has already hit the Number 5 spot on the Billboard 100]. And we're doing this without the original lead singer! Usually if you do that you just struggle. We did that for the first two years after Perry left and we built this up. In ten years, we went from playing to 1500 a night to 20,000 people a night. That's consistent now. We did over a million ticket sales on the Def Leppard tour last year! We're doing alright."
Here's today's Journey in action in Las Vegas doing, well, you'll recognize it:
JamBase | Bay Area
Go See Live Music!
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