Q&A: Journey's Arnel Pineda

• Sad 'Journey' for New Singer

In Issue 1062 Rolling Stone spoke to Arnel Pineda about what seems like the dream gig of a lifetime: going on tour with Journey after being plucked from obscurity when the band caught him singing "Faithfully" on YouTube. Here's more of our conversation with the 41-year-old Filipino vocalist, as he opens up about the hardships of the road and how he learned about landing the job.

How's the tour going? It's gotta be a blast playing to such gigantic crowds.
Yeah, it is, it is. For an Asian guy like me, to be in a band, you know it's so surreal. It's some sort of a miracle it happened to me. It changed my life, overnight. Everything hasn't sunk in yet.

Do you remember the first time you heard Journey's music?
Oh, I think I was 10 or 11 years old. I think the first song I learned about then was "Open Arms." Then when I got tired of listening to "Open Arms" I borrowed my friend's Journey album, Escape, and tried to listen to every song. Basically I learned "Stone in Love," "Don't Stop Believin'," "Who's Crying Now" — that album. Journey are very big in the Philippines.

Your old band the Zoo used to cover Journey, right?
Just once every six months. When me and my guitar player went back to the Philippines from Hong Kong to form the Zoo there was this guy who remembered me singing Journey songs in the Eighties. So he yelled out the song "Faithfully," so we [played it], and then they recorded it, and those were one of the videos that were uploaded on YouTube.

So how were you first contacted by Journey?
When Neal Schon discovered the videos on YouTube, he tried to find my friend's e-mail address, so he found it and he sent him an e-mail claiming that he's Mr. Neal Schon and he's from Journey and he's serious about getting me to San Francisco to try out as their frontman. When my friend forwarded the e-mail to me, I was just laughing. I just told him that this is one of the biggest jokes I have ever received from someone. "It's a hoax," I tell him. "You shouldn't believe it."

But my friend insisted that, "Why don't you just try replying? Maybe he's really Neal Schon." But I told him that Neal Schon is one of the biggest guitar players in the world. I don't think he will ever waste his time for me. But my friend is a very persistent guy. So I e-mailed Neal Schon back and after 10 minutes he called me. But then he had to convince me that he was really Neal Schon, because I was asking him about his identity.

What kind of questions?
Like, "Are you really Neal Schon?" I was trying to challenge him to go Webcam to Webcam conversation through Yahoo! Messenger, because I told him, "I know very well the face of Neal Schon. You have to show your face so I can believe you." And then he was laughing hard and he was telling me, "Believe me, my friend. This is Neal Schon and I'm serious about me offering you to audition for my band."