Ellington

Last year, Jeremy Hunsicker, lead singer of the Journey tribute band Frontiers, received a phone call from Journey’s keyboard player, Jonathan Cain, that changed his life.

Journey’s lead singer, Jeremy Scott Soto, left the band after touring six months with them following the departure of Steve Augeri, and Cain told Hunsicker the band was looking for a replacement.

“(Jonathan’s) daughter had seen Frontiers clips on YouTube, and she said, ‘Hey Dad, you need to get in touch with this guy,’ ” Hunsicker said. “Long story short, Jonathan called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m really interested in you because of the way you re-create the music in a very original sense, which is something we’re looking for instead of imitating what we did.’ ”

Cain and Journey’s guitar player, Neil Schon, flew out to see a Frontiers performance and were won over by Hunsicker, whose vocals had always been described as a dead ringer for Journey’s best-known frontman, Steve Perry. The band flew Hunsicker out to California for a week to try him out in front of their management and to write music and practice with the band.

Hunsicker was offered the job and returned home, but he soon received a call saying the band wanted to try out some other candidates before settling on him. Eventually, they settled instead on Arnel Pineda.

Even though he didn’t land the gig, the combination of the economic downturn and the success of Journey’s 2007 release, “Revelation,” which included “Never Walk Away,” a song Hunsicker wrote during his time with the band, convinced him to turn Frontiers into a full-time gig.

“Why wouldn’t I take this opportunity to make this a full-time business?” he said. “The record has sold a little over 700,000 copies at this point ... (and) that said, it’s hard to go into work at 7:30 in the morning and get on a conference call.”

Frontiers tours around the country and will make a stop in Chattanooga on Saturday at Rhythm & Brews.

The band’s repertoire pulls from the period of Steve Perry’s involvement with Journey from 1977 to 1998. And if you ask nice enough, Hunsicker said he might even sing “Never Walk Away.”

ONLINE

To see videos of Frontiers rocking some Journey covers, visit www.youtube.com/xfactormedia

IF YOU GO

What: Frontiers, Journey tribute band.

When: 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

Where: Rhythm & Brews, 221 Market St.

Admission: $10.

Phone: 267-4644.

Venue Web site: www.rhythm-brews.com

Related links at fyi.timesfreepress.com.

PARALLELS

The story of how Jeremy Hunsicker, lead singer of the Journey tribute band Frontiers, almost found himself at the helm of the legendary ’70s rock band parallels that of Tim Owens, lead singer of a Judas Priest tribute band, who was chosen to replace lead singer Rob Halford. Owens’ story was the inspiration for the 2001 film “Rock Star,” starring Mark Wahlberg.

Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Jeremy Hunsicker, the frontman of the Journey tribute band, Frontiers, about coming within inches of joining the rock legends and how it affected his life.

CP: This may sound like a dumb question, but why Journey? What is it about Journey that appeals to you and the rest of the members of Frontiers?

JH: I think it's really, aside from a natural ability to recreate that music with my voice being so similar to Steve Perry's, luckily the music of Journey is timeless and touches a lot of people. The music that we create at a performance has its own energy, and it's just a very fulfilling music to perform.

CP: Have you been a lifelong fan? When did you discover Journey?

JH: I graduated from high school the year their greatest hits came out. For me, I was maybe three or four years past Journey when they were very popular, so I didn't get into them until some of the bands I was in started playing that music, and people started noticing how similar my voice was to Steve Perry's. As that developed, so did my interest in the band, so I became more involved as a fan learning about their background and history. It's kind of like when you find out about a band that's put out five or six records, and you want to learn everything they did before hand. It was a learning process once I got a hold of their music.

CP: When people told you your voice sounded like Perry's, did you scoff at that or did you go, “You know, it kind of does”?

JH: Yeah, it does sound similar. I've been writing music for years. I wrote my first song when I was 14 or 15 years old, and I never really made the connection when people would say it sounded like Steve Perry of Journey because I didn't know who they were and didn't pay much attention to their music. When we started performing Journey covers as a band, it became obvious that there were a lot of natural similarities there. It was frustrating to write music and have people make that comparison when you're trying to be your own person. Obviously, it's worked out real well for me, though.

CP: Tell me about the experience of working with Journey. How did they find you and what was the result of that collaboration?

JH: The band Journey was kind of at a crossroads in 2007. They had lost their singer who had replaced Steve Perry and hired a guy I actually knew, Jeff Scott Soto, to finish the tour. The assumption was they would go on and create music with Jeff and continue performing, but internally, there was some hesitation because of things that were going on. The keyboard player's, Jonathan Cain's, daughter had seen Frontiers clips on YouTube, and I guess at a family outing in Chicago, she said, “Hey dad, you need to get in touch with this guy.”

Long story short, Jonathan called me and said, “Hey, I'm really interested in you because of the way you recreate the music in a very original sense, which is something we're looking for instead of imitating what we did.” They flew out to a show a few days later in North Carolina. Neil (Schon) was very skeptical about the whole idea, so Jonathan and Neil flew out, and I guess I won them over at the performance. We had dinner afterwards, and they said, “Hey, come to San Francisco. It sounds like things will work out with Jeff, but we have some things we'd like to put you on and get you in front of our management and make this a real thing.”

So I flew out to San Francisco, and we wrote music together and performed for their management company. We spent a week out there, and the job offer was made to me. When we got back to Virginia, we negotiated terms, and later on, really hours later, I think Neil got cold feet and said, we've got a year off, and I'd like to hear a few more people.” I told them, “I didn't audition for your band - I didn't answer an add - you came to me and turned my whole life upside down. If you want to do that process, do it with other people, and if you still want me, call me back and let me know.” OF course, the rest is pretty well known. Neil got his guy, Arnel Pineda from the Philippines, over and he did a great job auditioning for the band and got the job.

CP: I'm sure this comparison has been made before, but have you seen the Mark Wahlberg movie “Rock Star?” You are Mark Wahlberg's character. It's eerie how close your stories are.

JH: Oh yeah, it's bizarre to the power of 10, because their other singer, Jeff Scott Soto, had done some of the singing in that movie. Then of course, there's the parallel between myself and the Mark Wahlberg character, the reality is that Tim Owens was Judas Priest, which is funny because I was a huge Judas Priest fan instead of being a Journey fan in high school. That was the music I was listening to. It was all a weird combination of coincidences.

CP: I totally had this moment reading your bio that, “Oh my god, this guy is Mark Wahlberg.”

JH: Right, well he was in a little better shape than me. (Laughs.)

CP: When you got that original phone call from Jonathan Cain, did you automatically accept that it was him or did you think someone was playing a prank on you?

JH: It sounds odd, and I don't want to say I wasn't shocked or anything, but in that movie, they changed a lot from the Judas Priest story to where it was a band at the top of their game when the lead singer walked out and called Mark Wahlberg's character. Journey had kind of been under the radar for 8-10 years, so it wasn't as though it was the most-popular band in the world calling me up and me going, “This can't be happening.” I had bumped into their world on occasion throughout the years, so it wasn't that much of a shock. Make no mistake, it was a great thing to have happen that I never expected, but it wasn't that much of a shocking thing.

CP: Did you really have to work to sound like Steve Perry, or does your voice naturally fall in that groove?

JH: That's naturally where my voice is, and that's how I sing. If people go back and listen to songs I wrote 14-15 years ago, one of the reviews said, “It sounds like Steve Perry with a drum machine.” That's absolutely not what I wanted for myself, but that's where my natural voice is. It's kind of where you find what you're supposed to be doing. I don't want to say that what I'm supposed to be doing is playing in a Journey tribute band, but at the same time, it's opened a lot of opportunities for me.

CP: You do seem to be doing a lot of touring off the momentum of that similarity.

JH: We do this full time now. In June of this year, we turned over pretty much the entire personnel of the band, except the bass player, and started doing this on a full-time basis. A lot of this had to do with me being in this job I'd been in for 12 years and saying, “The economy is bad, and I might not have a job in a year,” and at the same time having a song coming out on this Wal-Mart record that sold 500,000 copies. Why wouldn't I take this opportunity to try out and make this a full-time business? The record has sold a little over 700,000 copies at this point, so it being a double record, it's eligible for platinum status. That said, it's hard to go into work at 7:30 in the morning and get on a conference call. (Laughs.)

CP: Was the decision to leave as immediate as just deciding one morning that the record sales were high enough, that the royalty checks were big enough to leave or did you debate about it for awhile?

JH: I worked in the trucking business in sales, and the economy in this part of the world and obviously all over the place was gradually going downhill. The company I worked for at the time was having cutbacks in March of this year, and I told myself I was going to give myself until June to get this together. I told my agent to start booking then because June 1, I was going to be on the road full time. It worked out really well. From my understanding, they laid off additional sales people in my area and eliminated the position I had, so they weren't replacing me. It's a good time to get out and do some entrepreneurial things, whether it's as a musician or making coffee or whatever you do. I think there are going to be a lot of positive things that come out of it.

CP: Sounds like you were offered the perfect opportunity.

JH: Absolutely. This business isn't recession-proof. We don't do the business we'd like to do from time to time and city to city, but we're laying groundwork for a lot of opportunities down the road.

CP: Since you ended up not getting the lead singer slot, have you had any contact with Journey? Has Frontiers played with them or attracted their attention?

JH: No. My connection has been with the song on the record. I've talked to Jonathan Cain and other friends I made while I was out there since, but it's pretty much a done deal. They've put this record out and toured with Arnel very, very successfully, so I wouldn't expect there to be anything else.

CP: What song did you write on the record?

JH: The song I wrote was “Never Walk Away.” We demoed two or three other songs that ended up on the CD, but that's the one that I came in from start to finish. That was a brand-new song. It was a pretty exciting thing to have happen.

CP: Did you sing the song or was it more the arrangement and lyrics that you had a hand in?

JH: Neil had the guitar riff and the structure he wanted down. It was a demo he brought into rehearsal, so he taught the song to the rest of the band and handed me a microphone and told me to do my thing. I experimented with different melodies and vocals, and later on that night, Jonathan listened to what we recorded and added some lines and brought it back the next day and we finished it off. I was as big a part of writing the song as I could be, melody-wise and lyrically.

CP: Were you credited on the album?

JH: Yeah. I've gotten royalty checks and my name is in the liner notes and all that good stuff. It's an amazing opportunity that I really didn't expect when we demoed those songs that they would come out on the CD. They were a big part of what ended up on the final CD, so I was really thrilled to be a part of that.