Arnel Pineda (born September 5, 1967) is an international Filipino singer-songwriter and is currently the lead singer of the American rock band Journey.[1] Pineda has enjoyed a successful musical career in Asia for the last 25 years.
Biography
Arnel Pineda was born in Sampaloc, Manila, in the Philippines. His mother instilled his love for singing at an early age, encouraging him to sing along to songs from her favorite singers like Karen Carpenter and Barbra Streisand. Growing up, his parents entered him in many singing contests.
His mother, who had been suffering from rheumatic heart disease, died when he was thirteen. Her illness had left their family deep in debt. Being a year behind on their rented apartment and unable to sufficiently provide for the family, his father decided to move out and ask relatives to take in Pineda’s siblings. To ease his father’s burden, Pineda quit school and volunteered to strike out on his own.
For about two years his life was spent out on the streets, sleeping wherever he could: in public parks, or on a narrow bench outside a friend’s crowded house. He earned meager money by collecting glass bottles, newspapers, and scrap metal and selling them to recyclers. He would also go to the pier with his friends and take on odd jobs like cleaning scrap metal and docked ships. He didn’t have much to eat, sometimes rationing a small package of biscuit as his meal for two days. Despite all these hardships he tried to remain optimistic about his future.
The Journey
Videos of The Zoo performing cover songs by Journey, Survivor, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Air Supply, The Eagles, Kenny Loggins and other popular acts from the 70s, 80s and 90s, began appearing on YouTube.com in February 2007. On June 28, 2007,[5] Neal Schon of Journey contacted Noel Gomez, a longtime fan and friend of Pineda who uploaded many of these videos, to ask for Pineda’s contact information. Schon sent an e-mail to Pineda inviting the latter to audition for Journey. Pineda initially dismissed the e-mail as a hoax, but after being persuaded by Gomez, he finally replied to Schon’s e-mail. Ten minutes later, Pineda received a phone call from Schon.[6] On August 12,[7] Pineda, along with his manager Bert de Leon, flew to Marin County, just north of San Francisco, for a two-day audition.[8][9] The star-struck Pineda was welcomed warmly but he described the audition as “nerve-wracking, tense”.[10] OnDecember 5, 2007, Pineda was announced as the lead singer of Journey. CNN Headline News ran the story as part of their “News to Me” segment.[11]
Pineda debuted as the lead singer of Journey on February 21, 2008 at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival held at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheater in Viña del Mar, Chile. [12][13] Videos of the Vina del Mar performance are available at the Festival’s home page and on YouTube.
Chilean media acclaimed Pineda’s performance (translated to English): “The new vocalist fit very well with the band, his vocal aptitudes shining through, which are very similar to the legendary musician of the band, Steve Perry.”[14] Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain described Pineda’s performance in a radio interview: “We went to Chile just recently, where we had never played and they went crazy, they absolutely went nuts…Arnel’s first show — talk about a stressful thing — we had a televised concert for 25 million people…Is the guy a winner? Yeah, he’s a winner. He’s a clutch player.” [15]
Journey returned to the US for a private Remax Convention event at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on March 6, 2008, then performed at Las Vegas’ Planet Hollywood on March 8, 2008 (this concert was recorded and used, in part, for the Revelation DVD).
On February 1, 2009 he performed with Journey at the Super Bowl XLIII Pregame Show.
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