Herbie Herbert was the architect of the band Journey. He set up their initial lineup, built their reputation on the road and in stores, hired Steve Perry and made them all very rich through related business deals.
But by the time the group was set for induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, he’d been pushed out of his role as manager. Herbert wasn’t planning to attend the ceremony. Ironically, things were particularly strained with Perry – despite Herbert’s key role in bringing him into the band.
“Made no mistake: There’s no Journey without Herbie Herbert,” said Paul Rappaport, longtime senior vice president of promotion at Columbia Records, the band’s label. Herbert had met Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon when he was working as road manager during their tenure in Santana. The foundation of Journey was set.
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“Herbie went up to Neal Schon and said, ‘I want to build a band around you, around your guitar playing. That’s how Journey started,” Rappaport told the UCR Podcast. “Herbie was sort of like the godfather of this Journey thing. He shepherded it through Steve Perry and threw a lot of tumultuous times.”
Among the most tumultuous happened as Journey attempted a mid-’90s reunion. Legendary A&R executive John Kalonder, one of Rappaport’s colleagues at Columbia Records, engineered a meeting between Perry and former bandmate Jonathan Cain almost a decade after Journey drifted apart in the wake of 1986’s Raised on Radio. Soon, Schon was on board too – but Perry made a non-negotiable demand before agreeing to reunite.
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Journey’s Reunites, But Without Herbie Herbert
Herbert had to go. Apparently, Perry wanted to play a more central role in management. “He had a terrible animus toward Herbie,” longtime San Francisco Chronicle music writer Joel Selvin said in the Journey: Worlds Apart band biography. “Part of his negotiations were to minimize Herbie’s influence over the band.”
Rappaport said Herbert had already begun to grow weary with the demands of managing the group, their related business operations – and the personalities. He admitted as much prior to an earlier Journey concert as their equipment arrived.
“He says, ‘Want to know something, Rap?’ He goes, ‘I’m really proud. See those semis? We own every one of them,” Rappaport said. “We’ve got 70 people working for us in our management company up in San Francisco. We can record our own record, make our own album cover and distribute it worldwide within a week. That’s what we’ve built. And then he looked at me and he said, ‘And I’m going to tell you something else. It almost wasn’t worth it.’ Wow, yeah. My knees buckled. ‘It almost wasn’t worth it.’ That’s what Herbie went through with these challenges that you face with egos and whatever.”
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The lineup from Journey’s multi-platinum Escape and Frontiers era eventually reunited, producing 1996’s smash Trial by Fire. “When You Love a Woman” became a Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling Top 15 hit single. But, for the first time ever, Herbert wasn’t involved. Journey was being managed by Irving Azoff, an industry heavyweight who has worked with Eagles, Steely Dan, Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses and many others.
“Steve Perry became very powerful in the band and there was a political shakeup and there were
power plays – and Herbie got the brunt of it,” said Rappaport, who talks about these years in his new book, Gliders Over Hollywood: Airships, Airplay and the Art of Rock Promotion. “It shouldn’t happen but you know, it’s the business. It’s the way that things can happen. It was between him and Steve and it wasn’t pretty – and Herbie was hurt by it, frankly. And so the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame comes and Herbie almost didn’t want to go because he just kind of felt bad, you know, having left in that fashion.”
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‘I Guess Steve Just Needed to Fix It’
Rappaport credited manager John Baruck, who’d been tapped by Azoff to handle everyday band operations, with getting Herbert to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center for the Rock Hall ceremony.
He said, “‘You’ve got to go – because John Baruck knew something that Herbie did not know. He said, ‘You’ve got to go.’ Herbie said, ‘No, you know, it might be uncomfortable.’ He goes, like, ‘The guys love you; Steve loves you. You just don’t know it. I’m telling you, you need to go.’ And so he went.”
Perry’s appearance on stage during the band’s acceptance speeches was a surprise for Herbert – and, it turned out, for everyone at HBO, too. Perry was listed as “TBD” on the evening’s official broadcast rundown for the ceremony. He began with a lengthy memory of how he originally joined the group, but only after fellow Journey inductees Schon, Ainsley Dunbar, Rolie, Steve Smith and Ross Valory had already stepped forward.
In the next surprise, Perry then heaped praise on Herbert. “Somehow, one of my demo tapes fell into the hands of Herbie Herbert,” he said on stage, while pointing out Journey’s former manager in the crowd. “I would not be here tonight if it was not for Herbie Herbert.” Applause rang out for several moments.
“I guess Steve just needed to fix it,” Rappaport said. “The first thing he says is, ‘I need to tell everybody in this room and anybody who’s listening on radio or on YouTube that guy right there, Herbie Herbert, is the reason that I’m here. Herbie Herbert is the reason that I’m in Journey.’ There is no Steve Perry in Journey without Herbie Herbert – and the world needs to know it. Now I’m paraphrasing what he said, but was that heavy? It hit Herbie right [in] the heart, where it was supposed to.”
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Singers may come, and singers most certainly may go, but some great songs remain.
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
