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Classic Oldies News

Neal Schon Gives Firey Response to Steve Perry’s Trademark Lawsuit

Erica Banas // Rock Music Reporter September 21st

Neal Schon has responded to Steve Perry and his petition against recent Journey trademark filings. Spoiler: The guitarist doesn’t hold back.

As previously reported, Perry filed a petition against his former bandmates Schon and Jonathan Cain over trademark registrations of 20 popular Journey songs. Perry alleges in his petition Schon and Cain didn’t have the legal grounds to file for trademarks. He also claims he should have been notified of the registrations per a previous legal agreement relating to various Journey compositions that were created when Perry was still in the band.

Following the news of Perry’s petition, Schon took to Facebook where he shared a news story about the petition and then went off in the comment section.

“What a bunch of total crap. Here’s how it goes friends,” begins Schon. “Jon Cain calls a board of directors meeting out of nowhere, then before I found out about the meeting, Jonathan came to me and said he didn’t like what they (Ross Smith Perry and Herbie) were planning.”

For clarification, the “they” Schon is referring to is bassist Ross Valory, drummer Steve Smith, Steve Perry and former Journey manager Herbie Herbert. Valory and Smith were fired from Journey in a detailed press release back in March 2020. The press release stated Smith and Valory attempted a Board of Director’s takeover at Nightmare Productions, Inc., one of Journey’s corporate entities, and claimed Smith and Valory thought Nightmare Productions had control over the Journey trademark. However, Schon and Cain have the “sole, exclusive, irrevocable right to control the Journey Mark, including the Journey name.”

He continues, “On that meeting Steve Ross Smith and Herbie voted myself and Cain off the board of directors and Steve and all voted Ross in my place and Smith in Jons. They all knew at this time I’d been investigating our Trademarks for years trying to get to the bottom of all corruption as we found (my wife and I) that nothing had ever been Trade Marked besides our music. They all went for a takeover and it didn’t work. Quite simple.”

Schon adds, “So my wife, Micheale Schon, found a legitimate Trademark attorney that wasn’t in the corrupt musical circles, and we were then successful in attaining it to protect everything we built. We had been getting ripped off since the beginning until I shut it down.
So, the question is: Why did nobody else’s attorneys (Steve’s – who was actually ours at one time also and individual band attorneys and accountants) and other so called trademark attorneys help us do this?”
Schon concludes, “It was a giant corrupted ring of people that either management or accountants hired to work for us cashing in on all our merchandise till now. At this point I decided to go for all album titles as well as song titles. The more we got educated on how Song Writing and Copy rights have NOTHING to do with Trademarks. You haven’t heard the last of this friends. We are going to peel back the onion.”

Erica Banas is a rock/classic rock news blogger who's well versed in etiquette and extraordinarily nice.
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