“Arnel Pineda”

Arnel Pineda

Arnel Pineda of Journey performing in Macau, March 20, 2009

Background information

Birth name Arnel Campaner Pineda[1]

Born September 5, 1967 (age 50)

Tondo, Manila, Philippines

Origin Sampaloc, Manila,Philippines

Genres Rock, hard rock, soft rock,OPM

Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter

Instruments Vocals, guitar, bandurria,keyboard, percussion

Years active 1982–present

Labels Universal Music Group

Associated Ijos Band, Amo, New Age, Most W@nted, The

acts Zoo,Journey

Website www.arnelpinedarocks.com
 Arnel Campaner Pineda (born September 5, 1967)[1] is a Filipino singer and
songwriter. He came to prominence in the Philippines during the 1980s and internationally in
2007 as the lead singer of the American rock band Journey.[2]

Contents
[hide]

 1Early life
 2Career
o 2.1The Zoo
o 2.2Journey
 2.2.1Revelation album and tour
 3Personal life
 4Filmography
 5Television appearances
 6Discography
o 6.1Solo albums
o 6.2With The Zoo
o 6.3With Journey
o 6.4Other lead vocals
 7Awards
 8References
 9External links

Early life[edit]
Arnel Pineda was born on September 5, 1967 at St. Jude Thaddeus Diagnostic Clinic
in Tondo, Manila, Philippines to Restituto Lising Pineda and Josefina Manansala
Campaner.[1] His mother instilled his love for singing at an early age, encouraging him to sing
along to her favorite singers[3] like Karen Carpenter and Barbra Streisand. Growing up, his
parents entered him in many singing contests.[4]
His mother, who had been suffering from heart disease, died when he was 13 years old. Her
illness had left their family deep in debt.[5] Being more than six months behind on their apartment
rent 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 started
working.
He spent about two years 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 Marie biscuit as food for two days.[6]

Career[edit]
In 1982, when Pineda was 15 years old, he became the lead singer of the Filipino group Ijos. He
used to sing in a Shakey's Pizza Parlor on Taft Street in Manila. In 1986, some members of Ijos
formed a group called Amo. Amo entered and won the Rock Wars contest in the Philippines.[7]
In 1988, Amo entered and won the Philippines leg of the Yamaha World Band Explosion. They
went on to the finals in Hong Kong, but were not qualified to win due to a technicality. The rules
stated the winning song had to be an original composition. However, they also stated that the
song entry in the finals had to be the same song with which the band won their country's leg of
the competition. Amo's winning song in the Philippines was Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".
After the contest, the band continued as Amo, performing live. They opened for Robert
Palmer in Manila in 1989.[7] Amo played in clubs in Quezon City, Olongapo City and Makati
City, which are in Luzon, the biggest island in the Philippines. Amo was very popular in the
Chinese-owned California Jam club in Olongapo City, which was frequented by United States
military personnel.[7]
In 1990, Pineda and other members of Amo formed another band called Intensity Five and once
again entered the Yamaha World Band Explosion. Pineda won the Best Vocalist award and the
band came in as first runner up.[7]
Later in 1990, five of Amo's original members split from the band leader, Ulysis Ablang and
formed another band behind Pineda, New Age. This occurred prior to the release of Amo's only
album released in 1990 titled Ang Tunay na Amo ("The Real Master") on BMG records which
spawned one popular radio hit called "Running Away". (The song gained recognition in 2006 by
another Filipino artist Erik Santos, who won a Filipino TV talent show, Star in a Million.) The
remaining members of Amo went on to become The Boss Band, while Pineda's band, New Age,
played regularly at Fire and Rain in Makati City.
In 1991, during one of those performances, a talent agent spotted Pineda and New Age and asked
them to move to Hong Kong to perform at a very popular entertainment restaurant called
Grammy's. With New Age, Pineda performed six nights a week, Tuesday through to Sunday, for
several years thereafter.[7] After a long-term serious relationship failed in 1994, Pineda suffered
health problems, which almost destroyed his voice. He then returned to the Philippines. After six
months of recuperation, he was able to sing again.[7][8] He returned to Hong Kong and resumed
singing with his band. In 1998, the owner of Igor's, a horror-themed restaurant/nightclub in Hong
Kong, asked New Age to perform there. Dressed in skeleton outfits, they called themselves The
Rolling Bones.[7]
In 1999, Pineda caught the attention of Warner Bros. record label and flew back to the
Philippines on his days off to record a solo album, the self-titled Arnel Pineda. Most of the
album's ten original songs were slow ballads, with only two upbeat numbers, one of which
carries a Latin style. One of the songs, "Iiyak Ka Rin" ("You Will Cry Too") became a karaoke
favorite in Asia, while another song "Sayang" ("Too Bad") became a radio favorite. Pineda wrote
and arranged several songs. He continued to perform with New Age while making his album and
for several years thereafter. In 2001, Pineda sang one song, "Looking Glass", with Filipino
band South Border on their album The Way We Do. Earlier that year, Pineda formed a new band,
eventually called 9mm, and played around the city's top bars including the Hard Rock Cafe in
Makati City. The band played a three-month stint at The Edge in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong, in
2002.
In 2004, three members of New Age reformed with a female singer sharing lead vocals with
Pineda and called themselves Most W@nted. This band played 3–4 hour sets Monday through
Saturday at The Cavern Club in Hong Kong.[9] On their only day off, Sunday, the band often
performed at Filipino community events.
In 2005, Pineda recorded the theme song of the short-lived Filipino radio show Dayo. A band
named The Visitors was briefly formed for promotion purposes of the Dayo soundtrack
consisting of three members from Ijos/Yjoz, Amo, New Age and Most W@nted.[7]
The Zoo[edit]
In 2006, encouraged by well-respected Filipino talent manager and TV director Bert de Leon,
Pineda moved back to the Philippines with Monet Cajipe, the guitarist who had been in all of
Pineda's previous bands. They formed The Zoo with Emil Bondoc on bass, Edgar Mendoza on
keyboards, and Mckoy Alcantara on drums. They signed on with de Leon's company, Sundance
Entertainment Corporation. The Zoo performed several nights a week at clubs in Manila and
Olongapo during 2006 and 2007. Shows regularly spanned 3–5 hours. The Zoo’s first
album Zoology was released by MCA Universal in September 2007 featuring 12 original tracks
and one cover song ("Pain in My Heart" was originally recorded a decade earlier by Second
Wind), five of which were penned by Pineda, and another was co-written by Pineda and Mark
Valliente.[10][11]
Journey[edit]

Arnel Pineda at the PNC Bank Arts Center, New Jersey, on August 11, 2008.

Videos of The Zoo performing cover songs by Journey, Survivor, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin,Air
Supply, The Eagles, Kenny Loggins, Stryper and other popular acts from the 1970s, 1980s and
1990s, began appearing on YouTube in February 2007. On June 28, 2007, Neal Schon of
Journey contacted Noel Gomez, a longtime fan and friend of Pineda who had uploaded many of
these videos, to ask for Pineda's contact information.[12] Schon sent an e-mail to Pineda inviting
him 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.[13] On August 12,[14] Pineda, along with his manager Bert de Leon, flew
to Marin County, just north of San Francisco, for a two-day audition.[15][16] The star-struck Pineda
was welcomed warmly but he described the audition as "nerve-wracking, tense".[17] On December
5, 2007, Pineda was announced as the new lead singer of Journey.[18]
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.[19][20]
Chilean media acclaimed Pineda's performance (translated to English): "The new vocalist fits
very well with the band, his vocal aptitudes shining through, which are very similar to the
legendary musician of the band, Steve Perry."[21] Journey keyboardist/guitarist 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."[22]
Journey returned to the United States for a private RE/MAX Convention event at the MGM
Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, 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.
Revelation album and tour[edit]
Journey's first album with Pineda, Revelation, debuted at No. 5 in the Billboard Top 200 album
charts in the week following its release (released June 3, 2008), and remained in the Top 20 for
six weeks. It was certified gold by the RIAA with more than 336,000 units sold within the first
few days.[23] It achieved platinum status by October 1, 2009.
The US version of the album (distributed exclusively through Wal-Mart) consists of ten new
songs ("Faith in the Heartland" was co-written and originally recorded by vocalist Steve
Augeri and S. Augeri is credited as songwriter in the liner notes of this album) and 12 re-
recorded classics, plus a live in-concert DVD filmed during the March 8, 2008 concert in Las
Vegas. The European version distributed through Frontiers Records contains 11 new songs, 11
re-recorded classics, plus one new bonus track, but does not include the DVD. All of the music
on Revelation was produced by Kevin Shirley (who previously worked with Journey on their
Platinum-certified Trial by Fire album).[24]
Jonathan Cain described the album in an interview:
We recorded our greatest hits with our brand new singer from the Philippines, Arnel Pineda, and
it's unbelievable when you listen to it. We paid a lot of attention to the details because everybody
loves those hits and we weren't about to step all over it...We're excited because we think Arnel is
the future for our franchise...We knew that if we were ever gonna move on, we had to get
somebody that was really gonna be our future and sound like Journey is supposed to sound...I
think Journey fans are in for a real treat.[22]
In an interview soon after Pineda joined the band, Neal Schon said:
We feel reborn. I think there’s a lot of chemistry among the five of us. At first we were going to
go into the studio and just write 4 songs, but now it’s escalated to a lot of great new and diverse
material. The stuff sounds tremendous. Everyone’s so stoked about it. We feel very fortunate to
have found Arnel.[25]
Journey's 2008 tour accompanying the release of Revelation began on June 8, 2008, in Spain,
followed by four dates in Germany, and one date in the Netherlands. Journey toured the United
Kingdom and Ireland from June 17 through June 28, 2008. The US tour (with Heart and Cheap
Trick) began on July 9, 2008, in Denver, Colorado, and continued through October 4, 2008,
in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Many dates were already sold out well in advance. Pineda
celebrated his 41st birthday on September 5, 2008, during a concert at the Molson
Amphitheater in Toronto, Ontario. In September 2008, Journey performed back-to-back sold-out
concerts at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.[26] Pineda sang in 57 concerts during the 2008
Journey World Tour. Journey's recent[when?] visit to the United States Gulf Coast performing at the
Wharf Amphitheater, Orange Beach, Alabama, and at the Pensacola Civic Center, Pensacola,
Florida, was a tremendous hit due to the large Filipino communities living in that area.[citation needed]
On the second leg of the tour, Journey went on an Asian–Hawaiian tour, going to cities in Japan,
the Philippines, China and Hawaii.[27] The Manila concert was released as a live concert DVD.
Total concert revenue for Journey in 2008 was $35,695,481.[28]

Personal life[edit]
Pineda married Cherry Pineda in 2001. They have a son named Cherub and daughter, Thea
Chenelle Pineda, born June 15, 2012.[29] Pineda also has two older sons, Matthew and Angelo,
from past relationships.[30]

Filmography[edit]
Year Title Role Production

2012 Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey Himself Tribeca Film Festival

Television appearances[edit]
 Protege (Mentor of Nomer Limatog - replacement of Rachelle Ann Go) (GMA Network)
 ASAP (Co-host; 2008–present) (ABS-CBN)
 Simply KC (Guest) (ABS-CBN)
 Showtime (Guest judge) (ABS-CBN)
 Eat Bulaga! (Guest) (GMA Network)
 Boy and Kris (Guest) (ABS-CBN)
 The Ellen DeGeneres Show (Guest with Journey)
 CBS Early Show (Guest with Journey) (CBS)
 The Oprah Winfrey Show (Guest with Journey)
 NBC Today Show (Guest with Journey)
 Sarah G. Live (Himself/Guest) (ABS-CBN)
 May Bukas Pa (Himself) (ABS-CBN)
 The Voice of the Philippines (Guest Adviser) (ABS-CBN)