Cleveland Plain Dealer - Cleveland,OH,USA
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Thursday, December 23, 2004
Gary Graff
Special to The Plain Dealer

Neal Schon knows he has a good thing going on with Journey. But the guitarist
always has had some creative wanderlust, which has led him to a series of side
bands and acoustic solo albums over the years.

The latest of these is Soul Sirkus, a group he formed with Journey drummer Deen
Castronovo, well-credentialed bassist Marco Mendoza and singer Jeff Scott Soto.
The group's self-released debut, "World Play," is out on its Web site,
www.soulsirkus.com, and Schon says Soul Sirkus is actually behaving more like a
real band than a side project.

"I started sending Jeff MP3 files, basically just music and a lot of melody,
and he started sending one back a day, finished," Schon says. "I was very, very
impressed with how he knew what he was doing; I didn't have to be there to coach
him or anything. It was a no-brainer."

Schon says Soul Sirkus' approach, which recalls the harder-rocking path of the
first Journey albums, might be more suited to European audiences than to fans in
the United States. "It's going to be easier to attain our audience over there,
with this type of music," Schon says. "But I think the States are gonna love it,
too."

In fact, Soul Sirkus' first live foray will be in the United States, a
half-dozen dates in California and Nevada. It remains to be seen how much time
Schon will be able to put into the group, however, since he's planning an
instrumental solo album as well as a new Journey release for 2005.


regards,


Russ Blomstedt
http://blomstedt.ssr.be
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