Former Journey frontman Steve Perry has released what he’s calling his “first official music video in nearly 25 years” for the song “We’re Still Here” from his 2018 comeback album, Traces. He did release a series of live performances videos of Traces songs last year, but this is a legit video where he drives around Los Angeles in a black ’70 Chevelle SS and reflects on the passage of time. His last solo video was “Missing You” in 1994, though he did appear along with Journey in a video for their 1996 hit, “When You Love a Woman.”
“[Perry collaborator] Brian [West] and I had just started writing the song and were sketching it out in the studio,” Perry said in a statement, recounting the inspiration for “We’re Still Here.” “When we broke for dinner, I went to this place down the street, and that was the first time I’d been in Hollywood in a long time. There I was on Sunset Blvd. and Hollywood and Vine just walking around. I saw a whole new generation of 16- and 17-year-olds running around just … alive. And through these kids I felt a kinship. We’re still here doing the same thing.”
The video was created to promote the new deluxe edition of Traces, which features five bonus tracks from the album sessions. As he told Rolling Stone last year, Perry was inspired to record Traces – his first release after a two-decade departure from the music world – after losing his girlfriend, Kellie Nash, to cancer in 2012. She turned to him near the end of her life and presented him with something very serious. “She said, ‘If something ever happens to me, I want you to make one promise,’” he said. “‘Promise me you won’t go back into isolation. If you do, I fear this would all be for naught.’”
Perry’s return hasn’t led him back to the concert stage, at least as of yet. Besides a handful of brief appearances with the Eels a few years back, Perry hasn’t performed a show since the end of his last solo tour in 1995. He did show up to Journey’s 2017 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but he didn’t sing that night. Fans keep hoping he’ll announce a Traces tour, but so far no dates have surfaced and there’s no indication anything is even in the planning stages. “I don’t know if a tour will happen,” he told Rolling Stone last year. “Right now it’s premature to even guess.”