We who live in Shanghai have to have a soft spot for Filipino cover bands — there could be one waiting around just about every corner in certain parts of the city. And so despite having nothing to do with Shanghai (or China), we thought we'd post this tip we got from reader Ryan Martin this morning via email:
I don't know if you guys covered this but the singer of a Filipino cover band was picked off youtube to be the new Journey singer. We all know Filipino cover bands are both incredibly talented and a little bizarre, but it's good to see one get picked up for their talents. And no band could be a more natural fit for a Filipino cover band than Journey.
Here's the story from NME:
Legendary rockers Journey have hired a Filipino fan to front the band after parting ways with Jeff Scott Soto earlier this year.The band discovered Arnel Pineda, from Quezon City in the Philippines via YouTube, when they saw footage of him singing Journey songs in his homeland with his band The Zoo.
Original frontman Steve Perry was replaced in 1998 with Steve Augeri who was forced to leave the band due to health problems.
But Pineda almost missed his dream job after initially assuming emails from guitarist Neal Schon were a hoax.
And, seriously, close your eyes while listening to the Pineda video and the image of Steve Perry pops into your head ... which is kind of scary, so we don't recommend doing it more than once.
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