Arnel Pineda

So this story has gotten some mainstream press, but it's possible that some of you may not spend all your days reading the news on the internet. You can read the Time magazine article here.

Arnel Pineda is a 40-year singer from the Philippines (here's his wiki page). He's spent the past 25 years playing in various cover bands. Today, he's the lead singer of Journey. Yeah, there's a lot of youtube clips.

Last summer, after Journey had parted ways with their last lead singer, Journey guitarist, Neal Schon, spent some time trolling youtube. He found clips of Arnel Pineda singing the The Zoo, his most recent band, and couldn't believe what he heard. And it was as simple as that. God bless the internet.

Pineda doesn't just sound like Journey's original lead singer, Steve Perry, he sounds better. His ability to mimic some very distinctive voices is nearly uncanny. And though they played 3-5 hour shows (according to Wikipedia) to some half-empty clubs (as you can see) with crappy youtube video sound quality, Pineda's covers sound better than the original studio recordings with all their fancy equipment.

And his story is nearly unbelievable. His family hit hard times, so he struck out on his own when he was 13 years old and has been singing professionally since he was 15. Youtube has dozens and dozens of clips of him singing with The Zoo (this is just a random selection; some of the best weren't embed-able).

Covering Journey:





Red Hot Chilli Peppers:



Aerosmith:



Heart:



Boston:



Bon Jovi:



And here he is with Journey: