If
you’ve been in the music game and thought of giving up, as the Journey song goes: “Don’t Stop Believing.” This is one of the most inspiring true stories I’ve ever heard and helped me personally resurrect my own career and it will for you too regardless of how long you’ve been in the game.
If you haven’t heard of Arnel Pineda, he’s a 47 year old Filipino singer songwriter grew up with a mother who had been suffering from heart disease and died when he was 13 years old. Since his mother’s illness left the Pineda family deep in debt with six months rent overdue 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 volunteered to strike out on his own.
At this time 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. To earn money he collected glass bottles, newspapers, and scrap metal and sold 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 biscuits as food for two days.
Backtracking to childhood we also find out that Arnel was encouraged to sing by his mother and while homeless got an opportunity to sing with a cover band. It was at this point that Arnel began a long journey, which found him singing for a living in one way or another and scraping by for 25 years. He also attempted to write his own material and had minimal success in the Philippines and other Asian territories, but no major breakthroughs until June 28, 2007, when Neal Schon of Journey contacted Noel Gomez on YouTube. Noel was a longtime fan and friend of Pineda who had uploaded many of the videos he had taken of Arnel singing.
Neil Schon then 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. Within 10 minutes, Pineda received a phone call from Schon and on August 12,Pineda, along with his manager Bert de Leon, flew to Marin County, in Northern California for a two-day audition. The audition initially did NOT go well and Arnel did not get the job after the two day audition, but since he was scheduled to be there for a week the Journey members decided to keep auditioning him.
After Arnel settled down and calmed himself he was able to give an all-star performance and blew the Journey members away. When they finally hired him for the job as lead singer on December 5, 2007, it was announced CNN Headline News. Arnel’s first gig was as the lead singer of Journey on February 21, 2008 at the at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheater in Chile to 20,000 people.
Perhaps even more impressive is that the popularity of Journey Internationally has exceeded what it ever was at their height in the 80’s. It seems Arnel’s ethnic addition and incredible voice boosted Journey way beyond what they ever expected. Since then they have made Arnel an equal 1/5 partner in all net profits from their tours and needless to say he is a multimillionaire at this point.
As for original music, Arnel recorded a new album with Journey and contributed his own original lyrics, which sold over 1 million copies. Its truly a Cinderella story, which has inspired millions of people to “Don’t Stop Believing.” So what can we learn from Arnel?
Top 4 Action Steps
1) Don’t Stop Believing you can be successful
2) Keep your nose to the grindstone and keep honing your craft, if you get good enough you will eventually win to some degree
3) YouTube is a career launcher, make sure you are posting not just anything but good material of you performing both live and edited.
4) Make sure you watch the video “Don’t Stop Believin’ Every Mans Journey” you can get it on Netflix or rent it at Apple.