A veteran of classic American jazz and rock bands, drummer/composer Steve Smith returns in 2025 with a new Vital Information album called New Perspective. For those just catching up, Smith was a key member in the lineup of rock legends Journey from 1978-1985, the period when the band recorded their enduring body of work, and true to form, he breathes new fire into several Journey classics revisited here. Assisted here by Manuel Valera (keyboards) and Janek Gwizdala (electric bass), Smith brings his legacy full circle on New Perspective.

For his powerhouse trio return to form, Smith reinvents the Journey classic “Don’t Stop Believin’” as an instrumental jazz-rock track. In addition to the three Journey remakes, New Perspective also features revivals of early Vital Information numbers as well as a new version of a Michael Brecker track entitled “Sumo” from Smith’s days with Steps Ahead. Keyboardist Valera rises to the occasion with a pair of tracks including the album closer “Josef The Alchemist”, an electrifying tribute to the late, great co-founder of Weather Report, Joe Zawinul. The fact that no electric guitars are needed here is a tribute to Smith and his inventive hard-hitting power trio.

Produced by Steve Smith, New Perspective is a jazz-fusion instrumental tour-de-force that will appeal to fans of the electrifying sounds of 1970s classic fusion legends such as Return To Forever, Jean-Luc Ponty and Steps Ahead. Now at age 70, Steve Smith can look back on his many musical successes, with both Journey and Vital Information, some of the best of which is now freshly reinvented and re-experienced on the exciting electrifying vibes of New Perspective.

2025 Interview With Steve Smith

RMR: Is New Perspective kind of a career retrospective of sorts and what made you want to revisit classics from your time in the band Journey and what parameters did you apply when covering these classics from your earlier album releases?

Steve Smith: When I started Vital Information in 1983, I was on a mission to play high-level jazz-rock with my friends and musical peers, and distance myself from Journey. The first and second Vital Information albums were recorded while I was in Journey. I needed the outlet musically and wanted to establish that my musicianship went beyond the Journey music. Leaving Journey in 1985 and subsequently being asked to join Steps Ahead in 1986 - the preeminent jazz group of its time – was a life changing event for me. The musically informed public responded by voting for me in numerous polls, especially the Modern Drummer Magazine Polls which voted me #1 All-Around Drummer from 1987-1991, five years in a row. I got a call from MD magazine founder Ron Spagnardi letting me know that I would not be in the running the following year, in order to “give some other drummers a chance” at that particular title. All of that was gratifying, I felt: “mission accomplished,” that the public could see that I had a wide-ranging musicianship.

Over the years I’ve been asked to play Journey songs with Vital Information but I’ve had no interest in playing that music in a jazz setting. With the newest incarnation of Vital Information, both Manuel Valera and Janek Gwizdala asked me if we could play some jazz arrangements of Journey music. I told them no. They both ignored my no and Manuel came up with a jazz-rock arrangement of “Don’t Stop Believin.’” I was skeptical but we read through his chart and I was knocked out! We played it live and the audience responded favorably. That’s what changed my perspective. The arrangement is fresh and in keeping with the musical direction of Vital Info. Manuel followed that up with “Open Arms” and Janek came up with an inspired treatment of “Who’s Crying Now.” They both grew up with the music of Steps Ahead which led to Manuel coming up with a version of Michael Brecker’s “Sumo.” The idea of re-recording songs that I had previously recorded but with vastly different arrangements became an album theme. “The Perfect Date,” written by longtime Vital Info keyboardist Tom Coster, has become something of a “hit” for us. Manuel updated the tune and made it quite different from the original version. “Charukeshi Express” and “Eight+Five” are two songs that were always just out of reach for my previous bands to perform live. They both involve rhythms from South India and my Konnakol vocals, which the new incarnation took to in a natural way. The versions we recorded for New Perspective surpass the original recordings.

RMR: You recorded New Perspective with Manuel Valera and Janek Gwizdala. How did you meet them and what did they bring to the table for New Perspective? Can you describe the sonic chemistry in this Vital Information lineup?

Steve Smith: In early 2020, a sequence of unfortunate health issues sidelined my longtime band. Baron Browne had a stroke in February 2020, about two weeks before we had a gig on February 22. I thought of Janek Gwizdala to sub for Baron. Baron ultimately succumbed to cancer on September 2, 2021. I did a European tour with Janek in 2015 in the Mike Stern/Randy Brecker Band. Janek played great and he was fun to tour with. About one week before the February 22, 2020 gig, Mark Soskin had a serious health issue and could not make the gig. Mark has since recovered. Our guitarist Vinny Valentino suggested Manuel Valera. Vinny, Manuel and I got together at a rehearsal studio in NYC. Manuel sightread the music and played so great it was obvious he would work out. We played the February 22 gig, the inaugural Drumeo Festival. Here is a YouTube video of the first song from that show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_ZXYVccfgw

The concert went extremely well with only one short rehearsal! After that Vinny Valentino had some health issues, which he has overcome, and couldn’t travel to our weeklong engagement at Bird’s Basement in Australia. Manuel and I played the week with a local Melbourne bass player, Kim May, and I loved how the group sounded as a trio. After the Covid shutdown of touring, my decision was to move forward as a trio with Manuel and Janek. The chemistry of the group is explosive! Both players are virtuosos, great improvisers and super creative. We have an easy connection and each night we play a consistent show for the audience and explore the unknown, which keeps us interested and in the moment.

RMR: New Perspective was recorded in New Jersey during two different recording dates in 2023 and 2024. What do you remember most about recording the tracks on New Perspective and how would you compare these new re-recordings with the previously released original tracks?

Steve Smith: We had been playing the first four songs on the album live during the 2023 tour. I wanted to capture them while we were touring. We actually filmed the session too. Here is the video of us recording “Don’t Stop Believin.’”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKbAlAM0bvc

We had one day off on the tour so we stopped into Studio Mozart in Little Falls, New Jersey and recorded the first four songs on the album in a few hours. Because “The Perfect Date” and “Charukeshi Express” had become virtually two new pieces of music, I wanted to document them. And we had the two Journey tunes: “Open Arms” and “Don’t Stop Believin,’” which felt great to play live. I wanted to make sure to record them while they were fresh. After the session I felt like that was a perfect Side One of a vinyl LP. We talked about Side Two and came up with “Sumo,” “Who’s Crying Now,” “Eight+Five” and “Three Of A Kind,” a new tune that Manuel wrote for the group that we were playing as an encore. We scheduled the session to record those pieces in the middle of a 2024 tour. We had some extra time after getting those four tunes so we recorded “Josef The Alchemist,” a new composition by Manuel.

RMR: When did you first record the track “Sumo”, written by Michael Brecker and first recorded when you were with the band Steps Ahead? What do you remember most about Michael Brecker and Steps Ahead?

Steve Smith: Playing in Steps Ahead in 1986 was a transcendent experience. I was a fan of the group when it started with Steve Gadd on drums and then Peter Erskine on drums. I love both Steve and Peter so it was an honor to follow them. Peter first recorded “Sumo” on the Steps album Magnetic. I learned the song by listening to a cassette of that recording, which had not yet been released when I first started playing with the group. The version that we played live had developed beyond the original recording. “Sumo” featured Michael Brecker playing both EWI and tenor sax. When we toured Japan in 1986 the concert in Tokyo was filmed and was later released as a live DVD and a live album. It’s called Steps Ahead-Live In Tokyo 1986. You can still find the CD and the video is on YouTube.

Playing with Michael Brecker was a dream! At the end of each concert, we would do a “tenor & drums” duet that was always thrilling and frightening for me at the same time! That incarnation of Steps Ahead: Mike Mainieri on vibes, Michael Brecker on sax and EWI, Darryl Jones on bass and Mike Stern on guitar, was one of the strongest groups I ever had the pleasure of playing with. My relationship with Mike Mainieri has continued to the present. I played the last Steps Ahead gig on November 15, 2019 at NJPAC. The lineup was Ravi Coltrane on sax, Adam Rogers on guitar, Baron Browne on bass and Mike Mainieri on vibes. The concert was fantastic! Mike lives across the street from me in NYC and I saw him two days ago at Fairway Market Upper West Side grocery shopping! We had a great talk.

RMR: You have a song on New Perspective called “Josef The Alchemist”, a tribute to Joe Zawinul of Weather Report. How big an influence was Zawinul and Weather Report on you and what is your favorite Weather Report album?

Steve Smith: Weather Report was a huge influence on me. I was fortunate to see a few incarnations of the band. The first group I saw, around 1975 when I was still at Berklee in Boston, had Alphonso Johnson on bass and Don Um Romão on percussion. In 1977 I saw the Heavy Weather band with Alex Acuña on drums and Jaco on bass when I was in Los Angeles recording with Jean-Luc Ponty. And then I saw the classic group with Peter Erskine on drums and Robert Thomas Jr. on percussion when I lived in the SF Bay Area. Each incarnation was amazing in their own way. In 1987 I had a chance to work with Joe as part of a jazz group that played at a Columbia Records convention in Vancouver. The line-up consisted of Grover Washington Jr. on sax, Ronnie Laws on sax, Nancy Wilson on vocals, Abraham Laboriel on bass and myself on drums. The entire experience was fascinating and I learned a lot from Joe. After that I’d see him at various jazz festivals where we were both performing and we’d always have a good connection and conversation. Though all the albums are great, my favorite Weather Report album is Black Market.

RMR: What else are you planning in 2025? You’re 70 now, you must look back with pride at your many musical accomplishments. What period of your career do you look back on as being both pivotal and productive and how has the music business changed over the past 40 years? It seems like a different world now.

Steve Smith: I plan on continuing to play live gigs with Vital Information and keep my chops and musicianship in shape. Physically, it’s harder to keep up the chops but I feel that my musicianship is still growing. I do enjoy being home more days than I’m on the road, which is a change from my peak years of touring and recording when I was rarely home. I look back on a few especially creative periods of my career. The 1978-1985 period was productive and established my financial security with the Journey albums. As a bandleader and recording artist, my foundation really started around 1990 when I was recording for Intuition Records, a label based in Köln, Germany and agent Janet Williamson started booking my tours. From 1997-2005 I produced and played on sixteen jazz-fusion albums for Tone Center Records. That was an incredibly prolific period. I made albums with Victor Wooten, Scott Henderson, Frank Gambale, Larry Coryell, Jerry Goodman, Howard Levy, Steve Marcus, Anthony Jackson, Dave Liebman and many more fantastic musicians. Then there was the period from 2003-2016 when I dug deep into the rhythms of India and toured with George Brooks Summit, Zakir Hussain’s Masters of Percussion, Selvaganesh, Mandolin Shrinivas, Prasanna and many other virtuosic Indian musicians. Bridging the gap of playing Indian rhythms on the drum set is a concept that is now part of my vocabulary. My interaction with those master musicians has impacted me in a deep way.

After a recent conversation with Jack DeJohnette, I have looked back and feel good about my accomplishments. When I told Jack I turned 70, he said something like, “Well, you’ve made your contribution.” That hit me pretty hard! I felt like, “No, I’m not finished.” But the truth is, he’s right. I’ve made some good contributions. Much of what I feel good about is the educational material that I’ve released on Hudson Music. And I still like doing masterclasses and clinics. This year, 2025, is the 150^th Anniversary of Sonor Drums. I’ll be doing quite a few performances for Sonor in Europe, Japan and the USA. Jack DeJohnette and I, as the two longest Sonor endorsees, filmed some playing together which will come out over the course of the year.

You’re right, Robert, the music business has changed a lot over the past 40 years. To address just one aspect of the changes; it used to be that a record company would give me a budget to record a new album. I’d be able to make a good album for anywhere between $15,000-$25,000 and pay myself something in the process. There was a partnership and synergy that happened between the team at the record company and myself as the artist. I had positive experiences with Columbia, Intuition, Tone Center and BFM Jazz. They would come up with an album cover, manufacture the CDs, or LPs and then promote the music, at their expense. Now I have to do all of that and release the music on my own “label” without the help of a record company. My costs are in excess of $30,000 because I pay for the recording of the album, artwork, manufacturing and all the promotion, both print and radio. It’s all out of pocket expenses with next to nothing in return. I’m fortunate that I can financially afford to keep making albums and it’s a lot more work than it used to be because I’m wearing all of the hats! I do it in order to be creative and keep a band active and touring.

Though I continue to play gigs and tour, I enjoy time off now more than I ever have. My 31-year relationship with my wife Diane is the most important relationship in my life. That connection is my main focus going forward. We support each other and love spending time together. At 70 I’m still in reasonably good shape and as long as I can play the drums, I’ll be musically active. Thank you, Robert, for the opportunity to discuss my music and overall career.