How Steve Perry got involved in the new ‘Stranger Things’ trailer
Before the trailer for season 4 of stranger things enthusiastic fans around the world, it caught the attention of someone else: Steve Perry.
The music video is accompanied by a reworked version of “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”, the hit song from 1983’s Journey. Music house Boutique Alloy Tracks was commissioned to reinvent the song for the trailer. While in the early stages of the project, company founder and owner Troy MacCubbin was surprised when he received a phone call to discuss the tune.
“I think I’m talking to this Netflix guy because he caught me off guard and wanted to talk about the song,” MacCubbin recalled to Forbes. “He kept saying to me, ‘I don’t usually allow these songs to play’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s the guy from Netflix. We probably talked for about 15 minutes, he wanted to know all about what we did with the song and how did we do this and how did we do that? At the end of the conversation, before he hung up, I was like, ‘Sorry, who am I talking to? What is your role in this? And he said, ‘It’s Steve Perry from Journey!’ »
Watch the ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Trailer
Perry had heard a demo version and was so excited about the new reinterpretation of the song that he became actively involved in the creative process.
“It had specific mix notes,” noted composer Bryce Miller, explaining how Perry influenced the final version heard in the trailer. “He wanted the voice to be a bit more emphasized in some places and just a refinement of some [other] details. It was really cool to work with him and he had some great things to say. One of his favorite things now in his career is hearing those songs he wrote decades ago take on new life and be brought to new generations and new demographics through things like stranger things.”
According to MacCubbin, Perry was particularly impressed with how well they were able to isolate his vocal parts.
“He was like, ‘How did you do that?'” the Alloy Tracks founder recalled. “He was like, ‘Man, I wish I had you back when we released this song because that’s what I wanted the song to sound like. … I mean, what a compliment coming from Steve Perry. He couldn’t have been cooler, man.