tured as the front man. Frankie would
speak louder without saying a word
than most people speak with raising
their saber and shouting. He would just
give me a glance or a disapproving look
or walk out of a room and that spoke
louder than anything. I realized if I was
going to make this band work, I would
have to take on a different role and that
was really the heart of our conflict.
band that wasn't riding on anyone's
coattails.
IE: Has any of your perspective changed
regarding what you detailed about Jimi
in the wake of his unexpected passing?
JP: Aside from the extreme sorrow and
shock, nothing has changed. I'm very,
very fortunate to have been his friend
and mended all the fences of the days
with two Survivors going out on the
10•2014
IE: You write a lot about "Eye Of The
Tiger" and the Rocky soundtrack, but
Survivor's Vital Signs record also
matched if not surpassed its success
with so many hits ["I Can't Hold Back,"
"The Search Is Over," "High On You"].
What was the feeling like amongst the
band during the second wave of success?
JP: It was really sweet. To be honest, I
knew it was a hit record as we were making it. I would call our manager every
other day and go "order the Porsche, this
is gonna be huge!" We knew and when
we heard those vocals come back from
Jimi [Jamison, who replaced vocally ailing original singer Dave Bickler], everything was clicking. I always feel there's
one moment in time in a band where
everything comes together. Some might
say it was the "Eye Of The Tiger," but I
call it Vital Sings even more so. We had to
re-prove ourselves that we weren't just
the Rocky band, but we were our own
road and I forgave him for that. He did
what he had to do at the time and I
understand his motivations. We mended
that fence years ago, and when I left
Survivor in 1996, it was my other dream
to one day work with Jimi again, as a
person and as a talent. We always got
along. We would do radio shows together and just tear it up when we were on
the road with Survivor laughing our
assess off. So finally I got that chance in
2009 when he started coming to Chicago
and we wrote, laughed and cut an album
called Crossroads Moments. It only ended
up with 13 cuts, which is still a lot of
songs, but we cut 30 songs, some of
which came out on an issue called Extra
Moments, and some of them are still to be
released, if ever. It was a dream come
true to work with Jimi again and to hear
that voice come across so well.
IE: How did World Stage and Pride Of
12 illinoisentertainer.com october 2014
Ides Of March circa 1970, Petrik (center)
Lions pop up after Survivor?
JP: The first thing I wanted to do after
Survivor was put together a thing called
World Stage, which was calling to arms
all my buddies that I toured with and
wrote with, and our first show was actually in 1999 for the Rainbow Foundation,
but it wasn't as developed as the first big
one in 2000, which had Kevin Cronin of
REO Speedwagon, Don Barnes of .38
Special, Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger,
Kevin Chalfant of The Storm and many
others. People couldn't get tickets and I
knew this was something that was really
worthy [It's now annual and coming to
Wentz Hall in Naperville on Saturday,
January 24, 2015].
Then around that
time, my niece Kelly, that's [my wife]
Karen's niece actually, said "Uncle Jim, I
ran into this singer auditioning for this
Dick Clark show named Toby Hitchcock.
You've got to hear him." When Kelly says
something I tend to believe her because
she's a really good singer herself. Long
story short, I tracked him down, he came
to the studio, I heard his voice over the