The long wait is finally over today!!! Legendary Journey frontman Steve Perry releases his long awaited third solo set, Traces, today (October 5th), marking his first new singing on record since Trial By Fire — Perry’s 1996 comeback set with Journey, and his first new solo album since 1994’s For The Love Of Strange Medicine.

Perry spoke about Traces, explaining, “Putting 30 years into 10 songs has certainly been an emotional experience for me. I started writing and recording these songs with the creative freedom that I was the only one who would ever hear them. Along the way, I rediscovered my love for music. Each track represents traces of my past, but is also a hopeful look into the future. I invite you to listen with an open heart.”

Pulse asked Steve Perry if it seems like he’s coming back to an entire new world — or does the music business feel like home sweet home to him: “I don’t know if its coming back into anything familiar because it seems like everything’s changed. I’ve changed, the world is different, the whole process is different — but somewhat the same, y’know, as far as trying to let people know that I have new music. But, it seems so different, y’know? It really does; we have an Internet now, we have downloading, we have streaming, we have not a lot of retail out there, and so now, more importantly that ever — and I feel personally good about this — it’s more about the music now, because of the change of the world than ever before.”

Pulse asked Perry if he’s any different from the guy we loved fronting Journey back in the day: “Yeah, it’s 31 years in living life in life’s terms. I mean — and then a record somewhere in the middle of that 31 years, and I think just replenishing and falling back into what everybody else does. Living life as it exists here. I’ve had my own brushes with some terminal moments. It can change your life, and I don’t know. . . My voice is still me, but I would look at my voice as something that has lived away from what it used to be a while. And life has seasoned it and tempered it in ways that it didn’t have before.”