Neal Schon revealed why short-lived Journey frontman Jeff Scott Soto was fired back in 2007. Soto, who sang lead for Yngwie Malmsteen and now tours with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, fronted Journey from 2006 to 2007 after vocal issues forced Steve Augeri off the road — and according to him, was never told why he lost the job. Soto had played with Schon in his side band Soul Sirkus prior to being tapped for the Journey gig.
Blabbermouth translated a recent interview Soto gave to with Argentina's Lucas Gordon in which he explained, “The problem is I don't know. That's the problem. If I knew what the problem was, if I knew the reason why I got fired, then at least I could be at peace with it; I could find a way to discuss it or talk about it. But I'm not legally supposed to talk about it. . . It got to the point where we had to take a legal side of things. But to get away from the legal side, I signed a document that I wouldn't talk about anything negative, anything bad about them. And I don't wanna talk negative; I don't wanna talk about anything bad. . . But to this day, 14 years later — whatever it is — I don't know. I don't have the answers.”
Soto went on to say, “I was never given a proper reason. The only thing I was told was they had a change of heart. It didn't make sense to me. If you have a change of heart, call me up and we can say goodbye, we can hug and say, 'Hey, hopefully I can get a couple of tickets to the show with the new singer.' That kind of stuff. You can leave as friends. I came in as friends; I wanna leave as friends.”