Neal Schon

Overview

Born
February 27, 1954 · Midwest City, Oklahoma, USA
Birth name
Neal Joseph Schon
Height
5′ 9″ (1.75 m)

Biography

Family

Spouses

Trademarks

Gibson Les Paul
PRS Signature Line Guitars

Trivia

Was invited by Eric Clapton to join Derek and the Dominoes. However, he was advised against it by Carlos Santana when rumors of Clapton's heroin abuse surfaced.
Guitarist for the rock band Shelby Daugherty
He was a guitarist in Carlos Santana's band Santana during 1971 and 1972, and played on the hits "Black Magic Woman" and "Oye Como Va".
Shelby Daugherty was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6750 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
Neal Schon was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

Quotes

With radio being in the state it is, I don't really feel the need to make a whole record just for that, and be looking at my watch saying, Okay, this guitar solo has been playing for ten seconds, that's enough. (In 2011)
A lot of the stuff we've done since the eighties was slower, and with Faithfully or Open Arms or whatever, those songs are embedded in stone and people expect to hear them live... if they don't, they're gonna be pissed and throw shit at you. With this album, I wanted to write grooves that we don't have in our show, and not just make a new Separate Ways or Stone In Love. Once you've written it once, it's easy to repeat it - just move the chords around. It's really simple to do that, but at this point, I don't see the purpose of it. (On the "Eclipse" album)
I think that song is so popular because it's a positive message. We play aggressively, but lyrically it never got angry or pissed, and it was never 'I hate you'. The whole arrangement of Don't Stop Believin' is really odd. We had this breakdown and I started playing that little guitar solo [at 0.54], which is in the oddest place ever for an AM radio song. People would say that it didn't make sense and I'd say, Well, so what? It sounds good! It fell together fast, and when I listened back in the studio, I remember saying, That song's gonna be big. At the time, when Escape was released, it wasn't the biggest song on the record. Now it is.
We're a very musical band and we've never really had anybody come in and re-arrange our stuff with Pro Tools. We were always well-rehearsed, we'd walk in the studio, play live, and I'd always play live solos.