He made us proud when he stood in for international rock star Steve Perry in the legendary band, Journey — and Arnel Pineda is not done yet!
The movies will be under the direction of Crazy Rich Asian filmmaker and avid Journey fan, Jon M. Chu. He calls Pineda’s life story as a “true fairy tale and triumph of the human spirit,” reported Manila Bulletin.
Pineda is open about his humble past. As a kid, he frequented piers to pick up scrap metals to sell, or collect bottles and old newspapers instead.
In his interview with ‘Kapuso mo, Jessica Soho’, Pineda recounts that when he was a boy, he would sleep on a bench at night, outside his relatives house. He would only eat after the family is done with breakfast and will eat only whatever was left.
At the age of 15, he worked at a pizza parlor despite having asthma. Eventually, he got hooked into illegal drugs. It was only in 2007 that Journey co-founder Neal Schon discovered Arnel Pineda on Youtube. The rest, as they say, is history.
Arnel Pineda’s journey will soon become the next Warner Bros. big hit, with director Chu foreseeing the movie to be empowering as “the real life rock ‘n’ roll fairy of a formerly homeless Filipino singer to overnight rock star.”
