Campaner, Arnel Pineda is a well-known singer and songwriter from the Philippines. He’s released two albums on big labels, won a Grammy for best vocalist, and performed with a variety of ensembles up to six days a week for 3-5 hour sets. He rose to prominence in his native country throughout the 1980s, and in 2007, he became an international singing superstar when he joined the American rock band ‘Journey’ as lead singer. Pineda had a difficult life, and he made a fortune by collecting and cleaning scrap metals, collecting trash glass bottles, and newspapers, and selling them to recyclers. Arnel Pinada’s fortunes changed when he was chosen as the front man for the band ‘The Zoo’, despite the fact that he had previously played in minor bands. Pineda came to the attention of Journey guitarist Neal Schon after a series of YouTube videos of him singing the renowned American song ‘Don’t Stop Believin,’ which he found to be similar to that of former Journey lead singer Steve Perry. Pineda was added to the band, and the group’s popularity has soared since then.
Childhood and Adolescence
Arnel Pineda was born in Sampaloc, Manila, Philippines, on September 5, 1967, to Restituto Lising Pineda and Josefina Manansala Campaner. His parents were both tailors. Russmon, Roderick, and Joselito Pineda are Pineda’s three younger brothers.
From an early age, his mother encouraged him to sing and entered him in numerous singing competitions. He lost his mother when he was only thirteen years old. Pineda’s father had become indebted as a result of medical expenses, so the young kid moved out to relieve his father of the financial strain. Pineda spent the first two years of his life on the streets, with no official education.
Career of Arnel Pineda
Pineda began singing at the age of five and joined the Filipino group Ijos in 1982, at the age of 15, to pursue singing as a vocation. In 1986, some Ijos members founded Amo, a pop-rock band that won the Rock Wars competition in the Philippines. The band won the Yamaha World Band Explosion Contest in the Philippines in 1988. Despite being disqualified in the finals due to technical difficulties, the event was shown on Asian television, allowing their fan base to grow.
The members of Intensity Five created a new band in 1990. This year, the band finished second in the competition, with Pineda taking home the Best Vocalist Award. Pinada was suffering from a variety of health issues at the time, and his voice had also broken down. In 1999, he returned to the music industry with Warner Brothers’ ‘Pinada,’ a new solo album.
Pineda created a new band, 9mm, in 2001, and performed at some of the city’s most prestigious venues, including Makati City’s Hard Rock Cafe and Hong Kong’s The Edge. In the same year, he recorded a song with the Filipino band South Border called “Looking Glass” for their album “The Way We Do.” Pineda sang the theme song for the Filipino radio show ‘Dayo’ in 2005.
Pineda rose to prominence in 2006 with The Zoo, a band he founded with Monet Cajipe, a guitarist/songwriter who had previously been a member of all of his bands. MCA Universal published The Zoo’s album ‘Zoology’ in 2007.
Videos of The Zoo singing cover songs by Journey, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Air Supply, The Eagles, Kenny Loggins, and Stryper began to be uploaded to YouTube in February 2007 and were viewed by millions of people. Neal Schon of Journey called Noel Gomez, a friend of Pineda, on June 28, 2007 after witnessing one of Arnel Pineda’s YouTube videos, and on August 12, 2007, Pineda appeared for an audition in Marin County, San Francisco.
Pineda was revealed as Journey’s new lead vocalist on December 5, 2007. He debuted as the lead singer of Journey during the Via del Mar International Song Festival on February 21, 2008, at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheater in Via del Mar, Chile. Journey performed at a private RE/MAX Convention event at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 6, 2008, and at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas on March 8, 2008.
The freshly reformed Journey released their first album, ‘Revelation,’ on July 3, 2008. Pinada performed at 57 gigs across Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and Canada in 2008 to promote the release of ‘Revelation.’ Pineda played at the Super Bowl XLIII pregame show on February 1, 2009.
Journey published ‘Live in Manila,’ a two-disc video DVD that caught Pineda’s performance in Pasay City, Philippines, on October 2, 2009.
Journey’s second album with Arnel Pinada, ‘Eclipse,’ was released internationally on June 3, 2011. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey,’ a documentary on the band’s Revelation Tour and Pineda’s early years with the band, was published in 2012. ‘Revelation,’ Journey’s first album with Pineda, opened at No. 5 on the Billboard Top 200 album rankings in the week following its June 3, 2008 release. For six weeks, the album remained in the Top 20. It sold over 336,000 sales in its first few days and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. By October 1, 2009, ‘Revelation’ has reached platinum status.
Achievements & Awards
Pineda won the GMMSf Box-Office Entertainer Award in 2009 for the category of “Outstanding Global Achievement by a Filipino Artist.”
Personal History and Legacy
Pineda married Cherry Pineda in 2001, and they had a son named Cherub and a daughter named Thea Chenelle Pineda. He also has two elder boys from previous relationships, Matthew and Angelo. Arnel lives in Quezon City, a Manila suburb, while he is not on tour.
Estimated Net Worth
Arnel Pineda is a musician from the Philippines with a net worth of $20 million. Arnel Pineda, regarded as one of the most popular Filipino musicians of all time, has amassed a sizable international audience. Although he first rose to notoriety in his own nation of the Philippines in the 1980s, he later became more well-known in the United States after joining Journey as the new lead singer.