Do we like them?

Do we like Steve Smith?

Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words or acts turned up and he has a long, steady career, but the sources are thin and he has one settled legal fight.

Steve Smith is the drummer from Journey's golden stretch, and he has done the revolving-door thing with the band more than once. He left in 1985, and he described that exit as “a hard transition, because I was invested as being a bandmember.” He later compared it to a divorce, with legal paperwork and therapy to work through it.

What kept him going was jazz. He played with local jazz musicians, toured with Steps Ahead and started doing drum clinics, and he has led Vital Information as his own band. He told one podcast that Journey was “like getting a PhD in the music business”, which is a nice way to say it taught him a lot.

He came back to Journey for the 2016-2017 touring season. He said the timing was finally right after years of scheduling conflicts, and that Neal Schon had long wanted him back. He also said his jazz work stayed a priority, so he was never a full-time rock hired gun.

The messy bit came in March 2020, when Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain sacked him and bassist Ross Valory and sued. Their lawsuit alleged the pair tried a boardroom takeover of Nightmare Productions, a band company, and sought more than $10 million. Their press release called it a “corporate coup d'état”. Reports at the time carried no statement from Smith.

A year later it was done: the parties announced an “amicable settlement”, and Journey's management said Smith and Valory wished their former bandmates well. No terms were released and no court found against him. Reading it fairly, it was an alleged business fight between old bandmates that ended without a finding.

On the harm test, we found nothing. No quotes from him on trans people, women, migrants, vaccines or climate turned up, and no campaigning or odd company. His recent work is jazz, with the lineup of his own band rather than culture-war studios. That is absence of evidence, not a ringing endorsement, so we're calling it a pass with a note that the file is thin.