Cigars, Jack Daniels and loyal fans keep Donnie Iris rocking at age 79

Donnie Iris and his bandmates were inside their backstage trailer at a big concert when they heard a knock on the door.

Guitarist Marty Lee Hoenes opened it to see Steve Perry standing there. It was the summer of 1983, and Perry was the lead singer of Journey, a multi-platinum band popular enough to have its own arcade video game.

"When you open the door and saw someone as famous as he was at the time, it's very odd for him to introduce himself with the full name: 'Hi, I'm Steve Perry,' and I'm (thinking), 'Dude, I know who you are.'"

Hoenes burst out in laughter at the memory. Iris remembers Perry holding a cup of coffee.

Stepping inside the trailer, the rock star immediately heaped praise on the band for the song, "Ah! Leah!," the first radio hit of Donnie Iris and the Cruisers, a Pittsburgh-area act that gained national airplay and success in the early 1980s.

"He was very complimentary and very nice," Hoenes continued. "And we could tell he was a fan because he was talking about songs that you would not have heard on the radio – deeper cuts.

"We wouldn't have thought any of (Journey's members) were fans in particular, but (Perry) told the story of listening to 'Ah! Leah!,' and after driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, he said, 'I pulled my car over and sat and listened, and I said to myself, 'That's how vocals should sound.'"

Memories of a 1983 Donnie Iris concert in Thornville, Ohio

Hoenes recalls that concert vividly, reciting the date of June 26, 1983, at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio — a show also featuring Foghat and Bryan Adams. About 40,000 fans attended.

"We were on the rise and Steve was familiar with us, so there was some curiosity about us," said Hoenes, of North Canton. 

Nearly four decades later, Donnie Iris and the Cruisers will be reunited with Journey as the opening band at the Concert for Legends at 8 p.m. Saturday at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton. The event is presented by the Hall of Fame Village.

Tickets, starting at $59, are available online at www.hofvillage.com/ or by calling the box office at 330-617-8447.

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"I'm looking forward to it," said Iris, who at 79 years old still remains energetic on stage while managing to unleash his signature high-pitched screams.

"I remember them," the frontman said of Journey. "They were good guys, and I'm looking forward to seeing them again, and of course, I am looking forward to the football thing. I'm a big football fan, so I'm excited."

Other big moments in the career of Donnie Iris and the Cruisers

During separate phone interviews, Iris, Hoenes and fellow band member Mark Avsec eagerly recalled a career sprinkled with other big moments, including when Donnie Iris and the Cruisers opened for the Michael Stanley Band at three sold-out shows at Blossom Music Center in 1981, setting a combined attendance record of roughly 64,000 before Stanley broke it the following summer.

Donnie Iris and the group followed up with other hit songs, most notably, "Love Is Like a Rock," a staple on classic rock radio today.

Although the band achieved national success and also toured with Hall & Oates, Foreigner, Loverboy, Bon Jovi and Joan Jett, Iris and his bandmates sound entirely happy having settled in decades later as a reliably popular regional act in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The band plays about 10 shows a year. Recent concerts included The Kent Stage in April and Lock 3 in downtown Akron this past June. Iris, Avsec and Hoenes will perform in Canton with original drummer Kevin Valentine and bassist Paul Goll, who has been with the band for more than 30 years.

"I don't want any more big, long tours or anything like that," Iris admitted. "It's impossible to do that night after night for a guy my age – it just is." 

Donnie Iris and The Cruisers first performed at The Galaxy in Stark County

Donnie Iris, a Pennsylvania native, first achieved success with two bands in the 1970s.

As a member of The Jaggerz, he wrote the hit song, "The Rapper." He also was part of Wild Cherry, a funk rock band formed in Ohio and best known for the classic, "Play That Funky Music."

Setting out on his own, Iris was approached by Avsec, who also had been in Wild Cherry. That led to what would become Donnie Iris and the Cruisers. Avsec is the band's keyboardist, songwriter and producer. Albritton McClain is the original bassist.

Working on early material in the studio, Iris and Avsec still needed a guitarist.

Iris had become aware of Hoenes, of The Pulse. The band was playing a gig not far from Iris' home, and Hoenes was approached afterward.

"He came into the club where I was playing and liked what he was hearing," Hoenes said of Iris. "It was a really good band; a real nice showcase for anybody who was in that band.

"But I didn't know who he was. In the early days, you know, it was this guy with black glasses, and he looked a little bit like Buddy Holly, and claimed he was doing a record and wanted to know if I'd play on it.

"A lot of people come up to you at shows, so I didn't think that much of it, but I said, 'Sure, of course, I'll play on your ... album,' and that's how it all started."

Studio sessions followed before the band first performed live at The Galaxy, a former club at Meyers Lake Plaza in Stark County.

"I remember we were rough around the edges, and Donnie at the time, he wasn't what he is now," Hoenes said of the inaugural gig. "He's a great showman and really engages the crowd, and this is something that evolved."

Avsec remembers the popular Canton area club being "mildly full."

"It was a rough show the way I remember it," he said. "It was Donnie's first time fronting the band, so he was learning how to be a frontman. It was all of our first time playing the songs live. It wasn't such a great show ... but we got better.

"It was our first record," Avsec continued. "... (The audience) didn't know us yet; they didn't know Donnie yet. We were all just feeling our way. I think we were all out of breath. I remember Donnie after the show just being totally out of breath. He was learning how to pace himself on stage."

Creating the hit song 'Ah! Leah!'

Early writing sessions spawned "Ah! Leah!," one of those moments to which all rock bands aspire – a future hit song.

"There is no secret, man," Iris said. "It just happens. We went in recording some songs, hoping for the best just like everyone else, and all of a sudden it hits, and you just don't understand it.

"You know you have a good product, the sound, the performance, everything is there, but that doesn't mean anything," he added. "You just have to hope things catch."

Coming together gradually in pieces, the song wasn't initially about a girl.

"We started it out just to have like some sort of Gregorian chant going on in the hook," Iris said. "And it turned out that it happened to be a girl's name, so we went with it.

"I told Marty, my keyboard player, that I knew a girl named Leah," he recounted. "I didn't know her real well. I just knew her from afar, and she was beautiful ... and she had an effect on me, and I said, well, let's write a song about her, and that's what happened with Leah."

A wall of sound was built around guitar and layered vocals. The melody and chorus were infectious. Hoenes was blown away when he first heard the finished song.

"I was shocked," said Hoenes, an Erie, Pennsylvania, native who has lived in Stark County for 23 years. "And it's fair to say that song 'Ah! Leah!' was a pretty innovative and distinctive sounding song. It wasn't that it was just a good recording."

More than 40 years later, he still gets excited talking about the song.

"Mark used to call it beauty and the beast," Hoenes said. "All this power underneath and this beautiful stuff on top, and that's what he was going for. I was stunned; it was really good."

Released in 1980, the album, "Back on the Streets" attracted mainstream radio play with its driving guitars, complementary keyboards, stacked vocals and hooks.

Stations in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Boston began playing "Ah! Leah!" Hoenes also took the finished album to a music director he knew at pop rock station K104 in Erie.

"I swear to you, he put the record on and he cued up 'Ah! Leah!' ... and about three-quarters of the way through the song, he said to whoever he was calling (on the phone), 'We're going to change the schedule tonight; we're going to do the album feature, (and) he played the whole album and talked about it and did it right on the spot."

What makes a hit song? 'Part of it is luck.'

Another smash hit, "Love Is Like a Rock," followed on the next album, 1981's "King Cool."

Classic songs from that decade also include "I Can't Hear You," "Sweet Merilee," "Tough World," "My Girl," "That's the Way Love Ought to Be," "This Time It Must Be Love," and "Do You Compute," which had a slick video played during the golden era of MTV in which Iris types on an Atari 1200XL computer as he tries to revive a female robot who sports a new wave haircut and skinny black tie.

"As to why those songs last a long time, I don't really know," Avsec said. "Part of it is luck. We worked awful hard on them. We have a great group. We still love each other, the band does. We've never really had any major disagreement at all. I like to say we always made enough money to stay together, but we never made so much money that we would fight about it, so we stayed together all these years."

Opening for Michael Stanley at legendary Blossom shows

Career highlights also include opening for the Michael Stanley Band at Blossom Music Center for the trio of shows in August of 1981. The band's concert was documented in VHS format before being released on DVD in 2006.

The live version of "Love Is Like a Rock" was in heavy rotation at the inception of MTV.

"It was very exciting, and as big as that was, I think we were maybe all too young and too inexperienced to realize what was happening like we can now with the benefit of hindsight," Hoenes said of the record-setting concerts. "We can look back now and say it was a monumental feat and probably will never be duplicated, and we were part of that."

Stanley died from lung cancer in March 2021.

"Music is a very weird thing," Avsec said. "Sometimes you just catch fire in a certain area; it's happened to other artists. The hometown of Michael Stanley totally embraced him. I got it. I loved Michael's earlier records. I actually played a little bit with Michael before I was in the Cruisers.

"I was almost in Michael's band," he said. "It didn't work out, and I ended up going with Wild Cherry. ... If I had been in Michael's band, there's a very good chance there never would have been a Donnie Iris and the Cruisers."

The famous yellow suit and bow tie

Iris sounds at ease when talking about his rock and roll past.

As the subject shifted to the bright yellow jacket and bow tie he used to wear in concert and on an album cover, he laughed.

"I still have the jacket," Iris said. "It was actually framed and put in a nightclub in Pittsburgh called Nick's Fat City ... (and) I did get that back, but the suit itself was one of the things that The Jaggerz did. All five of us had that suit. It was just part of our schtick ... it had an R&B ... kind of a feel about it."

Iris reintroduced the attire on a whim in 1980.

"I just decided ... to get it on again in 1980 and put it on and see what happens," he said. "It became an iconic thing; it's one of those deals, and you never know what's going to happen."

Donnie Iris turns 80 in February

Iris turns 80 in February, a fact he embraces.

Asked if he has a secret to rock and roll longevity, Iris chuckled at the notion.

Free time is often spent smoking cigars, playing golf, sipping Jack Daniels and hanging out with friends at his favorite Pittsburgh area bars.

No fitness regimen. No concoction to sooth or nurse his vocal chords.

"I probably drink more now than I ever did before," he said with more laughter. "When you go out with (friends), you have to have at least a few. I'm a Jack Daniels drinker. I'll drink a couple of those when I go out with the boys. I don't drink heavily or anything like that. I enjoy just hanging out and having a good time with people."

Rock and roll genetics also may be a factor. 

"I haven't had too many physical issues at all," Iris said. "I don't really work out or do any of that stuff, but we get up on stage and the adrenaline kicks in and you're ready to go, and the fans have a lot to do with that. They pump you up, they really do."

"Of course, your environment, what you've done all your life, if you've abused ... your body, that's something also that affects you, but overall, it's genetics."

Nothing but 'fastballs' at Canton show

Fans can expect familiar songs at Saturday's concert during a 30 to 45-minute set.

"We have to pick and choose what songs we are going to do, but we've done those kinds of shows before, so it will be pretty much all fastballs," Iris said. "It's going to be fun. Songs that just have a good, powerful feel about them.

"All I can say is it's going to be fun being in front of that massive amount of people again," he said. "And I'm looking forward to it, and I just hope everybody has a great time."

Reach Ed at 330-580-8315 and ebalint@gannett.com. On Twitter: @ebalintREP.

If you go

WHAT – Concert for Legends

WHO – Journey headlining with opener Donnie Iris and the Cruisers

WHERE – Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.

WHEN – 8 p.m. Saturday.

TICKETS – Available at www.hofvillage.com or by calling the box office at 330-617-8447.