On today’s episode of CBS Sunday Morning, host Tracy Smith caught up with former Journey frontman Steve Perry on a segment adorably named “How Steve Perry Started Believin’ Again.” Smith asked Perry about Journey’s beginnings, dropping out of music, and his recent return. “I just wanted to write music with the guys that mattered, that people would love and embrace and take into their hearts. There’s nothing else that meant more to me than to be part of that,” Perry said of joining Journey.

Perry took Smith around his hometown in Hanford, California. Before joining Journey in 1977, Perry was playing in local bands around Hanford. He and the band parted after years of touring. Perry had an injured hip and was growing tired: “It was my heart,” he said. “It became a group decision, major surgery, and I wasn’t very happy about that. So I chose to put it off and decided when to do it, and they checked out some other singers, and we went our separate ways.”

He met his late wife while taking time away from music. “And when someone who has stage 4 cancer turns to you and says, ‘I love you,’ you’re gonna feel it for the first time, which is what happened,” he said. “One night she said that, ‘If something was to ever happen to me, promise that you won’t go back into isolation, for I think that would make this all for naught.’ I had to make the promise, and I said, ‘I promise.'” She died in 2012 and Perry returned to the studio two years later. His first album in 24 years, Traces, came out on Friday.

“Look, I’m not doing this for money, honey. I don’t need any money. I eat too much already! I can only drive one car at a time. This is about the passion. But maybe it took a broken heart to get there, a completely broken heart,” he tells Smith. Watch the full segment below.