Steve Perry

Stephen Ray Perry was born in Hanford, California to Portuguese parents from the Azores. He is an only child. Perry grew up interested in music, as his father, Raymond Perry (Pereira), was a vocalist and co-owner of radio station KNGS. Perry's parents ended their relationship when he was eight. He and his mother then moved to his grandparents' dairy farm. They lived in Lemoore, where he attended high school. On Perry's 12th birthday, his mother, Mary Quaresma, presented him with a gold eighth note pendant; Perry wears the pendant for good luck. At age 12, Perry heard Sam Cooke's song "Cupid" on his mother's car radio; it inspired him to become a singer.

In the 1980s Perry dated Sherrie Swafford, for whom he wrote the 1984 song "Oh Sherrie". In 2011, Perry began a relationship with Kellie Nash, a psychologist and breast cancer survivor. He was by Nash's side as she battled a cancer recurrence. Nash died in December 2012. In a September 2018 interview, Perry said, "Things happened to me as a child that I still can't talk about – nothing to do with my parents, but things did happen. It happened to a lot of kids, as I find out... there was nowhere to talk it out, so I got to sing it out instead." In a 2019 interview with Dan Rather, Perry said that he had a daughter and grandchildren, but declined to go into further details saying, "I do have a child, but in the essence of protecting her, I kinda don't want to get into that... and I have grandchildren too."