Journeyis offering fans a sample of its first studio album in more than a decade with the new single “You Got the Best of Me.”

The track, which dropped Tuesday, April 26, comes as the iconic Bay Area band is making its way across the U.S. on a sold-out arena tour — which included a hometown stop atChase Centerlast month — that shares its name with the forthcoming album, “Freedom.”

The new single marks a different direction for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame act, which went through a major personnel shake-up last year.

“I wanted kind of a punky rendition of ‘Any Way You Want It,’” said Neal Schon, Journey’s founding member, guitarist and songwriter, in a statement. “I usually don’t go in saying I’m going to look for something like that, but then it just came to me, like “Wheel in the Sky” did years ago. It just kind of flew out of my mouth.”

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“You Got the Best of Me” follows “The Way We Used to Be,”a wailing power ballad released last year by thegroup that has sold 80 million records worldwide since forming in the mid-1970s.

“Freedom” marks the first album of new material Journey has released since 2011’s “Eclipse.” It was recorded with a studio lineup that includes keyboard player Jonathan Cain and vocalist Arnel Pineda, along with bassist Randy Jackson, the former “American Idol’’ judge who previously played on the band’s 1986 album “Raised on Radio.”

Bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith, who last played with the band in 2019, parted ways with the band before the recording began.

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Schon said the band wrote nearly 30 new songs during the pandemic, working with producer Narada Michael Walden at Tarpan recording studio in San Rafael. At least 15 of those tracks will make the final cut for “Freedom,” which is due July 8.

“I spent a lot of time in my little studio at home, learning how to play keyboards and looping,” he said. “Some of those ideas ended up being songs. So it kind of came out of nowhere.”