By Jeb Wright
Transcribed by Eric Sandberg

Jonathan Cain is most famous for being the guy who came into the band Journey and replaced Gregg Rolie on keyboards. Well…that and being the guy that co-wrote the biggest hits on the album Escape and beyond.

He is, however, much more than that.

His latest offering is his memoir, aptly titled “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It is his life’s story…a life filled with trials, tribulations, childhood trauma, struggling in the music business, massive successes, massive personal failures and a faith in God.

This is a good read!

The stuff Cain reveals about the band breaking up, the band making it, the band reforming and how Steve Perry was the true leader of the band…well that’s just gold to a Journey fan.

In addition, Jonathan opens up about…well, everything. 

While there is no throwing anyone under the bus…there is plenty of telling it how it was…and is. At times, it is not so flattering to the author, while other times one can only shake their head in disbelief and wonder.

Cain is a man of his convictions.

His wife is a famous evangelist and the spiritual advisor to President Trump. There was even a famous Twitter battle with bandmate Neal Schon where fans wondered if Journey would survive.

Jon stuck to his guns though…and is today a happy man.

Through it all, Cain’s faith remains strong as the interview below proves.

Jeb: I'm the perfect Journey age, and I remember buying Escape and wondering if this guy from the Babys was going to ruin the band!

Jonathan Cain: Believe me, I had the same trepidation. Right at the time we finished the album I thought "They're either going to love this or hate it.” I had my fingers crossed going into it. Then, when our great hippie lawyer [Hal Kant], a really cool guy, heard it, he said "Jon, you're never going to have to worry about where another dime comes from! This will be the fountain of life for you. Seriously, you knocked it out of the park!" Coming from him...he'd seen it all. He was with the Grateful Dead, Aerosmith, he was pretty legendary. He was really sincere, and I guess he was right.

Jeb: It's amazing how that song ["Don't Stop Believin'"] has continued to become more and more popular each year. It's practically an institution.

JC: It's funny, when I wrote the song and brought it into rehearsal with Neal [Schon] and Steve [Perry]…everybody kind of improved on it. It was kind of like Joe Pesce in Goodfellas. "What's so funny about me?...Everybody in that scene improved the whole thing. Marty [Martin Scorsese] wrote down everybody's response to "What's so funny about me" and he used those responses in the script. When it came time to shoot the scene, they wanted to improv it but Marty said that their best responses were already in the script.

It was like that with our song. As the guys improv’d around "Don't Stop Believin'" Steve Perry was the one that directed the way that went. He's the one who held off the chorus until the end. He said "We're not going to give that chorus away until the end". He was so deft. He was the ultimate bandleader of the day.

Jeb: Steve was really a strong leader?

JC: I came from the Babys and John [Waite] was pretty great about rehearsing, but when I joined Journey I thought, "Wow, this band is at a whole new level!" Steve was the concert master.

All I really had was the chorus. We were playing it over and over again and he said, "Yeah, this is a cool chorus, we should just use the same chords for the verse." I said, "How do you mean?"

He said "Do that rolling right hand Jonathan Cain thing, where you just do the eighth note". And then Neal came up with that bassline, and then the middle thing, and then the 'train tracks' thing and we were off and running.

Neal had this thing about tension and release, musically. We were flatting the five and letting it resolve. It was all push and pull until it resolved, and the resolve was the "believing" part. If you ask a question, you get an answer. This song is an answer "Don't Stop Believin'".

I really have to give credit to Steve for his instincts on that song because, that day, he was in charge. Large and in charge as they say.

Jeb: From a keyboard perspective, when you heard that guitar lick that just builds and builds and ends with that scream-that's typical Neal Schon but not where he typically does that.

JC: That's right. Somehow, I was responsible for recording all of our rehearsals. I had two JVC recorders with limiters which sounded great. I took the tape to Steve's house the next afternoon and it was obvious when we listened back that this song needed a train.

And I said to Steve "That train's going anywhere!" The way Neal ended it was "Bah-BOW!!" That's anywhere! That's what gave me the idea of anywhere. You know, there's a midnight train to Georgia? He ended that phrase with "midnight train to anywhere".

Steve and I talked about the idea of dreams and getting dreams fulfilled and I shared with him my time in Laurel Canyon, watching the rebirth of Rock and Roll in the ‘70s, with Geffen Records and all these great places like Gazzarri's and the Whiskey A Go Go.

"The smell of wine and cheap perfume..." was the Whiskey. And Perry completely jumped on the idea with me that he and I had both been the "singer in a smokey room." We weren't as lucky as Neal, who was playing with Santana when he was sixteen. We were in the clubs, slugging it out.

We shared so much that day. We both wanted to write this song about being on the outside looking in. Anything's possible, don't stop believin'. And that really was how it came about. I'll always be grateful for that afternoon, when he agreed that the boulevard was Sunset Boulevard. I brought the setting to that writing session and Steve and I wrote those lyrics, but it all started with Neal ending that intro with "Bah-BOW!"

Jeb: Back in the day “Open Arms” was the huge hit where I lived.

We were taking a snapshot of five guys really excited to be making new music for the world. The band already had success. Infinity was double platinum. Evolution, Departure Captured… but were thinking like the Beatles. What can we do next? Where can we take it? Let's throw 'em a curveball. Steve said "Hey, I want to do some ballads" and I said "Well I've got this song called "Open Arms" that's a different kind of song..."

"I wanna hear it!"

So I dragged my forty pound beast of a Wurlitzer into his house and played it for him. He said,"OK, that's it! We've gotta finish that!"

The crazy thing about this book, Jeb, is that my memory served me so well. When I started writing it was like, "Hey! [snaps fingers] I've got all this right here". In this book, I've tried to answer all of the questions people are always asking me.

Jeb: I didn't want to do this interview until I read the book. I've read it and, I have to say it's different. You don't come across as a rock star. The amount of frustration you've felt, the sad moments you reveal, they don't come across as sensationalized melodrama. They're genuine. There are even times that you're a bit snarky.

JC: I get it. That's what you have to be. In order to move forward, I've had to be the messenger of bad news. I was a baseball player growing up and I learned that sometimes you need an antagonist to stir things up. Draymon Green of the Golden State Warriors…Maybe I was Draymon [laughter]. Without Draymon, the Warriors don't win because he's the interrupter. He disrupts things because he has a team first attitude. I understood my role in Journey. I was Journey's Draymon Green. I was the glue. I made sure I made the pass...I watched them play last night and I thought, "That's me".

It's not always easy being easy being the bearer of bad news. Telling Steve we're moving on without him…telling Herbie [Walter Herbert, former manager] we're moving on without him…telling Ross and Steve Smith that they're fired. Are you kidding me!? I hated that! I didn't like doing that. But there I was.

I don't think anybody knows this. That's why I had to tell my story. I'm sitting holding on to all this stuff. Nobody knows what it's like to be the bad man, the sad man...behind brown eyes!

It's a real story from a real perspective and I knew how to tell it. But it took getting on that stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to see it. I didn't have the right perspective until I stood on that stage. It was the launching pad for the way this book turned out.

Jeb: Not to sound hippy-dippy but, at certain times of your life, you seem to have moments of clarity.

JC: Yeah. That's the Holy Spirit. That would be God. That's God, stepping in and saying "Excuse me, Jon, but..."

My father raised me as a follower of Christ. I describe in the book how, from very early on, he taught me how to pray, and love Jesus Christ. I got in trouble in Catholic school...so much trouble. "Why do I have to pray to Mary when I've got a direct line to Jesus?" And they looked at me like, "What?" They pinned a note to my shirt, "Show this to your mother", and it said, "...blasphemous..." My mom said "What the heck did you say?" and I said "Well dad prays to Jesus, why can't I?" She said "Look, you've just gotta go along with them".

Jeb: It was emotionally tough reading the part about the fire and all the kids that died.

JC: I really think that the fire forged a different guy. God wanted me to be a sword for Him, but first He was going to hammer me. To go through...at eight years old...ninety-two children and three nuns perishing in front of your eyes, you know that life's gonna be hard. And God was going to test me.

In the Bible it says "Out of pain, something new is born." "Beauty for Ashes" is really the theme of this book. I will take the ashes from this fire and turn it into something beautiful. He sure did for me and I give Him all praise.

Jeb: I never get the sense that you ever rejected God, but in the book you didn't come across as devout as you are today.

JC: Doesn't God have a sense of humor when He takes a guy who declares he wants to be a priest at the age of seven and He ends up making you marry a Pastor?" So, I declare my heart to God and, at sixty years old, He gets me back. You'll be in Church all Week because I gotcha!

Now I go to Bible Study all week because I'm immersed in His word and it's funny to me, the irony of it all, because I really did want to be a priest. That fire made that tricky for me because I had to question what the church was doing.

The Chicago Fire Department did a great job in determining and reporting the cause of that fire and that incident is the source of most of the fire codes that are in place today. So, those kids didn't die in vain.

Jeb: To put it bluntly, it isn't very Rock 'n Roll to write a book about spirituality. Did you have any self-doubt about that?

JC: No. It was needed, actually, and no one's done it. I have a foundation and a platform coming from the ashes of that tragedy. To lift God up for such a time as this…these days it's not hip to be a Christian anymore, like we're some kind of cult group.

What I want to share with the world in this book is, if you are baptized and you're a Christian then behave like one. Give Him praise. At sixty years old I felt it was time for one of us to stand up and say "Hey, I really love God!"

I think I was the only one at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that even thanked the Lord. It just seemed to be the time to do it. God has blessed me so mightily over the years and taught me so much. I stand humbled. I think there are not enough of us that come forward. I just felt like "Let's write a different kind of book."

The fact that I met Paula on a Southwest flight means God has something for you. Wow, did I ever need that!

Jeb: That's a synchronicity that goes beyond explanation.

JC: Right. Paula saw God in me when I didn't see where it was. It was like I had a blindfold on me and she said "No, He's right here. He's waiting." I said "OK, I believe you, tell me more.”

As I got deeper into it she turned me on to some amazing men. In the book I go into detail about my transformation. I told her "I'm not going to Africa, and I'm not getting married!" I've been to Africa seven times and I've married Paula three times.

Jeb: Three times?

JC: Well, we got married in Ghana. You know you can't date a pastor [laughter]. I had to come back and tell the congregation and we wanted to make things right spiritually. That was important to us. She introduced me to Archbishop Nicholas Duncan Williams, who is a force of prayer and grace. He is my spiritual father. He is unbelievable. He pretty much saved me from the dark side. He was my Yoda. He was the one who said "Return! Pick up the sword, Jon" so I did.

Jeb: Was it more difficult to tell this to the band members than the fans?

JC: No, they knew. They saw it in me. They saw the happiness. I can't tell you how many times I've been told "Man, you are a different person. You look different, you carry yourself differently. You have a light on you, Jon, and we're happy for you".

Jeb: That's essentially how the book ends, if you know what I mean. Explain to me that moment of clarity you had on the stage at the Hall of Fame…that you knew how to do it.

JC: It really came down to Steve Perry. It took his grace. I was holding my breath...to see if we were one brotherhood. I always believed that in my heart and when he got up there, and he said what he said and he thanked who he thanked, that's when I knew.

It wasn't all just some fabrication, it was a real brotherhood. Steve made it real. He got up there and you could see his pride and how grateful he was. It was sincere. And that sincerity from his heart is what drove me to write the book.

Jeb: One thing I got from the book was…I knew Steve was a powerful figure in the band, but I didn't know he was THAT powerful.

JC: John Waite was a great bandleader when I was in the Babys. He ran the ship. But when I got to Journey I saw this guy that was so musically evolved. He could play drums and the bass and he sang like a bird. He knew where everything was meant to be and where it was not meant to be.

He would get on the drums and show Steve Smith how he wanted it. He would take Ross's bass and show him what he wanted. He knew where every little thing fit. He was, rhythmically, a genius. He would take a so-so track that had a little discrepancy in tempo, and make it work.

I'd say "We need to do that again with a click track." And Steve would say "No, it's alright, I can grease it" and he would sing it in a way that would hide the discrepancy. He had the innate instinct of an artist, like Sinatra! He was as good a vocalist as Sinatra.

Sinatra could make anything feel like butter. He would go out and sing it and no one would pay any attention to a mistake in the horn section. Steve had the same knack. Steve knew a great song when he heard one, just like Sinatra.

He knew what he needed, He knew what he didn't want to sing, just like Frank. Before I met him I had read Frank's autobiography and as we worked together, I thought, "Wow, he is so much like him!" This guy was really in tune with his gift. He was a technician. He'd never had a voice lesson but he would sing a line over and over and over again until we wrote the next one, so he could memorize it in his palette.

I was like "What are ya doin'? He would sit there with a bass and just go over the line and say "OK, next line." I didn't understand what he was doing while we were writing the song but, when we got into the studio, he was done in two to three takes. Done! He was the Terminator.

He sang, "Mother, Father" in one take! I've never seen anything like him and I probably won't ever again. I've played with a lot of good singers but he really stood out. My only regret with him is that we didn't make more albums. We took long breaks in-between records and I missed him when he was gone.

He would say "Well, Jon, how are you going to miss me if I don't go away?” I would have already had another album done with this guy because we were that in tune. Neal and Steve and I proved it when we came back for the Trial By Fire [1996] record.

After being away from each other for eight years, he just wanted to do a couple of shows but we convinced him to make an album with us. We all came together around my piano at my studio in Marin County that I had built. In two weeks we had fourteen songs! We just had that something. I'll always be grateful for it.

Jeb: As a fan, and for the fans, I have to ask, is that something ever going to happen again?

JC: I don't know. You'd have to ask him that. That's a question for Steve. He knows where I live. He's got my number. But I may call him for my next Christian album.

Jeb: I really want people to read this book. This is going to sound terrible but people need to understand that this is not a 'God Squad' book. That aspect of your life is in there but you are not trying to convert anybody. There is plenty in there about Journey's history, the Babys and your own history. I especially liked reading about your relationship with your dad, right up to the moment he passed away. It's a multi-faceted book that people who don't share your faith can read and really enjoy.

JC: It's interesting. When Zondervan took it on, they're a Christian publisher…they never said to me "We need more God, Jon" [laughter]. They never put pressure on me to talk more about my faith. They let me write the book I wanted to write because they knew that the way to win souls is to be real and truthful. Beyond the struggle is the grace.

When you're baptized as a Christian it's up to you to do what you want to do. I can only say for me that the grace was there when I needed it and it's gotten me through a lot of tough times.

I'm not professing to win souls with this book by any stretch of the imagination, but it's never too late to return. If He's on your mind, that's great. For me, I don't see any way I could have gotten into Journey without supernatural, Divine Intervention. There's no way I land in Journey without God saying 'Put him there, he's My son. I've got favor on him.' That's how it happens. That's not luck. My life is not luck. The way things went is because I was covered in grace. And that was my dad, who loved God and he covered me. There's something to be said for that.

As for the stories concerning Music Business 101, if you want to make it in this business, this is a guide for what to do, what not to do and what to stay away from. We can make it a business of writing and creating but you have to keep an eye on your checkbook. A band is a money burning machine. It burns money 24 hours a day and if you're not paying attention to your business the enemy is going to come shut you down. That's it, you're done.

I've been in lots of situations like that and that's what's so cool about the book because I share so much of what I've learned in over forty years of being in professional music, the ins and the outs. I left out a lot. There was the Napster thing where Napster nabbed our album, Arrival [2001], which we had just spent $700,000 on, and put it online for free. It broke my heart. It was an employee from Sony/Sweden that leaked the album out to the world. It came from our own organization. It was a game changer.

Jeb: I really liked Arrival.

JC: We've toyed around with the idea of re-cutting it and bringing it up to date. Neal and I have talked about using some of the stronger tracks and making that the cornerstone of maybe adding some new tracks to it. It's still one of our fondest memories of what Journey's supposed to sound like.

It was a big deal for Neal and me to try to create that out of the ashes. Can we still be Journey without Steve in the room? I think we answered the question with that album. The record company was ho-hum about it and it never got the push that it needed.

Jeb: Tell me about the day you found out that you were going to be in Journey.

JC: I was in the Valley and I was trying to make ends meet. We had just recorded a Dr. Pepper commercial. I had enough money to make rent for the next few months from that check. John Waite had a horrible ACL injury from tripping over a cable. He needed surgery and would be out for a year.

When they called me I had already worked out in my mind what I would do if I was on that stage because I had watched Journey so many nights. I watched the set every night and I put myself up there in Gregg Rolie's shoes and thought "What would I play there? What would I want to say there? What do the fans want to hear right now?" I probably watched forty shows and I took mental notes.

When they called me there was no stomach churning, it was all confidence. I knew what the message would be from the fans. I think I represented the fans more than anything. It wasn't about me…it was what I thought the fans wanted to hear from Journey.

I watched the fans very carefully and I thought "They have the greatest fans." Short of AC/DC and the Stones, who have rabid fans, Journey was still relatively new to game and they had this loyalty. People loved this band. I could see that respect. But where was the interplay and the connection with the music? I thought they fell short there.

If anything, I wanted to shore up what I wanted to hear as a Journey fan. I'm gonna go in there and try to make music that a Journey fan wants to hear. Not what Neal and Steve wanted but to write for themselves. Let's write for the golden ones, those who buy the tickets. My role was to be the bridge between Journey and their fans.

Jeb: They had a lot of faith in you because, Escape, your name is all over that one and, wow!

JC: I thank God every day for that. It shows you that they were willing to roll the dice on me and us, as a unit. So there's the brotherhood again. It showed a belief that we all shared that we are better together, with Jon, Steve, Neal, Ross and Steve. We're gonna be better. That was pretty resolute. Herbie, our manager, believed it, Neal believed it, Steve believed it. They all believed it. How can you lose, walking into a situation like this when it was unanimous. I just simply followed what they put forth. They put forth that trust in me and I was honored to be a part of that.

Jeb: Before we wrap this up is there anything you would like to add about the book that we haven't touched on?

JC: I did want to mention that the audiobook is pretty cool. It's on Amazon for those people who don't want to read. I've included a lot of music. I actually performed some solo piano improv behind some of the more dramatic moments of the book. I just put 'play' on and started playing during certain segments.

Then there are some songs I've written over the years…Autobiographical songs about certain key moments in my life that are in the book, like my kids, my dad, the fire. There are some great songs about the road. Then there is a very profound song at the end that I leave with the reader called, "The Songs You Leave Behind".

There will be an ITunes collection of nineteen songs for $9.99 called The Songs You Leave Behind: From The Book, Don't Stop Believin'. So the people who share the audiobook with me will be able to hear all the songs.

I wrote a song about my German shepherd that will kill you.

I write songs about everything that happens in my life because I was Journalism major in high school and I ended up in music. I guess that's why I wrote the book...My love for writing and my love for my dad. I hope that any dad that reads this book will take that example of how to see the uniqueness in your child, encourage them and put them on the path to their destiny the way my father did for me.

Father's Day is coming up, so it's a good book for Father's Day. I really wrote it as a legacy for my dad who was so much to me and our family.

Jeb: One last question: When you two got married and you moved in together, did she happen to have any old vinyl lying around, like Escape or Frontiers in her collection?

JC: She had a playlist. She had some Journey in there! She always said that I didn't look like a rock star when she sat down next to me because I don't have tattoos, or piercings, and dyed hair standing up. I wasn't wearing ripped clothing. I just looked like a normal dude.

I'm just Mr. Smooth. I don't try too hard [laughter].

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