Longtime Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain believes rockers should keep their politics off-stage — but in interviews, he continues to be proud to blast his conservative beliefs. He used a podcast interview to blast a fellow 76-year-old, Bruce Springsteen, as an “annoying, bitter old man,” saying the outspoken should just “shut up.”
Cain’s problems with Springsteen aren’t just with the Boss’s recently pointed on-stage commentary about the state of the U.S. The Journey co-founder called Springsteen’s ’80s classic “Born in the USA” a “diss” track against America.
“I used to be a Democrat back in the old days, but I couldn’t go there anymore, you know?” Cain said in an appearance on the “Complete Disaster Network” podcast. “I’m a diehard conservative… And guys like Bruce Springsteen should shut up. You know, really, honestly, shut up, Bruce, you know? Him and… who’s the other one? Robert DeNiro. I mean, who cares, guys? Do your art. I try to keep politics out of my music.”
Cain, who is married to evangelist Paula White-Cain, an advisor to President Donald J. Trump, further said, “Now, people say, ‘Well, you’re a Christian and you’re conservative,’ and I’m like, ‘So what?’ I don’t preach it on stage. I don’t spend 10 minutes talking about it… And Bruce, I mean, what the heck? I used to like him, and now he’s just annoying. He’s an annoying, bitter old man. I mean, stop it. Really. You were born in the USA, weren’t you, dude? So act like it. But even that song, if you look at the lyrics, I mean, it’s a kind of a diss toward our country.”
Cain then brought up “Winds of Freedom,” his new solo single, from the EP “Only a Prayer Away,” which he says was inspired by the right-wing evangelical influencer Eric Metaxas, and which includes lines like “With our fate uncertain / Across boundless seas / To distant shores / We’d fight to make a stand.” But lest anyone consider this bringing political commentary into music, Cain preemptively insisted that, in boosting his brand of patriotism, this didn’t count.
“I’m releasing this patriotic song because I’m a diehard patriot,” Cain said — “like Ted Nugent, who’s my friend. We’re a couple of patriots,… we love our flag and we love our nation, and we grew up that way.” He also brought up another sympatico rocker, after the hosts suggested that he might be a “unicorn” as a conservative in rock. “Me and Kid Rock, we’re probably on an island,” he acknowledged. “There’s a few of us, and I proudly stand there with my flag on that island. And if anybody’s got a problem with me, America and Jesus, then bring it.”
Cain talked about the band surviving years of being “uncool” in Journey’s half-century-plus. When the hosts insisted that no one ever hated Journey, he provided evidence otherwise. “Back in the day it was cool to hate us, and those were dark days. I figured this would turn around eventually because, again, the music speaks louder than the noise and the haters. … Rolling Stone hated us. For 20 years, they dissed us in their magazine, they dissed our shows, they dissed our records, they gave us one star. It was cool to hate Journey because we were so successful,.. When grunge came around, it was like, ‘Okay, now it’s grunge time,’ and Pearl Jam and all that, and we kinda went in the background.”
He brought up a positive stock market as something fans associate Journey with. “We’re the certainty in uncertain times. And so especially after 9/11, I felt like people really leaned in to what was certain, what was good. Back in the days of Ronnie Reagan, we were all making a lot of money in the stock market. That was the days of Journey, you know — the ’80s, what we represented.”
He also took credit for Journey being one of the first bands to book a tour during the time of COVID, when “everybody told us we were gonna fail, and we were crazy — we’re all gonna die, you know? — and we said, ‘Nonsense, it’s time to go back out and celebrate rock ‘n’ roll again,’ and we were right, and we filled every arena we played.”
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