Photos courtesy of Pat Johnson and Jonathan Cain
What began as a three-word phrase scribbled in a notebook after a conversation Jonathan Cain, keyboardist for the iconic rock group Journey, had with his father in the midst of a struggling solo career, would become arguably one of the greatest rock songs ever written.
“I was kind of down and didn’t know if I should come back home to Chicago or to stay in Hollywood and stick it out,” Cain says. “I was just getting a lot of rejection.”
Cain would ultimately decide to stick it out as a writer and to say this was a wise decision is an understatement.
“My father told me, ‘You don’t stop believing, John. I know you’re going to make it,’” Caine says. “‘God’s got something planned for you, the blessing is on the other side.’”
The Beginning of a Journey
Cain was on the road playing in a band called The Babys, which was opening on tour for Journey.
“Unbeknownst to me, Gregg Rolie was calling to announce his retirement and the band wanted me to be the replacement,” Cain says. “They had seen me play every night and checked out what I did and thought I was the perfect guy.”
Cain joined the band in 1980 without an audition and Journey immediately did what any other rock band would do: forego any type of rehearsals to focus on more important things.
They took to the softball field to compete against local radio stations.
“My batting stroke was pretty hot back then,” Cain says. “We were beating the stations and Journey’s manager told me, hey, if you write as good as you play ball, we’re in great shape.”
Escape
The band went to the studio shortly after to record their most successful album, Escape. Cain recalls knowing that with Steve Perry’s vocals and Neil Schon on guitar, the group was something special.
“What I didn’t know at the time was how well we would gel together,” Cain says. “We changed the sound of the band.”
Escape was made over the course of two weeks for a little over $80,000. Toward the end of the sessions for this album, the band needed one more song. Perry asked if Cain had anything left in his notebook of song ideas.
Cain turned to those three faithful words of his father at the back: Don’t. Stop. Believing.
“I looked back and was like wait a minute. … This is definitely a Journey song,” he says. “All I had to do was write a melody for (Perry) to soar on and the rest was history.”
“Don’t Stop Believin’” would be Escape’s opening track and immediately became a milestone in the band’s history.
“We knew there was something different about it,” Cain says. “When you put that needle on the vinyl and the first thing you hear is that piano intro … it sounded like the beginning of a story; it made sense.”
A Humbling Encounter
Cain is the mastermind behind numerous Journey hits. So much so that fellow contemporaries sometimes felt their work too closely mirrored what Cain had already created.
At the time, Cain was working with his then-wife, Tané McClure, in Los Angeles on her solo album. He received a call from CBS in Santa Monica; an agent was calling, insisting Cain come to his client’s studio. The artist? Prince.
“They told me that Prince was concerned about copyright on a song that he had been working on,” Cain says. “Santa Monica was a long drive away, but I got in the car and drove to him.”
Prince was concerned that one of his freshly completed tracks was a little too close to Cain’s “Faithfully,” especially with some of the guitar tradeoffs and the “woahs” in the chorus. After hearing the song, Cain recalls recognizing a little of what Prince was concerned about, but it was no issue with him.
“Both bands are clicking on all cylinders right now, it’s going to be a big-time rock show." Jonathan Cain
On conference call, Prince himself offered to change the chords of the song to avoid any similarities.
“I told him I didn’t see a huge problem and what he had was killer,” Cain says. “I wouldn’t ask him to do that, I left saying ‘good luck man, you got a hit.’”
That song Prince was concerned about turned out to be one of the artist’s biggest hits, “Purple Rain.”
On the Road Again…
Journey is now in the midst of a massive 58-date co-headlining tour with Def Leppard. They
Cain and his father after his first show
are taking the Schottenstein Center stage on Aug. 22 for a night full of hits. The tour has been in the works for years and is sure to be a spectacle.
Shows like this are nothing new to these two iconic groups, but as their popularity has been sustained, life on the road has surely improved.
“It’s a lot cushier now, we aren’t smelling like diesel and staying in a Holiday Inn anymore,” Cain says. “It still is difficult being away from home, but we have a leased jet and the greatest crew in the world. Everything is such a higher quality.”
Cain is also promoting a book he recently published titled Don’t Stop Believin’: The Man, the Band, and the Song that Inspired Generations. The book is on sale available on Amazon, as an audiobook at audible.com and will be available at the merch table at the concert.
Journey in Columbus
Journey has played Columbus many times in the past and Cain says the band always enjoys coming to this city. From the Schottenstein and Nationwide Arena, to The Ohio State University, it is always a highlight of the tour.
“Both bands are clicking on all cylinders right now, it’s going to be a big-time rock show,” Cain says. “Columbus is a young town that really loves to rock, I’m really looking forward to coming back.”
Travis Shinn
Journey and Def Leppard will be playing the Schottenstein Center on Aug. 22 at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at all Ticketmaster outlets.
Side Note: On working with Steve Perry—
“He was a stickler for groove, everything we recorded in the studio was live with no click track (metronome),” Cain says. “I will always remember his excellence.”
“He was very much like a producer and knew exactly what he wanted to get done and where things should go and what sounds he wanted to sing,” Cain says. “He’d take five minutes on each line, just to focus on how to deliver it.”
Fun Facts about Journey
- Did You Know: ‘Yust a small town girl…’
“The way Steve Perry started singing ‘Don’t Stop Believin’,’ instead of singing the word ‘Just,’ Steve actually sang it as a ‘Y.’ The hard ‘J’ sound would bring him down an octave, the soft ‘Y’ would give him perfect pitch.”
- Though Escape went platinum and was a No. 1 album with four hits in the top 20 singles, the band was always in a seemingly eternal struggle with Michael Jackson.
“We were fighting him on the charts and honestly, he should’ve had his own,” Cain says. “He kind of ruled those days.”
Rocco Falleti is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at rfalleti@cityscenecolumbus.com
