On Journey’s latest release, Revelation, Cain once again fuses well-crafted songwriting with his signature synthesis of acoustic and electric keyboard sonorities. Set amidst the musical backdrop of longtime band mates Neal Schon on guitar and Ross Valory on bass (and rounded-out by drummer Deen Castronovo and new vocalist Arnel Pineda), Journey circa 2008 sounds at once both fresh and familiar; new tunes such as “Like a Sunshower,” “Faith In The Heartland,” and “What It Takes to Win” all draw influence from the Journey of yesterday, where piano themes and blues-drenched guitar licks collide to create truly memorable power ballads and soaring pop choruses.
I meet up with Cain after a sold out Journey show at New Jersey’s PNC Bank Arts Center. In front of 17,500 devoted fans, he rocks with a ferocity that belies his age, holding court at a seven-foot Fazioli grand piano that has recently become the centerpiece of his touring rig. Cain also sings, plays guitar, and summons tasty vintage synth sounds throughout the show. But the real star of the performance is Journey’s catalog of songs, which by now have become standards for an entirely new generation of musicians and fans. Five minutes into the band’s electrifying set, you almost forget that their hit compositions, many of which were penned by Cain, are now being sung by Journey’s third replacement lead singer since the departure of Steve Perry (Arnel was famously discovered by Neal Schon on YouTube).
A few weeks after the band’s New Jersey show, Cain calls me from his home in Northern California to talk about his remarkable life in music, and how for him, everything starts and ends with the songs.
Well, a lot of music today is cut and paste, which is a different art form altogether. For me, it took years to develop the sense to be able to smell when a good song is coming, and to have the patience to wait for it to come. I started developing my songwriting when I was 19 years old. I took my demos to Bill Traut and Jimmy Golden, who had a production company in downtown Chicago, and I would have them critique my songs. And that’s where it began. I had my first record deal when I was in Nashville, and I was signed by a song guy, Buddy Killen from Tree Publishing.Well, a lot of music today is cut and paste, which is a different art form altogether. For me, it took years to develop the sense to be able to smell when a good song is coming, and to have the patience to wait for it to come. I started developing my songwriting when I was 19 years old. I took my demos to Bill Traut and Jimmy Golden, who had a production company in downtown Chicago, and I would have them critique my songs. And that’s where it began. I had my first record deal when I was in Nashville, and I was signed by a song guy, Buddy Killen from Tree Publishing.
If you go back to who I idolized as a kid, they were songwriters. I’ve always been fascinated with guys like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Burt Bacharach — those were the guys for me. And when the Beatles came along, that opened up everything, because they knew the great songs, and they covered the great songs. They admired Little Richard and Chuck Berry, and people like that. So I’ve always been a student of the song, and I guess my keyboards were a means to an end. I look at the piano as a way for me to get my songs out there in the universe.
So you’ve always thought that it started with the song. If the song was good . . .. . . then anything was possible. When Journey got back together recently to record the new CD, I had a meeting with Neal and Ross, and I said, “You know, we need to go back to the way we used to write songs,” and that was, we started with a great chorus, or something else that we all agreed was great, and then we went forward from there. Being in a band is brutal, because you can bring something in and everyone looks at you and says, “I don’t like it at all.” And bang, you’re out of there.
When Steve Perry and Neal and I got together back in the ’80s, it turned out Steve was a song guy too. He really admired records and great songs, a lot of the same records that I loved. And why did I love those records? Why did I just keep wanting to play certain songs and certain bands over and over again? We wanted that legacy. Especially Steve and me — we wanted that treasure chest. We talked about bands, saying “Oh my God, look at their catalog. Look at what they accomplished. Look what they wrote.” We talked about the Eagles, how they were just monsters at writing. They hit the emotion on the head. That’s what makes those songs so great and you can’t help but love them. Our goal was to bring that songwriting legacy to the band, to try to emulate that pride and craftsmanship.
My job, when I came into the band, was to define Journey, to give it a conscience and a heart, and write more for the people who adored the band. When I first went to see Bruce Springsteen, I thought, “My God, he’s singing for us.” I could relate to those songs, he reached me in so many emotional ways. And so when I came into Journey, that’s what I brought, that sense of ownership, that we were going to try to create memorable songs.
When you joined the band, were they more focused on playing than on songwriting?They were playing around with different styles — R&B, Beatles-type things, etc. It was more of a fusion band. And it went through all these different incarnations, but it wasn’t a defined sound until Steve Perry said, “Well, we’re gonna make it this now.” And he brought that kind of Sam Cooke, R&B rock thing to it, like “Lights,” and “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’,” which is very reminiscent of the old Motown thing.
We wanted to expand the Americana part of Journey. Steve and I loved harmonies, and I noticed they were all over their previous records. So I thought, “Your blueprint is pretty good here. Let’s continue it.” I mean, they had gone platinum already.
And then working with Neal, I found out that he was quite a classicallyoriented guy as well, and that his thing was blues. I went through dozens of cassettes that Neal had — full of ideas, and we didn’t have cut and paste in those days, so I had two tape recorders, and I used to just put pieces together that I liked. I studied Neal’s bits and chose things that moved me. It was new for him, because a lot of Steve’s ideas were songdriven, and on-the-spot. We did a lot of things spontaneously. For example, “Don’t Stop Believin’’’ was created at rehearsal. I brought in that chorus, and we worked backwards. I showed Steve and Neal my harmony ideas and we went from there.
Can you talk about your songwriting background?If you go back to my roots, I played accordion when I was eight years old. I used to give concerts to the old guys in the neighborhood, in this little deli. And that’s where I began.
When you grow up playing ethnic folk songs on the accordion, the material is all over the map. You play a tarantella, and then an Irish jig, or “Granada.” These accordion songs are all varied, but they’re all great. And as an eight-year-old kid, with that box strapped on to me, I think it had an effect on me. It empowered me to melodies in a world that, if I was just a piano player playing Bach and Beethoven, I wouldn’t have been able to get my head around.
Polkas for example. Playing a polka and actually being in a polka fest, with everybody going crazy, dancing and swirling around in a room, you’re tearing these people up. That’s magic, and something that happened to me as a kid. I watched these old guys cry when I played “Finiculi Finicula” or “Santa Lucia,” and I realized that they were emotionally attached to these melodies. That just sticks with you, and you’re like, “God, could I create a melody that would stick with someone and make them cry?” It opened up a world of possibility for me, and also made me realize just how sacred music is, how powerful the melody is in music. It transforms people.
If that feeling about melody was your template, it’s no accident that people are still singing your songs today.Yeah. Fortunately for me, I grew up around great songs and I was paying attention to them as they were coming out. I was studying them, and saying, “Why do I love these songs so much?” I’d tear them apart, write the lyrics out, write the chords out, and try to find out why they made me feel like that.
Like when I’d hear Dusty Springfield, it drove me nuts. I was like, “What is she doing to me?” All these things stayed with me — great voices, the right subject matter, the right theme. It’s like watching a classic movie. I feel that music is very cinematic, and I’ve always respected it as such. I hear songs and they just take me back to places in time.
And that’s the power of them, and I guess why I’m so addicted to the whole thing. It’s just fortunate for me that I got with the guys that I got with, and because I had studied and paid attention, I was ready for that chance that I was given. And when Escape went to six million in sales, we were like, “that was easy.” But it was easy, because I was with a great team. We made that record in six weeks, for $80,000. That’s unheard of.
So your focus wasn’t on the external trappings — the most record sales, the most commercial placements. It was about the craft being so good that people would want to sing the songs.That’s it. We got together and defined who our role models were. Steve and I would talk for hours about who turned us on as kids, what records just knocked us out. We were really big fans of radio. We talked about listening to Marvin Gaye for the first time, and hearing the Four Tops, the Temptations, and Al Green, remembering what we admired about those records. The Philly Soul sound, the joy in that music, and the innocence. And that’s what we strove for. We didn’t want to get caught up in the negative.
When I joined the band, Steve had these songs like “Hopelessly In Love.” I just thought, “Wow, this guy is defining his heart here.” Simple songs, joyfully performed. And I ran with that feeling of innocence, and stayed there. And it was fun, because we always had that thing. Even today, when Neal and I are writing these songs, we try to keep that joy and innocence, the hopeful part of the message. It’s always about the song.
Has the way you write songs changed in recent years with advancements in technology? I remember seeing an interview with you years ago where you said that you and Steve Perry wrote “Open Arms” at the piano the first time you got together.“Open Arms” was actually written on an old Wurlitzer. These days it just depends. Some songs I write at the piano, some at the guitar, and more recently, some at the keyboard with something like Logic.
You seem to have had a very clear idea of your musical identity from the beginning. You appreciated lots of influences, but realized early on that emulating somebody was not going to take you where you needed to go.Absolutely. People ask me all the time about how to make it in the business, and I tell them that it’s good to have role models, and to understand what makes them tick. But in the end, what are you good at? What moves you? What are you best at communicating? It’s about being authentic, and laying your heart on the line. It’s about having good intentions, like you said.
I remember my father’s vision that he had for me. “You’re gonna be a songwriter and you’re gonna make music for thousands of people all the time.” He used to tell me that as a kid, and I was like, “How can you know this? I’m nine years old, sitting on a bar stool, playing accordion.” But he told all his friends that I was going to be a famous songwriter. And there it is.
It’s funny, my daughter Madison’s singing now, and I’m working with her in Nashville. That’s where my career began when I was 19, and I took my first plane flight there. Now I end up back again at age 58, revisiting the place where it all started. So I’ve gone full circle, and I love it.”
Jonathan Cain On The Road
The crown jewel of Jonathan Cain’s touring keyboard rig is his 7'6" Fazioli grand piano that travels with the band in its own giant road case. “That piano demands perfection,” Cain tells me. “I had to step up my game when I took that thing out. The Fazioli has all these colors. Behind some of these ballads I can play really softly. It’s quite a rock ’n’ roll piano, but it also has a heart.” The Fazioli has a MIDI 9 system installed, with which Jonathan triggers a Kurzweil MicroPiano and a Roland Fantom, for use when the house needs more piano volume.
Cain’s original synth sounds have been sampled and stored on a rack of E-mu Emulator E4X samplers. “‘Separate Ways,’ for example, has Sequential Prophet-5 and Roland Jupiter sounds, so I have samples of the real instruments that I barely play anymore. They don’t even work! The key contacts are so corroded it took me two days of pounding on the Jupiter just to get it to play.” Cain triggers his samples from an Ensoniq TS-10 76- note controller that sits atop the Fazioli. He also pulls sounds from a Roland D-550 synth module.
“I’m looking at the soft synths pretty hard,” Cain continues. “I think my next time around I’ll be running a Mac with Logic 8 as my synth bank, and relegating the synth sounds to things like the Arturia Prophet and Jupiter.”
On his left-hand side, Cain also utilizes a Hammond XK-2 running through a real Leslie, with a Korg Triton on top of the clonewheel keyboard, “for the industrial synth sounds, strings, and pads” he says.
Cain’s ability to accompany, but not overshadow, founding Journey member and guitarist Neal Schon actually stems from his experience as a guitar player himself. On stage, Cain sometimes switches from keys to a Fender Stratocaster or a standmounted Les Paul Junior.
Jonathan Cain 411
Webpage: www.jonathancain.com and
www.journeymusic.com Organ influences: I was a huge Jimmy Smith fan. I used to go see him with Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, all those cats. There wasn’t anybody that could touch Jimmy.
Piano influences: There were two guys that I used to think were the s**t on piano — Ahmad Jamal, who just would floor me, and Oscar Peterson, who had such veracity and energy. On the romantic side, I liked Roger Williams. I used to go see his trio back in the ’60s, and he played simple, elegant, amazingly precise piano. He showed me that there are chops, but there’s also voicing and style. He used to tear me up.
A Selected Jonathan Cain Discography
With Journey
Revelation (Nomota LLC)
Generations (Sanctuary)
Arrival (Columbia)
Raised on Radio (Columbia)
Frontiers (Columbia)
Escape (Columbia)
With Bad English
Bad English (Epic)
Backlash (Epic)
With The Babys
Union Jacks (One Way)
On the Edge (One Way)
As a leader
Where I Live (AAO Music)
Bare Bones (AAO Music)
For a Lifetime (Higher Octave)
Body Language (Higher Octave)
Piano With a View (Higher Octave)