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Jonathan Cain has issued a response to Journey bandmate Neal Schon's lawsuit over the band's American Express card.
Schon filed suit recently against Cain, accusing the keyboardist of "improperly" restricting him from financial documents related to the account in question. He also said Cain mismanaged a series of band-related actions.
Schon said his lawsuit was a last resort, and the result of nearly a year of seeing his requests for records ignored.
In his response, Cain asserted that the matter "should have been resolved privately, but I am forced to publicly respond now to Neal's malicious lies and personal attacks on my family and I in an effort to garner public support for his ill-conceived lawsuit — a lawsuit that has absolutely no merit."
Cain adds that Schon "always had access to the credit card statements." And what the guitarist is really after is "the ability to increase his spending limits."
"Since Neal decided to publicize what is going on, I can tell you we will present the evidence to the court that shows that Neal has been under tremendous financial pressure as a result of his excessive spending and extravagant lifestyle, which led to him running up enormous personal charges on the band's credit card account," Cain continued. "When efforts were made to limit his use of the card to legitimate band expenses, Neal unfortunately decided to attack me rather than trying to get his reckless spending under control."
In a separate statement, Cain's lawyers write that "Schon's personal financial problems resulted solely from his reckless spending — including what preliminarily appears to be charging more than $1 million of improper personal expenses on the band's corporate Nomota AMEX card."
The lawyers added that "Schon's complaint is the classic example of desperate people doing desperate things."
In 2021, Schon sold over 100 historic guitars from his personal collection (which reportedly included more than 800 instruments). The auction earned the guitarist a reported $4.2 million.
While there have been no complaints about Journey's onstage product, Schon and Cain have often been at odds over the years away from music. Friction between the two circa 2017 seemed to imperil the band's future, but both men eventually worked through their differences. In early-2020, Schon and Cain were on the same page when they fired and sued longtime bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith.
Journey just wrapped up a tour in October. The band doesn't have new shows on the books until February. Go here for the tour dates.