The news that Journey will be hitting the road this year for a major outing with Def Leppard found longtime fans breathing a sigh of relief, after fearing that the band was splitting. After months of in-fighting -- and most notably the ideological and political differences between co-founder Neal Schon and longtime keyboardist and born-again Christian and conservative Republican Jonathan Cain -- the music ultimately came first and helped the pair come together.
Schon spoke to Ultimate Classic Rock and explained how the pair mended fences, explaining, "It's like a healer. Music is the healer, you know? That's the thing that pulls people together. Even in the early days, in the '80s when I first pulled in Jonathan Cain to take Gregg Rolie's place, we always butted heads pretty much musically. We came from opposite sides of the spectrum, and when we joined together, that's kind of what made the sound. I would suspect that it's still there. We just haven't messed with it in a while, and tried anything. I've been wanting to, but it just hasn't happened."
- Neal Schon admitted that his partnership with Cain over the decades hasn't exactly always been smooth sailing: "We've had some hard times. Mainly because I think everybody is just going in different directions, away from everything we had done for many, many years. So, it was hard for me to understand. But the bottom line is, I respect all of the work that we've done together as a band -- and I respect our fans. I love our fans. So, it doesn't really matter if we don't see eye to eye any longer. When we get onstage, it's about the music, and it's about the fans."
- Journey and Def Leppard will be at Talking Stick Resort Arena on Friday, September 7th. Ticket info HERE