The third-most famous Journey member thinks Bruce Springsteen is a “bitter old man”

Until an hour ago, I could not have told you who Jonathan Cain was. According to the internet, he has been Journey’s keyboardist and rhythm guitarist since 1981’s Escape. I like Journey, but once you get past Steve Perry, Neal Schon, and maybe Arnel Pineda, my knowledge of the band ends. So forgive me for not knowing who played the piano riff on “Don’t Stop Believin’.” It’s a great riff, admittedly.  

But this morning I got a crash course on Cain, who recently appeared on the Tom Barnard Podcast to give his take on Bruce Springsteen and liberal A-listers using their fame to speak up about political conflicts. Springsteen caught Cain’s ire, presumably because he used every stop on his recent Land of Hopes and Dreams Tour to criticize President Donald Trump, ICE, and a number of conservative lawmakers. 

It should be noted that Cain’s wife, Paula White-Cain, serves as President Trump’s senior advisor to the White House Faith Office, which was created in February 2025 “to assist faith-based entities, community organizations, and houses of worship in their efforts to strengthen American families, promote work and self-sufficiency, and protect religious liberty.” Cain himself is a contemporary Christian artist when he’s not swaying in the background of various eighties hits. He’s also a worship leader at City of Destiny, an Apopka, Florida, church founded by Paula. 

“We’re blessed to live where we live,” Cain said on the podcast. “And I’m obviously a conservative. I used to be a Democrat back in the old days, but I couldn’t go there anymore. I thought [Barack] Obama maybe, but then I saw where he was going and I’m, like, ‘Okay, we can’t have this anymore.’ So I’m a diehard conservative. And guys like Bruce Springsteen should shut up. Honestly, shut up, Bruce. Who’s the other one? Robert De Niro. I mean, who cares, guys? Really? Do your art.”

To justify his stance on Springsteen’s outspokenness, Cain cited his own on-stage behavior. “Now people say, ‘Well, you’re a Christian and you’re a conservative,’ and I’m, like, ‘So what?’ I don’t preach it on stage. I don’t spend ten minutes talking about it. That’s who I am. And that’s okay. Again, I just don’t think it’s cool to have celebrities going there. It’s a bad look. And Bruce, I mean, what the heck? I used to like him, and now he’s just annoying.”

That’s an easy defense to raise when your only microphone obligation each night is singing harmonies into it. Cain, for his part, had more choice words for Springsteen: “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 [‘Born in the USA’], if you look at the lyrics, it’s a kind of a diss to our country.” Kudos to him for being one of the few “patriots” to actually listen to the lyrics of the song, I suppose. 

As Consequence pointed out, Cain and Springsteen are the same age. But Cain thinks of someone like Kid Rock as more of a peer, because there is no better antidote to the woke mind virus than “bawitdaba, da bang, da bang, diggy diggy diggy.” “Me and Kid Rock, we’re probably on an island,” Cain continued. “There’s a few of us, and I stand there with my flag on that island, and if anybody’s got a problem with me, America and Jesus, then bring it.” 

Cain’s 2026 output includes “No One Else,” a song he wrote in honor of Charlie Kirk that is just as bad as the AI one, and “The Winds of Freedom: A Salute to America,” his tribute to the country’s recent semiquincentennial. Journey is scheduled to complete the North American leg of its farewell tour this fall, presumably with Cain continuing his long-standing tradition of not talking about politics onstage. 

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