Jonathan Cain Confirms New Journey Music

Jonathan Cain is uncertain about the chances of a complete new Journey album, but he says the band is still moving forward with fresh music.

Cain shares in a recent interview:

“It’s so tough out there.
“We had hoped for better results with Freedom, even though it was cut-and-paste, a bit of an experiment during COVID.”

Journey had to work remotely to finish their latest album, with Cain in Florida, Neal Schon and Narada Michael Walden in the Bay Area, Arnel Pineda in the Philippines, and Randy Jackson in Los Angeles. The lead single, “The Way We Used to Be,” was released in the summer of 2021.

Cain explains:

“The COVID song I wrote with Neal, ‘The Way We Used to Be,’ was tongue-in-cheek all the way.
“I heard a lot of bad COVID songs – I mean some really bad ones – so we needed to do something that was really slick. That’s when I had the idea of two lovers not being able to see one another.”

Freedom was released a year later, but the extensive 15-song project peaked at No. 88, marking Journey’s lowest chart position since 2005’s Generations, which only reached No. 170 on the Billboard album charts.

Journey mostly avoided playing songs from the album during their 2024 tour, which recently expanded to stadiums with Def Leppard and Steve Miller. “Right now we’re only playing one [‘Let It Rain’],” Cain confirms, “but we are working on a new, new song – and if we can get that up to speed, we may be playing that one too. We’ll see.”

Cain emphasizes that this track is “brand new, right out of the box. If it gets accepted then who knows… it might be a single.” He reveals the title as ‘This Town.’ It’s about the fans – that 50-year relationship we’ve had with them. We wrote it about their loyalty. The hook is: ‘Tonight, it’s all about this town.'”