Latest Journey AMEX Card Lawsuit Termed 'Sour Grapes'

Cain and Schon

Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain is suing longtime bandmate Neal Schon for allegedly spending over $1 million on the band’s shared American Express card, including $400,000 in a single month last year.

Billboard reports the new allegations came months after Schon sparked the legal battle by filing his own lawsuit accusing Cain of blocking access to “critical” financial records linked to the Amex account.

In a countersuit filed last week in California state court, Cain said it was Schon’s own actions that had led to those restrictions on his access to the Amex account, including “misusing” the card to deal with his own “financial problems as a result of an extravagant lifestyle.”

“Schon’s use of the [shared] AMEX card for personal expenses created serious liquidity problems for the band, as the AMEX balance had to be paid every month, and there were insufficient revenues to pay for other expenses as Schon saddled Journey with over $1 million of his personal expenses,” Cain’s lawyers wrote in the new complaint, filed Jan. 13.

Cain’s countersuit included a number of specific allegations about Schon’s spending habits. Once given access to the band Amex, Cain says Schon promptly spent over $100,000 in January 2022. Then in March, he allegedly spent a whopping $400,000 in charges at Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City and other retailers.

At the end of a recent tour, Cain says Schon demanded suites at a Hawaiian hotel that cost north of $5,000 per night, then stayed a week longer than necessary and racked up more than $100,000 more in charges on the card.

In a statement to Billboard, Schon’s attorney Skip Miller called allegations “ridiculous” and “as phony as a three dollar bill.” He said the countersuit was merely “sour grapes” after a recent incident in which Schon demanded that Cain stop playing events for former President Donald Trump. “We want Cain to just focus on Journey and its fans,” Miller said.