NEAL SCHON: 'No One Is Going To Dictate To Me What I Can And Cannot Do In Regards To JOURNEY'

JOURNEY guitarist Neal Schon says that he won't "take orders" about how to run the band he co-founded in 1973.

The 68-year-old musician made the comment one day after he hinted that JOURNEY's co-founder Gregg Rolie will make an appearance on the band's upcoming 50th-anniversary tour, presumably in the place of longtime keyboardist Jonathan Cain, with whom Neal has been publicly feuding.

"No one is going to dictate to me at this point what I can and cannot do in regards to JOURNEY," Schon wrote on Twitter. "I haven't been here and not here to take orders- never have and never will. It's my band and I'll own it as I should and make the right changes as needed." When one of Neal's Twitter followers asked him who was trying to "dictate to you," Schon replied, "Have a guess."

Earlier this week, Schon addressed Rolie's participation in JOURNEY's upcoming run of dates in a social media post. After Neal shared a graphic for JOURNEY's 50th anniversary on his Facebook page, a fan commented: "I am SO looking forward to this. Please tell me Gregg Rollie is coming along for the ride! He's the better keyboard player and a co-founder it only seems right. Timing couldn't be better either!!!!" In response, Neal wrote: "you'll be seeing him".

Neal's latest post came just a couple of weeks after Cain fired back at Schon when the JOURNEY guitarist called him a "hypocrite" for performing the band's 1981 hit song "Don't Stop Believin'" at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. Cain, whose wife, Paula White-Cain, is the former president's self-styled spiritual adviser, played the track in November with a backup chorus of U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

"Neal Schon should look in the mirror when he accuses me of causing harm to the JOURNEY brand," Cain said in a statement. "I have watched him damage our brand for years and am a victim of both his — and his wife's — bizarre behavior."

An attorney for Schon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Cain after he performed at Trump's Florida estate.

The latest legal move came a few weeks after Schon filed a lawsuit against Cain in California state court, alleging that Cain set up an American Express card without telling Schon and that "millions of JOURNEY funds have flowed through it." Cain, for his part, accused Schon of misusing the card, citing his "excessive spending and extravagant lifestyle."

A month earlier, former JOURNEY singer Steve Perry took legal action against both Schon and Cain, asking them to stop registering federal trademarks on the names of many of the band's hits.

Rolie was JOURNEY's first singer, though his role quickly diminished when Perry arrived in 1977. Gregg left JOURNEY in 1980, just before the band achieved its commercial heights.

Back in 2019, Rolie told Rolling Stone magazine that he left JOURNEY "because I didn't like my life anymore. I've said this a million times and I know there's people that say, 'That's not the reason.' But I left because I was unhappy with what I was doing in my own life. I loved the management. I loved the music. I loved what we built. I just wasn't happy, so I had to blow the horn on it and just stop it.”"

He continued: "Everyone thinks it was because Perry came in and started singing all the leads. My God! Again, I was spread so thin with all these keyboards parts and singing leads, he was a welcome sight to me. And he could sing like a bird! It wasn't too hard to figure out. I was never against it."

Rolie went on to say that he was drinking too much and that he wanted to start a family. He also said that he was happy about the fact that JOURNEY became a household name after he moved on. "I felt very proud that I helped to build something that went to that extreme," he said. "I've always felt that way. Yeah, without me doing this, that might never have happened. But it's not about me. It's about all of it. It's a misconception in this business of, ‘Who does what?' We all did something."

JOURNEY's tour with TOTO will kick off on February 4 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Presented by AEG Presents, the "Freedom Tour 2023" will make stops in Austin, Montreal and Memphis before wrapping April 25 at the brand-new Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs, California.

The 2023 run includes rescheduled dates in Washington, D.C., plus Hartford, Toronto and Quebec, which were postponed last year due to the coronavirus.