Journey guitarist and keyboard player, Jonathan Cain, took a huge shot at radical left-wing rock legend Bruce Springsteen, referring to him as an “annoying, bitter old man” who should “shut up” about politics. He even employed the use of some clever wordplay, saying, “You were ‘Born in the USA’ weren’t you? So act like it.”
Cain made an appearance on a recent episode of the “Tom Bernard Podcast” where he told the host, “We’re blessed to live where we live.” He then revealed that he’s a conservative. “And I’m obviously a conservative. I used to be a Democrat back in the old days, but I just couldn’t go there anymore. I thought 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,” he continued during the interview. “Honestly, shut up, Bruce. Him and… who’s the other one? Robert De Niro. I mean, who cares, guys? Really? Do your art.” Cain recently released a patriotic tune of his own called “The Winds of Freedom: A Salute to America” to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary.
Cain said, “I try to keep politics out of my music. I’m releasing this patriotic song because I’m a diehard patriot.” The Journey guitarist said that musicians should be using their art to bring people together instead of creating more division. “I think we should do what we do, and try to unify. I think our job is unifying people — and I feel the same way with Journey,” he continued.
“We have our respective parties [Republicans and Democrats] out there in the audience, and they’re singing ‘Don’t Stop Believin’,’” the rocker added, according to a report from Breitbart. “Now, people say, ‘Well, you’re Christian and you’re conservative,’ and I’m, like, ‘So what?’ I don’t preach it on stage. I don’t spend ten minutes talking about it. 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. He’s an annoying, bitter old man,” he explained during the interview. “I mean, story 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.”
Following the horrific assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Cain put out a song called “No One Else” as a tribute to the founder of Turning Point USA. In September, the musician is kicking off a fall tour of North America called “Final Frontier” which is a farewell tour for Journey. As for Springsteen, he’s spent most of 2026 trashing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by delivering angry screeds from the stage during his most recent tour. Earlier in the year, he called himself a “patriot” for slamming President Donald Trump.
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