Neal Schon Says Journey Issues Were Building For ‘Over a Year’
Neal Schon says he worked for a long time behind the scenes before taking legal action against Journey bandmate Jonathan Cain.
His newly filed lawsuit now claims that Cain "improperly restricted" access to financial records relating to a limited-liability corporation called Nomota that they set up to handle the group's business affairs.
"The only comment I’ll make at this time is it's all very unfortunate," Schon says in a Facebook post. The guitarist says he "tried for over a year to attain all our corporate records for Nomota with many personal e-mails to Jon as well as many legal letters stating it's my legal right to see all, but I was left with no choice but to take it legal."
The suit's principal aim is to gain access to an American Express card which Cain allegedly set up through Nomota "without Schon's consent or knowledge, with only Cain as the account holder." Schon's attorneys confirm that he "tried to avoid legal action, repeatedly requesting that Cain grant him access to the AMEX account. For many months, Cain and his representatives have represented that Schon would be granted access. But every time Schon contacted AMEX, AMEX informed him that he was still not authorized to access AMEX account records."
Schon's wife Michaele now says that AMEX has informed him that Cain had his spouse, Paula White, added to the Journey bank account in 2020 "against Neal’s wishes and per the court agreement."
The filing goes on to make serious allegations of band mismanagement by Cain that go well beyond their disagreement over the American Express account. Lawyers accuse Cain of "refusing to respond to booking opportunities; blocking payment to band members, crew and vendors; refusing to execute necessary operating documents"; and keeping Schon from "viewing expenses incurred by Cain and his touring party on band tours."
"Yeah, it’s a bit deeper than just a card," Schon posted on Twitter. "There’s much more," he added in the original Facebook post, but "since I filed, I’ll be following my attorneys advice and not speak until we are in court – where I’ll not have a problem at all."
Cain hasn't responded to Schon's lawsuit. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 3.
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