Journey's Jonathan Cain Says Girlfriend Undermined Steve Perry

Jonathan Cain nonetheless hasn’t utterly come to phrases with Steve Perry’s departure from Journey.

“I feel the largest shock for me was Steve Perry retiring,” Cain tells WOUB in Charleston, West Virginia. “I needed to scratch my head when that occurred, when he simply mentioned, ‘I’ve had sufficient. I am burned out. I do not wish to go on.’ I might’ve by no means wager in 1,000,000 years that I might hear that from him. That was the largest shocker. He was keen to simply let all of it go.”

They’d twice gotten again collectively after a hiatus, most not too long ago for 1996’s Trial by Fireplace. Cain thought an earlier reunion for 1986’s Raised on Radio was the one that might stick – largely as a result of Perry appeared to have come alive once more out on the street.

READ MORE: Rating All 52 Journey Songs From the ’80s

“He had probably the most enjoyable I feel he is ever had on the Raised on Radio tour in ’87,” Cain argued. “That was the final tour. He actually had enjoyable. I imply, it is the primary time he did not have [Perry’s long-time girlfriend] Sherrie [Swafford] telling him he was awful and all of the stuff she did. She was a chunk of labor, however he was free.”

Earlier than that, Perry had been touring individually with Swafford. However then he instantly halted the Raised on Radio dates. Perry by no means carried out in assist of Trial by Fireplace, citing well being points. He then declined to sing with the group after their 2017 induction into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame. At that time, Journey had lengthy since turned to replacements. Arnel Pineda finally grew to become their longest-tenured frontman.

Watch Journey’s ‘Separate Methods’ Video

Who Was Sherrie Swafford?

Sherrie Swafford was the inspiration for Perry’s debut single, 1984’s “Oh Sherrie.” The No. 3 solo hit straight referenced a few of their behind-the-scenes romantic points. On a minimum of one event, nonetheless, this turbulence spilled out into public view.

Perry’s bandmates mentioned Swafford created a distraction on the shoot for Journey’s “Separate Methods (Worlds Aside)” video when she grew to become jealous of a featured mannequin. “You are going to have a slut in your video?” Cain remembers Swafford asking Perry. “She needed to be a not-good-looking one,” Neal Schon added.

READ MORE: Why Journey Stopped Making Movies

The band pushed ahead with the Tom Buckholtz-directed clip, which featured a feminine scholar from a close-by college. That left Perry to overtly surprise if he’d have to write down a track for Swafford to easy issues over. “And so he did,” Cain advised the Huffington Publish, laughing.

Towards the strenuous arguments of his subsequent director, Perry then put in Swafford because the star of the following video for “Oh Sherrie.”

“Steve wished to make use of his girlfriend, Sherrie Swafford,” producer Paul Flattery says within the Amazon best-selling Journey: Worlds Aside. “We have been saying, ‘Do not do it; do not do it – as a result of there’s going to come back a time while you’re not going to be collectively. Then your new girlfriend just isn’t going to wish to take a look at it, and you are not going to wish to take a look at it.’ This had occurred to us so many occasions — however he ignored it.”

Watch Steve Perry’s ‘Oh Sherrie’ Video

What Occurred to Sherrie Swafford?

Tensions apparently rose on set once more, as indicated by Perry’s concluding interplay with Swafford within the “Oh Sherrie” video. “The bizarre factor was on the very finish, the primary take we did, he goes: ‘Hey, I kinda love you.’ By take 6, it was ‘I kinda such as you,'” Flattery mentioned with amusing.

After their break up, Swafford maintained a quiet life away from the highlight. Her highest-profile feedback arrived by an announcement issued to Marc Tyler Nobleman in 2013, when Swafford revealed that she’d gone on to turn into an esthetician and yoga teacher.

She confirmed that by no means married and had no youngsters. Swafford mentioned she cherished “my buddies — together with Steve — and my privateness. It was so totally different for us! It was simply love, nothing else!” Perry has additionally been conciliatory when discussing these long-ago days.

“Sherrie and I have been loopy in love, I can let you know that – and it was a really robust time as a result of the band was peaking,” Perry advised the Tampa Bay Occasions in 2011. “And if any girl on the market thinks that it will be actual thrilling to be the girlfriend of any individual in a band like that and that it will be all peaches and cream, the reality is that it is onerous to navigate a relationship while you’re within the midst of such a trip.”