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DECEMBER 1999
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Souce: Progression Magazine (Winter/Spring 1999-2000)
Contributed by Tim Morse
Billy Sherwood Speaks His Peace
By Tim Morse
Although he has worked almost non-stop as a singer/guitarist with Yes for
two years, Billy Sherwood has managed to find the time to record and
release his first solo album "The Big Peace" (Purple Pyramid, CLP
0530-2). It showcases the definitive Sherwood sound, as it was created
entirely by Billy himself (with the exception of the drums played by Jay
Schellan) and clearly benefits from not having to go through the committee
of a band. But recording "The Big Peace" was a long process that actually
began as the third World Trade album. As Sherwood organized the project,
he realized that the members of the band had heavy commitments that made
them unavailable to work on the album, and instead of calling in other
musicians he decided it was time to create a solo work. Billy spent two
and a half years working on the album between Yes-related work, and
gradually overdubbed the sweeping, lush sound that is featured on the
record. Creating this music also gave him the opportunity to explore
different styles of music and as producer/engineer to have total control of
the canvas he was painting.
Billy agrees that there is a loose theme that runs through the album of a
person searching in his/her life and then at last finding inner peace, "The
idea from the first lyric of 'Some things are worth waiting for...' to the
last 'Big Peace' is to look inside yourself to find that peace and finding
a way to get through life in a positive frame of mind. It's definitely my
philosophy in life; to make the best of it and wake up everyday and live it
as though it were your last. To be thankful for what you have and try to
make a difference in this world if you can...Indirectly it turned into a
themed album from top to finish with 'Self Made World' where you create and
make your own world and your own destiny -- all the way through to 'Call'
where people are searching and making these phone calls to figure out
what's going to happen in their lives, when in reality they're the ones who
are in charge of it. This whole idea of calling to find out what was going
to happen tomorrow; it's very intriguing that people spend money to figure
that out and the whole hook is that you have to call again tomorrow!"
Sherwood readily admits to the Yes influences in his early work, "In any
band that I've been in, I was such a diehard fan that I always used Yes as
an analogy, 'Well, Yes would be able to push this envelope -- why can't
we?' I guess in that way the influences were always there and World Trade
was the apex of that. At that time Yes was in a quandary and ABWH was
happening and Yes was without a singer and World Trade felt, 'Let's pioneer
this area again. Let's get it going again.' We knew what we were doing
and knew that it sounded Yessy, but at the same time it had a different
slant, it was a bit more mainstream than Yes has ever approached. Even
though 'Sense of Freedom' is out there and 'Open The Door' is out there,
there is also some pretty commercial stuff on that record (the first World
Trade album)."
Billy met Chris Squire through a mutual friend and they decided to try to
write a song together. The fruits of this labor became one of Union's most
loved songs "The More We Live - Let Go." But Sherwood elaborates the
gestation of the song wasn't easy, "Chris came in with the keyboard part
that goes 'Do dut do...'and I'll never forget that after he left I looked
at my wife and said, 'What am I going to do with this? I don't know what
to do, it just stays right here the whole time.' Then we sort of massaged
it and I came up with idea of having this concept lyrically of the more
you this, the more you that and kept trying to build this idea up and then
I threw in the bridge, 'As we walk into tomorrow...' And all of a sudden
it was really taking shape and Chris came in and sang a bunch of parts and
I was really surprised with the vibe that was all of a sudden coming to
light on the thing, because as I said I didn't know what to do with it when
we first started. Through the evolution of overdubbing and working on
lyrics and trying to get things right it really turned into something
special...Certain songs you just look at years later and say, 'How did I
come up with that?' I don't know, but thank God something hit me to do it."
In 1989 Jon Anderson left Yes to form Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe,
leaving his old band without a lead singer. Yes' problems were compounded
by Trevor Rabin deciding to make his solo album "Can't Look Away" and not
giving any promises about his future with the band. Squire decided to
bring Sherwood in as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. Billy remembers,
"I started working with Chris, Alan (White) and Tony (Kaye). So we went
into Cherokee studios and recorded 'Love Conquers All,' 'Say Goodbye'
(which was re-recorded for World Trade's second album Euphoria). Eddie
Offord was brought in because I was the new guy and nobody was sure if I
could do (produce) it, even though 'The More We Live' was done before we
got into the studio. So Eddie, although helpful, didn't change the format
much. We tracked six to seven songs. 'The More We Live' made it to the
Union album, it definitely has a unique spirit to it. 'Love Conquers All'
is the last track on the box set (Yesyears), Trevor ended up singing it and
he did a fantastic job. Managers and lawyers started to get together and
had this idea to put together this super-Yes, which was Union, and Jon
returned and it was clear to me that he was back and I stepped back from
that position. Trevor, Steve, Bill and Rick were going to return and I
thought that's enough already and I backed out of Yes and I went on to
produce a couple of records."
Although Billy wasn't involved in the Union tour he was invited to join the
band on the Talk tour which he remembers as a very enjoyable
experience, "Because it was my first major tour and so it was a multiple
experience for me to see the world, but also to see the world playing with
my favorite band. Standing onstage, playing this great music, the first
couple of gigs were like, 'Oh my God! What am I doing here? Somehow I'm
in Yes.' I was looking around, standing in the vari-lights, playing 'And
You And I' just going, 'Wow! This is really cool.' Even though I wasn't a
full member, everybody made me feel very comfortable in being there."
After the Talk tour Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye decided to leave the band
and Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman were brought back in to record Keys to
Ascension which featured live performances and new studio material. Billy
was asked to mix the studio tracks and then called upon to produce the new
studio tracks for the companion album Keys To Ascension II. Songs on KTA
II like "Mind Drive" are highly regarded among Yes fans as comparable to
their classic material in the seventies and Billy played an important role
making that happen, as he recounts, "With KTA II I tried to get it to be as
polished and top drawer as I could make it and I got a chance to work with
everybody individually and try to get the best out of them, when I knew
collectively there was tension. Obviously, because Rick left right after
that saying he didn't want to tour anymore and Yes was going into another
holding pattern. Steve went back to England and Yes was wondering what was
going on with a manager who didn't have a clue at the time. I just grabbed
the ball and said, 'I'm not going to watch my favorite band go down
here. I've got to do something, let's start writing some songs.'"
"Chris and I started working on some material and after we had a few things
I send some tapes to Jon, who was in Hawaii. Jon heard 'Wonderlove' and
'Love Shine' and 'Universal Garden' and sent me letters back saying this
stuff sounds fantastic, I really love it, send me tapes so I can sing on it
-- which I did. When I got the tapes back I called Alan and asked him if
he wanted to replace the drums and he said yeah and so he came down. Now
the project was heading towards a Yes album, but there was no keyboard
player around so I filled in the gaps as best I could and then we sent
tapes to Steve, who wasn't really thrilled about where it was headed, but
at the same time he knew that Yes needed to keep moving so he got
involved. As we were mixing the album, talking about a tour they said, 'Of
course you'll play the keyboards.' And I said, 'No, I'm going to play
guitar.' So Jon pulls out a tape that was Igor's (Khoroshev) home demo and
played it in the studio and we agreed that it sounded great and that we
should check him out. Igor came to the studio and played really well and
so we knew we had the guy. At this point we were in the final throes of
mixing and Jon asked, 'Can we get him on the album?' Even though we were
under a bit of a time constraint he did a couple of overdubs. One of the
things he did was the solo on 'Fortune Seller.' After we'd mixed the guys
said, 'Why don't you join this band? You've been looming around it long
enough. Just jump in!' And I said, 'Sure!'"
After an intensive tour of the world Yes regrouped in Vancouver, British
Columbia to record their latest album. In contrast to Open Your Eyes the
recording of "The Ladder" was a much more organic and communal experience,
"We were all in one room in Canada throwing out ideas and not being married
too much to what we were bringing in and letting it twist and turn and move
around, it really was a group effort. Certain songs might have been driven
by one guy more than the other, but I think it all balanced out in the
end. In 'Homeworld' the intro (sings the opening guitar riff) was a guitar
bit that I've had lying around forever and I kept playing in rehearsal and
we'd get into that groove, but it never really went anywhere. We wanted to
do something with it, but we couldn't find the second half so it went back
into the closet. Igor had another section that we were working on which
became the chorus, but it wasn't connected. We just played that as a bit
and then put it on ice. We took a little bit of a break and when we came
back, Jon and myself had both been thinking of working on this song, so I
came with a sketch on it as did Jon. The two of us were kind of in the
same mind set and we put the song together. Steve came up with the
ching-ching guitar bit in the middle and it just sort of formed into this
big, epic piece of music...There was a lot of give and take and I think
it's very well rounded."
With The Big Peace now released, The Conspiracy project that Billy has
worked on with Chris Squire on and off for years is also finally ready to
see the light of day. "It's been a threat for so long that I couldn't
really believe it until the artwork and the master were delivered and I
thought, 'There you go, it's finally going to come out!' I think for Yes
fans who know the history of how I got involved it's going to be an
interesting album, because you'll hearing the music from the first song
Chris and I wrote together, which was 'The More We Live-Let Go.' So you'll
hear the original version with me singing that one, before Yes got a hold
of it and the album goes all the way through to a bunch of new material
that no one has heard. It's going to be good, and it's definitely an
anthology of the material Chris and I have worked on over the last ten years."
Although he plays an important musical role in Yes, Billy also plays a part
in keeping the peace in a notoriously volatile band, "When I started
working with them again and the talk came of joining the band, it was my
goal to at least have peace -- a lofty goal! It's thirty years of
marriage, not to take anything away from marriage because my marriage is
beautiful, I love my wife dearly and our relationship is so much easier
than dealing with this band!" Also in its thirty year history Yes has
never had an American member until Sherwood joined, as he laughingly says,
"It feels like I have conquered! It's strange, but at the same time we've
got a Russian too, so it's a multi-cultural band now! I'm proud to
represent my country and I'm happy to be here and I'm going for the gold!"
Tim Morse is the author of Yesstories and Classic Rock Stories (both
published by the St. Martin's Press).
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