------------------------------------------------------- SEPTEMBER 5, 2002 ------------------------------------------------------- Source: CNN http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/05/yes.wakeman.trans/index.html Transcript: Rick Wakeman talks tough CNN: Yes seems to have gone through waves of popularity. Now you seem to be reaching a whole new generation ... WAKEMAN: My oldest boy sort of summed that up. He's 30 -- my oldest lad -- and said the trouble is that a lot of the people remember when rock 'n' roll started. He said if you remember when something starts, you'll always date it. Like nobody cares about a 90-year-old jazz musician; nobody cares that Sinatra got to his ripe old age and was still crooning away; nobody cares if there is an 80-year-old folk singer, or a 90-year-old blues singer singing, because it's the norm. He said, the funny thing is, in 50 years time this could be a load of 80-year-old rock 'n' rollers and nobody will bat an eyelid; you either like it or you don't. And it is very true. So the kids ... these people don't have that ageism problem that a lot of the media, especially the radio media, have. And that's a shame because, you know, in England the main radio stations really won't play anybody if they are over the age of about 22, which, when you consider the fine young musicians around in their late-20s and early-30s, and they are struggling to get heard. I mean, we're not too bad, but if Yes was formed tomorrow, we wouldn't get a record contract and I doubt whether we would get heard anywhere. I mean, we're all right, but I just feel sorry for some of the other ones. CNN: Why do you think that is? It seems that there are a lot of bands in the same boat. WAKEMAN: When rock 'n' roll sort of started as it is known now, it became a business. It became a business, shall we say, in the '70s ... the late '60s and early '70s. Suddenly businessmen were there saying "hold on a minute." New formats were coming out ... it was a serious youth revolution. There were so many more and different types of music floating around, everybody had a type of music they liked. ... But what happened was, when the music industry was around in the '70s it was all run by people our age and so everybody growing up with it. Now you've got a situation that nobody ever expected there to be, of 50- and 60-year-old rock 'n' rollers. (laughs) I went to see The Who at the Garden, they did four nights at the Garden -- all sold out -- and nobody would ever have foreseen that there would be 80,000 or 90,000 people going to see The Who at Madison Square Garden. And they are getting a real mixture of ages -- everything from kids to grannies. Now the record companies, not ready for this, most of them, in fact all of the record companies are run by young people and that's fine. Thirty-five and under, call it what you like. Now they just don't understand that there are bands that have been around -- have been started before they were born. That still draw huge crowds. They don't market for them. Because they don't market for them, the don't understand them, so they shy away from them. It's the same with the radio, though it's interesting to see that because people like to have choice how fast XM radio is growing. That's really opening my eyes that people want their choice. I mean, my kids for example, won't listen to terrestrial radio anymore, they pick everything up on the Net. They pick up radio stations from all round the world because they say they do not want to be dictated to what we should listen to, they want to find things out for themselves. My view is that the record companies need to take a parallel from sport. For example, golf, people said what are we going to do with golfers when they reach the age of 50? And they came up with this very clever idea: the Senior Tour. Now they do the Senior Tour, which is as successful as the ordinary tour. It draws huge crowds to come out and see these people -- young and old -- and they've done the same with tennis. There's the Senior Tennis Tour. What needs to happen, from my point of view, within the record industry is there is no reason why they can't have an area within the major labels that, shall we say, looks after the "classic" bands. Say, OK, "the classic bands" and have it run by people who understand it. Who understand how to market that area and understand how to work that area. I mean, it's not difficult. If you've got 80,000 people that are going to see The Who, just in New York, then you have potentially there you always say 2-for-1, that's 160,000 potential CDs there in that area. That's how it used to be looked at. And people just aren't doing it. It's the same with us, because there's nobody within these record companies that understand how it works. None at all. I might just think if one brave individual company looked at it and said, OK, let's get some people in who understand how these bands work, who know the market, who know the people -- it's no good pitching bands like Yes at people who watch MTV. It's hilarious, you know? It's never going to happen. They've forgotten this huge market that has always been there. ... I think that if record companies would be brave enough to start a classic department using the strength of the big company, but run by people who know how to market then they would do exceptionally well. But they won't because they are all stuck in what I call the Pan Am/TWA syndrome, which is when airlines had to change, companies like Pan Am said "Oh we're too big. We're an American institution. There will always be a Pan Am and a TWA. Always." Big mistake. They're gone. And I said, about four or five years in an interview that all of the big names that we know in music ... like Polygram and others ... within five years they'd all be disappearing and you wouldn't see the big names anymore. ... I just think that the industry is ill-prepared for the situation it finds itself in now with the different types of music, with older musicians, with younger bands. ... It certainly wasn't prepared for downloading. It completely closed its eyes on that one and looked aside and said "oh, that will never happen." And now they've gotten themselves in all sorts of trouble there. ... The whole industry, I think, could be doing a better service to the public as a whole. It's not going to happen though because all the people up there in their ivory towers are too worried about their own wages, pension and looking over their shoulder to the person above them to make sure they still have a job that they really don't care. I'm not saying that for all of them, there are some ... I am not saying that everyone in the business is bad ... there are a lot of very good people, but unfortunately, I think a lot of the very good people are not in the positions where they'd be given the power where they could actually make change. After saying all that I will probably never, ever get a contract again in my life. (laughs) CNN: You mentioned downloading, and that's become an increasingly bigger problem, to say the least ... WAKEMAN: But it needn't have been! It needn't have been! The colossal joke is that it needn't have been a big problem. Intel, for example, years ago already had the software and various things in place where people could download the tracks they wanted from any major company...they could download the tracks and make up their own CDs. ... They could do all of the things that people really would love to do and at the moment that they swiped their credit card to pay for whatever, it's a very simple software process ... where the correct little whatever it might be -- 10 cents goes to that writer there and 5 cents whatever -- it just automatically gets logged onto a database and goes off to the right places ... it's done instantly and everybody's happy. The person gets the music they paid for and the writer, the artist, the company gets their same little chunk that they always get from the sale. Very easy. It's very simple. But no, the record industry refused to embrace the idea and so what happens is, people just go ahead and do it anyway, which means there is less and less money going into the industry. When there is less and less money that means there is less and less to be paid out. So what record companies tend to do now, instead of spreading the money across the board, they'll throw millions at two or three acts, which ... I just scratch my head. It doesn't make any sense at all. You speak to the average person who downloads and they'll tell you they'll be very happy, they don't want to see the writer or the artist passed up. They realize there has to be money in the industry to make the product. The majority of the people you speak to would be very happy to swipe their cards, the money goes off to the right places and they've got what they want. And the record industry is really, really slow. And it has gotten itself into a complete mess over it. I mean, you should be able to walk into a store, Tower Records, wherever you like ... you should be able to walk in, go up to the counter, the same way you go into a catalog shop, you should be able to write down on a piece of paper or type into a computer the tracks that you want, you should then be able to go up to another counter to fetch your product and collect your CD. CNN: That sounds pretty cool ... WAKEMAN: It's so simple. It's not a difficult thing to do. If a company like XM Radio can have 2 million tracks just logged on hard disk in their setup in Washington or where ever it is they've got it, then there is ... it is not difficult. It is such a simple process. And that's what should be done. I am sure they do it over here ... my children range from 30 down to 16 and they all make composite CDs that they want to play in their cars, so they are doing it and you'd think the record companies and the places like Tower Records would say "Hold it a minute. This is what everybody is doing at home. Why aren't we doing it for them?" CNN: Why do you think that they aren't? WAKEMAN: Because they are so un-streetwise. The people who run the music industry are so un-streetwise. They are focused pretty much on one age group. They are focused on fashion instead of the music and are forgetting shelved material. It's the equivalent of the supermarket taking everything out of their shops except the new cereal that's just come in. ... You know my daughter said to me, it was quite funny, she made a similar analogy when she was listening to a rock station in Argentina called Big Bear music or something and she said, "there's some great stuff that they're playing Dad," and I said, what some foreign stuff or what? And she said, "No .. .they're English bands and American bands that you never hear on the radio normally." And she actually likened to a similar thing and she said how would you like it if you went into the supermarket and they were only selling three brands of coffee, but after five years you actually discovered that there were 103 brands. She said, you'd be pretty pissed off at that place. (laughs) And what would you do? You'd go out and try to discover what the other 100 were. You might not like them, but you'd go out and try to discover them. She said, exactly. So the industry is ... you know, if I had the money, the wherewithal and time, I would love to do something about that. Because I know it is there for the taking. But there you go. Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, inquiries, corrections, or additions, contact yitp@yesservices.com