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1994
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Source: Publiczny Dostep do Internetu
http://www.pdi.net/~eristic/yes/ja_interview_1994.html
Jon Anderson interview: 1994
By Piotr Kaczkowski
Transcription and Translations by Marek Jedlinski
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This is an interview with Jon Anderson aired on Polish radio Channel 3 some
time in 1994, after the release of Jon's "Latino" album Deseo and Yes's
Talk. The lengthy interview (conducted by the greatest of Polish DJ's,
Piotr Kaczkowski) was done over the phone and has happily survived on some
old tapes I hardly remembered having. The original phone conversation was
edited before the broadcast, and it got cut up pretty heavily - at least
this is the impression one gets listening to it. It was aired in several
chunks over the course of a three-hour program, so the continuity does
suffer somewhat. The original conversation was aired in English, with
Polish translation overlaid. Following is the full English text transcribed
verbatim from the tape I recorded. The English questions themselves were
inaudible, so I have re-translated them from Polish into English and
included here in [square brackets]. -- Marek Jedlinski
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PK = Piotr Kaczkowski
JA = Jon Anderson
[PK: It is a great honor to be talking to you on the air.]
JA: It works both ways. Yes, it works both ways, because it is a great
privilege for me to be on the radio there in Poland.
[PK asks about Deseo: How did you manage to gather such a diverse group of
musicians, from nearly all over the continent, for the album?]
JA: Well, it's very fortunate that I was very interested in Latin American
music for many years, 20 years, I love this sound of music. So, to go to
South America and do concerts was my dream - because for Yes it's very
difficult to play anywhere but America, Europe you know. I wish we'd play
Poland, but, it's very hard to get the group, or the manager, the promoter
to do this, 'coz they think there's not enough money... A couple of years
ago I went to South America [with a wonderful band of] musicians from
Uruguay and Mexico. We went on a sort of adventure. I went to many
different countries in South America: to Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Costa
Rica, and on the way I was meeting all these wonderful singers. So, I
decided I should make an album where each singer would sing a song with me,
to help me with my terrible Spanish and Portuguese. But, I love making
songs, it's no problem - but to sing in a different language, you know, you
have to have somebody to help you. So it was very very natural, to sing
with different people from different countries.
Well they would come... I would make some contacts with them, when I was in
Mexico and Uruguay. In Brazil I met Milton Nascimento. And I said, when you
come to Los Angeles, please please call me and maybe, you know, you can
come and we'll sing some songs. So sometimes a group would come to the
house, the house was like a studio. And I believe my life is total music.
So they'd come in and they'd sit down with guitars and they'd sing and we'd
record it. So, sometimes it was very very spontaneous. Other times I would
invite Maria Conchita Alonso -- Maria was making a movie in Texas, so I
said, when you have some free time, I said, please call me. And she just
came in for one day and sang a song with me. Very quickly, you know. And
with Milton Nascimento we finished our singing together in New York, 'coz
he was on tour, and he was making his recordings in New York, so I sang on
his album, and he sang on my album; we're very good friends.
[more about Deseo]
JA: It's a very good album. And sometimes, my musical dream is of course to
do the Latin American feeling, and then later this year I'm going to China,
to do an Asian album, with people from Thailand and Taiwan and China. So
I'm trying to travel the world, with music, it's a good adventure for me.
[PK: How about coming to Poland once?]
JA: I will, I promise. I have to do it, in this life I have to come to
Poland, I have to come to the Ukraine, Hungary, Russia, all the new
countries, I have to come there. Because music, for me, is very special.
Folk music is very exciting. So I'm always very interested in doing
something new.
[PK asks Jon to comment on the song Polonaise, from Jon & Vangelis Private
Collection album:]
JA: Well, this was the time of Solidarity. And I was very excited about...
Solidarity created the breakdown of Russia. I was living in Paris, working
with Vangelis, and at that moment, it was 1981, this incredible thing in
Gdansk, and the Solidarity was so powerful in my heart, you know, because
it meant that... you know, that the people of the world are stronger than
the governments. Coming into the 21st century we have to have a change of
energy. And then, slowly-slowly-slowly we had the breakdown of the wall in
Berlin, the breakdown of communism, and I think, my honest feeling is that
it all started in Gdansk - the place where they had the shipbuilding place.
So, that wonderful moment, I wanted to write a song. I wrote this song with
Vangelis, and I said, you know, please play that beautiful music in the
middle of Polonaise, Chopin. This was a great moment in the history of
Europe. Now, not many people I think can understand, especially maybe young
Polish people, they would never understand, how important their fathers and
their mothers and their brothers and sisters were, who did so much in that
time, because, the danger of course was the fear, of being persecuted, you
know. But they didn't do that, they stood by it, became a world-wide theme.
And naturally, it has a lot to do with the becoming of the new world. I
know it sounds very -- big -- but it's very true. You can't get away from
that.
[After a break, Jon talks about the then-latest Yes release, Talk:]
JA: The work that I've done over the years with Yes still hasn't been
understood by the business, the record companies, the newspapers, they tend
to think that Yes is all this... "oh, this dinosaur, it used to be famous,
you know". But Yes music is a very very powerful medium and will still be
thought of as something more important in the 21st century, that's what I
believe in my heart. Because Yes music is -- not always, but most of it is
very honest, very truthful and very very spiritual. Because we put our
heart and soul into the work. Sometimes you can become sort of popular, or
pop, whatever is popular, becomes the fashion, you can be hip. But
sometimes that's not important. You have to stand by your true identity
inside. So that's what I really believe Yes is all about. There's a new
album of Yes now, called Talk. And I think it's really, really a very
special album. The record companies, the music biz think it's OK... but I
think it's very special, so I'm gonna stand by it. To me it's the classic
Yes. It's the best music of the band for a long time. It's going back to
the classic moments of Yes. I think, in my heart, this is the last time I
will sing like this, the last time that I will be making music like this. I
have to move into another momentum. So I'm very happy we finished with a
great album. There will be more Yes stuff, but it won't be like what it's
been. I'm looking now into another way of thinking. I know it sounds crazy
but in my head I know what I'm thinking about. Maybe in a couple of years
we will do another Yes album but it will be sooo different.
Doing these things like Deseo, and.. I have a new album coming in
September, with orchestra, singing with the London Chamber Orchestra,
published by EMI. And again this is a very very different work. But I
really believe this period, it's time for artists to be, I think, truthful
with each other, and knowing that their music will come through. And for
me, I'm in my 49th year, I'm moving into my fiftieth year, I feel like I
have another twenty-thirty years of music inside of me. And now I'm moving
into the theatre, I'm moving into doing different things, because I'm in
the second half of my career. I'm very excited about my life, and I think
it comes through in an album like Deseo, because it is a very
light-hearted, danceable... It's got nice information, it's got nice
lyrics, you know. And even though it's all in Spanish... well not all but.
It's an enjoyable album to make. But at the time when I was making it,
there was no record company interested, this was like "Jon, why are you
singing in Spanish?" -- and I was saying, well, I want to sing in Russian,
I want to sing in Mandarin, you know. I'd love to sing in Polish, in many
languages, because we're moving into the 21st century, where the voice is
the people. You haven't got to sound American, you haven't got to sound
English, you gotta sound like the world. That's my theory in my heart.
[PK: (about the "new" Yes that Jon was heralding) Is the new Yes going to
be as new as 90125 was new?]
JA: Yeah. I think it will be as different. I hope we will be working with a
full orchestra. I'd like to think with a full orchestra and a big choir, we
could get into a whole different expression. That's what I'm thinking of,
in the back of my mind.
You know, the thing about Yes sometimes is that it's governed by sometimes
the record companies, sometimes the management -- "Oh you must make a more
commercial album, guys" -- you know. When I'm involved, that's the last
thing I wanna do. It drives me crazy. 'Coz I don't know how to be
commercial, I don't know how to write a pop song. I'm very excited that one
or two of my songs over the years have done OK. But I'm not gonna worry
about its all being in charts, 'coz if I did I wouldn't be alive today
[laughs]. I like music too much. The music is like a great experience. So
when I'm thinking about Yes music, I'm always thinking about it on the
show, on stage, and you know, I was talking to the promotors, and we're
putting together a tour with yes. Of course we're playing America, oh, what
an exciting thing. And then we're playing in Canada. We've been doing it
for twenty years, you know. I say, I want to go to the Ukraine, I want to
go to Hungary, I wanna play in Poland, I wanna play Yugoslavia, Prague, I
wanna go to Russia. "OK, Jon," they say to me, "OK", but -- they never help
me! So, next year... I have a secret, but I can't tell you, 'coz it's a
secret. Not the next year, the year after, we will be playing all over the
world. It will be a very special moment. Aah...
[PK: Can I tell our listeners about this?]
JA: Yes you can. But you don't know what it is!
[PK: OK, I will just say it's a secret.]
JA: It's a secret. But something's gonna happen during the next year that
will make me able to sing anywhere I want. Without the problems with the
promoters, managers, all those who keep saying "Hold on, why would you want
to play there? Why'd you wanna play in Poland, there's not enough money."
Bull-shit! I'm not interested in money. I'm interested in singing for
people who love what we do. What's wrong with that? As long as we can get
the airfare, we can do the show. You don't need to run away with lots of
money in your pocket, what for? But that's the way... you know, eighty per
cent of this business is based on just making money.
Back in the seventies, mid-seventies, I would say, "OK, I don't mind
playing just France and Germany and Italy... but what about Hungary,
Poland, what about going behind what was then the Iron Curtain?" "Oh, we
can't get there, we'll never get back, they'll hold up the equipment, you
know..." That's why last year I went to South America, I went to Peru, I
went to Chile, I went to Venezuela. Yes have never been there. And, now,
the Yes band, they're gonna play in Chile next September this year. They're
gonna play, hopefully, in Uruguay. They can always play in Brazil,
Argentina - but for me, that's not enough. I wanna play in Ecuador, I wanna
play in Guatemala, Mexico. All these places are very important. So I hope
in my heart that in the next couple of years, if Deseo is doing right, I
can bring my show to Krakow. I'll come to Poland, I'll do some Jon and
Vangelis, I'll sing Polonaise, I'll do some classic Yes songs, I'll come
and do some Deseo, I'll come and do some Chinese songs... I'll sing a folk
song from Poland. I'm just a singer, I love making music.
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