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MARCH 22, 1998
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Source: KUNO Online
http://www.klex.de/kuno/archive/interview981.htm
Interview with Alan White of YES in Hamburg, Germany
By Sven Kardelke
Your latest album "Open Your Eyes“ is very song-orientated, poppy in a way.
Is this the new direction YES will take or is it just a reflection of the moment?
It’s very poppy, because YES is a very strange animal. We’d decide to do
something as very left-field or if the moment is right and the song are
sounding like that, it is time for the band to do that. We change and do
what does fit for the moment. So initially, this album was set out to be a
"Chris Squire Experiment“ album. Basically, the songs started sounding
really good, and then everyone in the band got involved. Then it changed
into a YES album. So it started out as another Chris Squire album, but
turned into YES. The band however is thinking about the next album and
this could be completely different - which is longer songs and more
intrigued kind of concept stuff.
Just a few weeks before "Open Your Eyes“, "Keys To Ascension 2“ was
released which is much more into progressive music. Many fans regard "Mind
Drive“ as the best YES piece of music since "Awaken“. Why is this excellent
material actually the b-side of a live-recording and didn’t make it into a real YES album?
We went through a period of time when Rick got back. He was back in the
band, in the „classic“ line-up. And we did this concert in San Louis Obispo
which was well recorded. We did three nights there and got great recordings
of all of the material with Rick back in the fold, as it were. Meanwhile,
we were there for about a month and we had a studio that was opposite the
concert theatre. So we rehearsed with our own studio set-up in there and
just started creating all this other music that was the new side of YES. So
we decided to split up the concert into first and second volume and then
put all this new material of the b-side of the album. It just worked out
good for us. „Mind Drive“ was one of the later kind of things we actually
did. A lot of people actually like that and we got lots of requests on the
Internet to play it and as a possibility we might be playing it.
So the impression is wrong that the band wanted to hide this material?
No, not really. We don’t want to hide material. YES is a kind of machine
that keeps writing music all the time. In fact, we are already starting to
write the next album. We just carry on into the future a bit more.
What is true about this commitment the band allegedly made in 1974 that if
"the world is still together“ you would reunite in 1995 to continue "making
music into the 21st century“?
(laughs) Yeah, it’s an old story. We’d all had a few beers or some glasses
of wine after a concert one time. We wrote down on a handkerchief in some
restaurant years and years ago that we be together still in the year 2000.
It’s part of the publicity thing. The handkerchief still exists. I don’t
know who has it, though. But we plan to take this band - currently with
Igor Khoroshev playing keyboards and Billy Sherwood playing second guitar
and vocals - probably into the next century, yes.
It almost seems to be a kind of taboo as no official statement ever was
made by the band, but could you please tell us shortly why Rick Wakeman has left the band again?
Rick didn’t leave, he is still in the band all this time. I think,
everybody who has ever been in YES is still in the band, because in this
band they just go away for a while and then come back on a different day. I
think, he decided that at this moment in his life he didn’t want to do any
long tours, American tours where you are away for two months at a time. Or
like now we are in Europe for two and a half months. It’s difficult to do
that and I don’t think he was prepared for that at this time in his life.
In the future he might change his mind.
So it has nothing to do with...
... you know, obviously there are some politics involved and business
matters and stuff like that. It’s not for me to get into that kind of
stuff, but that did influence to a degree. But at the same time I really
think the basic thing was he didn’t want to tour a lot, in big portions
like we’re doing right now, because this is a fairly long tour we’re doing.
You are one of the extremely very few YES members who have never left the band so far.
No, I haven’t done that. Surprising, isn’t it? Chris and myself have been
in the band since I joined in 1972, that’s for sure. We’ve been the only
members who have been in continuously since that point. Prior to that of
course you had Bill Bruford and another set-up. And the year before I
joined, Rick joined, the year before that Steve joined. So it was three
years in a row people changed. And then that band stayed together for quite
a long time through into the very early Eighties or late Seventies.
Does it still matter to you for the chemistry of the band what people are in?
To a degree it’s exciting, because you always get the influence of a new
musician joining, but the usual standard of every musician who’s ever been
in YES is pretty high. So there is no problem really in that department.
It’s exciting for a while, the band takes on a different face for a while.
Coming into the Nineties, when we all played together on the "Union“ tour,
it was again refreshing, because you had the aspect of both sides of the
band. That was a great tour to do. Now it’s a different face, and we are
basically moving forward the thought of creating an album after we’d have
finished this whole year of touring.
Any plans of when it is going to be released?
It’s hard to say right now, because they have us touring South America
after we’ve finished Europe and Mexico. We only have about ten days off and
then we’ll start another American tour for two months. So we did 50 shows
in America before Christmas, we’re doing about 48 shows in Europe and then
we’re doing another 50 shows in America when we get back. So we are a
little busy to put an album together! But I have a portable midi-studio on
the road, so we could at least make blueprints of certain songs. It’s a way
of doing that and eventually we will all get together and probably rehearse
for about a month. And then put down the new album - maybe early next year
ready for next summer release. So it takes us into the 21. century from
1999, but definitely before then.
At this point of time Igor Khoroshev is not an official member of the group.
No, he is not an official member. We made Billy an official member, because
he has done so much work with the band over the last four or five years -
production, he has written songs for the band and with the band, so it was
only deserving he should be part of the band now.
But who knows? Igor may become a part of the band down the line, but at the
moment he is a kind of a travelling musician - but not really, because he
knows the music really well and he is a really good keyboard player. So we
just leave it like that for this tour.
Steve Howe is the only member of the current line-up who still lives in
England. Doesn’t it cause problems with...
...communication? No, not really. I don’t think so. Everyone in the band
has always lived in different areas of the world. It’s just a phone call
away and we could all get together pretty easily. However, most of us do
live on the south coast of America. Chris, myself and Billy... I live in
Seattle, they live in Los Angeles. It’s a couple of hours in the plane and
I can be working. Igor lives in Boston and Jon lives in San Louis Obispo
which is in California, too. So it’s pretty easy to get that nucleus
together and to start working out things. And when we get things prepared
to a degree, Steve will fly in for a period of time and do his stuff.
When and why did you move to America?
I first went to America, when I was playing with John Lennon in 1969. It
was always a childhood dream of mine growing up as a musician in England.
So America is the place where it all happens. I think a lot of people
thought like that. Eventually, I went with John Lennon and then in 1972
when I started with YES, I did about two or three quick successive tours.
And in about 1974 or 1975 I decided to buy a house over there and I had an
American girlfriend. It was a very easy change for me, because I like the
way of life and the convenience of a lot of things, I suppose. It’s a great
place to live. I’ve been married for sixteen years now, and I love Seattle
really well. I don’t exactly live in the L.A.s or New Yorks. I live in
Seattle which is to me one of the best cities in the world to live in.
But you still do have a house in Oxford, don’t you?
I had a house in Oxford. I just sold it about eighteen months ago, because
to tell you the truth I hadn’t lived in it for about five years. I said
"This is crazy to keep a house in Oxford that I’m not really using“. So I
sold it, and it is now owned by a barrister who works at the Old Bailey. He
is a murder kind of guy, one of these deals. But he is about the same age
as I am, and we are getting on really well. I did put a first option in the
contract that I can buy the place back before anybody else could.
How does a YES song normally come into being?
It all depends of the nature what the song is. If it’s more of a
concept-type song, it is usually put together by three, four or five
different ideas sometimes - maybe even more. Whereby someone has the
nucleus of a song, I have a piece of music that I’ve been working on that
happens just to have the right metre or fit with that song in a certain
way. That’s what happened with "Mind Drive“. I had the whole intro, the
pattern and the build-up, and then Jon had the song which it went into. It
just was like putting our heads together and seeing how the whole thing
flows together. That’s usually what happens. Sometimes I will come up with
chord sequences, and Steve will take them and sophisticate them a bit.
Sometimes I’ve written things for YES on a guitar that are very basic, but
have a good feel and a general direction, and Steve will take that and make
it, for instance, “Turn Of The Century“. I wrote a lot of chords for [that
song], and Steve turned it into the classical piece that it is now. So we
work together like that.
When it comes to record an album, is the whole band together in the studio?
We will play it live usually to capture the sense of real feel from the
rhythm section. Then there are certain parts that Chris will redo again,
and then there are certain parts that Steve will redo again. Then we work
on the vocals. Some of the vocals we keep, but usually we reconstruct the
vocals around what the backing has been. So it’s a YES process. It’s the
best way I can [describe it]. It’s a very good way of working, because
everybody bounces the ideas out of each other, so you get a general feeling
of what the song is going to be.
Are you still "AstroWhite“? [called by some of the YES members because of his backing vocals being higher than Jon Anderson’s]
Oh, where did you get all these things from?! I’ve sung a couple of little
bits on the last one, but generally I don’t, because we had the Eighties
where Trevor Rabin had a very high voice as well as Jon. I did a bunch of
things like that, because I know on stage the actual show demands a lot of
attention from my percussion aspect. It’s really so difficult sometimes to
put the two together - like singing in four and while I’m playing in five
time, things like that. There are plenty of people in the band who can
handle that role, because Igor and Billy both sing high harmonies. So I get
to rest my voice.
How does a typical YES tour day look like?
Today it wasn’t that bad. We were in Halle which was Eastern Germany. I
woke up this morning and I suppose I got up, had a shower, jumped into the
car and we were travelling here at about 170 mph, I think. We just shot
down the freeway. We got to the hotel here, and I checked out the
swimming-pool, so I can get it in the morning, going for a swim. Then I
came to the sound check, and they grabbed me before I got to the stage, and
now I’m doing this! It’s another part of the day.
I was shocked when I saw the ticket prices. They’re up to 33 pounds!
In England, yes, I heard that! We are playing in smaller places in Europe,
just like we did before in America, but only because the band really wanted
to get into a more intimate situation with the audience. Unfortunately, to
carry a show around with us like this, especially in Europe, is very, very
expensive. We had to ship over all the equipment and stuff like that. So a
lot of that comes into it. And it is more of an intimate show. It is two
and three quarters hours long. So you do get value for your money! There is
a lot of music to hear, and the show’s been going down incredibly well.
It’s a great evening out. None of us is making fortunes doing this in
Europe. I mean, we’re making money, but we’re not absolutely claiming up.
It just cost an awful lot of money to put a good show together. The
standard that YES always had for providing a good show has been pretty
high. Unfortunately, we maybe have to charge a few extra quid or whatever
it is. For us, we don’t know what the normal thing is here anymore.
And in America, it was maybe ten dollars more than an usual show, something like that.
In Europe, we found the expenses to be a little higher than that, so when
they budget the whole thing out, they come up with a right price ticket.
Nothing to do with us, though. We don’t even know that!
OK, thank you very much so far!
It was a pleasure!
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