Yes in the Press

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JUNE 15, 2002
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Source: Soundchaser.Org

http://www.soundchaser.org/wakeman.php

Interview with Rick Wakeman

By David Lee

Easily the best known of Progressive-Rock keyboardists, Rick Wakeman has served dually as unparalleled fan favorite and central target for music-critic's spikiest barbs. Through all extremes and into the middle, where most of us reside, there has always been the undeniably brilliant music and at the end of the day it isn't it the music that matters most?

In a career that spans the better part of three decades Wakeman has produced some eighty discs of original work with several score more live/in concert recordings or "Best of" packages and this doesn't begin to take in his work as a guest musician on projects from artists as far afield as David Bowie, BLACK SABBATH and Cat Stevens. To say Wakeman has been a prolific artist would be a gross understatement, it would also be an injustice for the quantity of his work would belie the consistent quality and what is more the man isn't near done yet.

Though it is but a fraction of his life's work product Wakeman's time with YES is easily his most impacting on the mass audience. As a member of Progressive-Rock's Highest Lords Wakeman can be heard in sonic battle both beside and often against the rest of YES with the results leaving no less an impression than to have songs and performances by all others in the field measured by the YES standard. Something as majestic as "Close to the Edge" or as unceasingly catchy as "Roundabout" simply couldn't have been done by any other collection of musicians and as the good gods of Rock and Roll would have it Wakeman is once again a member of YES.

The incomparable fusion of inspiration, creativity and emotive power that is a Wakeman included YES will test the waters for both chemistry and sustainability as they embark on a North American tour this summer at the end of which all parties will consider their futures together, or apart, as the case may be. In tandem with his YES work Wakeman will also offer up new recordings with his own solo group, several catalog re-issues and if circumstances allow an extensive library series of cleaned and polished "official bootlegs." You might want to put in for the overtime now to pay for all of this but if squeezed to choose only one start with either the "JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH" or "LIVE IN BUENOS AIRES" DVD collections. Each one is prime Rick Wakeman and comes with a bonus CD of rare live performances.

Catching Wakeman with some spare time to talk was a bit tricky but the good folks at Classic Pictures made it happen and below is a bit of chat to consider whilst waiting for the YES tour to hit town and the music to hit the store shelves.

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DAVID LEE: You have always kept a busy schedule of projects going for yourself but word has come that in addition to all that you are also once again a member of YES?

RICK WAKEMAN: Oh, it is just mental. I am not complaining but it is mental!(laughs) It is ruining my golf but apart from that it is just great.

DL: Well something has to give, right?(laughs)

RW: Oh absolutely.

DL: Well, I for one really didn't expect to see you work with YES again, especially on a touring basis, who was it that initiated the reunion of the Wakeman inclusive YES?

RW: It was one of those things, how can I say it, I guess one of those things that happened "softly-softly" more than anything else I suppose. There were a few things that opened doors for it. I was on the "THIS IS YOUR LIFE" program in England a few years back and YES appeared on that by video and Steve (Howe) mentioned way back then, "You know it would be nice if we could all work together again." That was really nice and then I got asked by Eagle Rock who did the DVD of "MAGNIFICATION" with the orchestra and they contacted me last year to say that they were doing the DVD and asked would I like to join them. I wrote back and said, "I would love that, I would be happy to do that." Then they came back with the date and I said, "Oh that is not OK, I am going to be in Peru unfortunately. Look I am in South America with my band from this date to this date but if you want to do any other time that would be fine." Unfortunately Eagle Rock came back and said, "This is the only show that we can do, the one in Amsterdam, Holland but thanks all the same." That, in a strange way, sort of started to open doors for the future, made it a possibility, you know, because I have felt that I have always enjoyed playing with the guys and it is really all about timing and a feel good factor and it just felt good for me to want to go out and do the Amsterdam thing and they obviously wouldn't have asked me if there wasn't an equal feel good factor going back the other way. That was that and then there is a company called "Classic Pictures" which is probably the best DVD film company for Classic Rock and their boss is a guy named Robert Garofalo and he was over in LA speaking with Alan Kovak at Left Bank Management and he came back to England, my offices are based around where Classic Pictures are in Shepperton Studios and Robert and I are good friends, I walked in after he had come back and he turned 'round to me and said, "Uh, how do you fancy playing with YES again?" I said that I would love to actually and that I missed the guys in a lot of ways. I asked him, "Why do you ask?" He said, "I think that something is about to happen!" Then Alan Kovak was on to me and basically everybody was up for it and everybody is really looking forward to it and thinks that it can be really good so it is just a matter for the powers that be to dot "I's" and cross "T's." For us to have decided that we wanted to do it takes about thirty seconds, for the powers that be to put it into writing takes about eight months! (laughs)

DL: Mustn't forget the lawyers now. (laughs)

RW: Yes, but having been divorced three times I am used to all that so it is fine, we just carry on getting things together anyway.

DL: At least in this type of divorce there isn't someone walking out of your house with half of your possessions, I suppose? (laughs)

RW: No, though in divorces in England they walk out of your house with all of your possessions and your house as well!

DL: You walk out of the house?

RW: Yeah, you walk out of the house and leave everything including your possessions and I am really good at that.

DL: Well then, I do know that the music world will be happy to see you walk back into the house of YES anyway.

RW: Well, I am happy about it. You know, the thing that is really hard explaining to people about it is that I have always been a fan of YES and people sometimes find it hard to equate the fact that you can actually be in a band and be a fan so I am a fan even when I am not in the band. The thing that I know and understand about the band is that YES is a band of equal give and take. You have to draw from the band and the other members in the same way that you have to give equally so it is a real fifty-fifty, give and take situation. If you are ever in a situation where you really feel that, "Hey, I have got something to give. . ." then that is the time that YES is really at its strongest. I suppose that has been a huge part of the decision to say, "Yeah, I would love to go and play with the guys again" before it was even put together. I have been away for a little bit, the same for the other guys, you know you work with other people and you get new influences and you get new ideas and new equipment so you always want to walk into the first rehearsal with a little bag under your arm and say, "Hey, listen this is things that I am bringing." That is really important, I think, to any band.

DL: From many a fan perspective, mine included, the last time YES came through it was slightly bizarre to see YES with an orchestra but sans a fully integrated keyboard player not to mention without one the caliber of a Rick Wakeman.(laughs)

RW: I only was about to see them when I was in Italy, I spend a lot of time in Italy because my girlfriend is Italian and what was really strange was that I was just about to go and, it was funny, people were calling and saying, "Can you get me tickets?" And I said, "No, I can't get you tickets." "Well, don't you get any being in the band?" and there was sort of this general impression that I was there anyway which in some ways is very flattering but I said, "No, I am not there anymore."(laughs) Unfortunately I couldn't stay and see the show because I was stuck in Jakarta or something ridiculous. I didn't see that tour and it wasn't because I didn't want to go it was literally because I couldn't match up any dates to go and see it because I was out with my band but I would like to have.

DL: It certainly sounded good but there was definitely some flash missing. The last record, "MAGNIFICATION" was one of my favorites too. Will there be new YES music with Rick Wakeman or will you start with the tour and see how it goes from there?

RW: What we are doing this time around is obviously straight out to play and so if you are going straight out to play you go out with what already exists. It has never worried me if I played stuff that I didn't originally play on or if I have never played it at all so I am very happy to play anything off of "MAGNIFICATION" or whatever, it doesn't worry me at all. The only thing that I say is, please don't ask me to play the identical notes that whomever was there did because I won't do it.(laughs) Obviously I will keep the whole flavor of the things but I would like to add my own. Obviously, if there is a theme, you play it but everything else you need that freedom to put in. It is like, Steve Howe, you don't put Steve Howe in and ask him to play the notes that Trevor may have played or something, so that is it and I am very happy to play. I think that it will be a mixture of old and new and YES is no different than any other band that has been around for a long time, it is, not trapped, but in a situation where it is like if you go to see a Frank Sinatra concert, when he was alive(laughs), if he didn't sing "New York, New York" or "My Way" then you went home disappointed and it is the same way with YES if you don't hear "Roundabout" and you don't here "Awaken" or whatever then people are equally as disappointed so there is always a starting point of where you can go from.

DL: And you are chopping at it with twenty minute bites at a time so there goes the set!(laughs)

RW: (Laughing) Yeah, that is true but then at the end of the American tour which I think finishes in September, I would think that decisions will be made about where else to go and where the future lies.

DL: Right. It will be nice for another generation to see you with YES, my son for instance is a big fan in fact. He saw you on the "JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH" DVD and immediately ran and got his "Dracula cape" and started pounding away on his keyboard waving his hair, it was funny, anyway, this will be his and kids of his age first chance to see the band with you in it.

RW: Oh, brilliant. Well, the cape thing is really funny. As you can see from the live DVD, "LIVE IN BUENOS AIRES," they are on again! That came about, I mean, I stopped wearing them years ago because there comes a stage in your life when you think that you have to grow up and that came in the early eighties for me. I thought, "You know I have got to grow up here, act your age Wakeman!" That is what I did for ages when I was out with my band, much more conservative with everything and that was it. I thought, "You are getting older, grow up." Then it was about three years ago I was invited to go with my band to do about twelve shows in South America which has always been a big market for me to play and so I said, "Fine, I haven't been down there for a few years." They said that they would like for us to do a couple in Buenos Aries, two or three in Rio and we said, "Great!" They talked to our manager and the usual things were done and the deal was struck but then I got called in by my agent and he said, "I want you to have a quick look at this contract." I looked through it quickly and said that it looked alright and he said, "Wait, read the bit at the bottom." And it said, "Mr. Wakeman will appear in at least one of his original capes. . ." I started laughing and said, "This is a gag, isn't it?" So, I sent them an e-mail down and said, in the nicest sense, "This is a bit of a gag, isn't it?" And the guy wrote back and said, "No, this is very serious and you have got to understand that Prog-Rock is now very big in South America and there are a lot of the young kids who are coming that have never seen you before but all the pictures that have ever been printed of you down here show you roaming around wearing the capes so they are all expecting to see them therefore you will wear them!"(laughs) I thought, "OK." And I got a couple of them out from the mothballs and really most of them had sold in charities over the years but I got a couple of them out and they were in terrible condition and so my girlfriend used to be chief designer for Channel and Gucci and she said "Give them to me and I will re-furbish them." So, they were completely refurbished and when we arrived at the first show in Buenos Aries, you see, apart from my drummer Tony who has been with me for years, the band is very young and so the day of the first show I said, "OK, guys here is the situation, we all get changed and then I want you all to meet in my room twenty minutes before we walk on so that you can have a good laugh and get it out of your system." And they all said, "Why?" "You'll see!" I said. They all left and I pulled out the big old cape and put it on and they all came back in and it was a mixture of stunned amazement and hilarity! The funny thing was that I walked out on the stage and the place went completely bonkers and I probably played some of the best music that I ever played! It was like putting the uniform back on, you know? I mean, you only become a policeman when you put the uniform on, you only become a Fire Fighter or a Nurse when you put the uniform on, although, nurses uniforms. . .Anyway, that is bye the by.(laughs) Anyway, you know what I mean and it was really weird but the guys said, "You have got to wear these all the time!" It is really funny. What I had forgotten was that there are two personas, it is almost a Jeckyl and Hyde situation and it was not like putting the clock back but it was like remembering what it was like. So, they have stayed! It is interesting but sometimes you have to go backwards to go forward.(laughs)

DL: It is kind of like people will snatch pieces of wood from off of the shack that Muddy Waters grew up in and craft it into a guitar with the thought that maybe that wood has soaked up some of the music, perhaps the same applies to the capes?

RW: Yeah, well you know it is strange. We went out and played a couple of shows in Russia and the case with the capes never showed up, I mean, we got it in the end but we went on and did the show without it and I felt naked! It was really weird, really bizarre but there you go! (laughs)

DL: Will the commitment to YES kind of slow the production of Rick Wakeman solo projects and the other things that you have been involved with?

RW: What I am desperately trying to do is to finish off what I am in the process of doing and what I am doing is what I call a "True" Prog-Rock album. I have been working on that for the last year and half now with the band and I mean, not solidly in the studio but every spare opportunity that we have had we have been doing more and more bits and pieces on it and it is an album that I tried to put together about two years ago and I won't call it a "follow up" but it is working on the same lines as "NO EARTHLY CONNECTION." Which is that it is being recorded in the same way, working with the band in the studio, changing things and not being frightened to throw things out and put things back in again and really spend a bit of time on doing all the bits and pieces. Now what we are doing is getting close to finishing that and I have got to finish that by the end of May because we have to shoot it to Blue Screen for the DVD to be done and that would come out, I would think, somewhere around the end of September or something like that. So, that is what I am flying on to get done and I believe, "OUT OF THE BLUE" which is the live album from Buenos Aries and is different from the DVD, it was a different show and different music, and that is going to come out in America next month.

DL: Your music is obviously well thought out by you but when you are in a "band" situation as you are with this project do you bring in finished compositions for the other musicians to give an interpretation or do you allow for a bit of "jamming" to get the final piece?

RW: No, this time around I have not scored them all out. What is different and interesting with this album compared to the other albums that I have done over the last fifteen or twenty years is that I have not actually had a fixed band. So, I have been getting in really good musicians and getting them to play parts that I want them to play and worked on the pieces so it was always a solo album with really good musicians on it. This time around, because I have had the band together for three years, they sort of know each other very well and so they play together a lot differently than bringing musicians together that don't know each other, they know each other's strong points and weak points and you play to the strong points. What I did was I got the guys in and said, "You have a certain style the way that you do this or that and I want you to do this there and that there but within the freedom of how you would like to play it." So, they are able to, in the music, offer their own particular style and I have not been able to do that since the "NO EARTHLY CONNECTION" album back in the late seventies. It actually sounds like a unit. The best analogy to use would be that if you were to book the Boston Symphony Orchestra and then you also booked an Orchestra made up of some of the finest musicians that there are going and you got them to play the same piece you would spot the Orchestra straight away because they would play more as a unit than as the pick-up Orchestra, even if they were the greatest musicians and that is what I suppose makes this album a little bit different. This is guys that know each other well and rather than just play the music are playing together a lot.

DL: Has there been occasion for one of them to bring you a piece of music that was worked on the same as if you brought it in?

RW: The thing was that I had the basic idea and the basic music for this album right from the start. I mean, certainly pieces of music have changed and ideas have changed but having said that one of the ideas that I have had for future times was to perhaps look at having a "band" album where I could have other people bring writing but the difficulty is that with any band, if somebody brings writing and it is not right then you can really upset people. I mean, who makes the suggestions and then someone has to say, "Oh, that won't work?" You can really upset people and that is the last thing that you want to do. Somebody will bring something and it is really nass, does it go in or do you say "I will use some of it just to keep them happy." Where do you go with that? Do you know what I mean?

DL: Yes, appeasement can ruin the whole of whatever it is you are doing I would think.

RW: Yeah, it can and in essence it is still a solo project though I am still using the band.

DL: Is it conceivable that you will be able to take this record out to perform live given the commitments to YES?

RW: Obviously, life has come down now to what can be called, "musical priorities" and my musical priority starting July the first is obviously YES. Then I will very much expect Left Bank, the YES office, to say, "Here are our plans" and once we have got those plans and with clearance that there are gaps in that work then I will continue to work (on the solo material) because I love to play just as I know Steve has done for example. I know that during the gaps in their schedule he has gone off and done solo shows in the UK and other places and I would like to do the same with my band and/or on my own in the UK or even perhaps in America or wherever but that would be slotted in to the YES schedule rather than organized and hoping that it will fit in. I would have to look at the whole YES schedule and take it from there.

DL: Right and like Steve Howe you have managed to produce progeny to fill some of the musical spaces that you just can't get to!(laughs) I think that I wrote of one of your discs that you "were not above nepotism."

RW: (Laughing) Ah yes, well, they are all in the music game actually. My oldest boy, Oliver, he has had about five albums out in the UK and I think that a few are out by export and he is my thirty year old and he is a great player, he is really good. Adam is a wonderful player and what he does is he comes out when I go out with the band and we have great fun on stage together but he also does a lot of stuff on his own and has his own solo career and has been running all sorts of bands, from Prog-Rock bands to some of the all-girl bands. He has been out with ATOMIC KITTEN and with Victoria Bechham and I don't think that any of us would object to going out with four of probably the most desirable women in Rock though I don't think his wife was too well with it but there you go.(laughs) So, that is doing well and it is nice that we do get the chance to play together which is not very often but we do get to do it which is lovely. I am proud of them all really! My daughter, she has a publishing and recording contract and she is nineteen and a wonderful singer, great writer and good piano player too. My sixteen year old is a drummer and luckily his Mom and I are divorced so I don't get to hear him play in the house.(laughs) Mind you, I don't get to see the house! Then I have a twenty-four year old boy in Switzerland and he is producing electronic music programs so they are all at it and I am just hopping that they are all very, very successful because not only are they the ones who will have to look after me in my old age but they are also the ones who will choose what old age home I go into!(laughs)

DL: Yes and you can be sure it won't be one of the ones that you actually bought in your youth.(laughs)

RW: Oh, no, you can be rest assured of that. It will probably be some shed somewhere.(laughs) "Where is Granddad?" "We put him in the shed."

DL: Isn't that what happens to most Granddads though?

RW: Yeah. I will tell you what was really funny, I have sort of been hassling them for Grandchildren because both of my oldest two are married and I said "Hey, come on now, it is about time I had some grand children, I am fifty-three this year, I want some grandchildren!" And Adam was really funny, he said, "You know Dad, you know what it is really going to be like? We will have children and they will be about five years old and we will say, Come on kids let's go and see Grandpa. And they will say, Oh naw! He is going to get all of his gold discs out, he is going to tell us about YES at Madison Square Garden then he is going to put the video on of "YESSONGS" and Oh, do we have to go?"(laughs) It would make for a great sketch, it would and there is probably an element of truth in it too!(laughs)

DL: Alright, stepping completely to the side for a minute here, I have read that you are a devout Christian which, and I almost feel like I should apologize for thinking this but it almost seems that artists of your success and acumen tend towards Atheism or even Eastern philosophies, where is it that your faith in Christianity comes from?

RW: Yes, well, I suppose it started when I was young. My Grandfather was a Lay-Priest, my Father was a deacon at a Baptist Church but having said that I was never forced to go to church or anything, I made all of my own decisions and if I didn't want to go I didn't go. I made my own choices on that front. I suppose that I am the sort of Christian that other Christians either love or hate because I have the utmost respect for all other religions and for all other beliefs. I am not one, even though I believe that I have found the answer for me, I do not turn around and say that every one else is wrong because I don't believe that. I believe that everyone is an individual and I also believe, in a strange way, that there are not hundreds of gods out there, there is actually just one and that all the different religions and beliefs are looking at that in a slightly different way. Now a lot of Christians go up in arms when I say things like that but I don't care because that is what I believe. I am just a normal person who likes to believe that I live in the real world and I have my own strong faith in my own belief but it doesn't change my attitude on how I look at other people. I do not judge other people and subsequently I do not expect to be judged if you know what I mean. I mean, I have had wonderful conversations with Cat Stevens for example who is now Yusef Islam, we have had some interesting phone calls, but you know, I have as much respect for him as I know he has for me and I have got loads of friends from all sides. I have got Jewish friends, I have got Atheistic friends, I have got Agnostic friends, I have got all sorts of friends. I don't walk up to people and say, "Hello, what do you believe in?" I have got my own feelings, which are important to me, and which help me in my own way but everybody is different.

DL: Have you seen, or maybe "felt" is the better term to use here, have you felt a "spiritual" impact on your music in any way?

RW: Um, that is really hard. I mean, what I do is I keep the two separate. I mean, I have written some "religious music," call it whatever you like but the truth is there is no such thing as "religious music." There are religious words and you can't write a piece of instrumental music and say, "This is a religious piece of music" because it is words that do it. I love writing for Choirs and the best Choral music in the world is religious Choral music. It is what most of the best stuff was written for and I have done quite a lot of that and enjoyed it but I keep it separate and don't mix and match the two.

DL: Hopping from that to what very conservative Christians would call the antithesis of Religious music, I want to ask you about your experiences with BLACK SABBATH through the years.

RW: Oh, Ozzy is one of my greatest friends.

DL: You have performed on each other's records at different times, right?

RW: Yes, Ozzy and I go back donkey's years really. In fact Mr. Iommi is also a great, great friend of mine and Geezer I have known for Donkey's years as well. You know, YES and BLACK SABBATH toured together?

DL: Yes, what a bill that must have been!(laughs)

RW: Yes, back in the early seventies. I have just been great friends with Ozzy and I am just one of Ozzy's greatest admirers, I just think the world of Ozzy. There is a lot more to Ozzy than meets the eye. When anybody ever says to me, "Oh, Ozzy is just a Heavy Metal singer" I just throw them the "OZZMOSIS" album and say, "Listen." It is the closest thing that I can see to "Progressive Metal." I mean, you listen to tracks like "Perry Mason" or whatever, that is Progressive Metal. It is THE TUBES meet Heavy Metal meets whomever. I did some stuff with them originally way back in 1973 on the "SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH" album which I really enjoyed and then I did the "OZZMOSIS" album and then Ozzy, I phoned up Ozzy when I was doing "RETURN TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH" and said, "Ozzy, I have written this sort of Heavy song which I would like you to sing" and he went, "Yeah, OK, can I hear it." I said, "Of course but what I am going to do is take most of the heavy riffs that I played on guitar off after you do the vocal and then I am going to stick them all back on played by the London Symphony Orchestra." And he loved it and it was great what he did. I know that he loves the track dearly and we had great fun doing it. I would like to do more things with Ozzy although he is a big TV star now.(laughs) The good old "OSBOURNES." I just heard that there is a new series just announced.

DL: Yes, I guess they have upped their asking price per episode from $20,000 to something like 2 million a piece, must be nice I guess.(laughs)

RW: Yeah, I heard that this morning, which is fantastic. You know, Ozzy and Sharon, I mean I can put my hand on my heart and say that I love the pair of them dearly, I really do. They have had just one amazing life of ups and downs and they really deserve it. I am so pleased for them, I really am.

DL: Yes, they have definitely ridden out the crest and fall of many a wave.(laughs)

RW: Yes, well when they arrive at the Pearly Gates and strangely enough I think that he will get there, St Peter will probably say, "Oh boy, where do we start?" But they will have to let him in.(laughs)

DL: He does seem to be moving to that contemplative point in his life too, no more bat biting and such.(laughs)

RW: You know, I have sat down and had dinners with Ozzy and had talks over a cup of coffee, a glass of wine or whatever and I have just had some great conversations with him. You can have fun conversations with Ozzy, you can have deep conversations with Ozzy and you know, he is a bright boy.

DL: You did some playing on a later day BLACK SABBATH disc, when Tony and Geezer where alone in the band, was it "CROSS PURPOSES?"

RW: (Laughing) God, you could be right! It rings a bell. Can you remember what year that was?

DL: I think it was like '93 or '94. I was going to ask what your memories were of that but I can see that it wasn't all that memorable.(laughs)

RW: Um, I can't remember! Alzheimer's rules my brain right now.(laughs) I'll pass on that one. I do recall going and doing that actually. You know Tony is such a nice man and he is such a good player. I am afraid that I am old school though you see because I am a fan of SABBATH and always have been and I just think that SABBATH is at its best when you have "The" lineup and that is nothing against anything that has gone on during other periods but there is something quite special about Ozzy standing in front of Mr. Iommi, it takes a bit of beating. And then with Bill bashing away, Bill is a good drummer you know and I am really very fond of all of them really.

DL: The DVD packages that you are releasing through Classic Pictures are interesting packages in that not only do they have great performances on DVD, each one also comes with a bonus CD that contains a "bootleg" concert, whose idea was that?

RW: What we are trying to do is, you know what is a killer is that at this present time we know of 111 bootlegs of my stuff out there and it is an absolute killer. What is happening now is that in some countries it is not even just "live" bootlegs it is music actually taken off of the records and financially it just kills you stone dead. It is really hard because in some territories the label will say, "You know what the problem is, it is already flooded here with this, this and this." And we will say, "Well yes but those are all illegal" and they say that there is not much that they can do about it. And it is a huge, huge problem so at the time when "LIVE IN BUENOS AIRES" came out I got, it is not a particularly good bootleg, but it was one that was selling like crazy in the UK because it was the only one that had my girl singer, Chrissie Hammond, on it and she is very popular over here so people were buying it and I thought, "Right, we will give it away and that will kill it!" and actually it has killed the bootleg stone dead. So, now what we are looking at doing and will be done doing next year is we are going to reproduce, at special bargain prices, every bootleg. We will have them all re-done with additional things and all nice
packages and we are just going to fight the bootleggers at their own game.

DL: DEEP PURPLE has done something like that only they put them out as box-sets with hours and hours of stuff that they cleaned up.

RW: Yeah, Frank Zappa was the first to do it actually.

DL: Yes, I remember that, "BEAT THE BOOTS" he called it, I think.

RW: Yeah. You see what people don't realize is that the money is going out of the industry and for bands, if you want to make albums, studios cost money and the musicians that you use cost money and none of this comes for free and if none of the money is coming back to the musicians to make new music and it all goes to the bootleggers than nobody is helping anybody. Sometimes you will get fans on the website saying, "Oh I bought this or that" and I say, "Well, no disrespect, you are not fans because it just doesn't help." There was a crazy situation where I got an e-mail, if this wasn't so sad it would be funny but I got an e-mail from a friend of mine in Brazil saying, "Congratulations, the "LIVE IN BUENOS AIRES" DVD is number three in the Brazilian DVD charts and that is competing with major feature films and everything." So I got a hold to Classic Pictures and said, "Hey this is good news!" and they said, "No, not really because it is not out for another two weeks!" It has basically just been cloned and copied and put out and so now they are wondering if it is worth putting out because it has already done fifty or sixty thousand DVDs or whatever of which all of the money has gone to the bootleggers. So, you start looking at all of these things and it all adds up really quickly. This guy that I am dealing with over in England is looking at if this actually works he will do it every time a bootleg comes. If anybody wants to do it he will just keep on the search for all bootlegs and when they come he will inform the artist and if they are willing he will basically legalize it and pay them a royalty.

DL: Imagine, being paid for your work!(laughs)

RW: Right and it is all paid, the proper publishing and the proper royalties and in the process putting it out at a price that kills the bootleggers. I think that it is a marvelous idea and I just hope that it works. I don't mind, for example, if somebody comes along and records a live concert and it is not going to come out, I can understand people wanting that and that is how bootlegs really started. It was a great concert that people wanted a memory of and it was never going to come out, that is what people did but now it has really gotten high tech and there are people doing DVDs where people will go in with pencil camcorders in their hats and things and it has gotten really sophisticated now. Yeah, I don't get on my high horse about it because you can drive yourself potty doing that so I just say, "What can I do about it?" and this is it.

DL: Well, in this instance it is great "bonus" material for the DVD.

RW: Well, you know, it is sort of a mixture of value for money and something a little bit different that you are trying to give.

DL: With the ability to listen to all of the bootlegs that you are finding and all of the legitimate recording that you have written and performed is there one that has come close to being a full representation of what Rick Wakeman is all about as and artist?

RW: It is very hard because to some extent music is for the moment that it is done and should never really be retrospected. People will come to me and say, "Oh that wasn't very good" and I will say, "Well, at the time it was because at the time I believed that it was or I wouldn't have put it out." If I didn't think it was right at the time I wouldn't have done it but having said that and listening back twenty years you think, "Given a second crack at that I wouldn't have done it like that. I wonder why I did?" You look at the various situations around it and things like that. Playing wise, that is a real mix there. Last year I did a piano album, I love to play piano and it was called "CLASSICAL VARIATIONS" which was based on variations of some of my favorite classical pieces. Playing wise and Piano wise, I was very pleased with that and I am not convinced that I could sort of play any better feeling wise. I look back and I suppose the theme for "King Arthur," the main theme was, I suppose as near damned perfect for my type of thing. I write thematically and I can still listen to that and say, "Yes, that is a good theme there. I have written lots of other themes but probably the "King Arthur" theme is for me a very strong element of something that I have done. It is hard really because what has to be understood is that no writer can ever listen to his music for the first time and that is really tough because familiarity breeds acceptance before it breeds contempt so if you play something long enough you get so used to it that you can convince yourself that, that is absolutely right. What you can't do is ever put that finished article, it is like a writer can never read his own book for the first time and that is what is really difficult and I think that is where there gets to be a bit of a misunderstanding between journalists and musicians and writers and whatever, it has happened to me and it happens both ways as well. You might write something and you get a good review and you think "Right, that is fantastic! The journalists really understand it." Then in the same breath you can have a journalist who gives it a poor review and you get agitated because you can't understand why somebody doesn't like it but then it all boils down to that famous first impression, somebody has to play it for the first time and they make their statements based on hearing it for the first time and to a large extent that is what the general public does. I think that will be the general problem with musicians, they can't hear their stuff for the first time so it is very hard and I don't think that musicians can honestly make true judgements on their own music.

DL: I can understand how your solo work might be closer to you as you have the ability to be kind of dictatorial about it whereas you have to give and take with YES.

RW: You take the YES stuff for example, I mean, I as a fan did not like "TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS" I know many people who think that "TFTO" is dreadful but I know equally as many people who think that TFTO" is the best thing that YES ever did. I suppose it all boils down to if we all liked the same stuff and we all liked the same thing it would be a pretty boring world.

DL: Well, you certainly have the breadth of texture to your work to enable people to love it, hate it or something in between.

RW: Yeah, I think the most important thing, whatever it is that you do, if you can look them in the eye and say, "This is what it was meant to be and this is the best that I could deliver with what I had at the time" you can't really do any more than that.

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