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APRIL 23, 2004
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Source: Greensboro News-Record
http://www.gotriad.com/article/articleview/8109/1/17/
Roger Dean: The artist behind the music
By Jeri Rowe
Roger Dean lives in England, with his family and a German shepherd named
Calvin, away from the deafening bray of popular culture. Yet, this secluded
enclave has helped him create some of the most evocative, eye-opening
images on popular music ever seen in the past 30 years.
His work first became the wallpaper of many a teenager’s room in the 1970s.
His art later sold more than 60 million copies worldwide, in the form of
posters, cards, books and album covers. Along the way, his style has been
imitated — even copied — because for many he has become the Picasso of
album art.
Now, his work has become three-dimensional, and you’ll get a chance to see
it next week in the Triad.
On Tuesday, a set he designed will be assembled inside the Greensboro
Coliseum for a group that has become synonymous with his artwork: Yes.
They’ll perform in the middle of a landscape seemingly plucked from the
fantasy trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien or the television set of "Teletubbies,’’
the popular children’s show from England on PBS.
Pods spring from the floor. A mushroom-like tree hovers over the drums. All
of it will be covered by a sharp-angled roof that seems straight out of The
Shire.
Welcome to the world of Yes. And welcome to the world of Roger Dean.
When you look at his album covers, see his set or read about the homes he’s
designing in England, you have to ask: What’s the creative process like
inside his mind?
"An idea is like a small rodent,’’ says Dean, 59, in a recent interview
from his office inside a high-ceiling, spacious barn. "You can’t get them
if you can’t see them. You want them to come to you.
"Really, I have to find a quiet space and let them come. It’s kind of like
meditation, and I can guarantee, no ideas would come if I get anxious about
a deadline. Then, I get a blank line. I don’t care for deadlines. I have to
be quiet. Then, they come."
So, where is that quiet place?
"I can’t afford the luxury to find peace of mind anywhere, and at the same
time, there are certain places," he says. "I’ve got a dog, and we go on
four- to five-mile walks a day, and that is a good way to get it. That
provides tranquility.
"It’s very much like taking one’s mind away from the problems at hand
because the conscious minds screws things up," he says. "Drawing is like
running down the stairs. You have to trust your body to do, to know where
to put your foot. If you think about it, you can break your neck.
"Now, that’s not the same as being thoughtless. You have to train the mind."
He has. But Dean didn’t choose album artwork. It chose him.
In 1968, he graduated from the Royal Academy of Furniture Art and landed a
job designing seating at a jazz club in London when a band manager saw in
Dean’s sketchbook a painting of a demonic scene. Then, Dean heard the
question that changed his life.
"Can we have this as an album cover?’’
Dean said yes. He allowed Gun, a heavy metal group, to use his painting for
their album, "Dance With The Devil." He began working on other album art as
a way to pay his bills while he tried to get a book published on architecture.
It didn’t happen. After 27 rejection letters, he couldn’t find a publisher.
That’s when he was introduced to a young band who had first gained
headlines opening for Cream at London’s Royal Albert Hall in the late
1960s. The band was Yes.
His first album cover for Yes became "Fragile." It was 1972, and his dream
of designing homes took a backseat. At least for awhile. He then devoted
his professional life to giving images — these souped-up, psychedelic
images he saw in his mind — to the art-rock sound of Yes.
It helped set the mood for a generation of teenagers.
Rolling Stone Record Guide once described Dean’s album artwork as
"acid-dipped." But Dean has seen his album artwork as more of a spiritual
experience in which he tries to tell the story of the music.
And often, his artwork is one big otherworldly landscape. He’s always been
intrigued by landscapes, particularly in China, the western coast of
Scotland and the deserts of the American Southwest. He’s said in past
interviews his trees are real trees, his rocks are real rocks. Only
exaggerated. As he once told a reporter in England, "I can take you to
every tree that has appeared in a painting."
Yet, after illustrating nearly 20 album covers with Yes, he never listens
to their music to get an idea. He simply talks to singer Jon Anderson and
the others in the band to get an idea of where they want to take their
music. Then, he takes it from there.
"I went to listen to Yes in the studio for the album, ‘The Ladder,’ and I
was with them four or five days in Vancouver, and I didn’t hear one track,"
he said. "I heard the drum and bass 35 times. But I never heard the album.
So, what I try to do is talk to the band, to find their inspiration."
Today, Dean sees album art as an afterthought with the record industry, and
he’s soured by what he’s seen. For example, he illustrated "Close to the
Edge" in 1972 and turned the album’s gate fold into a lush science-fiction
landscape. But when "Close to the Edge" came out on CD, there was only a
slip of paper that showed the group’s recognizable Shamrock green cover.
Nothing else. It stayed that way for a decade.
"The music industry is taking a complete beating," he said. "They’ve begun
to fight back by offering value (dropping their prices). But they have to
wrap it like a gift again."
On Tuesday, fans of Yes will step into the Greensboro Coliseum and see what
Dean calls the "Yes world." He see it as a portal to another place. The
music, he said, will help take you there.
"They (fans) deserve a theatrical experience," he said. "They can’t see the
band, and if they’re blown up on a giant video screen, it’s like watching
it on TV. You need the whole theatrical experience, and a set takes you
into that world, the world where the music comes from."
As for himself, he’ll remain in England, with his family and his dog
Calvin. He knows he and Calvin will soon take another walk in the woods,
where he will work in his mind on the next project, maybe an architectural
design for a house or maybe just another drawing in his sketchbook, the
200-page, 8-by-5-inch canvas he carries with him everywhere.
He’ll let the ideas come and see where they’ll take him. And knowing Dean,
it’ll be quite the trip.
• • •
Roger Dean At A Glance
Age: 59
Birth date: Aug. 31, 1944
What the book, "The Secret Language of Birthdays" says about Dean’s
birthday: "Regardless of how they express themselves socially, those born
on this day are most often found working in the service of their fellow
human beings, trying to improve the general state of things through their
efforts."
Artistic background: He never studied art. He was studying architecture,
furniture design and silversmithing at the Royal College of Art Furniture.
His current work with architecture: He has been working on what he calls
"Homes For Life," affordable homes in the $72,000 to $80,000 range that can
be mass-produced in factories and customized to fit individual tastes.
Everything inside his house is gently curved, without right angles and has
been described by The New York Times as looking like the "midsection of a
giant centipede, or a discreet little spaceship."
His love for landscape: It came from his childhood. His father, an engineer
in the British army, took the option to go abroad, so most of Dean’s
childhood was spent away from England, in places like Greece, Cyprus and
China. He also spent time hiking in the Scottish Highlands and later in
America.
Bands and musicians he’s illustrated albums for: Yes; Asia; Anderson,
Bruford, Wakeman and Howe; Steve Howe.
Bands he would’ve liked to have illustrated for: Led Zeppelin
His favorite Yes albums: ‘Close To The Edge" and "Fragile"
His favorite Yes song: "The Worm." Says Dean: "I think it’s incredibly
powerful. I think they have a number of high energy pieces but that is the
highest."
One accolade he earned by his work with Yes: Readers of Rolling Stone
magazine voted Dean’s art for "Tales of Topographic Oceans" as the best
album cover of all time.
What should art do: "It’s our way of entering the world without screwing it
up."
What would he do on a free day: "Walk the Grand Canyon down and up, but I
don’t know if I can do it in a day."
Roger Dean’s take on four album covers he did for Yes
"Fragile" (1972)
"Fragile was very literal, really. I think the band has named a number of
their albums after their current psychological state, and ‘Fragile’
described the psyche of the band. And I thought about that very literally,
painting a fragile world that would eventually break up."
"Tales of Topographic Oceans" (1974)
"Landscapes are my big obsession, and I had done a lot of work on pathways
in particular, and I saw a pathway as the manifestation of a prayer. It’s a
way for a human being to travel through the world of God, and that’s an
artist’s job: to smooth the path human beings take in the natural world to
make it less jarring and help us understand it."
"Close To The Edge" (1972)
"There were a couple of ideas that merged there. It was of a waterfall
constantly refreshing itself, pouring from all sides of the lake, but where
was the water coming from? I was looking for an image to portray that."
"Relayer" (1974)
"I was playing with the ideas of the ultimate castle, the ultimate wall of
a fortified city. That was more of a fantastical idea. I was looking for
the kinds of things like the Knights Templar would have made or what you’d
see in the current movie ‘Lord Of The Rings.’ The curving, swirling
cantilevers right into space."
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