------------------------------------------------------- JULY 2004 ------------------------------------------------------- Source: Creem Magazine Copyrighted by and used with permission of CREEM Media, Inc.  http://www.creemmedia.com/ http://www.creemmedia.com/BeatGoesOn/Yes/ChapterAndVersePt2.html Interview with Rick Wakeman, Part 2 By Jeffrey Morgan (Article contributed to YitP by Donna Hayes) JEFFREY MORGAN: One of the big reasons why everyone could relate to you back then was because you were the only beer drinker in a band full of vegetarians. RICK WAKEMAN: Yeah, the meat eater. MORGAN: And then you stopped drinking. WAKEMAN: I stopped in '85. Oh yeah, I was a good drinker. Y'see, I was always a mug full of beer and skittles man, down at the pub playin' darts. The only reason I stopped drinking was because they told me, I mean, I had cirrhosis of the liver and alcoholic hepatitis. And they said: You'll die. And I didn't really fancy the dying bit, so I stopped. I've got no objections to people who drink, and I still go down to the pub with my mates. Except I don't drink anymore. MORGAN: Well, Alice Cooper's battles with the bottle are legendary WAKEMAN: Good man, Alice. He's a great guy. MORGAN: But ever since he stopped drinking, his albums and stage shows have been nothing short of phenomenal. So I was wondering if you can see any difference in your playing before and after. WAKEMAN: I'm not saying I played badly, I never played badly. I'm not saying I went on stage drunk, but once you've gone completely clear headed, basically the music is your stimulant rather than anything else. But I listen to live recordings of things that I did back in the '70s and then how I've done things since. And there's no doubt about it: if I compare the two, it's like chalk and cheese. Alice, in fact, is a real good mate of mine. Apart from the non-drinking thing, or the straightening out, the other thing we have in common is that we're both huge fanatical golfers. In fact, we stood on the street last November in London, we were both staying at the same hotel, the Leonard, in London and we were both leaving at the same time and it was really weird that we stood on the pavement discussing golf for about 45 minutes. Now, if anybody would have said to me years ago that Alice and me would be standing on the street in London discussing the merits of the PGA tour and how our golf game was, I mean, it was incredibly surreal. But that's what happens. (laughs) What happens to old rock 'n' rollers? They stop drinking and they start playing golf! MORGAN: Recently Alice has been tackling some of the more serious issues going on in the world today, vis-a-vis good versus evil. WAKEMAN: I'm biased, I'm a big Alice Cooper fan. I have been all the time. I think one of the good things that Alice is doing. It's great when you can think clearly enough to express yourself musically on how your thought patterns change and how you think. And if you can do that in a way that's still entertaining, then you've succeeded. And Alice succeeds in doing that. There's a lot of artists who try to put over their thoughts and words in music and it's thunderingly boring. But Alice is one of those who can do it in a very entertaining way. MORGAN: You've always struck me as a spiritual person, yourself. WAKEMAN: I am, yeah. I've got strong Christian views. I've had a huge faith all my life and I've not always been a good boy, I own up. And I know that if I ever manage eventually to get to the gates for God to tell me that He's not letting me in because I've been such a naughty boy, at least I can thank Him very much. I've got a strong faith, always have done, and that means a lot to me. It comes out in the music every now and then. It actually comes out by accident, sometimes. It's really funny, I did an album called Return To The Center Of The Earth, which Ozzy sang on. I had Ozzy singing with the London Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Choir. It's a prog metal track played by a symphony orchestra. And there was a line in there that I never realized was in there until Ozzy pointed it out, which was: "The devil no longer has all the best tunes." And Ozzy said: "Is that aimed at me then?" And I said: "Absolutely not!" It was just a coincidence, but so many people picked up on that and said: "You did that deliberately." I didn't do it but, yeah, spiritual lines come out every now and then. But I don't overtly do it deliberately. "Rock 'n' roll is the devil's music!" Everyone knows that's not true. Country and western is the music of the devil. That's the real truth of the matter. My late Mother, bless her, loved country and western. God, I couldn't handle it. MORGAN: Are you talking about the new pop country music or... WAKEMAN: No, I'm talking about the old traditional thing where the only way you could walk out a room happy was if you played the record backwards so the dog came back to life and she moved back in the house. (laughter) MORGAN: Dumb question time. WAKEMAN: I like dumb questions. I've been married three times and divorced three times. MORGAN: Are you aware of the fact that, in concert, Yes is the heaviest rock band of all time? Your live sound is just massive. WAKEMAN: I'll tell you what's interesting... You know, this is really weird 'cause Jon and I were talking abouut it this morning. I would say 25 percent of all Yes fans were converted at gigs and not by record. It's a huge difference. MORGAN: You guys are monsterfully powerful live. "Heart Of The Sunrise""Yours Is No Disgrace""Perpetual Motion"... There are parts of those songs where you're just brutal. WAKEMAN: That's what I mean. We do "And You And I" on this tour and it is a hundred times more powerful than the record version. The record version is very nice, it's almost twee. On stage it's monster. MORGAN: In a battle of the bands, you'd beat Led Zeppelin, you'd beat Cream, you'd beat everyone. WAKEMAN: Well, it is interesting, this band. It's a very strange.... There's a few bands over the years who, for whatever reason, have had a certain line-up, however many there were in the band, that's added up to more than the total. For example, if you take the Who when John Entwistle and Moonie were alive, those four together equaled eight when they were on stage. They were astonishing, those four. Zeppelin when Bonham was alive. Those four became seven or eight. The Beatles are a classic example. Those four became fifty-eight. And this particular line-up of Yes I classify as that. For whatever reason, it's not five ones is five, it's five ones is seven, eight, nine, ten. MORGAN: It's the only line-up. WAKEMAN: Yeah. It's the only one that works. It's weird, this particular line-up. We are aware of it now. We realize there's just something... it's sort of strange to come to terms with it. When we got back together two and a half years ago, some of the stuff I hadn't played for twenty-five years. And we just sorta met and said, "What should we play?" And I said, well, let's do... I can't remember what piece it was, but we hadn't played it since 1979... and we just played it all the way through. It was just really bizarre. And it was like we'd never not ever played it before. And we all said afterwards, "Oh boy, that's a bit freaky." It's like, Steve's on the other side of the stage and I'm on this side of the stage. Steve and I are really good friends, but we have completely different lifestyles so we don't socialize that much. But there's this really weird thing that happens when I know exactly what he's going to do at any given time and he knows exactly what I'm going to do at any given time. There's a weird sort of telepathy there that goes on that's really strange. I've got it with Jon as well. We'll often look over and like sort of grin at each other. It's an X-factor. There's an X-factor that slips in and you can't define the X-factor. And if you try and look at it or analyze what it is, then it'll all collapse. You just be very thankful that it's there. I'm just grateful that we've all got our own hip. I mean, I look across the stage and it cracks me up that there we all are, five people that now weigh individually what we all used to weight in total back in 1971... with the exception of Steve, who's vegetarian, so he's like a brilliantine stick insect. There's nothing of him, but the rest of us is really funny. MORGAN: All things considered, given the group's positive name and uplifting musical content, isn't Yes the perfect band for you to be in? WAKEMAN: Oh it is, absolutely. You're absolutely right. The interesting thing is, during the periods of time that I wasn't in this band, I always felt that I was in it anyway. This wasn't a band you could leave. Even the two times that I left, I never really felt like I left the band. It's very bizarre. It's like there's sort of an umbilical cord that stretches between us spiritually. The lyrical content has been an interesting one because so many people have said: "Oh, a lot of Jon's lyrics are very New Age" or: "They're from another religion." MORGAN: That reminds me, I was wondering if you can tell me what this means: "Yesterday a morning came, a smile upon your face. Caesar's palace, morning glory, silly human race." WAKEMAN: "Even Siberia goes through the motions." I have visions of thousands of Siberian men, all sittin' on the toilet in the morning. (laughter) MORGAN: I'd like to thank you for ruining that song for me forever. WAKEMAN: Cheers! Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, inquiries, corrections, or additions, contact yitp@yesservices.com