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JULY 2004
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Source: Discoveries Magazine, Issue 194
Contributor: Tom O'Toole
It's Cool to Like Yes Again!
By Chris Nickson
It's virtually impossible to be conscious of the last 30 years of music and not be aware of Yes. From their real breakout, 1971's Fragile, which even
managed a pair of hit singles in "Your Move" and "Roundabout," they've been a musical fixture, with more comebacks than the average rap star and a
number of well-publicised problems.
Last year they celebrated 35 years as a band with the reformation of the classic 70s' lineup Alan White, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire and
Jon Anderson. Their tour proved remarkably successful, and from it came the Yesspeak DVD, which offers, not only a stunning performance of 18
songs, but a full history of the group, and the ultimate Yes compilation. Suddenly it's cool to like Yes again.
By now though, almost everyone knows at least the outlines of the story, the ups and downs, the revolving door that would do a hotel proud as
personnel have come and gone and returned. No one needs it all rehashed. But there are little corners where the light hasn't shone yet,
and turning on the torch, dusting off the nooks and crannies can be fascinating.
Jon Anderson, of course, was one of the band's founders, along with bassist Chris Squire, drummer Bill Bruford, keyboard player Tony Kaye, and
guitarist Peter Banks. But by the time Anderson started building the group, he'd already enjoyed a fairly lengthy history in the pop
business. Born in Accrington, Lancashire in 1944, he left school at 14 to work on a farm. But his ambitions lay at first in becoming a soccer
player, and he used to train with the local team, Accrington Stanley, who were trained by Les Cocker, no relation to Joe.
"I used to deliver Les's milk when I was working on the farm. He used to say, 'I'll see you tonight then Jon,' and I'd go down to Accrington
Stanley, because it was only a couple of hundred yards from where I lived. I'd train with the grown-ups, and kick the ball around, dribble
around them like a lunatic. I was too fast, but I was only 4'10" or 4'11" when I was 15, and they said I'd never make it in soccer, even though I had
a good football brain."
Anderson's brother was a member of a local beat group, the Warriors, and definitely something of a rocker. "He was the singer in the band, the
Elvis Presley of Accrington. He looked like a cross between Elvis and Marlon Brando. He had his motorbike, and he was a wild one. He'd seen all
the movies, and he went onstage and did Elvis. But we used to do the Everly Brothers on the milk round. The band had two singers, and the other
one left to become a hairdresser. My brother said, 'Why don't you join the band? We can do some Everlys.' The Beatles had just started, it was
January 1963. I said okay, and I learned some Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly. We did 'Twist And Shout' and a couple of songs from the first
Beatles album. I went onstage and never looked back. I thought, 'This is the life.' I'd been working 12-hour days on the farm, and I wanted to get
out. I'd left school at 14. So by the time I was 17 I yearned to break away."
Music offered an opportunity. But first they had to break out of the grind of the club circuit, which was anything but glamorous.
"We played the Manchester sporting clubs. You'd go on, do three songs, then the stripper came on. You'd play three more songs, then there was the
comedian, three more songs, stripper, and everyone got drunk every night. One of the owners cornered us one time and said, 'We think the
Warriors could be a big-hit band.' We said okay, not knowing what the hell they were talking about. They said, 'Can you come next Thursday to do an
audition in front of the people who have the money? We've already got the song, and well make you a hit record.' And my brother said, 'Sorry, next
Thursday we're playing a club, and we can't cancel.' They said, 'Have you got a contract?' 'No, just a handshake.' 'So you're not going to come to
the audition?' 'No, we've got to go and play the gig.' He went and found the Leila Morton Four in Burnley. They became the Four Pennies, and they
had a hot record, which really pissed us all off."
"So we went down to London to do an audition for Decca. Because they'd lost the Beatles, they were auditioning everything they could find. They
put us with this guy, a regular producer type. We had no idea what we were doing. We did 'You Came Along,' and they put it into a movie called 'Just
for You,' with Freddie and the Dreamers, and a bunch of other people. Our claim to fame was having a big hit record in Accrington, and the movie was
shown in Burnley! We actually went onstage at Burnley Empire and did the song live."
At that point they felt like the world was their oyster, and major success was just around the corner. They certainly began playing farther
afield, even venturing over the Pennines into Yorkshire.
"I remember we played a gig in Sheffield, and the club owner asked if a 17-year-old could get up and sing with us. He came over, and he sounded
just like Ray Charles, so I said, 'We'll do 'Hit The Road, Jack.' What's your name?' He said, 'Joe Cocker'."
Not long after, Anderson's brother got married, and needed the kind of steady life a group couldn't provide. The others carried on, though, and
went to play clubs in Germany, the path the Beatles had taken. I had a lot of LSD, a lot of drugs, and a lot of crazy nights in Scandinavia and
Germany. I left the Warriors because they wouldn't get up and rehearse. I had this feeling that I could do something in music. I had these crazy
musical dreams a lot of it drug-induced, I must say. I was a hippie. I went to Munich, went a bit crazy, and heard a voice from God saying,
'Dont worry, everything will work out.' I ran home from this garden, and there was a telegram from my mum saying this band wanted me to join them. I went
to join them in Frankfurt. Thats really all I wanted. A hop, skip, and a jump, and I got to London, where I realized the Warriors was a damn good
band. We missed our way by not going to London. But I felt very free, just waiting for something to happen. And thats when I met Chris."
Back in London, Anderson found a job cleaning up at the Shaft Club, which was upstairs from the Marquee, one of the famous clubs in the city, and a
watering hole for anyone and everyone in the music business.
"Pete Townsend would walk in and Keith Emerson, all the stars of that time would come in for a drink before and after the show. I'd meet them all,
and I was watching what was happening. As soon as we got the band going we realized we had all these connections, and we just phoned up a couple of
people and got the right gigs at the right time. I knew John Peel, and asked if we could do his radio show. 'Oh yeah, come along, come
along.' He saw our show and liked us."
From there things built very quickly indeed. One of their first shows was the opening slot at Cream's farewell convert at the Albert Hall, and they
followed that with a prestigious residency at the Marquee, then a support slot for Janis Joplin in London all this before they even had a record
contract. It wasn't until November 1969 that they released their eponymous debut, which drove Anderson even harder.
"As soon as we got success I became intent on rehearsing every second of every day. I just wouldn't get into the fame thing. I felt I was too old
to be famous, anyway, I thought it would be great to work harder. I think my work ethic as a kid made me demand that everyone work four of five hours
rehearsal every day. Then we went to see King Crimson and thought they were a load of crap! So that inspired us. At that time we just wanted to
be as good as Family, because they were great. We'd start listening to different kinds of music. I think it's because we rehearsed too damn hard
together that we started to find all the sort of connections."
They were part of the progressive rock wave that began to break in 1968, as Anderson points out, "when there were about five or six other bands
starting at exactly the same time and they became Zeppelin, Genesis, Deep Purple, and so on. There was an amazing amount of good energy going on at
the time and we were just one of the flock. We're putting out a live recording of stuff we did on John Peel, and it really is powerful stuff. I
always thought we were a great band, but if you want real rock'n'roll, just listen to the Who. But we were rocking, hurtling away like lunatics. I
think it was just the excitement of getting a gig, people saying good things about us. I felt we were lucky."
Luck and skill can be a powerful combination, and it worked for Yes. They were intent on improving the band. Banks left to form Flash, and was
replaced by Steve Howe, who'd been a member of psychedelic heroes Tomorrow. Then, when Kaye left, he was replaced by former Strawbs member
Rick Wakeman, which really helped the band.
"We got Rick in the band, and we got someone more intent on becoming something. When you get a bunch of people all intent on becoming good,
there's a lot of incredible chemistry that comes together."
In the wake of Fragile they began their first U.S. tour in 1972. But there was no master plan to conquer America.
"That was a bizarre experience. All we thought about was getting as big as Family or the Nice. Then we did some gigs in Europe and realized that
people had been listing to Radio Luxembourg and dug the band. Going to New York wasn't, 'Oh, we've got to go and conquer America.' We just got a tour
with Jethro Tull, and we didn't realize what we were doing. We just went in and dug the fact that they had Holiday Inns in every town. A real hotel
with swimming pool! The audiences were great, they were young and excited, and they were smoking a lot of marijuana. Watching Ian Anderson was
brilliant, because he was such a showman, and I learned a lot on that tour."
In August of that year Bruford quit to join King Crimson, and Alan White was recruited on drums. A veteran of many sessions, he'd also pounded the
skins in John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, and was a member of Griffen (who'd changed their name from Happy Magazine).
"John Lennon had seen us play in the Rasputin Club in New Bond Street," White recalls. "He'd passed by there, I didn't even know he was in the
club. I knew some of the people who worked at Apple. John was looking for my phone number. He called me up at home and said, 'I need you to play
drums for me.' I initially put the phone down because I thought it was a friend of mine playing a trick on me. But he called me back 10 minutes
later saying, 'Really, it's John Lennon. I'd really like you to get on a plane and come to Canada tomorrow.' And that was the basis of it all. I
was doing quite a few sessions around town with different people, and keeping my band alive."
He first met Yes before they recorded the sprawling Close To The Edge, when he was sharing a flat in South London with the band's producer, Eddie Offord.
"I was playing with Joe Cocker at the time. I'd never really met Yes, even though he worked with them all the time. They were rehearsing in a small
studio in Shepherds Bush. I went down with him one day. Bill wasn't getting on too well with the band. He had to leave early one night. They
were playing Siberian Khatru, one of the songs on Close To The Edge, and they said, 'Why don't you play?' I'd already been playing time signatures
that were different with my own band, and that was one of the things I was interested in. This was a bar of eight, and a bar of seven, and I fitted
in straight away. So when Bill left, they asked me."
Success built on success, and Rick Wakeman started a huge solo career he was also disenchanted with the band and left in 1974. But it was a time
when each member was working on solo records.
"The thing was, we'd made so much music together that I felt we needed a break from each other," explains Anderson. "There was a feeling that the
camaraderie had disappeared and we were in it for the money. I wasn't too happy about the way the business affairs were going. Everything was money
and it became the dominant talk. I said why don't we all do solo projects for a year, and I'll see you then. I wanted to go learn more about my
work. A friend of mine who did our second album, Tony Colton from Heads, Hands and Feet had just been to college to learn piano. I was mesmerized
that he could do that. I thought I should do that."
"Then I thought, wait a minute, I'll convert my garage. I'll get all the instruments in, lock myself in, and record an album. And that's what I
did. I became a solo artist, and that's Olias Of Sunhillow. I wanted Roger Dean to do all the artwork, but he was not very helpful. Eventually
I had to find somebody else (Dave Rose) who was incredibly good. I thought that every now and then an artist has to do that; its like dipping in the
water, it replenishes your system."
White also indulged in a solo project, 1976s Ramshackled, one of the lesser-known addenda to the Yes canon.
"I'd been playing with my own band for years, doing all original material that had never made it vinyl. This was the opportunity to get this stuff
out. We went into the studio, got an offer from Atlantic, and did the whole thing in three months, including the video, I think!"
It was around this time that Anderson first became familiar with the work of keyboard player Vangelis, with whom he'd share an occasional musical
partnership that would last for many years.
"They guy who introduced me to Vangelis was a guy who died recently called Keith Goodwin. He was one of these guys in London who did some writing at
NME, he had a PR company. He'd pop round to my house and give me albums, like
Shostakovich, and some electronic music. He gave me an album called Creation du Monde, by Vangelis, who lived in Paris. Within two days I went
to Paris to find him. I had a phone number, and went to meet him. I just fell in love with this music. And he showed me in his apartment how he did
it. He played these keyboards though about six Echoplexes and it just created this full, modern symphonic orchestra. He was a real
revolutionary. I sang a song with him that day, and about three or four years later we made an album together. I tried to get him in Yes for a
while, but that didnt work out, because he was such a one-man band. We became great friends, and he taught me a lot about how music isn't so
hard. To create is easy, the business is difficult."
In 1980 the edifice that was Yes suddenly crumbled. Anderson and Wakeman (who had rejoined) suddenly quit, taking away much of the core of the
band. But there was good reason, Anderson insists.
"The record company felt we weren't selling enough records. They bent Chris' and Steve's ears. They got a producer in, Roy Thomas Baker, who
made the band virtually sound like the last band he'd produced, which was the Cars. He and Chris partied in Paris to the point where we never got
any work done. It became a spectacle on how to waste money. I said, I can't live this way. I went to live in the South of France, and I did an
album with Vangelis, I did some music for a ballet company, I met Chagall, and started writing a musical about his life. My life went on, the band
carried on. But the manager at the time would have put Mickey Mouse in the band to make money. He didn't care about Yes; I did. I really didn't like
the way we weren't treating each other good. We were tired of each other and it was a very dark period for the band."
While Anderson pursued other avenues, White and Squire formed an unlikely team with another rock hero Jimmy Page.
"Chris lived not too far from Jimmy," says White. "He knew my playing and Chris's playing. He was at a loose end, and basically we got together in
his studio two or three days a week and played music. Funnily enough, most of the music we were playing Chris and I wrote. Jimmy didn't write that
much. We came out with about nine or 10 tracks. I think you can buy it on bootleg, although I thought I had the only cassette of it. It is the basis
of a few modern Yes songs, including Mind Drive, which was on Keys to Ascension. We developed it a bit more that it was back then, of course."
If Yes existed at all then, it was more or less just the rhythm section, at something of a loose end. Then White ran into a guy from Atlantic Records
who said, 'There's this great guy, Trevor Rabin. He's from South Africa, but he lives in America. You guys should meet him.' Trevor was a big fan
of Yes, so Atlantic flew him to England. "We were at Chris's house. We stuck a Marshall cabinet in front of him, he brought his guitar, we played
for a couple of hours and we thought, 'This is a good sound.' That was the basis of what we were going to call Cinema. It was a new thing, we
couldn't call it Yes. At the same time, Chris said, Let's call Tony Kaye up. The four of us went to a rehearsal place in London called John
Henry's. We were there for about nine months, sculpting a new sound for Yes, as it were. That's when Jon heard some of the tapes, loved the music,
and jumped right back in. He came and sang on a couple, and there was nothing else we could call the band then except the new Yes."
Anderson was on a trip to London, "when Chris rang me up and said, 'I want you to hear these new songs,' and played me the backing tracks to 90125. I
knew then that this was a big, big stepping stone musically. I'd started to listen to a band called Art of Noise. I didn't know at that time that
they were connected with Trevor Horn. They were using samples, and that was a new way of doing stuff. For me it was like a new revolution in
music. To get Yes back together was a good feeling. I felt very, very proud that we had something to say musically. That's why I jumped on that
as quick as I could."
From the album, of course, came Owner Of A Lonely Heart, which, through video, introduced Yes to the MTV generation, reached #28 in Britain, and
topped the American chart. A new, shorter-form Yes was back, and making videos.
"I think we did two good videos and that was it," suggests Anderson. "We never became a great video band. I never liked any of them. I think Leave
It was the best one. They did the job. That year, we started the tour, and I was intent on making a documentary of the tour, I thought it would be
so much fun. So I said, we should get a couple of kids straight out of film school. I don't want any of these directors coming with their bloody
big ideas. They'll come on tour and film it as it happens. The first week we were on tour with the film guy and a sound guy. We were driving to
Boston for the second or third show. We had an afternoon to kill, and we saw a cinema with this sign saying, 'Spinal Tap opens today.' They said it
was a film about a rock'n'roll band, and we went in. I've never laughed so much in my life. From then on I thought I was in Spinal Tap, and we were,
of course, number one. I couldn't stop laughing onstage."
The cameraman on the documentary, by the way, was Steve Soderbergh, who'd find fame as a director in 1989 with Sex, Lies and Videotape. As as aside,
the band made a video at the end of the tour called 9012Live, which will be re-released when they obtain the rights.
But the smooth sailing was too good to last, and the problems only grew while the band took on the protracted process of making Big Generator.
"That took two years and cost two million dollars to make, and it never really worked," Anderson says. "It was okay, it was a great album in a
sense, but they kept me out of the way, they didn't want me around. Trevor Horn hated the fact that I had a hit record with Yes, I think. He wouldn't
let me come and rehearse with the band. So I went and made an album with Vangelis (State of Independence), I made an album for Christmas (Three
Ships). I wanted to go to Cuba and sing with a big band, but the record company stopped the check. They said I'd only get the check if I went and
worked with a band called Toto. So I went to L.A. and did an album called In the City of Angels. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I did three
albums while Yes made one. They weren't big hits, but that's not the point; you don't make music to make big hits. You make music to evolve, to
learn and go through the experience. If we all made music to make money we'd all be Elton John."
Once more problems rose to the surface.
"By the time Big Generator had toured, management dropped the band, the record company dropped the band, and I said I couldn't continue with the
band, it wasn't a happy bunch of people," recalls Anderson. So I went to London, got together with Steve for an afternoon, Rick for an afternoon,
Bill for an afternoon, got tapes from them, went to Paris and made an album. Then I gave it back to them and they played it and it became
Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe. I sort of designed this album. The funny thing was Bill became Mr. Grumpy. He was always a happy sort, but as
soon as we had a big record he wasn't happy any more. I said let's do an album exactly the same, and they said no. They didn't want to do an album
I created and they played what I wanted. I pointed out that it was good. I'd gleaned the musical ideas from everybody and created something I
hoped they liked they could change anything they wanted. But they wanted to make an album like a group. We tried that and it wouldn't work, because
we weren't built as a group."
Legally they weren't able to use the name Yes, because "that belonged to Chris and myself and Trevor," says White. "That's why the others had to
call themselves Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe. We used to call it Yes East and Yes West. I don't think we ever really ran into each
other. We each carried on making albums at that time. We knew they had an album out and they were working on another album. The managements put
their heads together and said, why don't we put the two albums together and make it one Yes album and go on tour. Thats where Union came from."
"I wanted the idea of doing it like a big band, I thought it would be a trip," explains Anderson. "The record wasn't great, but the tour was
amazing! They were some of the best shows Yes has ever done so there was a reason ABWH broke down, to rebuild a big Yes and do it one time."
With two drummers, two guitarists, two keyboard players, Anderson and Squire, it was also very crowded on the stage.
"There were a lot of notes, so we had to be very selective on who played what when," says White. "I sat down with Bill for a few days and talked
through what we'd been doing on the set, and who would take the major role in certain parts. Bill had been out of the band for so long, that the band
was already playing the music like I played it. So Bill saw the band was used to me being the foundation. So a lot of set he played frills on the
top. He was playing the electronic kit, and I was keeping the rhythm kit. Certain things like Heart Of The Sunrise were a trademark for Bill,
and he ended up doing most of the drumming on it, and I provided backup for him."
These days, with a relatively settled lineup -- although, given their history, that might possibly not last -- playing is a real pleasure for
everyone.
"Once Rick came back in, after he'd tried four years earlier and it hadn't worked, the chemistry changed right away, and it was good," notes Anderson.
"We don't have to say too much to each other, there's a sort of honor and brotherhood about it. I always tend to look at the great moments of the
band, the history, and the fact that we still go onstage and kick each others arses if somebody starts not happening onstage. We find out the
problem and talk about it. I laughingly call it group therapy. You know you're part of this happening."
"The band's attitude is 110%, all the time," agrees White. "There's no use in doing something unless youre going to do it properly."
Currently the band is focused on touring, with date set through the end of August. "Then," said White, "we take a break, and there are numerous
ideas, like Australia, Japan and the Far East. And there are offers to go to Africa too. So that may be happening. It would be a lot of fun to do
that. But we've all been writing with the thought of doing an album. So the beginning of next year we'll be going in the studio to make a new album."
That's the point where Anderson begs to differ.
"This is going to be an incredible bone of contention, because I don't want to make another album. I want to do a series of events that are totally
different from the norm. I've just got this feeling that there's no point in making an album that in three months might be forgotten. Why don't we
do something over a period of three years - like a double trilogy! I've already spoken to the guys, and they stand there like they don't know what
I'm talking about, because they don't know that you can do something different."
It might be on computers, communicating that way, documenting it, and that's the product. He'd also be happy to webcast shows. "I've always
felt these days we should be able to perform, and people can download it and watch it anytime they want. This next tour we're filming and sending
it to the web. It's like giving back. I film all my solo work on small cameras, and if I create it and make it available, some people might want
the memento."
Whatever happens, or doesn't, with a new record, Yes seem comfortable in their skins these days, more relaxed and able to handle their renewed
success. White, who lives in Seattle, plays locally with a band. All the members pursue their own interests outside the band, while coming together
as and when necessary. Anderson, for one, is happy with the state of affairs.
"I'm 60 this year, I'm still singing great and I love singing. The band's playing great. I'm still investing in discovering my music. I'm doing a
show with a youth orchestra in Cleveland. I want to do more orchestral work, I've written for orchestras for 20 years, although I've never had the
chance to perform before."
And it's obvious he's proud, not only of the work he's created, but of the band itself.
"Whether the business or media accepts it or not, that's fine. We're who we are. We create a style of music that's totally Yes. It isn't
commercial, we maybe have a hit every 10 years! But what we do touches people all over the world. Going to Australia after 30 years, there were
thousands of people who came to see us. It's a part of life, a big part of my life, and part of other people's too."
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