Where are they now? - Yes
and projects with multiple Yesmen
This page last updated: 23 Jun 2022
On this page—Yes: Next album - Cruise to the Edge - On tour - Covers of Yes songs - Documentaries & books
Projects involving multiple Yes men: Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Wakeman -
CIRCA: (Sherwood, Kaye) - Arc of Life (Sherwood, Davison, Schellen)
Yes news YesWorld; official Facebook;
official Twitter; official SoundCloud;
official MySpace; Yesfans.com
Yes are Steve Howe,
Geoff Downes,
Jon Davison and
Billy Sherwood, with Jay
Schellen (ex-CIRCA:, ex-Asia, ex-World Trade,
Unruly
Child). Alan White was
in the band until his death on 26 May 2022. It was announced that White would be absent from Jun
2022 tour dates due to health issues shortly before he passed
away. The tour will now be dedicated to his memory. Touring
has been and continues to be disrupted by
the COVID-19 pandemic, but the band return to live performance
with UK/Ireland dates in Jun 2022. Planned 2022 dates in
the rest of Europe have been postponed (again) to 2023. They tour Japan in Sep 2022. The band
released a new studio
album, The Quest, on 1 Oct 2021 (with
physical release in the US delayed to 15 Oct for the CD and later
for vinyl), and are working on their next one. (Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin
and Rick Wakeman
were working together as Yes featuring Anderson, Rabin &
Wakeman, but that band has now finished: they are covered here.)
In a May
2020 live painting session, Roger Dean
said, "There [are] [...] two important Yes projects going on at
the moment. I can't tell you what one of them is, that's a big
mystery [...] but I will be doing preliminary paintings for that.
And the other project is we're looking to do something with Close
to the Edge, which will have as many as 6 to 8 paintings in
it, not just the original but a lot more, plus some of the
narrative that the original was based on. So, that is probably
going to come out some time around the 50th anniversary of Close
to the Edge" (which would be Sep 2022). There was a rumour
that the Close to the Edge anniversary project will be a
re-release of the album with a new 5.1 mix. However,
in a May
2022 interview, Howe was asked, "The album has been
re-released on no fewer than three separate occasions; is there
anything special planned with the album to celebrate its 50th
Anniversary?" To which he replied, "No, nothing at all; only the
fact that we are going out on the road and playing it." I
presume the secret project Dean mentioned was The Quest.
In a Jun
2021 interview, asked if there are any Yes projects that he
is "currently working on right now", Howe replied: "We've got some
unannounced plans about the early part of next year [2022], but
right now, touring is the focus of our attention." It is unclear
what these plans for early 2022 were.
In a Jul
2020 interview, Davison was asked if there was any talk of
retirement by Yes members. He replied, "No, there really isn't
[...] Everyone's having a ball [...] Each year, [...] [Howe] is
getting happier with the sounds and what we stand for. And
apparently, he's much happier than he was in years past, before I
even joined, so he never talks of it [retirement]". In a Nov
2021 interview, White was asked, "do you foresee Yes albums
still being made when you and Steve are gone?" He replied: "Don't
put it like that! Eventually when we retire, but we have no
intention of doing that right now. Who knows? There's a
possibility that will happen but we just gotta carry the banner as
long as we can." The interviewer then continued: "Bob Weir
describes this dream where he's watching the Grateful Dead's music
being played and [...] none of the members there are actually the
original Grateful Dead members [...]" To which White replied,
"That is a possible foreseeable future but not in the way I'm
looking at things right now. You always get tribute bands, anyway.
We shall have to see about that."
New studio album
The band are working on a new studio album. As
of Apr 2022, recording was reported to be well advanced, with
Paul K Joyce working on orchestrations, as he did on The Quest. In a
May
2022 interview with the Yesshift podcast, Sherwood
confirmed that they are working on an album. In another May
2022 interview, Downes said, "I think that we are
working on some stuff at the moment [...] It's been nice to
get back working with Steve in the studio again. Knowing
that, you know, of course, The Quest was done fairly
remotely... we never saw Billy or Alan or Jay, so it was
their parts were sent over. [...] I think it's some way to
go, in some respects. [...] Yes, [...] it's all about
experimentation. I think, we often try and do things that
are not, you know, expect the unexpected." In a Jun
2022 interview, Downes said, "We'll be doing another
Yes album at some point this year. We're keeping busy with
that".
In early May, Joyce's website referenced
work on a new Yes album, but this was reworded to say, "Orchestrating
new album project for FAMES recording…" So, presumably the
F.A.M.E.'S Orchestra are also returning. On 7 May, Joyce said he
was in Skopje (North Macedonia) recording with the orchestra.
In the Oct 2021 issue of Prog (#124), Downes said that
the band are "already talking about the next" studio album. In a Jan
2022 interview, asked if they have any ideas for a new
album, White replied, "We do, we always have ideas going around,
and as soon as we complete one album, we start to think about
ideas for the next one, and start sending things to each other and
chatting about the next direction."
The Quest—a
summary YesWorld
announcement |
|||
When |
Released 1 Oct 2021
digitally everywhere and physically in most of the world; US
physical release has been delayed (CD: 15 Oct; LP: 17 Dec);
pre-orders
available now Lead single, "The Ice Bridge", released 23 Jul Second single, "Dare to Know", released 1 Sep |
The band have been looking at doing a new album for several years. Activity picked up in the latter half of 2019, but they really got going when COVID-19 hit, with band members working remotely through file-sharing from March 2020. Howe has said all the material was written in 2019/20. Recording appears to have been largely from Jun 2020 to the end of the year, but with some further work in the first quarter of 2021. Mixing was seemingly finished 15 Apr 2021. | #ad |
Who |
Steve Howe:
electric & acoustic guitars (alls), 12-string guitar
(2, 7, 9), steel guitar (4-6, 11), mandolin (1, 4), koto
(4), autoharp (4), vocal duet (2, 4, 7, 11),
backing vocals (9, 10) Alan White: drums (1-5, 7-11) Geoff Downes: piano (1, 4, 7, 8), Hammond (1, 2, 8, 10, 11), Mellotron (7, 10), synths (1, 3–5, 7, 9, 11), Fender Rhodes electric piano (10) Billy Sherwood: bass (1-5, 7, 8, 10, 11), fretless bass (6, 9), vocals (5, 6 , 10), keys (5), Fender Rhodes electric piano (3), acoustic guitar (5) Jon Davison: lead vocals (1, 3, 5, 6, 8-10), vocal duet (2, 4, 7, 11), acoustic guitar (6, 11) Jay Schellen: percussion 47-piece F.A.M.E.'S Orchestra (2-4), conducted by Oleg Kondratenko Orchestra arranged by Paul K Joyce Full credits at YesWorld |
Produced by Steve Howe Recording assembled, engineered & mixed by Curtis Schwartz Preparatory engineering and most recordings by Howe, Downes, Davison, Sherwood Alen Hadzi Stefanov: orchestra sound recordist Teodora Arsovska: orchestra Pro tools operator Mastered by Simon Heyworth Cover by Roger Dean |
|
What |
CD1 (47:49): 1. "The Ice Bridge" [Davison/Monkman/Downes] (6:59), video a. "Eyes East" b. "Race Against Time" c. "Interaction" 2. "Dare to Know" [Howe] (5:56), streaming audio, video 3. "Minus the Man" [Davison/Sherwood] (5:34) 4. "Leave Well Alone" [Howe] (8:05) a. "Across the Border" b. "Not for Nothing" c. "Wheels" 5. "The Western Edge" [Davison/Sherwood] (4:24) 6. "Future Memories" [Davison] (5:08), video 7. "Music to My Ears" [Howe] (4:39) 8. "A Living Island" [Davison/Downes] (6:47) a. "Brave the Storm" b. "Wake Up" c. "We Will Remember" CD2 (bonus CD; 13:44): 9. "Sister Sleeping Soul" [Davison/Howe] (4:48) 10. "Mystery Tour" [Howe] (3:33) 11. "Damaged World" [Howe] (5:18) |
Howe, Schwartz and Davison began sessions
together late Oct 2019. Howe, Davison, Downes and Sherwood
mostly recorded at their personal studios. After working
remotely, from around Jun to at least Sep 2020, Davison,
Howe and Downes (often Howe/Davison or Howe/Downes)
sometimes recorded together in or near London, at Curtis
Schwartz's West Sussex studio. Sherwood and White recorded
together in Scott Walton's Uncle Studios in Los Angeles, CA
in 2020. The orchestra were recorded in Skopje, North
Macedonia in Feb 2021. |
#ad Amazon UK 2CD/Blu-ray |
How |
InsideOutMusic/Sony Music |
Released as 2CD, digital, 2LP/2CD set (with various vinyl colour options), 2CD/Blu-ray set, or 2LP/2CD/Blu-ray set | Amazon UK 2LP/2CD/Blu-ray |
Howe says the two-disc configuration of “The Quest” was also a record company suggestion, “feeling that the bulk of it, the main album, should not go over 45, 50 minutes. So that’s eight songs, and the other three aren’t really bonus tracks in the sense they’re things we would have thrown away. We weren’t scraping the barrel or anything just to fill it out. They’re like high-quality reserve tracks, if you will. But it’s not so much a double album like the White Album by the Beatles. It’s more like there’s a second part of the story.”Likewise, to the Oct 2021 issue of Prog (#124), Howe described the phrase 'bonus tracks' as "tainted words", saying, "I cannot overstate the fact that those three songs are not rejects or throwaways." Indeed, in a Dec 2021 interview, asked to pick one track from The Quest he'd suggest to represent the album, he picked "Sister Sleeping Soul". In a Nov 2021 interview, Davison said that the singles were "a label choice rather than something the band decided. I personally feel all the songs are equally compelling and any one of them could have fulfilled the 'single' necessity." He credited Howe with the album name: "Steve came up with the title, and the rest of us unanimously acquiesced without question. There were no working titles used or other official titles considered that I can remember, because we all knew what Steve had come up with was right."
Sales performance
Dare To Know presents a guitar theme played within many different arrangements, with different chord structures and altered textures. The 'idea' mentioned in the first verse gets described later as an awakening to the subtle goings on within our bodies and mind, all geared to nature's scheme of things, all fluctuating and rearranging according to the principles of life, as we know it. The centrepiece leaves the orchestra alone to elaborate and develop the way the theme is heard, then augments the closing minutes of the song as it rests, with an acoustic guitar cadenza."The Ice Bridge" was released 23 Jul. "The Ice Bridge" is also available on streaming, e.g. YouTube (audio only version) and Spotify. A video was released noon UK time on 23 Jul. On an interview for the 500th episode of Yes Music Podcast, Tony Kaye described the song as "great". Davison described the writing process: "Usually what happens is each member is left to write their respective parts and put their stamp on things. Geoff sent me a selection of exciting and often gorgeous snippets he had created and made it clear that he wished I experiment freely and develop as needed. This in turn gave me the confidence to take on the vocal role – lyrics, vocal melody and harmony, how the vocals are presented and uniquely phrased – but all the while striving to stay faithful to Geoff's initial ideas." The song has three parts: "Eyes East" (approx. 3:30), "Race Against Time" (approx. 0:40), "Interaction" (approx. 2:50). "Interaction" features a back and forth between Howe and Downes, but the two recorded separately. Promo describes the album as being about the dangers of climate change, but the song also appears to be about the initial peopling of the Americas via the Beringia land bridge. (Note the apparent reference to haplogroup X2a.) Note that the album is not a concept album; the narrative in "The Ice Bridge" does not continue on to other songs. However, there are some recurrent themes, e.g. environmental concerns. In an Aug 2021 interview with The Progressive Aspect, Davison explained, "I don't think it was a conscious effort on my part, it was just where the inspiration led. Equally, Steve had some lyrical themes leading in that same direction. We didn't premeditate the both of us writing on a similar topic, it just happened serendipitously." In a Sep 2021 interview, he talked about the lyrics across the album:
Though our lyrics sometimes display concerns for the state of our planet, we are mainly attempting to express on The Quest reactions of hope and optimism. Indeed, the human race faces many environmental and sociological challenges, but I believe we must embrace these as a type of quest through which to evolve and better the human race. It’s tempting to react with fear and frustration, but how much more effective to focus on sending out to the world positive and healing wishes.In the Nov 2021 interview, Davison said, "to avoid redundancy, I try to follow a general rule of not attaching to any familiar points of lyrical topic, which of course can make things more difficult (laughs), but ultimately leading to a more rewarding conclusion, I hope. As far as fresh topics for The Quest, I touch on everything from personal loss to global issues, be it environmental or pandemic-related. Concerns about the effects of exponential technology growth is another new topic I found interesting to explore."
It was inspired by a piece by Francis Monkman. We worked on it, and I think it turned out really well. It also gave us a chance to have me and Steve soloing, which we had never done before. We did a little live, but not a record. To actually capture that on a recording is pretty amazing. I hope it opens the door to more collaborations with Steve and myself to explore guitar and keyboards. It is a dynamic piece and a very uplifting piece.A tweet gave further details of "Mystery Tour", with performance credits as: Davison (lead vocals), Howe (vocals, Fender Telecaster, Martin MC28 acoustic), Downes (Fender Rhodes, Mellotron, Hammond organ), Sherwood (vocals, bass), White (drums). Howe described the song: "'Mystery Tour' is blatantly what it is. It's a rather celebratory idea about a band." In a Jul 2021 interview, White described it: "a kind of a parody of The Beatles, and when they broke up. [...] It's called "Magical Mystery Tour" [...] it's very good, it's very sing-along". In the Sep 2021 interview with Sonic Perspectives, White talked about how proud he was of having worked with John Lennon and "Then following it through with a tribute to him and the band with ["Mystery Tour"]." In the Yes Music Podcast interview, Downes said, "I wasn't so sure about it ["Mystery Tour"] when Steve came up with the idea [...] I mean, we all love The Beatles, there's no doubt about it. We've all been heavily influenced by The Beatles. But, I think, part of it, as well, is maybe the nod to Alan's connection to John Lennon". In the Dec 2021 interview, Howe said:
I had some of those lyrics [...] in 1985 [...] it wasn't until 2020 when I rummaged around in some files with lyrics, most of which were rubbish, and I saw those. "John was a fighter...". And I thought [...] there's something going on here. So I had to write more; I had to write choruses. I had to write about half of it again and I had a new tune [...]In a Sep 2021 article in Northern Life, Davison said, "All my vocals on A Living Island were actually recorded in my home studio in Barbados. We unanimously felt those original takes were so emotional, poignant and powerful. We therefore decided to keep all of it and that's exactly what you hear on the record." In further social media promo, Howe described "A Living Island" as having "a nice keyboard presence. It starts with a nice, real piano. And there is a real Hammond organ and lots of synths."
So it grew quite rapidly as a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. I wasn't sure if the rest of the guys in the band would want to do it. Once [Davison] sang on it, it really made sense. [...] My experience with the Beatles is very limited. I never saw them live. I saw all the movies [...] on TV. [...]
But I love The Beatles. They're the musical standard that came along that upped everybody else's standard. I met a few of the Beatles very briefly when I was working on a Tomorrow album in 1967 [...] because they we were on the same label. Paul and Ringo used to walk by and kind of say, "Hey, how are you doing?" [...] [I]n 1969 I toured with Delaney and Bonnie and Eric Clapton. And on that tour the whole week was George Harrison.
[...] he was a super guy, we talked and I actually heard him playing and singing "Here Comes the Sun." I was blessed to see that.
I think that the ideas [...], they've been around for a while and certainly the end section for that was… I think it was a grandiose theme that I've been working on for some time. In fact, there's a little snippet of it on the beginning of the DBA [Downes Braide Association] album [Halcyon Hymns]. Y'know, I felt that with a band like Yes, you should really make this just go bigger and bigger. And as a finale to the album [...] Yes are known for these big major chords, you know, you've got something like "And You and I". [...] they take "Awaken", something like that, it is this sort of spiritual experience almost for the listener. And so, that's really what I was trying to achieve with that is that you get that big majestic chord sequence coming out and I think it's a great way to finish the album.In the Aug 2021 interview, Davison, seemingly talking about both his writing collaborations with Downes, said, "Initially, Geoff sent me a handful of instrumental ideas. [...] I was able to take on the vocal role, lyrics, melody, how the vocals are presented and phrased, all the while trying to keep true to Geoff's initial idea." He explained further specifically about "A Living Island":
Barbados is one of few coral islands in the world, it is actually a living island. I felt that was a beautiful title to touch on while the world was shutting down during that initial lockdown. I felt the need to express in words all those intense thoughts and feelings and my personal perception of it all. Conceptually, as the song progresses through its three themes, the lyrical concept of the living island then branches out from the personal and becomes more about the well-being of the world in general, and that the planet is indeed our precious living island in a sea of stars.Howe described the album to Prog (Aug 2021, #122), saying, "It's an opportunity to rewrite what Yes do, and not feel restricted [...] another twist to the Yes story." While there are no very long pieces on the album, Howe said, "We're not shy of considering longer, larger pieces. But this album wasn't centred around any 20-minute tracks [...] not because we want to avoid that style, more because it wasn't a natural process for us as this stage." He continued, referencing the longer pieces on the album of around 6-8 minutes duration, "That's still a healthy length for us to develop a song, the structure and the harmonic roles that, Geoff and I play instrumentally or that Jon, Billy and I do vocally. We also jump into some pretty substantial instrumental sections." The article also described White as having contributed to the writing, although he doesn't appear to have writing credits on any particular piece. In a Nov 2021 interview, White said, "a lot of [the writing] was done in England. And because of COVID, Billy Sherwood and myself couldn't get that involved in the writing because we're on the west coast of America."
I asked Paul K. Joyce [...] to do some arranging on that song [...] I said, “Here’s the bit: When we sing ‘rearranging, rearranging,’ you’re off. You go in there.” Paul wrote that synopsis, almost, of the themes. One of the keys to that song which gives me a certain buzz, being a bit of a chord maniac: Most times you hear the theme that I play, it’s in a different chord or structure. One time, it’s no chords at all — it’s a drone. It’s major sevenths; another time, it’s a mixture of jazzy chords. Later in the song, you get the tune again, and it’s flatted fifth, and then you get back to the major sevenths.In an interview conducted late Jul 2021, Howe said, "the goal here was not to copy, reproduce [...] anything Yes has ever done before." He later said, "This [the album] was a very adventurous thing to do." He also explained the plan for the album: "Let's have all fresh material, nothing hanging over from the past." He said that most of the album was written before COVID. Comparing the album to Heaven & Earth, Howe said, "I can tell you that on Heaven & Earth... we don't even mention that album, because he [Jon Davison] could not really get himself established as he wanted to and... Basically, all the past is history [...] He has matured, he's singing his own way [...] he's come to the fore, and he's really produced some great vocals [...] "Future Memories" is, is a really, really soulful song [...] All the tracks, Jon is excelling on. Sometimes he does all the harmonies, sometimes it's Billy, sometimes it's me, or I do duet vocals with him on quite a few tracks". Howe also praises Davison's guitar playing on The Quest. In this Sep 2021 interview, Sherwood picked "Future Memories" as his favourite on the album.
Howe [...] says via Zoom [...] that Inside Out Music chief Thomas Waber reached out during 2019 to see if Yes was ready to make a new album, and the guitarist and Davison met in Sussex to start writing material. “I put myself forward to produce, ’cause I was tired of handing it to someone who sometimes didn’t full know what this band was. That’s always a mistake. This time I said, ‘Look, if it’s going to get my full commitment then I’d really like to produce, because I think that’s where we’ve been misled before.’ The others agreed, and we were off and running.”He also talked about Squire's death:
Time, Howe says, has allowed Yes to become comfortable with “the idea there could be another Yes record without Chris” Squire. “We don’t underestimate the impact of that, but (his death) was some time back, and we’ve done a lot of work since that happened, and I guess we’ve become a better team [...] a closer team. We’ve suffered. That was what we had to contain. We had to get things in a mode where the mixing and the bass playing in particular was credible and satisfactory, but more than that, that it had respect for what’s come before and taking the styles of all the past members of Yes and conglomerating them into sort of a new Yes. That was my goal.”Howe said in the Sep 2021 article in Northern Life:
My contribution to the album was all written before Covid[,] and by the end of 2019 I'd started showing Jon [Davison] those songs. We'd already recorded Damaged World and Future Memories before Covid and then, as the dreaded lurgy came, we thought 'Ok, this is a means to an end.'In an early Oct 2021 tweet, the Gottliebs gave this quote from Howe: "All the songs that I contribute were written before COVID. In fact, most of those guitars were recorded by the time February [2020] came around. I had finished six songs, three of which are on the album." What these other three songs are, or what might happen to them, is a mystery. In a May 2022 interview, Howe was asked, "Writing for Yes and writing for your solo albums, do the two require a different headspace?" He replied:
Curtis Schwartz's studio in Ardingly was the headquarters of the steering of the files and the building up of the tracks and accumulating our whole album of music. We may have done it quite similarly even if we hadn't had the terrible disaster but it was the only way.
To be totally honest with you, not really. Initially I just write, and I am not even thinking where it goes. I like to not have any idea as to where it is going. I simply follow the course of what this music says to me. However, as the time has gone by, and particularly with our last album The Quest, when we started preparing that, I did actually write six that I was thinking about Yes. That wasn’t because I needed to or it was something that I had committed to on a publishing deal, it was just something that I thought ‘I could just see if I could get some of these songs into Yes’ (laughter). And that is what happened with Dare To Know, Music To My Ears, and numerous other songs, in particular Leave Well Alone.Howe said more in the Ultimate Classic Rock Oct 2021 interview:
So, basically, I wrote those particular songs with Yes in mind but if Yes didn’t want to record them then that’s fine. It’s no skin off my nose, as I will put them onto another record (laughter).
[Schwartz' studio] was like our headquarters — basically Jon and I started there with a couple days at the end of 2019. I said to him, “I’ve got a lot of songs.” We worked through a few of mine and some of Jon’s, and we got an idea that this was going to work with me producing. I said to the guys, “I’d like to produce, and that’s it. Yes or no kinda thing. [laughs] They said “yeah,” so that went ahead. I tried out my concept, which was the HQ studios and file-sharing. Fortunately Jon has been in England a great deal, and Geoff Downes lives in Wales, which is quite near my studio in the west country. He could come down and do actual keyboard sessions in the room, and Jon could do vocals in the room. We had just enough of that to keep ourselves satisfied. [...] I was able to steer. Not only were they willing to let me, but there weren’t the daily arguments about “Ah, you’ve taken that bit out” or “Why do you want to change that word?” I just kind of went for it and said to the guys, “I’ll do things on some tracks, and other tracks will come at me and I won’t need to do a whole lot.” Some of them did need my perspective of saying, “I like the material, but let’s rearrange it with beginnings and endings; let’s develop this.” I was able to do a lot of development sessions where the guys weren’t there but their songs were. I could help to bring things to it [...] I’ve said on a few occasions that if your producer isn’t coming up with good ideas, get another one! [laughs]In a Dec 2021 interview, Howe said:
I think a producer’s world is very much about the right decisions being made and the right plan — finding the solution to every problem. He’s got to get on with it. [...] when we look at The Quest [...] it was good timing — there’s nothing good about the pandemic, for God’s sake. But the timing allowed us to get a strategy, get a methodology, to allow us to be able to do it.
one of my preconditions was that this should be a happy record. If people are going to be miserable and complain, then I don’t want to do it, I don’t need that.In the Houston Press Sep 2021 interview, Downes said, "We've talked about it [making an album] for years. We exchanged all the ideas before the pandemic, then we had to figure out how to make it." In the Sep 2021 interview with Prog Radar, he said, "We recorded this new album remotely with Alan and Billy in the US, Jon in the Caribbean and Steve and myself here in the UK, it's a nice way of working I find." He continued, "[I]t also gives you the chance to sit back and look at it all. We've had to do that with this Yes album and I think that we've learnt quite a lot by doing it that way. It's a different approach but, at the same time, it can be creative as well. [...] obviously the days of the band being in the studio for months locked away doesn't really exist these days, as they did in the '70's. It's been difficult with having the rhythm section in California, they were sending us files to review on a regular basis. But, of course, we're not alone in that we were all locked down for months on end and we've had to adapt and respond to that as best as we could." In the Spill Sep 2021 interview, Downes put it this way:
So there was something that had to be beautiful about the record. And that was our relationship, because over the last six, seven or eight years we’ve developed a relationship together — a creative trust. And they put that trust in me. [...] I was empowered with their confidence [...]
But then again, I have to have the confidence to stand up and express my opinion. I produce my own records. I know producing records [my own] is obviously easier [...] but this was very special. And I said, it’s not going to be like a Steve Howe production. It’s going to be like a production for Yes
we didn't know when we would record it. The ideas and songs were around before the lockdown started, so we were quite prepared for it before all of that happened[.]He continued: "The classic Yes sound is just something that comes together. Going back to the very beginning, Yes has always had a particular sound, and it is very hard to get away from that. [...] you have to be aware of what you put forward so it has that certain Yes sound to it. That was the key to this album, we wanted it to sound like Yes and be a Yes album. We really wanted to excite people."
It was an interesting way to work [...] Half the band are based in the west coast of the States, while the other half is in the U.K. [...]
They sent us the files. All the files went to a central location, Steve, who is producing the album. He would sift through the ideas, then send it back to you, with comments. It was quite civil and quite easy to do.
["Dare to Know"] was the first track where I said, “Guys, do you think we should [incorporate] an orchestra? Instead of an orchestral album, which I don’t want to think about doing. What I wanted to do was bring in an orchestra occasionally to show the breadth of our love for the textures [it] can bring — as much as a Hammond organ or a Gibson guitar or whatever. [...] Paul said to me, “We can do this. We’ve got the arrangement worked out, but you can do more in the session than what you’ve got on ‘Dare to Know.’” [...] Instead of what happened with things like Magnification or Time and a Word, which was just a swamp of stuff, we picked strategic moments. We found a happy medium of having orchestral work but it not sounding like an orchestral album. I haven’t heard many [such albums] that work.Asked about the idea to use an orchestra in the Sep 2021 interview with Biff Bam Pop, Downes explained:
It was something that was bubbling under. I think Steve had mentioned [...] that he was in touch with this orchestra [...] [The] album [...] very much, it features acoustic instruments [...] so it was a natural development [...] of that [...] There's a lot of acoustic piano on the album, there's a lot of acoustic guitar. This [...] makes it [...] almost a sort of urbane feeling that Yes has gone back to its roots in some ways and so, you know, if you go back to say Time and a Word [...] [the orchestra i]s a big feature on "No Opportunity Necessary" [...] I think that the key thing is for me was [...] having that orchestral feeling of the music already, it [...] really pointed towards maybe having these other acoustic sections that were played by an orchestra.In terms of how he and the orchestra fitted together, he continued:
I'm a very orchestral player [...] I come up with these soundscapes and the layers of keyboards that, you know, I became more known for. So my whole thing is that [...] when I look at the orchestra, I don't see it as a me versus them, [...] but [...] I think it's an addition. [...] I think it's something that, in this case, I'm not saying it would be [...] on any future albums, per se, but [...] in this case with this particular album, I think it's very, very appropriate that, you know, it's on there.In the 500th episode of Yes Music Podcast (Sep 2021), Downes was asked whether the material on the album (apart from "The Ice Bridge") was new or written "years past". Downes replied, "I think [...] generally speaking, they were things that have been bubbling around over the last few years and certainly traded files before [...] So there was quite a big build up to when we started actually putting the album together. [...] I would say probably the majority were of the last few years". He also described Davison as "the driving force" behind the album's lyrics. White said in a Sep 2021 interview: "It was about time we released new songs. Of course, a lot of our time was spent getting over the fact Chris Squire passed on. We did a lot of touring since that time, and I think it was time for new music. Everyone in the band writes all the time, and a new album was a way to release some of that material".
The Quest is a strong album with a common theme: posing the great questions of life and finding that we have our destiny within our own hands. My contribution was all written before COVID and by the end of 2019 I'd started showing Jon [Davison] those songs. On the 1st of November [2019] Jon and I put down the basic ideas of [...] Damaged World (Howe) and Future Memories (a Davison love song, asking what the future holds). That was a test to see if working with the engineer, Curtis Schwartz, with me steering, was going to work. We felt it was pretty good and began sharing music between us, with me being able to make decisions about what Jon felt he could develop. If I liked it, then it had a bit of a roll to it.In the Aug 2021 interview, Davison likewise explained, "Damaged World was the first collaboration for the album that we did in November 2019. Steve and I decided to get together to toss some ideas around, the initial move looking at doing an album. That very first day in Curtis Schwartz's studio, we worked on Steve's Damaged World and a song of mine called Future Memories that I wrote and recorded with my old trusty 12-string acoustic." He continued about the album as a whole: "[T]here might be one leader per song but, all-in-all, everyone was free to contribute and make it a band effort. I thought that was very important and I always try to foster that concept." And: "Usually, people are left to write their own parts."
No, not so much. It was just about what songs were feeling good, and what songs were working together well as far as making an album. [...] Steve was kind of the sieve for all the ideas coming through and really getting on to a production level with whatever material we were committing toHe was then asked how his two compositions, "Minus the Man" and "The Western Edge", were transformed by the band:
[...] But, y'know, I think it's safe to say we're all pretty prolific songwriters individually, so there was no shortage of material. We actually had probably too much (laughs), so it's just a matter of sorting through it all and seeing what's going to work the best
in terms of the arrangement and the mapping out of what it was, musically speaking, it's pretty much the same. That said, y'know, Steve put some amazing steel guitar on "Western Edge" and took it to another level, and Geoff's keyboards on all the stuff that we did together took it to another level. And of course Jon writing, y'know, great words and interesting melodies along the way [...] What was one of the most important parts for me, personally, was making sure the rhythm section was rockin' and and doing its job underneath the song [...] the band actually asked me to record the drums here in LA with Alan. So Alan and I spent a good 12 days together in the studio, just working on drums and batting ideas back and forth.He talked more about the process of making the album:
[...] the general gist of the melodic content of the song kinda remains what I had sent in. And I think that was what we were really going for was to try to have everyone's musical expression, y'know, and then just make it flower with all the other guys overdubs and their participation on each song. So, y'know, Steve was sending me things that he had done, and Geoff and Jon [...] so it worked out quite well, but it in terms of [...] where it began and where it ended up [...] I don't really produce demos so to speak, but [...] I'm kind of used to making records, so whenever I'm writing a song, whether it's got a home or not, I'm thinking about putting that production into place to show what I've got here, so, to my ears, what I presented and what's there is pretty much intact, but enhanced in many ways. One of the things I was really excited about was when Steve called me and said, 'What do you think about putting "Minus the Man", putting some real orchestra on there?' And, y'know, I thought, wow, this will take it to another level. So, things things like that are what I think a band does as opposed to an individual sitting in the studio […] there's a respect for each other as songwriters, so, y'know, there might be slight adjustments, but there's no major hacking of things out, replacing things without anyone's knowledge.
It [...] feels like we were all there in the same room together. And I think a big part of that is the rhythm section design, the way that that came about, set the framework for the other things to just fall right into place. [...] it's quite a different experience to do file sharing than it is to stand in a studio, with your buddies, and just, y'know, talk music and make music, but nevertheless it's the age we live in. I mean, I've been dealing with that a long time. I make tons of records and I barely see anybody (laughs)Sherwood also talked about the album working as a whole: "It's like walking into, y'know, Star Wars in the middle of the movie and going, 'Wait? What? What just happened here?' I think you need it as a whole [...] That's the way it's meant to be digested".
[....] That said, I'd love to see a Yes record, in the future, made old school [...] Like, we did that with The Ladder, for instance, where we moved up to Vancouver, Canada, for a few months and all had our own apartments, and met at the studio every day, and wrote for 30 days
[...] you could be sitting in the back of the room, just not saying anything, and an idea comes out and you speak it to the room, and [...] it floats or it doesn't, but those moments are not there when you're doing file share. But, that said, [...] it feels like we were all in the same room somehow.
What happens nowadays is that a lot of albums are being done virtually. I just finished a Yes... a new Yes album and it was all [Levin interjects "Wow"] kind of done by passing stuff around on the computer.He went on to say, "It's kind of in the mixing stages. [...] subject to another couple of tracks that, y'know, we've got a lot of material." White said he was hoping for a late spring or summer 2021 release. He talked of 11 or 12 songs and revealed one track title was "The Ice Bridge". Asked what the album was like, he said:
A lot of Yes albums are totally different from the last one and this one's different yet again. I think it will be quite surprising to quite a few people. There's some more commercial kind of stuff on there. [...] But there's also a few [...] way out kind of stuff. It's a mixture.Asked if there are any epic pieces, White joked they don't "have the energy any more" to do 27 minute tracks. He continued, "A lot of it's 7... 5, 7, 8 [minute], y'know, kind of stuff." Later in the interview, talking about writing contributions, he said, "I sent a couple of things in that I think were used in different ways, like intros and stuff like that. [...] A lot of the writing has been done by Steve and Jon Davison. He's [i.e., Davison] written some great stuff on this. [...] The seed started over there, with Steve on his farm in the countryside, and Jon was living in London at that time. [...] So that started the kind of birth of the new album, and then we all started contributing kind of things. And I ended up putting the drums on over in Los Angeles."
I wouldn't say it was in the mixing stage at this moment, but it's certainly moved along a lot in, y'know, recent times. When we have had the breaks in the lockdown, y'know, I've been working with Steve on quite a bit of stuff. And so it's been moving along quite nicely. I think that, y'know, it's obviously much more difficult because none of us are in the same room for any great length of time, due to the restrictions, but, um, certainly we exchanged a lot of stuff originally via, y'know, via the Internet, and sending files to each other, and working out, y'know, how we would put it together. [...] Steve has been very instrumental, I think, in pulling it all together [...] I think it will surprise people. I think it's going to be a [...] very interesting album. And I think the Yes fans are really going to like it.Host Kevin Mulryne asked about the use of archival material with Squire's playing. Downes replied, "I think that's a possibility, but I'm not sure that's for definite. [...] We've not closed the doors on anything at this moment in time. [...] We haven't got an official release date for it yet. I mean, it will have to be mixed. I think there's still more ideas coming in, there's still more overdubs to go on some of the stuff, but, y'know, certainly it's getting to a point where it's taking shape as a pretty extensive album". He also said that they hadn't yet made a decision on the album's title, but that they do "have some ideas floating around [...] But you can never predict Yes."
The Quest didn’t happen automatically. It was about developing as a guitarist and musician. I’m always going towards something that I might not know yet, but that I’m capable of doing. Like in the song Leave Well Alone, there’s a lot of piano and Spanish guitar. [He separately also mentioned playing koto on that track.] I’m into guitar flavours [...] tone and texture – the sound and the application. It’s about pulling out the right guitar at the right time and making it a feature. Like in the middle of the song Music to My Ears, I’m using my [Gibson ES-]175 but there’s also a Stratocaster in harmony. Less isn’t always more; sometimes more is more.He also talked about writing most of his guitar parts on acoustic guitar. In terms of then recording, for effects, he largely used the Boss GS-10 Guitar Effects System and a Line 6 Spider amp.
[...]
[Recording the album i]s a journey. There’s the initial idea, but then it’s a question of how’s it going to sound and who’s going to play what? [...] is the keyboard going to stab on the offbeat? Or is the bass going to drive across the whole thing? All those things aren’t yet known. [...] that’s what’s exciting about new music – there’s an idea, but it’s about finding out what you can do with it.
Sometimes it’s very subtle. For example, if you want to add rhythm guitar to a track: how much distortion you put on it, how hard you’re hitting it, what mic and amp you’re using et cetera – it all plays a part in giving you the sound you want. And that’s what I’m looking for; the right sound at the right time.
Well, we’re not in the end zone yet, but I think that we’ve done quite a lot of work over the months and certainly towards the end of last year [2020], in developing these ideas that we’ve been exchanging. And it’s just really a case of trying to get everybody into one place. Obviously it’s more difficult now because we’ve got the guys in the States, and Steve and I are over here in the UK. It’s not been the easiest way of working, but I think we’ve adapted to the new normal, rather than us all being in one room, which is the historic way that Yes have worked in the past. I think this is a new way of working. There’s been creative aspects that have come up that may not have happened had we all been in that position. But it’s been great. We’re not on the home straight yet but it’s shaping up very nicely.In another interview published Feb 2021 but perhaps done earlier than his Jan 2021 Yes Music Podcast interview, Downes was more cautious, saying, "we've exchanged some ideas, not really etched in stone yet, but erm, there's something that we want to do and we want to put an album out in the future, I think it's just a case of when and not if. I think it's really down to the logistics of getting together [...] we've been at the exchange ideas stage for quite some time now, but erm, when it comes to actually physically putting the stuff down, it's a different matter. I mean we have got some stuff recorded, but as I say it's early days yet."
I’ve wanted to talk about it forever, I get asked about it all the time.In a Dec 2020 interview, White had said, "Yes are actually in the process of making a new album. So that keeps us all busy [...] but doing it virtually, over the Internet, is slightly different". In an Oct 2020 interview, asked how he had been spending his time, Downes replied, "We've been exchanging a few files… um, on a new Yes album. So that's been pretty exciting. [...] it's been a lot of exchanging ideas online". Towards the end of the interview, Downes discussed some of the limitations with Heaven & Earth, finishing, "I think the next one is going to be much better". An early Nov 2020 interview with Downes and White had more. Downes said, "We've been exchanging a number of ideas for Yes during the lockdown, albeit in the virtual world. It's a new way of working, but also interesting in that we are able to remain in close contact despite the geographical separation of the band members." White added, "With the situation with COVID, it's a slightly different way of everybody recording... and doing the album in that way. It's interesting, to say the least. It's less personal, but at the same time, some of the results are great."
[...]
Each album is different than the last and the same thing can be said here. [...] It’s going to be a special album for me, no matter what happens [...] because it will be the first studio Yes album that I’m playing bass. I never in a million years thought it would come to this place, but it is, and that is a very high honour.
I can tell you when I played the basslines that I was thinking about Chris a lot and I wanted to make sure that that feeling of Chris was conveyed into the recordings from my perspective, without imitating him and emulating him. It has those feelings [...]
Everybody has brought their A-game. I’m enjoying what I’m hearing a lot. We’ll just have to see how we proceed [...] and when it comes out.
Babb: We were going to have him on this, this new [...] project that we're doing, but we talked yesterday: he's tied up. They're in the studio right now, so, with Yes.In a Jul 2020 interview, Davison described how touring has been cancelled and "in lieu of, Yes are writing a new album. We're not all together obviously [...] but we're exchanging files and composing for a new album in that way." He continued: "The material's really strong, and everyone's generating a lot of camaraderie and enthusiasm." The interviewer asked about how involved Davison is in the writing. He replied:
Tonar: […] I heard they'd been kicking some ideas around, so...
Babb: They're still kicking. Let's put it that way. I think they're back to the drawing board
I'm quite involved. I sort of feel like the pivotal man at this point. We're early on. We're just constructing and compiling demos. [...] what generally happens is another member will send me an instrumental sort of snapshot of an idea with which I'm able to build on, lyrically and create my vocal melodies. [...] I would say we have about half an album's worth of strong material. But, again, it's all in the early demo stages still.Davison also described the differences in writing this way, saying he preferred going "at my own pace" rather than being in a studio and being "on the clock". He continued: "Normally, we would already be in the studio or, at least, y'know, one-on-one or in subgroups". Asked about the writing process, he replied, "Generally, one person starts something [...] they [...] bring forth the idea and then we all can contribute. And every member in Yes is a composer [...] there seems to be a place within the tapestry of each song for every member to have a voice."
the opportunity to go into the studio – Yes will make an announcement in a few weeks about what we’re tentatively, well not so tentatively: tentative at the moment – but yeah, sharing some songs, looking at material...because, for a good album, there’s no way you can do that quick. Unless you’re on a magic hiatus, like Yes were when we made The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge and Topographic Oceans! [...]In an Aug 2020 interview on Progzilla, Howe said, "We're working on things" and again talked about an announcement in a few weeks. He said they are "sharing some songs" and building up a body of material, but talked of wanting to "tak[e] some time". The Jul 2020 issue (#222) of Eclipsed magazine also had an interview with Howe. Asked whether the pandemic lockdown could lead to a new Yes album being completed, Howe answered that yes, this could be a lucky consequence of what has happened, and there will be an announcement soon. In his Jul 2020 interview with Yes Music Podcast, Howe was more cautious and tight-lipped, saying, "Any talk about new record, I've got to say less about it, and all I can say is that, y'know, in a few months, we might see an announcement coming up of us, y'know, mentioning what might be going on in that period. But, at the moment, I'm not saying anything at all." Issue #111 of Prog (Jul 2020) had an interview with Howe, which described him as "coy and noncommittal" on the possibility of a new album.
But things are much different now, people live in different countries, and there are not so many opportunities, so one has to sort of plan. But certainly, even in my own writing and recording work, this is gonna be a golden opportunity for that, and I daresay a lot of musicians will turn to their recording system and think, ‘well: I could do some more!’
Estamos empezando con ello, hay alguna música ya escrita, poca cosa… Es posible que empecemos a grabar después de Verano, pero hasta 2021 no habrá nuevo disco. No puedo concreter nada más, lo siento.A rough translation would be: "We are starting with it, there is some music already written, a little... It is possible that we will start recording after the summer, but there will be no new album until 2021. I cannot be more specific, sorry."
Howe: I'm not in a position to say yes, certainly in any way at all. I guess what we've been doing is [...] making a concerted effort to arouse material and do a little bit of collaboration. But basically we're still building a sort of pot, I suppose, of things. And until that's kind of there and we've got that sort of worked out, then we'll start talking about that we're actually doing it.In May 2020, Kirkman said on Facebook that a new album is "In the works" and that work has progressed since Aug 2019. In a Jul 2020 interview, Sherwood gave no indication of current activity, but said that Howe was "excited" about the idea of a new album. He said, "I believe there's another Yes album coming at some point." He also talked about wanting to have a "wide berth of respect" after Squire's death before doing a new album, but that now there's been more time, "It's OK to start thinking about it".
[...]
Howe: But until that point, we're not doing it. But as I say, we're making concerted efforts to see what it would be and how it could be. So, it's mildly being processed.
Kirkman: Watch this space! (Laughs)
Howe: Watch this space! (Laughs)
as we did before Fly from Here, and not so much before Heaven & Earth [...] I have a habit of holding Yes back and saying, 'Let's just get this right.' [...] we need a bit more of this kind of thing. So... There's a process going on that, that could, could result in what you said [new material], but [...] I rarely or don't talk about it much until, y'know, it's sort of on the table and the process is coming to a head [...] if things go well, there well could be [a new album], but I think it will have to go through a few more testing times.The Nov 2019 issue of Prog magazine reported that the band have "started working on new material", and quoted Howe as saying, "We're keeping our mouths shut at the moment, but there's a lot of creativity and it's all lining up." In a Nov 2019 interview, Downes said, "when we get going in the New Year [2020], once we've completed the early European dates, then I think we'll start on something, we've been swapping ideas already." (It's not quite clear what Downes means here: the band had announced Cruise to the Edge 27 Mar-1 Apr 2020 and a European leg 24 Apr-7 Jun. So did that imply recording after 7 Jun?) In a later Nov 2019 interview, Downes said, "Certainly [...] there will be a Yes album at some point over the next year or so."
There’s a good chance there will be. We haven’t got all the pieces quite together yet but we’re working towards a direction where we could start to think that we’ve got it. And I think it’s about how much you believe in your own music and how much we believe in the collaboration we have. So, if we’ve got the right vehicles – which we’ve got a wealth of – I think we’ve got to whittle it to the point where we start to think we’ve got it. So, we’re not thinking that we’ve got it but it’s an option!At the end of the band's summer tour, in a Jul 2019 Billboard article, asked about doing a new album, Howe said: "we'll see -- that is the most honest and best answer I can give[.] We certainly still write music. I have a new solo album [...] so I'm obviously writing. But to get the right team writing together [for Yes] is something we hope for. So let's put it this way -- I hope so." In a Jul 2019 interview, Downes said, "There's a fairly large window [between touring] this time[.] That's when we'll start talking about going into the studio and doing some new stuff." Indication that activity may be gathering pace came late Aug 2019: Downes tweeted a picture on 30 Aug of himself and White, saying, "Hard at work in the studio yesterday with my [...] Yes bandmate, Alan White." Downes' wife, Martine, posted the same picture of them to Facebook (since deleted), saying:
Wonder what these boys are up toIn an Apr 2019 review of a John Lodge show in the UK, the reviewer mentioned meeting Davison, "who revealed that Yes are currently writing new songs for a forthcoming album". In response to this report, music writer Jon Kirkman said the band had "been doing that since the end of last year [2018]". In a Jun 2019 interview, done just as the summer Yes tour was starting, White was asked, "Are you guys in the studio right now for a new album?" To which he replied, "No, that's going to be coming down the line."
#yes#studio#working
I’m very good at not making promises that are premature. Basically, in a low-key way, we’ve been getting ready to investigate each other’s music. And if that is very productive, then we could have something pretty good. But we have to feel that way about it. We’ve got interest from labels and things like that, but we’re not taking anything on[ ]board until we’ve got the kind of thing we like. [...] there is sort of hope that we will find good ways of developing new songs, it’s [a] fairly early process. It wouldn’t take much time once we got the space.In another Jun 2018 interview, asked about the possibility of a new album, Howe replied:
We are starting to share things and have some plans, but nothing official. There is a lot of interest, but nothing until we internally have that feeling that we are growing the music together. We may put some time aside over the next 6 months to do a little more of that [...] It has to be right, it has to feel right. We have to assemble an outer shell that helps us make the record. It could be exciting, but there are no actual plans or a date or anything like that.And in a third:
The trouble is, when you’ve got so many albums out that people love, it’s hard making more that they’re gonna love as much. [...] That’s a pretty hard act to follow. Sometimes I felt we shouldn't bother. If we can’t make an album as good as those [it's ambiguous here whether "those" refers to The Yes Album-Tales from Topographic Oceans, or through to Drama], don’t bother. But the other part of me says I make solo albums. I do collaborations. And basically Yes can still make records. We’re not making any promises, but we’re going to look at some stuff after this tour and see how we feel about the music. But you’ve got to be realistic about expectations. [...] The world doesn't move around what Yes’s next album is. It might move around what Coldplay’s next album is or some other band. So I understand that and I think we make albums for our fans. And that’s a pretty good thing.And a fourth had this:
Howe predicts [...] some new Yes music [...] “Later in the year [2018] there may be an opportunity [...] where we can be creative. But we haven’t rushed out and accepted a huge advance from a record label because we don’t want to do it like that. We want to have our music lined up a little bit[,] then we’ll look to how we’ll release it and how we’ll do it if we get that far. But there’s no promises, and we haven’t made a commitment to our public or any business concerns that we need to make a record. We love the support we may get, but basically until there’s music to play there’s nothing more to talk about. Individually we’re gathering momentum but that’s about as much as I can say.”In an early Jun 2018 interview, White was asked the same, leading to this exchange:
White: Everybody's got material. We are trying to figure out a plan – probably won't be until possibly next year [2019].Later in Jun 2018, White said, "I think next year [2019] [...] everybody's got a lot of music ready to record, so next year [2019], we'll put our heads together, come up with something, something new." In a Jul 2018 interview, he again talked of 2019 at the earliest. In a May 2018 interview, asked about new music, Downes said, "Yes, I think it's very important for a band to continue to have a creative output of new material. [...] We're talking about going in the studio in the fall [2018]. There are a lot of ideas floating about and hopefully we'll be able to put those to good use and come up with a new album for next year [2019]."
Interviewer: How do you approach composing?
White: I create on the piano. I have a little stockpile of ideas. I come up with ideas and beats and chord sequences. I'm not much for writing lyrics and melodies. I like writing chords and structure.
We hope to start working on new songs later in [2018]. I think that we`ll approach it in a slightly different way this time as I think we didn`t really have the strength of material for an album at that point [Heaven & Earth] and I`m not blaming anyone for that. If we do another album we`ll be conscious that we have great material that`ll be another point in the history of Yes.In another interview from the same period, he said, "We're hoping to do some new YES material. We've been a bit preoccupied with the 50th anniversary, but there's time for a new YES album pretty soon. It's important that we present new music." While in a Feb 2018 interview, he said, "We're hoping to do some new Yes material[.] We've been a bit preoccupied with the 50th anniversary, but there's time for a new Yes album pretty soon. It's important we present new music." In an Oct 2017 interview, Howe also hinted at a new album: "As to new music coming from the band? well, you never can tell..." And in a Dec 2017 interview, Howe said, "We've got an interim period where we're going to be fairly secretive about what we're up to[.] Maybe we're building up repertoire for a future project, but we can't say. We've got ideas, but I can't say more than this right now." In a late Dec 2017 interview of his own, Sherwood said of the band's 2018 touring, "hopefully along the way, there will be a spark and we'll start looking at making a new album, which I would never be opposed to." Asked about new material in a mid-Mar 2018 interview, Sherwood said, "I would be happy to do a new album. I think enough time has passed now that it's not disrespectful to Chris [Squire] and I know that Chris would have wished us to continue. We could make a new album now, and it would be a positive thing."
[...]
We`ll be spending a lot of time out on the road but we will be fitting in some writing at some point too. We`ll be in The States in June and July so after that we`ll work on some new Yes material
when we came together [...] we would sort of try to, er, combine the ideas, expand the ideas [...] especially Geoff and I, we had a big prog piece, but unfortunately we didn't have time to finish it, so that'll probably be on the next album, and we've got a bunch of extra material too that just didn't make it because of, we had sufficient time for this album and things were just left undone [...] due to lack of time.In the Jul 2014 issue of Prog, Howe, Squire and White all confessed to no knowledge of the piece, but Downes said: "We started it initially in a studio in Phoenix with Chris and Alan — we spent time jamming it and I compiled various section. [...] when Jon came to Wales [...] we worked on it some more [and on "Subway Walls"] [...] we just didn't have time to put it together for the record. It doesn't have a title [...] It comprises about seven or eight different styles of music and is extremely progressive. It has the potential to be a Close to the Edge-style track in terms of landscape and duration, or a Fly from Here. I've got the original demo and I hope to develop it at some point." In a Jun 2018 interview, without mentioning whether it would be on a new album, Downes described the track:
Jon [Davison] came over to my studio in Wales before we started going in the recording [of Heaven & Earth]. And we actually wrote two lengthy tracks, one of which was “Subway Walls” and the other one is still, as it stands unrecorded, but we did a substantial demo of it. And they are both, you know, 10 minute kind of tracks. And I think it was a great way that we worked together on that, because we literally had some different ideas and they just came together, and we put the whole thing together like that.In a Jun 2014 interview with Jon Kirkman, Squire said, "I think some of that [...] longer track [...] is actually used in "Subway Walls" [...] On the other hand, [...] Geoff and Alan both came to Phoenix [...] in November [...] and we went in the studio there and did some instrumental stuff [...] that we thought would be part of a bigger piece, but that didn't actually get used on the album just because we drew a line [...] I'm sure they'll re-surface in the future." In a May 2014 interview with Aymeric Leroy, Downes also described the piece and speculated it could be on the next album. Davison said to a fan after the band's 9 Jul 2014 show that the band "are working" on the piece and that they hope to make it the "centrepiece" of a follow-up album. While most consistently referred to as "Horizons", a rumour early in 2015 had it with a working title of "Pyramids" (with the album to be named the same) and to be ~18 minutes long. Prior rumour had suggested that further material left off Heaven & Earth was receiving some attention from the band for a next album, with several pieces indicated. As well as "Horizons" and "Breaking Down on Easy Street", also mentioned were: "To the Moment" (by O Wakeman, left over from Fly from Here, subsequently released on From a Page); "Midnight" (possibly originally from Squire/White); and "Don't Take No for an Answer" (which ended up on Return Trip). There was also reported to be a Howe/Davison piece and a Squire/Downes/Davison piece. Downes described one piece as having a "Tempus Fugit" feel, although which he meant is unclear. They had already begun work towards a next album before Squire died. Squire, Davison and possibly White met in Squire's studio in Mar 2015 to go through ideas. There is no indication that "Horizons" or any of these other pieces have been used on The Quest. Howe's quote in the press release has all the music as having been written in 2019/2020, which would rule out any of these tracks.
Everybody has ideas and develops songs. Once you get the basic idea for a song, it tends to take hold and then everybody contributes different pieces of music and certain lyrics and things like that. Things are tossed around quite a bit while we’re creating it. It’s something that just sort of falls together because of the people in the band.But Howe in comments on the Cruise to the Edge 2017 was more reticent and seemed to suggest there were no immediate plans. Asked about the possibility of a new album on Twitter, Downes said 3 Mar, "Next year [2018] would be good, 50th Anniversary and all that. Let's see..." It appears White's back problems may have introduced some delay. In a late Mar 2017 Q&A, White said:
[...]
Usually the demos are a one person kind of thing. But when you throw it out there, everybody’s creative juices get involved.
I have many ideas for music. A lot of the stuff I write is in collaboration with other artists including the members of YES. [...] I have things in my mind and demos I’ve recorded. I have a couple of songs that I did with Chris that we’re never released that I was thinking about reviving. It’s an excellent piece of music. Chris came up with certain chords and I wrote the melody. So, I’ve got some interesting stuff like that around. [...] in the back of my mind I have some music hanging around that I want to eventually record. I’m also getting new musical ideas all the time.Asked specifically about when Yes will do another album, he answered:
We all have it in our minds to record another album but it’s a question of trying to find time to get back into studio together. Geoff Downes is on tour with Asia for a few weeks this summer and YES will also be on the road in August & September playing about 30 shows. It’s quite possible we’ll be touring later in the year [2017] as well, so trying to please everyone, it will realistically be 2018 before we can block out enough time to do this. We all continue to write even when we’re doing other things like touring.In his late Mar 2017 Q&A, Howe was also asked about doing a new album:
This is asked quite often. We like the fact that people anticipate and enjoy new music. Much of our focus admittedly is on the great pieces from the 70s and around that era. So we take it slow.An Aug 2016 report had that Howe, Sherwood and Davison have been writing together, with Feb 2017 as a possible time for joint writing sessions. A Sep 2016 report from a different source also had principally Howe, Sherwood and Davison writing together, with Downes also contributing, and said that material was coming together. Asked in a Nov 2016 interview about whether there will be a new album, White said: "Everybody's got music in their minds. [...] we do stuff at home [...] you've got to get that stuff out of your brain and get it recorded. [...] Everybody's very enterprising in that area." He went on to say that it is important for the band to keep doing new material. Asked whether he and Sherwood had "gotten in a room and tried to create new music" in a Jul 2016 interview, Howe replied:
I tried to slow down ‘Heaven & Earth’, because I thought maybe we could refine it. But we’ve gotta get some material that we think is really worthy of doing this, first of all, and that’s gonna take a bit more writing and a bit more collaboration.
And there’s every chance that Jon Davison and I will do some more writing like we did on ‘Heaven & Earth’. YES albums are all about collaboration. Not only in the writing, but also in the arrangements because the skill of the great records in the 70s was definitely that we arranged the hell out of something that was really quite innocent. We’d drum it up to be something. And I think that allowed the musicianship and the ideas to flow.
Well, kind of. Officially, we’re kind of moving slowly looking at new material. I’m one of the guys who’s most reluctant to start any kind of rush forward because I’ve been writing and Jon [Davison] has been writing. I’d be very surprised if Billy hasn’t been writing. There’s obviously going to be a pause to look at, at some point, but I think we’ve got our work cut out for ourselves pretty much all year. Maybe it’s a thing we’ll do after our cruise next year in February [2017]. We may, but that’s only just a “may” because we still need to be sure about what we’re doing now.In an Aug 2016 interview, Davison talked of writing new material while touring: "I identify and get inspired by being a musician on the road. [...] I find that I get a newfound zeal when we're on tour [...] I'm always jotting down lyrics on tour." He then continued:
[...] You don’t book a record until you know what you’re going to play. With everybody’s demoing the possibilities are endless, but that’s actually part of the problem too, because we’re all very smart-assed people, you know. It is like, “Here’s a track, it’s me, it sounds like a band but it’s me.”
We do that, but actually true Yes records are written with fragments. Keys to Ascension was a good example of that. We didn’t come in and play anybody’s song. We actually kind of did the rehearsal thing and wrote together and that’s very trying and we’re all long in the tooth about that, but that’s one of the best ways to generate what we can call Yes. They are more of a collaborative record, but they take a long time and maybe that’s why we ought to take a long time.
we’ve just gotten to know each other better and the dynamic is more diverse. What I learned from doing Heaven and Earth is that we need to allow ourselves more time as a band. We kind of rushed into the studio to do Heaven and Earth because we were so busy touring [...] so people brought in their own ideas and said “Hey, here’s my idea, let’s work this up as a band and take your idea and work it up.” I’d rather take time to write our material as a group. I think that’s what Yes did in its best moments and that’s what I’d like to carry on doing, if possible.An Aug 2016 interview with Downes had this exchange:
Interviewer: There was a talk of an unfinished longer song with Jon Davison. [see above]In another Aug 2016 interview, Downes said creating new material is "important for any band's longevity". He also described songwriting in Yes as "very much more cooperative, more of a group effort" than his songwriting with Wetton in Asia. While another Aug 2016 interview, this time with Howe, described the band as "not yet planning new material", waiting for White to record and, as Howe said, to make sure "we've got the right kind of music and mindset to do something". In a Jun 2016 interview, Howe was asked about doing a new album: "we have tremendous interest from labels and people [...] we're certainly not saying we'll never do it, but [...] there are a few criteria that Yes should hit. There's no obligation that we do make another record, but there's no reason why we shouldn't. [...] if we're going to, we've got to decide what kind of record it is, because, obviously, something like Close to the Edge is really worth making, y'know, Close to the Edge 2, but it wouldn't be if it was a pastiche of Close to the Edge, but if it was something as inventive as that. It takes a very inventive band, takes a lot of skilled engineering and production and, and we most probably have some of those [...] strengths available, but [...] it's about getting there, um, and it's about making the decision when we do this [...] [F]irst and foremost it's about having some exceptional songs and [...] that is the make-or-break-it [...] [W]e've got to hit some pretty big bars to get another record, but certainly we love the interest, but we're certainly not going to rush anything. So, therefore, if you wait, you'll find out the answer. [chuckles]" The interviewer then asked whether it "becomes impossible" to make a better album than your previous works after a long and successful career. Howe replied by saying he felt he was still developing as a "guitarist individually", and then said: "[W]hat it would take is that internal creativity again [...] I don't think you're ever too old to do this, but how you get picky enough, and how you get clever enough to realise... honest enough, most probably, to, to really collaborate, that's a skill... that might be something that you're more prepared to do when your 20 or 30 and less prepared to do when you're 60 or 70. [smiling] So, I can't deny those things play in. But I don't think they're actually an obstacle. They could be an ingredient that you've got to work round".
Downes: Yes that’s still there, it’s not completely on the back burner.
Interviewer: So is new YES music maybe in the plans for next year [2017]?
Downes: I hope so yes, I think it’s always good to do new music, it enables the touring to have a different angle, I mean we’ve been doing The Album Series for a while now but when you have a new album out it’s always nice to throw in a couple of the songs. [...] it not only keeps the fans interested I think, but it shows that we’re not just prepared to sit back and play the part, we always think about the future.
There are no plans, no, no. We don't have plans to do that. We have offers. We have other people wanting us to do it. Er, we're always being encouraged if you like, but when a band is ready to make a record — and we weren't necessarily when we made Heaven & Earth — when a band is ready to make a record, it knows and it has the audacity and the confidence to know that it's doing something really great and I think that's a calling that I'm prepared to wait for. But as members collaborate a little, they might get an idea, they like this song [...] but when you look at an album, it should be about 30 to 40 to 50 minutes long, so you need a few songs, y'know, and the standard and the excellence they should be at if you're going to honour what we've done beforeA Mar 2016 interview raises the possibility Howe is working on material that could go towards a new Yes album. The text reads: "he's continually writing and recording ideas, any one of which might possibly end up on the follow-up to 2011's Time [...] or perhaps as part of a new track for Yes. "I think it is a need that I have, a need to invent music in order to feel that I am a guitarist…"" In an Apr 2016 interview, published in Dutch, Howe had this on the topic:
Het maken van albums is trouwens helemaal niet zo spannend als het lijkt te zijn. Doe dus maar geen moeite om me te vragen of we een nieuw album gaan doen, dat zien we dan wel weer. Als we een paar dingen kunnen vinden, de juiste nummers, de juiste arrangementen en de goede locatie voor de opname, maar ook een producer die bij ons past en die er om de juiste reden is. Maar daar zijn we mijlenver van verwijderd, weet je, we hebben absoluut geen haast. We hebben sowieso geen tijd op dit moment om er te veel over na te denken. Jon [Davison] en ik zijn gewoon doorgegaan met schrijven, dat is normaal. Hij is bijna altijd aan het schrijven. Maar om uit te zoeken welke richting we uitgaan, dat is nog helemaal niet aan de orde.That is, Howe and Davison are continuing to write material and Howe says he loves making new music, and the band may do a new album if they find the right material that meets the standard and the right producer, but they are a long way from doing so and not in any hurry.
[...]
ik kan niet veel meer toevoegen dan op een andere manier te zeggen dat als we materiaal kunnen vinden dat aan de norm voldoet, dat we dan misschien iets hebben om over te praten. Maar ik hou van het maken van nieuwe muziek en men zou verwachten dat het heel makkelijk is om dat te doen met Yes, maar dat is het niet, weet je, het is een groot project, het is een verantwoordelijkheid. Maar er is veel interesse dus we hoeven niet ongerust te zijn.
I’m always into making new music [...] That said, YES runs at its own pace. I’m not trying to come into this situation and jump into the front seat and grab the wheel, I’m very much a team player when in bands, A team member with strong opinions musically but never the less, part of a team working as one. That said.. with regards to YES I’m along for the ride right now, so if that vehicle starts heading towards a new album, I’m obviously extremely happy and excited to contribute and do whatever the band would like me to do with it and I have a ton of ideas about things that could go on and how to do things differently while maintaining the essence of that core YES feeling. [...] I’d love to make a new YES album and I’m ready willing and able at a moments notice to do so. On a personal note…. I believe in the band so much so that I could see a huge renaissance if you will by making a great new exciting fresh YES record and then touring that record.In May 2016, in comments to a fan during the band's European tour, Sherwood indicated that a new album was inevitable, but that it was still early days.
I really can't comment on that. We're not wholly sure. [...] we're not interested in doing it very soon. The last record was quite difficult and we have to learn from that. It could be years in the pipeline. It certainly would be a huge mistake to make some quick record and put it out [...] because we've got something really tricky to live up to, it's called things like "Close To The Edge" [...] I would say [...] we better not do the wrong thing. Therefore, to do nothing is a lot safer ground, to move along slowly, until we know a bit more.In another Aug 2015 interview, Sherwood revealed that, around May 2015, before learning of Squire's ill health, he met Squire, who asked him, in the words of the article, "to take an active role in a planned Yes studio album". Sherwood said: "These were the things we were speaking about - making a great new album and trying to revive Yes on a level that would mean something to the world in a big, big way." It appears Sherwood was to have produced. Another Aug 2015 interview with Sherwood has more on those plans and the future:
That’s the beauty of Yes, [i]t doesn’t relent [...] A lot of the heavier conversations I was having with Chris toward the end were about his desire for this thing to go forward. He kept reiterating that to me and I kept telling him, ‘Yeah, I understand that but we[']re going forward with you in it. I’ll produce it. But you’re going to be the guy playing on it.[’] He kept telling me, ‘No matter what happens, Yes needs to continue moving forward and make great music. So promise me that that’s something you want to do.’ And I have to keep making music. It’s just what I do. [...] I’m a fan of the band and I want to see it thrive and that means new music.In this interview from around Dec 2015, the interviewer says, "I have to assume there's another Yes album in the works." Sherwood replied:
I do too; and with that we’ll just see where this goes. But I don’t think Yes is done producing new music. I am known for being one who pushes forward with new music and the band wants to, I’m sure, move forward too. It’s just a matter of the timing and when. [...] with Chris’ passing it’s very fresh for everybody so it’s not necessarily a topic going on right now. But the evolution of Yes is always about new music. It’s not just about touring. [...] I would love to make a statement with this band that shows vitality and forward thrust.Asked in a Mar 2016 interview, Sherwood said:
I'm about making new music, that's what I do. I make a lot of it and so making new music with Yes is something that I'd love to do. That said, Yes runs at its own pace [...] I haven't re-joined the band to become a dictator and set everybody's schedule the way I would like it to be [...] I just go with the flow until we're ready to make new music and at that point, turn the faucet on and let the water flow, so to speak.One of the interviewers then raises Howe's comments saying there are no plans, but speculates that Howe could readily change his mind "when the moment's right". Sherwood responded:
Well, I mean, er, I think that everyone is capable of changing their mind about things depending on the situation, and I know that, y'know, with Chris's passing, it's definitely too soon to be rushing into the studio to make another album. But I think for the band's long-term health and prosperity, the path that we're on right now, just playing live and showing people that it's still alive and well and that this is what Chris wanted, the band wanted, I think doing that and getting around the world and showing people, for the lack of a better phrase, proof of life, will tee up the inevitable next record and it will all come naturally when it comes. But I don't have a problem with people changing their minds about things. [...] Anything's possible [...] had you asked me, do you believe you'll be the bass player in Yes in 2016 next to Steve Howe, y'know, I probably would've said no, because it's no mystery that, y'know, Steve and I have worked closely together and have been [at] odds at times, y'know, I think we've produced some great music through all that and I think that's what Steve really respects the most. He's a man who says what he thinks and I appreciate that because at least you know what you're dealing with, y'know. He's capable of changing his mind, but when he does, that's when things will start changing direction. Again, I think it will all happen naturally.Previously asked about recording plans in a Jan 2015 interview from NAMM 2015, White replied, "we've all got music [...] revolving around all the time. We've just got off the last album right now and [...] so, no, we're just laying back, smelling the roses a bit and then we'll be back at it." In a Nov 2014 YesFANZ interview, asked what he will be doing in the band's downtime until summer 2015, Davison said: "a lot of creative ideas that I want to get down on record – just to record some demos and things and it's a good window of time to get back into the studio and my wife and I have a campervan [...] we can head for the hills, we can go into the forests and I can write there." (However, he did not specify what this writing would be for.) Later in the interview, he specifically talks about Yes's future:
[Heaven & Earth] was done in such a pushed and rushed sort of fashion that we didn’t get to collaborate as much as a collective, there was definitely a one-on-one [...] which was very productive and that was a wonderful experience [...] but what we would like to focus on for the next one is collectively coming together, actually being in one room at the same time and creating the music as a unit. [...] Basically just jamming it out and recording it and piecing it together that way, that would just be great. I think that would give it a whole new roundness and really expand [...] what we could do. [...] I want to have more time to explore as they did in the earlier years and really stretch things and see how far out on a limb we can go and of course you need funding to do that (laughs) …….. so we will see if we can actually make that happen in the practical sense as well.Asked about whether there is a possibility Billy Sherwood would produce a new album, Davison replied, "I would say so. Yeah. Definitely." He also said he would like to work with Horn at some point.
The whole landscape has changed. If everybody who ripped off our album were prepared to give us two months' work of their lives for free, then maybe it would be a very well-balanced situation. [...] They’re taking more than two months – but let’s just whittle it down to two months’ studio work [...] So the reason why we do this has changed a lot. Some people in this band might say that the reason why we do it is because we’re musicians and we’re supposed to make new music. But that’s a bit blind. That’s a little like a mouse saying, ‘I’ll walk across this road even though there’s a cat on the other side.’ [Laughs]Early years archival release
[...] It took me a long time to decide that I would agree to do [Heaven & Earth]. [...] The Rolling Stones, The Who, Aerosmith [...] they make records and they don’t even chart! [...] some of the biggest bands in the world. Yes needs to learn this. [...] [It] is a very, very different scene, and it’s [...] mostly due [...] to the internet. People got the needle about labels making money, but they have to because they have to print, distribute and promote the record, and give us a lousy percentage. Yeah, I could moan about that.
But now we’ve got the situation where people take the music for free [...] it does hurt. It does grieve me that our rights and our copyrights are abused all the time. And yet, we’re stupid enough to go and make another record, which immediately is put on the internet by somebody.
[...]
So the inspiration is quite different. I make time, I make my Homebrew series, I’ve done records with Asia – I do things for quite a few different reasons. But when it comes to a high-profile group like Yes… It’s a very complicated question you ask me.
I think something will be coming out on Warners this year [2018] that will be a historical view of Yes. That`ll be a nice release for Yes fans. They generally try to get everything that comes out so we`ll make sure it`s something really special.Trevor Horn also mentioned a Warner release. One report from the London Fan Convention (24/5 Mar 2018) had that the Warner retrospective would not include anything not previously released.
I did a compilation for them featuring songs recorded all over the world and picked out all of the best versions of all of the great songs and they turned around and said it was going to cost so much money to get licensing that they wouldn`t be doing it. I wish they`d told me that a few months ago before I`d done all of the work pulling it all together. They said they were just going to put another best of album but we already have several of those. I wanted to do something a bit different but the label just didn`t want to do it which was a shame.So, I think that was implying a release was coming out, but which was not curated by Anderson...?
LP1, side A: |
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From a Page tracks:
Asked if there are any more unreleased tracks from these sessions, Wakeman said, "There are the demos and a few bits and pieces but when Steve and I met to discuss the project we decided it should be a proper record of finished pieces and not a mixture of finished pieces and demos." Wakeman is also interested in doing a version of "Aliens" (played live with Yes, but later released by Squackett). |
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Panegyric re-release
series (with remixes by Steven Wilson)
Panegyric re-released a series of Yes albums: in order, Close
to the Edge, The Yes Album, Relayer, Fragile
and Tales from Topographic Oceans. The releases included
bonus material and new stereo and 5.1 Surround mixes by Steven Wilson
(Porcupine Tree, No-Man,
ex-Blackfield, worked with Steve Hackett, Ian Anderson,
Marillion, Theo Travis). The new stereo mixes were then
also released on the 6LP The Steven Wilson Remixes
(Atlantic Catalog Group). The Steven Wilson Remixes has
also seen a digital release.
There was talk about me doing “Drama”, an album I really love and that would sound great in 5.1, but not all the members of that line up are keen for the album to be remixed—which is totally understandable—and I wouldn’t want to do something without the band being behind it.The one band member opposed to Wilson doing Drama could have been Downes judging by this Sep 2015 tweet: asked if Wilson would be doing a Drama remix, Downes replied, "I bloody well hope not!" Although in a Jul 2014 interview, Downes said, "I would like to hear Drama in 5.1, the album was heavily overdubbed at the time, and so it would reveal a lot of detail". But, in an Aug 2016 interview, he said the multitracks for Drama couldn't be found, also saying, "I know Steven Wilson does a very good job" of the 5.1 mixes.
In an Aug
2015 forum post, Wilson said:
I believe that the multitrack tapes for Going for the One are currently [missing]. First 2 Yes albums I would think unlikely, not enough potential sales...etc But never say never.
And then:
I really hope Tales and Drama will eventually be done, they are (perhaps somewhat perversely) my 2 favourite Yes albums
Preliminary work for a Going for the One release was
done. In an Apr 2014 interview, Howe was asked whether it is
"open-ended that as many of the catalog masters you have in hand"
will be included in the series, he answered, "I don't think we
should say yea or nay yet, because there could be logistical
things or even a question of taste." On this latter point, the
interviewer teases out that Howe is referring to Tormato.
Howe goes on, "It's not that it's dreadful; it's just that we
didn't quite get it right. I don't know if a remix would make it
right, but I really can't say because I don't think it could,
because if you're going to be true to the original, then you have
to base it on the original."
Asked about further archival releases on the 2015 Cruise to the Edge, Howe also said there was
plenty more in the vaults.
Cruise to the Edge
Cruise to the Edge (Facebook)
is a series of progressive rock cruises that have featured and
been co-organised by Yes, and run by music cruise company On the
Blue. A 2020 Cruise was planned for 27 Mar-1 Apr, but was
postponed because of COVID-19. Yes, as usual, were to headline.
(In a May
2021 livestream, Davison and Jordan Rudess
(Dream Theater) mentioned that they had been planning to
do something together on the Cruise.) There had been planning
towards a 2021 Cruise too. Instead, Cruise to the Edge ran 2-7 May
2022 (with tickets for the 2020 cruise carried over) on the Royal
Caribbean Mariner of the Seas, but, for the first time,
without Yes. Headlining were Marillion, Alan Parsons, Al Di Meola,
and Transatlantic. Also appearing were Dave Kerzner and his All Star Prog Band
(including Billy Sherwood), District 97, The Flower
Kings, Adrian Belew, Nektar, Lifesigns and more. (Steve Hackett,
Glass Hammer and Stick Men were announced, but had to withdraw.)
Jon Kirkman again hosted.
we created the brand, Cruise to the Edge, and we got something that’s quite palatable, quite manipulable. That isn’t to say that we’re going to keep doing it, we don’t know. Each time we do it, it is a test. “OK, are we going to do it again?” They always want us to commit to another one, but it depends on how it goes.On tour
We had planned to play all of Relayer when the pandemic struck.The release continued, "A full performance of the "Relayer" album will now be featured in a future tour in The Album Series." It is expected that, in due course, we will see UK dates attached to the 2023 European leg as well. On this Jun 2022 leg, the band are also expected to play some material from The Quest (a Mar 2022 rumour said at least 2 songs). 2023 will also be the 50th anniversary of Tales from Topographic Oceans. In a May 2022 interview, Howe was asked if they would therefore be celebrating that album as well on tour in 2023. He replied that they may play some of the album, and he would like to do at least a side, but they won't play all of it.
But we felt it was too big an ask to tackle Close to the Edge and Relayer on the same tour.
We want to perform at the level Yes fans expect from us.
I think that [...] some of the more delicate tracks on there will [...] you know [...] amidst some of Yes's more powerful big fanfare type songs like "Parallels" or something like that, is to put one of these songs in there after it [...] in a way that we did with, say, I suppose "Madrigal" [...] It's a nice little release from some of the great full blown Yes sounds [...] [I]t'd be nice to open with [...] something like "The Ice Bridge", which has got a big powerful entry [...] We're not going to play the whole album. You know, there's nothing worse than trying to turn people on to an entire album in a live setting when they come to see see you play Yes's big hitsAsked what one Yes song, other than from Relayer, that he hadn't played live that he would like to do, Downes chose "Mind Drive". In another Sep 2021 interview, White picked out "The Ice Bridge" and "Minus the Man" as good songs to play from The Quest live. Likewise asked whether they will play some of The Quest on tour, in the Aug 2021 interview with The Progressive Aspect, Davison replied, "I think we will. Steve's so happy with the album. Everyone has been so inspired and there's such a camaraderie and sense of unity among the band members, I really think it's gonna be something we want to celebrate and share with audiences." In an interview with Aymeric Leroy, Davison said he would like to play "A Living Island". However, in a Sep 2021 interview, Davison said they hadn't yet made any choices as to what to play. In an Oct 2021 interview, Downes said he would cover any orchestra parts in The Quest in live performance. In the May 2022 Yes Music Podcast interview, he implied they would do "a couple of" pieces from The Quest. In another May 2022 interview, he talked of "a few" tracks from The Quest and "a lot of other little bits and pieces, some tracks that have never been played or not been played for a long time". In a Jan 2022 interview, White said, "We are really looking forward to taking the new album out and playing it to our fans."
I’d say, very tentatively, that Yes has a quest that’s all encompassing. It’s never been a band with limitations. So there’s no reason why it couldn’t include some of this material as well. It’s been dabbled with a little bit along the way. Back in 1976 we each played songs from the solo albums [...] Maybe we could do a very select show where we could incorporate our outside work, much like Asia did, very successfully, when we re-formed. Everybody [in Yes] has things they’ve done outside the band, so it’s something that could be considered.The 2020 Cruise was to run 27 Mar-1 Apr 2020, but was postponed. (There was already prior planning towards a 2021 Cruise too.) Yes were to headline and to play five dates 19-25 Mar of the south-eastern US before the cruise. These tour dates were also cancelled. On 15 Feb 2020, Sherwood posted to Facebook a video of him rehearsing "Sound Chaser", saying he was "preparing for this next YES touring cycle which starts in Florida." While that implied that song was to be in the set, in a Feb 2020 interview, Howe said the leg "won't have any Relayer".
We’ve become more interested in really looking at the original recordings as much as possible, taking everything we can from them. There are obviously compromises we might make, but that doesn’t really matter. What we’re interested in is giving a sense of realism to it. Without that realism, we might as well not even go and play the right notes. [...] and I think that’s brought together with improvisation.As for future set lists, another Jun 2018 interview with Howe describes the situation thus:
After all, a solo is a solo, and you can play what you like. [...] There’s got to be some freedom. But again, it’s nice hearing the raw, core tunes that call in that solo.
After bassist Chris Squire’s death in 2015, Howe inherited the job of putting Yes’ concert set list together. “I make a set list generally with two considerations. There’s gotta be some challenges; There’s got to be some things we haven’t been playing in the last two years or so. [...] you’ve got to go do some homework at home. But the other thing is we’ve got to make it possible. [...] our set list is generally a mix of challenging new things -- or new in the context of what we’ve been playing recently -- and then some really familiar stuff, but not the same-old, same-old -- although we can’t do a show without ‘Roundabout.’ [...]”
Downes also talked sets in a Jun
2018 interview:
Interviewer: Are there any songs that you personally would like to retire? [...]
Downes: We approach each tour differently. [...] it’d be nice maybe to look at a couple of 80’s era Yes tracks as well. And maybe even something from the 90’s, you know. Well we do a couple of tracks from the 90’s anyway. [...] there’s so much there [...] you’ve got 22 or 23 studio albums to pick material from, that’s a pretty enormous body of work to tackle. But certainly, I’m game to try anything that’s in the Yes catalog.
Interviewer: [...] is there a song or two you wish you guys could play, specifically?
Downes: I think I’d like to just do one of the big pieces from the album Relayer. We did a little bit of that, but something like either “Sound Chaser” or maybe “Gates of Delirium,” which would be an enormous challenge to actually learn something like that [...] quite a fascinating challenge to do that.
In a Jun
2018 interview of his own, White said, "we tried not playing
"Roundabout" for a while. We got so many complaints because we
didn't play it, we've been playing it ever since." Asked in the
Yes Music Podcast about YesWest material, Downes replied, "that
would be something a lot of the fans would appreciate [...]
certainly I think Steve's up for doing some of it". Asked about
the possibility of performing "The Gates of Delirium", he began
by remarking on the challenge of doing so, but continued,
"everything's possible […] Whether or not we do it next year
[2018], I don't know. We might do it the year after [2019]. We
might even at some point attempt the whole of Relayer. That's... that's
something that has been put forward. I think in terms of it being
the fiftieth anniversary of Yes that the focus is going to be more
on a historical view of Yes's music rather than any specific
albums". In his Mar
2017 Q&A, White had said, "we plan to play the entire "Relayer' album in the UK next year
[2018]", but he backed away from that by this Aug
2017 interview: "I think next year [2018] should be a really
good selection of songs from every era. We actually thought about
playing the whole "Relayer" album,
but I think that would be too much for the kind of show it should
be next year [2018] for our 50th anniversary." In the Feb 2018
issue of Eclipsed,
Howe also said they wanted to play all of Relayer but described
this as challenging to do. In the mid-Mar 2018 interview, asked
about whether Relayer
is a possibility for summer US dates, Sherwood replied, "You never
know. I've been lobbying for that for years now as it's one of my
favourites. [...] As of yet it's not been spoken about, so we'll
just have to see what happens." Sherwood in a Nov
2017 interview said he would like to play "The Gates of Delirium" and
"On the Silent Wings of Freedom". Asked in his matching
interview what songs he would like to include, White
mentioned "America",
"Awaken" and "Mind Drive"; he implied that, with
Kaye present, they would do "Yours is No Disgrace". In the
#YES50 tour programme, out Mar 2018, Downes said, "I'm excited
about taking on the Relayer
album". At the Jul 2018 YesFanFest, Howe
was asked about doing Relayer
in 2019 and replied, "Maybe". In an Aug
2018 interview, asked what songs he would like to do,
Davison picked Relayer
first, then saying, "I'd like to bring to the stage all of Tormato and Relayer
and make the '70s Album Series a complete thing. Beyond that, some
of the '80s and '90s material." He then mentions "The More We Live—Let Go"
and "Shoot High Aim Low". In a Jul
2019 interview, Sherwood supported the idea of playing "Sound Chaser".
Asked how set list decisions come about, he replied:
Asked if there are plans to play any other albums in a Feb 2016 podcast interview, Howe said: "eventually [...] we'll have to play Relayer. [...] We'd need a while to get ready to play that one. We talked about other records and I said Time and a Word one day [...] it's off the mark with America because they really don't know that record." In another Feb 2016 interview, Howe, again talking of playing full albums, said, "we hope one day to resurrect [Relayer]." An Aug 2016 report had that the band have discussed doing Relayer in 2017 or 2018. Downes said in an Aug 2016 interview: "We have considered playing [Tormato] [...] but Steve doesn't think it's strong enough as an album. [...] Alan feels the same, it's not got that depth that the other albums have got [...] Relayer is up there as a possibility." Asked what album they will do next, he replied, "We're still discussing whether to do that [continue playing full albums] [...] but with this line-up I don't see us doing any other full album other than Relayer, if we were to do anything." In Howe's interview, he went on to say: "There's other sorts of set lists we mustn't ignore. In other words, I'm saying, ya, I like playing albums [...] but it's not the only game in town, y'know. And there's other sets that I've invented in my mind, and circulated, that do a different... tell a different story. And we've got to be careful not just to tell the same story, oh here's another album." He gave as an example of another set list approach, "Like we did last summer [2015], that was a very kind of friendly [...] set, couple of new songs [...] it was bubbly [...] there are other great, great set lists". The interviewer then suggested doing Magnification tracks. In reply, Howe first talked about prior albums: "I quite like Keys to Ascension studio tracks [...] that's quite a nice era" and after he'd heaped praise on Bruce Fairbairn and his production of The Ladder, Howe said he'd found it "difficult" to pick tracks from Open Your Eyes and Magnification that he's "fully committed to now. Of course I've got enjoyment for them [...] Certainly, as an album [i.e., playing Magnification in full], I don't think so". Howe continued, "There is one track [...] I would single out" from Magnification; he didn't identify it, but said it's not "Spirit of Survival" or "In the Presence of". In a Feb 2017 interview, Howe discussed the band's set and possibilities for the future:Steve [Howe] usually does it, and we have suggestions along the way, but Steve's got a really good sense of ebb and flow in the set. If too many songs are in the same key and they’re bundled up together, he can move them around, and based on tempos and all that type of thing. We sort of just wait for Steve to give us the set list. [...] then [...] anyone’s allowed to throw in their opinions but usually it’s pretty spot on, I’ve found.
I like playing new music. I’ve done 12 solo records over the years – I’ve been delighted to not have to only play old music. But my favorite stuff is definitely looking at Yes.On Eddie Trunk's Sirius XM radio show from the Cruise to the Edge 2017, White said the band had been discussing playing material from Relayer, including "Sound Chaser". He later spoke of "doing some things from Relayer", i.e. not the full album. He also said, "We can't get away with not playing "Roundabout". We've tried many times." Also on the cruise, asked what other albums they might tackle, Howe again said they would like to Relayer (but that it would take "an enormous amount of work to capture the performances on that album"), but he also mooted "Keys to Ascension" (presumably meaning the studio tracks on Keys to Ascension 2) and Magnification. Asked about Tormato material, he was more negative, saying the album "wasn't designed for the stage" but that "maybe one day we will try to revisit it." In his Mar 2017 YesWorld Q&A, White said, "'Relayer' is a hard album to play but we're discussing performing that album next year [2018]." Asked about playing songs from Tormato, he also said "On the Silent Wings of Freedom" would be "a great song to include".
It doesn’t have to be that old – we might come onto the ‘90s at some point and start looking at Keys to Ascension or something. There’s a lot of music that we’d like to look at. But we do get a lot from the ‘70s, and we don’t have a problem.
I think you’re right; ‘The Remembering’ would be an interesting choice [...] But there are also so many other hidden gems on the albums that have been historically been overlooked by the touring band over the years. Talk, Big Generator, Union, The Ladder, & Keys to Ascension also have some killer tracks. How about ‘Mind Drive’ as a suggestion? ☺
In an interview for the Feb 2014 issue of Prog, Downes was asked about doing other albums and replied, "We've never discussed this at all, but it's not been ruled out. [...] I can see the subject coming up [...] But what we don't want to become is a band who just live in the past". He then talked of the possibility of varying tour set lists so that they "do a lot of more contemporary material on one tour and the next time we do something a lot more nostalgic." In an Apr interview, Howe said, "the one that everybody wants to hear is 'Relayer.' But we're not ready for that yet. [It] would be a heck of a challenge. [...] at the moment we haven't got the time or the inclination yet to do something like that."
In the interview
with Vintage Rock conducted around Apr 2014, White put forth
Drama and Relayer as two albums he would like to
perform. In a Jul
2014 interview, Davison said: "There's been talk about any
of the earlier albums up to '90125'". In a May
2014 interview, Squire said he hoped that they will do a
tour one day playing material from the 1980s. He describes as
interesting the idea put forth by the interviewer for a tour
featuring Drama, 90125 and Big
Generator. Reports from backstage on the 2014 summer tour
suggested that Squire wanted to do all of Heaven & Earth,
Howe and Davison wanted to do Relayer, and White and
Downes wanted to do Drama and possibly 90125;
US promoters are said to remain keen on 90125. One report
from backstage on the 2015 summer tour has that Howe and White
would like to do all of Time and a Word, but promoters
prefer Relayer, which might produce a 3-album set of Time
and a Word, Relayer and Drama. In an Aug
2015 YesWorld Q&A, asked what Yes pieces he would like
to play, Sherwood replied:
There are many, but there’s only so much time in a set. As things progress, which looks like they are, we’ve had some successful touring here so far and there’s other promoters and more opportunity coming online – I envision YES being back at a place where it plays by itself for three hours, rather then playing with another band, and at that point with a three hour set that we can fill, there’ll be some other material that I’m definitely gong to be suggesting.
[...] There’s plenty of stuff out there that I would love to dive into, but my favorites, if I could choose – ‘Gates of Delirium’ would definitely be part of the set and so would ‘Tomato’ – a lot of it – I love ‘Future Times/Rejoice’, ‘On The Silent Wings Of Freedom’, ‘Release, Release’.
He also mentioned "Gates of Delirium" in answer to another
question, but added: "but I don't know how far my vote goes just
yet… give me some time!" He is then asked which albums he would
pick if doing the whole album format; he nominated Tales from
Topographic Oceans and Relayer.
Away from the while album format, several comments point to
individual tracks under consideration of some sort. In a Nov 2014
interview for YesFANZ,
Davison talked about the new material in the set:
we have been doing two [new] songs [...] live [...] [W]e were doing [...] 'To Ascend' for a while to start out with but it just didn’t quite stick as well with the ebb and flow of the concert, but we would like to incorporate at one point as much of the new album as possible. We’re all still very focussed on that. We just haven’t been able to promote that sufficiently in that regard because we are down to a 2 hour time limit [...] but we will get more of that into the live context.
[...]
I would really like to do 'Light of the Ages'
Asked in a Dec 2013 interview about playing YesWest material, Squire explained: "[It's] because of the character of the music, and the character of the guitar player as well. Trevor [Rabin] doesn't do a bad job of imitating Steve [Howe], but it doesn't work as well the other way around. I wouldn't really push the issue." Asked about playing '80s material in his May 2013 Q&A for YesWorld, Davison replied, "I think it would be really fun to perform Changes, It Can Happen, and/or Shoot High Aim Low." In a Jul 2013 interview, Davison said, "What I'd like to do is continue it; with maybe Fragile, Relayer and Drama following it up." In Downes' second Q&A, he said, "whilst we are currently focusing on the 70's Yes, there was some great music came out in all chapters of the band's existence [...] Personal favourite is "Changes"", while White said to a fan in Apr 2013 that the band had considered playing the piece, and that he would also like them to perform "Endless Dream". In a Jun 2012 interview, Squire said that White had suggested including "Perpetual Change". In one of the Jul 2012 interviews, Squire said:
Relationships
with past members
The question of a reunion between Yes and Yes featuring
Anderson Rabin Wakeman (which had disbanded by early 2020),
or between key past members and Yes, has always refused to go
away. It appears unlikely. In a Dec
2017 interview, Todd Rundgren, who had recently toured with
Yes, said, "There are actually two versions of Yes. There are
conflicts between members of the band." However, Jon Kirkman
claimed in a May 2021
edition of the Prog Report that "they're all talking to each
other now. There's no arguments. All of the band, all the people
who have ever been in Yes are now talking to each other and on
good terms." In the Oct 2021 issue of Prog (#124), Howe
said, "I like to think we still have contact with Bill Bruford and
Tony Kaye, and I'm still friendly with Jon [Anderson] and the
other guys who are around". In an interview
published online in Jan 2022, Howe said:
Whenever you leave a band, you might stay in touch with somebody, or you might not. The latter says something, in a way: ‘Look, I’ve done that, and we can’t really connect so much anymore.’ It happens.
Sometimes you stay in touch with people that you don’t work with anymore. I never stopped being friendly with Bill, but we’re not working together.
In that interview, he was also asked about Yes featuring Anderson
Rabin Wakeman and replied:
That was just a futile thing they did. When they came out with the idea for it, I actually sent three emails to each of them [...] I said to them, ‘Great. You’ve put a band together. Go with it. Good luck.’ I never heard back from them, but basically that was fine. They had their run. There has to be some competition in life, and they appeared to be what might be called competition.
Basically, in their second year they decided to tack Yes on the front, and some promoters used the Yes logo, which they weren’t allowed to do. There was a bit of a pickle, but fortunately people woke up and said, ‘OK, we won’t do that.’
It was a bit of a difficult time, because it was confusing, not only for the audience, but also for promoters. ‘Is this Yes, or is it Yes with ARW?’ It was a bit of a mess for a long time.
In a May
2022 interview, Howe said, "I love Jon Anderson and I
believe we have an understanding and an immense respect for each
other. But the difficulties of trying to work together are too
great."
In a Jan
2022 interview, Wakeman said he hadn't heard The Quest,
but that, "I am having lunch with Steve [Howe] in a couple of
weeks. That everybody hates each other is a complete myth. There's
a lot of mutual respect between us all." In a Feb 2022 interview,
asked if we still on good terms with Yes, he replied, "Depends who
you mean by 'Yes.' [...] obviously, I am on good terms with Trevor
Rabin and Jon Anderson. I haven't seen Steve [Howe] or Alan
[White] since the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but have the highest
respect for both of them." (So, lunch was postponed?) He was then
asked if he would consider playing with the band again, and
replied, "They already have a line-up."
In an Oct
2021 interview, having previously been critical of Yes for
using the name, Wakeman said:
I have tremendous admiration for Steve for keeping the ship afloat, especially after Chris died[.] There are so many bands these days that have got lineups of which, if people came back from the 1970s and could be reincarnated to look at them, they’d go: ‘Who are they?’
But Yes isn’t the only one. There are so many so many bands like it. And I think if it helps to keep the music alive, then I don’t see a problem.
In a Jul 2021 interview, Anderson was asked if there could be a merger between ARW and Yes. He replied, "Oh, yeah. I'm sure, I'm sure it will happen one day." He then talked about witnessing Chris Squire entering heaven in a dream. The interviewer said that Squire would want a re-union to happen, saying, "You gotta do this." Anderson replied, "We will! You've gotta speak to Steve. [laughs]"
In a Feb
2021 interview, asked if there was any possibility of a new
Union, Tony Kaye replied, "No." He expanded:
I just don’t see it happening. I think the main reason I can come up with is that this [line-up of the] band actually likes each other. They’re all good friends. Everybody gets along. Jay and Alan are close. As a band, it works.
[...] the band works … it may not “work” for everyone, fans. But it just works together. Jon Davison is such a cool guy. [...] They do great justice to the music — I think they don’t want to lose that. Anderson can be a weird guy. There’s a lot of history. That’s really all I can come up with. The band just loves each other and has a great time together.
He also said, "if the band [Yes] asks me to do something in the
future, I think it'll probably happen."
Steve Howe on one side and Rick Wakeman and Trevor Rabin on the
other have voiced the strongest words against the idea. In a Jul
2020 article, commenting on the idea of a reunion, Howe
said, "I don't think [fans] should stay up late nights worrying
about that[.] There's just too much space out there between
people. To be in a band together or even to do another tour like Union
is completely unthinkable." He continued, "What I've done with
Alan, and Chris until he passed, [...] has been trying to build
something much more stable [than Union] and not so
haphazardly sensational [...] Yes is about people who love working
together and can. That word 'can' carries the whole story. That
means compatibility and the same awarenesses about what we want to
do." That said, in an interview
conducted around Feb 2020, Howe commented on his relationship with
Anderson, saying, "Jon and I get on really well now. We have the
history and the friendship. But it's probably better that we don't
attempt to work all the time together – because of this and that.
But nobody knows what the future holds." A Jul
2019 Billboard article quoted Howe as saying that
Yes "has had nothing to say" about Yes featuring Anderson Rabin
Wakeman using the band name. It went on to quote him: "Anybody can
play Yes music; [w]e'd never stop anybody doing what they want to
do[.] Basically I say 'Good luck' to them." However, commenting on
ARW's hiatus from activity in 2019, Howe also said, "we're not
unhappy, so that maybe tells you something."
In an Oct
2019 interview, Wakeman said ARW should not have used the
'Yes' name and that their next tour (to have been in 2020, but
which never happened) wouldn't. He said a reunion would not work:
"I can't see it happening, although I've learned in rock &
roll the word "never" doesn't exist. [...] Let's put it this way,
it's highly unlikely. You've got more chance of Donald Trump
getting divorced and marrying Hillary Clinton." He argued that
neither band should have been called 'Yes' since Squire died: "If
you want my real honest answer, the whole Yes thing is a mess
since Chris died. It's a total and utter mess for the fans and the
people because nobody knows what the hell is going on. Nobody
knows who is in what, who is doing what. It's just one hilarious
mess." In an Aug 2020
interview, he said, "when Chris passed away, that was it for
me. Not the end of Yes music! But the end of the name Yes. Because
Chris was the only founding member who remained throughout [...] I
felt when Chris passed away, that was the time to retire the name,
in his honour and in his memory. No reason why we can't all go off
and play Yes music [...] Steve, myself, Jon, whoever — that's
fine. But the name Yes, out of reverence and respect for Chris and
the music, the name, I think, should've been retired. [...] that's
the reason why, when anybody says, 'Is there ever likely to be
reunion again?', my answer is, well, you can't have one without
Chris." In a Sep 2020
interview, Rabin said, "I heard talk of... an interview
somewhere where there was talk of maybe a [Yes] reunion and that's
something that will never happen, not with me." He continued,
"It's kind of ridiculous. I don't even think there should be a
band with the name Yes without Chris Squire in it." He also said
that the only "remaining legitimate Yes members" were White, Howe,
Anderson, Wakeman and himself, continuing, "Without Chris, [...]
it wouldn't be something that would include me."
White has had a different tone when answering questions on this
topic. In a Feb 2019 interview from the Cruise
to the Edge, asked what he would still like to accomplish
with Yes, White said, "Well, it will be good to, maybe, in
the future, see some kind of union tour. […] I don't think it's
totally out of the question […] we'll see what happens." In a
follow-up interview with Sherwood, told about White's comments,
Sherwood responded, "Wow... he's the great uniter in the band,
y'know. He's always wanting that to happen." Asked about the
possibility of a reunion in a Mar
2019 interview, White said, "I'm not going to say definitely
no. I'll say there is a possibility, but everybody is getting up
there in age now. I don't see it as out of the question in the
next few years [...] I definitely won't say "no." It's a "maybe.""
In a Jun
2019 interview, asked about "bringing together many members
of Yes from the past 50 years", White replied, "I'm not going to
say no because anything's a possibility. Maybe one day everybody
will just come together and be able to do a big show of everything
again, which might be in the future. But as of now, we're just
getting on with this Yes." In a Jul
2019 interview, Sherwood was asked about a reunion, and
answered, "that question's a little above my pay grade [...] from
my perspective I just see us going along this same course right
now because we're a really happy unit moving forward [...] I know
that the fans are speculating about another union-type scenario,
but I don't know. I think it's kind of a long shot, to be honest
with you."
It is Anderson who has been most supportive of
the idea. A Jul
2020 article reports Anderson as being "keen on a reunion".
It quoted him:
It was talked about three years ago, why don't we get Yes back together, it's the 50th anniversary of the band and I said, 'I don't see it, there would be about 15 people onstage, it's too much'[.]
But I had a dream the other week. I was backstage and I realised that's what happens: I'll start the show with my guitar and I'll sing a couple of songs and then Steve[ Howe]'s band will play, then I'll sing a couple more songs and Rick [Wakeman] and Trevor [Rabin] and myself will come on and do something and then all of a sudden we'll all get together and do 'Close To The Edge' and 'Awaken' and Bob's your uncle.
My mantra has always been it'll happen when it happens
In another Jul
2020 article, Anderson was asked about the possibility of a
reunion, producing this exchange:
Anderson: Nobody has said, “Let’s do it.” But I think it would be great to get the Yes band back together. Obviously, it’s not going to happen this year [2020] with the coronavirus, but maybe in 2021 or 2022.
Interviewer: How would it work since Howe’s version of Yes features Jon Davison as the singer?
Anderson: We’ll figure it out. I’m not worried about that part. I just can’t wait to sing on a stage again.
In an Aug 2020 interview, Anderson responded to Howe's comment that a reunion is "unthinkable" by saying, "But he knows that I'm very open, but he has his own pocket decision to take". He continued, "I wouldn't go back into that band because I don't think they're that good [...] They're good! But they're not that good." In part 2 of the same interview, asked if he would sing on stage with Davison, Anderson replied, "Yeah, why not? [....] Of course I would. I'd sing with the band, y'know. I had this dream that I had a guitar and I was going to open the show by singing a couple of songs [...] And now Steve Howe and his band... eh... and I'd sit there [...] and sing along with some harmonies or whatever. And they'd come off stage, and then Trevor and Rick, are you ready yet? [...] And then we all did "Close to the Edge" and "Awaken"." In part 9 of the interview (released Oct 2020), Anderson blamed management for the failure to record an ARW album and then said: "I've left Yes twice and got kicked out when I got sick, I can't believe it, but that was the manager, you know? And I always say, 'Managers [...] don't care.' They don't care that audiences have paid a lot of money to see me sing. They'll put Mickey Mouse up." In a Sep 2020 interview, Anderson appeared to comment on that interview, saying, "I misspoke a little bit about the other band, because as far as I'm concerned, I work with really good musicians, and I expect brilliant things to happen [...] So, Steve and his band? I don't mind, they go out and sing songs that I wrote, and me and Steve wrote - which is fantastic – and keep the flag flying [...] They're very good at doing Yes classics, but I've been waiting for some new Yes classics, you know. It's very hard without me."
In the Dec 2020 issue of Prog magazine, in an interview conducted early Oct, he said, "For me, I am Yes. It's never left me." Talking about the current Yes, he said, "I haven't heard anything that hits me and says, '[...] I'm so happy they've evolved.' It's really great to hear them to the classic songs and Jon Davison's singing well". He again talked of his dream for a tour: "I'd love to do it as a final hurrah for the fans and go on a very special tour." He then outlined much the same plan of him opening with an acoustic guitar, the current Yes playing, him returning for two acoustic songs, and then him, Wakeman, Rabin "and all the others [...] There'd be about 20 of us on the stage all playing Close To The Edge."
In a Nov
2020 interview, Anderson was asked, "Do you think that it's
possible for everyone [from Yes] to get together to make more
music and tour?" Anderson replied:
Yeah, you never know. I’m a little bit like an open book. If they ask me, I will. But I don’t want to change them because I’ve asked them many times to get together and do this and that, and they’ve always been busy. I don’t mind that, you know? We’re like family, and family sometimes are close and tight, and sometimes they’re really not.
Howe guested on Anderson's 1000 Hands
(albeit remotely). After discussing this, a Mar
2018 interview with Anderson has this exchange:
Interviewer: Of course, you'll never get the band back together [...]
Anderson: No. No, it's just one of those things. Life isn't... that organised. [chuckles] [...] For some reason, for whatever many reasons, it's not meant to be. That's OK. I've got things to do.
Interviewer: Yeah. Well, you've certainly got good relationships with everyone and you've kept in touch.
Anderson: Yeah, yeah, you keep in touch and, y'know, like anything, you have highs and lows. Like any family. Because we're family people. We're brothers, all musical brothers. Sometimes you love each other, sometimes you don't.
Later in the interview, Anderson was asked about his "next dream"
after 1000 Hands, he replied:
I really want to do the final, great Yes album. I've got an idea of what it looks like, what it sounds like, but I'm not sure how to pull it off. [...] it's one of those things. I know what it should be, I know there's a lot of people who would love it to happen and I would love it to happen as well.
In another
interview later that same month, talking about Howe's
appearance on the album, Anderson said, "I just called him up and
he said he'd love to play on it[.] I haven't sang with him in
many, many years. It felt really comfortable and cathartic to do
that. We're brothers. Sometimes you don't understand or
misunderstand your brother and want to do different things. I
think that is called a family." The article then raised the
question of a reunion:
“I’m very open to it,” says Anderson. “It’s been 50 years now. You think something has got to happen. To me, a great album has to be made. That’s what I think. I don’t know how it’s going to be made, but the final Yes event should happen. I’ve talked to a couple of people about it and they get it. I really want to do this. I’ve even written eight songs for the record that I’m thinking would work with a full orchestra and a choir.”
Is Steve Howe into this idea? “I don’t know,” says Anderson with a sigh. “Maybe he’ll read this article and say ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ I don’t know.”
A Jul
2019 interview with Anderson had this exchange:
So is the recent Anderson/Howe collaboration on “1000 Hands” a harbinger of a real Yes reunion? Anderson doesn’t say no.
“When it happens, it’ll happen,” Anderson said.
In yet another
Mar 2019 interview, Anderson said, immediately after talking
about ARW, "I've always said it would be nice to do a Yestival and
get everybody together on stage, that's like a magic wand to make
that happen, but you never know in this life." And, in yet another Mar
2019 interview, asked what is the possibility of a reunion
with Howe, Anderson replied, "I don't know [...] If I got the
right phone call, I'd be there."
When Howe was asked by Prog magazine (Apr 2019 issue)
about prospects of a re-union with Anderson and Wakeman, he
replied, "We're happy doing our own parallel things. It's always a
challenge to build the time to work with the people you are
working with, let alone the people you did work with [...] let's
leave it at that for now."
Asked about tensions between the two bands, Downes said in the
Nov 2018 issue of Prog, "Any real direct confrontations
have hopefully been nipped in the bud. As time has progressed it's
become less critical. When they first came out they were pretty
gung-ho—they were making a lot of comments in the press which were
not very pleasant, calling us The Steve Howe Tribute Band. [...]
For the most part, we've attempted to keep the high road and not
get involved too much with slagging them off." Later in the same
interview, he went on: "they do their thing, they've got their own
agenda going on. They're not getting in my face. That's all I'm
particularly bothered about." In a late
Sep 2018 interview, Howe said any re-union is "completely
off the table".
In an early
Jun 2018 interview, Howe said this on the two bands
situation:
When ABWH went out, Bill, Rick and I basically wanted to carry on being called ABWH. We weren't really interested in being called Yes, but there was a contingent in the band [i.e., Anderson] and the management [i.e., Brian Lane] that very much encouraged us to rejoin Yes. Actually, the three of us ended up with nothing. That lineup didn't continue after Union so we lost everything.
ARW came out and they justified their existence. They're ARW. Nobody can deny them the right to do that. Now there's a bit of game playing going on, adding that particular thing [presumably Howe means here the "Yes featuring..." part of their name]. I don't know if they are going to make things more interestingly confusing by calling it quintessential Yes [a reference to ARW's promotion for their 2018 touring].
It's up to them what they do. They're free, we're free. We're tolerant and they're tolerant. Hopefully, people won't go around saying "We don't like those guys." [Anderson in Mar 2017 said, "We don't like them" about Yes] We never said that. We want to be sharing and positive about everything we can generate, which I think is important.
If the fans have got a choice, now, to see different versions of things, then so be it. I can't see a problem.
In a Mar 2017
interview, Wakeman and Anderson both dismissed any
possibility of a reunion. Asked about that in a Dec
2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Rabin replied,
"Oh, I very much doubt it. It's kind of like, if it's not broke,
don't fix it. We've got the ARW thing right now and we're just
loving it. That's certainly where we're at right now." In a
matching interview,
Howe replied to a similar question: "We know the 50-year
anniversary is going to be quite colossal. The Union tour
was popular with many fans, but it would have to be re-thought if
we were considering that. It would need some reinvention. But
that's a ways away." When the interviewer returned to the question
of repeating the Union tour, Howe continued:
As long as its not trying to put a square peg in a round hole. The Union tour [...] [f]or the fans, it was seen in a particular light. But internally, it was complex. [...] you'd have to think about how it could work in a different way. It's nice seeing people play together, but it's really about the mood and the willingness and the love and the sharing. It just comes down to a lot of other things, unfortunately, like business and technical. Those other parts both help and interfere and destruct. A few people have said to me that although it was great to see us together all night for the Union tour, it was really a lot to try and fill your ears with. But I do appreciate that people are thinking about seeing us together, and that's a very nice sentiment.
Some of that was put to Anderson in his Rolling
Stone interview and he was asked whether he thinks
anything will happen to commemorate the 50th anniversary. He
replied:
I'll call you! You'll be the first person I call [laughs]. Like anything, my idea of Yes is ARW at the moment. That's what I feel is the Yes I always dreamed of coming back together with.
In a late
Jan 2017 interview, Howe was asked about the Union
tour, and replied, "It's not something that we know we're going to
do again. Obviously it would need good planning." White was asked
why don't they "go back to Anderson & Wakeman" in his Mar
2017 YesWorld Q&A; he replied:
Well, you know, I’m open to anything in the future. I’m not opposed to the idea of that down the line but I’m part of the YES touring band and it makes more sense to continue with the group of musicians I’m currently working with… we have a great working vibe between us. You asked why we don’t “go back” and that’s really key because I always try to be positive and continue to move forward instead, I want to make progressively new and interesting music and we’re performing great on stage together. I’m happy with the way things are and looking forward to continuing on with the current YES line up.
In his late
Mar 2017 Q&A, Howe was asked something similar. He
replied:
This topic has gone round the houses a little bit. Before we can take on board ideas, there has to be a good line of communication. And as far as I understand ARW aren’t really interested in doing this and we’re most probably not really interested in doing this either.
Now that sounds like a big shut down, but in another way, one’s gotta understand that things aren’t always what they appear. Reinventing the ‘Union Tour’ is not really a concept that anyone from either of the lineups of YES or ARW have endorsed.
So basically, I would say, it’s not foreseeable. I think there’s ways that we can celebrate YES’s 50th year and most probably they want to as well. I think the complexity is unmeasurable by the fans. Those things aren’t easy. It’s not any one person that’s particularly making it difficult, but people can make it difficult and then it’s gotta be done in the right spirit. I’d say don’t hold your breath.
In a May
2017 interview, White was a little bit more positive:
"There's a possibility [of a reunion] way down the line here[.]
The next tour is the 50th anniversary of the band, so who knows
what will happen then."
Relations between the band have not gotten any better since ARW switched name to "Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Wakeman". Howe was interviewed for an article in the Jul 2017 issue of Prog on the subject, using language described by the magazine as "both damning and colourful", but he subsequently asked for his comments not to be used. However, it is also revealed that:
he [Howe] wrote to them before, their tour, wishing them good luck. "That's my true spirit: that anyone can play Yes."
In the same issue, Downes and Wakeman both professed to be
unbothered about the other band, although their language comes
across as rather passive aggressive! Downes said: "We're focusing
on what we're doing [...] We wish them well. We've got no axe to
grind. We hope they succeed. They may have something against us.
If they do that's their problem not ours." Wakeman: "I don't care
what they do. They're fully entitled to do whatever they live.
[...] I have no idea what they're doing [...] It's of no interest
to me. [...] They're not a rival band. They're another lot out
there playing Yes music, same as we are. We're just doing it our
way [...] Good luck to them." Sherwood meanwhile said that he
would go see Yes featuring ARW perform if he was free.
Asked how he feels about the other band touring at the same time
as them, White said in an Aug
2017 interview, "It's quite funny. Quite frankly, I don't
think about it very much. [...] They're doing their thing." In
answer to a similar question in this Aug
2017 interview, Sherwood replied:
It’s interesting and strange at the same time. I haven’t really been paying too much attention to it because we keep staying on our track [...] I’m happy to hear as much Yes music in 2017 from the participants thereof and see the music thriving. There’s the obvious political push and pull that goes on in Yes; it’s always been that way and will always be that way. [...] there’s always much chaos and many moments to have it. (laughs) It’s really not surprising that we’re in this current state of affairs, but we go forward as Yes doing what we do.
On Eddie Trunk's radio show broadcasting from the Cruise to the
Edge 2018 in early Feb, Sherwood said much the same: "From my
perspective, I'm a long-time Yes fan, the more Yes music out there
in 2018, the better. Um... obviously there is a lot of politics
involved, but that's way above my pay grade. I just want to play
the music […] It's all good as far as I'm concerned."
Before hearing they would be inducted, in a Nov 2016 interview, asked about a reunion with Yes if the band get inducted in the Hall of Fame, Wakeman said: "I think there's no chance of us ever reuniting[.] There's not a hope in hell of that happening."
In an Apr
2016 interview, Howe was asked whether it is fair to say
that Anderson will never be back in the band. He replied: "I don't
think that's fair at all [...] I don't know what the future holds
[...] We're just moving ahead as we are. [...] We need
certainties, y'know, we need availabilities, we need, y'know,
commitments and things like that". He was later asked if the band
still has good relationships with R Wakeman: "Well, I hope we try
and keep good relations with everybody, y'know [...] people put
their foot in it occasionally [laughs] But [...] there are always
people from the bands you've been in that you have stayed
closer to and other people you haven't and that very much depends
on who makes any effort and who's got any time and, y'know, how
much you can, so, y'know, it spreads itself evenly across the...
so many members of Yes [laughs] that we've had, besides the other
bands I hasten to add I've been in. But, y'know, um, it's a lovely
thing, y'know, there's a pool of musicians and, y'know, we can
reach out to each other when we want to." In a Jul
2016 interview, asked whether they would work with
ex-members, Howe focused on the current band's plans and said:
"Well, I guess what we're going to do is we're going to try to
contain ourselves in our ambition and figure out how to keep these
things going. It takes a lot of work and a lot of agreement."
Asked in the Dec
2016 interview when he last spoke to Anderson, Howe replied,
"I don't know whether I can reveal things like that. It's a little
bit personal. We've been working in different bands and different
areas for a very long time."
Sherwood was asked in an Aug
2016 interview about the band's future: "Could another
merger be on the horizon? Who even owns the Yes name?" The article
continues:
“All that stuff is above my pay grade,” Sherwood says with a laugh. “Let’s be honest. Did anyone think Yes could survive Chris Squire not being there? I wasn’t sure, and I was the one being asked to do it. But it seems to be surviving and thriving.” The future is “a hard thing to even discuss, because you just don’t know until you get there.”
Sherwood says he tries not to draw “hard lines” about authenticity. “Life evolves and music evolves and bands change,” he says. “We’re losing guys. That’s sad to say, but it’s true. But the music lives on and it’s a testament to the music.”
In an
Aug 2015 interview, Howe was asked whether "Chris' passing
make it any more likely we'll see Yes work with former members
like Jon Anderson or Rick Wakeman in some capacity, even just for
one big concert to celebrate the band's legacy?" He replied:
I'd hate to say no, so I'll say I don't know. [...] From inside it's quite different. We have to try to stay on our course, and if we change something that changes multiple other things, then we don't know where we are. We spent a lot of time in 2008 kind of finding out where we are, with Benoit and Oliver Wakeman and now with Geoff Downes and Jon Davison and now with Billy Sherwood. In other words, we can't open the floodgates without thinking. So sure, we give these things some thought, but until we come to a conclusion, we'd rather do nothing than the wrong thing.
In a Sep
2015 interview (conducted late Aug), Howe talks about
several past members of the band, saying how they met with Moraz
while on tour. He then says, "We have some contact with Jon
Anderson. [...] I think we ought to see this group as sort of an
expanded family."
In an interview
recorded in Apr 2016, White said, "I talk to Jon [Anderson]
[...] on occasion. [...] I call him on his birthday, and that kind
of stuff. [...] Rick, I haven't seen him for an awful long time.
I'd like to see him again, y'know, because we used to get on very
well." Asked if Anderson and Wakeman might ever return to Yes, he
said, "I wouldn't rule it out [...] put it that way, but I think
Jon doesn't want to do these long, arduous tours any more and if
it was, it would be a kind of cameo appearance at some bigger
venues like London [...] or Los Angeles". Asked in an early
Nov 2016 interview whether, in the context of putting on a
united performance should Yes be inducted into the Hall of Fame,
there is animosity between the two bands, White replied: "There's
a certain amount, y'know. I actually talk to everybody, so... so,
it's a matter of other people sorting their opinions out". In the
Dec
2016 interview, Howe was asked, "How do you feel about ARW
being on tour now? Do you think that's a good idea? Are you cool
with it?" He replied:
[Laughs] It's an idea that has every right to exist, as much as ABWH when we were together in the late 1980s. Basically there's room for anybody to play Yes music. We love to hear other people play Yes music. These guys have quite a bit of credibility to do that and they are outstanding musicians, so there's no reason why they shouldn't go out and play. There's not any reason.
Apparently responding to comments by ARW in a number of
interviews, Sherwood posted
to Facebook in early Oct 2016:
In light of current events...
In my view, anyone who puts on the uniform I.E. served playing with Yes, making records, touring etc... deserves respect for doing so (regardless of era), without ending up under a bus. It's my honor to play under the "YES" flag, of which there is only one flying... I have always been loyal to that flag... even at times when I was under fire for doing so (see OYE lol). I know Chris was loyal, as he was the only member to NEVER leave... I'm humbled and honored to now be back in "YES" [...] especially having been personally asked by my long time friend and musical comrade (inside and out of YES) Squire himself, he asked me to carry on in his position in the "band" and so it shall be done. My heart and soul are in it to win it, every time I play those bass parts I'm thinking of Chris and "YES" and what it all means to have had fate guide my life in this most unexpected manner, Yes was my world growing up as a kid. It became part of my career as an adult, a very surreal destiny indeed. With that I will continue to serve, putting on the uniform of a "YES" man once again, and as I promised Chris, I'll give it my full passion and priority... always remembering my fallen hero.
Asked in a May
2016 interview if he could see himself reuniting with other
members of Yes, Anderson replied, "No, just Trevor [Rabin] and
Rick [Wakeman]. That's enough." In an Apr
2016 interview, Anderson was asked about the continuing Yes,
replying: "It's just business, and it's a group of people going
out there and playing music that's very valid. I have a different
perspective on what it is, and there are bands out there
performing Yes music, called tribute bands[.] That's kind of the
feeling of what's going on. That's why me and Trevor [Rabin] say,
'Well, listen if we're going to get together [in Anderson Rabin
Wakeman], we've got to reignite Yes[.]'" In another May
2016 interview (presumably conducted in Apr), Anderson was
asked whether they would reunite in the near future. He replied,
"No, just Trevor and Rick. That's enough." Asked in another Apr 2016
interview how, if he had "a magic wand", he'd like to see
Yes wrap up, Anderson replied: "Create some of the greatest music
in the next 20 years. I'm still Yes, I'm still part of Yes in my
heart and soul. I didn't leave the band, the band went off on
their merry way when I wasn't very well. [giggles] [...]
I've got it in my DNA".
In yet another
May 2016 interview, Anderson said, "My history is intact
musically[.] Yes became a brand and a business deal and that is
not my idea of what music is. Music needs to touch you
spiritually. When it is driven by money, then it takes away the
joy of creation." In an interview for the Spring 2016 issue of Progression,
Anderson was asked if he "keeps tabs on his former band". He
replied: "Not really, no. I know they're on the road. Musicians
need to make a living and that's what they're doing. [...] there's
only two of them left". And in this Jun
2016 interview, he said: "people ask me, "What do you think
of Yes?" I, honestly, never left Yes. Because Yes has been my
life. The band itself are doing what they want to do. I can't tell
them what to do, because it's not my band. They've got the name,
but I've got the state of mind about what true "Yes music" should
sound like".
[Squire] would just always call and be in touch, and we never stopped talking. On numerous occasions since I’d left the band and was very busy doing film work, he called a number of times and said, ‘You know, I think it’s time for you to get up from your desk job and get back on the street.’ And you know, I was always a bit reluctant about, if the band’s going to be called Yes, for it to not have Jon in it. It seemed a bit strange to me. But the prime reason was that I was just so busy with what I was doing and really enjoying it.Asked in a Jul 2014 interview whether there is "an irreducible core to this band, somebody without whom you would just say, let's call it a day," Howe responded:
[laughs] Not really. We’ve all been replaced by somebody at one time or another. What I’m concerned about is that if one loses the idea of the adventurousness in this music — the dynamics that we need to play with that make the sensitivity and the crescendos and the lulls and all those things — if we suddenly think that we don’t need to do that, that we just play the songs, hammer them out, that would be a nonsensing of Yes, really. When we play “Five Percent for Nothing” for the first time ever onstage, we will be showing, if not ourselves, we’re showing the audience also that we’re challenging ourselves. If we don’t, then this isn’t Yes [...] That would be a good reason for you to moan all over the Internet, that Yes have lost the flame to be adventurous and to be musical and to be subtle as well as powerful [...] Subtlety is what Yes is.In the Mar 2012 Classic Rock, Squire floats this possibility, once suggested by R Wakeman around the time of Union:
I really feel that the name should have been retired. I think it was disrespectful to Chris. There were all sorts of stories going around that “Oh, Chris wanted it to continue.” I know for a fact people that spoke to Chris and that isn’t true.In Oct 2021, Sherwood responded to someone posting a 2019 article on Facebook that referenced that quote. He wrote:
3rd person anonymous “people who talked to Chris” ???In an Aug 2014 interview, Davison said:
I can only speak to the 1st person conversations Chris and I had about YES future, which were many within the 6 weeks from him telling me he was sick to his passing. He wanted it to continue... for the fans and the music.
People can say what they like... I know first hand what Squires wishes were and to that end it’s 6 years later and we are going forward just as Chris wanted 😇
[Yes's music i]s similar to the way classical music works. Long after those marvelous composers [...] passed, and the centuries moved forward, their music lives on. It’s not so much about the personality anymore. And people have a hard time seeing that now, because obviously the members [of Yes] are still alive, apart from Peter Banks [...] But it’s so easy to associate the music with the personality, and that causes a lot of conflict among fans. But ultimately, it’s about the music, and just taking the music forward. And there will always be a Yes. And I’m a lover of Jon Anderson as much as I’m a lover of Chris Squire, but you can’t fight it. And when something has that power to it, it’s beautiful, and beauty transcends all of that personality, and it’s always gonna belong, you just can’t put a cap on it and say, “Well, the original members aren’t doing this music anymore, so it’s over.” That can never be. It just can’t be.In a Jul 2012 interview for The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Howe explains Yes's longevity by saying, "[T]hat's the answer to your question: We change[.] We're like an orchestra; an orchestra can change membership." In an interview for the Feb 2014 issue of Prog, Downes was asked how long he can see the band continuing: "As long as people want to see and hear us. [...] If we can get on a stage to play, and the fans still buy tickets, then we'll do it. [...] There's a lot more life in us." In an Aug 2015 interview, White was asked, "Chris [Squire] often joked that Yes could conceivably continue on with completely new members, that the name could just encompass the spirit and go on for new generations. Now that idea seems even more possible." He responded: "[Laughs] I never heard that one, but the music is kind of timeless, really."
Someone asked me the other day, “Do you think the band will ever get to the point where there’s no [classic] members?” And I said, perhaps, because it’s the music that makes it all worthwhile. There are a few Yes tribute bands out there, but not as many as other tribute bands because the music is quite hard to play.In a Jul 2019 interview, asked if Yes could continue on "for decades", "with younger generations", Sherwood answered, "Yeah, I do. I could see that happening. Because the music is so good…it's like classical music [...] Anything that's timeless is always going to be revisited. And while we would love all of the original members to still be alive, reality is that life goes on and we lose people as we go. But the music lives on and I think that's important and I think it will go on in the future." In an Aug 2019 interview, asked whether Yes could continue after his death, Howe said: "I'm not overly possessive in what Yes is. I know that to help Yes you've got to have good ideas so if a guitarist could replace me and add good ideas then I don't see why not." In a Jul 2020 interview, Davison was asked if Yes will continue on, replacing members; he replied: "Well, it's hard to say, it's hard to imagine, y'know, losing these key members, these classic original members. It's possible, but of course we would need their blessing. [...] I can see it happening. [...] I think both Chris Squire and Rick Wakeman in the past have said, Yes will always go on, just like as true, monumental works of music in the classical style have gone on. [...] So, in a way, they have given us the blessing to do so. So maybe Billy, Jay and myself are like Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Animated film project: Roger
Dean's "Floating Islands" film or something else
Yes had had preliminary discussions about possible film
ventures, including one being developed by Roger Dean. In an Apr 2007 interview for Mexican newspaper, Reforma,
Squire said that the band have been in contact with Universal
Pictures about making an animated movie about the band's history
from their formation to the present day, including their more
representative songs. The article makes a comparison with The
Beatles' "Yellow Submarine":
Hace poco la compańía Universal Pictures se mostró interesada en hacer una película de animación en la que se muestra un poco de nuestra trayectoria musical, desde cuando surgimos, hasta la actualidad, incluyendo obviamente, nuestras canciones más representativas. Lo estamos analizando, todavía hay algunas puntos por precisar, como la historia, de qué trataría y cómo se abordaría, cuáles etapas de la carrera se incluirían, las canciones, pero creo que es muy pronto para hablar del tema, esperemos pronto poder dar más detalles. [...]An Aug 2012 interview with the same newspaper, Reforma, raises the idea again, along side plans for a live residency by the band. The article is not specific, but Squire seems to respond that both ideas are being considered, but will not occur in 2012 or 2013. See details above.Son muchos ańos, muchas anécdotas que contar, creo que tendríamos que seleccionar muy bien lo que quisiéramos abordar, porque una película, comúnmente tiene una corta duración, cerca de dos horas y es muy poco para contar tanto, ya casi cumplimos cincuenta ańos de estar juntos.
It is unclear how Yes are or were involved with planning for
"Floating Islands". The film was expected to feature music by the
band. Asked in the Mar 2008 interview about Yes making some music
especially for the project, Dean replied: "all members of the band
have spoken enthusiastically about doing that. [...] That's
definitely what we would like." He goes on to say he would like
both existing and new songs, and discusses the options for either
existing or new recordings of old songs. He talks about both
"Awaken" and "Soon". Back in Jun 2007, Dean had said that Yes are
not currently involved with the project beyond authorising the use
of their music. A report from around 2005 had that the film was
intended to contain 8-12 classic tracks (a re-recorded "Close to
the Edge" was mentioned in one rumour) and at least 4-5 new
recordings. In Jun 2007, Dean confirmed there had previously been
discussion of Yes writing new music for the film and that the band
had been thinking of "re-recording everything" (presumably meaning
re-recording classic pieces), but that there hadn't been any
discussion of new music recently with Yes then being dormant.
Further back, there were more reports from Yes about contributing. In a Dec 2004 Delicious Agony interview, White said, "We're starting to write music for it." In his Christmas Newsletter 2004, Wakeman said: "There are certainly ideas in the offing which include [...] making a film/and/or DVD with Roger Dean involved with all of the visuals which I particularly like, but there is much to be sorted out within the band itself before any decisions". Wakeman indicated that one of their main reasons to prefer the DVD format over CDs is Internet piracy. In an Oct 2005 interview with Squire for YesFANZ, he said:
We are looking at various options from the various major companies. Universal have shown interest and we are going to be looking at trying to put together a show that maybe then after the film has been made of the same, we can then tour the world with that kind of a look and with that kind of combining the film and the touring aspect.The interviewer, Brian Draper, then raised the Dean project. Squire:
I think Roger’s floating Islands idea is a very good project. But after Lord of the Rings was made [...] with such good quality, it[']s hard to know quite whether Roger may be a bit late in thinking about that because it has been done so well with the correct amount of money [...] His idea, I fully support it but I am not quite sure where it is going to go. I had a couple of meetings with him to try and figure it out but so far nothing is happening.In a late May 2020 webcast, asked about the film, Dean said it had "never been off the agenda". He said he was working with a scriptwriter, but described them as "working on it by stealth". He also said part of the story being turned into a script was in the previous Yes tour book.[...] I think pretty much [he is looking for funding]. [...] Yes is a separate entity really from Roger [...] I have to look out for what’s best for Yes as opposed to Roger. But I think the idea of animated film for a Yes musical project is a good one but there are various options on the table that we are looking at.
Archival live releases
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Union
30 Live (RRAW; promo
video of "Owner of a Lonely Heart"; promo
video of "Roundabout") is a limited edition
26CD/6DVD release in a "flight case" to celebrate the 30th
anniversary of the Union tour, a sort of much
expanded re-release of Union Live. It was originally
due 3 May 2021, but delayed to 16 May and then to 30 Jul.
The latest update on 23 Jul said orders would arrive "within
the next couple of weeks". Copies have arrived with most
people now. As Jon Kirkman explained in a May
2021 edition of the Prog Report, "Yes haven't
generated this". Rather, the release comes from The Larry
Magid Entertainment Group, with project conception,
inception and coordination by Rob Ayling. Magid, who has
been working with ARW more
recently, was the tour promoter and owns the rights to
recordings from the tour. Kirkman said the eight Yes men
were "fully on board with" the release. Ayling, Magid and
Brian Lane were the executive producers. Audio mastering was
by John Hughes. The main disc is a multi-camera DVD of the 8 Aug 1991 Shoreline Ampitheatre show mixed by Trevor Rabin, previously released in 2011. The rest of the set comes from various bootlegs, including audience recordings, desk tapes and radio broadcasts. The discs are housed over 11 "fatpack" jewel cases, holding 2-4 discs each. The contents were initially announced as:
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YES must have recorded many things beyond 1972, hopefully tapes survive and will turn up in good shape. I have mixed some of their live stuff before, but it was considered (I agreed) too poor to release, with sound issues, keyboard tunings, etc. In particular a 1976 show we found with Patrick could have been amazing (JFK Stadium in Philadelphia maybe?), but the tapes made it clear it was a very sour night.Jon Dee (who organised the Rock Aid Armenia project with Squire, Downes and umpteen others) was tasked by Yes's management to collate soundboard and FM radio broadcasts that could be released. (If you have high quality copies of such, please contact Jon.) He has sent various recordings to Yes's management, including of the showcase by Cinema when they were looking for a record deal.
Then came the 3CD Transmission Impossible
(Eat to the Beat, ETTB 133), originally due 14 Jan 2022, but
then delayed until 28 Jan. The first 2 discs come from
1968-70 in the UK (the 1968 sessions are Mabel Greer's Toy
Shop), mainly radio sessions, with the third disc covering
German and Belgian TV sessions from the same period. Tracks:CD1—Top Gear, BBC, 12 Jan 1969: "Something's Coming" (7:38), "Everydays 5:11), "Sweetness" (4:14), "Dear Father" (5:33), "Every Little Thing" (5:32); Symonds on Sunday, 4 Aug 1969: "Looking Around" (3:39), "Beyond & Before" (5:27); Dave Lee Travis Show, 19 Jan 1970: "Sweet Dreams" (3:25), "Then" (4:19), "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" (4:15); John Peel's Sunday Show, 17 Mar 1970: "Astral Traveller" (6:01), "Then" (5:15); Mike Harding Show, 27 Oct 1970: "America" (14:56).The Sheffield tracks on CD2 seem to be the only recordings not from a broadcast and are worse in audio quality. This is the first commercial release of Yes performing "Eleanor Rigby". There is considerable but not complete overlap between all these releases. Thus, for example, In the Beginning Volume 2 contains a subset of Transmission Impossible's CD 3. Transmission Impossible CDs 1 and 2 cover most of In the Beginning and Beyond and Before (1968-1970), but the latter both include four Swiss TV tracks not on Transmission Impossible. There are further unique tracks on Beyond and Before (1968-1970). |
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Some retailers are advertising the 6CD Yes
Box—Legendary Recordings from the Early Years, but this
appears to be an illegitimate bootleg.
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Other re-releases &c. There is a limited edition (1500 copies) silver vinyl re-release of 9012Live The Solos due from Music on Vinyl (MOVLP1672C) on 27 May 2022. Symphonic Music of Yes was to be re-released by Floating World Records on 30 Jul 2021 on their Voice Print label (which arose when they bought some of the Voiceprint catalogue when Voiceprint went bankrupt), with a limited edition (500 copies) blue vinyl due 24 Sep 2021. Yes's "Wonderous Stories" is included on the 3CD compilation 70s Rock Down: The Ultimate Rock Anthems, which was curated by Rick Wakeman: details on his page. Several recent compilations on Cherry Red or its sub-labels include Yes tracks, including Yes's "Every Little Thing" and Tomorrow's "Strawberry Fields Forever" (with Steve Howe) on Looking Through a Glass Onion – The Beatles Psychedelic Songbook 1966-72, "America" on Beyond the Pale Horizon – The British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1972, "Beyond and Before" and "Survival" on Banquet – Underground Sounds of 1969 (ECLEC32765), and "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" and "Astral Traveller" on Taking Some Time on – Underground Sounds of 1970 (ECLEC42767). The 5CD Think I'm Going Weird: Original Artefacts from the British Psychedelic Scene 1966-68 on Grapefruit, out Oct 2021, includes Mabel Greer's Toyshop's "Jeanetta" (with Squire and Banks), The Syn's "Flowerman" (with Squire and Banks), Canto's "Come Over Stranger" (with Howe) and Tomorrow's "The Incredible Journey of Timothy Chase" (with Howe). Out the same day was the 4CD Breakthrough – Underground Sounds of 1971 (ECLEC42779), including "I've Seen All Good People" and "Heart of the Sunrise". The 4CD Blowing Free – Underground and Progressive Sounds of 1972 (ECLEC42799), 4CD due 24 Jun 2022, includes "And You and I". Three Yes songs and an ABWH piece are included on Bill Bruford's career retrospective 6CD box set Making a Song and Dance: see under Bruford for details. |
Covers
of Yes songs & other news Brad Mehldau's Jacob's Ladder (Nonesuch), released 18 Mar 2022 (vinyl release to follow later), includes new music and re-interpretations of several prog rock songs, including "Starship Trooper". The album was otherwise composed by Mehldau. The album is described as featuring "new music that reflects on scripture and the search for God through music inspired by the prog rock he loved as a young adolescent." Also performing are Chris Thile (mamdolin), Cécile McLorin Salvant (vocals), Mark Guiliana (drums), Becca Stevens (vocals), Joel Frahm (sax) and others. It was produced by Mehldau and John Davis. Tracks:
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Media, books, fandom etc. Yesfans.com,
which has long been the main online forum for Yes fans,
closed 31 Nov 2021. Many thanks to Tim for running the
site for so many years. Much of the community has moved to
The New Yesfans. Due 24 Feb 2022 was Paolo Carnelli's Italian-language Yes
biography, "Yes. Gli Anni d'Oro (1969 - 1980)" (Facebook). Simon Barrow
is publishing a new and expanded edition of his book
"Solid Mental Grace" with five new chapters, including
covering The Quest. This is
due early 2022. "Yes
in the 1980s" (Sonicbond Publishing) is a book
covering Yes in the 1980s, but also ABWH and associated
projects, including Asia, XYZ, The Buggles, Jon and
Vangelis and GTR. The book is by Stephen Lambe (author of "Yes: Every Album, Every Song")
with David Watkinson (author of
"Yes—Perpetual Change"), released 29 Oct 2021.
Watkinson has also been considering an updated version of
"Yes—Perpetual Change", among other projects. Lambe's
"Yes: Every Album, Every Song" had a 2021 release as an
ebook in an updated form covering From a Page.
Sonicbond are next doing a book covering Yes in the 1990s,
with Lambe and Simon Barrow involved. If anyone has good
photos from the period, please get in touch with Simon. Martin Popoff has written "Yes:
A Visual Biography" (Wymer Publishing), out 9 Jul
2021. An A4 book, weighing over 1.5kg, it covers the band
up to Drama. With an updated title of "Yes:
A Visual Biography I: 1968 - 1981", the book is
re-released on 18 Feb 2022 with a new cover. "Yes: A
Visual Biography II: 1982 – 2022" (224
pages), also by Popoff, followed 6 May 2022. Sid Smith is
working on a book compiling many of the liner notes he has
written over the years, corrected and expanded. The book
will largely cover music of the 1970s and will probably
include his notes for the Panegyric Yes re-releases. Garry Freeman (author of "The Bootleg Guide" and the forthcoming "Emerson, Lake and Palmer—A Live Guide 1970-1978") has been working on "Yes—A Live Guide 1968-1979" (Helter Skelter Publishing). The book aims to review as many shows as possible from this period, including details on equipment specifications and so on. The Gottlieb brothers are working on a book on Yes collectibles and Bill Martin (author of "Music of Yes—Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock") has been rumoured to be working on a new Yes book. |
And people ask me, “What do you think of Yes [today]?” I, honestly, never left Yes. Because Yes has been my life. The band itself are doing what they want to do. I can’t tell them what to do, because it’s not my band. They’ve got the name, but I’ve got the state of mind about what true “Yes music” should sound likeIn late Jan 2017, ARW started using the 'Yes' name in promotion, billing themselves as "Yes feat. Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman (ARW)". They did so against the wishes of the current Yes band. See more under ARW. When ARW then made a press announcement switching to that name on 10 Apr, Yes announced:
While Jon Anderson has rights to use the name as one of the co-owners of the trademark, Yes' position is that every effort should be made by promoters, ticket agencies and all involved to respect Yes' magnificant and loyal fanbase and minimize confusion regarding the use of Yes Featuring Anderson, Rabin, Wakeman.An Apr 2017 UltimateClassicRock article reports that, at the time of Squire's death, ownership of the Yes brand (whatever precisely that means) was jointly held by Squire/Anderson/Howe/White. The article talks of a gentleman's agreement to that point between Anderson and Squire over use of the name, although it is unclear whether this is their theory or was confirmed by sources. They quote management for the continuity Yes as saying that while Anderson "has a co-ownership right to use the name", he also "presumably" has "a duty to ensure that the use does not cause unnecessary confusion for fans." Yes management also said they had been given exclusive use of the classic Dean logo. (Roger Dean himself said to one fan in late 2017 that he was open to doing cover art for ARW.) The article quotes Anderson's management too: "Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman have as much right – if not more so – to call themselves Yes, since Jon Anderson, the co-founder of the group, has always had the rights to use the name and the trademark". In a May 2018 article, Howe said, "It's complicated. Instead of going to court for five years and wasting Ł2m, we basically are just kind of enjoying the fact that we're Yes and they're Yes as well sometimes. Hey, you know, it's a bit like accepting that Cornish pasties aren't simply made in Cornwall." In a Jun 2018 article, asked about the other band, he said, "I've got nothing to say really[.] Our position is non-aggression ... but it's not a perfect scenario."
They`ve been really cool about it. It`s never been a problem. I had a conversation with the other guys and just said to them to let people know who`s in the band as I keep getting phone calls about me playing somewhere but I`m not in your band, so please tell people who`s in the band so they don`t expect to see me.A Jun 2018 article in The San Diego Union-Tribune stated that, "A longstanding agreement stipulated that the only band that could be billed as Yes was the one that included Squire. After his death, Squire's widow told Anderson she saw no reason he, Wakeman and Rabin could not also assume the Yes name. So they did." A Jul 2021 rumour on Facebook had that the Yes trademark had been owned by Howe, White, Squire and Anderson, but that Squire's widow passed his share to Anderson, leaving Howe/White and Anderson with equal shares, leading to an agreement over how to use the name.
Well, I don’t know. I don’t really think about it much, to tell you the truth. It’s their thing; their version of Yes. We do our version, but really this band is still Yes. There are comments that come from the other camp, but I wouldn’t reply to the comments because I don’t need to.Rumour suggests there have actually been ongoing arguments over the use of the Dean logo, with ARW periodically using it and then stopping using it.
It’s a lot of business stuff. We own the name. They own the name. Jon Anderson and I own it, but the logo we own, because Steve Howe owns most of the logo.A Mar 2019 interview with White had this exchange:
Interviewer: Who owns the name “Yes” since there are two of them now?
White: Well, there’s not really two of them. This Yes I’m in is the guys with the Yes name and always had it. And so legally, we are still Yes. Even though the other guys were in it for long periods of time at different times, they’ve all done other things. Chris and myself had never done anything else. We just carried on.
Interviewer: But they call themselves “Yes featuring ARW.” How is that legal if you guys own the name?
White: They can legally do that because Jon still has some of the copyright. It’s kind of a legal thing. They they can say “Yes Featuring ARW,” but they can’t call themselves “Yes.” We own the logo.
we've actually made a new record and I literally just finished it and had it mastered by Maor Appelbaum just about [...] three weeks ago now. So, now I'm just working on cover art and getting all the sort of stuff together with Frontiers Records to get it ready to come out. When they put it out, I don't knowHe continued: "The first record, you know, admittedly is a little bit more straight ahead in places and a little more, you know, not that it's a bad word, but kind of commercial. […] the record starts that way and then it evolves into a sort of more progressive feeling thing by the end. And this is almost like a relay race now where we took that baton and now we've just gone farther, faster with it, and so it's much more progressive on this one. The last track is 17 minutes long. It's actually called "Arc of Life The Last Track". Dan Shinder, interviewing, asks how that name came about. Sherwood replied, "the first track that Jon and I wrote for this, when we were just writing for fun, y'know, we kept writing this song, and kept writing and writing, and eventually it was like 17 minutes long. So when, when it came time to sort of put together the first record, I played music for Frontiers and that was one of those songs and they kind of were, like. 'Well, this is really cool, but we kind of were looking for more of a straight ahead kind of record here for the debut.' So that song just kind of went on ice for a minute, but has since now resurfaced and been fleshed out and developed and and just sounds killer. It's the right evolution for the band at the right time".
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just as Arc of Life came out, the COVID thing was kicking into high... and so, everything was wiped out. So unfortunately we had plans to go out and play live but they just got crashed [...] and now that we're at this point, and Yes is re-entering the equation here and I'm also going to be playing with Asia soon here too, um, it's all about getting the schedule together where we can make that point of entry to go out and do gigs, at the right time, um, so that's the sort of idea for the live front for Arc of Life. We all want to get it going and get playing and perform with that bandIn terms of what the band might play live, Sherwood said after the first album, in a Feb 2021 interview, "we're going to have to find that line as we go, but I'm not opposed to playing [...] material that Yes is not really playing just to play some interesting music. There's a wealth of material that I can bring to the table from other projects, Circa has some great songs, Conspiracy..." In the SOAL interview, Kerzner talked about drawing from all of their individual catalogues and also playing Yes songs. Sherwood then talked about not wanting to replicate what Yes are doing live, but discussed the idea of doing something like CIRCA:'s "Chronological Journey", the medley that spanned nearly all of Yes's history. Davison said in the Feb 2021 interview that "there will be the occasional odd YES nuggets incorporated into our set that fans otherwise would never hear live." In a Mar 2021 appearance, Sherwood said that Arc of Life would "most likely" be able to do shows before Yes because they will be playing smaller venues, which he expects to open up sooner. In an early Feb 2021 interview, he had said, "Arc of Life are definitely going to be playing live shows." Asked in a Jun 2021 interview whether Arc of Life would be touring, Kerzner said, "that's the plan [...] when Yes isn't touring", but that "I haven't heard anything yet, concrete".
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Colin
Scot Colin Scot's eponymous debut album in 1971 included guest appearances from Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Robert Fripp (King Crimson), Peter Gabriel (ex-Genesis), Phil Collins (Genesis), Peter Hammill (Van der Graaf Generator), David Jackson (Van der Graaf Generator, worked with David Cross), Guy Evans (Van der Graaf Generator), Jane Relf (ex-Renaissance) and others. Colin Scot, Remastered & Expanded Edition (Esoteric Recordings, QECLEC2773) is due 30 Jul 2021, with 4 bonus tracks (three alternate takes and a previously unreleased song, "Long Time Gone", from the same sessions), restored artwork and a new essay. I've never been clear who performs on which tracks, so I am uncertain if Anderson or Wakeman might be on the bonus tracks. Mabel Greer's Toyshop Official site; Facebook; YouTube; Twitter; Pinterest Clive Bayley and Bob Hagger (ex-So Rare) reunited Mabel Greer's Toyshop in 2013. They recorded, with Billy Sherwood and Tony Kaye, an album, New Way of Life. In an interview, Hagger referred to the original Paris recordings, "the Paris Tapes", with just him, Bayley and Barré, "before Billy produced the music and Tony joined. The label want to publish a separate album with that music that gives a slightly different feel. It is less sophisticated but has an immediacy." However, this has yet to appear. In another early 2015 interview, Hagger again referred to "the Paris Tapes", saying, "it's worthy of another album at some point". Max Hunt (Yes tribute band Fragile, worked with Jon Anderson, Fish) joined on keys in 2015. (Bayley & Hunt went on to release a duo album in 2020: see under Bayley.) A 9-track album, The Secret, was released in Dec 2017 on CD, performed by Bayley (guitars, lead vocals), Hunt (keys, guitar, backing vocals), Hagger (drums, percussion) and Hugo Barré (JP Raillot Quartet, works with Alex Keren; bass). The final track, "The Secret", was written around an existing guitar solo by Pete Banks. The band have been hoping to tour the UK and possibly Europe. |
Cleopatra
Records releases The next Prog Collective release produced by Billy Sherwood is Songs We were Taught (Purple Pyramid), officially due 1 Jul 2022 on digital, CD and limited edition purple LP (CLO2882LP), although the LP is already shipping. It is described as "a trip through some of the most recognizable and influential folk and art-rock songs of their generation". It thus represents a further move towards covers rather than original material for the Prog Collective series. Several other Yes members guests. Tracks:
Sherwood plays bass and drums throughout and often keys,
guitars and backing vocals. Rik
Carter contributed additional Mellotron and organ. Mix
and additional production were by Mark Gemini Thwaite. Details in
Yescography.
Again, the album was put together by Engler. Moore said
in a Nov
2021 interview that he was originally told Tim
Bowness would be singing on "Dogs" and only found out it
was Bonnet when hearing the final result. |
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Kerzner is in Arc of Life, described above, with Sherwood, Davison, Jay Schellen and Jimmy Haun. He has also been working on a mystery second project with Jon Davison. As well as In Continuum and the Yes tribute album (Yesterday and Today: A 50th Anniversary Tribute to Yes), Kerzner had written in Sep 2018 on ProgressiveEars.com that, "I may do some more stuff with both Jon, Billy and Geoff (either separately or in combination with each other)." In Aug 2020 on ProgressiveEars.com, he said he had "more than one side project with various musicians from Yes [...] in one band/project the music is co-written by me and in the other it isn't so..." The latter was Arc of Life. Soon after on Facebook he said, "I have yet another original music project that's Yes-related but it's almost completely unannounced apart from me hinting about it. There is a band name and no one but the people involved know what it is. It also involves someone from King Crimson but that's all I can say about that! Haha." Likewise, in Sep 2020 on ProgressiveEars.com, Kerzner posted, "Got a few in the works involving some of the guys mentioned in this thread [about Yes]. One project that I'm co-leader/co-singer of and another where I'm just the keyboard player for a change." In a late Dec 2020 Facebook post, after mentioning Arc of Life, Kerzner said, "I'm also working on a new album featuring Jon Davison and other musicians you know for another 2021 album release!" (He confirmed this is separate to the third In Continuum album, on which Davison appears.) He continued, "This other album I mentioned is very Proggy and a bit retro as well." In a Feb 2021 post to ProgressiveEars.com, he said, "I am already co-writing new music with Jon D for another project". In the Feb 2021 Arc of Life interview with SOAL Night Live, after talking about In Continuum, Kerzner said, "I am writing with Jon [Davison] for some other things". In a May 2021 appearance on the Yes Music Podcast, Kerzner said he and Fernando Perdomo (In Continuum, The New Empire, worked with Mika) have some "Yes-ish" track ideas, and they might get Davison or Robin Schell to do vocals, or he could offer them to Arc of Life.
Released Nov 2018 was Yesterday and Today: A
50th Anniversary Tribute to Yes by Sonic Elements
and Kerzner is open to the possibility of a volume 2. Sonic Elements (Facebook; SoundCloud) is
a group of progressive/classic rock projects led by
Kerzner dating back some years and connected to his music
software development company Sonic Reality.
Further Sonic Elements releases are expected, including a
lot of work with Billy Sherwood on bass. The original idea
for Sonic Elements was to do tribute albums using drum
tracks available through Sonic Reality by various famous
drummers: a Rush tribute using Peart's drum tracks, a Pink
Floyd tribute using Mason's, etc., thus mixing
elements like the original recordings (parts recorded by
the original drummer) with new elements, although the Yes
tribute didn't take this approach. Then, as Kerzner
explained to
ProgressiveEars.com (Nov 2018):
Thus "Trifecta" and "Times Gone", which were released on
20212's XYZ—A
Tribute to Rush, featured newly composed
material performed by Sherwood and Kerzner to an existing
drum track for Rush's "YYZ" and "Tom Sawyer" respectively
that was recorded by Neil Peart for a sample library at
Sonic Reality with producer Nick Raskulinecz
(worked with Rush). In the Feb 2021
ProgressiveEars.com post, Kerzner said, "I have many
unreleased tracks with Billy that will be finished and put
out this year [2021]." However, these have yet to appear. Glass Hammer did a track for the Trifecta release, but this was eventually released instead on Glass Hammer's Untold Tales under the title "The Impulsive Type". Seemingly referring or related to the Trifecta album project, in Jan 2012, Kerzner said on Facebook: "Among the various music releases you can expect [...] are some original tunes, many of which have been done with ex-Yes-man Billy Sherwood along with SR sampled grooves of great drummers such as Rod Morgenstein of the Dixie Dregs." There was an accompanying clip to a piece entitled "Razors Edge" with Sherwood and samples from Morgenstein. Then there's "Racing Through Time" (sample), another original piece by Sherwood, this time using a sample library from Alan Parsons. On Facebook in Aug 2020, Kerzner referred to: "possibly an album of all original music released this year [2020] as well with Billy singing most of it and playing bass and some of the guitar. Me on keys and second vocals, acoustic guitar and producing it." A special
edition of XYZ—A Tribute to Rush was
released 12 Jan 2020 to commemorate Neil Peart's death.
This includes "Times Gone", which was only available with
some versions of the original album, and then adds three
more songs: "I Can't Take You with Me" by District 97
(5:36); "The Impulsive Type" by Glass Hammer (4:37); and
"Man Unkind" by In Continuum (5:50). "The Impulsive Type"
is another new piece based on a Peart drum track from
2017's Untold Tales: see on
Jon Davison's page for more details. "Man Unkind" is
from In Continuum's Acceleration Theory Part One:
AlienA: also described
on Davison's page. These extra songs are also on the
XYZ—Charity Edition (Dedicated to Neil Peart),
which raises money for charity. Earlier that month, Kerzner explained on
ProgressiveEars.com: with Billy I've already recorded a LOT of material, both original and cover/tribute material that's been sitting here waiting to be finished when the time slot opens up. [...] Billy and I have been friends for decades so we could always collaborate deeper at some point and do more than experimental creative re-workings of drum tracks. That would be fun. The only thing is, he's one of the busiest guys I know (and I'm quite busy myself!) |
Sonic Elements Fantasy Interactive
Dark Side of the Moon w/ Alan Parsons
Sonic Elements XYZ Fantasy Band Tribute to Rush featuring Neil
Peart Drums
Sonic Elements Lamb Lies Down on Broadway Fantasy Soundtrack
Tribute to Genesis
Sonic Elements Trifecta (original music with Billy Sherwood and
drums from Terry Bozzio, Rod Morgenstein, Neil Peart...)
Sonic Elements TBA fantasy progressive rock project featuring...
... all involving Sherwood in some capacity. A 5-song EP, XYZ—A Tribute to Rush,
was released previously. Details
in Yescography. In Apr 2012,
Kerzner said that there:
will at least be another EP of
different [Rush] material (the "keyboard era" stuff) and then
eventually a full album and that will have different versions of
some of these songs on it as well.
Plus there's going to interactive versions of the songs similar
to Jammit except they can work inside products like AmpliTube
where you can play guitar through modeled amps and pedals or
inside Garageband and play anything you want. That's coming
along with Neil Peart's isolated drum tracks. But these
interactive versions are more for musicians to interact with.
In an Oct 2012 post to ProgressiveEars.com, he said the next
Rush-related release would be the full-length album Moving
Signals & Waves, covering tracks from the Rush albums Moving
Pictures, Signals and Permanent Waves.
Mixing was going on in May 2013. Confirmed tracks for the album
included "Digital
Man" with Sherwood (vocals, guitar, bass), Kerzner (keys)
and Perdomo (guitars); "Spirit
of Radio", with Sherwood (bass), Kerzner (keys), Mike Keneally (ex-Frank
Zappa, ex-Stanley Snail, worked with Robert Fripp; guitars),
D'Virgilio (vocals); and "Subdivisions", with Kerzner, John Payne
(ex-Asia, Asia Featuring John
Payne; vocals) and Erik Norlander (ex-Asia
Featuring John Payne). Another song on the album
features Kerzner (keys), Sherwood (bass, guitar), Steve Hackett
(Squackett, ex-GTR, ex-Genesis) and Keith Emerson
(ex-ELP), while either that one or another features
guitar from both Hackett and Francis
Dunnery (ex-It Bites, ex-The Syn, worked with ABWH).
The album was also to include the 4 Rush tracks on the XYZ
EP, but in different versions. At various times, Kerzner or
others have described covers of further Rush songs:
Dunnery also sang on some of the Rush songs.
Also due is are 2 Genesis tribute albums: as Kerzner explained on
Facebook in Sep 2021, "A general one with a variety of songs from
the first album up to at least the Mama album and then there's
another one that's the full Lamb album." He also said one of these
is due in 2021. The plan, after some evolution, had been for a
tribute to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway led by Kerzner
(keys) and Dunnery (lead vocals), both of whom also worked on
Steve Hackett's Genesis Revisited 2 album. The album, It:
A Tribute to Genesis & The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (teaser),
was due 2015 but has been long delayed. On Facebook in Mar 2020,
Kerzner said the album would be released in 2020, but it was
further delayed. It features multiple guests, including Sherwood,
Steve Rothery (Marillion), Lee Pomeroy (Anderson Rabin
Wakeman, Rick Wakeman, It Bites, Steve Hackett),
Dan Hancock (ex-Giraffe), Martin Levac (The
Musical Box) and Nad Sylvan (Steve Hackett).
The album is
described as "done in a "classic rock-meets-modern film
score" style combining authentic vintage instruments from the 70s
(including sounds recorded at Genesis' studio with engineer Nick
Davis) along with a full orchestra." Previous reports have also
mentioned the involvement of Stan Cotey (ex-Giraffe),
McStine and Mark Hornsby
(worked with D'Virgilio), plus the use of samples of
Tony Banks' keyboard playing. Sherwood plays on at least
"Lilywhite Lilith". He also sang lead vocals on versions of that
song and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway": those and "Chamber of
32 Doors" sang by Sylvan were expected as bonus material on the
album. A Peter Gabriel cover, "Rhythm of the Night", with Dunnery
(vocals), using Sonic Reality's Jerry Marotta drum library was
also mooted. In Jul 2020, Perdomo mentioned on Facebook Tony Levin
recording bass tracks for "the Genesis Tribute Album Dave Kerzner
and I are producing".
The Pink Floyd/Dark Side of the Moon project involves Nick
Mason (ex-Pink Floyd), Davis, Dorie Jackson (works
with Dunnery, ex-The Syn; vocals), Guy Pratt (worked
with Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson; bass), Colin Edwin (ex-Porcupine
Tree; bass), Natalie Azerad (vocals), Durga & Lorelei McBroom (vocals). The Sonic Elements Facebook
page in Jan 2013 said: "I've assembled a Sonic Elements band in LA
this week to work with the McBroom sisters [...] Billy Sherwood,
Randy McStine, Fernando Perdomo and myself (with Pink Floyd's
rhythm section already recorded/sampled)". An update in Jan 2014
announced The Dark Side of Sonic Elements album for 2014
with Sherwood, Dunnery, McStine, the McBrooms and "utilizing the
brand new Sonic Reality 2014 sample library releases from Nick
Mason, Guy Pratt, Alan Parsons, the McBroom Sisters and more."
This has yet to appear.
I was just talking with Francis Dunnery about finishing up The Lamb tracks next month [Apr 2018]. The Rush tribute is the closest to finish and I was just holding out to do a track with David Longdon of Big Big Train [...] but it would have to be built from scratch since I don't have the drum track from Neil Peart for that song... and I was going to play it from the keyboard using Neil's drum samples but it's in 5/8 and a little tricky. A fun challenge but I need a bit of time to do it right. Arrrggghhh. Maybe I'll still do it. There's also an original music side to the project too and I have material from Glass Hammer, Billy Sherwood and others for that as well. The Floyd tribute split into two projects, one I did with Alan Parsons participating and the other that's become a female led Floyd tribute sung by the McBroom Sisters and it'll be their album that I'm co-producing which will also have original songs written with various people who played with Floyd like Guy Pratt, Jon Carin and others. Even a tune they wrote with Lemmy from Motorhead will be on that one. Some of the guys from Australian Pink Floyd are helping finish that album because I've gotten a bit too overloaded to do ALL of them at the same time. There is also another Genesis-related Sonic Elements thing that may come out as well but it hasn't been announced publicly so that's probably the lowest priority. Then there's the Yes stuff which I don't know if I have enough to do a full album of Yes music. Might put those on an SE compilation album or something just to get everything I've worked on a home and unless we do any others (might) that will wrap up the tributes. Obviously if they do really well for my distributors there could be more. [...] I'm imposing my own deadline of releasing them all before the end of the year [2018]. Probably around Summer time or at least by the end of the year [2018] as I'll be playing some of it on CTTE!In the Feb 2021 interview with SOAL Night Live, Kerzner talked about using this pandemic period to move forward on releasing all these tribute albums.
John Holden
John Holden (Facebook)
has released 3 solo albums. His first two, Capture Light (details
in Yescography) and Rise and Fall
(details
in Yescography), have both Billy Sherwood
(bass) and Oliver
Wakeman (piano, keys) guesting. His third album, Circles
in Time, came out Mar 2021 (without any Yes-related guests).
Before then, Holden organised a charity album, Together
Apart, released digitally 4 Mar 2021 on
Bandcamp, raising money for low grade ovarian cancer
research with Cure
Our Ovarian Cancer. The lead track is a cover of
Renaissance's "Northern Lights" with multiple guest performers,
most of whom have worked with Holden before, including Oliver
Wakeman, Jon Camp (ex-Renaissance), Joe
Payne (ex-The Enid), Sally Minnear (Kerry Minnear's daugther; Celestial Fire, worked
with Dave Kerzner, Dave Bainbridge), Peter Jones (Tiger Moth Tales), Gavin Harrison (King Crimson, ex-Porcupine Tree), Anneke van
Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering, worked with iCon),
Vikram Shankar, Marc Atkinson (Mandalaband),
Michel St-Pčre (Mystery) and Holden
himself. Tracks:
exo-X-xeno
exo-X-xeno (Facebook, Bandcamp)
released a single, "Onward, Love" (YouTube)
on 15 Jan 2021. A second song, "Reaching for Beyond" (YouTube),
followed 5 Jul 2021. The band consists of Craig Maher (guitars,
lead vocals), Billy
Sherwood (bass, backing vocals), Patrick
Moraz (keys) and Jay
Schellen (drums). Maher wrote both songs, and both were
mastered by Maor Appelbaum (worked with Yes, Arc of Life).
They are working on an album, Luminous Voyage.
White Car
Leon Alvarado (worked with Rick Wakeman,
Billy Sherwood, Trey Gunn, John Goodsall) had described a
forthcoming project called White Car with Billy Sherwood,
Jon Davison and
Johnny Bruhns (ex-CIRCA:, ex-Yoso).
Alvarado said on 20 Mar 2020 on Facebook, "This is coming down the
pipe but because of the Covid-19 situation we aren't sure as to
when it will be completed." However, asked about in a 4 Jul 2020
interview, Sherwood said he "didn't know about that
project". In May 2021, Alvarado posted an update
to Facebook, saying:
Edison's LabUpdate on new music. It has been a long time since I have put out any music at all. My circumstances went through a lot of changes with being put out for two years as we fixed our house from massive flood damaged and rebuilt the studio. Finalizing things just to get under the pandemic which delayed things even more. However, during that period I did managed to make some music from time to time but not all of it goes well with each other. I just started to work on unfinished projects and even though there's enough material to fill up a regular album, it is very different sound-wise between one another so they will have to be subdivided into different releases. Some of the work was done with Billy Sherwood, Jon Davison and Johnny Bruhns. Billy and Johnny played on my last record release and this was the first time I worked with Jon but he's such a professional. In the middle of that project I got distracted by another project I was working on prior to that one. [...] To put it into perspective, the work I am doing with the Yes chaps sounds a lot like Yes and so I'll keep it that way. The work I am doing with these other musicians sounds very different from that
United Progressive
Fraternity
Planetary
Overload Part 1: Loss (GEP, GEPCD1061; details
in Yescography), released 2019, and Part 2: Hope,
due 2022, come from United
Progressive Fraternity (Facebook).
The band are led by Mark "Truey" Trueack (Unitopia) and
Steve Unruh (The Samurai of Prog), but with
a plethora of others involved, including Jon Davison, who
appeared on Loss and is expected on Hope. The
band's website credited Trueack (vocals, songwriter, artistic
direction, co-production), Unruh (violin, guitars, flute, vocals,
songwriter, co-production), Christophe Lebled (worked
with Jon Anderson; keys, soundscapes, guest arranger),
Cornel Wilczek (Qua; orchestration,
conductor on "Seeds for Life"), Dan Mash (Damanek;
bass), Matthew Atherton (Sound; vocals,
soundscapes, synths), Marek Arnold (Damanek; sax),
Joe Toscano (The Loving Tongue; drums,
vocals), Mark Franco (Sound; bass,
vocals), and with guests including Davison, Claire Vezina
(vocals), Michel St-Père (Mystery; guitar),
Angelo Racz (keys), Nick Magnus (ex-Steve Hackett,
ex-The Enid; keys), Michelle Young (ex-Glass
Hammer; vocals), Gancedo García (drums), Hasse Fröberg (The Flower Kings; vocals),
Guillermo Cides (Stick), Grace Bawden (vocals), Lisa Wetton (John Wetton's widow; vocals), Steve Hackett (ex-Genesis, ex-GTR, ex-Squackett; acoustic
guitars), Charlie Cawood (Knifeworld, Mediaeval
Baebe; oud, bağlama saz, bouzouki, hammered dulcimer,
zither, pipa, zhongruan, liuqin, 12-string acoustic guitar,
electric guitar, bass), Raf Azaria (piano, synth, slide guitar,
electric guitar), Clive Hodson (alto sax, trombone, trumpet),
Jerry Marotta (worked with Tony Levin, Peter
Gabriel, Iggy Pop; drums), Angus Keay (guitar), Alex
Grata (Sixth Sense, Voices of Babylon; vocals,
piano, synths, loops, electric guitars, acoustic guitars), Hans
Jörg Schmitz (drums), Colin Edwin (ex-Porcupine
Tree; fretless bass, soundscapes), Phill Soka (CosMoS; drums), Brendon Darby (trumpet,
flugelhorn), George Perdikis (guitar), Valentine Halembakov
(guitars on "Forgive Me, My Son"), Matt Williams (electric
guitars, acoustic guitars, backing vocals on "Mercenaries"), David
Hopgood (Unitopia; drums on
"Mercenaries"), Marc Papeghin (French horn) and Ettore Salati (worked with David Jackson; electric
& acoustic guitars on "Cruel Times", arrangements). Artwork is
by Ed Unitsky
(worked with The Tangent, The Flower Kings).
Loss has been released on LP, with bonus tracks from live
performance in 2020.
A debut single for Hope comes 27 Nov 2021, entitled "Love
Never Leaves Us" and featuring Trueack (vocals, lyrics), Unruh
(guitars, vocals), Wetton (drums, percussion), John Greenwood
(guitars), Don Schiff (Stick, fretless bass), Lebled (keys,
programming, arrangement), Sam Greenwood (grand piano), Hodson
(horns), and Darby (horns).
The project dates back some years. Trueack and
Stephen Layton (worked with
Jon Anderson) made contact in 2009 and planned a
project called The Hope to feature multiple guest
musicians. That led to Jon Anderson
guesting on an album entitled Fall in Love with the World,
the United Progressive Fraternity debut, released 2014. The Hope was then initially
expected in 2015. The project evolved further, splitting into 2
albums. Trueack was also, at various times, in contact with
Anderson, Billy
Sherwood, Igor
Khoroshev and Nikki Squire
about possibly guesting, but none of them are now involved.
Any news, additions or corrections, please e-mail Henry Potts. Thanks.