Jon Anderson

Of Yes. Need I say more?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is the one and only John Anderson. John.
Great to have you on the podcast. So tell me
how'd you cope with lockdown during COVID.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
I got on with a lot of music, that's for sure.
The day we were told to stay indoors, away from
the chaos was I was doing a barbecue and I
slipped on the top steps near the barbecue is and
I broke my foot in two places. For the first
six months of COVID, I was on crushes. But it

(00:44):
made me want to go in the studio and create.
And that's what I did.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
And what did you create? And you did it alone?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Oh yeah, I create a lot of stuff, you know.
I called it the opeless opus, and then I did
it up to opus opus. And it's a combination of
the miracle of playing all the white notes on the
keyboard because I can't play them both at the same time,
black and white like a normal person. So I just

(01:13):
played the white notes and I was playing this music,
and I record little sections and then I record another one,
and then I record another one. And during the course
of about two weeks, I recorded about twenty sort of
musical events if you like. And then I actually went
on tour I think it was with the Academy of Rock,

(01:39):
these young teenagers, and we had a great tour and
we called COVID on the way home, which was crazy.
But that's the way things happen. But expect the unexpected.
But the remarkable thing about working with teenagers you feel
young and vibrant until somebody does a self.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Or when you look in the mirror.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
And said, wait a minute, you got a couple of
things going on here.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Tell me about only being able to play the white
keys and not the black keys at the same time.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
It's just one of those things. I you know, I
never learned to play the piano, so I sort of
made it up and I just used the wine notes
all the time. So it works for me, you know.
And and I tell a story that when I was
doing my solo show, halfway through it, I'd start playing

(02:36):
the keyboards and singing along with the keyboards, and I
could never sing with the piano. I played the piano
book can never sing with it until I actually broke
my back. I know it's a strange idea, but it
actually broke my bike putting up Christmas tensely things on
the front door of our house. And I felt over

(03:00):
on the wall and brought my back and from that
moment on I could actually sing at the piano.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Okay, a lot of stuff going on. So you were
putting up tinsel.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
And sparkly tinsel and the lights on the front door
because it was Christmas.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
How far did you fall?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Probably a four foot back backwards onto the wall which
had a sharp sort of edge to it, And and
God bless my wife, she phoned up the the ambulance
to come and get me. And the ambulance came and
got me, and I kept saying I need some morphine.
My back is hurting me. And the guy would say, well,

(03:42):
we'll give you so when we get to the hospital,
and I said, yep, I need it now because it
really hurts. And the guy said, oh, are you John Anderson?
I said, just can be morphine? He said, can I
have your autograph? Then we're in the bloody back of
the well. To think about it, We're in the back
of the ambulance and he's asking me for an autograph.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
And how do they treat it? Broken back? And how
long did it take to recover.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
A long time. You basically put on a big type
thing around your chest and sit up a lot. And
that's when I started creating some music as well.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
I remember, Okay, you live in California. I don't want
your address, but generally speaking, we're in California.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Are you in California?

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yes, I'm in La.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Oh great, I'm Central California.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
And how'd you end up there?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, it's a nice story actually, because I came to
work and live in La some thirty years ago doing
an album called with Yes called The Big Generator, which
was one of those experiences that I'll never forget. And

(05:00):
it just happened that I was working on an album
at the time called Toll Tech, which not many people know,
which is my invitation to make music about the Native
American character energy that they are wonderful people, the indigenous

(05:21):
people of this part of America. And so I was
making some music and I'd had a lot of meditation
up until that point in time, and I kept seeing
this beautiful girl jump up and wave at me halfway
through the meditation. And so a friend of mine who

(05:44):
worked at BMI, said, I have a friend would like
to meet you. She actually writes and organizes the musicians
with the company. What's the company called? So the problem, Bob.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
It'll come to you. It's a mental role there. You
got to go through all the pages.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
No, you know, imagine movies, you imagine the company. She
worked for them, and she came to visit me for lunch,
and I said I would prepare lunch, and thinking about it,
I actually prepared local pizza.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Which was a good.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
And she came in and it was the girl that
I've been seeing in my meditation. And I remember just
trying to play some music for her but not quite
coordinating the idea that I just met somebody I'm going
to fall in love with and get married to. And
I didn't tell her that, but it just happened to
last life. So my wife, Jane and myself got married

(06:49):
and we've been together thirty years and we still love
each other like crazy.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Okay, a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
No, no, no, pardon sorry.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Okay, I just want to stop you there. You had
a meditation. You saw her? Yeah, she walked in the
front door right, a little bit slower. How did the
romance begin?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Well, I looked at her, sugar Hans saying, I love
you we're going to get married. You're incredibly beautiful. I
said that in my head. I didn't say it very early. Okay,
is that sugar hand, you know? And I was mesmerized.
I was totally mesmerized, and thankfully she actually liked me.
And then her sister lives in central California and we

(07:36):
went up to visit the town of San Luis Obispo,
and all of a sudden, I just fell in love
with the idea of living in this part of the world.
And that was it. And here we are, still thirty
years later.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Okay, but going back, she comes to your house to
hear music. You know you're going to marry her. How
do you actually convey to her? How does it become
a romance?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, she said to me. The last thing she said
to me was send me a cassette of some of
the music, please, because I was working on this music.
I said, yeah, I'd love to, so I sent her
a cassette but also a note saying, would you like
to go to dinner? Would you like to go to
the beach, would you like to go and play tennis?

(08:22):
Would you like to go and see a movie? I
wrote about twenty things you know that we could do together,
and she got back to me, here's my phone NUMBERY.
She phoned me up and we got together two days
later and that was it. Love.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, you're British, she's American. You know, it's been thirty
years already. But are there any innate differences in people
and having a relationship with someone from another country?

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, she's smart and I'm a dumb guy. I'm a singer.
That's what I do, want a singer in a band.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
And okay, so you wrote this stuff and then you
went on tour with Paul Green's Rod, Right, how did
that come together?

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Well? I met Paul sound twenty twenty some years ago. Actually,
I was on tour with Yes for a little while
and we're playing at the Philadelphia Forum Spectrum and after
the show, came outside the dressing room and there were
some young kids, you know, about a dozen kids with

(09:34):
T shirts School of Rock. And I said, oh, guys, yes,
you're in a rock school. And they looked at me
and said, yes we are. And I said what kind
of music do you play? We like Frank Zappa and
we actually like Yes. And I thought, oh, young kids,
how old you? Thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen year old. And then
Paul Green came up and he was the guy who

(09:57):
Jack Back Black Pet played in the movie. Paul Green
comes up and says, hey, John, how are you doing.
These are my students. Would you like to come to
Philadelphia and work with these kids? And I said I
don't think so. And then a couple of weeks later,
he sends me a cassette. In those days we had cassettes,

(10:20):
you know, and it was the kids playing Hard at
the Sunrise, which is an incredibly difficult piece of music,
to say the least. And I called him up and said, well,
you didn't tell me they were this good. And he said, listen, John,
we're coming to LA in about three days. Would you

(10:41):
get up and sing with the band? And I said yeah,
because they had a documentary that they were promoting in
Los Angeles, So I said, yeah, I'll get up and sing.
And it was a great fun They played it so well,
the song. And then I struck up a relationship with
Paul and he invited me to go to Philadelphia to

(11:05):
sort of hang with the kids and sort of teach
them a little bit about stage presence and that kind
of thing. So I did, so me and Jane went
to Philadelphia in the beginning of February, which is the
coldest month you can ever go to a city, you know,
But we just enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much.
And that's many years ago, twenty four years ago, and

(11:28):
so it's life, you know. And then I went on
tour with them for a couple of short tours, one
in East America and one in the West, and then
about ten years later went on tour with them again.
Ten years later went on tour with them again, and
so I'm staring doing a European tour with them this summer.

(11:53):
They're just beautiful, young talented people. What can go wrong?
Twenty four young talunted people.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Okay, I know they're good because I once did their
convention and they played a Frank zappasong. Blew my mind.
They even knew it. But okay, they come to you.
They're teenagers. It's bad enough being on the road with
twenty something musicians. Yeah, what's it like being on the
road with all these teenagers.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Well, it's great fun because they're young, you know, they're fun,
they're hopeful, they're grateful, they're thankful and so on. That's
what you are when you're young, when you're fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
you know there's no point in getting around it. They
are youthful, joyful and exuberant people and they can play

(12:48):
their instruments.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Okay, so let's just say you decide you're going to
go on the road with them, which you have a
number of times. How far in advanced? You give them
a set list? If you were to call it, how
many songs do they learn? Is a set list? Set
in Stone? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Paul Green is brilliant. He is a real character and
quite remarkable teaching young musicians to get their act together,
and he does it in such a great way. And
he's the guy that says, do you want to do
Close to the Air? I just said, yeah, do you
want to do on You? And I? Yeah, do you
want to do Starship Trooper? Yeah? And you know he

(13:32):
just gives me a list, so see, yeah, I'll sing
them all. So I got into a thing this last
tour we did in August just last year, I said,
why do we do some mashups? You know we could
do you guys can play Kashmir Zeppelin and it goes
straight into long distance run around. So Kashmir happens, and

(13:53):
then I started doing a Yes song, and then we
started doing Eminem's first hit record. I can't remember what
it's called, but it sounds so good when the kids
play it, and that goes into Starship Trooper, so you know,
it's like you mashed them together, and we did.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
So. If you're playing cash miror are they playing instrumentally
or are you singing.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
The Robbert player, No, no, no, I'm not singing it.
The girl tests brilliant singer. She sings it, and I
do some harmony and I'm playing bass very badly.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
And what keeps you on the road at this point
in your life.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
The adventure of it experiencing audiences. I just finished a
tour with the Bang Geeks, a wonderful bunch of musicians
who live out of Long Island area of New York,
and somebody sent me a video of them performing of
All Things Hard at the Sunrise. This is about a

(14:55):
year ago, and I kind of freaked out. These guys
are so damn good there. It's like note for note
exactly correct. They sounded like the Yes of the seventies.
So and it wasn't that they just they copied the music,
of course, but they didn't sound like the record. They
sounded like them performing it with a certain edge to it.

(15:18):
So I thought about it for a month or two
and called up. I got the phone number of the
bass player who runs the show, Richie Castellano, and I said, Richie,
how you doing? It's John Anderson. They said, hey, is
that you John? I said, yes, me. Why don't we
go on the road and do some classics and epics? Richie,

(15:41):
he's there. What I want to do is do four
epics and the rest of classics. So we do close
to the edge gates of Delirium Awaken, which is heaven
and ritual from topographic, and we can do that, and
then we'll do a bunch of you know, classics like

(16:06):
I've seen all good people you know, roundabout that kind
of thing. So we put together the show. We just
did the twelve shows of on the West Coast about
a month ago, two months or six weeks ago, and
that was a great, great fun to work with these guys.
So hopefully we'll do it every year.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Okay, you called yourself, Are you your own manager? How
does it work?

Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'm looking for a manager?

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Okay, Well you put it out there at this point, Well,
you know, someone like you, someone like you at this
late date obviously has an opinion on managers.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
I can't talk about it anymore. That's about it.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
So what are you looking for?

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Somebody who understands me, which is a it's a hard
it's a hard gig, but very interesting.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
And then who actually books the tours? You have an agent?

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, we have an agent, really great guy, Steve, And
of course Paul Green booked the European tour. We start
off in Budapest and then we play in Amsterdam, and
then we play in Madrid and so on.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
So when you play these gigs with other either the
Long Island Band or the Paul Green Band, Yeah, what's
the audience is the audience the fans from the seventies.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Who comes combination, you get a lot of you know,
you get classic yes fans, you know, and they say, oh,
we're going to go and see Johns to sing again,
which would be good. And you know, I always put
on a good show whenever work. I love it. And
you get some young people coming to see these young artists,
young teenagers, and they've already done quite a few festivals

(18:12):
in Europe over the years. There's a classic Frank Zappa festivals,
so everybody goes on in place Frank Zappa, you know.
So it's always a lot of fun to to to
be around that kind of energy. You're not quite sure
the audience are gonna the audience are gonna have a
good time because we have a good time. And that's
the way I think about music. If you're having a

(18:33):
good time, the audience don't get it. And generally it
happens that way.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
And then you know, you were a lot of your
success was with the band with multiple members, different song
writers the seventies. Accounting to what degree did you get
ripped off or you had a fear shake.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Rip off? Herdi mean sorry financially, Oh yeah, that happens.
You know, nobody escapes that event in the music world,
shall we say, or in a kind of world. But
it never bothered me that much. I have some funny
stories about it, But to me, it was like, you know,

(19:18):
you read what you saw.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
We'll tell a couple of funny stories.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
No, no, I can't tell you well, no, I can't
think about it now.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Sorry, Okay, And after all these years, after essentially fifty years,
how are you doing financially doing good.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
You know, We've got a lovely little house here up
in the hills away from the village. Who life. You know,
it's to noisey down there. So we live on this
hill and surrounded by deer and antelope play, you know,
with the deer and the antelope play.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, I got the song reference.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
And I'm creating all the time, music and stories and
musicals and all this kind of idea of music being
forever broadening your mind and thought and so on. I
just feel that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Okay, So where exactly did you grow up?

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Originally in Acrington, which is north of Manchester, twenty nine
miles north of Manchester, a little town called Acrington, which
is famous for well, probably many things, but the main
thing they were famous for Acrington's Stanley football team. They
were one of the first eleven teams that created the

(20:50):
first league in the history of soccer.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
And to what degree were you interested in playing soccer?

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Well, I was the bow boy and I go and
get the ball and throw it back on the pitch.
I was the ball boy and then but I wanted
to play for Akering to the Stanley that was my
gig and I had a track suit and I'd play.
I'd rehearse when when the players were doing there. What
do you call it rehearsal? I suppose it is when

(21:21):
they kick the ball around on them on the car park.
I'll be there. I'd be there, dribbling away and a
little small. I was very small from my age. And
the guy who was the trainer of ackering to the
Stanley Leslie Leslie Cocker, who eventually became the trainer to
England in a World Cup, said to me, John, you're

(21:43):
good at dribbling, but you're too small. I think you
shouldn't be playing this game. Just be just be a
ball boy, okay. And that's what I was. I was
happily told you can't play for England, and I thought, okay,
so that I'll join my brother's rock and roll band.

(22:03):
He had a rock and roll band called the Warriors,
and there were two singers him, my brother Tony, and
this guy called Charlie who actually gave up singing in
the band and became a hairdresser. And it just happens
to be that at that moment in time, the Beatles
released a song called Love Me Do and Tony, my

(22:26):
brother who he sang all the Elvis Presley songs in
the band, and I joined the band and started singing
Who's that guy with the dark glasses? Roy Orbison? I
did all his songs because I'm an auto tenor you
see cry cry.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Okay, let's come back a little bit. How many kids
are in the family, three boys and a girl? And
where were you in the hierarchy?

Speaker 2 (22:57):
That was the third boy?

Speaker 1 (23:00):
And what did your parents do for a living?

Speaker 2 (23:05):
They just had a good time living and my dad
was very he was a traveling salesman. There were ballroom
champions of Lancashire because there was a big cup on
the over the fire place, and they were happy and
it was a wonderful life because I worked on the

(23:26):
local farm with my brother Tony since I was then
ten years old eleven years old, and we sang Heavery
brother songs all the time. It was like, you know,
in all weathers, I'm serious weather up in the north
of England you get a lot of snow, a lot
of rain, more rain and then a lot of snow,

(23:48):
then sunny days around Easter. It used to be beautiful.
But we used to deliver milk, milk the cows shovel
a lot of cow downg what we call shit, a
lot of poop, and I'd shovel it and put it
in a wheelbarrow and tip it over into the tip

(24:08):
And all that was used for spreading all over the
fields to make the grass grow. It's called I can't
remember what it's called, fertilizer. Fertilizer.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Well done, Bob, okay, So let's go back to that era.
What kind of kid were you were you? Popular? Good student,
bad student?

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Well, yeah, I was a nice guy. You know. I
used to run errands from my mom and do this
and that and the other, go and play football up
on the car park with local kids, and play cricket
even on the car park with local kids. And one
of the guys that I used to play against lived

(24:52):
a couple of blocks down the water street. His name
was David Lloyd and he actually played for England cricket
Test match. He's one of the most famous commentators now
in cricket. Sweet guy too.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
So did your parents teach you to dance?

Speaker 2 (25:12):
No, the ballroom dancing, you know, is a different, different world.
It was all that kind of Fred Astaire type dancing.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Well, did you have to go to them with them
to the ballroom.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, we could go down the road and watch them
dance around and it was really beautiful to watch. But
I was more interested that. By the time I was
ten eleven, I was interested in being in a band.
So I joined the band and it was called the
Little John Skiffle Group, and I played the washboard and

(25:47):
we were very loud and noisy. Okay, well, American music
actually a lot of classic American country music.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
You're born just before the Second World War ends? So
what was life like in the fifties in England for you.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Delivery milk?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Well, I mean in terms of a couple of things.
In terms of music. You look through a US lens,
we have Ike Turner, Rock Rocket eighty eight, we have
Rock around the Clock, then we have Elvis and then
it's sort of a dry period with teen idols, although
we have the Beach Boys of Four Seasons and then
come the Beatles. What was it like from a UK viewpoint?

Speaker 2 (26:35):
Well, what hammer was? My brother had a motorbike. He
actually you ever see Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones Worse? Yeah,
that's my brother. He had the helmet. Yeah, no, a helmet,
didn't use a helmet, had a cap, dark glasses and
a big shield on this motorbike some being motorbike, which

(26:57):
is like a shaft driven noisy bugger. And he said
to me, John, we're going to go and see the Beatles.
They're playing at Southport. And this is like April sixty three, Yeah,
around that time. I said, okay. So it rained all
the way there, because you know where I lived, it
rained all the time, the North Sea or something like that.

(27:20):
And so we actually went to see the Beatles performing
in the Floral Hall in Southport in April sixty three.
And of course we'd heard on the radio Love Me Do,
and we all liked it, you know, and we sang
all the way to the gig and went in and

(27:43):
they're probably about let's say, five hundred and six hundred people,
mostly guys and a bunch of girls at the front.
Mostly guys, sort of you know, teenagers. They were called
you were raither a rocker or hippie. These were sort
of a mixture, but it was kind of the energy

(28:05):
was so powerful and the Beatles sounded so amazing that
you get involved in it. He started shouting and screaming
after every song. They didn't scream in when they were playing.
The girls at the front didn't scream. They just waited
till they finished the song, you know, twists and shout
and then yeah, wonderful. And it was a revelation for

(28:29):
me and my brother because we had a band, and
so we learned all the first album of the Beatles
and we played that and felt like we were in
the Beatles sort of. We even had a Beatle air cut.
And we went to see them about six months later
in Blackburn, which is only five miles away from Acaring Town,

(28:51):
and got to the gig and couldn't hear them. Everybody
was screaming. Everybody was screaming. You could hardly hear them.
It's fantastic the being with your brother.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Were you playing gigs out? Were you getting paid or
you just hauling?

Speaker 2 (29:10):
No? No, no, we got paid. We played working men's clubs,
very important men's clubs.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
I don't know what a working men's club.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Is, Okay. Working men's club is when you go there
and you set up your kid drum kit and your amplifier,
and then the first person that goes on stage in
front of about one hundred local people, all drinking a
lot of beer and the first guy comes on. He's
a comedian, tells a few jokes and some of them
dirty and some not, and the crowd are getting h

(29:42):
it's fantastic. Where's the stripper and this? So the stripper
comes on and she does her strippering, and then we
go on after the stripper, and the problem was that
she would had to come past us in this whole
way as we were standing there to go on stage,
to come past naked, and it was frightening, very frightening,

(30:06):
three young lad like me. Anyway, we go on and
play four songs, then come back off, and then the
comedian will go on, then bingo, and then another stripper
would go on. And that's a working men's club.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
And do you remember how much they would pay the group.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Five pounds which paid for the petrol and some fish
and chips.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Okay, so you work it. How long do you go
to school?

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Till I was fourteen? And then I said I've had
enough because I wasn't learning anything in the last two
months that I was at. The school was actually cool,
Saint Christopher's, which was kind of nice. The Saint Christopher
is the patron saint of travel, and that's what I did.
I traveled. I'm still traveling now.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Okay, so you're fourteen, you stop going to school. Your
parents are cool with that.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, of course, got a job in the on the farm,
helping to keep the ball rolling at home, and so.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
You know, okay, you're working on the farm. I've actually
worked on a farm, and it can be it can
be very hard work. Yeah, so I can't imagine you're
working on the farm saying well, this is my future.
So what was what were you thinking in your brain
as you're doing all this?

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Well, obviously we had the rock and roll band that
we play every weekend, and then you know, I don't
know if you don't think about much other than just
hearing the next hit song on the radio, learning it
and going on stage and playing it and just getting

(31:49):
into the idea of maybe one day we can have
a hit record. And then this, this, this really happened.
We were actually rehearsing in our little rehearsal room from
downtown in Acrington there and this this guy came up
from Manchester and I think he was They call him
Jack the Lad, a guy that seems to know everything.

(32:10):
He came in and heard us playing, he says, I
think you guys are really good. Do you know do
you want? Do you want to make a hit record?
And we said yeah, and they said, well, next Thursday
can you come down to Manchester and play for my friends.
I have a couple of friends who've got a lot
of money and they can make sure you have a

(32:31):
hit record. And I said that'd be great and Tony said, yeah,
that'll be really good. He didn't talk, but he said
it'd be really good. And the guy said, so this Thursday,
cant can you come down to Manchester and play to
my two friends? And my brother Tony said no, I'm sorry, No,

(32:52):
We're playing at baddy Ham working Men's Club and the
guy said, well cancel it. Oh no, I can't cancel it.
We promised to go and play and the guy said, well,
screw You'll go and find another band. So he went
five miles away to Blackburn and got in touch with
a band called I'll think about it in a minute

(33:14):
and uh morton, morton, somebody's more than somebody's five morton. Anyway,
they were called us something and he went to them
and within six weeks they were top of the charts
with a song. Yeah, he actually could do it and
there was as he could buy anything, you know, and Juliet,

(33:36):
I think the song was and such wonderful moments in
my life.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Okay, so you've missed this big opportunity. What's your first
break if there is one.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
There wasn't one. I brought my nodded. Well. Basically what
we did was kind of cool because we decided to
go to play in clubs in Germany and Scandinavia. It
was the way to be able to learn your trade

(34:13):
if you like, you know, you go and play in Cologne, Frankfurt,
Hamburg and then Helsinki and you do two weeks in
each a city and they go around. You go round
and round doing that. And of course that was an
incredible time. It was like the mid sixties. There was

(34:37):
so much music around everywhere you looked and listened. It
was great music. And we became a good band, you
know at that time, I thought, and we were doing
basically you played from seven to midnight and fifteen minute
breaks and the the manager of the club will definitely

(35:01):
give you some pills to keep you awake. So we
started on that train of let's take a pill now man,
you know, he said, yeah, but you're not supposed to
take into later on in the night. No, I want
to take it now. It makes me speed. It's called speed,
and that's what we all did. And we did all
these gigs around and round and around, go around in circles.

(35:22):
And then the greatest thing that happened was Sergeant Pepper
came out. So by then we were on speed marijuana.
It's called hashies in Europe and LSD. I said, okay,
let's try this stuff. And then we put on Sergeant Pepper.

(35:47):
That really blew everybody's mind in the world, I think,
because it was brilliant. I just wanted to be a beetle.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
How did you get the these gigs in Germany and Scandinavia.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Oh, there's an agent. There's always an agent. There's always somebody,
you know, you ask ask around, you know.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Okay, you hear Sergeant Pepper, which really was mind blowing,
especially there were no singles on it. It was a
thing to itself. And you're doing these European tours. What's
the next step for you?

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Well, the next step was we we we played show
in Sweden, No Copenhagen, beautiful place, and we had to
do this one more show. Before we went to the
next town, which was Clone, and then down to Munich

(36:47):
and then up to Hamburg, same same thing. And I
just hattened to take Lstta and I went to see
one of the greatest movies ever. It was Dr Schivago,
so Doctor Chibago. I was so in love with that woman,
whatever her name was. Anyway, I went to see that

(37:12):
and then went to the gig, and I noticed that
everybody in the band takes somewhere ste so we'd look
at each other. We're supposed to be playing music. We're
standing there on the stage and there's people looking at
us saying, well, come on, then get on with the music.
And we're all looking at each other saying, how do
we do this? We couldn't put it together, you know, mentally,

(37:36):
we couldn't put it together. It's just not possible. So
the guy fired us and we went down to Cologne
and carried on with doing seven hours of singing and
playing every night. And then one day I just had
a vision, a musical vision, and I just had this

(37:57):
idea we were a pretty good band. I thought we
were a pretty good band of warriors, you know, And
so I went to the bedroom and woke everybody up. Say,
come on, guys, let's rehearse. Guys, go away, John please,
they all said, in unison and go away. But guys,

(38:21):
we've got to rehearse. Man. We can be really good.
I've got some ideas musically. We could do a little
bit of John. Will you go away please? They said
in unison, And I said, okay, I'm packing my bags,
I'm leaving, which I did. I left, I got my
suitcase and I went to Munich. And the rest is

(38:45):
in my autobiography. It's a good story though.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Okay, at what point in this story do you start
playing original material?

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Probably not until I got to London. I was a
couple of great things happened where I had a visitation.
Where I was sitting in this beautiful English gardens in Munich,
and I was mumbling to myself over and over why
am I here?

Speaker 1 (39:17):
Why?

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?
What's going on? What's going on? And the voice said, John,
nothing matters? And I thought, who the heck was that.
There's nobody around me. I'm in the middle of a garden.
And the voice said, John, nothing matters. Well, that did it?

(39:45):
I said, Oh, my god, somebody's watching me or watching
over me. What the heck's going on? I'm thinking. But
something really beautiful happened that I ran to the department
that I was staying in and there was a telegram
on the floor. When I opened the door, the telegram
who was from my mom and it said, John, there's

(40:08):
a band in Frankfurt want you to sing with them,
and here's the number. And that was it. It was like,
somebody wants me, because that's why I was so screwed up.
I just thought nobody wanted me, but they did, and
I went to work with them for three months, and
then I went to London and that's where I met Chris.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
How did you meet Chris Squire?

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Well, I was working at a bar over the Marquee Club,
a very famous club in London, and all the people
that played the Marquee came up to the club, you know, normal,
and I clean up and wash up and help help
around to survive, and you know, people like who they

(40:51):
wander in have a few drinks and then even everybody
who played at the Marquee Club would pop up to
the club and he met all the greats at that period.
It was like sixty eight sixty nine. So I was
there cleaning up one evening and the guy that ran

(41:15):
the club, a really nice guy, said, I know you're
looking for a band, John. I said, yeah, I'm looking
for a band. I said, well, there's a bass player
over there. I think he might be looking for a singer.
I thought, okay. So I went toward to this very
tall guy and said, Hi, my name is John and
he said my name is Cruse. And I said, so

(41:36):
you have a band. He said you're what's the band called?
He said Mabel Greer's Toy Shop. Oh really, yeah, what
do you want to do? I said, well, I love
singing and I love pu you know Paul McCartney. Of course,
you know. I liked his voice and my voice is

(41:56):
high like that. And he said what kind of music
do you listen to? Though? I said, oh, I love
Simon and gar Phone Call. I think all Simon's really
got his chops together a songwriting wise, you know. And
they said do you write songs? And said, well, mess
around with my guitar. I'm not not good. He said, well,
why did you come to rehearsals of my band Mabel

(42:19):
Greeners Toy Shop tomorrow and I said okay. Then, and
before before we partied, he said, why don't we come
back to my appointment, Well, we'll jam and we wrote
a couple of songs and I thought, this guy's really nice,
you know. And the following day I went to the
rehearsal place to work with his band Match and the

(42:43):
drummers left because he was getting paid. Nobody got paid
in this band. But he went to Paris to work
in another band. So I got a copy of the Maybe,
I got a copy of Melody Maker, and I looked
for drummer looking for band, and there it was as

(43:08):
a love Week kit and a van. My name is
Bill Bruford, I said, he's the guy. So we phoned
him up and he came the following day and he
joined the band. And then the question was, well, what
are we going to call ourselves? Because Chris said, well,
maybe Grease Toy Shop is pretty cool, and I said no,

(43:33):
the best band that I ever heard was an Irish name,
an Irish band. They called themselves the Do you remember then?
Of course that I thought that was perfect, very Irish.
So we rehearsed and rehearsed and did a show. We

(43:53):
did most of the show, just doing a funky version
of Midnight Hour.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
And at this point we're Tony and Peter in the band.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Tony who oh Tony? Yeah, Tony was a keyboard player.
Peter Banks was the guitar player. Yeah, it's just the
drummer left. How would I get a thing or you know?
But yeah, you believe you know, that's basically it.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
So you play this funky version of in the Midnight Hour?

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Where does it go from there?

Speaker 2 (44:30):
For about an hour, well, we just had to make
up time. We knew four songs, one of them we'd
written I'd written with the with Chris that first night,
and then another song that Chris had, and then we
did Midnight Hour. It was just a show tour. It
was just our first show together and we thought we

(44:52):
were pretty good, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
How does it become yes? And how do you get
a record deal?

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Well that's story. And it was just generally okay, everybody
put a name of the band in a art. Okay,
because I started to become the boss, they used to
call me Napoleon because I was small, and so I'd organized.
I said, okay, everybody write down a name. I wrote

(45:20):
down World. Chris wrote down live, it's gotta be short,
and Peter Banks wrote down yes, and that was it
because we went through, we went through what we put
in there with what's this?

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Is it the yes? Peter said no, no, it's just yes,
and we looked at each other and said, yes, that
was it.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Okay, you have a name, you played one gig long
version of Midnight Hour. How do you end up getting
a record deal with Atlantic?

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Oh, that's that's another story. The great thing happened was
Ertigan is coming from New York to see you guys.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
That was wait wait wait wait wait, that's a big thing.
You're nobody's who is the connection with Armit?

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Okay, here's the story. So what happened was we were
doing pretty good. We started doing gigs in and around London.
We did some of Manchester and then we did some
up north and of England and we were we got tired,
you know, we started playing good and you know, Bill

(46:42):
and Chris were really rocking and we got going and uh,
I go to a phone call from our friend who
ran that club, the Shaft Club, Chase, and he said this,
this guy wants your phone number. We have phone numbers,
He said, can you can you phone him? He wants
to see if you can play tonight at the the

(47:07):
pretty famous speakeasy club in London. And he said, they
want you to play tonight because the band that's supposed
to be there just got stopped from getting on a
plane in New York. And we said, so who who
who do How are we going to replace? He said,

(47:32):
somebody in the Family Tree and we said, what the
heck's that? There's a band called the Family So we
got went to the club and started setting god to
do our little show that we had, and all of
a sudden people started coming in there row people at
Pete Townshend came in and a couple of other guys
from the big bands, and I said, who are we replacing?

(47:57):
Said Slide in the Family Stone? Oh fuck, what are
we gonna do? Well, let's just play, man, Let's just
do it. Let's just do it, and people, Paul McCart,
it was all these people came, these droves of people
came to see Sli in the Family Stone. So we
did our show. You know, we were we were kind

(48:20):
of nervous and frightened, but we played hard and we
got it there. The show a midnight hour yeah, that'll
do it. I can't remember the songs that we were doing,
but we were doing some good, good music at that time.
We're doing actually variations on kind of themes like Yes

(48:42):
became famous for, which is creating introductions to a song
and then middle sections and building it up and you know,
like structure using structure, And it kind of worked and
went down very well, and we passed a lot of
joints around it and make sure everybody was happy in
the Stone. Oh boy, what a night. And that was

(49:05):
the beginning of our friendship with the manager of that
club and a really sweet guy, and he was the
one that got in touch with somebody Atlantic Records, and
they said, we heard about what happened you. You did
a great job for sliding the family Stone and Roy

(49:26):
Roy was the manager, and he said, I think I
might be able to get you to meet rma Urtigan
and maybe you could be on Atlantic Records. And I thought,
any record come pretty I don't care who it is,
but we need to make a record sort of thing

(49:47):
because I thought we were playing pretty good on stage.
It would be good to record some of the show,
put it out as a record and see how we
go and We had a couple of songs that we
thought were commercial but not really, and I think commercial
became sort of dare I say a nasty word in

(50:09):
my mind, We're never going to be commercial. I don't
want to be commercial. I'm too old. I was twenty
seven years old.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Something.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
I feel too old. I don't want to be a
pop star sort of thing. So we carried along the
train of writing music that became a time in a
word and things like that. From the second album. I
can't remember much about the first album, even though.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Okay, I got a few questions about the first album. Okay,
so we get there, Ahmed comes to see you, and
then what happens.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Oh, I've mentioned this many times and I'll mention it again.
Well armored, incredibly dressed, very Turkish guy, beautiful, he looked immaculate,
like a million bucks. And he was producing the great people,
oh you know he was at that time. He was

(51:02):
producing Ray Charles and of course I wish I could
remember their names. How we'll do in a minute, all
the great people that were on Atlancet Records. Unbelievable, And
he came to see us. Anyway, we played our little
four songs and I went to the lute, have a
p and Roy happily comes running in and starts with

(51:25):
a peer. I said, John, I'm really going to get
this guy, this American guy. I'm gonna make sure you
can make a lot of money. I'm going to get
you the best contract. And at that moment in time,
somebody pulled the chain in the toilet next to us,
and out it comes home. A article said, oh, well
that blew that. Oh that's a great story, so it is.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Interested.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, he signed us up for ten years, you know,
three points whatever it was in those days. But we
managed to slowly but surely get better deal along the way.
When it took us a couple of albums to make
any sense about what we're doing. And then we did
the Yes album, and that was really when we sort

(52:14):
of felt we're in the game. We're in the game.
We're hammling okay, tour.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Well, let's start with the first album, which is where
I come in. How'd you decide to cover every little
thing by the Beatles?

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Every little thing she does? It's a great song, you know,
and we did it very well. You know. That's when
Yes started to sort of expand an original song into
something a little bit more rocking and jiving or whatever.
Dun but that was the whole idea. I think Chris

(52:54):
was brilliant at letting me, you know, listening to me,
and then letting the band try it out, because you know,
there was not doubters at all. They just say, John,
why do you want to do this? Why do you
want to do this? And I'd say, just try it out,
just try it out. So we had a song that

(53:17):
I was writing, yours Notice Grace, and they're trying to
start a beginning of it. Anyway, that's the third album.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
So on the first album, you do that every little
thing that was not you know, there are certain songs
by the Beatles that are covered all the time. I
didn't know another cover at that particular point in time,
and you rearranged it and made it your own. I
mean it was just utterly fantastic.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah, that was part of my experience of listening to
at that time. I was listening to a lot of
music by no I hadn't got to Sibelius by them,
but I'd listened to the Planet Suite and things like that,
the very commercial symphonic music and drag ideas out of

(54:02):
that and who is it did that as well, King Curmson.
You know, they were doing all sorts of stravinskyisms here there.
Everybod started listening to the classic music was written one
hundred fifty years ago, fifty years ago, symphonic music, and
they try to bring it into the modern rock and roll.
And that's basically what happened. It was just the idea

(54:24):
of structure. Structure will make it work. If you've got
a good intro, you can always play in the middle
and then at the end, you know, okay.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
But there are some originals on that first album I
think are just great yesterday and today looking around.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Survival, Yeah, I love Survival. Survival that story. That's going
to be my title of my autobiography, Survival and other Stories.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
So the first album comes out, I mean it was
like a mystery in America. I was actually turned on
by my dentist, which is something that didn't happen back then.
But what was the album comes out? What was your experience.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Do you know? I don't remember very much about it.
I think everything was a blair at that time. Because
you were doing interviews. People wanted to know what you thought,
which was not very much, but just general people wanting
you to great. Guy called Chris Welch. He was a
big fan of our beginnings and the Melody Maker. You

(55:31):
do interviews about this and that, and it's just one
of those things you pull apart an album you've just
made it, and then you look back and think it
wasn't that good. And the second one was Time of
a Word that wasn't that good. You know, you just
got through that emotion of doing it, thinking it's really

(55:53):
really good, Oh, it really sounds great, and then you
listen back to it anything within a couple of three months,
yet you bore it's not working. Are you're performing it,
but you're thinking about the next step you're going to take.
And that's been my juxtaposition as a singer in a band.
I don't play anything. I just have to sing all

(56:14):
the time and pretend I can play the guitar, which
I could hardly play. But I was always thinking about
what we've gotta be doing a bit better. And then
people come into your life. I met we were doing
a TV show in France, and it was so funny

(56:36):
because we were told not to be too loud. Of course,
we were very loud at that time, and so we
started playing I think it was yours noticed Grace, and
the credits came up. They cut us off. We'd waited

(56:58):
their whole day to do this song. At the end
of this it was a it was a sort of
a game like come on Down, you know that kind
of TV show, and so we waited a day, makeup
and everything to play it, and just when we started playing,
it was too loud, so they faded us out and

(57:20):
the credits came up at the end of the And
that night I met Keith Charrett and that really yeah,
because he was playing in a trio on the TV
show and he said to me, do you want to
come and see my I'm gonna I'm gont on the
left bank, you know, I'm just going to do a
jam session tonight, And I thought, charm session. That's really cool.

(57:41):
So I went just to see him. I sat by
myself and he came in and started playing the piano,
and the drummer was there playing the drums, and he
kind of looked at the drum and said, what's the
bass blake? The drummer said, I don't know, I don't know.
I'm French. And so they're playing when he's Keith Charis

(58:06):
just diving away on the piano and I couldn't believe
how good this guy was. He was eighteen years old.
And then the bass player came. He was six foot
so handsome, and he brought a real big stand up
bass and he starts. So jaris playing away with the drummer,
and he starts tuning up his bass and I can

(58:32):
see kit Jar going, what the fuck are you doing? Man?
We're playing jazz, And all of a sudden the bass
play went but boom boom boom boom boom boom boom
boom boom boom boom, brilliant. All of a sudden he
was locked in and Jarrett screamed and they carried on
playing for an hour. It was like magic. He learned

(58:52):
about jazz, real jazz. When you see that happen.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Okay, first album comes out America almost good Time, and
a word comes out. It's like a secret. You can
barely find it in the record story. Where does Brian
Lane come in?

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Well, we had we had a manager, Roy who was
a really great guy, just not working in tandem with
what we were trying to do musically, say, and so
we were just invited to meet this company that actually
it was the company that created a movie, a very

(59:34):
famous movie called Platoon. They were pretty big in the
business world. You know. We were very lowly and who
are we to even it goes through their front door
sort of thing. But we went through the front door
and then we were introduced to Brian, and Brian started

(59:56):
the managers along with other people. There's a lot of
people in. It wasn't just this band and that was that.
And from then on it was just knowing that, gosh,
we are sort of stable, shall we say, but a
little bit awkward at times, and where we're going musically,

(01:00:21):
who's who wants to go this way? There was that
story when when I went to say, come on, we've
got to rehearse. Guys got to rehearse, felt like Pinocchio,
come on, you got to rehearse. Let's do that, and
they say not John, just leave leave us alone. I mean, see,
that sort of thing happened in a way that it

(01:00:41):
just happened that I felt out of balance, if you like.
And it's a funny way of thinking it that I
was in this speakeasy and it was very early in
the night and I walked past this band there was
nobody in the club. I think there's two or three
people drinking, and they were playing really good. But the

(01:01:03):
guitarist was really good. And he was playing what you
would call one of the most beautiful guitars I've ever seen.
It was a Gibson, wonderful shaped guitar and he was
playing the hell out of it, and you know, and
they were doing good music. I don't know kind of
music they were doing, but he was good. And I
mentioned it to Chris that where are we going musically,

(01:01:27):
because I don't know, you know. Chris said, well, you know,
we need to decide. Sometimes you got to change one
of the guys in the band if things aren't rolling correctly,
you know. And I said, well, I just saw this
guy in the band called Bodhast and Chris said, yeah,
I know, I know, well, I know him, I've seen him,

(01:01:52):
so let's try it out. So he try somebody out,
and the shape of the band evolves, one might say.
Another musician comes in. And that's when I linked together
with Steve, and all of a sudden I was in
musical heaven because we could write music together very quickly.

(01:02:15):
With Chris, it was now and again music we'd write something,
but with Steve is like every day we're writing a
couple of ideas, a couple of ideas, a couple of
and more and more and more. So it was a
spontaneous combustion of musical energy that got us into the
fragile world.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Okay, so does Brian Lane come in after the first
two albums? Is that approximately when he comes in?

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Okay, Steve Howe comes in. How do you get rid
of Peter Banks? And what does he say?

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
Well, of course he was upset. You know, I think
we were. I was upset anyway that we had to
think about changing somebody in the band. It's just one
of the things you kind of live with it and
sit down and say, well, what is the best for
the future of where we're going, and that's what you do.
And even talked to him about what he would do now.

(01:03:12):
He had a couple of guys he wanted to work
with anyway, so he wanted to go with this other
band and he said, yeah, that'd be that would good luck?
You know, what are you going to do? Good luck?
And okay, so then you get on with it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
The Yes album is a great leap forward from what
had come before. Yeah, we have yours is no disgrace
Starship Trooper. I've seen all good people. Did these all
come from you now? Meeting and writing with.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Steve, Yeah, it was a combination of My suggestion was
very simple, let's get out of London. Let's go and
find a farmhouse, cottage, rental and we can be somewhere
totally different than where we are now. And we found
a place in Devon. We all went there to work.

(01:04:01):
You're there, you connect, you become more than what you
were before because you're getting to know each other, know
each other O. There's a good parts, quirky parts, nice parts, whatever,
but you're you're you're, you're connected. And I thought that
was the way to go. And I have some great

(01:04:26):
memories of being in that farmhouse, which Steve Ole lives
there now. And the memories were really good because it
was it was like very to say the least, it
was kind of jazz rock. We we would go there,
we would try this, we would try that, and the

(01:04:50):
idea of working as a group became more like a family.
If you're like, Okay, we're here, we're stuck together. You know,
somebody's gonna make breakfast. That we had a roady who
made breakfast and things like that, but you're actually together
for the first time without any outside influence. And that

(01:05:13):
was really crucial for me at that time because I
knew these were great talented people. I felt very comfortable
about writing lyrics and melodies. I was a melody crazy,
you know. Every time I every time I heard it,
I start writing a melody in my head and singing ideas.
So I felt very comfortable about where we were going.

(01:05:36):
And it worked out. I said, basically, we'll learn all
this music as well as the songs that were pretty
getting known for America. Every little thing was that went
in the show. These new songs we should we should
go on the road and play the play them as
as a practice to go in the studio, rather than

(01:05:57):
go in the studio and start start off with the
drums and the kit and the bit to No. I
think we've got to play it in the studio. So
the only way we can play in the studios go
on the road as a band playing some new music
as well as this old music from the first couple
of albums. And that was the way the way it worked.

(01:06:18):
And by then we had a feeling that we were
getting great reaction from the audiences. They would come in
to see us again and again. So no matter if
we went up to play Birmingham, you'd always see the
similar crowd of people would come and I think you
just feel, you know, it's like Bob, Yeah, you just

(01:06:40):
feel that everything is happening. You go, well, this is
definitely better than we were six months ago. And then
we went in and recorded what became the y S album,
and then the fragile.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
Okay See recorded the Yes album. In America, it was
commercially more available. You didn't hear it on the radio.
I know you were doing interviews, et cetera. Was what
was your experience on the inside relative to the success
of the Yes album?

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
How do you mean sorry?

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
It seems artistically it's a great leap forward from the
two previous albums, especially the second album, and in retrospect
everyone can see how great it was. Did you feel
from the end standpoint of your band that wait a second,
we're blowing up or did you still feel a way
we got a big hill to climb.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
I think we were just feeling good about we had
a really good album. We were performing it and audiences
were great. The next step, I have to get myself
in chronic. I can't say the word chronological order. After
the the S album was to go into the Fragile album, right, but.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
Before we get the fragile, how does Rick Wakeman get
in the band?

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Well? That's that. That was the the reason we called
it fragile is because being in a band was very fragile,
never quite sure what's going to happen next, and something
was going haywire on the on the American tour. When
we went on tour doing the S album we were
doing with Jethro tell I think we were on tour

(01:08:38):
and magnified in front of five thousand people all of
a sudden, ten thousand people. Is you're magnifying your your
your creativity and how big can we get and how
big should we be? And you know, shouldn't we have

(01:08:58):
great lighting systems and things like that, and so you're growing,
You're just growing, and you're thinking, well, the music's got
to grow as well. At that time, the Mug had
just come out with a new system and Moog and
them sounds you could get, and Keith Emerson was playing
a Moog and stuff, and it just happened that We

(01:09:23):
did a track I think it was Yours Nice Grace
with the Moog theme and everything, and just happened that
Tony wasn't that interestry at that time in creating other
sounds other than the organ, which he played amazingly well.
But it just happened that at that time we'd actually
done a show with Rick Wakeman's band. You probably know

(01:09:48):
and you remember the name. I don't, ah, and I
just thought this Rick Wakeman is He's quite brilliant, and
that was the next step. You're going to bring in
another musician, musician who's going to upgrade you musically speaking
and sound wise. And that's that's basically what happened. We

(01:10:10):
just got on with the next album, which again you
call fragile because everything is so fragile. You don't know
if you're going to be here today or tomorrow. There
was just so much surrounding. Yes, at that time it
was pretty intense at times, and just wanted to get

(01:10:31):
on with the next piece of music.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Okay, you talked earlier, you're twenty seven years old, you
don't want to be commercial. Suddenly round up how it
becomes like this gigantic worldwide hit. And I must say
it doesn't sound like anything else on the radio, and
no one would have predicted it would have become that hit.
But it becomes a worldwide hit. So what was your experience.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
I remember we were and that it's Pennsylvania rehearsing, and
we went for a drive to go for dinner or
something like that, and on the way the roundaback came
on the radio. We never heard ourselves on the radio.
Went turn it up, turn it up, and then all
of a sudden, the middle section of roundabout wasn't there
and it went straight to the organ solo, and I went,

(01:11:20):
wait a minute, they've edited it. Well, they could have asked,
you know, it's like so they got a big persiszk
take the middle out. And it was correct because it worked,
and it was brilliant and it sounded great, and it
was just like all the movies you've ever seen of

(01:11:40):
the band hearing themselves or artists hearing themselves on the
radio for the first time. It's freaky, it's wonderful, and
you feel like we made it at last, We made it.
Little did we know?

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
You know? Okay, it's unbelievable success. Meanwhile, there's a change
in the band. You know, because we're all hungry for
rock press. At that point, Rick Wakeman comes out with
seven keyboards, he's wearing a cape, and then he goes on,

(01:12:15):
I'm the only person who eats meat in the band.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Were you all taking this with a grain of salt?
Or was everybody saying, well, you know, he's kind of
an attention hog.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
No, here's Rickman. Oh he's sparky and capes and and
he plays so damn good. He was. He was quite brilliant,
and he's brilliant as as he's proved over the years.
He's played on so many records that are very well known,

(01:12:46):
and you can't take that away from him. He's brilliant.
He's Rick Wakeman.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
Okay, So next comes close to the Edge. This is
real kind of a breakthrough in that there's one song
that's a complete side long. Did you feel liberated by
your commercial success and said I'm gonna do whatever I
want to? How did you approach close to the Edge.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
It's very simple. We were on tour with Fragile, and
no matter where we went, people played, especially the radio
stations in the university cycle. We go to university. After university,
do a show and go to the radio station and
they put on yours notice Grace. You know, don't think

(01:13:39):
about making it short. It's nine minutes long.

Speaker 1 (01:13:43):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
It's like all of a sudden, wait a minute. FM radio.
That's the key, that's the key. The key is radio
can play your music now because FM radio accept long
form pieces of music, and they would play all the
Heart of Sunrise and all this kind of thing without

(01:14:03):
a blinking of an eye. They actually played it. And
I started talking to Steve because we'd sort of bonded
pretty tightly about songwriting ideas and things, and we started
coming up with an idea. I've been reading hermann Hesse
Journey to the East, which is a beautiful book of enlightening, enlightenment,

(01:14:27):
and so I just started thinking, yeah, we'll just go
let's just go for it. You know, you do. You
can only fit twenty minutes on a record because after
twenty minutes it goes wonky the sound because it's vinyl,
you know. And that was the trials and tribulations of

(01:14:49):
being in a band where everybody agrees and then doesn't
really agree, and then you kind of you go sort
of a left and then a bit of a right
swing and Then all of a sudden, we'd finished close
to the edge and I got a phone call from
Bill Bruford. I'm leaving the band, said Bill, could you

(01:15:10):
say that again? I'm leaving the band? Why? Well, I've
had enough. Okay, what are you going to do? Is
I'm going to join King Crimson? Bill, you bastard. I
didn't say that, but I just thought, what's wrong with us?
That really freaked me out. I thought there was something

(01:15:31):
really badly wrong with us. If he was going to
leave after creating what I think personally is a wonderful
piece of music, why did he leave?

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
What was there?

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
What was wrong with me? I thought it was me.
I just thought it was.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
You know, well fifty years later, what was it?

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
Well, he wasn't getting old with Chris as much as
I thought he was. He wasn't like it, wasn't enjoying. Uh,
you know, Christmas said, there's the beat. People said, no,
it's there, just to the left, but three inches to
the left. No, that's where the beat is. I think
they had a couple of jives like that in their recording,

(01:16:17):
but I didn't take it seriously. I just it was just,
you know, people not quite understanding where the beat is.
But God bless them.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
You know, he had a parapatetic career and then he
ultimately retired.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
Nobody I know, I know, I wrote a book, Well,
it's life. You know, he has had an exceptional life.
When he was out there with his last band, I
thought they were just so good. I can't remember the name,
but yeah, very very good, because in those days, you know,

(01:16:59):
you you sort of I remember doing around that time.
It was probably around the time of fried Child tour,
or maybe six months or earlier, but we were opening
up for The Kinks in a gig in Albany area

(01:17:20):
University of New York there, and the opening band was
a band that we hadn't heard about called Mavish Orchestra,
and we were there early to soundcheck and we knew
Mavishni were going to do a sound check at six
thirty something. So me and Chris stood there and my

(01:17:40):
Joe just dropped. I went, Oh, my god, these these
guys have got something. I could not believe what they had.
My Vish New Orchestra was on another planet and within
three months they were headlining around the world.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
It was like, Wow, So how does Alan White get
in the band?

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
Well that was that was that big problem that Bill
had left. And I was in limbo and uh Eddie Offred,
our wonderful producer dude, said well, I know this kind
of Alan White. And I said, Alan White. Didn't he
play on uh Friday, what was it called John Lennon album?

(01:18:29):
He said yeah, yeah, So I said, gosh, would he
be interested? I wasn't quite sure if he would be interested,
you know, And he said, yeah, you know, I'll get
him to come down this afternoon at rearsal place we
had in Shepherd's Bush and he came in. Joyful guy,

(01:18:50):
sweetest guy in the world. And man, he could play
the hell out of their arms. He really really could
do it. And not only that, we because we were
going on touring two weeks. He learned the whole tour,
the whole show in ten days. Ridiculous and he was
my best man at my wedding. Really good man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
Stylistically. What was different having Alan in the band as
opposed to Bill.

Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
You know, I don't know. I don't know that much
about there was. There was less paradials. I don't know
what to say. He was just so on top of it.
He played it magnificently. A great, great drummer, there's no question,
as Bill was. But Bill was always semi jazz groove,

(01:19:40):
whereas Alan was straight on it, you know. And he
just learned everything and performed everything quite brilliantly on that tour,
and we became fast friends, and I say he was
my best man.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
So nextis Tales from Top of Graphic Oceans. It took
close to the edge one step further. It's a double album,
long song, ultimately controversial. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
In short, it was, it was very well received by
Yes fans, very very well received. I went through I
don't know what it was it was. When I think
about it, I was really scared about what I'd done,

(01:20:28):
and I pushed everybody over the hell over the hill,
pushing them up the mountain. Come on, everybody, we can
do this. Come on, What the hell? It's only four
pieces of music? What the hell? What the hell sort
of attitude, you know. And then as I looked back
over the first year and the terrible press that we got,

(01:20:49):
and the whole thing, the whole idea, the whole idea
of the dream sort of fell apart in my state
of consciousness at that time, and I had a rough
time when that I happened, and and then you know,
we can leap from that moment because there was something

(01:21:12):
going on that I just felt was wrong, and I
don't I don't quite. I could never pinpoint why things
just didn't sail along so beautifully into the sunset. It
just did not happen. But a lot of people enjoyed
the album. And the interesting thing was that over the

(01:21:33):
over the next year or so, I I I lost
a lot of confidence in what I was thinking about
music until I seemed I seemed to get my act together,
and then we did going for the One. I had
a feeling that that was a very important song. You

(01:21:54):
have to go for it and make it right and
make it work. So by the end of the seventh
is I had to somehow struggle through a couple of
albums and not really knowing where I'm going in the
hope that I was going in the right direction. And
then we did Awaken, and that for me was and

(01:22:19):
is so important to my state of mind because it
really rejoined the band and the angel sang it was.
It was just a remarkable feeling at the end of
that album, having gone through a lot of doubt, and

(01:22:41):
fear and frustration. Am I doing the right thing I'm singing?
Am I singing the right thing? I'm saying the right thing?
And thankfully at the end of that period seventies, it

(01:23:02):
was it was really sobering experience for me to wake
up and still.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
Dream Now Rick left and then he came back. What
was going on there?

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Yeah, that was well. We we went through the experience
of making an album with another keyboard player who was
very very talented, very very strong. It is jazz fusion concept.
Great player. He just had different h Swiss, so he

(01:23:39):
has a different perception of where maybe I was going
or I think I thought I was going, or I
was trying to go. I was I was just going
through a very sulways said a difficult time.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
Okay, so you have relayered not so good, you have
going for the one, which is a big comeback, then
there's Tormatto, which is not as successful, and then you
leave the band. How do you end up leaving the band?

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
Well, because it is it had lost its balance. There
was no balance. It was it was it was you know,
a couple of the balance. The balance was gone and
I couldn't I couldn't bring it back together. So that
was the end of that. It was like like when

(01:24:29):
I came, I said, well, the guys, we've got to rehearse,
we've got to rehearse. Oh, John, just off okay, because
that's what they said when I left the band in Germany,
f off very loudly. Then I said, okay, I'm going.
And that's what I did. I just let go, you know,
let go.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Let God you left loudly because you thought you could
wake them up.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
No, I didn't. I didn't wake I didn't think about
it at all. I just know that we were in
Paris trying to make an album and we brought in
the wrong producer and that was it. And then it
just happened to Alan was out there skating ice skating
or or roller skating with his girlfriend and he broke

(01:25:16):
his ankle. That's it. Okay, home we go, and that
was the end of that. It was very obviously, very
disappointing for me, because, as I said earlier, I really
believed in everybody, and when everything falls apart, you think
it's fuerful. You have that feeling of.

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
What did I do? How did Roger Dean end up
doing all that? He didn't do the first two albums,
then he did all of them. How did that come
to be except for going for the one?

Speaker 2 (01:25:54):
Yeah, but he was definitely perfect timing to have an
artist project the band. You know, I'd say, you know,
all the paperwork in the office should be Roger Deanism's
a bit which never happened, but the idea was there.
We've actually got an emblem and Roger creates it. God

(01:26:15):
bless Roger. Steve how knew him and he came along
and he said, what's the name of the album? I
said Fragile and I just said, think of porcelain, and
he said okay, and he came back with this lovely,
beautiful little world that look for a fragile. It's a
great idea.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
Okay, you leave, You're doing your own thing. How did
you feel that the band continued under the Yes name
with completely different people?

Speaker 2 (01:26:45):
And I'm not interested. I just I have no interest.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
I'm talking about it at that time because you ultimately
come back to the band.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
Only because it just happened. And I'll tell you this story.
Then I got a go bob. But here's this the
this is life. I was down in silence, France, enjoying
the wonderful, beautiful, beautiful part of the world. And I
was working on a project that will eventually come to fruition.

(01:27:20):
You tend to start creating stuff after a certain period
of your career where you you put it to you
finish it, and you put it to one side, and
then you have another one and you put it to
one side. So you finish it with a drawer full
of things that you know you're going to do and
finish down the line. And I've got a dozen of
them sitting in a drawer over there in the studio

(01:27:42):
here that one day I'm going to get on with
them and finish them. And that's when you realize, Okay,
you're you're you're creative dude. Uh, it'll happen when it happens.
That became my flagship. You know, it'll happen when it happens.
And then I've got to call from from Steve. Oh no,
it was sorry, it was Chris. And Chris said, I

(01:28:05):
hear you coming to London this weekend. I said, oh, yeah,
I'm coming to London see the family and everything. And
I went to London and Chris said, I want to
play you something and I said, oh, really, you've been
working with anybody? He said, oh, yeah, we've been working
with Trevor Horn. And I said, oh, he's the guy
that did Duck Rock with Malcolm McLaren, very very good album.

(01:28:27):
He's a very smart guy. What's his name. He says
it's Trevor Horn. I said, oh, good, and Trevor Ravens
in this ensemble. We're going to be called Cinema. I said, oh,
good for you. Anyway, he came by the house and
sitting in his Rolls Royce, of course, and I came

(01:28:49):
out to meet him and sat in the Rolls Royce
with him, and he started playing me this hate trick
of the music that became nine oh one two five,
and I went, wow, this is so good. Chris, well done.
And it's called Cinema. He said, yeah, yeah, we're gonna
call it Cinema. Well these are This is a great song,

(01:29:11):
you know, on of a lonely hard chorus song. The
song the verse is not so but the chorus is here,
you know. He said, yeah, we think it's going to be.
Then he played a couple of other tracks and I'm
just saying, man, this is so good. And Chris said,
do you want to sing on it. And I said,

(01:29:32):
what do you mean sing on it? Yeah, because like
you say, it needs a definitely needs a better verse
and one of the lonely heart. Maybe you could come
in tomorrow to the studio and sing it. I said, well,
you know, if I do, it will sound like yes.
He said, yeah, that's what we want, and I said, okay,

(01:29:54):
you got the gig. I got the gig, and I
felt so refreshed that I was yes. And that's the
end of my story, Bob. But it was a good
story because the album did great. Owner of a Lonely
Heart was a monster hit around the world. We played
in front of half a million people in Brazil, which

(01:30:15):
is ridiculously wonderful, along with Rod Stewart and lots of
other big stories. But to play in front of half
a million people, it's as far as you can see,
and the rest is history.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
Well, you know, it was great. Is Owner of a
Lonely Heart is? The rest of the album is unbelievable.
You have hold on and leave it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
Yeah, everyone a winner I got. I got to walk
in and start singing it and writing lyrics a bit
here and there. It's kind of change the lyrics. Yeah,
of course, John, do what you want, okay, thank you
very much. And that's then all of a sudden, I
was I was six foot tall from then on.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
Okay, the music was totally done at that Yeah, and
were there any lyrics?

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
There was? There was in honor of a Lonely Heart.
There was a song which which was sitting in the
track rather than sitting on top of the track. So
I just said to Trevor Abe and I said, look,
why don't we just go Jutta Murda did dada da dada,
because that's what the band was, the bunk. And he said, oh,

(01:31:28):
that's good. Just write that down. Lose yourself. You always
live your life and he said, never thinking of the future. Yeah,
never thinking of the future. So John, get on with it.
So I just got on with it, you know. And
then the next one, with another song, Heart's another song.
You start opening up and saying, yeah, well this worked beautifully.
I'm happy to sing that. And Trevor Horn was very

(01:31:50):
good and everybody was so nice and happy.

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
Did you have any idea it was going to be
as successful as it was?

Speaker 2 (01:31:59):
I just felt, well, the Owner was a hit. It
depends if, of course. At that point in time we
had to make a video standing on top of a
skyscraper in London and MTV started, so everything changed in
a way. So from that moment, I just felt, Oh,
I'm on top of the world. Thank you very much, God.

(01:32:19):
I really be a better boy next time.

Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
Okay. There was an amazing tour. Okay, and that's the
first tour I've ever seen where the lighting rig descended
to the stage at one point.

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:36):
Yeah, was that something you were involved in or somebody?

Speaker 2 (01:32:40):
Well, originally it was the idea that I wanted to use.
I'd seen Vangelis, which is another story of my life,
was I'd seen a photograph of him in Paris with
laser beams and it'd never been used ever, and he
was the first guy to use them as a show.
And I kept saying that to the guys, We've got
to get some laser beams. Got to get some laser beams.

(01:33:03):
And that's when these all the staging in design, because
I was that kind of guy who always said, look,
there's a lot of people way over there. When you're
playing for a ten thousand people, a load of people
are way over there and they can just about see me.
I'm two inches high. They should see a big spectacle
of light and color. That's another That's another interview, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:33:28):
And then how do you meet Van Gelis?

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
That's another interview, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
Okay, then I'll ask you just a couple of questions
and I'll let you go. Tell me about writing State
of Independence.

Speaker 2 (01:33:40):
Oh my god, I just as life would have it.
I was told not to go near the band by
Trevor horn Lessen when they're rehearsing new songs. So I was, Okay,
then I'll just twiddle my thumbs for a month or two,

(01:34:04):
which I did and started writing some song ideas that
I had. And Van Gelis was in Paris, so I
went to Paris for a while, and then I went
to see Yes in this gothic castle and they've been
there a couple of months and not much had happened.

(01:34:25):
A lot of just wasn't happening on different levels. And
then I was there. I came up with some ideas
for the next ideas that da Dad, and the following
day Trevor Horne said, I think the guys would rather
you don't be here anymore. Don't be here anymore, f off,
So I said, okay, and I went to to Paris

(01:34:47):
and I went to the studio where vang Gellis was
and I'm walking in and he's doing this goo goo
goo goo goo goo goo goo goo cuckoo sound, and
I said, it's the microphone on. He said, yeah, it's all.
So I went to over sorry, singing trying to think
of the sona.

Speaker 1 (01:35:05):
But I need of life, May I live, may I Love?

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
Coming out of the sky, I named me her name
coming up Silver were for it is it is the
very nature of the sound of the game. And I
went all the way through the song lyric and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:35:23):
Just came out of you, just like that, off the
top of your eyes like that, and it blew my mind. Okay,
there was a little bit of adoption of that song
by the Landscape, but ultimately on her first gath in
the album with Quincy Jones, Donna Summer Donna Summers Yeah,
which is a good version, but I actually prefer the

(01:35:45):
version by Mood Food on the Mood Swings Out Mood
Swings Mood Food with Chrissy Hind.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
It's just she's great. She's great. But you know, Donna
was brilliant And did you notice who sang on that song?

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
Remind me I own the album. I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
Here they go, I gotta remember Michael Jackson, Diana Ross,
Stevie Wonder, who's the guy in America's got talent on
the ceiling? Was dancing on the ceiling? Anyway? A dozen

(01:36:29):
of the top singers ever sang on that song. And
I feel blessed that I saw the photograph. But if yeah,
if you just google Michael Jackson instead of Independence, yeah,
i'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:36:44):
I'm seeing if I can find it right now.

Speaker 2 (01:36:47):
They're there.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Did you know that?

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
Yeah, lit of Richie Richie?

Speaker 2 (01:36:55):
That was it?

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
Sorry, Diana Ross, Brenda Russell, Christopher Krawan, Cannon, James Ingram,
Kenny Loggins, Penny Lipton, Patty Austin, the great Michael McDonald
and Stevie Wonder, all the.

Speaker 2 (01:37:08):
Great sing on the song that I wrote. I'm so blessed,
Thank you very much God.

Speaker 1 (01:37:14):
And then it also says here in Wikipedia Summer's version
is one of Brian Edo's favorite songs.

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):
Excellent, well done, Brian.

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
Okay, so did you know that they were covering it
or just one day you got the record?

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
No, It's funny that our good friend Lee A. Brams
sent Quincy the album before Thriller, because if you if you,
if you read that album, it's it's a carbon copy

(01:37:48):
of and Quincy always says that, yes, John, we just okay,
we stole it. Okay, because they used voiceovers, because we
you know, in Friends of Mister Cairo there was voiceovers
of Peter Lauri and all the greats, and then that's
what they used in Thriller. Of course, everybody, everybody is

(01:38:09):
part of everything, you know, it's just.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
The way of the world. And okay, so as you
moved on, hold on, that was it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:18):
That's the end of my story, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:38:20):
Okay, I got one more question and then we're going
to go. So you know, you leave Yes. You work
with members of Yes. At this point in your life.
To what degree is it frustrating that you have to
play the old music live as opposed to the new music?

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
Bob said, perfect question. I just came off tour with
the Bank Geeks. These Bank Geeks are there's five six
sorry great on two six players, five players, two keyboard players, drummer, bass, guitar.

(01:39:00):
Unbelievable people, unbelievable musicians. Somebody sent me a rendition of
Heart of the Sunrise again with them playing it, and
I just went crazy and said, I got to work
with these guys. I've got to go on to with
these guys and play all the music from the seventies
because that's the great music of yes, and that's what

(01:39:23):
we just did.

Speaker 1 (01:39:24):
And do you feel frustrated that you can't go live
and play your new music to a large audience.

Speaker 2 (01:39:30):
No. Eventually, whatever I'm doing now will evolve into what
it's going to be. And I have great feelings and
dreams like any normal guy, and that these things will
come to pass and people will hear my latest work,
and I have great dreams about it as well, where

(01:39:53):
it's going to be played, and so on and so on.

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
Okay, So as you and myself or in the sunset
of our years, and you're a deep think or metaphysical guy,
So what ultimately happens to us at the end of
our lives.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
Well, we go to the next level, in the next
level of consciousness. It's very been well written throughout the
ages as that we keep forgetting that we go to
the next level of consciousness. That's all there is to it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:19):
Take it or leave it, buddy, Okay, I think we're
gonna leave it. Dear John, I want to thank you
for taking all the time tell us so much about
yourself and your career than to Bob in any event.
Till next time. This is Bob left sets