All About Yes!

[Laughter] hi I'm Denny somac and this is the rock podcast and on this episode It's All About yes okay so there's been at least 20 members in this band I figured I'll try and see what I can gather up from the archives and make this fairly comprehensive we're going to have to do other episodes because you can't do everything about them in one but I think I've put together a pretty good collection of stories here now yes is one of the most successful influential and longest lasting progressive rock bands ever they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 so I'm going to give you a little of their history throughout the years we begin with John Anderson who talks about the name of the band and then we'll get into more of the history in the earliest times uh Peter Banks was the original guitar player and he came up with the name yes and we needed a short name it was either world life or yes and yes was so obscure I thought no that's pretty good let's do that or and everybody we told what's the group called we say yes what well what's the group called though we said oh yes that's what it is and it was just so off the- wall and uh happily it works yes formed in 1968 following the chance meeting between John Anderson and Chris Squire in London Chris had been in a band called the sin with guitarist Peter Banks here's Peter to pick up the story Chris was was in another band um and we had a phone conversation I said How's your band doing and you know what are they called and he says we called yes and it was pretty simple I went down to see them rehearse in a little um little Cellar underneath a cafe called the lucky Horseshoe in SHP Avenue and I thought they were terrific and so I joined and I I think then we auditioned Bill bruford uh we got him out of the Melody Maker ad and he he joined because he said he had a premier drum kit but actually it was we were very it's a that was the kit to have at the time you got to have a premier kit you know that's the brand and then we found out it was a bit of an Olympic drum and it would it been cobbled together uh but Bill was fantastic you know and I thought ah you know cuz was always uh leaning more towards Jazz and Bill was a a DI hard B bopper at the time and we had a lot of uh Bill taught me quite a lot about um uh about jazz I didn't know and we used to sit around and listen to John Crain and sunny Rollins and all that kind of thing uh so that was that was good and then yes we I think we only rehearsed for a week or two weeks then we did a gig and I think the second gig was at the Marquee and then we got a residency at the Marquee first as a support band and then as the main band the writing didn't come till a little later I mean John had a lot of ideas for songs and um but because of the short rehearsal time we just um we were doing covers we did Beatles we did uh a traffic song Heaven is in your mind we did a thing by uh The Fifth Dimension um carpet man uh we did Ellena Rigby and they were great um and the whole premise was if we were going to do a cover let's make it sound very different to what what you expect um kind of like Vanilla Fudge what we doing at that time and that that was our unspoken Manifesto that that we didn't want to sound like any other band I was desperately trying to avoid playing blues guitar licks uh which most guitar players were doing at that that time and and I was very consciously going out out of the way to to avoid cliches that came from other guitar players so we would take a piece of music and then stick a bit of cowboy music in it you know so you want something from the Magnificent 7 we can do that um and it was just we just cobbled together bits of everything let's put a bit of uh Gustaf host in here let's have a little bit of starinsky in here and for some bizarre reason it worked and we became pretty good bill and I used to like to go off on the tangent and extend things and I often used to think well I'm not going to play the same as I played last night I'm going to play Everything completely different which for the lead singer for John was fantastically annoying because he'd have all this stuff going on behind him and I'd be throwing in little things and Bill would be not playing on the beat it was great it was very inventive but very difficult for for for singing to strange band we I mean we weren't really a rock band I don't know what we were but it was certainly um we certainly didn't sound like anybody else pretty good times I think though personally we we had a lot of problems you know every gig there would be a kind of postmortem you about well that was horrible you were too loud you were playing an F when you're supposed to be playing a d natural all that every night you know and John particularly would be Haring us and saying you know this is terrible we've got to do this got to do that and if you didn't get your say you were out I mean which has happened to me on the first time because I was a bit um maybe a little quieter not not quite as as vifer maybe as I should have been so that band was he who shouted the loudest got his say a terrific band really Banks who tragically died in 2013 of heart failure was replaced by Steve how for the third record the Yes album Peter says he was kicked out of the band I was kicked out at Luton Technical College was was the final gig and I didn't know had no idea um and after the gig I was just um John and Chris said it might be good if if you left and apparently Bill and Tony didn't even know about this till after the gig John once said I was more into my clothes than the music now what I'm going to do next is I have a very unique clip I want to play I got this from a friend of mine Ed shaki a legendary disc jockey from Philadelphia he heard I was working on a yes radio special for NVC uh back in the 1980s and he thought I might want to use this because of its historical value it's the very first interview with the band on American radio Ed who was a big fan went to the airport to pick them up when they came to America for the first time there was no date in Philadelphia but they played in Asbury park at the convention center on July 9th 1971 here's that interview with John Anderson Steve how and Bill bruford three of yes here we have John Anderson and uh Steve how and Bill bruford John is the vocalist and you do a little percussion it says it's hard to tell from listening to the records exactly who does what you know uh and none of us have ever seen you because you've never been here before you you don't understand that Steve how on electric and acoustic guitars and Bill bruford on drums and other assorted C well let me see how about if John comes up here uh John and Bill were are from the beginning of the group right I guess John you're sort of like the leader are you well there was the mic me me and the Chris the bass player we we sort of formed the band uh late in 69 was it 69 yes 1869 it was yeah and uh bill was with us then we were like a three piece and then we got t k the organist about 6 months later and we finally finally arrived with Steve how about a year ago right there was another uh guitar on your first that's Peter Banks right yeah he freaked out a B I don't know where he's was a long time ago yeah somebody just called me just in a couple months ago and said hey whatever happened to the they said did you notice that yes change guitars this done this new cuz the new album is is very new still I think it's the most famous thing we ever did actually change guitars yeah in Luton and uh Peter Banks just kind of yeah disappeared Peter uh was a very good guitarist uh but we couldn't we didn't seem to get on with him too and uh you know we seem to lose contact with him musically and finally mentally if you like so we decided to get a new viist in and we were very lucky to find Mr Steve H where did you find him he was just wandering around the stre heing around he wasn't he wasn't doing anything were you another group yeah I've been with bands for a long time but I was out of the out of there's a review in the new Rolling Stone which we just picked up about your album and uh it's a good review I didn't read it yet well I think it's a pretty good review Bill been hug and they said one of the things about your band that makes it so distinctive is is your falsetto vocals or your high you know your high picture vocals and they said that they're glad that you didn't that somebody didn't try to force you to sound like everybody else by putting in low voice vocals and things like that you know I guess John you take credit I guess for that oh I don't know uh I listen a lot to uh Beach Boys and Fifth Dimension and you get you get vibrations from all that kind of this is yes and they just happen to be in town they're going to be playing in Wildwood tonight in fact but I think the concert is sold out that's what we understand members of Yes with their first interview in America they had just released the Yes album which is one of their Classics now Amed Igan legendary co-founder of Atlantic Records who signed the band said this I think that there was a significant change in uh their conception of their music which occurred I guess that the first album that we really felt that on was uh the Yes album we really hit Pay Dirt so to speak and they really found their style the Yes album started to get some traction as the band toured and the next thing you know they go into the studio and they do another album called fragile and this really brings them to their biggest success to date because it's got roundabout on it and it has Rick Wakeman who just joined the band replacing Tony Kay Tony talks about his leaving we played support to um Jeth Rotel the first tour and um America never really seen anything like ours we gradually built up a Following over here and you knew that yes was going to you know do something over here they were they were definitely going to go a long way way and I knew at the end of that American tour then we went back to England and played a big concert uh which was my last concert at Crystal Palace and um suddenly There Was You know the first concer there was thousands of thousands of people there so and I left after that that was that was my last concert with him so I knew that it was going to be big but um it wasn't for me at that time Tony went on to play with David Bowie later Badfinger before eventually re joining yes for the 90125 album enter Rick Wakeman this is co-founder Chris Squire at that time you know we wanted to evolve you know the keyboards we wanted to sort of start using the melron and the early Muk synthesizers and stuff and um Tony wasn't uh totally sure that that was the right thing to do because um he felt really at home with the Hammond and the piano and stuff like that because he understood them and so I don't think he wanted to rush into sort of um getting lots of new technology instruments that he didn't really understand you know but of course Rick wakan was kind of already doing it a little background on Rick Wakeman he'd been in a band called The stobs and had done a number of sessions notably David Boe on space odity and Life on Mars Cat Stevens on Morning Has Broken and he played on Elton John's Madman Across the Water and Lou Reed's first solo album and a lot of others in fact if you go to one of Rick's solo concerts he plays a number of those songs in his show I have a clip here from Rick talking about the audience who comes to see a Yes concert and it's the perfect explanation yes concerts are something unique in as much as you've got to like yes music to queue up to come to the concert you don't get very many kids who come well I think I'll go on the off chance because it's not that sort of music that you can go on the off chance to listen to you got got to love it to come continuing The Saga of yes the next to leave was Bill bruford he wanted to join King Crimson which he did and then he played with Genesis for a bit Bill bruford had his own style what kind of drummer was he and I was really a jazz drummer in years it's just that having heard that drums could be played in another way having heard it via Jazz then I just bought this to pop I thought all pop musicians were going to play like that I didn't know that pop drummers played real simple stuff it just nobody told me to stop playing Jazz so I played jazz in in in what I thought was Pulp but I mean it turned out to be Jazz and yes I don't know if you saw a recent poll that came out and Bill was picked the number one Progressive drummer of all time that brings us to drummer Allan White he joined the band just in time to record the triple live album titled yes songs Allan had uh played with John Lennon and the plastic Ono band that's him on Instant Karma and imagine he also played on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass and he was was uh playing with Joe Cocker when he got the call to join yes I got the phone call in Rome from man who actually manages so this band now to want you to meet your artist was my friend that he called me in Rome and said yes would like you to join them and I was doing the last gig of Joe catur at that time so we all kind of fit fit get a jump on the plane next day you know and uh then John and Chris came around to see me said they throw me out of the window if I didn't join the band and Chris is a lot bigger than I am and U I said okay yes has a unique relationship with the visual artist Roger Dean so we should talk about him and how he got started designing album covers and t-shirts John Anderson the main feeling about bringing in Roder Dean was to stamp a tech sort of a visual thing to the band because we didn't think we were very visual to look at we weren't uh sort of um MC Jagger or uh boy or very outward goinging people we were very sort of introverted on stage visually we just play our music we thought we were just musicians and that was it and we didn't have to dance around to prove any point we just had to play our music so we had to cover that by uh adding more texture and color to the staging and the record sleeves and uh Roger Dean was perfect to bring out uh the color of the music in a way the texture of the music in art and that was one of the reasons why we use Roger yes continued putting out very adventurous albums close to the edge which is my favorite Tales From topographic oceans and then relayer which marks the end of Rick Wakeman's first involvement with the band he would subsequently join and leave several times uh over the years this is where Patrick morz joins for the relayer album morz was in a band called Refugee that was a a progressive rock band formed in 1973 it consisted of vocalist and basist Lee Jackson and drummer Brian Davidson both had been in the nice with Keith Emerson so this was an attempt to recreate that sound but Patrick was contacted to be in yes and we want to include something from him I had to learn nine albums of of yes's material uh in in a a couple of weeks or whatever doing actually and and recording at the same time rela so it was a very big you know learning and and very intense period of my life there you know and then getting ready to go on tour in the States but having I had been in the States before but I had never played in the States you know and all I was I was playing big concerts with Refugee and selling out you know festivals and our own 3,000 caters to jump from a 3,000 cater to a a 15,000 C or 20,000 C Arena or whatever is a big jump you know and I was like imagining this and it is U was very strange the next part of the yes story occurs in 1980 when John Anderson and Rick Wakeman quit Chris Squire Steve how and Allan White pick up the pieces and they connect with Jeff DS and Trevor Horn who were in a band called The Bugles and this version of yes records the drama album Jeff DS I think people imagine that with our connection with them we we we're going to sort of try and reduce the length of the songs to sort of three and a half minutes and um make it all zap zap zap you know that's not the case actually most of the tracks are around 10 minutes long and they sort of uh each one is a sort of Meister ver Trevor Horn was the vocalist on drama and when John Anderson rejoined yes Trevor became the producer I when I went to hear them they they sounded really good they played great in the rehearsal studios and I you know I mean I suppose I have a weak spot for yes having been in it and having been a fan of it for a long time and I thought it would be a great change to go from Rhythm boxes and synthesizers to producing people who really played for change after the drama album and a worldwide tour which included a live broadcast over NBC radio from Madison Square Garden on September 5th 1980 which I produced and was the first time a rock band had been broadcast live from the garden the band split up Chris Squire and Alan white teamed up with their old bandmate Tony Kay and a South African guitarist writer and vocalist by the name of Trevor Raven to form a new group to be called Cinema Chris Squire I had had a a demo tape of his a year earlier which uh I'd listened to but some of the songs on it weren't particularly to my taste so I kind of always just stored it in the back of my me memory that the guy was obviously good uh but then uh this guy from Atlantic was helping me put this project together you know he uh he bought his name up again and suggested that uh he come over and uh you know play Trevor Raven when I joined the band it was just Alan myself and Chris and it wasn't going to be yes and so we had no preconceived ideas of what it was going to be at that point and actually went ahead and then Tony uh joined the band and we were we're going to call it Cinema and uh we went into the studio under that name thinking in in those terms rather than you know the guidelines of what a Yes album would be but obviously the strong influence of of Alan and Chris and was was obviously there and would make it sound that way no matter what no matter what happened but um so there there weren't there was a lot of freedom in doing what we wanted to do because I hadn't joined yet uh we' got this band together and then John joined so I was very lucky in that I wasn't asked do you want to come and join yes cuz then there would have been preconceived ideas of what it should or shouldn't be whereas this way I could bring songs which I'd written and ideas and styles which I obviously inherently have as any musician does and not have to manipulate them and or pull them out of what they naturally are when they finished what was to become their debut album Chris contacted John Anderson to see what he thought John was blown away decided to rejoin and of course they now had to call the band Yes so the album was titled 90125 the story behind that unusual title is uh they didn't know what they wanted to call it and Atlantic Records had issued it a catalog number it was 90125 so they went with that so that's the first part of the yes story as I mentioned at the top of this episode we'll have future yes Tales but to bring you up to date yes recently celebrated their 50th anniversary and released an album The Quest today yes are Steve how Jeff DS John Davidson Billy Sherwood and Jay shellin and they have announced their new studio album mirror to the sky and will'll be touring and playing selections from it as well as their Classics from across their entire career so that's it I want to thank you for listening and being part of the rock podcast tell your friends about it we're available at all the usual locations where you get your podcast we even have a video version on YouTube and of course it's all free you can find us at the website theck podcast.com and on Facebook you can also send your comments and let me know your thoughts contact me at hello theck podcast.com I love hearing from you so until next time goodbye

Channel: S Somach

Views: 46,403

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Id: G550csfnX2k

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024