MIKE TIANO: Most people probably
don't know what Conspiracy is--is it an album, is it a band, is it something
brand new, is it something that you have been working on for a while--let's
start at the beginning.
BILLY SHERWOOD: The Conspiracy is a...
CHRIS SQUIRE: It's all his idea (laughs).
BS: It's all my idea.
CS: I'm just along for the ride.
BS: Finally, the truth is told.
CS: Yeah, exactly. He does all the work;
I just like...
MOT: So you're saying that this is a Billy
Sherwood solo album, and you're a guest star?
BS: He's guest-starring.
CS: But he needs me (laughs).
BS: There's some sick reason...
CS: For some, sick fucking reason he
needs me like to be there, it's almost like...I don't know...the guy says,
hmmm couldn't that be the E flat?
BS: That's right. Every now and then he's right (laughs). This was
a project that started as actually Chris's solo album back in 1989 when we
first met. We started writing songs; one of the songs that we wrote was "The
More We Live", which ended up on the UNION album, and Jon resang it and Trevor
came in and played a little bit of guitar, but there was always a magic to
the original one that we really enjoyed. So we put that on this album, the
original version of that, 'cause I know people have bootlegs of it, and by
now they've got third, fourth-end generation copies, so we wanted them to
hear it the way we heard it.
CS: Yeah, the Tom Fletcher mix.
BS: Tom Fletcher mixed that with us, really good one, and after that
song we started writing more songs--"Love Conquers All", which found its way
to the box set YESYEARS, and "Say Goodbye", which was the song that I reworked
for one of the albums on World Trade that I worked on, but the original version
had something to it, so we put that on this album, and then after, you know,
years rolling on we wrote a lot of songs together, and as we started working
on it we turned it into the Chris Squire Experiment, which is what we toured
in 1990-whatever that was; you'll have to look, I'm not sure.
MOT: Right, right.
CS: Delusions of Jimi Hendrix, I had.
BS: (Laughs) So
we did that Experiment tour, and then after that the TALK tour came up, and
more songs were written, and there were a few more songs in the can that we
had written that we weren't doing anything with, and then KEYS TO ASCENSION
came. We kept writing, we kept writing, and we wrote music all the way through
OPEN YOUR EYES that kept going on the shelf, and it was after OPEN YOUR EYES
where we started talking about, we should really put this together as some
sort of off-shoot band of Yes, if you will, like a spin-off and call it Conspiracy,
since it's the two of us conspiring over all these years trying to get this
music together, and in that way we could bring in other musicians that we
liked and wanted to work with, you know lay it on the album...
CS: Jay Schellen...
BS: Jay Schellen on drums, Michael Bland cut a track with Chris and
Steve Stevens that we ended up working on together, Jimmy Haun plays a little
bit on it, and Steve Porcaro, and Alan White is on a few tracks, so there
was this kind of thing developing where it was more than just Chris's solo
album, you know, and when we talked about it and finally arrived at the name,
one of the things we talked about was is that it would be silly to really
have this be a Chris Squire solo album because FISH OUT OF WATER had such
a specific style and flavor, but this was really miles away from that--a different
style, a different flavor, and FISH OUT OF WATER II is very much in his potential
if he wants to do that, but in terms of Conspiracy...
CS: If we could just get the London Symphony
Orchestra back together again...(laughs)
BS: (Laughs) It was really taking on
more than just a solo album from either one of us; it was his solo album,
it was my solo album, we pushed them together, and now it's become this Conspiracy
project which we finally got finished and mastered and artworked and wrestled
with the legal departments of various companies to be able to get it out,
it seemed that through the process of that, that things were working against
us to get it out--we would have a deal, and then it wouldn't be there, and
then we'd have, you know, this song would be finished, uh it's not quite good
enough yet we got to go back and fix it...as we started nearing the end of
this, we had the artwork together, and the guy who was doing the artwork,
Chuck Wright, a really good artist, I went over to his house and we put all
of these ideas into his computer, he pulled the artwork together, his computer
was stolen the next day and he didn't makes safeties...
CS: By the ex-girlfriend.
BS: By the ex-girlfriend (laughs).
MOT: Seriously?
BS: Yeah, so all of the sudden he calls me and he says you have no
artwork, and I say oh my God, there's yet another thing, you know, so he redid
the artwork, we put it on a disc, put it in a vault, I mastered the record
with Joe Gastwirt, got the masters, put them in the same vault, took a gun
to several record companies and (laughs) threatened them, and we got the record
deal finished, and we sent the parts off and it's [done], knock on wood, but
it should be in your stores in about four to six weeks.
CS: Now, you see, I have to tell you
that Billy also during this period of time suddenly became infatuated with,
like Jobim, and kind of like this off-like South American influence
thing, and a lot of stuff he was writing suddenly was like this groovy kind
of like South American...and then--is it "The Evolution Song"?
BS: Yeah.
CS: Yeah, that is actually a song, but
I think we actually achieved quite an amazing masterpiece...
BS: Yeah.
MOT: Masterpiece?
CS: Yeah, it's like an amazing thing
when I listen to it now we trade off vocals together...
BS: It sort of has "The More We Live" flavor...
CS: It's got a fuckin' like, really,
you know, huge expanse there, and you know, I think that's what makes us both
happy; we see that.
BS: I like the song so much and was so frustrated that we couldn't
get this thing rolling earlier, because we've been talking about doing this
since '89-'90, that I ended up throwing it on World Trade's EUPHORIA record
with a different mix and different parts, and Chris wasn't singing as much
of the things...and different musicians; and then we came back to the song,
as he said, and we both listened to it and went, wow! The original has a certain
magic about it, so we worked on it more, and put it on the record, and it
is really, really one of the dynamic songs on the album.
CS: Yeah.
BS: One of my favorite songs on the record is actually one that Chris,
Steve Stevens, and Michael Bland recorded all the music for, and I heard the
tracks later, and came up with melodies and lyrics over the top and played
some keyboards on it, which is called "Violet Purple Rose".
CS: Or "Violent Purple Rose". (laughs}
MOT: "Violent"?
BS: And that's a really cool, cool song, very uptempo kind of rockin'
song.
CS: You see, what's interesting about
us is that we actually do go to work as songwriters; we actually sit together
in the room, and we go, ok this song's going to be about colors, as Billy
said, the track was there and then we picked this color thing, so we just
threw everything, including "the round wood (laughs)."
BS: Yeah, exactly (laughs).
CS: It's one of the most killer lyrics
I've ever heard. Yeah, and it's like we kind of wrestle with each other a
bit on that, but not too much, 'cause we're, you know, the Pisces and like
fish swimming around, we tend to swim in the same direction more than the
opposite direction, and we like what we do...in spite of me! (laughs)
BS: Actually we have about
seven songs finished, or very close to being finished for the next album,
which we're intending to keep this thing moving, you know, and have another
Conspiracy record come out, and those songs are really interesting as well,
but this particular collection of songs work together well because it's a
mixture of material from '89 through now. It takes you from "The More We Live"
stage, which was the first song we wrote together through extra tracks that
didn't make it to OPEN YOUR EYES, kind of thing.
MOT: The way I perceive it, from from listening
to you talk is it's really more of a social thing with you two; I mean you
get together, you've pretty much party, have fun playing together...it's not
as sometimes we perceive it as, ok we're going to sit down, we're going to
record our "solo album"...in big, grand tones...
BS: Right.
CS: I'll make this real clear right now--he
does most of the work, and I come in and fuck with it (laughs), it's as simple
as that, you know, and he goes, "Oh yeah, you might be right about that (laughs)".
BS: He does his share (laughs).
MOT: But am I correct in that assumption,
is it just something you get together, you have fun, there's no pressure...
BS: Yeah, you know why, what makes it easy? I've always had environments
to make music around me, even "The More We Live", for instance, was an environment
that I had set up at my apartment, which I was living at with my wife and
a roommate, and we set up a studio in the living room and took it over, and
the creation was always available--you could always think of something musical
and record it instantly, and as I've evolved over the last ten years, I've
turned that little recording studio into a major facility in L.A., where we
made several Yes albums and I've made a bunch of other records in there. So,
the environment has a lot to do with it, when we get together, you know, I've
got all the elements: basses, guitars, keys, studio, drums, so when we think
of something we start working on it, and it turns into something fun to do,
and then we want to get together and work on it more, and...so, the environment
has a lot to do with it.
CS: See, not many people probably know
this, but he actually is a drummer, and he could have been Phil Collins, because
he's got that whole knowledge of the drums, bass, guitar, keys, you know,
and vocal top-line thing; he's very talented...
BS: But we, you know, we throw it around and let other people play
instruments (laughs).
CS: We do, we do! Maybe, you know, we're
hoping in the future we might maybe even get Trevor Rabin involved to maybe
come and join us, on some future project, it's that open.
BS: That's why we chose, rather than calling it the Squire Experiment,
we shifted the name to Conspiracy because we've both talked about the idea
of being able to have a vehicle where every album the two of us could choose
to work with whoever we wanted to work with, and they could become part of
the Conspiracy for that record, you know, it didn't pin it into one particular
icon, it sort of left it open to bring all kinds of great musicians in.
MOT: Also, with the Chris Squire Experiment,
from what you are saying, doesn't accurately describe what the project's about.
BS: No, that's how it started actually...but then it evolved, you know,
it started that way, and it evolved.
CS: And then it becomes Stevie Fred (laughs).
MOT: So, probably one question on a lot of
people's minds is how much is Chris on bass, because I know you [Billy] play
too.
BS: He plays all the bass tracks.
CS: Do I?
BS: Yeah.
CS: No, "Man on the Moon".
BS: Well...that one particular track maybe.
CS: And then there's no bass on "Red
Light"; that's synth bass.
BS: Well, ok, so you're right (laughs).
CS: Featuring my expert Neil Young style-like
acoustic guitar playing, which I must admit I do rather well (laughs).
BS: You've got the Neil grip (laughs).
CS: Yeah, I got the Neil [emulates acoustic
guitar strum sound] (laughs)
BS: Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, I did play a couple of bass tracks.
CS: Yeah, he does. He's an all-around
great guy, musician...I was telling Jon that (laughs) [in squeaky voice] "Uh
yeah, he's a great guy, a good musician"...but you know, it's like, it's great
working with him because of his heritage he took from his father; he's obviously
inherited the genes, from a very talented musician...
BS: I think it's kind of cool to be able to work in a situation where
you're open enough to walk in and hear something and say, that's good, let's
not mess with it, I mean, there's often times a couple of these--"The More
We Live" is a perfect example, because I had just met Chris, and I said you
got to play the bass part, and he said, no I really like this bass part you
put down, and I said, but you're Chris Squire, I'm Billy Sherwood, you've
got to play this bass part (laughs), and he said no, let's leave it on there,
and I really thought, well that's pretty nice because I did enjoy the bass
part and it works with the track...
CS: And he let me get away with playing
the keyboards.
BS: And we actually got to the studio, and Eddie Offord said, well,
Chris, you have to play this bass track, and he said no, it's good, let's
leave it, and he said, but you're Chris Squire, and he said no, he said let's
just leave it, and so it kind of went down the chain like that, so over the
years now, I'm more used to it when he walks in and he says let's leave it,
and I say no, you're just being lazy, just play the damn thing (laughs). But
sometimes I listen back and I think that's good that we left it like that
because there is something there.
CS: Just to continue, a thought occurred
to me last night is that he and I are now playing together on stage every
night and very on a regular basis and within the Yes camp, and we've now sort
of get into these really kind of like groovy rhythm things...it's kind of
cool, which is a great thing because not many studio musicians have the opportunity
to able to, like, display their talent in a live environment, so I enjoy playing
with him more and more, and now he gets it right
BS: (Laughs)
MOT: Well, Billy does add a lot to all Yes
compositions, of course brings something new to all the new songs.
BS: Yeah, well, I try my best to blend into something that's well-established
and the blueprint is pretty unchangeable, so you know, I try to find my way
in cleverly and tastefully as I think I could.
MOT: I just wanted to ask you about Eddie
Offord, was he involved in just a couple of tracks or many tracks or what...
BS: He didn't really have anything to do with this record at all, with
the Conspiracy you're talking about?
MOT: Yes.
BS: No, he didn't anything to do with it.
MOT: You mentioned him.
BS: Well, because Eddie, when we did "The More We Live", which is on
this record, and as I said you'll be able to hear it what it really was first,
he didn't change much about what it was. I transferred the tapes and that
was pretty much that. Jon came in and resang the vocal; Trevor played a couple
little bits, and that was that, and I think it was really a case of this is
a new guy, we don't know who he is, let's give him a co-producer credit, but
the reality is that I produced that track, and Eddie was kind of more in the
backseat on that, but he was "Eddie Offord", and he took the credit,
so Eddie really had nothing to do with creating "The More We Live".
CS: No, not really.
BS: And when it came time to do Jon's vocal, which Jon was a little
hesitant about at first, Eddie was not really a whole lot of help to me on
that one, believe me (laughs).
CS: Now, now.
BS: Although I love him, and we got along great, worked together well,
he sort of said you handle it, so... (laughs)
CS: While we were saving ABWH at the
time. Huge budget.
MOT: "The More We Live", the version that
does appear on the Conspiracy album, is the one that you recorded years ago
without any additional overdubs or editing.
BS: Well it's got a lot of the elements...you know it will be interesting
because I'm sure that fans who love that song, as a lot of people have told
me they do, will get to hear where it changed, and it's--the changes are subtle,
I mean, one of the obvious changes is Jon singing it on the album UNION, and
then I'm singing it on this album with Chris, and there's much more interaction
between Chris and I. In terms of overdubs, I don't think you're going to notice
many overdubs differences.
CS: No. Also, of course, that there's
a weird thing, call me a Mingus if you like, I have a keyboard feel; I'm not
a great technician, and I have, keyboard, I did it on "Run Through the Light"
on the DRAMA album, and on "The More We Live" too, like this more "feel" thing
I have going, but I remember him at the beginning going, are you sure you
want to play keyboards; everybody always says that to me, but lately he's
gotten to like it...
BS: He came over with [sings
part of the song], and he split, and I said I don't know what I'm going to
do with this (laughs). I started working on it a bit and then I came up with
this concept of the more we this, the more we that, and all of the sudden
it started evolving, and that keyboard thread became a very important part
of the whole thing.
CS: Yeah, little keyboard fill...
BS: But it didn't hit me until way later...(laughs)
CS: He caught up.
BS: And one of the actual songs that I really enjoy listening to now...
CS: He's used to working with, like Steve
Porcaro, people that do everything, and here I come with [sings part of "The
More We Live"]...
BS: One of the songs that is on the record that I like listening to,
now that it's complete, is called "Red Light", which is a song Chris had that
we worked on in 1989, around the same time as "The More We Live", and I was
just not a big fan of this song; it was not hitting me. It took him about
seven or eight years to get me to relook at the song, but then we took a different
approach to it, rather than...
CS: Yeah, he found guitar parts...(laughs)
BS: Well, we just created a rhythmical vibe that wasn't quite the same
as it was when we did it at Cherokee with Tony Kaye and Alan, myself, and
Chris...it became more ethereal and more atmospheric in its production; the
bass part became much more mellow and soothing, and it really sounds good.
It actually is one of my favorite things to listen to on there.
CS: It's a pretty dreamy thing.
BS: And it took a long time to see it. He has a way of seeing things
a certain way.
CS: Thank God!
BS: Which are good
CS: Because otherwise he'd dump me! (laughs).
BS: Often times it takes me a little while to start seeing it--to being
in on it.
CS: ...otherwise it's "what the fuck
am I doing with this guy!" (laughs). Yeah we swim around on the Piscean ocean;
it's good though most of the time now we're working together we're kind of
like go, yeah, that's good, let's do it then...
BS: That's the good thing about it; we both look at each other, and
we're easily...yeah, are we good with that? Yeah, is it a closed issue? Yeah,
ok good, I can live with that. I know that in Yes it's a bit of a struggle,
but because there's more people obviously, but with just with the two of us
we seem to find agreement pretty easily in the music.
MOT: Any future Conspiracy projects will pretty
much all have the same tact--it's kind of a casual thing, get-together, you
make music...
BS: Right at the moment we're extremely happy, I'm sure he is as much
as I am, to be able to say that this thing is finally coming out.
MOT: And it [the album] is called CONSPIRACY.
BS: And it's called CONSPIRACY, and as I said the plan is to not go
another ten years before there's another album, and we've already got seven
songs in the can for the next one, and I think that for the fact that it's
up and running, it will take care of itself in its momentum, and it will keep
moving forward. Now that it's real and it's viable, we're definitely going
to stay at it and have another vehicle to make great music outside of Yes,
cause Yes could never do all of the music that's available, that's for sure.
MOT: I take it this is basically a recording
kind of project.
BS: Not necessarily, we toured this thing as the Chris Squire Experiment...
MOT: That was years ago when Yes was kind
of in limbo.
BS: Yeah, well, and Yes is one of those situations where you just never
know when there's gonna be a break, but if there is a substantial break, we've
talked about touring, and it's not nearly as complex and logistically a nightmare
to get what we do outside of this up and running, as it is to get Yes up and
running, so the potential of having three months off and saying, hey, let's
tour for a month, it's much more real than saying that around Yes, when Steve
lives in England and Alan's in Seattle; we both live in the same city, so
it's much more easy to coordinate...
CS: Yeah...and you're moving to New York
I hear...(chuckles)
BS: Yeah...(laughs) not any time soon...
CS: Well, I hear you're working there
soon.
BS: I'll be working there soon...
CS: Oh yeah.
MOT: Then it could be more of an impromptu
type of thing where you'll go to like Hawaii or somewhere like you did before,
or play just local clubs.
BS: You never know, we might do a House of Blues tour (laughs).
CS: You never know; it's like...interestingly
enough Trevor Horn is touring with Art of Noise, and U2's manager is managing
that. I could see...you know, let me put it this way. I got used to success
in the 70's, gotten used to the dip, gotten used to the big peak again with
90125, so success is good...and I'm always hoping that that will come around
again, you know it's not like, I know I'm not a one-time success guy; I think
that success is the important thing that we're looking for, and we want to
do something where people go. "Fuck! Who did that fucking song?" Chris Squire
and Billy Sherwood...and then we'll go to Spago, and I like to have a nice
dinner and Wolfgang will cook for us personally and it'll be great (laughs).
BS: Hey hey, there you go.
MOT: Are you looking for any commercial channels
to play the album?
BS: We would not be opposed
if anyone was to want to take upon themselves to start playing songs on the
radio, but at the same time, we're not sitting back stressing on whether or
not we're going to get radio; this was a project that started out of the love
of the music, and has evolved and continued out of that, and this album was
just a culmination of all those years trying to figure out what we were going
to do. Now that we've got it sorted out, this album sets the first stone,
and in terms of commercial success, if it happens, great, if it doesn't, that's
ok cause we're planning on another album as well, but...the songs are very
accessible.
CS: I have a good feeling about it, I
have a good feeling that suddenly...or slowly--
BS: The songs are much more accessible than maybe anything I'd work
on my own or he'd work on his own.
MOT: Right now it seems to me that with this
particular album, obviously the core fan-base is going to be Yes fans. It
sounds to me like you'd like to see it break beyond that.
CS: I think the music goes beyond that.
I think the music could, if marketed properly and played in some of the right
areas, it could catch on, a bit like those Spanish monks...
BS: The Macarena.
CS: Yeah, or the Macarena guys...look
at those guys.
MOT: It's just a matter of timing...having
it be at the right place at the right time.
BS: Yeah.
CS: But the music, however, is pretty
timeless, actually.
BS: It is; I mean, tracks from 1989 mix just as well with these tracks
from today, and the way the album is sequenced, it's...you couldn't tell which
one was written when or when it was recorded, so it is kind of timeless in
its essence.
MOT: I'm sure a lot of Yes fans are going
to be very interested in hearing it, and good luck; I really hope that it
breaks out of that mold.
BS: The label is Eagle Rock, everywhere in the world, except North
America, where it's Purple Pyramid/Cleopatra, and we'll see what they do with
it. Well, hopefully they'll get it out there. I know there going to put it
in stores, beyond that if they do anything else, that'll be a surprise to
both of us, but the music should be the thing that speaks, and tells it how
far it's really gonna go.
MOT: Anything you want to say, possibly in
closing, about the album itself; any tracks that you are particularly proud
of?
CS: Actually all of them.
BS: They're all very good. We actually left a couple off that we didn't
think were up to snuff, but the stuff that we really liked is on there.
MOT: Are there any "epics"?
BS: No, it's not really geared in that Yessy vein of, oh man, we better
have that eight minute song. It's just songs, and if they felt like let's
keep going, we kept going; if it felt like let's end this thing, we ended
it.
CS: It's funny one day, Billy being of
the Jewish persuasion, I kind of said to him, let's do, like, the Lord's Prayer,
and he went, I don't think we could do the whole thing.
BS: I wanted to read the Torah. (Chuckles)
MOT: (Laughs)
CS: So, one of the tracks actually has
the words "on earth as it is in Heaven", which is like a little quote from
that, and every time I hear it, it's very glorious, actually.
BS: Yeah, it is nice. With the odd time
moving against it...yeah it's cool.
CS: And both of us are detail guys, like
let's put piano in there with the bass, so we really enjoy what we do.
BS: I think it's produced very sonically interesting for the listener
too.
MOT: And musically very creative.
BS: Very creative and the colors are great; the textures are great.
He's singing really good; I'm trying to sing as good as I can, and I think
that it's a very well rounded album. You get to hear a lot of Chris singing,
which is good, cause I know Yes fans want to hear that as well as other people
who don't know Yes...it's a very interesting textured voice.
MOT: It is a highlight, even during the shows,
even though it's a harmony vocal. I know I look forward to hearing Chris sing.
BS: So, I think it's a good platform for us both to be able to have
a vehicle to create other music as well as, he's got solo works; I've got
solo works. This thing together is definitely a conspiracy.
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