Conversation with
Steve Howe
nfte #265
On July 4, 2002, Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, and Alan White played with Rick Wakeman for the first time since 1996.
It was the first rehearsal for the Yes 2002 Tour and the newly reunited Yes had assembled in Seattle, WA, where the tour was to begin.
After the rehearsal Steve spoke glowingly about how it went, and his enthusiasm elicited excitement at the prospect of what was to come. Steve graciously consented to a Notes conversation, and we chatted while watching an Independence Day display on the TV. I couldn't help but think that the fireworks on the screen paled in comparison to those this band were going to ignite.
We resumed our conversation over a week later, on the day after the first public performance at Experience Music Project (picking up with discussing the box set, below). As good as the previous tours were it was clear from this gig that although they never went away, Yes was back in full force.
MOT
The Orchestra
MIKE TIANO: I want to start with "YesSymphonic", basically wrap that up. What were your feelings about the whole experience of playing with an orchestra by the time the tour ended?
STEVE HOWE: I'll try to put aside all my feelings about MAGNIFICATION, because I don't really want to talk about that at the same time or maybe not at all, but playing with an orchestra was really quite nothing to do with MAGNIFICATION in reality. There were two ways of working with an orchestra: one, recording and adding an orchestra, and the tour was a little bit more of Larry Groupé arranged Yes interpretations, and we just kind of got on with it and played it, and I think in a way I enjoyed it a lot from my own perspective of playing the guitar, playing Yes music, and it felt good to have all these other human beings behind us, you know, and making that musical step that looked logical and doable. It was a great experience, really. I mean, it was not so about keyboards at that point I suppose-from where we're talking now with Rick joining, that also seems very important, but this was something that you had to do.
It was something inevitable, and for the most part I've got quite good memories of the way it felt to be standing on the stage and playing with all those people playing behind us
and them playing instruments we couldn't play, we didn't understand how to play them, and they played them, I think it was quite musical. And I met Wilhelm Keitel, met some good people through that, and occasionally met the orchestra at customs as well in their bus (laughs)-we were in the car. Generally I think it was a particularly nice thing for me, as an instrumentalist, to feel people were there. It was just interesting; it was a rewarding feeling, particularly on the DVD in Amsterdam when the orchestra joined us at the end, danced around on "Roundabout". That was very nice that it happened, and that was really a good feeling, because I didn't know it was going to happen I don't think, and it did kind of sum up that feeling. In Europe it was different, as you know from, just having two orchestras in Europe as opposed to like 22 in America.
MOT: That was going to be one of my questions, actually-did you find that a lot easier having the consistency of the same orchestra every night?
SH: Well, it was just slightly more consistent. Yeah, it was more consistent because most of them knew the music, and within a week or two they could really have quite a lot of fun with it, because they knew that that's all they were going to play. That's what they had to play. But I think it was hard for us to get a perspective, after all we don't work with orchestras that much, but I think their perspective is interesting, because some of the comments we heard were like, somebody said it's a hell of a lot trickier than doing like Debussy and Schubert (laughs). It's harder to play Yes than do that, so because of the interaction with all the other instruments... I mean, music's either played as a group, like an orchestral piece or it has a soloist, and he's doing one thing and you're kind of supporting him, but in Yes, it was demanding in the musical sense, which I'm pleased. Some of it just wasn't clear sometimes-just a few gray areas that were never 100%, but I mean in 2 hours of music, that's not surprising.
MOT: On the last tour you went to some pretty different countries, like you went to Moscow. What was it like playing to those audiences?
SH: I think we felt it more in St. Petersburg, but we were playing a little bit more to the regular people. In Moscow, it felt a little bit like we were playing to the aristocracy.
MOT: Oh, really?
SH: Yeah, and also all the fuss of playing in the palace itself was not terribly rewarding in a way...
MOT: So you played in a palace in Russia?
SH: Yeah, in the Kremlin Palace Theater or something, I can't remember what it was called... it was a big theatre.
MOT: But within the palace compound?
SH: That's right, yeah within the Kremlin, or if that's the right word, I don't know. It was just a bit distracting really, you know, the security and then the kind of military and the X-Ray machines and all that kind of stuff. I just suppose you have to get used to that kind of thing in the world you know.
MOT: So, overall would you say that both MAGNIFICATION and "YesSymphonic" took Yes through a journey that pretty much satisfied that certain creative muse and it was time to move on from there?
SH: Yeah, that's one way of putting it. It's like taking the very words from my mouth.
MOT: (laughs)
SH: I'd say that they're two quite separate things that we did, and they kind of crossed over by playing some of MAGNIFICATION on stage; but as I said before, the playing of the older material arranged by Larry Groupé was a different sort of venture. We didn't stop to say occasionally, "What to you think about this? What do you think about that?" But mostly what Larry did was used directly as a template for the orchestra every night, and that was different from the record, so I mean we have to stop doing it because we wouldn't see how or why or necessarily what we would perpetuate by carrying on doing that now. Now that we've done it, it's been an interesting process certainly, and as I said the musicality of it, working with other people, I think was very good for me-very good because not all of it is necessarily about the actual performance, because I wouldn't like to think that when I'm touring, it's just a performance, and that's the most important part of it.
I was just thinking about how things that other musicians would say to you, you would think about more, because there are more people to talk to, there are more people to interact with to see their comments, and some of it was a great deal of praise for us because they found our music interesting and things like that, but also there was a another kind of respect that was building. This group now is finding maybe we've got that now, but we were certainly feeling the camaraderie with European orchestra, and we'd have a bit of fun. They would comment at sound checks, sometimes they'd hear me play and they'd say things to me about what I was playing, because I would kind of jam a bit in the afternoon, they would hear me playing different bits of music and then sometimes be surprised, and Wilhelm was quite surprised when he heard me playing Bach, so seeds get sowed.
MOT: Would you say that in retrospect now, MAGNIFICATION was a more successful Yes album creatively?
SH: Well, I think that the only thing I would say is that it was a record that went through-a bit like UNION, you go through some kind of changes as it was being made, and through a lot of determination, it did come out like something we're all reasonably happy with. Yeah, I would say that's true, but it wasn't maybe as easy a process as it could have been or we would have liked it to have been, but it was a venture, to say the least that took us into the zones that we hadn't been in for a while with time pressures and having so much information on one track you couldn't actually... we had 124 tracks of Pro Tools or something (laughs), you know with an orchestra and Yes and vocals and the guitars and other things. But in the end Tim Weidner and Jordan [Berliant], for me anyway, helped to get it back to somewhere that we could all recognize and be assured it was, as you asked me, was it on course to what we wanted, and it got back there. It was just a long and winding road, just like my answer.
MOT: Do you feel "In The Presence Of" is probably a lasting Yes classic?
SH: I think it's got something, yeah, I think it's got some nice twists and surprises that are good. How we work it without an orchestra is once again yet to be really clarified, but I'm sure Rick will come up with some nice things from the orchestrations that he can use and hopefully we'll be surprised. I mean, from my perspective, one of the things is the steel guitar gets a real chance live to establish what's reasonably clear on the record, but is worked out very much with the orchestra... it's exciting. It's quite an exciting piece to play at times, and it's got its emptier parts and its building parts and then its climatic parts. It has all the makings of a good Yes piece.
MOT: What was the state of the band when the "YesSymphonic" tour ended? Did you have an idea of where you were going to go from there, did you have any other thoughts or ideas as to what was happening before Rick came along?
SH: Only that we might go symphonic to Japan, and there was some more touring ideas about that kind of symphonic stuff, but due to various circumstances, the gap widened between the beginning of the year and actually when we'd start work, but that was prudent and also gave us time to plan for the things that we would do now that Rick was going to come back in the band, so suddenly the focus was more on getting those plans established and having time to plan it properly to come to America and start on July 17th.
Return to the Centre of the Rick
MOT: How did Rick come back into being with the band?
SH: I don't know if it's a worthy corridor to go down. I'd just say that there's been times in the past when Rick did make himself available to us, but then didn't, and then since then, there's been occasions when it's been discussed that Rick may come back, but it's only now that we both wanted to do that, so he wanted to do it and we wanted to do it, so that's not been the case so much before.
MOT: It was a matter of both of you feeling it was the right time.
SH: Yeah, I mean nobody's really saying who made the first step. I don't want to be the one to clarify if anybody made the first step, but somebody obviously did.
MOT: I think some would feel might have been a stumbling block in that Rick had, in the past, stated he wasn't interested in playing any RELAYER-type material, or DRAMA material, there were only certain things he was going to consider playing. Was that a potential stumbling block in his coming back to the band?
SH: Well, most probably when it was, there were other things also that were stumbling blocks, but I would say now that he's come back, he's not carrying, not waving that banner. He's much more open about the pieces, and has interest and openness to try other music... when you come back to it you see Yes quite differently because you had time away, so I think that shows appreciation that that development for him to say, "Well, you know I can look at other music."
MOT: Can I hear your reactions to today's rehearsal for posterity?
SH: All I'd say about the very first day at the rehearsal in Seattle for this tour was quite an eye-opener for I hope all of us, I'll only speak from my point, my perspective at this moment, but yeah, it was an eye-opener because we gelled together. We played "Siberian Khatru", and we played "Heart Of The Sunrise", and also worked on the potential of playing "South Side Of The Sky", and it all went very nice, and the band sort of felt like it opened out to some other kind of way of being assertive and enjoying what we're doing, because in a way, it's bringing back together something that was good in the past, but also for all of our reasons we like it now, and I think that's a sort of timing thing. It's a kind of, you could say destiny or you could say affluency of musicians' lives, and Yes' career really has gone through changes. It's going through dips and dives and helter-skelter rides, so it's come to something now that has great potential, so let's see if it can make that potential real.
MOT: What are the long range plans for a tour and for the band?
SH: Well, I don't think there are really a great deal at the moment because it would be jumping the gun a bit, but we have some tentative plans for later in the year to extend on from what we're about to do now by doing more shows in America in the autumn, but that's rather tentative, we're just trying to get kind of started and then be clearer about what we want to do, so I can't say much.
MOT: What was it like; it's been the four of you really, through many different configurations for so long and now Rick was back. What was it like being with him? I was wondering if he's the old Rick you remember as far as the interaction with the band, I mean from a personality standpoint.
SH: Well, I said to Rick at one point today don't bother playing keyboards just come and tell us jokes (laughs), which is a ridiculous thing to say to Rick, and I guess we all tempt fate a little bit by saying things like that, but it was good to have Rick back. That showed, in a way, that it was good to have Rick back because he was telling a couple of jokes and we're having a bit of a laugh, and so Rick brings back his personality and I think that's a good thing to have in a band, because it balances out the personalities within the band as it did for several years and many great albums and many great tours. This lineup did balance itself, you know it balances out.
IN A WORD: YES (1969 - )
MOT: Let's talk about the box set. How instrumental were you in compiling the set in total, in terms of choosing the tracks that would go on it?
SH: Well, I think you'd have to think again about that really, because there is a kind of conformity that must happen with a box set. It must show you what Yes has done that's best, so in other words, if on the box set before, we had "Close To The Edge", you know I might have argued at one time, "Well don't have 'Close To The Edge' this time," but it became somewhat of a nebulous conversation because this box set has to represent the best of what Yes' done, and that's what we've tried to do. So my main role was in the procurement of anything unreleased, which we have most probably a CD's worth of what I only call... like, it's not "Close To The Edge Part 2". There were going to be quite short, simple ideas or some ideas that weren't really finished off, so there is a considerable amount of this material, and we carefully selected just three for this box set. And that's just really part of my work, part of the work it was suggested that I take on was coming up with as much unreleased material as possible and also being a kind of conduit for tapes, because Atlantic, Electra, and now Rhino who are the holders of the catalog-passed on from Atlantic to Electra and now to Rhino, which is all part of the same company.
Basically, and it could be said about most labels, they don't know where some of the masters are, so I've been quite instrumental in finding some brilliant tapes, particularly "The Revealing Science of God" that's perfectly kept, a direct copy from the mix, with two minutes extra on the front that we hacked off because of possibly the requirements of the record and the feeling that we just get on with it and start at the chant. In fact when we recorded it, we started two minutes or nearly two minutes earlier with the same sort of music that's behind the chant, so that tape became a great find, and there have been some great finds in my tape library, and David McLees from Rhino has a very rough cassette of a copy of two DATs, and those are quite long tapes; I can't quite think they're an hour and twenty minutes or something. One of them's full, and the other one's half full of outtakes of material, and I mentioned on an interview I did for Rhino yesterday for promotional things about some of the rare tapes that we have available. But maybe they'll come out as a separate CD eventually, at some point, of rarities.
I mean the band, I must say, aren't terribly impressed, terribly knocked out with these kind of rarities. I find them more intrinsically just interesting because you can't create that again, and we can't find other versions or they're quite rare in themselves. But then I also had the same role the other guys did, but once David and I and Jordan had kind of compiled what we thought it was, we suggested it to the band, they made a few adjustments. There was only one track from OPEN YOUR EYES and now there's two, so there were obviously discussions that affected what we originally did, but not its detriment... it didn't change a whole bunch, it just settled down, and David McLees had a lot of ideas like putting ABWH in. He wanted to use "Fist of Fire" and I said to him I was very unhappy with "Fist of Fire" [released version] because whoever had left out all of my guitar parts from the whole song, so could I suggest a mix with my guitar on it? So "Fist of Fire" has some guitar from me, a riff and also some improvisation that goes along with what Rick's doing on his improvisation, so I brought to the party a little bit of variance wherever I could.
I could have brought more; it may have been intolerable to go too far down the alternative mix area, but there are [more]... I have "The Meeting" where I'm playing lute on it, but I have to use my discretion also and say "Should I suggest this? Is it important enough or blah blah?" So we kicked around those kind of ideas, and certainly staying on course with the concept of the album having, except for "Clap", no live material at all on that CD, because our next plan, and it's already in progress, is that next year, there's a triple live CD. Once again, I've already given David ten pages of lists of different outlets, different resources. I've got full live material, most of it hasn't been released before, things like Yes at Crystal Palace in 1972 and also Manchester, Zurich and all these other concerts that I've got on tape, so gradually they're being assembled, and that's the next project.
As we now have totally finished the box set, and put it to bed, then our thoughts are turning to, partly to what I hope is the next release after the box set is the remix album, which has been done by my son Virgil, and he calls himself "the Verg", and he's remixed this music in quite an astounding way, and we're now at twelve tracks. The first one is the introduction of different Yes ingredients, mostly that aren't on the rest of the CD, and that's called "No Clowns", to give you a hint of what it also includes, which is called "Circus Of Heaven", so Virgil did this sort of intro for about two minutes that basically tempts you with thinking that this is what the album is about. It's about taking Yes and track by track reinventing certain pieces of music with drum loops, with totally different arrangements. All the songs have different arrangements, so hopefully it will be interesting to Yes fans, but obviously we're hoping to show a sort of reference where Yes can be revamped as we're doing now with Rick coming back and as we did with the orchestra, Masterworks and all the other permutations we've had. What Virgil decided to do was create a sort of hybrid dance, not hip-hop, but kind of sampling approach to Yes, so it's more radical then getting a bit of Yes with a different drum beat, it's hacked around and it's messed around with.
Then after that the albums start to come out in various different formats, like the amazing remix of 5.1 FRAGILE and all these kind of events are happening for Yes, and I think our recordings can stand this basically because Eddie Offord did some tremendous engineering and co-producing with us in the initial years, and then what we kind of struggled with help from other people as we went to GOING FOR THE ONE and TORMATO and then DRAMA. It's an interesting story that they want to tell isn't so much that Yes wants to keep repackaging our music. We have a serious input here from Rhino, who have control from Atlantic and Electra to put this out, have the rights to do that, but I must say, that is a separate project, that they came to us. They wanted to do; I got involved. I'm enthusiastic; everybody's enthusiastic about it, but if I could mention the other kinds of releases that we get along the way, unless you want me to save it?
MOT: Let's hold on for just a second with that. To be clear about what Virgil's doing, even though Yes fans may have some interest in that, it seems like it's something more targeted at the dance club audience.
SH: Yeah, yeah it is. It's seeing if people who like that kind of music could discover Yes I suppose. It's like a meal ticket to Yes, coming in through kind of the back door, yeah.
MOT: Did the band talk about maybe reinstating that intro to "The Revealing Science Of God" for the tour, maybe as a tie-in for the box set?
SH: Well, so far, although I mentioned it to them that there is that, and they heard some of it, at the moment we're so used to playing, or however much we're used to playing, "Revealing Science Of God", which isn't a great deal, but whatever extent that is, we're used to starting it like this, and I haven't been able to sway them into this new way yet. I might; I will suggest it again, that we look at the way it starts here, but in a way the band and the audience aren't yet used to hearing it like that (laughs), so that's why I've not been terribly pushy about it.
MOT: Did you have any second thoughts about having the Paris sessions on there, particularly since there really isn't much in way of guitar on those tracks?
SH: Well, there's a balance on all of Yes that sometimes when I don't realize it, it infuriates me to think that there might be recordings that I think would be better if there was more guitar on them, but when you talk about Paris, that doesn't really apply. Paris only got so far in a backing track stage, and varying different albums,
I'm at varying different stages of preparation at the point of doing backing tracks. And I would say Paris was the most difficult sessions for me at that time to that date to understand what this music was and what my role in it would be, because it was coming at me off a sort of treadmill of an exciting writing development that Rick and Jon were starting to have, and so it was more keyboard-oriented. I don't really think that's a problem, there's not really hardly any guitar on either of those tracks, but when you come to "Crossfire", then "Crossfire" hasn't got any keyboards on it at all, and I'm not really playing lead guitar but I'm playing structural parts, I play bit of a solo in it, and therefore there's no keyboards. So admittedly it makes me feel good that Yes isn't totally and always committed as was advised by one Roy Lott from Arista, that us guys, we don't always flourish when we all play at once.
Yes isn't about something that we say there's five people, we've all got to play at once all the time, and obviously that's what that was. But it wasn't really; what it really was, was recordings at a stage where no guitar had been detailed whatsoever, and at that point my guitar was reasonable uninteresting and is reasonably inaudible, but as I said that's the balance. On some of them, there are the odd guitar line and odd guitar part, but at Paris it was what I felt was a frustrating period for me. We were recording music we hadn't really rehearsed thoroughly or we hadn't looked at the structures. We sometimes can pull that off as we did with MAGNIFICATION, going straight into the studio and knowing that we've all got loads of material, but at that time with the discomfort of doing it in Paris and the ulterior motive for some people of avoiding taxation and all this crap-some of it I was party to, I'm not saying I wasn't, but at that time I wasn't, but I had been at other times-and all those implications, and the producer who was not the same kind of animal we were used to. He was great; Roy Thomas Baker's a great, great producer, and did some remarkable recordings, but not with Yes. We didn't get to completion with him...
So sometimes I hurt; it's painful for me when like "Fist of Fire" comes out with no guitar on it and there really is guitar. Of course that stuff really pisses me off, and it shows the struggle I have to get my creativity through, even in this band, but I hope and I sort of believe at this time we're at a totally different point. 2002, we're at a point where hopefully we have the sense and the realization to realize we all need the freedom that we worked for and deserve, and desire, in our construction of Yes music, and hopefully people aren't going to hinder me to do the best for Yes in the studio, and I think they have at times in the past, but that's a band. That's called a band; that is what happens in a band, but it shouldn't happen to the extent that it has held me back a lot, and after all, I am who I am, and Yes, of all people shouldn't hold me back and create unproductive environments where my work is either overly criticized or overly-edited or is overly docked. What I mean by docked in the mix, you know, not sitting strong and providing great guitar ideas... but that's enough (laughs).
MOT: I think it's important to note that the Paris songs on the box set and some of the other things are more a look to the creative process.
SH: And in progress...
MOT: ... not a finished outtake that didn't make an album, or something like that.
SH: No, no. That's right.
MOT: You and Rhino have control over a lot of the content, but as you touched on earlier, there seems to me a smattering of Yes-related repackagings that seem to really confuse a lot of people out there. The savvy Yes fans I think kind of grok that it's basically somebody other than Yes producing these, but just to give you an example, there's YES TODAY from Snapper, which is a 2-CD mix of tracks from both OPEN YOUR EYES and THE LADDER and some live tracks from the 2000 tour; EXTENDED VERSIONS, which is I think a series that BMG is producing, which is most of KEYS TO ASCENSION 1 live; and something called KEYS TO ASCENSION 2 SPECIAL DELUXE EDIT. Just to give you an example, I printed out [the cover to] YES TODAY.
SH: My face is turned to a horrible complaining thing, yes. Well...
MOT: [Laughs at Steve's reaction to the cover.] That was my reaction as well. What can you say about these?
SH: Well, I can say is this; I'd like to say a couple of things. What I could say from the business side is that when we release music through any label, it is then possible for another label to license-this is just to sort of make it blatantly clear what's actually happening-it is then possible for another label to go to that first label and say, "I'd like to license a few of these tracks," and in fact they're quite entitled to do that. I mean, the label could say, "No; we could say no, we're not prepared to do that," but quite often we're not even asked. The label gets a request, and in their way, this is business. They've just opened up another business idea. So they license off a few tracks from Yes, much like on the album you didn't mention, which was YES-FAMILY AND FRIENDS, is another kind of revamping of ideas that they did. They came to me and said, "Can we license some songs from you?" I could have said no, but I said, "Yeah, you can have... what do you want? What kind of thing are you looking for?" "We're looking for Yes," so what did I give them-my TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS medley or something like this. But that feels OK, because you're involved and they've asked you and you can provide things or not provide them, or you can change their ideas and say, "I don't want give you that. I'd rather give you this track." So that's one side of the coin, the kind of basic structural business.
The next area is that the way these tracks are compiled and from different projects and then repackaged with horrible sleeves obviously doesn't
enhance it for us either, so we're getting to a point where we've realized we've lacked some control over our catalog, that's the understatement, and that is I'm not referring to what Rhino are doing, but I'm referring to like Eagle, since we've signed and they've been gracious enough to support us for many years with OPEN YOUR EYES, THE LADDER, and MAGNIFICATION, then what they do once we've finished our record is hard for us to control. Sometimes they do things very quickly that we don't approve of very much, but some guys do. I mean, when we went to Europe and Eagle released MAGNIFICATION Deluxe Edition, all it had on it was "Gates" and some other songs from a live show, and for me as much as I like Eagle, I don't particularly like that approach. All they're getting is something inferior. It isn't as well polished as the record MAGNIFICATION that was labored over and struggled over and wrestled over, fought over so that it was right, but what happens now is that we've got the repackaging.
The only one I wouldn't criticize so much is KEYSSTUDIO, not only because I helped to make that happen, but also because it's a valid idea to put studio tracks together on one CD so you don't have to buy like four CDs to buy one CDs worth of studio material, but it's a bit late in the day. I mean, if we'd done that straight away it might have been even more relevant to have not put the studio material out first and then put out the live material, hindsight. But just to wrap up so I don't waffle on too long, this one is really a classic example how wrong it can go, because YES TODAY, not only as a presentation, appears to lack any imagination at all. Most people who've got KEYS or OPEN YOUR EYES don't really need to buy it repackaged necessarily, so I lack understanding of why these people do it. Why they do it is because they think they're going to make money out of it, and in turn we will if it sells, because of the value of the income on those licensed tracks. But really it's because of what they are, they don't sell I would expect very much, and I wouldn't particularly want people to buy things that don't carry the Yes logo.
Generally when the Yes logo is on a record, it's our record; we want it to come out. When it isn't, it usually that we've said we're not involved in this compilation, you didn't ask us, you didn't ask us to use the logo, and therefore you can't use the logo. Of course, they can ask Roger to do a sleeve; nothing's stopping him doing a sleeve. I wouldn't want him to just turn down business just for the sake of some moral obligation he might have to Yes, but there's a line. There's a border; there's a line somewhere we'd like be happier with, so look for the Yes logo. If it's not got that, if it's got something on there that you want, obviously buy it, but if it hasn't, then you ought to know that we're not thinking about it. It's not a project on our mind if it doesn't have the logo.
Another sort of development isn't only the recordings but also the video, and obviously when a new format comes out like DVD, then these companies who've had the rights, some of them erroneously and some of them are going to find out that we mean business of their erroneousness about ownerships here and there. But things like "Keys To Ascension", which is owned by Castle, and other things like "Philadelphia 1979", "QPR", "Yessongs", those things get repackaged and sometimes they go to Roger and ask him to do a new thing. Maybe there was a sleeve they can use. Some labels that now own video and want to move it to DVD, release things and attempt to repackage them to look fresh. Our fans should look carefully at what it is, study when it says it was made or shot, because when I bring out my DVD, you're going to know it's from me because it's going to have Steve Howe stamped strongly on it, but I wouldn't like people to confuse that with reissue projects that are old, and that there are going to be some of those around, and I suggest people look carefully and see what's being proposed here. If it's new from me, it's going to say this is a compilation of my solo video work, but if anything else is going to be a retrospective event you'll see I'm a different sort of looking guy. I've got more hair, and it's a different era, and I think people should make sure they're aware of that when they buy.
"America"
MOT: I'm going to move onto "America"-one of the songs that's on your current set, one of the few songs that Yes hadn't written. My understanding is that the band was playing "America" prior to your joining.
SH: Of course Yes, before I joined, played many, many songs by other people, but when I joined, the direction was taken that we would now only play our own music. I mean, that's mainly what I was interested in, because although Yes weren't doing it like a cover band, I didn't want to join a band that was a cover band in any way at all. That's not what I was doing; look at Tomorrow, look at Bodast. Those groups were writing songs and playing their own music. That's what I was interested in, so I certainly helped to tilt the scales, if not they were already going there. So it was some time, it was when Phil Carson, who worked at Atlantic, asked us to provide a track. I think we decided to play "America" before then, but that was the ideal track; that was the ideal way to use it.
What happened was we created a list of outside songs; we were going to do one song that wasn't our own, and we put down a list of titles by different writers. Maybe there was another Paul Simon song there or there was Tim Webb song or there was a Bob Dylan song or things that we thought were good from certain different aspects, and "America" was the one that came out on top. I mean, I can't believe how we did that arrangement (laughs). What we developed from those ideas and how we did that-and with no disrespect
to Rick, I'm not putting him down at all, Rick wasn't as interested in doing it as we were, as I think he says himself at the time, or he was not as keen to record it or something.
I have a live version that starts quite differently with a sort of drum solo from Bill, which is quite good, but having said that, we played it different ways, and only when we got in the studio did we really definitively break that arrangement, you know and that's what Yes always did. We got an arrangement so far, but when we took it in the studio, we took it further. We tightened up all those bits we didn't like and made it better-tried to rid of the doldrums or any moment in time. So "America" got a really great treatment, I feel, and it's a stunning piece to play.
MOT: There's a rumor that Tony Kaye plays on that track as well as Rick, can you confirm that?
SH: I don't see how that's possible, no. No, that's definitely not possible. No, Rick was the only one... the track was mostly recorded with guitar, bass, and drums, but we did a lot of recording like that. We recorded the beginning of "Close To the Edge" like that; we recorded parts like that. Rick sensed his timing brilliantly, and he left us sometimes to get these backing tracks pinned down, so he could add his parts, or he was party to playing along.
What I wanted to say was when I was with Asia, we played at Miami for a hurricane disaster. Asia opened a show acoustically (laughs); I think the only acoustic set I ever did with Asia was that show, and there was some phenomenal people on that show-Crosby Stills and Nash, and Gloria Estafan was the headliner, and I think the Bee Gees were on it as well, and so a couple of things happened. I'll save all the others, just the one that's relevant, the story that happened was that I was standing in this kind of communal dressing room, and eventually Paul Simon walked out the door with his son, and I looked at him, and a big smile came on my face and said, "Paul, it's Steve Howe from Yes." He says, "Oh really, nice to meet you," and he was very, very calm, very nice, we were just standing there talking. So I really built up some confidence and I said, "Have you ever heard our version of 'America'?" and he said, "Yeah! That's a great version, really is a great version." So I said to him, "I'll tell the guys; we're really happy you liked it, because obviously we did it to make you happy, but because it's a great song." So he said, "So what about that guitar solo in the middle? ," I said, "You know, um... " and he said to me, "That guitar solo's great. Why don't you just use it on its own? You don't have to credit me, if that's not me."
So to hear Paul Simon actually say to me that that solo was totally out of my imagination, and put a lot of things into perspective for me. I really appreciated that, but we did reinvent the song quite a bit, rearrange it, and I inserted quite a long guitar solo, which is a bit like "Yours Is No Disgrace", it had different moods; it had different moments from riffs and things that I'd like to play. So it was a well-thought out piece, and I was just thrilled that one to one, Paul had said to me that he accepted that I'd written that, and that I could always play it on its own, and not credit Paul, so I've always had that up my sleeve.
MOT: I think that's great to hear that from the composer of the song.
SH: Yeah.
MOT: So, how did Yes come about recording "America"? At what point was it recorded? Was it recorded after FRAGILE?
SH: I don't really know...I've got a feeling it was after CLOSE TO THE EDGE, but I'm not absolutely sure, because besides recording FRAGILE and CLOSE TO THE EDGE in '72, I don't see how we would have recorded "America" as well, but we were obviously on a rush. We were obviously at a creative flux, but of course when somebody came into videos us miming to "America", we made a complete mess of it, a bit like we do with Rockline. We all messed around so much it was just ridiculous, and it was a stupid video, so I hope nobody's struggling to get that piece of video, because although it was funny to us, a lot of times that kind of stuff isn't funny much afterwards.
MOT: I asked Rick the same question, and what he recollected was that Atlantic came to Yes wanting something for THE NEW AGE OF ATLANTIC.
SH: That's right.
MOT: And that's when you decided to record it and not before that.
SH: Yeah, oh I'm sure that's right. I don't think we had any particular plans to record "America" at that point until they said that, but I'm not absolutely sure that we didn't arrange it just to do it on that record, but I don't think we did. I think it was something that was a separate idea, but otherwise we would have just added a Yes track, a new composition on something to NEW AGE OF ATLANTIC.
MOT: So, to reiterate, it sounds like it was a matter of Atlantic needed a song. You had one kind of ready to go, so you just gave it to them.
SH: Yeah, and it kept the same team together; we did it at Advision. Eddie was there, and that's why it sounds pretty good.
MOT: So, you did play it a very few times in the '70s.
SH: Yeah.
MOT: Any specific reason why it got dropped or it just one of many songs dropped by the wayside?
SH: Yeah, once we were at TOPOGRAPHIC and RELAYER and all that, "America" didn't seem to come on anybody's mind anymore, you know it was a song that eventually got just totally off the list. I can't remember if it was KEYS TO ASCENSION that brought it back, but it was somewhere; we may have played it some other time in the '70s, but I don't remember. I don't remember playing it very often in the '70s, and when I did find a version on tape, as I said, it was quite different. It was obviously before we'd recorded it, because it was nothing like the record, and that proves that if we find a version that's live that's like the record, then it's obviously after the record because that's how we put all of our music together. I mean, if you hear "I've Seen All Good People" like before we record, it's nothing like "I've Seen All Good People".
MOT: Well, I think one version you're referring to earlier, where Bill starts on the drums, I think it's evident it was before you recorded it...
SH: How's that?
MOT: Because there's a whole extra verse in there, and there's a lot of different things. How did "America" ever come back then for KEYS TO ASCENSION, was that you're idea?
SH: I don't know; I don't know if we ever played it between whenever it was we dropped it in the '70s.
MOT: No, you didn't. I know you didn't.
SH: No, we didn't, so I guess it came back as a kind of champion. It was one of the strongest things, I felt, that made us realize we were back together, a bit like we got now. We're, hey, we're back together. We can play "America", and it sounds like this. It's just because Chris and I and Rick, in particular, the way we play isn't that easy to replace. You get somebody else to play, and it just doesn't sound the same, so those things are back now, and that might have been why at KEYS we got it back, because I don't think any other lineup would have played it, it seems to be a exclusive number that only this lineup will play.
MOT: I guess that wraps up "America", but related to that while I was looking over the working titles for the songs from FRAGILE the only one that jumps out that doesn't make any sense is "Corporal Salt", and I suspect that was the working title for "Long Distance Runaround"?
SH: Well, there were two, because I found a tape where "Long Distance Runaround" was called "Ice Fire" or "Ice Flame" or something, so yeah, that's with all of our music and my own as well. There's always a working title that you start with; it doesn't really matter about that to me because as long as a good title ends up being there. It's usually taken from the lyric, obviously "Long Distance Runaround", once the lyric was more there, it's more obvious what to call a song sometimes or maybe there are exceptions, when you call a song like "Siberian Khatru". I don't think we ever sing "Siberian Khatru", do we?
MOT: No, those words don't appear as that. You hear "Siberia", you hear "Khatru". But I thought of "Colonel Brown" by Tomorrow for some reason; I didn't know if there were some early lyrics that referred to "Corporal Salt".
SH: It's so far back, I can't remember.
SKYLINE
[Note: The original title of SKYLINE was that of one of the tracks, "Secret Arrow". This is how Steve refers to the album below.]
MOT: Let's touch on your upcoming album. It really does sound like a departure for you, and I was wondering what was the impetus for that, and if any of it had to do mainly with your collaboration with Paul Sutin?
SH: Yeah, it does really. I'm not even sure quite how I'm standing with the record at the moment. The label in Europe now like it more or less the way I presented it to them, which is how I'm trying to change it away from. But having said that, I'm easily influenced by friends and others obviously, family, friends, a fan will say something, and sometimes it's a bit like cricket when the ball hits the wicket, the wicket falls over, and I feel there's a dangerous time when I'm very vulnerable when I've just finished a record, where I can overreact. Somebody says to me, "Oh, that's bit long," I think, "Jesus, that is" (laughs). It's not autosuggestion, it's when I've been working on something on my own for so long, that when I get other input, outside input, not from Curtis who I'm working with or Paul who I'm working with, but as in [someone who had] never heard a thing, put it on: "Wow! That's long; that's short. That's bright; that's dark." You know, you hear these kind of comments, and it really shocks you, if you just created this kind of baby, and then somebody starts poking their fingers at it.
But it's a really good process. A musician has to understand why he's going through it, so most of my records have been a learning curve, and this has been almost like a university course, because basically the way I've worked with Paul over the years has created for me some intriguing music, but as I say, it's become a very personal relationship. Paul makes music, and I kind of come in and develop it and do stuff with it. It is a departure, and it does concern me that I attempt to make that make sense during the course of listening to the record. So I believe that eventually I'll get resettled down with it, and it may be very much like I originally conceived it, although as I say each bit of input conflicts with another piece of input or maybe conflicts, but this is a quite unique case.
When I made NATURAL TIMBRE or QUANTUM GUITAR, PORTRAITS OF DYLAN, all those things, in a way they were much easier. They, in a way, were more concise, and this record, as laid back as it is and spacious and the large improvisational ingredients in it have not gone head to head; but they've presented me with certain problems, which I haven't usually had, which is that I like making records now for the last twenty years, the solo records I've made I've attempted to create the continuity, the flow of a transitional idea goes through these changes. You go through the music; there's something, there's some little thread that carries through them, and that's certainly true with SECRET ARROW, but the only thing is because of the mood of the music and sort of relaxness of the music, it's been harder for me to actually create the spiral that I'm trying to create.
But as I said, I've got it, I had it, but as soon as input came from outside, I freaked, really did freak. It was kind of fragile, and I didn't really want anybody to say anything, but I need outside input. People need to react to the record when I present it, so as I've gone around, and that includes yourself, what I've really been doing is getting that input and being more sure. But I can't be sure to follow anyone, because I'm not doing that, like I've said to you like Yes fans know, Yes don't follow our fan base of what they want us to play. We'll listen; we'll consider that, but in the end we've got to come up with what we can do, and it's the same with this.
MOT: I've said it's unconventional, and I think it is in a sense, and not that it's too avant-garde but actually in the other direction to where some of the progressions I've heard, some of the structures, were kind of conventional, which for you is unconventional.
SH: It's unconventional, yeah. That's right... when we did VOYAGES, I've enjoyed the music I did with Paul. It's another kind of outlet;
I did quite a lot of one to one collaborations with people, and I value them and I put a lot into them, but whether or not I come out having an easier time... well, it's not really about having an easier time, so why should I want that. But with the flow of records that I have made and the fun I've had making things like QUANTUM GUITAR and NATURAL TIMBRE, this album's also has a sort of a moral side. It has a little moral story in it, which is one I'm learning even though I though I finished it, because when I finished it I listened to some finalized alternative mixes that I'd included on this running order, and I realized there was something missing on one track that was on the other mix that I'd always had, but since I prefer this other mix, it didn't have it on there, so I'm going the whole nine yards. I'm going to play a bass somewhere like Denver, I'll be on Pro Tools playing some parts for a song that I'm really sure is fine, but it is missing something that I've noticed.
In fact, what am I doing, I'm sort of reevaluating SECRET ARROW, because I'm only going to release it when I'm that sure that I like it in its totality. That doesn't mean to say I've got tracks on there I don't like, but getting the right kind of running order is more crucial on this album I suppose than any other album I've done. It's a sort of make or break it, but input I'm getting sometimes indicates that they kind of like it the way I first did it (laughs). It's always a vicious circle. Here's an album and they listen to it, and I go away and think if I listened to it and get input and start to change things, and the label is saying, "Wow, we really like the way it starts" (laughs).
A Whole Different Way of Playing
MOT: Let's wrap up with Yes. Do you think recording is very likely then in the future of the band?
SH: Well, I'm only going to say what we're all saying, well I hope it's consistent, is that our focus is not on recording at the moment. None of us are quite there, but I write my music, and presumably Jon does as well, but we're not going to rush to make a record. Without laboring any points here there are things to discuss and clarify before and decide before we make another record, the whole array of areas that need to be thought through and discussed and conclusions reached, and also our schedule may not allow us to really start thinking about that maybe until later next year; maybe, that's the case.
But I've seen a lot of plans change, in fact all Yes' plans always seem to change, so that could be the case, but I think at the moment, although there is interest from labels and there are also options now for groups, there isn't just one way of making a record, and I think that's what we're giving some time to, to discuss the different ways one could present the record, the different ways what record it could be. But before we even get to the music, different methods of involvement from people, of resources, be that our fans or be that labels. So we're just batting the ball around, different ways we could do it, and that helps when you're not about to do it. It's in the distance a little bit.
There certainly will be recording live, which isn't the same as what you're saying. We'll record some things live here, and that bothers me because I hate all the live mixes that go out, sometimes on radio, that have no approvals by any of us at all, and I think our standards have, or fans could conceive our standards, might or have dropped because we are not able to pay attention to every live mix that ever is released. Personally I'd like to do all of them; I'd like to be at every live mix ever released, but that's never going to happen, and it's very time consuming to do that.
MOT: Question about the live box set [scheduled for 2003]. Will the live box set be strictly unreleased tracks or will it be a compilation of, say, YESSONGS and YESSHOWS and KEYS TO ASCENSION, stuff that we've heard as well as unreleased tracks. Obviously the fans would like to have nothing but unreleased tracks.
SH: Yeah, I mean there is a lot of merit for saying [only] unreleased tracks, but would it also be true to say that some of our official released live music comes under the same sort of banner, or as I said earlier about the studio box set is that it has to represent the best of what we did, and if we could find live versions that had quality that were properly mixed of alternative versions to what is on YESSONGS, YESSHOWS, KEYS TO ASCENSION, etc., then there's a balance. I think at the moment the balance might be that one CD covers all of the released live material that we have released through the things I've said, and then so the parameter might be two to three is unreleased. If you get all three unreleased, there's another plus-no guarantees what it's going to be at the moment. I would think that the worst way, it's going to be two CDs of unreleased material, because there is enough rarities in those live performances, be it things from solo albums, be it songs like "South Side Of The Sky", which of course now we are playing, all sorts of other kinds of songs that we did.
And hopefully we'll discover other things along the way, other songs that we did or earlier versions of this, or what I'm particularly excited about and I want to show-not to diminish Peter's role in this
band one bit, but I'm very excited about some of the recordings that I've got from the very first tour I did with Yes where I was playing TIME AND A WORD album, and after I suppose all of the promotion I've done for TIME AND A WORD, I think it would be fair to hear some of that on there, because the way I was playing was-I'm only saying this because I like what I did with those songs, and yet in my memory, from memory, I would never have said I'd ever want to hear it again. Because I had to struggle, I had to really psyche myself to play this music, because I was in a mode and had been for several years of only playing original music and not a song by Stephen Stills-[though a] great song-we talked about that kind of transition of Yes not being a cover band anymore. But there again it was a great cover band, because it just didn't cover the songs as they are, but it invented other ways of looking at the music, and I mean I think we're making a real journey out of "America" with this (sings instrumental parts of "America"), the way we've combined ingredients there is great, and the way that Yes did that on TIME AND A WORD was pretty interesting. So I'd love to include a bit from my appearance on the TIME AND A WORD material, and I hope if possible we could do something that's chronological as well. I quite like that knowing where you are with the music; you're in an early period and you're with other early music.
There's some great recordings-I think they're great-from the video film made by the BBC that they've never, ever licensed, but I think we'll go back and say to them, "Come on, why won't you ever license this material? I mean, it's just two tracks," and it was a documentary that Yes did. I've talked about it loads of times where I'm outrageous; the whole band is verbally outrageous, not that this would be on the audio, but in the film you can see we're, I wouldn't say egomaniacs, I think eccentrics we are, and there's me telling BBC that their sound's going to be rubbish. I mean, this is the BBC; it's going to be trash (laughs). There's Bill telling them that they don't have any idea about anything, we were so over the top. We were so bullshit, but that helped us in some way to play our music...
You know I'd like to recall that when I was in the In Crowd, we built up our own belief system, like Yes' got today, that Yes had in the '70s, a belief system that said we are the best at what we do. There is nobody, no band in the world, that touches us, and we went on in Tomorrow and we had that attitude, and we were one of the best psychedelic bands in England, comparable to Floyd-any band you can think of, but it would be Floyd, Tomorrow. We were a true psychedelic band, in the true spirit of that idea, and partly what made us that good was that we believed it, and partly what made Yes as good as we were was that similarly we had tremendous confidence, and joint, you know that chemistry of confidence that went together when you got the band right. It's just like the Blues Brothers saying, "Let's get the band back together." That's what that means. It doesn't mean you're just going to stand up and play; it means get the idea back together. Get the persona of a band.
Tomorrow were very egotistical, but I mean artists have to be-you just have to. If you're not egotistical, don't be an artist, because you've got to have a balance of it. You can't be a maniac with an ego, but you have to have something going inside you that isn't saying, "I'm great", but says, "I can achieve". I can communicate; I can conspire with other people to make something great. I can collaborate. That's a different ego than a boxer saying, "I'm the greatest boxer in the world," just me, me, me, me, me. But I think an artist has to understand the parameter he's working in and isn't just, "Hey, I'm great," the big "I Am". People hated them for it, because the big "I Am" covered up a guitarist who's great, but as soon as it comes out, as soon as you start to see too much ego, it sickens people. It sickens me, and it sickens me when I see it myself (laughs).
MOT: Do you and the band at large find it a challenge in terms of getting older and having to keep up this grind? Your schedule for the next couple of years sounds like it's going to be very, very hectic.
SH: You know what they say about age: it's how old you feel that's important. It's not how old you are, but how old you think you are or you feel, and
there's something certainly rejuvenating about playing music, so when people ask us, "How did you get the inspiration to keep going?" it's really like, aren't you putting the cart before the horse here? I mean, we play music; once you realize that music, when you feel good about it, it inspires you to keep going. It's like a wheel; it keeps turning, and assuming that you're not rehashing yourself too much over and over again, I mean some songwriters have only ever written one song. I mean that; they've written 30 songs, but it's all really just one song, and I think by collaborating, you avoid that, by collaborating for me with Paul or Jon Anderson or Keith West or Martin Taylor or other people that I do collaborate with, then something great happens, and it keeps you going. But I am surprised; when I was 28, I saw something quite interesting, I knew some guitarists in London who were extremely good-extremely good, and they kind of veered away from music or they stayed maybe doing sessions. In other words, they were at that point where they said, "I can't risk, my life cannot risk being a musician," or, "I'll be a musician, but I'm not going on the road. I'm not going to be in a band; I'm not going to place all my eggs in one basket and put myself on a pedestal and hope, because what are the chances? They're too small for me."
Fortunately by the time I was 28 I was already a little bit successful, but people that weren't, when they got to about 28, they said, "I just want to do sessions. I want a regular income somehow." They even left music. A few guitarists even left music altogether; they sold guitars. They made guitars. But they stopped playing them, because they couldn't make any money. They couldn't provide for their lover, their children. They couldn't provide, and there were times when we couldn't either, but the difference was we kept going. I didn't say, "Alright, I give in," and obviously it would have been pretty stupid to have done that considering what I have achieved, but there were the same problems, the same pressures. I had a son; I had to feed him. I had to look after him; I had to provide, and Jan came along and all this started to happen, and I guess the main thing is that artists aren't going to find out if they can do this this late in their life if they turn back. But I will say that also I hope I'm going to be able to afford to stop doing this if I ever go downhill, if I ever start to go downhill, because I always hoped that people can see something that's developing in me, otherwise this would be pointless.
If I was just going out and playing note for note, exactly the same music all the time, I think there would be something worrisome about it, or maybe even having trouble playing that music. Well, at the moment, I don't have any trouble playing this music. If fact, I enjoy trying to perpetuate it, push it to the extra limit, bring some extra clarity to it. Also, if I wasn't writing any music, I would give up. That would be most probably one of the early signs, or I would diversify, and I've done that a lot already, but I could continue to greatly diversify, but while I'm writing music, loving playing my guitars, and getting the support from my wife, I can keep doing this forever, because it is really all I want to do. There's nothing more fulfilling than either recording or performing music, for me. There's most probably isn't too many other things that are as fulfilling, except my family and what that means to me.
I have some other ambitions, and I intend to pursue some of those, and they aren't mainstream music, but they're jumping off points from music, and I hope to achieve some of those. I think it's good to have other goals, and I haven't said enough yet from a guitaristic point of view, if Segovia can play until he drops and dies, then I think I might try to do that too, because there's nothing else... well, there are some very important things I would like to do, so I'm going to obviously. Robert Fripp took a year off once from the guitar; I think I won't exactly do that, but I'll definitely want my diversification to inspire my music, because don't kid yourself and just sit in a room and be a musician. That's not being a musician; you've got to have a life. You've got to get a life, and you've got to wrestle with life, and you've got to improve your life so that your music can still go on.
This is the tragic thing about suicides and overdoses with musicians, is that that is such a paradoxical point to be at, considering that this person creates... he creates music. He does something that many people admire all around the world, take incredible exception to. I mean, art is art, but music is fine art; it's one of the finest arts we have, so to be doing that and then commit suicide because of taking too many drugs or because your wife left you or because anything happened, is obviously you don't know what's going on in your life. You don't know how lucky you are; you don't know how fortunate you are, but sometimes it's the lack of success that can drive a musician-even with popularity and people recognizing you you're not successful.
MOT: What was it like playing at EMP last night [August 14th, 2002]?
SH: It was the beginning, I hope, of a whole different way of Yes playing. Because I'm feeling it-you know you might not so much or the audience might not be feeling it so much-but there's a distinct difference playing in this band starting from yesterday. The distinct difference is that... I mean I'll give Rick all the credit if you like, but I would say it's not really about saying because Rick's back everything's right, but because Rick's back, it's like you've got three wheels on this car and now we've got four. It does go better with four, and it's logical. It's obvious that this band is going to sound better and feel better with a totally deserving position held by Rick. He deserves to be in that position playing keyboards with us, and it makes us work better. It makes us believe more; it helps us to have confidence and trust in the fact that we're a band, because we've got the right guy playing keyboards. We've got the right guy playing bass; we've got the right guy singing, right guy playing guitar, and the right guy playing drums, so it does make for a logical bettering-it's the epitome of Yes.
It's not so much who's in it as what we do and the multiplication... you know there's a cliché about it's stronger than the parts. That is true for Yes. We're not just as good as having Rick, Jon, Chris, Steve, and Alan together, but there's a multiplication in that factor, and I think without saying it too soon, is that I hope, as I said first of all, I hope that last night is a new way for Yes to play more honest, honorable, less fussy, more emotion, more rockin', because Yes used to rock, and I don't think we've been rockin' that much really over the years, and I think we can turn up that heat a little bit more now, because we're at the point we're at with KEYS TO ASCENSION.
If we could have gone on tour, if we could have been that band then and unified and been able to get out on tour, maybe we would have done a lot of different things in the last five years, but we didn't. We're there now, so fortunately we know not to lose sight of the value of not just having Rick back, but having Rick back and having a completion feeling, bringing the band to a complete feeling of being a band and not having somebody in who's a fan. In a way, there's no room in Yes to have a member who's a fan. You can't be a fan and play in Yes. You won't last very long, because you have to be a original member to be in Yes, and therefore the people who came up together, however much we don't like the manager who we were with then, we still acknowledge that he came up with us. We came through together, so that's why it's good, as I said, not only because the simple fact that we've got Rick back and he's great, but also because that completes the jigsaw, completes the chemistry, is the word.
There is a chemistry of Yes, and we've now got the ingredients.
Notes From the Edge #265 The entire contents of this interview are
Copyright © 2002, Mike Tiano
ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDSpecial thanks to Jen Gaudette and John Amick
This conversation was conducted on July 4 & 15, 2002© 2002 Notes From the Edge
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