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Thread: Interview with Yes from 1983 when Eddie Jobson was still in them

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    Interview with Yes from 1983 when Eddie Jobson was still in them

    Yes: Yesterday and Today

    Phil Bell, Sounds, 26 November 1983

    Phil Bell gives the nod to the reformed, revitalised Yes

    "There is a disco mix! I believe that it's valid for us to go into these avenues. But I wouldn't say the single itself is actually a disco record, even though they did play it at the Camden Palace last week!" — Chris Squire.

    CAN YOU believe it? A sussy, scorching single from the maestros that sculptured Close To The Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans and Going For The One.

    Make no mistake, Yes are back with a crash and a bang or two! Crashing back into action with 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart', a dynamic ditty with cacophonic, diametric instrumental bangs and blasts laced with infectious melodies and a breakneck squealer of a lead break.

    Jon Anderson is pleased. "Love lost, love won, or it could be happening… someone looking for love. These are supposed to be the three main options for a hit record, aren't they? Which one's 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart' then? I don't know!"

    It's a curious re-entry into the arena for the imperial imp and the merry Yes-men. Instant mass appeal guaranteed by a careful balancing of opening HM chordery, a neat beat-for-the-feet, and an irresistible hookline. Anderson thinks that essentially it's not really that far removed from the olden structured epics, rather systematically streamlined.

    "I actually always wrote short songs, I used to like piecing them together with songs by Steve (Howe, as if you need reminding). Because I always felt there was more substance to a seven minute song than a three-minuter. To me, in some ways, that was the wrong way of thinking because you should be able to condense as well as expand. I started to think about expansion simply as a defence mechanism of not being able to make hit singles with the 'progressive' music we made in the early days.

    "For instance, I think 'And You And I' was just a little song, but we developed it into a meaningful structure of music! It was only four chords!"

    Careful Jon, you might destroy some people's illusions!

    "True, but music is an illusion in a lot of ways."

    Few folks should know better. Anderson's celebrating two decades in "da biz" this year. Twelve of those years he and Squire devoted to building Yes into the immense supergroup they're remembered as; church organs and lush vocal harmonies, stunning stageshows and surreal Roger Dean sleeves, magnificent musicianship on monumental masterpieces, such were the hallmarks, the mention of which usually draws reactions of nostalgia or nausea.

    *

    Chris Squire's Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, sitting outside the Knightsbridge Hilton where in turn new guitarist Trevor Rabin and he gave their new Yes stories, is just one souvenir of that bygone era of rock opulence.

    (The Anderson interview was conducted a couple of days later in a hired Chelsea mansion, while Alan White was off chasing the eagle that escaped while filming the 'Lonely Heart' video; eventually it was captured on Tower Bridge after a dramatic cross-London dash!)

    Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman were, of course, replaced in Yes by Buggies Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes in 1980, an ambitious merging that gave the band's lease of life a ten-month extension.

    But Hammersmith Odeon in December of that year saw the last time Yes trod the boards, and it seemed that the curtain had finally come down on one of Britain's all-time Mega-groups.

    Of course Steve Howe, together with ex-Yes manager Brian Lane, has since found further multi-platinum satisfaction in Asia, and it never seemed probable that Yes might one day reform without him. But they have! It was not, however, an instant decision. Squire swears.

    Dateline London, early 1982: "Since the last format of Yes split up Alan and I had been doing some things together, the 'Run With The Fox' single at Christmas in 1981. Then we thought it would be more constructive to put a band together, that wasn't necessarily going to be anything to do with Yes."

    Dateline Los Angeles, early 1982: South African guitarist (and not many people know this, a qualified classical conductor too!) Trevor Rabin, with a string of albums behind him — first with Rabbit, homeland heroes, then solo — is about to sign his latest project to RCA shortly after rejecting a "cut and dried" proposition to join a forming British-based supergroup, Asia!

    "Then there was this call from Chris, thru the record company. Mutt Lange had recommended me so Chris said come over and let's play. Alan, Chris and I went to Chris's studio and mucked around, and it felt good. So I went back to LA while we were deciding what to do, and Chris came up with the idea of bringing Tony Kaye in."

    Kaye, for those uninitiated, was the original Hammond handler in Yes from 1968 to 1971. However, he never made the reformed Yes, being nudged out last winter soon after recording started with Trevor Horn at the helm, reportedly (officially) because he didn't fancy touring:

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    "Oh… oh… sorry… Tony didn't wanna tour," jests Rabin. "Hey, I'm gonna tell you the the truth! Tony and Trevor didn't seem to get on. Also Tony's not very familiar with the new gear. He's a great Hammond player, but as far as the new, computerised keyboards go he's not really into that."

    So Rabin doubled on synthesiser for the sessions, and by late July this year, after months in and out of London and Home Counties studios… the backing tracks were complete. Seemingly self-indulgent, perhaps, but Rabin promises that "we went in and we worked."

    Squire picks up the tale: "We got to that point, the ideas in most of the songs were fully written, there were a few blank spaces. The original intention was for Trevor and I to do vocals. But I just… I can't say it wasn't always possibly in the back of my mind to reform Yes, but it wasn't the plan. The reason why we didn't carry on as it was, was I just saw it could be much, much better."

    Enter Jon Anderson, a minute gent whose native Lancashire lingo is tinted by years of US touring, and whose conversation is illuminated by plenty of pensiveness.

    "Chris gave us a call, asked if I'd like to hear some of the music he'd been working on, because they felt they were going somewhere but it wasn't really taking off. I hadn't seen Chris since I left, so it was nice for him to ring up and chat anyway. So we popped down the local pub, he played me a tape, and it just excited me, the overall prospect of working on that music.

    "But I said to Chris at that first meeting, if I start singing on top of this, it's gonna sound like Yes. Because obviously the dominant rhythm section and vocals were very complementary to the idea of what Yes was all about. The top line voice and Chris's style of bass hopefully always complement each other, and the rest is adding to the style."

    So, although Eddie Jobson completed the line-up only weeks before these here chinwags, there's no prizes for guessing that Anderson's recruitment was when the project became Yes.

    Squire: "I still felt that it didn't necessarily have to be. But the band was to be called Cinema, and we actually started to have problems using that name. As soon as it was announced in The Standard andin a couple of places in America we suddenly got all these letters — 'We're from Iowa and we're called Cinema.'"

    Queuing to sue?

    "That's right. And I thought it was so funny that there was already four of them and they hadn't bothered to sue each other!"

    Still, confirmation came as Anderson began exercising his "castrato" vocal chords on the songs: "There was no excusing the feeling. As soon as we heard the playback, sitting there Chris laffed and said, 'It does sound like Yeah-hes!' And I said ah well, what's in a name, we still gotta prove it."

    *

    Rather than resting on their laurels, there does seem to be a genuine determination amongst the band to justify themselves as a viable eighties force. New management, new logo — no more Roger Dean — and new members, the emphasis seems to be on a New Yes. Rabin puts it succinctly enough:

    "Definitely, I'm against that whole thing of flying elephants and roses!"

    But the cynics are bound to be out in force. Thus, donning my official Sounds devil's topper, I confronted Yes with a couple of the skepticisms they are bound to encounter. Frolicsome Squire, assuming charming poise, rises to the challenge:

    "I tell you, darling, criticism is easy to take. Praise is the worst!"

    Accusations will certainly be rife that the whole shaboodle has been bunged together for the money.

    Squire brushes aside that suggestion with a Father Christmas-like jovial burst of laughter that only a chap of his lofty frame could manage, and a sickeningly confident: "We don't need the money!"

    Anderson, however, characteristically provides the more philosophical, insightly response.

    "Money begets money is it? That's wrong, success begets success? Without money you can't do anything, you can't go into a studio and record without lots of money. When Yes first started I borrowed five hundred quid to get the band on the road. I bought a couple of speakers for the p.a. and by hook or by crook, we started to earn money, to generate it.

    "No matter what I've been involved in, it does cost money to make music. It doesn't cost money to find music, music comes from the spheres or whatever, the usual thing, if you like say an artist is a finely tuned radio who picks up little tunes and so on. But to actually put the best music in the market place… I used to be a real strong advocate in the early days of free music, putting Yes albums on budget rights, selling 'em for a pound instead of three, it seemed logical. But the business laughs at you.

    "I like to think about five years time. I hope we make a lot of money out of it because I know I'll do certain things that are very exciting. I'd love to get more into video and filmmaking. I've written a couple of film ideas but I won't be able to see 'em through until either I do them myself or somebody else picks up. You need cash, you can't just jump in."

    Ironically, he continues, it was money that first rendered Yes behind in the video stakes.

    "At the time we really should've been breaking through on video, there was this external greed from management and agents to really get everything out of this band. '76, '77, '78, that was when you couldn't breathe, you were so involved in this hustling. And we should've made some classic videos, the stage shows were great. Again we'd received a lot of money from record sales, we ploughed it back into what were in those days termed 'artistic stagings' perhaps, and a lot of it went overboard because people were left to their own devices. Give a guy an inch, he'll take a mile."

    Further on the subject of motivations, detractors are sure to question the true reasons behind the Cinema-Yes transformation, to which Anderson replies simply that it was a classic Catch 22. "People would've said why didn't we call it Yes, and as we have, vice-versa."

    But while the whole topic of business acumen is one that may be posed by hostile onlookers, Yes may meanwhile face doubt from diehards. How Yes without lynchpin Howe?

    Squire: "Well we managed to call it Yes without Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman, with two Buggies instead, so it can't be worse than that! That's the cynical answer. But I think Yes has always been more of an idea than the people in it. It's to do with standards to a certain extent."

    Anderson: "All I would say is give Trevor a fair hearing cos he's good. That's not to say Steve isn't, but Trevor is so ambidextrous on the album."

    And what's the response of Rabin himself?

    "Ha ha, the way it looks now I'm the new kid on the block, even though Chris, Alan and myself are the original members of this band!"

    When it became Yes, did he feel any pressure to sound like Howe, to replace him?

    "None whatsoever. And I think it would be a big mistake. Obviously we're gonna be doing old stuff on the road. The first thing I did was I learnt all Steve's bits and changed parts so it was me and not him, though obviously parts like in 'Roundabout' (sings) gotta be the same. To be quite honest he was never one of my favourite guitarists. He's got pretty good technique. Tch, gotta be careful what I say here! I was with Kissinger before I came over! I think one good thing is my guitar playing is so different to his."

    But will that work as an advantage?

    "When Trevor Horn was with Yes he tried to emulate Jon, an' it was the wrong thing to do. Put it this way, if it doesn't work once we're on the road, I mean, I've got my own Gibson 175's at home, I'm not bringin' 'em out, you know what I mean!"

    *

    Whether reworkings of classics such as 'Starship Trooper' and 'Awaken' prove as gripping as the originals remains to be seen, and it looks unlikely that we'll see Yes touring this good country until next summer.

    Rabin talks gleefully of having "beefed up" the golden oldies, with "really filthy, dirty guitar sounds," in line with the brand new 90125 material, which he assesses as much more "groove orientated."

    Squire observes that "it's the heaviest album we've ever done." The two Trevors have visibly had a great bearing on the outcome. Producer Horn for the commerciality, Rabin for that plus the power. Most of the tracks were originally Rabin-written, and true to his recording record, they show greater accessibility than previous Yes songs, but arguably less lasting depth.

    I asked Anderson if he could draw a comparison between the standards expected from each other now and say five, ten years ago.

    "There's demand for par excellence in recording, and I know that at the rehearsals we had a couple of months ago Eddie and Trevor were doing things without thinking. It was marvellous to watch, ten years ago you'd have to put people together and tell 'em basically what do try and do. For instance, we did an hour of electronic sounds, just like that, which is an incredible move. Ten years ago it was very difficult to get hold of two musicians that would do battle on that level."

    So would Jon declare the old monster "technoflash" defunct or amended?

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    "There was a time when musicians had to develop technique a bit better. And it's like everything new, you always overdo it. I think that's why we had technoflashorockin', because to learn the balance, to find their levels, a lot of musicians had to go through the barrier, rise above it an' play the fastest sort of lick with the pianist doing exactly the same with harmonies in thirds, fifths and ninths. Now you just programme your computer and it's done, it's no big fun any more.

    "I think we're in a nice lull at the moment. The handclap, dancebeat, Trevor Hornisms, if you like — they'll love me at Sounds for that! There's a lot in music today that's all production and recording technique, there's not many stylistics like there were in the late sixties, early seventies. We'll probably come to that when the recording advances have settled a bit. Everyone talks about Jeff BECKBeckbeck and Jimmy PAGEPagepage as if they're far distant creations! Many such people are playing better than ever."

    Rabin: "Hopefully we've modernised the technoflash thing a bit. I mean, the instrumental track 'Cinema' starts out in eleven-eight, goes to seven-eight, then three-four, but it comes out pretty naturally cos we all like playing. It's streamlined, but definitely not simple, some of it is very highly arranged. I think the whole thing was to try something that was really new. There's a song called 'City Of Love', it's really filthy, heavy instrumentally, a thing over which Jon has never performed before. But he sang some different kind of lyrics an' suddenly the song took on a new angle."

    Yes still manage to lavish their unique colouring upon the 90125 tunes. But while they've been noted in the past for their seeming obliviousness to surrounding trends, did they agree that for once they've met the present head-on?

    "Maybe we've just jumped on the bandwagon and said OK, as a group we can sit with everybody else in the driving seat," replies Anderson. "I only met Trevor Horn earlier this year, he'd just finished Malcolm McLaren's album. And I was taken aback because it was exactly what I'd been thinking about modernistic music. I've been doing a lot of editing tapes together to get strange sounds and then keeping a definite rhythm through it. And I'd been messing around with the noises you can make on a twenty-four track, and then these guys were doing a record. It was so well conceived and put together, to me that was a classic breakthrough. In a way it started a trend.

    "When Trevor was doing our album, I thought he was gonna go the whole hog that way which he didn't. He just did a very, very strong production and left it to the guys in the band to come up with the ideas. But it certainly isn't ahead of anything, it's along with it. I'm not sure if you're gonna have a breakthrough along the lines we're moving."

    Oddly defeatist for so optimistic a man. Do Yes really need to worry about airplay?

    "At the moment, yeah. I hope in two or three years time things have changed drastically enough for musicians not to have to bite their fingernails every Tuesday lunchtime. It's just exposure, the need to reach people, you cannot pretend that you don't need radio. The last Yes tour I was on in '79, we sold out everywhere we went, and there was no album that year. And that was strictly on the music. I really felt that a group should survive off the strength of its music and its technique and its professionalism onstage and should not live off the next single. It's a fear of being manipulated by the media that makes me always want to jump to one side of that game. OK, now I have to play it and I'll play it to the best of my ability. I've done it pretty well with Vangelis, we had three hit albums. But I think as times change that little bit more I'll be more content just to make music without thinking if there's a hit single in there."

    So possibly 90125 is the most openly commercial album Yes are likely to make?

    "I don't know. Working with Trevor, he's just picked up his guitar and sung a-bit, and Eddie just messing around, I've felt, well, that could be a nice single and that could be a song for the radio. So I don't think we're just gonna jump into a new Topographic era, even though I personally wouldn't mind, cos I have a certain strength in myself to want to do it. Who knows what the next album might achieve, we'll have done a tour, really have gone through something by then."

    *

    Both Chris Squire and Trevor Rabin are equally vague about future prospects, perhaps because of the insecurity involved in being a Yes musician — only Squire has lived through every configuration. But at least all are confident that with 90125 they've conjured up a cracker of a twelfth studio album, worthy of the band's name, so long a stamp of quality. Squire goes as far as that "this is the best album Yes has ever done."

    And though I frown and suggest it's pretty common opinion when a proud mother's holding a child she's just given birth to, he's unwaverable.

    "No, no, I wouldn't have said that about a lot of our albums! This one's a special one. You know it, you feel it when you've done one of the special ones.

    "Yes sir!"

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    Eddie Jobson to Yes: "I have been in you."




    I always thought it would have been interesting for Trevor and Jon to have had a go at the material that wound up as the Green Album... although I imagine I'm happier with it as Eddie's solo album.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Eddie has been in them.

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    I wish it had worked out with Eddie. But reading his thoughts on the whole thing, I'm surprised he even went to a rehearsal.

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    The excellent Forgotten Yesterdays site recently posted this image of a full-page ad for the Owner single in Nov. 1983 that lists Jobson as a member of the band:

    http://forgotten-yesterdays.com/_gra...phic_33532.jpg

    Don't think I've ever seen an "official" ad that listed him as a member before.

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    Do I recall a picture of the reformed Yes with Jobson in Circus magazine?
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    I have to admit this was intensely charming. If I'd read this in 1981 I probably would've hated it, but as an artifact of the time it's a little joy. Didn't even mind the fast-paced rhymes and alliterations.

    "I think Yes has always been more of an idea than the people in it. It's to do with standards to a certain extent." - Quite prescient given how the next forty years went.

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    This one

    Yes - 90125.jpg
    Attached Images Attached Images

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    If Jobson had joined earlier and had been a full contributor with the rest of the band I imagine 90125 would have turned out as a brilliant album.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve983 View Post
    If Jobson had joined earlier and had been a full contributor with the rest of the band I imagine 90125 would have turned out as a brilliant album.
    It's an interesting "what if", but so much more would have had to happen differently to make it a possibility. When Kaye was recruited, it was precisely because he was the kind of player who would be happy comping behind the guitar, providing a harmonic backdrop and not solo endlessly. Exactly the opposite of Jobson who, I suppose, was asked to join once they had become Yes and would need a more virtuoso-type player to do the older material justice. And had they recruited Jobson in 1982, it would have been for Cinema in its guise prior to Trevor Horn becoming their producer and taking the whole project in a different direction - a lot of the stadium-rock-by-the-numbers material by Rabin got axed, thankfully as far as I'm concerned. But in 1982 that was what they were mostly playing and it's interesting to wonder what Jobson might have done with it, as well as what material of his own he might have contributed. Except my impression, again, is that they wanted a keyboard player who would neither change the existing material to a more keyboard-heavy/virtuosic direction, nor contribute material. So it would never have happened.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve983 View Post
    If Jobson had joined earlier and had been a full contributor with the rest of the band I imagine 90125 would have turned out as a brilliant album.
    You mean it isn't a brilliant album as it is now?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    You mean it isn't a brilliant album as it is now?
    Just spun the whole of 90125 for the first time in probably over a year. Yeah, it is still brilliant, from start to finish, as it is now and has always been.

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    Quote Originally Posted by calyx View Post
    It's an interesting "what if", but so much more would have had to happen differently to make it a possibility. When Kaye was recruited, it was precisely because he was the kind of player who would be happy comping behind the guitar, providing a harmonic backdrop and not solo endlessly. Exactly the opposite of Jobson who, I suppose, was asked to join once they had become Yes and would need a more virtuoso-type player to do the older material justice. And had they recruited Jobson in 1982, it would have been for Cinema in its guise prior to Trevor Horn becoming their producer and taking the whole project in a different direction - a lot of the stadium-rock-by-the-numbers material by Rabin got axed, thankfully as far as I'm concerned. But in 1982 that was what they were mostly playing and it's interesting to wonder what Jobson might have done with it, as well as what material of his own he might have contributed. Except my impression, again, is that they wanted a keyboard player who would neither change the existing material to a more keyboard-heavy/virtuosic direction, nor contribute material. So it would never have happened.
    Agreed, there were already too many cooks in the kitchen, it is highly unlikely to have worked. I was just thinking how 90125 would have been better if it sounded more like The Green Album...

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    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    You mean it isn't a brilliant album as it is now?
    I would say that it's a brilliant example of what it is if you like that sort of thing, but I don't like anything I've heard from 80s Yes at all, and basically consider CD4 of YesYears a waste. Maybe it was because of who was in them, I dunno.

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    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    Just spun the whole of 90125 for the first time in probably over a year. Yeah, it is still brilliant, from start to finish, as it is now and has always been.
    I agree. I love it as much now as I did when it was released.
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    Quote Originally Posted by calyx View Post
    It's an interesting "what if", but so much more would have had to happen differently to make it a possibility. When Kaye was recruited, it was precisely because he was the kind of player who would be happy comping behind the guitar, providing a harmonic backdrop and not solo endlessly. Exactly the opposite of Jobson who, I suppose, was asked to join once they had become Yes and would need a more virtuoso-type player to do the older material justice. And had they recruited Jobson in 1982, it would have been for Cinema in its guise prior to Trevor Horn becoming their producer and taking the whole project in a different direction - a lot of the stadium-rock-by-the-numbers material by Rabin got axed, thankfully as far as I'm concerned. But in 1982 that was what they were mostly playing and it's interesting to wonder what Jobson might have done with it, as well as what material of his own he might have contributed. Except my impression, again, is that they wanted a keyboard player who would neither change the existing material to a more keyboard-heavy/virtuosic direction, nor contribute material. So it would never have happened.
    On the other hand: Jobson didn't play much solo on Jethro Tull's A, although he did give it a keyboardsound that was close to his own.

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    I read one or two Jobson stories where it seemed he was very set on making his solo album in the early 80's, which I figured was why he didn't stay long with Tull (and was billed as a guest). I don't know how the Yes episode fits in with that.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    Just spun the whole of 90125 for the first time in probably over a year. Yeah, it is still brilliant, from start to finish, as it is now and has always been.
    I liked "Owner" a lot. "Leave It" was pretty cool too. Never cared much for the rest of the album.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by pb2015 View Post
    I read one or two Jobson stories where it seemed he was very set on making his solo album in the early 80's, which I figured was why he didn't stay long with Tull (and was billed as a guest). I don't know how the Yes episode fits in with that.
    I believe the story is that he recorded/toured with Tull precisely to pay the bills for The Green Album.

    As for the idea that he could have played the "Wakeman parts" had he stuck with YesWest, YesWest already had a keyboardist fully capable of doing that - Trevor Rabin. As I've said before, love Edwin but I can't believe he could have had anything to contribute to that band, unless they stuck a violin solo on Leave It or some such.
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  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by vostoklake View Post
    I believe the story is that he recorded/toured with Tull precisely to pay the bills for The Green Album.

    As for the idea that he could have played the "Wakeman parts" had he stuck with YesWest, YesWest already had a keyboardist fully capable of doing that - Trevor Rabin. As I've said before, love Edwin but I can't believe he could have had anything to contribute to that band, unless they stuck a violin solo on Leave It or some such.
    Well, Trevor is a fine enough keyboardist, but there is no doubt that Jobson is a more virtuoso performer on that instrument, and closer in style to Wakeman than Trevor is. I mean, have you heard UK?

    Anyway, an interesting interview that makes me even more confused about both Tony and Eddie's history during the 90125 period. Squire has been adamant in subsequent interviews that they never actually played at all with Eddie, but in this interview they are talking about rehearsing and playing together. And also, this interview seems to amplify the theory that Tony might not really have played on the album at all, or at least very, very little. Doesn't clarify much, but fascinating anyway.

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    Anyway, an interesting interview that makes me even more confused about both Tony and Eddie's history during the 90125 period. Squire has been adamant in subsequent interviews that they never actually played at all with Eddie, but in this interview they are talking about rehearsing and playing together. And also, this interview seems to amplify the theory that Tony might not really have played on the album at all, or at least very, very little. Doesn't clarify much, but fascinating anyway.
    Well, it's pretty well documented where Tony plays, on "Cinema" and wherever you can distinctly hear a Hammond - to my ears, mostly on "Hearts", which he co-wrote (the little 'tuned percussion' theme that begins the track). Yes, Tony clashed with Trevor Horn early on in the process, and it didn't get better for "Big Generator", although Tony plays more on it, but mostly recorded his parts with an engineer rather than with Horn overseeing the sessions.

    As for rehearsals with Jobson, Eddie himself had mentioned that they did get together, although I didn't get the impression they addressed a full concert repertoire, it was more to feel if they gelled as a performing group. Famously bits of the video to "Owner" are from what looks like the band's rehearsal room, with Eddie almost entirely edited out in the finished video. Perhaps they were actually rehearsing there, although it didn't last long.

    The story is that the band were advised to have Tony back in the line-up to secure their rights to the name Yes, having three original members rather than two. Jobson was offered to stay in a two-keyboardists situation but would have none of it, so he left.

    (Some will argue that this dual keyboards situation did happen with Casey Young's offstage contributions, but I won't open that can of worms again.)
    Last edited by calyx; 09-28-2022 at 02:24 PM.
    Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
    Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
    My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
    Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    Well, Trevor is a fine enough keyboardist, but there is no doubt that Jobson is a more virtuoso performer on that instrument, and closer in style to Wakeman than Trevor is. I mean, have you heard UK?

    Anyway, an interesting interview that makes me even more confused about both Tony and Eddie's history during the 90125 period. Squire has been adamant in subsequent interviews that they never actually played at all with Eddie, but in this interview they are talking about rehearsing and playing together. And also, this interview seems to amplify the theory that Tony might not really have played on the album at all, or at least very, very little. Doesn't clarify much, but fascinating anyway.
    I've heard Trevor play some very nice piano stuff, but I've never heard him play a rippin moog solo.

    I have a very long explanation from Eddie that I copied off his web site years ago. I think it's on my home laptop. From what I remember (and you may already know this), Tony was in, then Tony was out and Eddie was in. Then, they surprised Eddie with "oh, Tony's coming back. There's going to be two keyboardists now." which he didn't like. They were also dictating what keyboards (make and model) he would be playing. He also didn't care much for Chris Squire.

  25. #25
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    For context, below is the post Eddie himself made several years ago on his now-defunct message board, regarding his experience being in Yes:


    "Re: YES
    Author: EJ
    Date: 03-17-07 18:15

    OK folks... you asked:

    I have been thinking about my hesitation in answering in detail about my time with Yes, and have concluded that a full explanation would be incomplete without some understanding of the social background of the London music scene in the ‘70s and ‘80s. To give a thorough and honest answer, I would have to get into some very personal recollections and history… and I have decided that too many personal details, especially of others, would serve nobody well. So, after 23 years of silence on the matter, here is a somewhat abridged version:

    I remember, around 1974 and still a fairly fresh teenage transplant to “the South,” observing there to be quite a self-congratulatory social club (of which I was not a member) of successful musicians, moneyed hoorays and fashionistas occupying the trendy upper-end London social tier. They drove Bentleys and Aston Martins, lived in very large houses in Surrey (or trendy apartments within a stone’s throw of Knightsbridge or Chelsea), belonged to the same charities, and met one another for lengthy alcohol-soaked lunches and dinners at London’s most tony restaurants and private clubs. A small subset of this crowd was a sorority of ‘group wives’ who spent large amounts of their husbands’ money shopping on the Kings Road and who effervesced at sharing a charity event with Princess Fergie or being invited to a garden party at McCartney’s mansion.

    As a young musician, this social environment formed much of the elite backdrop to the world of the successful ‘art’ bands (Roxy, Genesis, Floyd, Yes, etc…) and I remember vividly—even as Roxy were at the top of their game and at the top of the charts—a strong sense of estrangement from this self-impressed and moneyed social clique. As naïve as it may have been, I really was in it for the music.

    However, my Roxy association did allow me some lesser place in the club, and my talent gave rise to many requests for my musical participation, including one call, in 1974, to assess my interest in replacing the newly departed Rick Wakeman in Yes. My impression of Yes was that they were a musically very impressive (and of course, extremely successful) band, but that they, too, were hugely impressed with their own status and were living on a lavishly grand scale. There also was that hippie/cosmic/druggie side that I knew would likely make it even harder for me to connect with them socially. For several years, I had seen Chris Squire showily driving around town in his huge and very distinctive maroon Bentley like some aristocratic Lord, and it seemed obvious that, as dismissively as Roxy and their camarilla were treating me, the Yes milieu would be even more unfriendly to this Northern teenager – so I boldly conveyed my ‘lack of interest’ in the Yes gig (in actual fact, I was somewhat excited by the concept of playing with Yes at their peak, but my instincts told me this would be an unwelcoming situation).

    Fast forward almost six years… I had extricated myself from that disturbingly self-important London scene completely, from EG Management and Sun Artists (Yes’ management—who co-managed ‘UK’) and had happily relocated to the U.S., permanently removing myself from what I found to be an uncharitable world of supercilious people and expensive drug habits. Around the same time, I also disbanded U.K.—as part of the same purge. It was a fresh start, and the Green Album would be my solo venture as an independent free-spirit, surrounded by new friends—dare I say ‘all good people,’ with similar values to mine.

    However, in early 1983, toward the end of the Green Album period, I received a call from an executive with Atlantic Records who was with Chris Squire and his new band “Cinema” in London. Despite my complete lack of interest in joining Squire’s new band, the phone conversation went on for several hours as he virtually begged me to participate on their new album (the record that would become “90215”) . This time my ‘lack of interest’ was real, I literally had zero enthusiasm for being in Squire’s band back in London. So original Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye was invited in for the album recording (which also apparently didn’t work out either, as he departed at the producer’s request after a very short period, leaving the keyboard duties to the production team.)

    Later that year, with the Green Album finally completed, I happened to be visiting London as part of a promotional tour when I received a message (in the U.S.) that ‘Cinema’ was now ‘Yes,’ Jon Anderson had joined the band again, and that the album had come out really well. Oh, and they still needed a keyboard player... When they found out I was actually in London, new boy Trevor Rabin arranged to come round to play me the finished album. Trevor Horn (my favourite producer at the time) had done a fantastic job. All in all, though musically a little superficial, it was a fresh and contemporary recording, and with the ‘Yes’ name, a potential hit song (“Owner of a Lonely Heart”), Atlantic Records, and a well-funded support team behind it, it was clearly destined for considerably more commercial success than my struggling Green Album. With unlimited amounts of money flying around, my living in Connecticut was no problem; Jon was living in France, and Rabin and the new manager were living in Los Angeles. After all these years, maybe it was time for me to finally join Yes?

    A couple of days later, we got together in a rehearsal room and thrashed through a few tunes, including ‘Roundabout’ (actually not knowing the song too well, I had to figure out Rick’s tricky keyboard parts on the spot – no easy task). But everyone seemed happy, so I returned to the U.S. as a full member of Yes and with a world tour only two or three months away. There was virtually no contact with anyone for several weeks as I learned all the Yes material in my home studio, although I did attend the mastering of the album with Rabin in New York. In fact, now I think about it, not one single band member ever called me, for any reason, during my entire stint with the group (or since).

    The illusion of ‘equal membership’ soon became apparently false, especially once the filming of the “Owner of a Lonely Heart” video took place. Lord Squire’s indulgences (and the ubiquitous Bentley) were back in my face, and money was being squandered at an alarming rate. It was time-warp back to the 1970s. Roadies followed you around making sure you never had to lift even the smallest bag, and Chris was insisting on a private Boeing 707 for the tour! The grand lifestyle was being funded once again and egos were newly inflated. Despite my considerable experiences with Roxy, Zappa, UK, and Tull (a wonderful group of guys who treated me with considerable respect), and with more than 30 albums and a self-managed solo career under my belt, no one was interested in any wisdom I may have been able to impart, on any subject… even on the keyboard rig design which had already been decided upon. It was an inflated ‘Spinal Tap’ on so many levels, and I had unwittingly been sucked back into almost the same world of disregard that I had rejected so many years earlier. But I had made a commitment and I wanted to see it through.

    Several weeks later, back in the U.S. where I continued to work on the considerable Yes repertoire, I did finally receive a phone call from someone—it was the manager who had been given the unceremonious task of informing me that Tony Kaye was re-joining the group and would be sharing keyboard duties with me. No discussion, no conferring… a done deal. And the reason? They needed three original members to put to rest a dispute with Brian Lane (their old manager), Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman regarding the legitimacy of the new band using the ‘Yes’ name. My youthful instincts were reawakened, there were red flags waving, and sirens going off... why was I doing this exactly? Still no call from anyone in the band, no discussions of alternate remedies, no apologies, just take it or leave it… so I hearkened to the words of their own song and chose to ‘leave it.’

    Of course, the album and world tour went on to enormous success; Tony Kaye’s playing was supplemented by another player hidden off-stage; and the embarrassingly lame video had to be edited at the insistence of the BBC (to remove the disgusting ‘maggot’ scene), during which time they also removed as many of my scenes as possible.

    Thanks, guys. All in all, the most disrespectful and unpleasant of all my band experiences (as brief as it was), and, with the occasional derisive remark from Squire or Allan White still showing up on the internet, one that still causes me undeserved anguish, embarrassment, and regret."

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