Rick was interviewed by Rolling Stone and had lots of stuff to say:
Some of the quotes that caught my eye:
On the Union tour:
"But there was friction between Trevor and Steve. To be fair, nothing detrimental to Steve, Trev openly wanted everyone to play on everything. He did actually suggest that on “Owner of a Lonely Heart” in the middle, how about Steve, you do the guitar solo because the crowd would love it. Steve wouldn’t even be onstage when we did it. I thought that was a shame since it could have done a lot of good. I could see where Steve was coming from, but I thought he was wrong."
On the early 2000s tours:
"The band was playing really, really well. Come 2004, it started to go wrong. I won’t point fingers, but there was a lot of excesses going on in certain areas outside of the music. It was really affecting the playing of some of the band. That was difficult for Jon because Jon, basically, was reliant on what happened onstage with the instruments signaling what was happening and it was all over the place...The last two years I didn’t enjoy because I was mainly spending the set listening for who was going off on a tangent because of, shall we say, over-indulgences in something and trying to salvage the situation. That was no fun. It was no fun at all."
On going out without Jon A:
"What happened was, Jon was very ill. He actually died. He was brought back to life. He was extraordinarily ill. And there was a conference call which was Steve, Chris, and Alan. They said, “Look, Jon is obviously not well, but we’re going to go out without him.” I said, “Look, you can’t go out without Jon. Zeppelin can’t go out without Robert Plant. The Who can’t go out without [Roger] Daltrey. When you have a distinguishable voice, you can’t go out without it.” They said, “Well, we are. We’re going out without Jon. Are you in?” I went, “No. I think it’s wrong, especially when you have Jon who is really, really ill. I don’t think it’s right in any respect. Let the guy get better, then we’ll go out.” “No, we’re going out now.” I said, “OK, good luck. But I can’t do this.” There was nothing nasty said. Chris spoke to me a little while later and said, “If you’re not going out, who would you recommend to do some keyboards with us?” I said, “There’s lots of people that can do it, but if you want to save yourself money on T-shirts, getting a new name on, both my boys, Oliver and Adam, are very capable of doing the job. But you won’t get Adam because he’s with Ozzy Osbourne, as happy as you like and he’s not going to leave Ozzy. But you can get Oliver and he’s done an album with Steve. Steve knows him very well. So that would be fine.”"
On using the band name 'Yes':
"When Chris died, he was the only founding member still left in the band. He’s the only guy that had been in every incarnation of Yes, through thick and thin. I felt with so many different band members in and out that when Chris passed away, the decent thing to do would be to say, “OK, we’re putting the name Yes on the shelf. That’s it.” We can still play Yes music. Steve, if you want to have a band, play Yes music. Jon, you can too. Anyone that has been in the band is fully entitled to play Yes music, but do it under a different name. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it degraded the name and the word and the music by what happened after Chris died. We did end up going out because promoters wanted it as Yes Featuring ARW, but it just confused people. They had no idea who they were going to see and what was going on. It was wrong and I was very against it, I will admit. But we’re going to do some farewell shows next year and they are going to be ARW. It may be “ARW Performing an Evening of Yes Music.” That’s fine. But not Yes in the name of the band."
On ARW recording new music:
"I always supported new music if it was really special. We started sending music backwards and forwards to each other and there were some pieces that started to come together that had big possibilities. I felt very much that it was time, not just to do songs, but we needed a couple of real epic things, like 21st-century “Awaken.” And Jon liked that idea, so did Trev. We started putting a couple of things together that were really coming together well.
But there was two problems. One, which is finance. There are no major record companies these days who would pay the money that would be needed to do a project like this properly. The only way we could do that is if we’re all together in the same room working like we used to. We have to work together and put things together like a jigsaw. We would need two months, minimum, in a room somewhere. You’ve got the difficulty that Jon lives up in San Luis Obispo and Trev lives down 1,000 miles away in Los Angeles and I’m in 7,000 miles away in the East Coast of England. The bass player, Lee Pomeroy, is in Southern England. And the drummer, Lou Molino, is also in England. It’s not like, “Let’s all meet up for coffee and have a chat about this.”
It needed to be properly financed for all us to get together. Also, we needed to choose somewhere where we could all work together, whether it be on the West Coast or in England or whether it be somewhere neutral. We never got around to agreeing on where that could be. There is certainly the basics of music that could possibly well be a very good album, but I personally, and I don’t think Trevor and Jon did, don’t want to put out an album just because we could. There was a sort of single put out, “Fragile Touch,” which, not for me … it was a nice song. But people forget I’m a Yes fan too. I was a member of a band I was a fan of, so I’m entitled to say “I like this” or “I’d like to hear this.”
“Fragile Touch” was a nice enough song, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear from Yes. I wanted to hear some great playing and what I call some surprises. You go back to “Close to the Edge” and it’s full of surprises. You’ve got no idea where it’s going to go once it starts. That, to me, is what Yes music is."
On Chris Squire wanting Yes to carry on:
"There were all sorts of stories going around that “Oh, Chris wanted it to continue.” I know for a fact people that spoke to Chris and that isn’t true.
There’s a lot of things … Life is too short. I’m not interesting in getting into arguments or creating bad feelings and things. I don’t care what other people do unless it affects me. If it affects me, I’ll come in like a rocket. If they are happy and they feel justified by that, than that is fine. It’s like when we were Yes Featuring ARW. It didn’t feel comfortable because I couldn’t justify that’s what we should be doing.
If you want my real honest answer, the whole Yes thing is a mess since Chris died. It’s a total and utter mess for the fans and the people because nobody knows what the hell is going on. Nobody knows who is in what, who is doing what. It’s just one hilarious mess. It would make a great cartoon series."
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Originally Posted by Dan Roth
Chad
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