Now, with the recording of a new album. How far along is it?

It’s not even close to completed. What we have are a number of songs which are really, really close. As far as an album, I think what we’ll do is do it bit by bit and release it the minute it’s ready because these days the art form of making a record has kind of died with the emergence of downloading a track. So, we’ll probably just do it and release a track the minute it’s ready and then, once we have enough to do an album, then we’ll put the collection together.

Speaking of particular songs, on your 2012 solo instrumental album Jacaranda the first portion of “Market Street” sounds like it could be the musical basis of a future Yes song.

It’s funny. When Jon first got the album, he sent it back to me with his vocals on top of the stuff. It was very flattering but “It’s a fucking instrumental record, Jon.” [Laughs] But, you’re so right. That’s exactly where Jon wanted to go. Take stuff from Jacaranda and use it. There’s no reason why we couldn’t. So, at some point we might rehearse a song or two and see what we can do with it beyond instrumentals.

After years of doing film scores, have you noticed that your thought process has changed as you work with Jon and Rick on Yes songs and get back to playing rock-and-roll?

My life was totally enveloped by film scoring for well over a decade. I have such a passion to work with orchestras. To me it’s not like Deep Purple where you put the band onstage and paste an orchestra on top. It really has nothing to do other than say, “We have an orchestra.” It’s got to be really incorporated. It shouldn’t just be where the guitar player does what he did and they play along with it. It’s all got to be arranged accordingly.

That’s something that I’m integrating into stuff. The good news is Jon started coming to a number of my orchestra sessions on a number of songs a couple of years back, and he was really happy being there and seeing all of that. So, he’s one of the allies in doing that. “Look. It’s part of what you do. That’s part of who you are. You shouldn’t leave it. You should use it.” That’s seems to be the biggest change that would come to any new material.

Well, if not Yes then if Rick wants to do a sequel to his solo albums “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” or a Return to “Return to the Centre of the Earth” you’ll be ready.

Everything’s on the table. I don’t think there’s any rules at this point. After I’d written 90125, there was “We need another “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”” My attitude was, obviously, I’ve done that, I don’t want to do that again. Take a picture…Obviously, it’s in a series of lookalikes. With music it’s not the same thing. It just becomes an effort to try and repeat what you’re done before.

The one thing I didn’t like about Talk was what I don’t like about film is people get attached to the temp score, the music they use while making the movie before the score’s written. Often, you’re fighting against the temp, which I always hated. In my case a lot of the time the temp was my music and that’s even worse because now you’re trying to copy what you’ve done before.

That’s the most important element with the new songs…it’s more of an arrangement thing than the actual writing but it’s definitely part of it.

Of course, you want to put your own stamp on it whether it’s film composing or rock ‘n’ roll composing. Since it’s getting near the end of our time, I wanted to mention your induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and let you know that if you need a bass player that Geddy Lee guy that played with you that night on “Roundabout” was a pretty good fit and he doesn’t seem to be busy right now.

I just liked working with Geddy. He’s such a nice guy. I’m sorry Alex [Lifeson] didn’t get up with us as well. He’s also a great guy. Obviously, he played at the end of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [Induction Ceremony]. I was standing next to him and we had a good time.

Last thing, I wanted to congratulate you on your son Ryan’s success in Grouplove.

Oh, thank you very much! He has Grouplove but he has another project called Captain Cuts. It started off with him being a producer with two producer friends of his. They’d done some stuff before, mostly producing other people, but they just put out a song called “Cocaina.” You should look it up. It’s a really fun track.

Okay, I’ll look for it. I was going to say that Grouplove’s “Tongue Tied” always puts me in a better mood.

It’s such a great track. When they did that and the whole album, everything they rehearsed at my rehearsal space at home, which is not far from my bedroom, so, I could hear it quite clearly. I used to hear that stuff going on every day for months.

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