Yes, a classic prog rock act, which is in the midst of its fifth decade of existence, will present three of their groundbreaking albums played in their entirety at nearly every gig, commencing in early 2013. The Yes Album, Close to the Edge, and Going for the One remain seminal works for the band, recorded back in the 1970s, that have stood the test of time due to their intricate song structures and remarkable pop melodies. The British act has undergone a myriad of personnel changes, but have never relinquished their grasp on their pristine and protean brand of unique music that combines a structured foundation with a fair dose of inspired improvisation. Indeed, there is only one YES in all of rock.
Jambands.com sat down with its lone original member, bassist/vocalist/composer Chris Squire for a conversation about the importance of those three albums to the band, a few other projects throughout the years, and his continuing fascination with what truly still gives him so much pleasure, as does us all—it’s the music.
RR: There has been a tendency for bands to play full albums at concerts lately, but I am not aware of anyone, especially not of the stature of Yes, to play three albums.
CS: I don’t think it’s a totally original idea. I think, if I recall, I saw Steely Dan, and they did something similar, where they just went out and played certain albums. I’m not sure how many, whether it was just one. It was a concept that we had been discussing for a long time, and I guess we just figured the time was right to try it. I must admit that I’m quite surprised at the level of added interest that it’s bought, well, to the ticket sells, for one, but definitely people seem to be inspired by the idea.
RR: How will rehearsals be approached as far as the emphasis on the albums? Will the material be rehearsed front-to-back as they will be presented on stage?
CS: Yes, but, we haven’t finally actually agreed on the order that we are playing them in; although, I think it’s likely to be Close to the Edge first, Going for the One, and, then, The Yes Album. That is likely to be the order. Of course, we are going to play the albums in sequence, though, as they were originally released. I think, I’ve read some reports before that other acts have done this, and people actually like the idea of going to hear an album as it was originally presented because it gives a certain added excitement as you know what is coming next. We’re definitely looking forward to going out there and seeing how it all works.
RR: It is ironic that the concept of an act playing an entire album at a gig has become such an attraction in an age when the album as a whole is not heralded. Yes was always an album act, and the band is certainly timeless because of that fact.
CS: (laughs) Yeah, well, we’re hoping so.
RR: Did you choose these three albums because of the 1970s timeframe, or for the fact that this trio seem to tell a specific story from beginning to end?
CS: We obviously looked at the whole selection of albums that we could do, and I think we just sort of agreed that these three would be sympathetic to each other and, of course, they are, in a way, landmark albums in their own right.
The Yes Album was the album that was responsible for breaking Yes to the general public, and was our first number one album in England, which, also, of course, garnered a lot of interest in the U.S., so you could say The Yes Album was the breakthrough album for us in the States, too.
Of course, Close to the Edge was the first time we attempted to do a 20-minute piece that took up the whole one side of the vinyl that we had back then. That sets another landmark in history for us.
Going for the One was also an interesting album. It was the first time that we actually made an album out of England. We made it in Montreux, Switzerland, and we lived in that part of the world for six months. That was kind of an interesting experience in itself.
So, yeah, definitely, all three stand out as being events in Yes’s career.
RR: I love the albums that have been selected because they also present completely different shades and colors to Yes. Obviously, all three were created by Yes, but they tell some sonic stories in different ways with the personnel that were involved.
CS: Well, one of the main differences, of course, was that on The Yes Album and Close to the Edge we had Bill Bruford’s drumming on the originals, and, then, of course, Going for the One had Alan [White]. Different keyboards, as well; same keyboard player, Rick Wakeman, on Close to the Edge and Going for the One, and, of course, Tony Kaye was on The Yes Album.
But, oh, yes, you are right, different phases of our career and they are all from the 70s, of course, but, yeah, it’s sort of like, in a way, shows a lot of where the band started and where the band developed, too, but, I realize, as I said, that we probably won’t do it in that order. We’ll probably do Close to the Edge, then Going for the One, then The Yes Album. Don’t quote me on that because we haven’t all gotten together (laughter) and agreed upon that, and I don’t want to upset anyone else. (laughs)
RR: What’s extraordinary about those albums is that even at any level of a musician’s career some of the playing would be considered quite astounding. However, you were all so incredibly young during that time when they were created. Without too much exaggeration, you were like the Jimi Hendrix of bass playing, and your inventive use of the instrument was, and still is, very much groundbreaking, especially for rock music, in general. At that time, did you feel that ideas seemed to be coming in so quickly and easily, or was it the chemistry between the band members, whereas all the musicians in Yes were so in tune with each other?
CS: Yeah, a lot of it was to do with the chemistry. There’s no doubt about that. We realized that we, especially when Steve Howe came in for The Yes Album that we had a really good vocal/guitar/bass/drums kind of picture going, and, of course, keyboards, as well, even though Tony Kaye was more of a rhythm player, and Rick Wakeman was more of a lead player. But, yeah, the chemistry is what kept us being inventive at the time, and, it was just a natural development.
I had been playing in bands since I was 15 or 16, and when we made The Yes Album I was 24, so I had enough years to experience what other people did. We were all getting an idea of what we wanted to do to output our ideas and, of course, being in concert with the other members, we came up with something extraordinary.
RR: Let’s talk about some of those ideas you had prior to The Yes Album .
CS: I was very fortunate because when I was 15 the Beatles broke and McCartney was…well, I used to learn Beatles songs and by learning Beatles songs, I was learning Paul McCartney’s bass lines. Between him and [Beatles producer] George Martin, I think they came up (laughs) with a lot of very musical stuff. I don’t know how much of it was because of George Martin, but I suspect some of it.
I used to go and watch the Graham Bond Organisation, which had Jack Bruce playing bass and Ginger Baker playing drums, and they were an eclectic kind of blues-y jazz-y band prior to the Cream. Then, of course, Bill Wyman, as well, in the Stones, was another influence. These guys all played differently, but I definitely borrowed from all of them.
And, as you say, the Hendrix influence came in there. I opened up for Hendrix for his first ever show in England with my band at the time, The Sin, so I got to see him first hand at his first concert there and he was a big influence.
I was also a huge Who fan, who, of course, had John Entwistle, as well, to set great examples. John had a lot to do with the direction I went in sound-wise. When I first saw The Who, John was playing a Rickenbacker, as well as a Fender, I think, so that is what encouraged me to actually buy a Rickenbacker when I was 16 because John Entwistle had one, and carried on with that instrument and developed my own sound with it—hopefully, slightly different from John’s, but, you know, he was a major influence.
*RR: Entwistle initially, and then yourself later on, were major architects of the bass player as not just a rhythm instrument, but a lead instrument, too. As a young listener, I used to love trying to sort out what was the lead guitar and what was the bass, and, in the end, those differences colored the music in unique ways. You were really the first musician that showed me that the bass player could be so much more
than an instrument in the engine room of a band.*
CS: Yeah, of course, there is nothing wrong with that—certain kinds of music demand that, but, yes, all the members of Yes were being more adventurous and, so, we didn’t restrict ourselves. No one in Yes ever said to me, “Oh, you are overplaying,” or “You are doing too much,” or anything like that. And I never said that to any other member of Yes. We just really had our druthers, as they say, and went for it.
RR: I think that allowed you to play in so many different settings with different players, as well. You are the only remaining original member of Yes, and you have gone through various configurations of the band.
CS: Yeah, I mean, in fact, it has been a great learning curve for me—all of those changes in Yes. There has always been slightly different accents on the direction of the music. In the 80s when Trevor Rabin had joined the band and we did 90125, that was more, well, that was more of a rock album, really, for Yes. But, that was also a learning curve for me, as well, because I, actually, physically went out of my way to try and learn how to play some things more simply as in “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” It was comparatively simple to what Yes had been doing in the 70s, but, know that to be simple sometimes is difficult.
But, yeah, as you say, with all of the many different members of Yes, I’ve learned from many of them.
RR: Keyboardist Geoff Downes was with you in the early 80s in a version of Yes, and now he is back with the band. What is he bringing to the current configuration?
CS: Yeah. Yeah. Geoff’s personality has always been compatible with mine, and I enjoyed when they first came along with the Drama album with Trevor Horn. I think that album was a musical journey in itself. Of course, as you well know, Steve and Geoff went off and did their Asia project. It’s really good to have Geoff back again. But, that was sort of predicated by having Trevor Horn, once again, when we were going to make the Fly From Here album last year in 2011. Trevor said to me, “I really think it would be great if you got back together with Geoff,” and, so, we went in that direction, and it is great having him back.
RR: Trevor has become quite the producer over the last 30 years.
CS: (laughter) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he has. He has done many different things and he’s had a lot of success.
RR: Speaking of that timeframe, I was surprised that Jimmy Page was recently talking about his collaboration with you in the early 80s. He has remained fairly quiet about so many things that do not relate to Led Zeppelin, that it was nice to hear him give you such a great shout out about your work with him. I was also surprised that a lot of people didn’t realize that your collaboration happened.
CS: Yeah, it was during a hiatus. After the period with Trevor and Geoff and the Drama album, we actually…I think what it was was that we had really been working so hard during the whole of the 70s with all of the albums and tours that we just had to have a bit of a break, and so we definitely went for a hiatus.
During that period, of course, unfortunately, John Bonham had died, and Jimmy wanted to try and get back into playing again. We lived locally to each other at that time, so we gravitated down to the studio that he had bought, I think, from Elton John, actually, in the studio out in the country there. Alan [White] came along, and we were just playing for the sake of it, really, and there wasn’t a big project in mind. But, of course, the more material we started to work on, the more we started wondering whether Robert Plant might come down and sing.
It turned out that it was too early for him after Bonham’s death. He didn’t really want to jump right back into another project, so it kind of just got put on the back burner (laughs) is what happened. There are demos out there, which you are probably aware of, and you can find the four or so songs that we did. A couple of them have actually been re-recorded since then, and one of them we put out on our Magnification album, a song I had written, “Can You Imagine.” That was one of the songs we worked on there. In fact, most of the songs had me singing, and they were things I had written. Basically, Jimmy wanted to get back into playing, so he wasn’t that concerned about who had written what; he just wanted to play. But he brought some stuff to it, as well.
RR: Yeah, a piece ended up on one of The Firm albums with Paul Rodgers.
CS: Yes, “Fortune Hunter,” or something, was what that was called. Yeah, that was initially from our jams. He might have brought that in; yeah, he probably did.
RR: He’s been doing a lot of career overview lately, so I thought it was good that he gave his own thoughts about that unique timeframe and collaboration.
CS: Yeah, I know. He doesn’t talk about it much, but I know he has been recently.
RR: And how about a more recent collaborator, Steve Hackett.
CS: I’m seeing him tomorrow. Well, you know, actually, I saw him on Sunday, as well, for some filming for a documentary that they are making about him. He invited me to be a part of that. I think there is a very good chance with Squackett that we’ll do a second album at some point, probably in very much the same way in which we did the first one. There was no pressure to it; we just got together and started working on ideas. We brought in song ideas that we both had, and it was probably the easiest and most natural thing that I’ve ever done because there were no deadlines for the music, and no record company involved. (laughs) Of course, now there is because of the [success of the] first one [ A Life Within a Day ]. I know they definitely want to have another record from us. We’ll just do it when the time is right. Maybe, in 2014, or something, we might get together and work on another one. Working on that album was one of the most enjoyable experiences with not only Steve, but working with Roger King, who is like the third member of that project, as far as keyboards and production.
RR: Natural and organic and enjoyable describes A Life Within a Day quite well. Again, you were able to work and play within an environment that suits your style. There is a great deal of chemistry between you and Steve Hackett. Had you talked about doing a project like this with Steve for a while?
CS: How it came about was that I made this Christmas album [2007’s Chris Squire’s Swiss Choir ] that I had wanted to do for a few years, a side project, really, with Christmas carols, and some that I had sung as a boy, and some were obscure, and some were better known, and Steve sort of saved my life really because I thought I was going to use a bunch of different guitar players on the album, but when I actually called them to come and do it—Jeff Beck was one who said he’d be interested in doing it, and Brian May had said he’d be interested—they were all tied up doing other projects when I needed them.
Steve came and stepped in and did the guitar for me, and that was the first time I really had anything to do with Steve. I met him a couple of times in the past. I had been to see him when he had his band with Steve Howe, the GTR project, in the 80s. Since the 80s, I hadn’t kept in touch or anything. Jeremy Stacey, the drummer I used on the Swiss Choir album suggested Steve as a good person to approach, and it turned out he was right on. Steve really helped me out with that.
Then, of course, I owed him big time, and I just started working and playing on songs of his, initially under the guise that they were for an album that he was doing. I didn’t know if it was a solo project, or whether it was a project he was going to do with other people, or whatever; I was just playing bass for him, basically, to return the favor. At a certain point, after we had gotten a few of those, he said, “Well, maybe we are just making an album together and we don’t really realize it. We should just look upon this as a Hackett and Squire project.” And that’s how it evolved.
We ended up writing songs together towards the end of the album to put on it, and when it was finished I think we were both very satisfied with what we had.
RR: That satisfaction you felt reminds me of the many times I have seen you in concert. You always seem to be truly enjoying yourself in the moment, and I think that feeling of positivity impacts the band, the music, and the audience, as well. After all of this time, you don’t seem to have hit that roadblock of burn out where you are not enjoying yourself anymore.
CS: (laughs) Well, fortunately, I haven’t had that kind of experience yet. Music is a very important part of my life. Music has a great joy to it for me. It’s almost like it is the best therapy in the world (laughter)—you know for anything. As soon as I get on stage with the other guys, everything starts moving along, and I can’t help but enjoy it. (laughs)
RR: Do you also think back on its positive impact on so many other people, too?
CS: Of course now, as in your interview with me now, there is a lot more of that kind of conversation that I have. Obviously, we have a legacy that has lasted way longer than I ever thought possible, so it’s all good.
