When a band have lasted as long as Yes, there are many entry points for fans. While some saw them at The Marquee and Blaises in 1968, picking up the debut album shortly afterwards, the rest of us have later jumping-on points: maybe Steve Howe’s debut with their crucial relaunch platter, The Yes Album; or Tales From Topographic Oceans, when Yes became a permanent byword for the prog genre. Perhaps one of the comeback albums: 1977’s Going For The One, a UK chart-topper at the height of the media’s obsession with punk, or maybe 1983’s stunningly successful 90125.
But 1980’s Drama surely brought in more than average. The surprising recruitment policy of Buggles synth duo Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes put the band’s name on the radar of much younger rock fans and established that it was possible for Yes to thrive creatively without their charismatic, talismanic original frontman, Jon Anderson. And rather than slavishly copying earlier albums, Drama sired the hard-edged likes of Machine Messiah and Does It Really Happen? – founding texts for the prog metal genre. Drama therefore established an important principle in terms of personnel and artistic reinvention that resonates ever louder in 2023. As stalwart guitarist and now producer Steve Howe says: “Drama is quite relevant to what we’re doing now, because there’s a tightness about it. There’s an approach to the dynamics of it, which we can’t help but follow.”
This is abundantly clear on the group’s 23rd studio offering, Mirror To The Sky, which is surely destined to bring in its fair share of new fans. The warm reception to lead single Cut From The Stars and anticipatory buzz around the album finds various Yes members in an upbeat and confident mood, convinced of its importance to the band’s future. Says Howe: “It’s not the same line-up [as 2021’s The Quest] because unfortunately we’ve lost Alan [White, drummer], but it’s the mould of a band that wants to carry on. So that’s why I think it’s important.”
Despite all the spectacular music made and thematic obsession with unity and general good vibes in their earlier eras, the history of Yes from inception to 2004 was famously fraught and dysfunctional.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1684410528/articles/c2RGowXPU1685530641574/bbLbe2iVk1685530699609.jpg]
“We had a lack of continuity [in earlier eras] with big gaps,” Howe adds. “We wanted to get into a methodology of how the music was agreed and how we put it all together.”
Bassist Billy Sherwood, Zooming from his stationary car in California before a gym trip (“I go because I have to, not because I want to!” he laughs), elaborates, “As Steve used to say onstage on the last tour, this is the longest-running Yes line-up in history so far in terms of staying together, which is a testament to how we all enjoy each other’s company.”
It seems from Howe’s comments that part of Yes’ later conflicts were that the habits of younger men didn’t work for their older selves, who had very different priorities.
“The process that we’ve been working on is so opposite from the 70s,” he says. “There was always a hurry; we were always pressured, there was always something booked that couldn’t be moved. The chaotic methods in the 70s were fuelled by high creativity. But in 2004 when we stopped touring for three years, that was a big hole and it wasn’t quite clear what Yes had. So, it was a miracle we got back with [2011 Trevor Horn-produced album] Fly From Here. We’re now into a streamlined, happy environment where music is what we work at most of the year, which is a lovely thing.”
The smile from a trim-looking Geoff Downes lights up the screen from the Welsh town of Tenby when asked about the new album: “It’s a great progression for Yes; it’s turned out really well. We don’t have Alan anymore, which is a great sadness for us all, but Jay [Schellen, new permanent drummer] has been part of the setup since 2016, so we’ve had seven years of working together.”
Downes is a famously prolific writer – his partnership with Asia bandmate John Wetton alone produced dozens of released songs, and more recently he’s been working with Chris Braide in DBA. But he has just one co-credit on Mirror To The Sky: “I think that Jon’s [Davison, Yes vocalist since 2012] writing has really come to the forefront on this album, and we really just let him run with the ball. I always work on the principle that if someone’s got to sing something, they’ve got to really believe it. And I think that was very much the case [here]. When I was writing with John Wetton, I was very conscious of the fact that John always really delivered something he believed in.”
And – music to many ears – Downes admits there are lengthy tracks aplenty: “I think that we felt with this album, we needed some bigger tracks on there. That was the criticism levelled at [2014’s] Heaven & Earth, that there wasn’t really any big epics on that album, not really very Yes-like. We had a couple of longer tracks on The Quest and this one, we’ve gone overboard on!”
But bassist Billy Sherwood insists that the long tracks are voluminous strictly on merit: “It’s really, truly down to the music, and what feels right for us. Yes are known for having longer songs, which I’ve always been a fan of. That’s why I’m in the prog genre, because I always felt constrained to have to write three-and-a-half minutes.”
Although the album’s considered in greater depth on p82 of this issue, Mirror To The Sky’s centrepiece is the 14- minute title track. It begins with one of Howe’s most compelling guitar figures; coiling, hard-edged, relentless, it recalls his most aggressive playing, such as on Soundchaser and Awaken. It’s a real go- to track for naysayers who claim Yes have lost it – or aren’t even Yes anymore.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1684410528/articles/c2RGowXPU1685530641574/9256616681.jpg]
Howe explains the song’s genesis: “Jon was here at my studio, and I was just playing some things and he said to me, ‘This bit’s really good.’ He put bass and a rhythm guitar to mock this idea up. That Jon liked it pushed me forwards and I tied it up with something else that was around, some slightly crazy guitar stuff. There was [also] a small fragment of a song where the words are about ‘dreams of the sky without fire’. I played them to Jon and he said, ‘No, wait, this is fantastic.’ He went away and wrote the middle, so that’s when he built the Mirror To The Sky [section of the] song up.
“We just kept finding more ways of using that opening guitar theme. We hammer it out with something that really gives that guitar at the front a different stance. And then suddenly the orchestra comes in!”
The release of Mirror To The Sky comes a mere 19 months after The Quest, the quickest turnaround in pure studio projects since the nine months between The Yes Album and Fragile in 1971. With a gap created by another postponement of the Relayer album tour, does this current flurry of creativity bode well for a third, rapidfire album release?
For the first time in our conversation, Howe becomes guarded: “Well, we might have plans, and we might not. But we’re certainly not going to say what they are [chuckles]. You know, we’ve just made two albums, so let’s put it into perspective.”
His colleagues, however, are more forthcoming. “I think we’re always looking at [doing more recording],” says Downes. “This is a different period of Yes, a different chapter and we’re always talking about making new music. I think it’s important not just for the fans, but also for ourselves.”
Sherwood adds: “It’s early going, obviously, but I didn’t imagine we’d be swiftly into this record as we were coming out of The Quest. Things seem to be moving at a pace that even I didn’t expect, so I wouldn’t say no to making another record, that’s for sure.”
Yes’ recent tours have featured whole albums from their back catalogue, so it’s no surprise that they’re hoping to include some of this fresh and powerful new material once touring resumes.
Howe muses: “I’m putting things down about suggestions for a setlist. We’re compiling the sort of a set that we think is fairly monumental and it’s not going to exclude new music.”
Does Downes agree that it might be appropriate if inclusions from his Yes debut, Drama – featured in the album series tours a few years ago – might more regularly make the live set?
“A lot of people have reviewed their opinions of it and certainly I think it’s a strong album,” he says. “Yes were going through a complete transition at the time obviously, without Jon Anderson, so I think that it’s a milestone album in so much as it moves Yes from one generation to the next: 70s Yes to 80s Yes. Then, of course, there was further progression when they did 90125.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1684410528/articles/c2RGowXPU1685530641574/5555111519.jpg]
Howe agrees: “The music on Drama has weathered the storm. The personnel change was unacceptable for a lot of people, which I kind of understand. Chris [Squire] was incredibly intuitive, and said to me, ‘If you hear [The Buggles’ debut album The Age Of Plastic], you might imagine what I’m thinking.’ I put it on and there’s all these wonderful songs. So, Chris and I agreed on inviting them to the studio to see what would happen, whether we could wreck their career as The Buggles as members of Yes! [Laughs].”
Sherwood recognises that different phases of Yes don’t always immediately get their due: “I know this thing very well, because I first jumped in [full-time] on [1997 album], Open Your Eyes, and we made a bit more of a commercial record on that one, for lack of a better word. And some fans just completely can’t take that. But then I was having a smoke outside [a venue] in Japan and this 20-year-old kid walked up and said, ‘Hey, you’re Billy! I love Yes, I’ve recently gotten in...
But 1980’s Drama surely brought in more than average. The surprising recruitment policy of Buggles synth duo Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes put the band’s name on the radar of much younger rock fans and established that it was possible for Yes to thrive creatively without their charismatic, talismanic original frontman, Jon Anderson. And rather than slavishly copying earlier albums, Drama sired the hard-edged likes of Machine Messiah and Does It Really Happen? – founding texts for the prog metal genre. Drama therefore established an important principle in terms of personnel and artistic reinvention that resonates ever louder in 2023. As stalwart guitarist and now producer Steve Howe says: “Drama is quite relevant to what we’re doing now, because there’s a tightness about it. There’s an approach to the dynamics of it, which we can’t help but follow.”
This is abundantly clear on the group’s 23rd studio offering, Mirror To The Sky, which is surely destined to bring in its fair share of new fans. The warm reception to lead single Cut From The Stars and anticipatory buzz around the album finds various Yes members in an upbeat and confident mood, convinced of its importance to the band’s future. Says Howe: “It’s not the same line-up [as 2021’s The Quest] because unfortunately we’ve lost Alan [White, drummer], but it’s the mould of a band that wants to carry on. So that’s why I think it’s important.”
Despite all the spectacular music made and thematic obsession with unity and general good vibes in their earlier eras, the history of Yes from inception to 2004 was famously fraught and dysfunctional.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1684410528/articles/c2RGowXPU1685530641574/bbLbe2iVk1685530699609.jpg]
“We had a lack of continuity [in earlier eras] with big gaps,” Howe adds. “We wanted to get into a methodology of how the music was agreed and how we put it all together.”
Bassist Billy Sherwood, Zooming from his stationary car in California before a gym trip (“I go because I have to, not because I want to!” he laughs), elaborates, “As Steve used to say onstage on the last tour, this is the longest-running Yes line-up in history so far in terms of staying together, which is a testament to how we all enjoy each other’s company.”
It seems from Howe’s comments that part of Yes’ later conflicts were that the habits of younger men didn’t work for their older selves, who had very different priorities.
“The process that we’ve been working on is so opposite from the 70s,” he says. “There was always a hurry; we were always pressured, there was always something booked that couldn’t be moved. The chaotic methods in the 70s were fuelled by high creativity. But in 2004 when we stopped touring for three years, that was a big hole and it wasn’t quite clear what Yes had. So, it was a miracle we got back with [2011 Trevor Horn-produced album] Fly From Here. We’re now into a streamlined, happy environment where music is what we work at most of the year, which is a lovely thing.”
The smile from a trim-looking Geoff Downes lights up the screen from the Welsh town of Tenby when asked about the new album: “It’s a great progression for Yes; it’s turned out really well. We don’t have Alan anymore, which is a great sadness for us all, but Jay [Schellen, new permanent drummer] has been part of the setup since 2016, so we’ve had seven years of working together.”
Downes is a famously prolific writer – his partnership with Asia bandmate John Wetton alone produced dozens of released songs, and more recently he’s been working with Chris Braide in DBA. But he has just one co-credit on Mirror To The Sky: “I think that Jon’s [Davison, Yes vocalist since 2012] writing has really come to the forefront on this album, and we really just let him run with the ball. I always work on the principle that if someone’s got to sing something, they’ve got to really believe it. And I think that was very much the case [here]. When I was writing with John Wetton, I was very conscious of the fact that John always really delivered something he believed in.”
And – music to many ears – Downes admits there are lengthy tracks aplenty: “I think that we felt with this album, we needed some bigger tracks on there. That was the criticism levelled at [2014’s] Heaven & Earth, that there wasn’t really any big epics on that album, not really very Yes-like. We had a couple of longer tracks on The Quest and this one, we’ve gone overboard on!”
But bassist Billy Sherwood insists that the long tracks are voluminous strictly on merit: “It’s really, truly down to the music, and what feels right for us. Yes are known for having longer songs, which I’ve always been a fan of. That’s why I’m in the prog genre, because I always felt constrained to have to write three-and-a-half minutes.”
Although the album’s considered in greater depth on p82 of this issue, Mirror To The Sky’s centrepiece is the 14- minute title track. It begins with one of Howe’s most compelling guitar figures; coiling, hard-edged, relentless, it recalls his most aggressive playing, such as on Soundchaser and Awaken. It’s a real go- to track for naysayers who claim Yes have lost it – or aren’t even Yes anymore.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1684410528/articles/c2RGowXPU1685530641574/9256616681.jpg]
Howe explains the song’s genesis: “Jon was here at my studio, and I was just playing some things and he said to me, ‘This bit’s really good.’ He put bass and a rhythm guitar to mock this idea up. That Jon liked it pushed me forwards and I tied it up with something else that was around, some slightly crazy guitar stuff. There was [also] a small fragment of a song where the words are about ‘dreams of the sky without fire’. I played them to Jon and he said, ‘No, wait, this is fantastic.’ He went away and wrote the middle, so that’s when he built the Mirror To The Sky [section of the] song up.
“We just kept finding more ways of using that opening guitar theme. We hammer it out with something that really gives that guitar at the front a different stance. And then suddenly the orchestra comes in!”
The release of Mirror To The Sky comes a mere 19 months after The Quest, the quickest turnaround in pure studio projects since the nine months between The Yes Album and Fragile in 1971. With a gap created by another postponement of the Relayer album tour, does this current flurry of creativity bode well for a third, rapidfire album release?
For the first time in our conversation, Howe becomes guarded: “Well, we might have plans, and we might not. But we’re certainly not going to say what they are [chuckles]. You know, we’ve just made two albums, so let’s put it into perspective.”
His colleagues, however, are more forthcoming. “I think we’re always looking at [doing more recording],” says Downes. “This is a different period of Yes, a different chapter and we’re always talking about making new music. I think it’s important not just for the fans, but also for ourselves.”
Sherwood adds: “It’s early going, obviously, but I didn’t imagine we’d be swiftly into this record as we were coming out of The Quest. Things seem to be moving at a pace that even I didn’t expect, so I wouldn’t say no to making another record, that’s for sure.”
Yes’ recent tours have featured whole albums from their back catalogue, so it’s no surprise that they’re hoping to include some of this fresh and powerful new material once touring resumes.
Howe muses: “I’m putting things down about suggestions for a setlist. We’re compiling the sort of a set that we think is fairly monumental and it’s not going to exclude new music.”
Does Downes agree that it might be appropriate if inclusions from his Yes debut, Drama – featured in the album series tours a few years ago – might more regularly make the live set?
“A lot of people have reviewed their opinions of it and certainly I think it’s a strong album,” he says. “Yes were going through a complete transition at the time obviously, without Jon Anderson, so I think that it’s a milestone album in so much as it moves Yes from one generation to the next: 70s Yes to 80s Yes. Then, of course, there was further progression when they did 90125.”
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1684410528/articles/c2RGowXPU1685530641574/5555111519.jpg]
Howe agrees: “The music on Drama has weathered the storm. The personnel change was unacceptable for a lot of people, which I kind of understand. Chris [Squire] was incredibly intuitive, and said to me, ‘If you hear [The Buggles’ debut album The Age Of Plastic], you might imagine what I’m thinking.’ I put it on and there’s all these wonderful songs. So, Chris and I agreed on inviting them to the studio to see what would happen, whether we could wreck their career as The Buggles as members of Yes! [Laughs].”
Sherwood recognises that different phases of Yes don’t always immediately get their due: “I know this thing very well, because I first jumped in [full-time] on [1997 album], Open Your Eyes, and we made a bit more of a commercial record on that one, for lack of a better word. And some fans just completely can’t take that. But then I was having a smoke outside [a venue] in Japan and this 20-year-old kid walked up and said, ‘Hey, you’re Billy! I love Yes, I’ve recently gotten in...
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 140