* * * * * * * * * * ______ ______ ____________ _________ / \ | \ __/ \ __/ \__ | \| \ / |/ _ \ | // _____ || / \_/ \ // / \ \\_ \___ \ || _____ ___\ \ \_ \ \ || / --/ ______| \ \ ___\ || | | - /______ __/ \ ___/ \ \\ \_ \_ // | / ___\ _/ \_ \ \_ _// | \__ \__/ ___/ \_ \____ | \_/ \__ ___/ \___ _/ \__ \__/ \ \_________/ \_____/ \_ \_____/ \ \_ | \_ | \__ __/ \_____________/ N o t e s F r o m T h e E d g e #65 (c) THE Internet Magazine For YES Fans April 28, 1993 * * * * * * * * * * IN THIS ISSUE ============= ALAN WHITE INTERVIEW by Mike Tiano ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The entire contents of this interview are (copyright) 1993, Mike Tiano 200 SW Clark St. #C Issaquah, WA 98027 for Notes From The Edge, Jeff Hunnicutt, Editor All rights reserved ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This interview is being posted exclusively to Notes From The Edge, (c) THE Internet YES Magazine for Yes Fans If you see this interview or any portion appear anywhere else, please let me know (miketi@microsoft.com). This interview has yet to hit the print medium, so I'm still very protective of it. Please don't expose yourself to litigation by posting it elsewhere (either through electronic or print means). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I first approached Alan White for an interview for NOTES FROM THE EDGE I was prepared not to be too disappointed if he declined; after all, he had already been cordial enough to take time out of his busy schedule to accept my invitation to discuss computers and midi (and Yes) with other Microsoft employees on March 3rd, and between his family in Seattle and recording the new Yes album in Los Angeles he already had his hands full. But when I did ask him for this interview and told him all about NOTES he immediately and enthusiastically agreed to meet on April 22, 1993, to discuss his career and Yes, past, present, and future. I have to say that Alan is one of the most easygoing, friendly, and open people I've ever met. He's recorded with the likes of John Lennon and has been a mainstay of Yes since 1972, playing with the other incredible musicians in that band; yet he's what I'd call a 'regular guy', no airs about him. He's committed to his family and home in the Great Northwest as well as creating what he believes is the best music that Yes can produce. His enthusiasm for the new album was overwhelming, and he believes it's the best music he and the band has ever created. My thanks goes not only to Alan, but also to Alex Scott at East End Management who first directed Alan to me, and to NFTE editor Jeff Hunnicutt for giving me the opportunity to conduct the interview. I hope you enjoy it. Mike Tiano -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOT: Thanks for joining me today on behalf of the NOTES FROM THE EDGE readers from the Internet. AW: No problem. MOT: Can you tell me a little bit about the progress of the album? AW: The new album, it's coming extremely well....I don't know whether everyone knows this but we're pretty much using the software we have at the moment and taking it to the limit. We've run into a few problems with the software, but we're getting over those problems by working with the individual companies concerned. This is Digital Performer basically and we found a few flaws in their kind of program but it's actually into the point where we're working with the company on it. In fact, probably the new upgrades will have a lot to do with what we're doing with it, in the system. So it's moving along fantastic. I virtually finished percussion on about two thirds of the album right now; about two thirds of the album are done from my point of view. I have a lot of percussion to do when I get back down to Los Angeles this next time. MOT: So you still have a lot of real drumming to do on the album. AW: A lot of real-time drumming to do, and the other material virtually that's down, or is ready to be recorded, we may be doing as a full band in the studio. MOT: So you haven't gotten together as a full band yet as you had said you would. AW: Most of it's been done on kind of like computerized files and stuff like that so far... MOT: The reason I asked was because at the Microsoft Discussion you had said that there were a couple of tracks and that hasn't happened yet. AW: Right. And one of them's a real long piece that's about fifteen minutes long at least. MOT: Oh, you haven't done that one yet...the epic? AW: No, that's kind of got to come into play but I think because I finished the other two thirds of the album I'm the guy who's working with it at home right now, working out my role, at least. MOT: You're working out your actual parts at home? AW: Yeah, I'll do that and then we'll go into the studio and I'll say, I really think this piece of music needs to go this direction and you guys need to think this theme may want to reoccur at this other part of time, you know. It's an old Yes kind of trait as it were; you have one recurring theme but it recurs in different kind of modes. MOT: Right, it changes and grows in importance as the song progresses. AW: It changes, but then you'll hear what you think is another piece of music completely and the theme will reoccur again...it's kind of like a puzzle put together. MOT: Where would you say you're at in the recording of the album? I know this is kind of hard to gauge, but would you say you're halfway through, or... AW: At the moment we're sitting there, saying...I mean, obviously the record company asks us when is it going to be finished and all of this kind of stuff, but we have pretty good artistic license with the record company and I think if the album's gonna be great you got to spend time to do it and they've been very good so far. I think at the moment I'd say, fingers crossed, July. MOT: For the actual release? AW: Fingers crossed, no, July for finishing, so maybe. It usually takes a good six weeks to process it and get it out, and all of the PR and everything that goes along with a new album. So I would say Maybe July, August, September, I don't know, but it's going to be good when it comes out because we're going to spend and take the time making it. MOT: The fact that you're excited about it is really encouraging, it's not "just another album"... AW: I think it is one of the best things the band's ever done, certain tracks are absolutely great, just great. AOR play on the radio, I mean absolutely catering for everything, including a lot of Yesisms that people are going to want to hear, there's some great music, especially in the long track. MOT: Have you upgraded Digital Performer at all? Before you were saying that 5.5 gigabytes of disk space wasn't quite enough. AW: Well, you know what happened? In the studio I was using I think something like twenty-seven microphones on my drum kit for the actual real-time performance, and we decided to keep a lot more tracks of drums instead of condensing them in the studio than we thought. So Trevor then had to reformat his whole approach as it were and he's talking about using anywhere between three and five gigabytes per song. Because the amount of information that goes down in real time that has to be translated takes up so much memory [disk space]. So he's trying to make that much space. MOT Last time you had said each song was as high as 350 megs. AW: Exactly, yes, that was the case until we decided to keep more tracks of the real stuff. So they started talking in that kind of way. I talked with Michael Jay yesterday, he's doing most of the engineering, and he says it's kind of heading in that direction. So we're trying to build up enormous memory [hard disk] space in the studio right now. MOT: That's encouraging that Victory's not leaning on you so much; of course they want product as quickly and as cheaply as possible, but they're letting you do it and do it right, or what you feel is right. AW: I think they feel that they're on a really good album here so they're giving us the time to make sure it's right. You know when we make an album we like it to be, when you can put any track on from that album and it's going to be as good as the last or as good as anything that you've done and we try and take it to that level. Trevor called me last week after they'd been through all of the tapes and said now we've taken it to the next level; it's kind of like a car changing gear. We're like in second or possibly third gear right now and you can see where the album's going to go, so they're giving us that license to do that. MOT: And you're also concerned that album works as a whole, not just as a collection of songs. AW: Exactly, the whole thing has got to relate, and that's why we look at it as a big picture at the beginning and obviously things change but the big picture never really changes, what we want it to be at the end of the day. MOT: Last time you joked that CRUNCHING NUMBERS was the working title for the album, but is there an official title for it yet? AW: No (laughs), well, it feels like that, I doubt whether that will be the title; I don't know, I mean nobody knows right now, we're not the kind of band who kind of decides on an album [title] at the beginning, hence the title of 90125 which came because we all got so frustrated in not being able to find the title amongst all those words. So it's the same kind of thing, it will come pretty much at the end. MOT: Can you tell me any song titles? AW: Yes, there's a couple of, really, like working titles, there's a song called "State of Play", which is a really great song; I believe that was some of Jon's lyrics that came up with that, I'm not sure whether it was Jon or Trevor who came up with the hook kind of thing for that. "I'm Waiting" is going to be a real classic Yes song on the radio, it's going to be one of those you want to play a lot. It's got every classic kind of Yes flavor to it; you know, Jon's voice out there by himself singing and some great harmonies and sing from Trevor and Chris, and a lot of great guitar playing, a lot great musicianship all around. They're going to like it. MOT: "Scarlet from the Tide" I believe you said was another title. AW: Well, "Scarlet from the Tide" is a song I'm not too sure about right now, it may be part of another song but we're still kind of toying with that idea. It is a great song of Trevor's but whether it goes on his solo album or whether it's mixed into one of these Yes songs, maybe the bigger piece, we don't know yet. It's certainly worthy of the Yes album. MOT: I take it Rick Wakeman hasn't been involved yet, he's probably too busy... AW: Not so far, he's been on tour I think in Europe, in Paris and places like that so it's not at the kind of the stage where he would be right at the moment but he's in the wings waiting. MOT: He's a very busy individual. AW: Well we all are, as we speak Jon's in South America right now. MOT: Did you see that show in Los Angeles? AW: No, I didn't make it, I had to come back up here, I have some work. The rest of the band went and they liked it, they told me it was a good show. I think it's more of a show, Jon doesn't do the whole show, it's not like Jon singing in front of a band the whole time, there's a lot of ethnic kind of playing and a lot of Latin kind of stuff amongst it and it's kind of different, and Jon really for part of the show takes a back place in it, so they're promoting it as a Jon Anderson kind of thing but it's really like a collection, a group of his friends playing kind of thing. His daughter's singing as well; apparently she sings really great on stage, I've never seen Deborah sing before. MOT: If she inherited her dad's pipes... AW: (Chuckles) Yeah, right... MOT: ..then it's not really too surprising, is it! Alan, so far not much has been made of the fact that this year is the silver anniversary, the 25th of Yes as a group. In celebration has the band discussed doing anything special, for the tour, release-wise, or anything else? AW: I think you may find down the line, I'm not going to commit myself to anything basically but, they [Victory] may incorporate at least the release of this album if not the tour that follows it as like a commemorative 25 year kind of tour and promote is as that eventually. But I've heard mutterings and conversations at certain meetings but nothing definite has been talked about up to now. But I foresee that being part of their philosophy for promoting it. MOT: It would seem to make sense, not too many bands have been as durable as Yes has been. AW: Right. (Chuckles) In fact I just had this meeting with this lady about...this is funny, what I'm doing right now, I happened to do a school play like I told you, and I'm about to do the music for SOUTH PACIFIC...I said, well I haven't listened to SOUTH PACIFIC for years, and I said look, I'll just organize the music, I won't get involved in any kind of, come in and work the whole show, as it were. So I'm just putting the tape together for her basically. I'll probably have quite a few hours of listening to "Bali Hai" and things like that ahead of me (chuckles). I'll do them a favor and put it together but...it was just through a friend of a friend so I'm just helping them out, basically. MOT: The fact that this is Yes' 25th anniversary I believe qualifies the band for a place in that Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame that they're building in Cleveland. AW: That's right, you have to be 25 years in the business, that's right... MOT: It's either 25 years from the band's inception or 25 years from the band's first release...if it's the first release then certainly next year it will qualify that band. AW: Oh, I see...that's right, something like that... MOT: Do you think the band deserves a place? AW: Oh, I think so...we sold enough records and being around and put enough dedication into so may years of music that I think it would be nice if the band did get a place in the Hall of Fame. But at the same time Yes is a pretty individual, different kind of band and always has been so I don't think anybody'd be too worried if we didn't, we'd just carry on doing what we're doing. MOT: After 21 years you and Chris Squire have become one of the most durable rhythm sections in all of rock 'n' roll...when you first joined the band, was it a real adjustment playing with a bassist like Chris, whose emphasis was more on melody than on rhythm? AW: Well, obviously a difficult transition not only for myself but himself too, I think, but I think that one of the senses I got at that time was that the band wanted to be a little bit more anchored down in the rhythm section, from the rhythm section point of view. Just because I think they'd gone through a phase and they wanted to get a little bit funkier as it were or a little bit more controlled. What we did was give each other like three months, like, I just said, if you want to work like this let's like this but I'm not too sure whether I want to do that; but I had already prepared myself mentally because I had my own band at that time that was playing lots of different meter changes and I had a horn section, and that was my direction as far as a player was to keep it swinging and kind of rock 'n' rollish as it were, but incorporate all of the different time signatures into that, and make sure that somebody could still tap their foot in 7/4 time or 5/4 time; and that was one of my goals as a musician at that time. And it worked with a lot of songs, me doing that. MOT: Did you immediately like the music or did it take a little time to ease into it? AW: On no, I'd seen the band a couple of times before I'd ever got involved with them. I saw them play at Wembley Stadium and I liked the band a lot, and it was very challenging, obviously. From what I'd been through before, I wanted to incorporate all of the elements of what I'd been through and add it to that kind of format. But it was challenging, the changeover. MOT: Can you tell me a little bit about what your relationship is like with Chris today, musically, and possibly socially. AW: Yeah, every time I go to L.A....he's getting married by the way on May 8th, so I'm going back down there on the 5th and he's getting married on May 8th in Santa Barbara to Marissa, is her name, but he's been going out with this girl for over two years and stuff, so he finally got rid of his kind of like past life and is living a new life right now. And we go out together, we go to clubs in Hollywood and stuff with Tony Kaye, all of us really, I mean at different times go out with different people. Jon's always got his group of South American people around him and all that kind of stuff and Tony, Chris, myself, and Trevor pretty much see each other every day while we're down there and while we're working on the album. Jon comes in bursts of like three or four days and then he'll go way for three or four days and come again, he likes to work like that. MOT: How about musically between you and Chris; I mean, being a rhythm section and being together that long I would think you are very in tune with each other. AW: Absolutely. Everything's fine; playing with somebody for so long you really can almost anticipate some of the things that he's going to play. It usually doesn't take us as long for us to find a way to create something new in the song. I also tend to write a lot on the piano and I always write licks that are piano orientated and kind of like bass lines, and Chris will then try and translate them and we have that ongoing battle where he says, well this is written on the piano and can't be played on [bass] guitar but I'll push him and say, you can do it, you just go in and rehearse it and practice it. For instance, "Machine Messiah" was a thing I wrote on the piano and I wrote that whole lick specifically for the guitar and bass to play but it it's not a guitar orientated thing, it's keyboard. So I made Chris kind of practice it and get it together, and when he did he realized he was playing something that he really enjoyed playing and it sounded like he's doing a real good job. MOT: While we're discussing DRAMA, I recently heard a tape that appears to be just you, Chris, and Steve. Did you have most of DRAMA worked out before Geoff [Downes] and Trevor [Horn] came aboard? AW: Oh, we had a lot it worked out, yeah. Except for a couple of songs that they brought to us, in fact that's how we met, they brought us a couple of songs and said, Yes is one of our favorite bands, we've been writing with you in mind, these are the songs. But "Machine Messiah" was a lick that I came up with and Steve and Chris and myself worked on it for a while...but like the box set, "Money" and songs like that, "Money" was a song I wrote the kind of backing lick and we were just messing around with it one day, and eventually somebody found the tape years and years later so it ended up on some kind of album. Yeah, those things, they took those out of vaults. But we did do a lot of work where it was Steve, myself, and Chris. MOT: What happened with the DRAMA band? Do you think it could have continued, or was it just that Trevor didn't want to do it anymore... AW: Trevor is great in the studio, I just don't think he felt as if he could live up to doing many tours replacing Jon as a singer in Yes kind of thing. He virtually kind of went back to the studio, the sanction of the studio. MOT: My own feeling when I saw the DRAMA tour was that Trevor tried too much to sound like Jon. AW: Right. MOT: I thought if he had adapted the parts to his own range then would have been fine. He sounded fine on all of the DRAMA songs, especially the ones that didn't make the album, like "Go Through This" and "We Can Fly >From Here", those were some really great songs. AW: "Go Through This"... Yeah, "We Can Fly From Here" was one of their songs, totally...Funnily enough, his register really, depending on the song, was quite similar to Jon's. But who even sounds more close to Jon, Trevor can sound like Jon exactly almost, in the studio if he puts his mind to it. He really has a high voice. MOT: I can see that, because for the longest time I thought it was Jon singing the chorus on "Owner of a Lonely Heart", but that's actually Trevor, isn't it? AW: That's actually Trevor, yeah. Trevor's got a great voice for emulating and changing to other people's voices. MOT: I know it's probably still a little early in the project, but has the band talked at all about the tour and what you might be doing? AW: It's too early, but you know we are going to try and tour this year after the album, but it might be a short tour hitting just real major cities...I don't know-- MOT: Like Seattle, like Seattle? (laughs) AW: Well, I'm the first guy in line to say, look, we should be playing the Northwest, but the thing about the Northwest is when people route tours in America unless you play all of them, it's really silly to play just one of them, you know, Portland, and Vancouver, and that's what people tend to do; if they say, we don't have time to do that whole week of playing up those gigs sometimes the bands will just cancel them and go another route. Which is a shame, really, because there's a great rock 'n' roll crowd up here. MOT: What's the logic behind a shorter tour this time? AW: Probably just to release the album and come back next year and do an extensive tour. Whatever, we'll definitely play here at some time. MOT: I hope so (both laugh)...for us Northwest Yesheads if nothing else. AW: I know, exactly. No, I feel for everybody in the country, we'll try and get to those places, 'cause like I foresee...this whole album, when I listen to all the tracks, I foresee it being absolutely dynamite on stage, the band playing some just really great songs. That's one great thing that you can tell it's going to be a great album, it's just close your eyes and imagine the band on stage playing and listen to the demos and you can just see how good it's going to be. I don't know if anybody's got the laserdisc that just came out from Japan... MOT: That was one of my questions; according to Yes Magazine it's on VHS too. Is the band behind this at all? AW: No, it was released by our former management, kind of thing; I don't know legally how far to get into it because they're still talking about it right now...but it's of Queen's Park Rangers, the gig with Patrick Moraz, and I watched it for the first time the other day, I got a copy sent to me, and the sound is nowhere near the quality we would like a Yes album to be, or a Yes video to be. I mean sometimes you just hear Jon and his acoustic guitar, and the whole band is playing but that's all you can hear, it's pretty ridiculous, some parts of it. So somebody really has got ahold of the wrong faders and mixed it not too well. So, I don't know, they're talking about it right now. But the problem is people love it and it's selling a lot, but no one ever asked the people who are on the screen whether they can do it of not. So that's where a little bit of the problem lies, so they're working all that kind of stuff out now. MOT: I know it's a hot item here in the States, though, for Yes fans, because there's only 10,000 copies which isn't very much when you think of Japan, US, and elsewhere... AW: Everywhere, yeah, of course. But they're talking, I think they will be talking in the future about possibly releasing it here, I'd just like to have it remixed, or we should remix it, Trevor and myself, or Trevor, Chris, and myself at this point, remix the sound and get it sounding really good. MOT: And actually for domestic Yesheads that would be even better because once the band is involved in it and the band gets is sounding the way it should sound it'll be a much better release. AW: Oh, absolutely. I think this Japan deal was just done very quickly and kind of not thought about. That tends to happen with some old tapes like that but sometimes it's out of your control. MOT: You had indicated that there's a move to probably concentrate on new material and not so much old material when you do tour... AW: I was thinking about that I'd said that, but I don't think we could get away with not doing certain things, even though I as a member of the band prefer to do some, if they are older things; they're not so commercial kind of side of things and do longer pieces on stage. I mean, I would be fan of playing "The Gates of Delirium" again because I knew it was fantastic when we played it. It's a similar thing to "Awaken", yet just, you play it for a week on the road and all of a sudden you...especially with Trevor involved and stuff I'm sure you could do things with that track, he could really escalate the song to another level yet again. MOT: So even though they're older, long tracks, they're still exhilarating to play. AW: Oh, absolutely, because we play them in a kind of 90s method now. After going through making albums like 90125 and BIG GENERATOR where the band achieved a new mold, the new mold plays the older stuff better than the old mold ever played it, it's got a new meaning now, when we play it live on stage. So it's really interesting... MOT: You feel a new vibrancy, basically? AW: Yes, it's played like, more current, everybody's more current in the playing and they take those ideas from then and adapt them to today's style and the technology we have nowadays it's quite another generation of Yes music. MOT: One thing that came to mind was the first in the round tours, where you did the medley of songs. It was a good way for the band for the band to touch on their history and was really exciting to fans. I understand where you don't want to go out and learn or have to play every single song from beginning to end but you have an opportunity to touch on all these songs. AW: Right. You know what, Genesis did that; it was a few years ago when Genesis did that, and I think everybody in the band saw that Genesis show where they did that, and everybody kind of got turned off by it. This is a big, deep thing with Chris; that if you're going to play a song you play the song, you don't just touch on the best parts of it. I think Jon's more into kind of doing medleys like that, but the rest of the band, if we want to play a song we'll be serious and play the whole thing in its entirety, because some parts of Yes songs may meander and kind of like, people would be wondering what we're doing, and it's just an orchestrated piece to get from one section to another, but that's fine. With us the whole thing really has to be played in its entirety. We've done renditions of medleys but it's usually within like Chris' solo or something like that, and then it kind of warrants some of the famous bass/drum lines that we've done over time and we'll go in and out of those things; but I think when you involve vocals and do a whole picture of a song it really should be played in its entirety. MOT: So it doesn't sound like any medleys will come to pass. AW: I all depends, it really all depends. I personally like playing the whole song. But, I don't know, you never know with Yes; sometimes we'll just hit upon a way of molding two or three or four songs together, and we've done it before. I think just molding a couple together, but I think maybe that's what turned us off back then, is it'd never been as complete as it could be. I think that's a lot to do with Chris cause he likes to do things properly and play it from beginning to end and everybody knows that's what the song is. MOT: Speaking of playing live, I'm not sure if this is true or a rumor but I've heard that Victory was behind a possible progressive rock festival in the fall with Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and a few others...do you know anything about this? AW: (Laughs) Well I'll tell you what I know about it. I know that I went to see Emerson Lake and Palmer last time I was down in L.A., and I know that Carl Palmer came up to me and put his arm around me and he said, it'd be a really good idea if, you know we don't mind playing second on the bill to you guys because you guys draw a lot of crowd, and I said, well maybe, (chuckles), maybe there's a possibility of that, and I think Victory might want to see that down the line but we haven't really thought about that up to now, I mean it's just pure speculation on the record company's part. But I don't know, it could be fun to do that, what could be really great is maybe Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and Supertramp. Roger Hodgson's really good friends with Trevor and myself and all that stuff, and they're going into the studio pretty soon. MOT: Is Roger Hodgson back with Supertramp? AW: They're reforming now. MOT: They are? That's big news, because after Roger left the band they kind of petered out. AW: Roger and Rick [Davies] are working on a new album together. They've got some great material because Trevor and myself worked with Roger pretty closely on some material where we were going to make one of these one-off albums between the three of us, and possibly Chris as well--at one time we were thinking of doing that. MOT: That was between BIG GENERATOR and UNION. AW: Yeah, we went up and stayed at Roger's house for a while. We worked on a lot of good material...some great material from that time. MOT: How about MTV Unplugged? Is that still a possibility? AW: I really couldn't say that right now. You have to really try put in place where we're at with the album and whether it's a feasibility that would come to fruition, it's looking more doubtful by the day. But I think we could probably do an Unplugged at some other location cause this was supposed to be a specific thing, it's just I don't think they can hold those dates forever, so we may still do it but in a different location or whatever. MOT: Speaking of MTV, right after 90125 was released Yes and MTV had a contest where the viewer had to catch like twenty videos of "Leave It"... AW: Eighteen. MOT: Eighteen? AW: I stood there the whole day making it (chuckles), I know exactly how many! MOT: Did it end? Because I don't remember the contest finishing... AW: No, I think it ran...I think they ran the whole series and you had to find out what was different about each video because the idea of making-- it was Godley and Creme who made those--the idea about making those videos was that in each video something either drastically would change or very slightly change, and quite frankly I don't think any member of the band was cohesive enough by the end of the day to understand what on earth they were doing! Jon was the first guy to get completely drunk, I mean, we must have drank a couple of bottles of vodka by the eighteenth video, we'd been there for like almost twenty hours, and we were all going, okay, another video; to make eighteen videos in a day and it was our day off in New York on the tour when we had to do that, all dressed in suits all day... MOT: Under hot studio lights... AW: Yeah...at 5:00 everybody started drinking, and by 10:00 in the evening it just got funnier and funnier. Jon kept bursting out in laughter... there was one actual video, I don't know if you ever saw the documentary, the making of "Leave It", did you ever see that? MOT: No, I didn't see that. AW: That was the funniest documentary because they left the cameras running and there's a couple of times where they had us do the whole thing but always stood facing this white backdrop, and we sang the whole song from beginning to end; the cameras were behind us and we were still singing the song, miming it and tapping our feet, and...the song finished and we stood there for about thirty seconds waiting for them to say okay, the cameras have start to wind, and then we turned around and everybody left the room. All the engineers, everybody; we all turned around, they just left us in the studio by ourselves! It was really funny. And that's in the documentary, they've got all that footage, they left the cameras running. MOT: There appears to be lots of footage of Yes over the years, like the GOING FOR THE ONE sessions from YESYEARS [Video Retrospective]...do you think we might see other video releases? AW: I've got all that stuff. There's a guy in Florida who has all those tapes. MOT: But he hasn't got the masters, so it's not as good as the band's official release. AW: No, it's not as good, yeah, but, it must have been a year ago, I was doing a seminar down there and came and gave me every video that had ever been made by Yes, he gave me all the solos, tours and everything. MOT: Do you think it would be something that the band would officially do? AW: I really don't know. I don't think the band particularly likes that much personal kind of stuff going out there, but you can't stop it basically most of the time when somebody has all of the copies anyway; it's just a matter of how good it looked. MOT: Along those lines both the Grateful Dead and King Crimson have come out with releases of older live performances; I'm sure you might be aware of the King Crimson box set of complete concerts from 1974, and as I said the Grateful Dead are doing the same... AW: Right. MOT: I know currently Yes Magazine is surveying their readers on whether they'd like to see Yes do the same thing. Do you think that would be something that the band would consider? AW: It 'd be interesting to find out which concerts the Yes fans would like to see. MOT: So you'll be interested seeing in what the survey says in terms of which tours... AW: Yeah, because I've got tons of tapes just that-- you know they usually run a tape every night, and five times out of ten, I take the tape home at night to hear how everything was sounding out in the building so I've got absolutely reams of cassettes of different concerts from all over the world. And I kept hold of them, like Champaign, Illinois, and Paris, and tapes like that, just particular nights with different dates on them, and Chris always comes to me when he wants to find a tape 'cause I always keep all of my cassettes and I have just stacks and stacks of them. And they're board mixes usually, they come off the soundboard with one mic for an audience mic. MOT: So do you think we'll see some releases depending on what Yes fans say? AW: I don't know, obviously the whole band would have to sanction anything like that and really, it's kind of a collector's thing, it'd never be a serious thing, but it could be done through a fanzine kind of thing, but I don't know. Trevor, Tony, Chris, and myself and Jon really probably at the moment with this new album kind of thinking more about making music for the 90s; instead of backtracking, we want to go forward. So I think that's the general--but who knows by a few years time, maybe. I just like what's happening right now a lot, some great music. MOT: Because it's not that Yes fans aren't looking towards the future, we're always interested in new music, it's just it would be great to hear good, official releases of this older music than hear these scratchy, bootlegs from the 500th row of a coliseum or something like that... AW: I know, and we can't really stop that happening, but we like to think we concern ourselves with quality product and if we're going to do something like a live recording we'll do it well. And there are tapes that have been well recorded of that stuff as well, they never were released. Who knows, one day we could dig them up and mix them really well and make sure they sound good and bring some of the older stuff like TOPOGRAPHIC up to kind of using modern technology, making it sound really good like today's recording. MOT: Weren't you saying at the Microsoft Discussion that to your knowledge there wasn't a decent recording of the TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS tour? AW: I don't think TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS was ever really recorded as well as it could have been on tape, including video, film, or anything. In fact there's one guy who filmed it. He was a Canadian guy and I really don't know where the tape from that went to, and nobody does. The guy kind of went out of existence or something like that. So there is a copy of TOPOGRAPHIC somewhere. It was a Canadian guy who shot it and that still remains a mystery to everybody in the band, so there's something out there. MOT: At the bottom of a drawer someplace... AW: Some guy sitting on it somewhere, in a vault, comes out with it in the year 2000 or something. MOT: The 1976 tour that followed the release of your individual solo albums I thought was probably the most visually exciting. You had the Crab Nebula, [also known as] the War of the Worlds stage setup which was just spectacular. Do you know if that was ever filmed? AW: No, I've never, ever seen anybody film that. MOT: I recently heard a tape of the first show on the US. tour where the band actually did songs from the individual solo albums, but I believe you dropped them right after that-- AW: Only for three days. MOT: What was the reason behind dropping them? AW: We didn't think it really worked as part of the stage set, to promote each individual album as part of the stage show. It just wasn't jelling with the rest of the set, for what reason I don't know. But I do recall the whole band playing..."One Way Rag". MOT: That sounded pretty good. AW: Also did another song, the words were by William Blake that Jon used to really like singing. MOT: Actually I thought it sounded overall pretty good though I thought your song fared the best. AW: Really? That's interesting. And Chris did "Song of Seven"? Did he do that? (Starts to hum melody from "Lucky Seven")... MOT: Chris....Chris or Jon? AW: Chris. MOT: Actually he did "Hold Out Your Hand", and "With You By My Side". I understand you guys also did "Lucky Seven". AW: "Lucky Seven", yeah...Did we do "Mabelline"?...what was it..."Mabelline"? ..."Abilene". No we didn't do that. MOT: No, that's from the TORMATO period. You never played "Abilene" live, did you? AW: Yeah, we did it once, a few times. MOT: That's one of the more obscure Yes songs because it's the b-side of "Don't Kill the Whale". AW: That's right...yeah, because "Don't Kill the Whale" was on the other side, that's right... MOT: Where did you play it: Europe, or America, or do you remember? AW: We did it in Abilene. I remember when we wrote in Abilene we were all sitting around the pool. MOT: So you actually wrote it in Abilene? It's kind of quirky but it's a nice song. I think it's got one of Steve's better solos too. AW: Um-hmh...(Reflecting) That's funny, I just remembered that....I just remember Abilene because we had a day off. And there was another night where the band--we don't usually get that loose but the whole band got loose with the roadies around the pool at like 12:00 at night, and it was like 90 degrees, everybody was having lots of fun...that's why I'll always remember that song. MOT: In the latest issue of Yes Magazine Jon is quoted as saying in that in the next couple of years we, 'we' being the audience, will find out why the band did the UNION tour beyond what he called fun and games. I know you can't speak for Jon, but do you know what he means by "you'll find out"? AW: (Chuckles) Because I think basically Jon believes with the set-up that is happening right now, he's totally behind this new album, Jon loves all of the new stuff. He's really gotten into it, he's written some great lyrics, and he's sounding better than he's sounded for years, I think. He actually is singing like a bird, I mean really is singing on, I think the reason being because he really enjoys and loves the new stuff we're doing. So he's totally 100% behind what's happening right now. So I believe this statement may have come because years into what's happening, not so much right now, in the next couple of years you're going to see a dynamite band on stage playing some great music. MOT: Billy Sherwood was rumored to be Jon's replacement [before UNION]. What happened? AW: Well Billy's still a good friend of ours and he's met Jon numerous times, he's been a big fan of the man for years and years. I think basically Billy's a very, very talented musician, and he's got a great voice, and we haven't heard the last of him, I think he's going to be doing lots of great things in the future. I just don't think it necessarily...the chemistry of everyone together didn't work. Billy was basically young, had lots of strong ideas and will probably have some great albums and be a great producer one day because he knows a lot about the studio and is very talented, but Jon, really, basically, in a lot of people's minds is the voice of the band and there was talk about all of that coming back together again, so that was an ongoing situation the whole time. So it was kind of half-baked, the idea, anyway, I think, originally; we were just getting on with being Yes and carrying on. Then when Jon came back to the fold as it were, I mean it was understood by a lot of people. MOT: How about the Chris Squire Experiment? Will we ever hear any of that music? AW: Well that was just a side venture and in fact we were recording some, there's some recordings that we did in Billy's studio that are in existence that are very good, I think they're great. Also some new material that I messed around with Billy and Steve Porcaro. But I think we were getting into the Yes album and it was going to be too complicated to be able to do both of them together and that was just put on hold for a while. There's no necessity to come out right now but there's some really great stuff. We did some great live dates, I thought the band played exceptionally well. MOT: But it was more of a one-shot type of thing... AW: ...kind of thing, who's to say in a year's time when we have a space in between tours that we won't go in and finish killing them off and they'll be stockpiled for an album of some sort. MOT: I understand Chris is writing or recording a solo album, I would assume some of it might make it on to there. AW: On, yeah, absolutely...yeah at one time it should come out 'cause it really started sounding good. MOT: Going back to just before 90125 Eddie Jobson was invited to join the band, in fact he's the one we see in the "Owner of a Lonely Heart" video. Did he actually ever play with the band. AW: Just in rehearsal. I don't think he got on with a couple of the members in the band, maybe I should just leave it at that! He was just a funny character to have to deal with in a band, it just didn't seem right. And really I think Tony Kaye really never left the band or anything, it was just a real odd thing that came down; I think Tony Kaye didn't fall out with the rest of the band, he fell out with [90125 producer] Trevor Horn and they hadn't got on to well. And now it's pretty solid. MOT: Did Eddie ever play violin in those rehearsals? AW: Yeah he did, a couple of times he worked the violin and it was quite interesting...you had to see a solo electric violin played along with Yes, but he did, he had it out a couple of times. And he's not a bad guy, I mean I don't mind him at all, it's just like he was a little bit of a prima donna kind of thing. You know we all turned up for the video and he had to have his own room and put his own makeup on himself and stuff and we were kind of looking at each other, going, "He's putting his own makeup on, he doesn't want to use the makeup artist!" (laughs) And those kind of things, you know, and I thought we might be getting ourselves into some hot water here, but I think that's what everybody [else in the band] thought. MOT: One of the less known periods in your career was your involvement with XYZ. Yourself, Chris and Jimmy Page. How did you and Chris link up with him? AW: I met Jimmy quite a few times because he lived pretty close to Chris, he lived in the same area. We used to meet at parties in London and all that kind of stuff and basically Chris called me on day and said," Jimmy wants to go and play in the studio kind of thing", so we all just turned up one day and started playing and it started sounding pretty good. We got the engineer in there and they started putting down the XYZ tapes as it were. Quite a lot of it was stuff that I'd been writing with Chris and we had, I think it was like four, five, six songs. I don't know if that's out in the black market yet. MOT: I don't think so...I've never heard of them-- AW: I think the only two cassettes that exist is, that outside of the master tapes, is I've got one and Chris has got one, but Chris says he can't find his now, but I do have a copy of it at home. MOT: Do you think that the band had real potential? AW: Oh, it was sounding pretty good, there was some interesting music. It was really different, it was like Zeppelin meets Yes kind of stuff, it was real odd. MOT: Did Jimmy ever express an opinion of Yes' music one way or another? AW: Not really, Jimmy's the kind of guy who looks behind and carries on with the future. He's quite an interesting guy to play with because he's one of those guys who's always looking for something different to do within the music. For instance, on some of the Zeppelin solos when he was one of the first guys to be using the computerized kind of guitar, synthesized guitar playing and things like that. He's just interested in little odd quirks and it could have been very interesting. MOT: Was it always a trio or was Robert Plant ever involved at any point? AW: It was a trio, and Jimmy kept calling Robert saying how great is was and he should get involved but Robert thought (the music) was too complicated. He came and listened to it and I think he thought it was too complicated; or else there could have been the kind of a Yes Zeppelin band at that time. I think that kind of either frightened a lot of people off at that time or it was a too-good-to-be-true kind of thing. But the management thing got involved and they really screwed it up and it just all went haywire, that's what really dissipated the whole thing. MOT: So it was the management, or was the band behind it as well? AW: Pretty much the management, but I think Robert was very iffy about it, he thought the music was too complicated, he was more of a rock 'n' roll wailer kind of thing. We were doing things in (taps out five beats)...there's one thing that we did that was kind of a lick that I wrote at home one day it was like almost like a military type thing put in a odd time signature that built up into this really orchestrated kind of piece of music...and it was all in 7/4 time so I think when Robert heard 7/4 it was like, "What am I getting myself into here?" So... MOT: That's not rock 'n' roll. AW: Right. Yeah, anyhow, there's a little bit of that went on. But don't get me wrong, Robert's a great friend of mine, he's a great friend of Trevor's, he's a great friend of Chris's. We see him every time we're in town and go and see him and we get on really well. He's a really nice guy. MOT: Did any of that music ever make it onto any Yes albums? I know that some of it made it onto the Firm's first album, but beyond that did it ever manifest anywhere else? AW: No, no... MOT: A lot of Yes fans were stunned that Steve Howe wasn't involved in the current band and he's been very tight-lipped about it. Bill's departure was also a disappointment but his penchant for jazz and changing musical environments didn't make it that much of a surprise; you almost expected him to go off and do something else. AW: Right. MOT: Due to the lack of information rumors about the situation have been running rampant. Would you mind clearing this up and telling us why Bill isn't involved, and why Steve isn't involved? AW: Okay. First of all we did a whole tour together, and the way we approached doing that tour, and the way we did the tour, was basically one of those situations where we had the older version of the band, AWBH, had got a part of the album together, they wanted to make it a fuller album which seemed like a sensible thing to everybody together; but it was only really in our minds ever to do that one, we may do it again in a couple of years, you never know. I mean, to us it was kind of like, okay, we'll do this now; this is what we want to do right now. But when that was over we sat back and we saw the music we had for the next album, Jon totally got into all of the stuff we were writing and the solidarity between the five members as it were, and we decided that this version of it, or this year's touring and this album should probably be done this way. There's no reason, and it's not a complete shut door that those guys might come back again next year, I mean we view it like that, it's just this, okay, move onto the current version of Yes, and then the next version, and then the next version, and we'll keep going. Bill wanted to go away and do his thing...I think Steve was a little bit more upset that he wasn't involved, but, I don't know, it's just the way things came down. Steve's doing his solo album now--in fact I'm supposed to call Steve, I mean it's not like we're not good friends anymore. I have a message to call him from my office to talk about some other business kind of things, but it's not a complete closed door, it's like we do still talk and they're just doing that for a while, and we're doing this still, who knows down the line we may do it again. MOT: Would I be correct to summarize it this way: even though Steve would have like to have been involved there really wasn't a place for him in the current project...is that close? AW: It's close, but I wouldn't quote me as saying that; it's just a summarization that a lot of people could make. Because I'm good friends with Steve, I've always been. Steve and myself in the older days--and right through t he whole band's history--we used hang out a lot together. MOT: You owned a health food restaurant together, isn't that correct? AW: Yeah, we had a health food store, it wasn't really a restaurant, it was called Brownies....Yeah, we're not really fair to kind of like say, oh no, you're not in the band for this bit, but it's just the way things have come down, and the music has happened to turned out to be really good and we worked at it really hard and this is the way we're going to do this bit of Yes' future, I think. So as I say the whole thing could be like a UNION tour yet again next year or whatever. MOT: Along those lines why was Rick kind of retained? AW: Rick's kind of over there in the wings, and he's kind of returned to there because he got on with doing his own thing again while we're getting on with this album and he likes what's going on, he gets to do his own stuff over there and then come over and get involved in this in the later stages and maybe carry on from there, go on the tour. MOT: His involvement on the tour is still kind of up in the air, though. AW: I think it will be turn around to be with Rick involved in the whole thing, it's just we're getting on with this part of the album first, so all of that...drudge and hard labor as this stuff that's going on right now, but it's paying off because it's really sounding great. MOT: So you would work with Steve again. AW: Of course, yeah... MOT: Of course...he is an incredible musician... AW: Absolutely, absolutely. But the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that Trevor has now been in the band for almost twelve years and I have been playing as long with Trevor as I have with Steve, so it's two different things, it's in two worlds, and yet similar. MOT: [When Trevor became involved] It became Yes really by default because you had so many members from a band called Yes, how could you call it anything else? AW: (Laughs) I know, exactly. And really, when we made 90125, and Jon got involved in singing some of the songs on 90125, really at that time we were going to call that band another name. MOT: Cinema, right? AW: Yeah, and he got involved and then there was nothing else you could call it, you put the tape on and it sounded like an 80s version of Yes. And that's what this album luckily sounds like, it sounds like a 90s version of Yes and I'm really enthusiastic about it. MOT: So am I, and I haven't even heard it yet! I'm curious...you could probably live anyplace in the world you want, yet you're here in the Northwest. What brought you up here? AW: Marriage with a Seattle-ite has got a slight bit do with it (laughs)... my wife is born and raised kind of in Seattle and Portland and they lived on the Oregon coastline for a while, but basically the family is all from Seattle, they came from a more or less kind of Swedish background and they've been in this area for so many years. That's the main thing, but I also really got into enjoying and liking the place, it's got a similar climate to England, I love the seasons. We lived in California for five years mid-term but outside of the band I've been coming here for twelve, fourteen years, and spending the summers up here so I know the place pretty well. It's a great place to live. MOT: I'm pretty much a native of Los Angeles myself, I've been living here since 1988 and I can't ever see going back there. AW: No, you see I have to...don't let me say I have to, I GET to work down in Los Angeles (chuckles) but it's good it's good to go back. Between since November and right now I've been going back and forth every couple of weeks and I find that travelling's really getting to me right now, but...it's good to go in and out but it's always great to come back here, it's always like I used to say when I first started coming from England to America, it's great to go there but it's always great to come back home. Me, I've kind of lost that kind of urge for Europe and England like a lot of the guys in the band have, they live basically in Los Angeles and it's the same with me though I like to escape out there and come back. I got a boat up here and I go out on the lake and I have friends with boats and I'm about to venture up into the San Juans and go in some of those little inlets up there and have a good time, I enjoy the place a lot. MOT: So you consider this home, your base... AW: I think right now I consider this my base. I still have a house in Oxford, England, and I had a house in L.A. and I just sold it recently. The place was sitting empty most of the time. So I'm now sharing a house with, it's actually Tony Kaye's house but I have my own apartment in this instance. That's where I live while I'm making the album. MOT: Can you confirm something? I've heard that Tony Kaye married Chris' daughter...? AW: No..(chuckles)... MOT: That's not true? Oh, God, that's one rumor that you're putting to rest..! AW: No, I'll definitely put this to rest. No. At one time...Tony Kaye has known Chris' daughter most of her life and most of his life and they're very, very good friends and they've always been very good friends, and knew each other enough to become very friendly, if I could put that way, but I don't think they're ever going to get married. She lives in England...she's a singer in the band by the way, Chris' first daughter, she's singing with some band in England. That's the last I heard, I haven't heard any music yet. MOT: At the discussion we spoke about John Lennon, who's one of my major idols...you did say you didn't remember the last time you saw him... AW: Yeah, that was really hard for me to remember, because I used to go into Apple all of the time, you see... MOT: Was it after you joined Yes. AW: I think I saw him once after I joined Yes, and it was something like at a concert or a party but I really couldn't recall the exact event... I really couldn't answer that question. I know he knew I was in Yes and I know that either he was at a concert that I was at and I saw him briefly backstage at one of those kind of things, at the VIP room or something like that, but it was in the very early days of the band, I hadn't seen him for a long time before he died. MOT: I know you played on most of IMAGINE...on "Jealous Guy" you're credited with good vibes, do you remember that? AW: Oh, yeah I played vibraphone...I do recall playing them in the bathroom, that studio's really small, and they had the drums in one corner and it was in John's house and they used to use the acoustic sound in the tile bathroom, that's where I stood, I was looking through a little crack in the door so I can see Jim Keltner playing the drums over here, and see John over here, and play the vibes at the same time so it was quite an interesting day (chuckles). But I only got all of that tuned percussion kind of schooling from when I was six years old cause I played piano for a lot of years before I played drums. MOT: At this point you see Yes as an indefinite thing...you don't see it ending anytime in the future, it's just an ongoing thing. AW: Everybody's just really keen to get on with the new stuff. I mean, that's what we're doing, we're doing the next kind of chapter in the history, and that's what we're writing right now, and most of it's written. I think people are going to be really enjoying this album. You know, we always say you always win some, you always lose some Yes fans on every album. I think on this one we're going to be winning a lot of new Yes fans and probably some of the guys that turned away when we did some more commercial stuff, so I think they may get back to really enjoying themselves. MOT: If Yes were to break up do you have any idea what you'd be doing? AW: I'd carry on writing definitely, some production, maybe even forming my own band, I wouldn't stop playing. MOT: Have you thought about another solo album? AW: I have. And I have a lot a music that's kind of stockpiled right now. A lot of it is really adaptable to making a solo album, but it's also very adaptable for writing music scores and I've got a friend in Los Angeles who wants to form a production company with me, he's got two bids on two movies right now. I'd really like working in that field, but getting the time to do everything is really, really pushes you to the point. MOT: In the early 70's Yes played in Wilmington, N.C. and apparently the band really liked the area... AW: Wilmington? MOT: Yeah. AW: Jon was the one who started that kind of thing up because there's about a group of four or five people who are Jon freaks, and they'd come to our concerts up and down the east coast and they came from Wilmington, so every time we played anywhere close to that, I think that's where this rumor started from. They used to be part of one of the Yes magazines, too, heavily into it. I think that's the reason why, it's one of those... You know so many people; I mean I have this guy I struck a chord with. He calls me every two months, he's an Italian baker from Staten Island, and this guy must weigh, I don't know, twenty stone, he's enormous and he always finds out where I am and always calls me, as I gave him my home phone number, he calls me every two months to check in with what we're doing. But he's the only one guy like that I ever kept a relationship like that because he always sends Italian cookies. He keeps saying if you're ever in New York, just give me call, if you get in any trouble...(laughs)...I don't know, we struck up-- in fact I just did some clinics over in the east coast before Christmas and I stayed in his house for a night in Staten Island, in amongst all the pizzas. And he was great, he's a very successful businessman now, he's got a couple of bakeries and a Mercedes, and he's just a neat guy. MOT: I have one last question...I was wondering if you ever heard the Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe album and if you thought it was good... AW: Oh yeah, I heard it. I didn't like the documentary they did on TV, I thought that really harmed them, I don't think it was as good as it could have been. MOT: You mean the satellite feed (from Mountainview, CA)? AW: I saw a video of that later after the time and I thought it could have been done much better, they didn't have much kind of control over it. But I had the album, I thought there was some good tracks on the album but obviously we had the kind of rift going there for a while where there was east and west Yes kind of thing but at the same time I've always been great friends with Jon. In fact, I'm supposed to be on tour with him right now, Jon asked me to do his tour but I couldn't do it because I'm making a Yes album (chuckles), he forgot about that point. I said, well Jon, I've got to do all of the drums, and he said, oh, okay, I forgot about that. So we addressed that. MOT: On behalf of NOTES FROM THE EDGE thanks again for the interview... AW: NOTES FROM THE EDGE, I like that...it's better than CLOSE TO THE VEG (laughs), that's what we used to get called, when we were notorious for being the band that was into vegetarian food so we used to get called CLOSE TO THE VEG...so that's in the old days. MOT: I'll definitely get you an issue of the magazine... AW: Sure...it goes into this...Internet... MOT: Right...the information will be immediate, it's not like regular magazines where four months down the line it's old news. AW: That's great, that's excellent. Yeah, definitely get me a copy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The entire contents of this Alan White interview are (c) 1993, Mike Tiano 200 SW Clark St. #C Issaquah, WA 98027 for Notes From The Edge, Jeff Hunnicutt, Editor All rights reserved ---------------------------------------------------------------------- * * * * * * * * * * THOSE ALL-IMPORTANT ADDRESSES: ============================== New subscribers, contributions, questions/comments/criticism: Jeff Hunnicutt (Editor) hunnicutt@vxc.uncwil.edu NFTE Server (lyrics, backissues, discography, rarities, surveys, GIFs): Automated. For help send mail with subject line yes-archive@meiko.com "send main help" to NFTE Server problems, additions/corrections to the lyrics & GIFs, and additions/corrections to the rarities list: Mike Stok mike@meiko.com NFTE backissues, lyrics, etc, via anonymous FTP: cs.uwp.edu Directory: /pub/music/lists/yes Contact for helping out with transcriptions: Greg Utas utas@bnr.ca For Import CD's (last resort): Joe Pizzirusso joep@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com The Yesoteric Tape(s): Jeremy Weissenburger 07822@brahms.udel.edu ******************************************************************************** --< END OF NOTES FROM THE EDGE #65 >-- ********************************************************************************