Today we chat with legendary bassist and Yes founding member Chris Squire about his upcoming 2009 summer tour with Asia, Rock Band The Game, Six Flags, Bobby Fischer and much more.
Tough questions first. You had leg surgery back in February, which cancelled the remaining dates of the Yes tour at that time. After you recovered, we got the announcement of the tour with Asia taking place this summer. And now, most recently, we have an announcement that Jon Anderson will be apparently touring, solo, over in Europe this summer. Here’s the big question I’m reading on a lot of message boards: Is this an indication of you guys finally saying, “I don’t know if we’re going to be able to all tour at the same time” ? Or what’s going on, here?
When you say he’s touring Europe, I think he’s going on vacation to Paris, and he’s just doing a couple of odd shows here and there, just keeping his foot in the water (what do I mean?)…just him and acoustic guitar, from what I know, so it’s not really like he’s touring.
Actually he’s announced nine or ten dates as of now.
Oh, he has? I didn’t even know about any of that. I got the impression he was just doing some odd casual shows. Like, I believe he did one up in the central coast last weekend, actually. Just kind of impromptu appearance in a bar, with his guitar, sounds like that’s what it is. But, I don’t know. (laughs) Enlighten me; if there’s more of a tour going on, I don’t know about it.
The YesWorld website has finally added a link to his tour dates underneath your tour dates, so it definitely looks like two different tours going on this summer. Thus all the chatter.
Oh, ok. Yeah. Well, as I’ve said, as far as I know, he’s just keeping his hand in really, I suppose, while he’s still in recovery.
It sounds like you guys are happy with the lineup that you have right now. What do you say to sort of placate the people that are worried that you have the “Jon understudy” (Benoit) and Oliver Wakeman instead of Rick (Oliver’s father – ed) out there? Or do you not even worry about any of that, and just go out there.
I don’t really worry about it, because we did a whole tour prior to the holidays, and I didn’t get any response from any member of the audience indicating that they were disappointed in any way; in fact, quite the opposite. Everyone seemed really happy that we were out there honoring the music, basically. And as far as Benoit and Oliver’s performances are concerned, they both did a great job, 100%, people just told me that. That’s the only feedback I really got. So we have planned to do this summer thing with Asia, and probably a European thing towards the end of the year, and maybe even South America in the fall. At the time we were planning this, we were assuming Jon would still not be back in shape to do anything, so we went ahead with those plans, and that’s what we’re doing this year. Next year there may be a different story, but you know, that’s what’s going on now.
I’m certainly looking forward to seeing the current incarnation when you guys get out to Los Angeles.
Great, great.
With Asia now on the bill now, are you guys going to mix things up at all? Sounds like you’ll have two distinct sets here.
Yeah, originally we were thinking about it being sort of loose, but for the purpose of this tour, Asia will do an opening act set, and then Yes will play.
Are you going to bring Geoff (Downes) out for “Machine Messiah” maybe, or…
Well, that’s a very good point, you know (laughs). I have mused a bit about it, I haven’t actually asked him. I do know he’s capable of playing it, though, because you may remember a few years back there was going to be the…what was it called…the More Drama tour that we were going to do (but actually we didn’t end up doing) where Geoff was going to be involved. I know he’s still up to speed with it, but as I said, I haven’t asked him about it yet, so…
I’m going to print anything’s possible, and see what you guys do out there. So with the two separate sets, are you going to still have time to sort of stretch out with some of the longer chestnuts like “Close to the Edge” or “Gates of Delerium” ?
Well, of course the problem is that having an opening act obviously reduces the amount of time we’ll be playing, so… I don’t think you’ll be seeing any gargantuan pieces on this tour, because they would just physically take up too much time and reduce the amount of music we’ll be able to do in the show.
What do you typically eat for breakfast while you’re touring?
(laughs) When I’m touring? I’m not a big breakfast person normally, I might just grab a Starbucks or something, maybe something to eat with it, depends if I’m in an airport or what. Sometimes we drive between shows. I don’t know, nothing special really, might stop at a Subway. (laughs)
$5 subs!
On the whole, I like Kellogg Special K, blueberry flavor. (laughs)
Ho! I like that one myself. Final tour-related question! You have a really ambitious July laid out here. Like, you have very few days off, looks like.
Right.
New Jersey, July 26: You’re going to be at the Great Adventure Amphitheatre in Jackson, and you’re not going to be in Philadelphia until the 28th. Does anybody want to check out Six Flags on the 27th, while you’re right there and you have an extra day?
Does anybody want to check out what where?
You’re playing the Great Adventure Amphitheatre, which is a Six Flags amusement park amphitheatre. I was wondering if anybody had already mapped out, you know, what rides they might…
(laughs) I don’t know, I’m not big on rides myself. Well, maybe when I was younger I was a little bit more, but I’ve only been to those parks with my kids, you know. But I didn’t even know we were playing Six Flags actually, thanks for telling me.
That’s the only Six Flags I saw on the tour schedule, if you want to take advantage of it. Speaking of kids – and congratulations on your most recent one by the way -
Thank you.
When should we expect, or can we expect, and why don’t we have, a Rock Band or Guitar Hero version of Yes, with a Rickenbacker bass and, like, six plastic keyboards?
(laughs)Well, OK. I’m thinking that could happen. There has been some conversation between Xbox and management. It may actually happen at some point.
That is great news for all the prog rock fans out there!
(laughs) Yeah. OK, I’ll definitely make a point of mentioning it to my manager and find out if there’s been any progress made.
Absolutely bubble it up there. I mean, you guys could have your own unique set of fake instruments that everybody would be playing.
(laughs) Fantastic.
Second non-tour question. Bobby Fischer was rumored to listen to “I’ve Seen All Good People” quite a bit before he played against the Russians. I don’t know if you’ve heard this one before…
I’ve never, ever heard that. Is that really true?
It is rumored that he liked it; Fragile had come out before he defeated Boris Spassky in the 1972 World Chess Championship. It had just come out, and allegedly he was listening to it a lot, because of the lyrics. He passed away before anybody could confirm or deny this, but I was wondering if you…I guess if you haven’t heard this, you’re not taking any credit for his victory, but that was going to be my question.
(laughs) Well I mean, basically the first part of “I’ve Seen All Good People”, “Your Move”, is kind of chess-related, so I guess that’s what it’s about.
It could be completely made-up for all I know. (Wikipedia sometimes is)
I’ve never heard it before, so…
I’ll have to follow up with somebody who knew Bobby. Next Q regards the album 90125. The common misconception is that this a Los Angeles ZIP code, when apparently it’s a catalog number.
That’s exactly right, in fact, I can’t remember the exact numbers, but the guy who was designing the 90125 sleeve – I think his name was Garry Mouat – he had the idea of just using the record company catalog number. Originally it was going to be 8, 9 something, 56. But we were a little late in finishing, so it got bumped back to 90125.
(Both laugh.)
So my question related to that is, if you were the city planner here in Los Angeles… We looked at the grid for you. Playa del Rey is 90094; Beverly Hills of course is 90210; 90125 would slot somewhere in the middle there. If you were the city planner, where would you stick that ZIP code in Los Angele-
(laughing) Is there an existing 90125 ZIP code?
It is not a valid ZIP code, so this is your choice. Where do you want it.
Where would I like it to be?
Yes.
Oh, I don’t know, somewhere in, oh, what’s that area between Malibu and Bel-Air…
Brentwood?
Brentwood’s kind of part of it, but it’s called the…
Palisades?
The Palisades, there you go. That’s one of my favorite areas in LA.
OK. We’re slotting it there, you heard it here first! Next question. Are you on Twitter? Do you tweet?
No, I don’t. I’m hooked up with enough interactive information (laughs) as it is, so I’ve actually not twittered or tweeted.
I have tried it a bit, but I tend to follow your lead. And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say we’d rather have you playing the bass than tweeting.
(laughs) OK, thank you.
Want to talk about your website right now. Your last blog post has a picture of you with Dave Grohl and Vinnie Paul from Pantera. What’s going on in this photo? Or do you know.
The picture with Dave Grohl?
Yes.
I’d just jammed with the Foos onstage at the Joint in Las Vegas, which I think is now closed, or they’ve redone it or something. But I just happened to be there visiting a buddy of mine. I was in Vegas, and they were playing. I’m good friends with Taylor Hawkins, and he invited me to go and jam on a song with them, so I did.
Very cool.
The photo was after the show. That’s basically it, I just picked one tune. It was a lot of fun though. Those guys are a lot of fun.
Getting down to the last question here. My personal favorite Yes album, beginning to end, is Relayer, where I believe you hit some truly beautiful, transcendent moments…it’s my favorite, so my question to you: From beginning to end, do you have a favorite Yes album, and if so, what is it and why?
You know, I obviously like tracks from different albums, and so I don’t know if there’s overall one favorite album. I have a penchant for Fragile, and of course 90125 as well. We’ve always done some interesting things on all of the albums we’ve made in any particular period, so I can’t really just vote for one.
Well you do have “The Fish” on Fragile, so…
Well, that’s true. One of the reasons why I like it.
Chris, thanks for your time, and we’re looking forward to seeing you out here in a little under a month at Gibson. Good luck with the tour!
OK man, thanks. Come say hello!
Per usual we’ll have some tickets to the Yes/Asia show to hand out closer to the date of the big night at Gibson; stick around.
THE PROGGIEST TOUR of all time, Yes with special guests Asia, is hitting the road this summer. For prog fans the enormous implications of this tour are quite clear. For others, imagine Wings opening up for the Beatles or the Justice League taking up music and hitting the road. It’s that big. Steve Howe, who plays guitar in both groups, will be doing double duty during the show. Also onstage will be members of King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, the Buggles, two others members of Yes, the son of former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman and the lead singer of a Yes cover band.
As ludicrous as all this sounds, think back to the winter of 1983. Asia’s debut single “The Heat of The Moment” had been all over the radio for a year, and Yes had just reformed and released “Owner Of A Lonely Heart.” Meanwhile, Genesis and Rush had been scoring massive hits with songs about 1/3 the length of their 1970s work. Prog had gone pop and the American public couldn’t have loved it more. Needless to say, the bands not led by Phil Collins soon found it impossible to land songs on the radio and the whole thing fizzled. The intensely loyal prog audience (particularly in the case of Rush) has allowed these bands to tour ever since — but to the best of my knowledge a supergroup has never opened up for the group it spawned from. It’s practically a prog paradox. Tour dates below:
June 26 – Indio, CA @ Fantasy Springs Casino June 27 – Las Vegas, NV @ Thomas & Mack Center June 30 – Snoqualmie, WA @ Snoqualmie Casino July 2 – San Francisco, CA @ Warfield July 3 – Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain Winery July 7 – Los Angeles @ Gibson Amphitheatre at City Walk July 8 – San Diego @ Humphrey’s July 9 – Phoenix @ Dodge July 12 – Denver @ Paramount Theatre July 14 – Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater July 15 – Ft. Worth, TX @ Bass Music Center July 16 – Muskegee, OK @ Civic Center July 18 – Walker, MN @ Moondance Jam July 20 – Detroit @ DTE Energy Music Theatre July 21 – Pittsburgh @ Chevrolet Amphitheatre July 22 – Glen Allen, VA @ Insbrook Pavilion July 23 – National Harbour, MD @ Sunset Concerts July 25 – Cohassett, MA @ South Shore Music Circus July 26 – Jackson, NJ @ Great Adventure Amphitheatre July 28 – Philadelphia @ Tower Theatre July 29 – Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theatre July 31 – Westbury, NY @ Theatre at Westbury Aug. 1 – Jamestown, NY @ Savings Bank Arena Aug. 2 – Bethlehem, PA @ Muskfest
Steve Howe Talks Summer Prog Supertour With Yes and Asia
BY ANDY GREENE
JULY 2, 2009
When Rolling Stone discovered Yes would be teaming with Asia for a summer trek that would have members of King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer and the singer of a Yes cover band onstage, we promptly proclaimed it the proggiest tour of all time. Ian Drew grabbed a few moments with the man pulling double-duty in both bands, Steve Howe, to find out how he’ll split his time, who’s heading to the studio and how he narrows down his most embarrassing wardrobe moment.
How did you decide to do this double tour? I had this summer pretty much booked up [with Asia], and Yes were disappointed about not getting a chance to play this summer, so I put my thinking cap on. I feel strongly that Asia is going to be very good opening act for Yes and it is a very unusual situation that someone like me would be in both groups — I feel that in itself says quite a lot.
During the show, what can we really expect? Well obviously we’re fortunate that a lot of our music from our albums is greatly enjoyed, like for Asia, “Sole Survivor” and “Wildest Dreams,” and of course “Only Time Will Tell” and “Heat Of the Moment.” And then with Yes we have our rich material from Close to the Edge, Fragile and those albums, and of course “Roundabout” is incredibly popular, and so is “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” and we put in a good selection from the early years.
Do you get into a different frame of mind for each band? I use different guitars in the groups, I use 175 Gibson models in Yes mainly, or I’ll play a 345 and I play Statocaster, but in Asia I mainly do all my work on a guitar called a Gibson exhaust system, along with Martin guitars and also Line 6 Variax, which is an incredible guitar which plays different sounds from one central guitar. I’ve got a thousand guitars on the road, and they split almost like two-thirds for Yes and one-third is Asia.What I do in Yes is quite soft and floaty, and kind of meanders a lot, but what I play in Asia is quite, I wouldn’t say rigid, but quite attacking, but also it’s got a different sort of mentality if you like, which is a little bit harder, and I quite like that.
Why did you leave Yes? Well Yes kind of expanded after Drama was the most successful tour, and after that Trevor [Horn] wanted to get on with the second Buggles record, Chris [Squire] and Alan [White] wanted to go out and jam with Jimmy Page, I can’t blame them, and Geoff [Downes] and I were kind of left holding this baby called Yes, and we decided not to do that. So two months later after that incident, he and John Wetton asked do I want to get together. That was a fantastic time and then a very tricky time, and after that, a couple months after leaving Asia after two albums, I met up with Steve Hackett and did that, and blah blah this just goes on. This is what my life’s been like. So I can only just think I must be a really lucky bastard to be able to keep the momentum up through different groups and get so many chances at doing that.
What about future plans for recording with Asia and Yes? I can’t really make an announcement like this is going to happen and that’s going to happen, but let’s just put it this way: both bands are working towards recording projects being realized.
Do you look back at any of your looks from back in the day and cringe? I mean I wasn’t pretty with stuff in the very early days of Yes. I had something called my rock & roll jacket, which was a bit too small for me — it was just a silk blue jacket that was longer at the back. I wore some weird stuff, but when I got to Tales From Topographic Oceans I was dressed really like an Afghanistan peasant, so that was a good laugh. If you want to have a good laugh, watch only the “Owner of a Lonley Heart” video. Asia was a little bit more, cool. Not saying cool, hip, but I’m saying that we were cooler in our desire to be flamboyant, but I really do have a lot of fun with clothes.
Has anyone reached out to you to say they’re big fans? I’m not big on name dropping. I’ll tell you what was nice: the people who do The Simpsons really like what I do and Yes we got a special Simpson’s poster once that they designed just for Yes, with a Yes logo on it and the Simpsons bobbling around it, and they drew it. And the Muppets too, I met the Muppets once when they were shooting in England.
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