Not every day you get the chance to talk to one of the all-time greats of the prog world. And certainly not when that person happens to be the singer/founder of your favourite band. So when I had the opportunity to talk to living legend Jon Anderson in the context of the release of his new album, True, there was little hesitancy. Even though the slot I was promised was no longer than fifteen minutes. A challenge I gladly accept. A conversation via Zoom with a time difference of nine hours.
Alex Driessen: OK, good evening Jon Anderson, thank you very much for your time. You’re a very busy man and I consider it an honour and a privilege to talk to you, one of the founders of the progressive rock genre and Yes always was and still is my favourite band of all time. My name is Alex Driessen, I only have fifteen minutes, so please forgive me if I start quickly with my questions. How are you? You look great. You’ll soon turn 80 if I’m not mistaken. How do you stay so young?
Jon Anderson: No problem, I’m fine. Next month, yeah, I’ll turn 80. Well, I’ve just been for my walk. I go for a walk for two hours and up the hill and down the Dale listening to music of late, I’ve been listening to True, of course. And now I’m starting to re listen to Sibelius, my favourite composer and so life is good and I have to keep healthy and get ready for next week. We go on tour again, on the East Coast of America, the second leg of the tour. Very excited about the new album, True.
Alex: So am I. It took you some five years between your last solo album and the new True. What was the reason for that?
Jon: Well, I was busy working on a follow up to Olias of Sunhillow and I have 4 hours of music. It drives me crazy.
Alex: That was back in ’76, wasn’t it?
Jon: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And of course, I’m always writing music, so I’m always busy. And I was on tour last year with the young people, the Academy of Rock, and we actually toured in Europe. And yes, it was fantastic. These kids were so cool and meanwhile, when I got home from the first tour, a friend of mine sent a video of these guys, this group, the Band Geeks. And they were playing Heart of the Sunrise and I was mesmerized. I couldn’t believe how good they were. So I got in touch with the bass player and said, why don’t we go on tour together? This is last April and he said: Are you sure? Are you really Jon Anderson? Yes, I’m Jon Anderson. Yes, I’d love to. So we went on tour. After we’ve been on tour with the teenagers we went on tour with the Band Geeks and did about 12 shows last September.
And that was a success, you know, because I wanted to sing the songs I helped to write from the 70s. I was excited to do Close To The Edge, Awaken, The Gates Of Delirium and of course songs that most Yes fans want to hear: Yours Is No Disgrace, All Good People, Perpetual Change and so on. It’s like an endless amount of music and at the end of that tour, probably in November last year, I said to Richie (Castellano), the bass player, I said: ‘Richie, we should make an album’. Why not? You know, so January, February, March, we made an album and then we’ve just been on tour last month again with the Yes epics and classics plus we would do 2 songs or 3 songs from the new album, which is really, really great.
Alex: Only three songs, Jon?
Jon: Well, because you know, the album’s not out till now. So I think this way: when the album comes out, which is now, people will find it and I hope they enjoy it. And so for the next six months they will listen to it. And then when we go out next spring we can play the whole album and that’s what I think.
Alex: That will be lovely, because going back to the album, I had the opportunity to listen to it. I also wrote a review about it and I’m gobsmacked, you know, it’s an excellent album, really good, it’s compact, it’s sharp, it’s modern, not too modern, mind you, but good songs with a punch and lots of melody. Excellent players and on top of that, your characteristic voice and your lyrics. A recipe for success?
Jon: Yeahhh 🙂 Yes, I hope so. You know the reviews are very strong and I’ve done interviews around the world already, Brazil, Australia, Japan and Scandinavia. And England, of course, and America. So a lot of people just love the idea of the album and that’s all I need to know I think, just happy, very happy inside.
Alex: And so you should be, because everybody loves your music and you in particular. So I’m quite sure you did a lot of people a great favour by returning to the studio. Actually, was it a studio? Take me a little bit through the creation of the album. Were you ever together in the same place or is it all done via exchanging electronic files as they do nowadays?
Jon: It was, yeah, it was. We’re all on the same planet, which is important (laughs). And the idea was, the Band Geeks live in the East Coast, I live on the West Coast of America. And so we zoomed, every Tuesday and then I would send Richie, who’s helping to produce it, he’s a wonderful producer as well as bass player, guitarist, singer, everything, and he wrote Shine On and I sang along and worked on some ideas. And then we’d swap music, I think it was very much in my mind, very much like being in Yes, in the 70s, where I was with this group, who were very, very connected, very happy. Couldn’t believe how we were, you know. Yes was having success in ‘72/’73 and then we did Fragile and Roundabout and, oh, life was brilliant, you know. That’s the kind of energy. And it’s like with the Band Geeks, it’s the same energy. Excitement, you know, to make music.
Alex: Even though you weren’t in the same room while you were making all this wonderful music, because that’s the real difference, isn’t it? Between right now and what happened back in the 70s?
Jon: Oh yeah, of course the interesting thing was that the Band Geeks studied Yes music and can play any song of Yes, like that. And when I went to do that tour with them last year, they had the whole show worked out, you know. Gates Of Delirium, my gosh, Heart Of The Sunrise, Close To The Edge, Awaken and we still do it. And to me, it’s like magic, you know.
Alex: And this Richie Castellano you speak so fondly of, he is some sort of a catalyst for your music, is that the way to express what’s happening between you and him?
Jon: Well, we’re like brothers in music. Like I was with Chris, with Alan, Steve, all the people in Yes, when I was there with Yes, was like brotherly appreciation of each other and joy of music and excited about the adventure of music. Because we didn’t stand still when we were in the 70s. We kept going in the 80s, kept going and going and then I got very, very sick. And so I had to be somewhere else.
Alex: You’re talking now about 2008, 2009, when your health really declined. But yeah, as I said before, you look good. You’re in in fine condition, as is your voice, how do you manage to do that? Do you do any exercises?
Jon: Yeah, I sing every day, I do. Inside, I’m singing all the time. And then during the course of a day, I’ll come into my studio, you can see all the instruments and things behind me. And I’m writing new music and I also have 50 cassettes like this full of music.
Alex: You still use cassettes, Jon?!
Jon: No, no, no, I put them in a box ten years ago, 12/15 years ago, because I kept looking at them and thinking I have to listen to this one again, have to listen to that song. And then I found this one and I said, oh no, I’ve got another one. Another one, everywhere. So it’s like I have to be very careful what I listen to.
Alex: The Golden Vault of Jon Anderson! All filled with cassette tapes. Is that why I hear a lot of, let’s say 80s, 90s but also early 2000’s in the new music. I hear bits and pieces like from The Ladder from Talk. Am I correct in that assumption or do you see it otherwise?
Jon: No, I think, I think you carry music once you create music, you carry it with you all your life, you know and subconscious sort of thing. When I was writing an idea called Once Upon a Dream that started with a chant. I’ve got it here (starts singing):
It’s enough to challenge it, took around
Once upon a time, you were looking for
Dance around it, tiki-tay, tiki-tay”
It’s a chant, you know. And I made a recording with a friend of mine, Jonathan Elias, brilliant composer and I sent it to Richie and he actually was able to listen to it and realize, OK, we can go through this section, then something that he had written and then another thing that I’d written and then the middle section, which was like very clear, nothing happening just like…
Alex: I get up, I get down?
Jon: Close to the Edge, “I get up, I get down”, exactly! And just this and then all of a sudden he had a singer friend that sang on it like an angel, sounding and I started singing. And then the next part I’m singing another idea. I was thinking about the idea the other day, it’s a mysterious idea, a mysterious song, Once Upon a Dream. And initially it was ‘Once Upon a Time’. And I said no, no ‘Once Upon A DREAM’. And a beautiful guitar solo from Richie at the end. And then 16 minutes long, it’s beautiful.
Alex: It is, it’s a true epic, isn’t it? And you’ve once again managed to create a beautiful piece of music that will amaze people across the globe, I’m quite sure.
Jon: Yeah, I’m excited. So next spring, next summer, we’ll come to Holland and Scandinavia.
Alex: Is that a promise? Because nothing has been disclosed yet of any tour of Europe.
Jon: No, we don’t know. Yeah, we have an agent and he said: oh, people in Japan want you there, Hawaii and then Brazil and South Africa and I said: wait, can we go to Europe? So yeah, don’t worry, it’ll happen you know.
Alex: Yes, please! OK, so back to the UK and Holland and Western Europe, OK, that would be lovely.
Jon: Yeah, yeah. That’s what your dreams are like. You dream them. You think them, and then you hope everything will work out.
Alex: Absolutely. A lot of my questions were already answered before I had the chance of asking them.
Jon: No, you can ask, it’s OK.
Alex: It’s quite alright, as a matter of fact. Going back to the time you played with the Paul Green Academy. You know, all these talented youngsters I was gobsmacked by it. What was that like? Those guys could have been your grandchildren, I mean this with all due respect.
Jon: But it’s interesting that years ago, 25 years ago, I was on tour with Yes in Philadelphia and I came off stage and there were these about 12 kids with ‘School of Rock’ T-shirts. And I said, hey guys, School of Rock, yeah, cool. And then this guy comes to me, Paul Green, and says: I’m Paul Green, I’m working with these kids, they’re really talented. I said, yeah, they got a nice T-shirt. And he said, would you like to come to Philadelphia and work with these young musicians? I said: No, it’s OK (laughs) thank you. And then about two weeks later, he sends me a recording on cassette of them, playing Heart of the Sunrise. Which, coincidentally, is what was sent to me for the Band Geeks.
So 20 years ago, Heart of the Sunrise cassette. And I spoke to Paul and he said we’re in Los Angeles next Monday. Can you come down and sing Heart of the Sunrise with the kids? I said, yeah, why not? And that’s how we formed a friendship. And then in that year, I worked with the young musicians. And then a year later went on tour, and then a tour three years later, and about 5-6 years later, we did another tour. And then, just last year, he changed the name to The Academy of Rock and the kids were still incredibly talented, so it’s a gift for me to sing with them.
Alex: And a gift for them to be playing with you on stage, Prog God! You had that name bestowed on you? Wasn’t it, that honour, a couple of years ago? But it must have been mutually beneficiary for the both of you, for the youngsters and for you.
Jon: Yeah, yeah, the youngsters from 20 years ago are now in music, still carrying on, and a lot of the kids from the last year’s show are in music schools in Boston, in Chicago, in Los Angeles, in New York, they’re still carrying on their creativity, you know.
Alex: It’s great that you could do that. There’s a question that’s been burning on my lips and I don’t even dare ask it, but I’m going do it anyway: is there any chance that there will be a reunion with you, Rick and Steve or should we keep our mouth shut forever and don’t talk about it at all?
Jon: You never know in this life, you never know, at the moment I’m very excited with the Band Geeks, of course. And I even said to Richie (Castellano) one time, you know, if we do play London, I could ask Rick to get on stage for a song or something or Steve get on stage for a song. But you never know in this life.
Alex: OK, that that’ll do for now, Jon.
Jon: OK, I wish you well.
Alex: Thank you very much for your cooperation, I very much enjoyed it and I hope to see you in the near future in one of Europe’s theatres. And I wish you all the best, good luck, thanks. Bye Jon.
Jon: Thanks, Alex. Bye now.
[Photo’s of Jon Anderson courtesy of Deborah Anderson] – || – [The Band Geeks photo courtesy of Rob Schmoll]
LINKS
Jon Anderson – Website | Facebook | Instagram
The Band Geeks – Website | Facebook | YouTube | X | Instagram
The Paul Green Rock Academy – Website | Facebook