Jon Anderson Geeks Out
The former Yes frontman talks about his latest venture
To all but maybe a few fans, the first things that come to mind at the mention of the band Yes are the voice and visage of co-founder and longtime lead singer Jon Anderson.
Thus, it seems bizarre to refer to him as Yes’s “former” vocalist. However, he has not been a member of the Yes roster — the current one of which recently toured with Deep Purple — since 2004.
Thankfully, the soon-to-be octogenarian has found in The Band Geeks a collection of musicians whose love of his erstwhile group is matched by their ability to capture its music in sound and spirit.
Anderson told me in June, “A friend of mine at Sirius Radio sent me a video of them performing ‘Heart of the Sunrise’ in their little studio in New Jersey. I just loved the way they played, and it sounded just like Yes. About a month later I called up Richie, talked to him for 10 minutes, and said, ‘Let’s go on tour’.”
“Richie” is Band Geeks leader and bassist Richie Castellano, who has been Blue Öyster Cult’s guitarist and keyboard player for two full decades.
Any forgivable skepticism that one might have of a progressive rock titan teaming up with a gang of relative young ‘uns will dissipate upon a single listen to “True Messenger,” the opening track to Anderson and his new bandmates’ just-released album, True.
The voyage from one track to the next comprises one highlight after another, as the collective unerringly incarnates what Anderson describes as “the album that Yes would have made if they were together.”
Amazingly, the voice of the man behind the mic is as stunningly immaculate as ever, showing nary a sign of the wizening that understandably may have occurred after more than a half-century of steady employment.
Amply reflective, spiritual, and joyous — as well as unapologetically progressive — True has delighted longtime listeners and even made fans of my six-year-old twins.
Jon Anderson kindly spoke to me for Rock and Roll Globe shortly after the unveiling of True and the first of a handful of September shows.
How do you keep your voice in such great shape?
I just sing every day if I can and drink a tea called Throat Coat. You know, I was never a screamer. My voice is alto-tenor. [demonstrates with “ahhh”]
The title True is both straightforward and a bit cryptic. How do you feel that it captures the essence of the album?
It was a very true experience and explanation of where I am today lyrically. And musically it’s very true because I met these guys The Band Geeks, and it’s like a gift in my life to find musicians who appreciate Yes’s music.
A friend of mine sent me a video of them playing “Heart of the Sunrise,” and right away I knew these guys were great. So we went on tour last year for just 12 shows just to see how we are. And by November, I’d said to Richie, the bass player, “Let’s make an album. Why not?” And that’s what we did.
Fans on social media clearly love the new material. What have audience reactions been like when you’ve performed new songs live?
Wonderful. People just love the album. At the time, we were doing new songs that people has seen on their computers. They’d seen us doing “Shine On” and “True Messenger.” These were ways of waking people up — “Hey we’ve got an album coming out, so here’s what we’re doing.”
The album came out a few weeks ago [August 23], and around the world I’ve been talking to people in Japan, Germany, Scandinavia, America, and there’s an energy from people who just love the idea of an album that sounds just like it sounds. It’s a remarkable feeling that I got together with The Band Geeks.
Will you be adding further selections from True to the setlist now that the album has officially been released?
Yeah, that’s the plan. It’s difficult to play new music unless people hear it prior to that show. And now we’re planning on adding more songs and touring again in the spring and going to Europe and maybe South America with the idea of spreading the musical word.
How did you succeed in creating what you described in our previous interview as “the album that Yes would have made if they were together”?
When we were talking about recording the album, we decided we were going to sound like Yes. They love Yes’s music, they play Yes music perfectly, so there was no reason we shouldn’t make a record that actually feels like Yes.
Everything about making the album took me back to the 70s, 50 years ago. Just the way that I was able to talk to the musicians and they were very open to ideas. Me and Richie got on very, very well and co-produced the album. We would do Zoom every Tuesday for three hours.
There are moments in songs like “Shine On,” “Make It Right” and “Once Upon a Dream” remind me very much of specific Yes songs.
Of course. It’s going to have the texture of sounding like Yes because I never left Yes in my heart and soul. I was always driven to write music more or less away from Yes until I was gifted with the band that could play Yes. When we toured, we were playing “The Gates of Delirium,” “Close to the Edge,” “Awaken,” “Yours Is No Disgrace,” “Heart of the Sunrise,” “Perpetual Change” and so on and so on. So we knew we could play the music and I could sing them. Now I have a teleprompter because, you know, too many lyrics. [laughs] But I manage okay!
Speaking of “Once Upon a Dream,” was it your goal to create a 16-1/2-minute epic?
No. It’s one of the things I remembered in the Yes days: you’re never prepared to write a long piece of music initially, but once you start, it becomes like, “Oh, we’ve got to do four of them!” or something, like we did on [Tales From] Topographic Oceans.
It started out with this piece of music that I’d written with a friend of mine and then went to a piece of music that Richie had, and back to the chorus of the original song. Then I said, “OK, we’re doing a lot of music coming out of space,” which is just the middle of “Close to the Edge,” the very emptiness of sound and sort of harmonic beauty. Eventually, you come out with and melody and song idea.
Richie’s ex-wife, she sang some sort of angel-sounding voices, and I started writing, “twice upon a life you’ve been an angel.” We’re all angels in this world, that sort of thing.
And the next section I interrupted the Zoom with him, and Christopher [Clark], the keyboard player, was there, and I asked, “can you play some church organ, sort of big time?” And he said, “like this?” [imitates organ] I said, “That’s it. Perfect. Thank you.” That’s when Richie brought back the introduction, [sings] “It’s enough to stick around looking for it/It’s enough to challenge it, took around.” It just naturally developed over a period of maybe a couple of hours.
Tell me about some of the contributions of some of the other Band Geeks.
The drummer, Andy [Ascolese], he was always there on the sessions. He’d get on the piano, start playing, and I’d say, “That’s it. That’s exactly what we needed.” The guitarist [Andy Graziano] is actually a school teacher, and just naturally starts playing classical guitar, like [Joaquín] Rodrigo, so I’d ask him, “Can you throw that in?” So it was very easy to manipulate everybody to do this and that and the other and see what happened.
2024 is the 35th anniversary of Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe. How do you feel that it figures into your legacy?
ABWH was a great moment. We even got Tony Levin to play bass. Bill Bruford was very sort of bullish and said, “Who’s going to play bass?” And I said, “well I haven’t found anybody yet.” And he said, “Tony Levin.” And I said, “OK. Have you got his phone number?” That’s the way we worked. We had a great time. A little bit of mismanagement along the way, but that’s life.
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April 6, 2022 -
Any chance Jon comes back to the states?