As Yes enters their 45th year together as a performing unit, they’re taking an extended look at a cross-section of their work over the years, with tour dates which will feature the group performing three of their classic albums — ‘The Yes Album,’ ‘Close To The Edge’ and ‘Going For The One’ in full.
With a fluid lineup that often changed with each album, bassist/vocalist Chris Squire has been the one constant presence through it all (although as he points out, drummer Alan White has been along for nearly all of the ride as well). For Squire, he saw the member turnover as a band benefit, one which he says often “refreshed the musical approach” of Yes as they prepared to make the next album.
It will be a busy year for the group as they revisit these album classics, but there’s also new music on the horizon as well. In the following conversation, Squire lets us know what we can look forward to with the upcoming tour and what he’d like to accomplish with the next Yes album.
First of all, I know this idea has been brewing for a while. How did you end up choosing these three albums?
Well, I think the reason that we chose ‘The Yes Album’ was that was the first album that brought Yes to the attention of a worldwide audience back in 1971, so that was a landmark album for us. And of course, ‘Close To The Edge’ was the first album where we attempted to do a long 20 minute piece of music, which was one side of a vinyl album as it was in those days and so that was another landmark for us in our career. And ‘Going For The One’ was an album that was the first album that we recorded outside of the U.K., so that was a whole new different experience for us. And then we thought that the slightly different shades of Yes on those three albums also complimented each other real well too.
I think the pick of ‘Going For The One’ surprised some people who might have expected you to pick something like ‘Fragile’ or ‘Relayer’ to fill that third slot instead. What was it that pushed you towards that one? It’s an interesting period for the band. That’s the first record that you produced yourselves, right?
We pretty much had co-produced everything with Eddy Offord…..not at the beginning, because we were pretty green in the studio, but from ‘The Yes Album’ onwards, we pretty much co-produced everything. And then when we went to do ‘Going For The One,’ we changed engineers to have this guy John Timperley, who was the resident engineer at the studio in Montreux on Lake Geneva where we recorded that. So the sound changed a bit for that album and from what I remember, there were quite a few heated conversations over the amount of echo that was being used by certain people who loved echo at that time and it got a bit much at times. [Laughs]
But yeah, we missed Eddy, I think and his guiding influence that he had, so you’re right, we were kind of out there with a new character at that time and also throwing in more of our own ideas as well, of course.
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