Saturday 26 July 2014

Geoff Downes Interview: Prog Rock Masters Yes Explore the Black and White World of Dichotomies on "Heaven & Earth"

Yes
A native of England, Geoff Downes, along with Trevor Horn, formed the British group the Buggles during which Downes played multiple keyboards to achieve a new wave techno pop sound. In 1979, they released their first album with the hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star,” which was No. 1 on the singles charts in sixteen countries, and the music video was the first to be shown on MTV.
Downes and Horn joined Yes (founded in 1968 by Chris Squire and Jon Anderson) in 1980, but the band split the next year, so he joined forces with guitarist Steve Howe (from Yes), bassist/vocalist John Wetton (from King Crimson) and drummer Carl Palmer (from Emerson, Lake & Palmer) to form the group Asia. In addition to recording and touring with Asia, Downes has also recorded a number of solo albums and collaborated with many other artists.
“[Heaven & Earth] is more of a general statement of two opposites working together. Certainly in some of the songs, you get a kind of push and pull of two extremes, so it has more to do with that. It doesn’t actually have any specific religious undertones.”
While currently active with Asia, Downes has also finished three albums with John Wetton and reunited with Bruce Woolley and Trevor Horn in 2010 as the band the Buggles performing “The Lost Gig” to raise funds for the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability. In 2011, he participated in the recording of the new Yes album Fly From Here and rejoined the band as a full-time keyboard player.
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