DAYS BETWEEN STATIONS WITH: Peter Banks, Rick Wakeman, Billy Sherwood and Tony Levin

Today Sepand Samzadeh of Days Between Stations tells us about the song "Eggshell Man" from their brand new album "Extremis". Here is the story:

This is a track featuring the late Peter Banks, Rick Wakeman, Billy Sherwood and Tony Levin, and is the seventh track in our concept album 'In Extremis'. The concept being, the story of a man at the point of death (the Latin definition of 'In Extremis') with his memories whirling around him. The album, in not so chronological order, follows the story of this man, and by the time Eggshell Man appears, the protagonists empire has crumbled. As much he tries to persevere, he keeps falling down. The title comes from the neurotic obsession Oscar and I had developed, by this time, to finish the album… my wife kept saying she was walking on eggshells around us. It is also loosely based off of the Humpty Dumpty fable, which Paul Whitehead depicted in his own fashion in the album artwork.

As the guitarist for Days Between Stations, I wanted to record an acoustic guitar track for the first time. In addition, I was excited to play a Persian lute, named a Tar, on this song. This instrument was part of my many influences growing up and I had always dreamed of introducing it as a Rock worthy instrument to a Western audience. The Persians use this instrument in the classical genre of their music, namely Sonati. Ali Nouri lent his talent on the tar solo on this track, and we really had a great deal of fun recording this with him. The song really fell into place organically.

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CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM YES AT GONZO

Union (Standard DVD) DVD - £9.99

Union (2CD) 2CD - £7.99

Rock Of The 70's DVD - £12.99

The Lost Broadcasts DVD - £7.99

LINK: Days Between Stations + Peter Banks, Colin Moulding, Rick Wakeman, Billy Sherwood – In Extremis (2013)

In a strange and beautiful coincidence, Days Between Stations was working on an album about birth, life and death with Peter Banks in the time just before Yes’ co-founding guitarist passed. But the truth is, In Extremis would have been a triumph, anyway — and a curt rebuke to those who say the best days of progressive rock are behind it.

Working primarily again in an instrumental format, keyboardist Oscar Fuentes and guitarist Sepand Samzadeh (who founded Days Between Stations in 2003) paint a stirring, deeply impactful narrative, using broad musical strokes that connect across prog, ambient and orchestral traditions. The results are, at times, memorably beautiful, at others unbearably sad — like a life lived fully.

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‘Very special stuff’: Billy Sherwood polishes up some final sessions by Peter Banks for Prog Collective 2

Producer Billy Sherwood is substantially finished with the star-flecked Prog Collective 2, which will include some of the final recordings of Peter Banks, the original Yes guitarist who passed earlier this month.

The track “Tomorrow Becomes Today” features Banks, keyboardist Larry Fast (Foreigner, Peter Gabriel) and vocalist Sonja Kristina (Curved Air), with Sherwood on bass, rhythm guitar, drums and synthesizers, Sherwood says, viaFacebook. Banks “delivered overdubs a few weeks before he tragically passed away,” Sherwood added.

Prog Collective 2, to be issued by Cleopatra Records, also includes guest appearances by Rick Wakeman, John Wetton, Allan Holdsworth, Chris Squire, Derek Sherinian, Colin Moulding, Roye Albrighton, Gary Green, Mel Collins, Steve Hillage, John Wesley, Steve Stevens, Tony Kaye, Jordan Rudress, Fee Waybill, Steve Morse, Patrick Moraz, and others.

Sherwood is performing songs from the original Prog Collective project this week on the Moody Blues Cruise, with members of his regular band Circa. He will also appear with Eddie Jobson of UK fame in April at the Baja Prog Festival.

Like Sherwood, Squire, Wakeman, Moraz and Kaye are current or former members of Yes. Sherwood co-leads Circa with Kaye, and previously was part of Conspiracy with Squire. He’s worked as a producer with Wetton (Asia, UK, King Crimson), and with Nektar’s Albrighton, as well.

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CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM YES AT GONZO

Union (Standard DVD) DVD - £9.99

Union (2CD) 2CD - £7.99

Rock Of The 70's DVD - £12.99

The Lost Broadcasts DVD - £7.99

Peter Banks RIP: Jon Anderson pays tribute

Peter Banks, July 15, 1947 – March 8, 2013

Jon Anderson has paid homage to fellow Yes founding member Peter Banks, who died March 8 at at age 65.

Anderson told Premiere Radio Networks’ Sal Cirrincione: “Peter was in good spirits the last couple of times we spoke, even though he had been in bad health of late, but always joking and still ready to create music. I will miss him.”

Anderson also confirmed it was Banks who originally came up with the ‘Yes’ moniker.

“It is true, he was the one who said: ‘Yes, we should call the band Yes.’ Bless him… a sweet guy… and a wild guitar player.”

The current line-up of Yes issued this collective statement: “We are deeply saddened to learn about the passing of fellow bandmate and founding Yes member, Peter Banks. He was a huge piece of the fabric that made Yes what it is and our thoughts, sincere condolences and prayers are with him and his family. Peter, we shall miss you greatly.”

The pioneering guitarist had been referred to as an “architect of progressive music” and as a cross between Pete Townshend and Wes Montgomery.

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ROLLING STONE REMEMBERS PETER BANKS

Peter Banks, Tony Kaye, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford and Jon Anderson of Yes

Gilles Petard/Redferns

By RJ Cubarrubia

March 12, 2013 12:35 PM ET

Peter Banks, best known as the original guitarist of Yes, died last Thursday in his London home from heart failure. He was 65. Banks was reportedly found after failing to show up for a recording session.

After playing with bassist Chris Squire in the Syn, Banks and Squire helped form Yes in 1968. Banks played with Yes through their first two albums, 1969's Yes and 1970's Time and a Word, but disagreements over the direction of Time and a Word led to Banks' dismissal from Yes before the album's release.

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A TRIBUTE TO PETER BANKS

Peter Banks, original guitarist for progressive rock legends Yes, has passed away, confirms former band member Billy Sherwood. Banks, 65, played on the first two albums by Yes, suggested the name and even created the band’s first logo. He was the initial Yes member to be fired, starting a long string of ugly departures, and he is now the first to pass.

“As a Yes fan, this is sad news indeed,” Sherwood said, via Facebook. “It was an honor to work with Peter on many productions. He will be missed.”

Banks was part of both Yes’ 1969 eponymous debut and the 1970 follow up Time and a Word, having first played with stalwart bassist Chris Squire when they were in the Syn — a precursor to Yes, it turns out, in more ways than one.

“When I joined Syn I inherited the Rickenbacker which belonged to the previous guitar player, John Painter,” Banksonce said. “I remember feeling bad about that and it was a bit strange. I actually went to see some Syn gigs with John Painter playing that Rickenbacker guitar and then they got rid of him and I came in. Other bands would do the same thing, particularly Yes, they’ve kind of used people and then when they’d found somebody better they would just say: ‘OK, we’re getting rid of you.’”

[SOMETHING ELSE! REWIND: 2011's 'Endless Journey' by ANT-BEE gave us one of our last chances to witness the underrated Peter Banks, and the underrated stylist made good on the opportunity.]

Banks would split with Yes just before its breakthrough release, 1971′s The Yes Album, replaced by Steve Howe. Banks later formed Flash (which briefly featured former Yes bandmate Tony Kaye), issuing three albums under that moniker through 1973.

By then, Banks had moved on to a jazz-rock outfit called Zox and the Radar Boys, which featured Phil Collins of Genesis. Banks’ debut as a leader, called Two Sides of Peter Banks, included Collins, John Wetton (Asia, King Crimson) and Steve Hackett (Genesis, GTR). Banks would eventually issue five solo albums, with the latest being 1999′s Can I Play You Something — which focused on pre-Yes recordings from 1964 through 1968, including music from the Syn and even an early version of the Yes track “Beyond and Before.”

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PETER BANKS WITH ANT BEE

“Endless Journey,” a thrilling little space-rock number by ANT-BEE, begins appropriately enough: With a countdown and then a rocket launch. The unmistakable tone of Peter Banks’ guitar floats by next — and it’s a transfixing moment, above and beyond the other spooky sounds that follow, from a trickling keyboard to these otherworldly humpback whale calls.

Banks, guitarist with Yes over its first two albums in the late 1960s (Yes and Time and a Word), recorded his parts some time ago as ANT-BEE, led by drummer and producer Billy James, continued work on the just-releasedElectronic Church Muzik — its long-awaited followup to 1994′s Lunar Muzik. More recently, Banks has suffered through a series of health problems that diverted a planned U.S. tour in which early Yes songs were reportedly to be performed by Banks and the band Ambrosia.

His relationship with James (drummer on Steve Vai‘s ’93 debut Flex-able) includes their co-written book Beyond and Before, a comprehensive retelling of Yes’ early years, and you can sense that symbiosis on this standout track.

It’s funny, though. “Endless Journey” is not necessarily representative of this new ANT-BEE project, which more often follows the avant-garde template created by Frank Zappa — and elsewhere includes both “Living,” originally on Alice Cooper‘s 1969 album Pretties for You; and Todd Rundgren‘s 1974 cut “Don’t You Ever Learn” featuring Napoleon Murphy Brock on lead vocals. Too, those looking for the extraordinary flights of daring that Banks displayed on Yes’ cover of the Beatles’ “Every Little Thing” from its 1969 debut, or the brilliant “Lifetime” from Flash’s overlooked 1972 gem In the Can, won’t find those kind of pyrotechnics, either.

And, really, there’s more to ANT-BEE than Peter Banks. Boy, is there: James’ group is actually a floating amalgam that also includes members of Zappa’s original Mothers of Invention band (Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, Buzz Gardner, James “Motorhead” Sherwood and the late Jimmy Carl Black appear elsewhere), Rundgren’s Utopia (Moogy Klingman), Alice Cooper’s original group (Michael Bruce) and Captain Beefheart‘s Magic Band (Zoot Horn Rollo and Rockette Morton) as well as Brock, who also played with Zappa in 1970s, among others.

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THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Peter Banks (1947-2013)

Guitar Legend Peter Banks Passes – July 15, 1947 – March 8, 2013

London, UK - Best known for his innovative and unique guitar work with YES and Flash, as well as his own critically acclaimed solo albums, guitar legend Peter Banks passed away at his home in London on March 8, 2013. Banks, a founding member of the ground breaking progressive rock group YES, performed on the band's first two albums, 'Yes' and 'Time And A Word'. He would go on to form Flash and release 3 well-received albums (Flash, In The Can, Out Of Our Hands), along with several successful tours of Europe and the US, culminating in an appearance on the widely watched late night American TV show 'The Midnight Special'. With an admitted fondness for improvisation, music critics touted Banks as a cross between Pete Townshend and Wes Montgomery. Even Pete Townshend, one night after witnessing a YES performance, walked up to Banks, slapped him on the back and said, “You're great!”

After Flash, Peter Banks would form the band Empire in the mid '70s and eventually release 3 albums 'Mark I' 'Mark II' and 'Mark III'. During his career, Banks would release 5 solo albums (Two Sides Of..., Instinct, Self-Contained, Reduction, Can I Play You Something?) and had been active in recent times working with acts such as Harmony and Diversity, Prog Collective, ANT-BEE and Days Between Stations. Banks first solo album 'Two Sides Of Peter Banks' has been considered by many as one of the great 'prog' records of all time and features an all-star line-up of Jan Akkerman, Phil Collins and John Wetton. In the early 2000's Banks wrote his autobiography 'Beyond & Before' published by Golden Treasures publishing in the US. Peter was putting on the final touches of the log awaited live recording 'FLASH - IN PUBLIC' CD set for release on Cleopatra Records at the time of his passing.

"I loved working with Peter on the many records I have produced over the years, he always delivered amazing stuff, creative, inspires and always with that classic original YES flavor that came with his playing. He will be missed by me and many many other fans of his music and playing." - Billy Sherwood

Peter Banks will always be remembered as one of the pioneers of progressive rock guitar and will be missed by musicians worldwide.

Peter Banks - July 15, 1947 - March 8, 2013

The image, (Peter is the one on the right) by the way, was sent me by Billy from Glass Onyon who wrote: "this is one of the last photos - it is of him and his manager and longtime friend George Mizer".