YES

Rip It Up, Issue 173, 1 December 1991, Page 12

YES

Keyboard player Tony Kaye spoke recently about Yes past and present and what it’s like to be in three different line-ups of the same group. Tony is relaxing at home in Hollywood after taking partin a series of concerts which celebrated the assemblage of eight musicians who have all contributed greatly to Yes in its 23 year history. s

- Rehearsals began in January for the Union tour which started in April and finished in late August covering some 80 dates around the world. However, there are plans to continue the tour to further reaches of the globe. ; “We're talking about maybe just after Christmas coming to Australia, South America, South Africa and Japan. | hope it comes off because I'm looking forward to playing those places. The band hasn't played down there (Australia) since ‘73 and | wasn't in the band then so | haven't had the opportunity to play there.” Will there be a live album or video released to document the eight piece Yes line-up together on stage? “Quite a lot of the shows were’ recorded and | definitely think there are plans fo do something live. | don'tknow about when because we've got the box set (Yesyears) that’s just been released.” Were you skeptical at first about the whole Union idea? “| was, yes, | think most people were. It was kind of an unknown thing whether we could all play together and how it was going fo be staged. The whole thing was treated a little skeptically in the beginning. | mean there was going to be two of everything exceptforJohn (Andrews) and Chris (Squire) soit was certfainly interesting.” How have things worked out with you and Rick Wakeman since then? “It was great. In fact we were probably the easiest to come

together. It was certainly easier for keyboards than it was for the drummers or guitarists. We had lots of scope fo really do individually what we'd been doing over the years and it seemed to work quite easily really. We didn't really work anything out a as a matter of fact, we just kinda played what we each thought we should play.” Like Steve Howe and Trevor Rabin on guitar or Bill Bruford and Alan White on drums, the playing styles of Wakeman and Kaye are vastly different. Theres also great contrast in the musical equipment they use with Tony preferring a much simpler set up on stage. “One of the disagreements | had with the band in the beginning was that | didn't really want to use the new keyboard technology that was ‘coming out because | didn'tlike the equipment. Of course by the time we'd got the band together recording the 90125 album MIDI had been developed and ~ keyboards took on a whole new thing. | so very much got into the technology of keyboards. | find it very comfortable programming all my understage keyboards to be controlled by two keyboards on stage as opposed to Rick who has single keyboards mostly on stage and whizzes around from one o another. | like to create all my sounds and have them patched up underthe stage.” _ Were you only three years old when you had your first music

lessons? “Yes, maybe earlier than that actually. My grandmother was a concert pianist and she had a piano in her house. We lived around the corner from her and when | was one or two years old my parents used to take me over there. She sat me at the piano and initially taught me how to play. She was very old and died soon after that and from there | went with private teachers. | studied classical until | was seventeen before | went to college. I'd been playing in early rock bands, big bands and traditional jozzy bands and I'd just had enough of classical music at that point. | was then playing with different bands and went to Europe for the early part of the sixties. | eventually ended upin London - about 1965 when that whole scene was happening with the beginnings of the Marquee. That’s how | bumped into Chris and Jon, we became drinking partnersinthe pubs and clubs around Wardour Street.” - Kaye was the original keyboard man in Yes but was replaced by Wakemanin 1971 after the group’s

third release The Yes Album. He went on to make music with his own band called Badger but in 1974 decided to change his lifestyle and move to America. After seftling in Los Angeles he worked with Bowie on the Station To Station tour and then teamed up with old friend Michael Des Barres to form Defective. In 1981 a surprise change of events saw Kaye link up again with bassist Chris Squire and bandmates White and Rabin for a project tentatively titled Cinema. When singer Jon Anderson also re-joined the group it became the ‘new’ Yes. How did it happen that Kaye once again found himself amember of Yes, a decade ofter shifting from the group? “I was recording with an English band called Badfinger in Miami and just as it happened | was living in a villa that was next door to where Chris’s family was living and when he came to Miami to play a concert we met up again. He suggested at the time that he was thinking of putting Yes back together again and it wasn't long after that he phoned me. He'd teamed up with Trevor in

England who was over there to audition for the ASIA band and Trevor ended up in Yes instead. He was living in Los Angeles and we met up here and then we both went over to England and started the whole thing up again.” The resulting album was of course 90125 which became the band's biggest seller to date with a single (‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart) reaching the number one spot. The success continued but when Anderson left after the Big Generatortour things got somewhat confusing. He reformed with ex-Yessers Bruford, Wakeman and Howe so there were in effect two Yes groups on the planet. Miraculously, they all joined forces in 1991 for a most accomplished re-Union tour but what are the chances of all eight musicians recording new material in the studio together? “| think it's a possibility. We've certainly been talking about it.

We've all recently signed with Arista and they definitely want an album from us. Its not going fo be that easy to have eight people do an album

but maybe in somewhat of the context of what the last album was. The two different factions were recording separately and it was brought together very quickly so maybe something like that will be done. After we've been on the road next year it will be a little clearer.” As usual no-one really knows what the next Yes will sound like but when you hear it, you'll know — it could only be Yes.

GEOFF DUNN