fantastic singer, plus Alan is feeling a lot
better, a lot healthier from the back surgery
h had a couple of years ago. And this time,
we’ve got Tony Kaye with us, as well, and
he’s a great person to have on board since
he was part of the original band.
splintered off. But Drama did really well,
and we made an impression on a lot of the
diehard fans, who kept saying, “Aren’t
you guys coming back? You’re really sup-
porting our eclectic dream of Yes.” That’s
the way some people saw it. And certainly
from my standpoint, having done that Yes
tour really opened the door for me. We
worked so well together. It really opened
the door for (Howe’s band), Asia.
IE: What has Yes taught you?
GD: It’s just been a fantastic experience.
And it continues to be so. It’s a constant
learning curve. We’ve covered most of the
07•2018
albums now, and all of the albums are dif-
ferent, whole different chapters of Yes.
And it’s a fantastic story, really – a band
that’s survived 50 years and continues to
go forward and makes good music. Just
that in itself is an incredible achievement.
IE: How did you end up rejoining Yes in 2011?
GD: They had Trevor come in to produce
the Fly From Here album, and the material
they were using was some stuff that I’d
written with him many years ago, like the
track “Fly From Here” itself. So Trevor
suggested that I come in and play key-
boards on it. And during that, the guys
came up to me and said, “Would you like
to stick around and play on the whole
album?” So that’s how I finally got back
into Yes.
IE: Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, and Rick
Wakeman are undertaking a Yes 50th
Anniversary Tour, also.
GD: Yeah. And good luck to them. They do
their thing, and we do ours, but certainly,
our version of Yes is the one that we con-
sider to be definitive, even though it does-
n’t have Jon and Rick. But Steve and Alan
started back up in 2008, and we’re just
going to keep going because we really
enjoy it, and we’ve got a really solid band
at the moment. And Jon Davison is just a
IE: It’s still weird looking back on how
you all first teamed up. Because back in
1980, New Wavers and prog rockers pretty
much despised each other.
GD: Yeah, I think so. But those were really
exciting times. And I don’t think the music
business is exciting anymore. Back then,
there were all these different styles of
music, all happening at the same time, and
it was really refreshing. And we’d have a
band like Yes right next to, say, The
Buggles. But nowadays, everything is all
stylized, and there certainly isn’t that mul-
titude of styles anymore. And it’s just sad.
Tom Lanham
July 13
Between the Bur