Jon Anderson interview: True and the History of Yes

The title of Jon Anderson's new solo album, True , sounds like a statement of intent in an age of disinformation. "As I was writing the lyrics, I kept popping up with 'true' this or 'true' that," says the former Yes singer. "One song is called True Messenger. It comes from my time in Jamaica years and years ago, hanging out with Rastafarian characters. Everything they said was 'true': 'It's true, man.' 'Don't worry, Jon, it's true.'"

Few would have one of prog's founding fathers down as the sort of person who'd be at home rubbing shoulders with a bunch of Rastas in Jamaica, but apparently that was fairly standard behaviour back in the day. "Oh no, being there was wonderful," he says. "I was a huge Bob Marley fan. I saw him at the Rainbow Theatre [in London]. I was in shock at how great it sounded, how great it all was. The audience adored him. And Jamaica, it's cool. You've got to take that mushroom stuff and go up into the Blue Mountains there and channel your higher self."

Anderson has always been a citizen of the world. He spent time in Germany in his early twenties with his pre- Yes band The Warriors (aka the Electric Warriors). Yes themselves helped midwife the entire progressive rock scene, becoming superstars on both sides of the Atlantic via landmark 70s albums Fragile and Close To The Edge and 1983's commercial monster 90125 . But his interest in the sounds and spirituality of non-Western cultures has long fed into his own music, whether with Yes or solo.

Speaking via Zoom from his home in California, and looking a good two decades younger than his 79 years, Accrington-born Anderson is an endearing mix of the earthy and the ethereal. One minute he'll talk in that distinctive Lancastrian burr about his love of football, the next about the "fairies and elves" that live invisibly among us. His former Yes bandmate Rick Wakeman once affectionately said of him: "He's the only person I know trying to save this planet whilst existing on another one."

Yes's career has been less metaphysical, often playing out like a soap opera – Anderson himself has had three different stints in the band, the last of which ended in 2008. He's rightly enthused today by the sparkling True, recorded with The Band Geeks, the backing group he discovered after hearing them cover Yes classic Heart Of The Sunrise online. "It's like a gift from the heavens," says this cosmic hobbit. "Making this album was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. It was effortless."

Let's start with an important question. What meant more to you as a kid: being a musician or playing for Accrington Stanley?

Oh, Accrington Stanley. [Points to the back of his chair] I've got my Accrington Stanley robe here.

What position did you play when you were a kid? You look like a nippy little winger.

Stanley Matthews. Number seven. The trainer told me I played really well, but I had no real boots. He gave me a pair of Adidas boots, which were like gold, but my feet didn't reach all the way to the end of the boot, so I put cotton wool in the toes. The photographs I see of myself, the boots are so big. Like clown's shoes. The trainer was a guy named Les Cocker. He eventually became the trainer for England when they won the World Cup [in 1966].

When did music take over from football for you?

My brother Tony had a band, which I didn't know that much about. They had two singers, Tony and one who left because he wanted to be a hairdresser – this was 1963, the time of Beatle haircuts. So my brother said: "Do you want to join the band?" "Which band?" "We're called The Warriors.' I thought: "I can do that." We delivered milk around the Accrington area, me and Tony, and we sang Everly Brothers songs. We did that with the band – Tony would do Elvis Presley songs, I would do Roy Orbison. We'd do Beatles songs, Hollies songs... As each band became famous, we'd do one of their songs.

Were you ambitious early on? Did you want to become famous?

God, no. I didn't think about that at all until we went to Germany [in 1966]. We followed the Beatle Trail – we played Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt. You'd do two weeks in each place. Surviving that was amazing. I remember the World Cup Final, England versus Germany. We were playing this club in Germany and the owner wouldn't let us have the afternoon off. I said: "But the game is on at three o'clock." So we listened to it on the radio when we were playing. Every time England scored a goal, they threw a bottle at us.

How messy was your time in Germany?

Well, we got into acid and things like that. I listened to Sgt Pepper a thousand times, and I was listening to a lot of Stravinsky, of all things. It was really inspiring. I remember going into the room of the place where The Warriors were sleeping and trying to wake them up: "Come on, let's go and rehearse, I've got some ideas." And they told me to eff off. So I went away and came back a bit later and tried again: "Are we going to rehearse? Are we going to be a bad band? We could be a great band!" And they told me to eff off again. So I went: "Okay" again, and I packed my suitcase and went to live in Munich. The day I arrived, I went to see Jimi Hendrix in a small club.

What was that like?

He was just getting famous and it was incredible. I was living in a cupboard in this place that belonged to these two lovely girls. We had a party that night for the band, and Jimi was there. I was sitting in the corner in my kaftan, beads and bells, totally out of my brain, and Jimi came over and rolled a joint and we smoked a joint.

As it happened, when I was back in London and just starting up Yes with [bassist] Chris Squire, we went to see [saxophonist] Roland Kirk in this jazz club. I turned around and Jimi walked in with his guitar case. I waved at him and he said: "Munich!" He took his guitar and went on stage with Roland Kirk, and for an hour he played the most pure jazz imaginable. I understood jazz from that moment in time.

You put out a couple of solo singles between leaving The Warriors and putting Yes together under the name Hans Christian. But wasn't there talk of you working with an unknown Elton John?

[London club owner] Jack Barrie mentioned him. I didn't know him at the time. Somebody gave me a cassette of his songs. It was okay, but it wasn't for me. And then Jack Barrie turned round one day and said: "You're looking for a band. There's a guy in the corner there looking bored, his name's Chris Squire, go and talk to him." So I went over and said: "How you doing, man?" We talked about the music we liked, and he said: "I have a band, it's called Mabel Greer's Toyshop." I said: "That's a long name.

How much acid have you taken?" And how much acid had he taken?

Enough never to do it again. But he said to come to rehearsal. Unfortunately the drummer had left because he'd got a gig in Paris with another band. So I said: "Let's look for a drummer." We got the Melody Maker and we found an advert: "Drummer looking for a band, van, lovely kit." We said: "He's got a lovely kit and a van. He's gotta be in the band!" And that was [original Yes drummer] Bill Bruford.

You were a couple of years older than everybody else in the band. Did that mean you got to pull rank over the rest of them?

No, it just meant that I knew what to do. Because I was small I was called Napoleon. I would stick up for myself: "I'm from the north of England, don't fuck with me." I just wanted to make great music and I didn't care what you thought – just do it, and if it's bad do something else. Come on, it's not hard. But thankfully Bill and Chris were wild, just brilliant. There was an energy around us.

Did you have any memorable early gigs?

Oh yeah. The first gig, we only had three songs that me and Chris had been working on: Beyond And Before [which eventually appeared on Yes's 1969's self-titled debut album] and two others. So I said: "Let's do a funky version of [Wilson Pickett's] In The Midnight Hour" – which we played for an hour. And that was the show - three songs, then In The Midnight Hour for an hour. But the crowd were dancing to it, so they must have liked it.

The gig that always sticks in my mind is one I did with The Warriors. It was at this funky sort of place in Sheffield. The manager of this place came over and said: [Yorkshire accent] "Ey, you. Would you mind if a friend of mine gets up and sings with your band?" We said: "If we're gonna get paid, then yes, fine." So this guy came over and he said: "Do you know Hit The Road Jack?"

So we're on stage and I said: "We've got this young guy, and he's gonna sing this song." And this guy was amazing. He sounded like Ray Charles. At the end, I looked over and said: "What's your name?" He said: "Joe Cocker." I went: "That was Joe Cocker , remember that name," as though I knew who he was all along.

Did you cross paths with him later?

Oh yes. Yes did a tour with The Who . They were the headliners, then it was Rod Stewart , then it was Joe Cocker, then the next one down was the guy who lit his head on fire [Arthur Brown], and we opened the show. That was an amazing couple of weeks.

I always remember Pete Townshend , he didn't talk to anybody at that time, but he came up behind me and he said: "Jon, I think your band isn't bad. It's quite a good idea for a band." All I could think was: "Pete Townshend is talking to me!" Then he said: "I'm making an album about a deaf, dumb and blind kid. What do you think about that?" And of course Tommy came out a month later and everybody went [mimes head exploding]. Unbelievable record. [Begins singing] 'See me, feel me, touch me...'

How much of a struggle were those early years of Yes?

It was just a question of getting gigs. We had a manager who didn't understand how to manage a band. Nice guy, but he just wanted the money from the publishing. It freaked us all out. After two or three albums, we said: "We haven't got enough music, we can't go into the studio." In London, everyone is everywhere, and suddenly you're in the studio and you're spending all of your time trying to get your act together. I said: "We should just get out, find somewhere we could rent a farmhouse and be together and understand each other." So we went to Devon, and began working on the album that became Fragile. So that was a good idea.

Fragile, and the single Roundabout, really took things to the next level, especially in America. Was there a point when you realised Yes were a big band?

It was very gradual. We found a manager who had ties to America, and then suddenly we're going over there with Jethro Tull [in mid-1971]. They'd had a big record [with the Aqualung album], and the first show was in front of ten thousand people, all looking at me. I was shaking. I could sing a little bit and play tambourine, but that was all. So I watched Ian Anderson , and I saw he had a choreography - he knew exactly how to do something at a certain time in the song. So I went: "Oh, that's how you do it..." Cos I used to stand there like an idiot. [Laughs] I still stand there like an idiot.

The next time we went to America, we were driving somewhere and Roundabout came on the radio. [Excitedly] "We're on the radio!" And then right in the middle, it goes straight to the organ solo. We had no idea about radio edits. We didn't know that Atlantic Records had gone: "Chop-chop, that's a hit." And it was, it was a big hit. Within three months we were playing in front of ten thousand people ourselves.

Did you like fame, or did it mess with your head?

I loved the whole thing. We opened a show for Grand Funk Railroad , in front of fifteen thousand people in a field. I said: "I love America! I love America!" I was so stoned. But I really did love America. It was like going on holiday. I had this cassette player and two speakers in my suitcase, like a boombox. I'd play Sibelius and Stravinsky, Asian music. I'd play my harp and read Herman Hesse, Journey To The East. A couple of the guys would be in the bar – okay, everybody does what they want to do. But I felt really comfortable in my Holiday Inn room. It was just an incredible time.

Who were you close to in the band?

I teamed up with Steve Howe every time I could. I remember very clearly, on the way to breakfast, hearing Steve play a guitar phrase in his room [hums a complex riff]. I had breakfast and he was still playing it. So I opened the door and said: "Can you change the key there, Steve?" So he did, and I started singing: 'Workings of man set to ply out historical life, regaining the flower of the fruit of his tree...' [a lyric from Yes's epic 1977 song Awaken]. It just popped out.

Where did it come from?

I have no idea. I just know that I was in love with life, I was happy with everything, and I sang about it. I didn't dwell on things like: "Why am I doing this?"

It sometimes seems like Yes were as much an ongoing battle of wills as they were a band. Five stubborn people all jostling to be top dog.

There's a great photograph from the studio when we were doing [1974 album] Relayer . Everybody's got their hands on a fader – I've got my hand on my fader with the vocals, Chris has his hand on the one with the bass, Steve Howe, Alan [White, drummer], [keyboard player] Patrick Moraz with their hands on theirs. And then you've got [longtime producer] Eddie Offord trying to get in there and say: "Listen, guys, this isn't working." That sums up Yes.

Rick Wakeman had a collection of expensive cars. What extravagant stuff did you buy?

Nothing, really. I got a very inexpensive Bentley Continental from a guitar player who needed the money at the time. I had a collection of instruments – a harp, a guitar, a keyboard, a little Revox tape recorder where I could repeat things and double them and triple them.

That came in useful when you recorded your debut solo album, Olias Of Sunhillow, in 1976. That was an insane album, in the best possible way – you did everything from playing all the instruments, to producing, to inventing a new language on one song.

Well, it started with Chris and Steve doing solo albums. I said: "Solo means by yourself, so I'm just going to do what I can do myself." I bumped into an old friend named Tony Colton, who did the production of the second Yes album [Time And A Word]. He came to my house and started playing the piano, and I couldn't believe how good he was. He said: "Well I went to music school." And that's what popped in my head: "I'll make an album as though I'm at music school. I'll create the music and I'll do the instrumentation, and I'll give myself a star at the end."

At any point did you think: "Why the hell did I decide to do this?"

There were times. The first month and a half I was so happy. The last month, I actually had a nervous breakdown trying to put it all together. There were four 'tribes' – percussion, stringed instruments, bells and whistles, then the choir comes in. I put them on four different connecting reels and I just could not get them to sync. Five days later I'm still trying to do it. I was enjoying some whisky and I fell down, and I slept in the studio.

I woke up in the morning and I thought: "What happened?" I pressed the mix, and it was perfect. I had no idea what happened or how I'd done it. And I started crying because the emotion of getting through it was so powerful. I was thanking the gods. That's happened a couple of times in my life, where you connect with the divine energy and all of sudden you realise: "I can breathe, it's okay, everything is good."

The whisky probably helped, in fairness.

Oh, it did [laughs]. But I gave up everything when I met my spiritual teacher. I decided to give up the drinking and the smoking and everything. And then I met my wife, and everything became clear, designed. If you're not working on an album, find a band and go on tour.

You left Yes after 1978's Tormato album. Was that a hard decision to make?

No, it was simple. We were trying to make an album in Paris with a producer [Roy Thomas Baker] who had hit records galore. He was worse than anybody else for wanting to be a party rock'n'roll star. He ruined the whole thing. And Alan [White, Yes drummer], who was there with his girlfriend, he went roller-skating and broke his ankle, and that was the end of the whole thing. It was as though this big collision was waiting to happen. We all said: "Okay, I'm going home." And that's what we did. It's impossible to change people when they're partying and the music's the last thing they're thinking about. After ten years of Yes we needed that explosion – I'm going this way, you're going that way. So I went to live in the south of France, and found that I was very creative at that time.

His initial departure from Yes seemed to open the floodgates. Anderson released five albums between 1980 and 1983, two solo (1980's Song Of Seven and 1982's Animation) and three with Greek keyboard maestro Vangelis (1980's Short Stories, 1981's The Friends Of Mr Cairo and 1983's Private Collection). Two Jon & Vangelis singles – I Hear You Now and Can't Find My Way Home – went Top 10 in the UK, while another Jon & Vangelis single, State Of Independence, got an exuberant makeover by disco queen Donna Summer.

Yes's career path is nothing if not eventful, and in 1983 Anderson rejoined the band for their 90125 album, replacing the man who replaced him, Trevor Horn (who would produce the same album). Anderson left the band again at the end of that decade to form a breakaway faction with fellow Yes refugees Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe, but returned to the fold in 1990.

But there was one more huge twist to come in 2008, when the band elected to continue with soundalike singer Benoît David when Anderson was unable to tour after being hospitalised following a severe asthma attack that left him with acute respiratory problems. Aside from briefly rejoining his old bandmates for their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2017, he hasn't sung with Yes since.

After leaving Yes for the first time, you released five albums between 1980 and 1983. That sounds like a man liberated.

Exactly. I was very lucky to meet with Vangelis, and learn how to spiritually and musically evolve. He was the perfect spontaneous musician. He could write a symphony every afternoon. The guy had incredible talent. I would sing with him, and most of the time a spontaneous lyric would come out.

And then you went and rejoined Yes in 1983 for 90125, which was even bigger than anything you'd done before.

That's a little crazy. I was in the South of France, working on a couple of projects for Virgin Records that didn't manifest, really good music that I still have. I came back to London, and I got a phone call from Chris: "Do you want to hear some music?" And he played a cassette of the album that became 90125, which was called Cinema at the time. He went: "What do you think?" I said: "Bloody amazing. I'd change the verses on Owner Of A Lonely Heart, though." And he asked if I'd come in and sing it. He said: "We can call it Yes if you sing it."

What was it like being back in the fold?

It was unbelievable to be a super-duperstar. I loved it. But I wasn't thinking about that. I was being creative. I remember the tour, we hired two kids out of film school in Philadelphia to film a documentary of the tour – one was Steve and the other was Tim. ['Steve' was actually Steven Soderbergh, later director of Sex, Lies And Videotape and the Oceans trilogy].

At the start of the tour, Steve and Tim hired a car and drove to a show in Boston. We stopped for petrol, and next to the petrol station was a cinema showing this film called This Is Spinal Tap. The three of us went and watched it. I couldn't stop laughing – somebody had made a film about us. That whole tour, I just laughed myself silly at the way people [in the band] were behaving. They didn't realise they were being the real-life Spinal Tap.

Yes were almost as combustible as Spinal Tap. You left again in the late eighties, to form ABWH with Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe, then rejoined Yes in 1990.

Yes was very fragile, but life goes on. We recorded the ABWH album in Montserrat [at George Martin 's Air studios]. Steve didn't want to go, but the rest of us had so much fun. We played cricket against the local school. They came over with their whites on and everything. They killed us.

Is it true that you once tried to form a band with Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson?

Yes! Two keyboard players, no guitarist. There were no serious discussions, just two phone calls. But it would have sounded amazing.

No guitarist. I see. What should we read into that?

Your time in Yes seemingly ended for good in 2008, when they toured with a soundalike replacement.

The second time I left... I didn't leave the band, they got a new singer. So I said to my wife, Jane: "I'm going to go on stage with my guitar and tell stories, and we're going to travel the world together." And we did that for two years. It was unbelievable. Yes got a singer and carried on going that way, and it's never been the same.

Does being replaced in Yes still hurt?

No, because I've got my new band together now. I've got the Yes that I wanted.

Without everyone with their hands on the faders.

Exactly!

There was a reunion of sorts in ARW, the band you had with Rick Wakeman and former Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin. It seemed to be going great guns, and then it just stopped. What went wrong?

It's very simple – it was just bad management. People outside making noise. Outside influences made it impossible to continue. Life goes on.

If Steve Howe called you tomorrow and said: "Do you fancy coming back to Yes?" what would you say?

No. Not right now. I actually contacted him and got very little back. But think of the song Still A Friend Of Mine [from True]. So many people I've met, it didn't quite work out, and eventually you say: "I've got to move on. You've got to move on, do your own thing, it's okay. But you're still a friend of mine because we went through so much together at a certain time." Me and Steve, we wrote Close To The Edge.

True seems like a hopeful album. Is it?

Yes. [Quoting a lyric from True song True Messenger] 'Gods of the world all become ascending.' There are so many gods of the consciousness of the Earth mother. Gods and fairies. People don't understand – there are elves and fairies on a different level of consciousness. We can't see them because they don't want to be seen. The fact is they're out there, we're connected to them because the obvious point of being alive is to find the divine within. That's what we're here for, collectively: to make the Garden Of Eden happen on our planet.

That seems like a big ask at the moment.

I dream it. I'm mesmerised by the trees, the flowers, the birds, the bees. Without the trees we wouldn't have anything to breathe. Heaven is here if you want it.

You turn eighty later this year... [Makes pained face.] ...Are you planning a big celebration?

I'm just going to chill. I'll have my kids, my grandkids, all together. We have a friend who has a beautiful house and we'll have a lovely time there.

It seems like you've come through it all fairly unscathed. What's the secret?

A belief system of knowing that we are here for one reason and one reason alone, and that's to find the divine that surrounds us and connect with it.

Will Accrington Stanley ever make it to the Premier League?