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In recent years it has become increasingly common for bands to tour in celebration of a classic album and play the album in its entirety. Never a band to do things by halves, Prog Rock legends Yes are celebrating not one album, not two albums, but three albums on their current tour.

Are you looking forward to getting back home to play for your UK fans?

We’re on the road around the world an awful lot at the moment and we’re very much looking forward to playing some shows in the UK. It’s been well over two years since we last played there so yes, we’re looking forward to it.

Many bands have played shows featuring a whole album in its entirety. You will be doing three, The Yes Album, Close To The Edge and Going For The One. What made you decide to undertake such an ambitious tour?

We needed to do things a bit differently. We didn’t just want to go on stage and play a song from this album then a song from that album. This is how we’ve always played since 1973. We thought about doing two and playing a few songs from our other records but then we talked about doing three and it just seemed to be such a good idea. This way you’ll buy a ticket and know every song you’re going to hear.

Why did you pick those three albums in particular?

We just felt these three deserved to be done on stage. They each have different challenges and qualities and give a good representation of the band. Going For The One has different sorts of challenges with some lighter sides such as Turn of the Century and Wondrous Stories and also has the rock sides with Parallels and Going For The One itself and also the more serial approach to a song with Awaken, so there’s a moving palette in the music that creates different colours and each of the albums work so well together in the show.

There must be a fair few of those songs that you haven’t played in years if ever. Were there any that you initially had trouble remembering how to play?

Not really, although there was some detail here and there that we had to work on, but the overall shape was still there. We’ve been playing many of the songs on and off over the years but there were a couple, like Perpetual Change, we haven’t played that many times so it’s good to revisit those again.

Yes have always put on a great production to go with the music. What do you have lined up for this tour?

We’ll have projections and lights but it will be quite frugal in a way. I say it will be simple but effective.

Your current line-up features yourself, Chris Squire as always, Alan White, Geoff Downes and new singer Jon Davison. He sounds like a real find. Where did you first come across Jon?

Paul our tour manager knew of him and suggested we check him out. We had other people to look at as well but we knew straight away Jon was right for us. In no time he’d jumped aboard and we headed down to Australia. How he managed to do that in such a short space of time I’ll never know but he was fantastic. It was a difficult time when we realised that our previous singer, Benoit was going to be unable to carry on and we had a tour booked but we were lucky to have found Jon.

You play in Newcastle on May 3. That’s not far from where Alan White was born in Ferryhill. When you’re up here will he be your tour guide for the day?

I’ve been up in Newcastle so many times over the years and know my way around well so I don’t need Alan as a tour guide. Sometimes on tour we’ll go and have a look around and do something, other times we’ll just stay around the hotel or the venue. I always enjoy coming up here though. I did a lot of solo gigs in South Shields in the ’90s.

How far are you on with new material?

We have a new album out in July called Heaven and Earth. It will include eight songs, three of which are almost 10 minutes long, so that gives us the chance to spread out a little. This is our first with Jon and he’s worked really well with us on this. We’re very pleased with it. We also worked again with producer Roy Thomas Baker which was great to do.

You’ve recently left Asia. Was it getting just too difficult to balance the demands of being in Yes and in Asia?

I’d been in Asia and Yes at the same time for four years and it was hard for me to do it for another year. I felt I’d been stretched and squeezed and that I needed to look at it.

Not many people realise that you appeared on Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Welcome to the Pleasure Dome album. What parts did you play on that?

On their first album I did a guitar solo on Welcome to the Pleasure Dome and on Two Tribes Trevor Horn dared me to play the bass parts, which I did. That was such an energetic, powerful song. Years later I asked him if he used any of my parts he said that it was made up of a few people’s versions. So there’s lots of people’s contributions to that song.

Did you play on the follow up, Liverpool?

I did. I played on four tracks on that album. There’s some great songs on there.

You also played the Flamenco solo on Queens No.1 hit Innuendo. How did you become involved with that?

Brian had his shot with it and had done what he’d wanted to do with it but thought that someone else could race about with it and add some excitement to those structures. They jokingly said I could do a bit of Paco De Lucia with it. I could see what they were after so I did some improvising and they loved it. I was so proud to be on that record.

What else have you got in the pipeline in the future?

I’ll be touring most of the year with Yes but I have some of my own solo shows later in the year with my Trio which I’m looking forward to very much. It’s going to be a busy time for me.