From: Henry Potts <henry@bondegezou.demon.co.uk>:

"As described before by Sullivan, he kindly sent me a copy which I have
transcribed. If Yesman or anyone would care to archive it, please do so."
*********************************************

MELODY MAKER
September 27, 1980
Page 24

CONFESSIONS OF AN ASTRAL TRAVELLER

In his first interview since leaving Yes, JON ANDERSON talks to Allan
Jones

The Riviera's sunshine attracts them every year. Come June, they lock up
the house in Holland Park and move south with the children for a couple
of months on the Cote d'Azur. "It's a mass exodus," Jon Anderson said.
"We look like one of the tribes of Israel . . ."

This year, Jon thought they might've stayed in London. But it started,
well, you know, to *rain*. Didn't look like it was ever going to stop.
South they came again -- first to St Paul, in the hills overlooking
Nice, then to St Jean-Cap Ferrat, where they found a villa overlooking
the harbour.

While they were waiting to move into the villa, Jon and his wife Jenny
moved the family into the Grand Hotel. Ankling across the lobby one
evening, Jon recognised Elvis Costello, decided to go over and introduce
himself.

"He was very . . . very *Elvis*Costello*, I suppose," Jon would tell his
friends, and they'd all laugh. "He just jumped up looking very
suspicious, you know. We didn't have much to talk about, really. I just
wanted to say hello... But he was down here on his hols, I was just down
here on my hols, I didn't really want to start talking shop, you know.
Anyway, I imagine he hated Yes and was probably embarrassed.

"I can't understand why he's so reluctant to talk to people. He must be
very wary of everyone. The more successful you get, the more guarded you
become about what you say. You've got to be very discreet, people quote
*everything* . . . I remember saying something quite off-the-cuff once,
didn't really think about it. Next thing, of course, it's been printed
in an article. It was terrible. I didn't cry about it, but I didn't
sleep for three nights, just thinking about it, worrying about what I'd
said . . ."

Ah: sometimes our lives dance to a very cruel tune.

"Eventually, you learn to live with it," Jon Anderson said, wearily
resigned. "You begin to understand that bands go through three distinct
phases. When you start, you know, you're unknown and people think you're
hip. Then you become successful, that's the second phase. Then there's
the *third* phase . . ."

And what's *that* all about?

"Oh," Jon Anderson said. "That's when all the *persecution* starts and
you sit down and wonder just what it is you've done that's so *wrong*."



The afternoon I turned up at the villa in St Jean, Jon and Jenny were
out. Jenny's younger brother, Garry, was there with some friends. They
were listening to a tape of Jon's solo album, "Song Of Seven".

Garry liked the new album more than anything Jon had done for years,
certainly preferred it to the recent Yes album which he thought merely
re-cycled a lot of old Yes ideas with no particular flair.

"They've just stood still. Jon's moved into the Eighties," Garry
announced confidently. "Don't *you* think so," he asked.

I told him I thought the album was a step in the right direction. At
least it didn't sound like you had to dress up to listen to it, unlike
all the laboured epics Anderson has contrived with Yes.

I'd been listening to the new album on the morning flight from Paris.

Despite some inevitable affinities with Yes, "Song Of Seven" had sounded
surprisingly refreshing. I welcomed it for that. The day before, I'd
spent over 12 hours wrestling with the entire collection of Yes'
recorded works. I finally had to send out for a stretcher.

The further Anderson had strayed from the kind of cosmic contemplations
that had characterised his contributions to Yes, the more I liked his
album. I didn't think I'd ever learn to live with its more sentimental
moments, and the mystic inclinations of the title track with its
chirping kid's chorus had me looking for the exit. But "Don't Forget",
with its New Orleans' horns and its lovely scat-vocal coda was winning.
And "Heart of the Matter", a Tamla-derived roustabout with a thrusting
Jack Bruce bass line, robust saxophone and swaggering vocals was a minor
revelation.

There seemed hope for Jon Anderson yet.

If he could only learn to dance . . .



Anderson finally turned up at the villa looking as neatly groomed as a
model in a mail order catalogue.

Charming, utterly courteous, perhaps a little nervous, Anderson settled
quickly into conversation.

What had been the general reaction to the new Yes album? Had there been
any reports from their American tour? He hoped they'd done well,
emphasised that he still felt a great affection for the group and its
achievements.

His new manager, Jannis Zographos, a thin-faced Greek who also manages
Vangelis, listened intently to this opening exchange, puffed anxiously
on his pipe. Anderson began to relax; he was certainly more humorous,
less intense than I'd expected. He started talking about some songs that
he'd written on the last Yes tour with Rick Wakeman. He seemed to relish
the fact that they'd been considered too off the wall for Yes: one had
been about a dentist, another had been a reworking of Randy Newman's
"Rider in the Rain", written from the viewpoint of the horse.

I could scarcely believe this kind of banter, began to warm to him.

His voice is soft and husky, coloured by a distinct Lancashire accent.
He recalled his earliest involvements with rock'n'roll, playing in local
groups in the north west; remembered the days when Yes humped all their
own equipment, played dodgy gigs in seedy clubs for ten quid a night,
travelled the country in clapped-out Transits, survived only on
enthusiasm and motorway fry-ups.

"People forget that we actually went through all that," he said. "We
were just like every other group starting out. No money, cheap digs,
sleeping in the van. It was no easier for us than anyone else. Just
because we made a bit of money later on, we became targets for all those
people who wanted to slag off everyone who'd become successful. But we
worked for it. Nobody gave us our success, we earned it . . . There was
no reason for us to feel ashamed."

He didn't sound at all pompous, but he was still capable of sounding
wildly precious and not a little wet; what my mother would call half-
soaked, I think.

At one point, we'd been discussing Michael Herr's Dispatches. Anderson
went on to explain how he'd always be caught up in the atmosphere of a
really good book.

"I remember when Yes were touring America," he said. "After the gigs,
I'd just want to get back to the hotel room and get really stuck into
some Tolkein, put on something by Sibelius in the background and rally
get into it . . ."

Never much of a Hobbit man myself, I just stared at my toe-caps,
wondered when someone would offer me another drink; suggested we might
as well start the interview.



Christmas was on the horizon: Yes were in Paris where they intended to
record their new album. The band hadn't met for two months, but as far
as Jon Anderson could see everyone was in good spirits, eager to start
work on the record.

As he usually did, Anderson had arrived for the sessions bursting with
ideas for the album, specific concepts and directions already planned
out. He wasn't altogether surprised when the group admitted a certain
reluctance to pursue these new ideas. Two or three years ago, he'd tried
to steer them toward electronic music and they'd rejected the notion
forcefully. It was only to be expected that there'd be some friction;
the group had always taken some pride in its ability to thrash out
conflicting ideas, its talent for synthesising individual ideas.

This time out, however, a deeper rift was emerging.

"Very quickly, the mood changed from enthusiasm to frustration and then
complete confusion," Anderson recalled, the memory of the ensuing
acrimony still pinching. "It became apparent that things weren't coming
together. It was a very difficult period for everyone. We knew we
weren't cutting it, and when you're not doing it, when it's not
happening, you tend to clutch at straws. Try this, try that, try
*anything*. But nothing would hang together, whatever we tried. It just
didn't seem that it would ever work itself out. When these things didn't
seem to be happening, an obvious feeling of doubt and uncertainty spread
through the group."

Reluctant to evoke the mood of those abortive sessions in any detail,
Anderson quietly confesses his disappointment that the group rejected
his ideas, even though they were unable to define an alternative
direction for themselves.

"It's only natural that I should have been disappointed. These were
ideas I'd been working on to present to the band. I thought they'd
provide the next step in the group's musical direction. I hoped the
other members of the band would enjoy working on my ideas. Evidently,
they didn't."

And you felt affronted?

"No. Disappointed. You see, I thought I'd done a good job to that time .
. . yeah, a good job in leading the group, if you like. Gently coaxing
them through various changes. Whichever way it's taken, I thought my
role in the band was to motivate the group. Through songs that I'd
written or through songs we'd written together. I was always open to
ideas wherever they came from. I thought we should have been able to
resolve any problems within the group, by talking them out, discussing
them.

"But it was becoming more evident that we didn't fit together as a group
as we had done before. We didn't seem to be working towards the same
end. All the ingredients that make up the kind of group that's going
along happily, making music that's interesting each member of the band -
- these things were missing.

"At that time, I didn't think it would end with me, or anyone leaving. I
thought we could have worked something out. I was prepared to follow any
direction, if it worked, to keep the group together. But nobody could
come up with that direction . . . I knew I could find other ways of
expressing my own ideas. I didn't think I was in a dead-end with Yes,
you know. I'd done an album the year before with Vangelis ('Short
Stories'), and that had been very encouraging.

"Just the way we did it was exciting. It was done in a week, it was very
enjoyable, very spontaneous. With Yes, it had never been like that. We'd
have to have meetings to discuss what we were going to do, construct
formulas so we all knew where we going before we even started. I'd been
thinking for some time that it would be great to work more
*spontaneously* as a group. I'd talked about this a lot to them,
suggested more open and more expressive music. It just didn't get
through.

"I felt there was a need just to *get*on*with*it*, play some music.
Sometimes the music suffers when you look at it too closely, constantly
analyse it. I thought it might be time to do something on a slightly
*smaller* scale."



Christmas arrived: Yes left Paris where they'd been trying to record
their new album. Anderson says that no decision about their future had
been taken, but there remains the suspicion that the rest of the group
had already made up their minds that if Yes was to continue, it would
have to continue without ol' Jonjo.

The group met again in February. Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Alan White
put down the rhythm tracks for the music that would subsequently emerge
on "Drama". The lyrics Anderson wrote for these new tracks was, however,
judged unsuitable. Exit Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman.

"I'd never really wanted to become a solo singer," Jon Anderson said.
"But suddenly, I had no choice . . ."

So was he pushed or did he jump?

"There was some gentle persuasion," he said softly. "But I don't think
that going into that kind of detail is relevant. It just happened. I'm
not trying to hide anything. They didn't ring me up and say, 'Jon,
you're fired.' And I didn't ring them up and say, 'Hey, I'm leaving.'
Things weren't happening between us.

"I felt we'd reached a point where we weren't communicating properly. I
thought we should take a break, get back together later. They disagreed
and I was no longer a member of Yes. They obviously didn't think they
needed a break. I thought it would give them a chance to get in touch
with a lot of other musicians, find some new ideas, new music, fresh
inspiration. Really, I thought that was the only way for the band to
stay together. Like you said earlier, some groups get into a set routine
and before they know it, the routine kills them. The group's momentum
slows down, they go into a decline, mentally, physically and musically.
And that's it. Over.

"If they can recognise the symptoms and say, "Hey, wait a minute, what
are we *doing* to ourselves? Let's step out of this for a while, before
it's too late. We can always come back to it later . . .' Some groups
have done it. The Who did it. The Stones have done it. That's why
*they're* still together."

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[contd. in another post  :  Anderson1980.2.txt ] 
-- 
Henry