Jon Anderson was one of the founding members of the seminal British progressive rock group Yes. The singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist fronted the group throughout the 1970s for a string of commercially successful and musically adventurous albums that included The Yes Album, Fragile (which contained the group's signature song "Roundabout"), Close to the Edge and Tales From Topographic Oceans.
Anderson departed the group for Drama, but returned to Yes in 1983 and led the group back to the top of the charts with 90125 and its smash single "Owner of a Lonely Heart." He served another two-decade stint with Yes until health problems forced him to re-evaluate his extensive touring schedule a few years ago, at which point the band replaced him with a singer from a YouTube tribute group and moved on.
Anderson has just released a new solo album entitled Survival & Other Stories, inspired by his health struggles and recovery. The album features Anderson's collaborations with diverse musicians from around the world, whom he solicited via an ad on his official web site.
As ever, Jon Anderson remains an interview subject like no other rock star interview in the world. In the course of a single conversation we talked about his new album, the true nature of God, man's relationship to the larger world and Mother Earth, the oneness of the human experience, the upcoming Yes album and tour without him, and whether Yes influenced the blockbuster film Avatar.
Thanks to Jon Anderson for this interview, and to William James at Glass Onyon PR for arranging it.
Your latest album, Survival & Other Stories, was recorded via the Internet with people whom you solicited through the Internet. What prompted someone in your position to want to throw it open to strangers?
Over the last five or six years I've worked with young people doing rock concerts, you know. And people are just so damn good. So one day I just thought, 'I'll just put an ad on my web site.' Because whoever contacts me, they know who I am, and they're excited to do stuff, so why not?
Within about two weeks I had a couple of hundred people send me a minute of their music. So I sort of sifted through it. You know, you listen to music and you know within twenty seconds whether it's good in terms of sound, quality of production, chord sequences . . . you get a feel for it. So I contacted the people that I would be happy to work with and asked them to send me more music. That's how I started working with them.
How does that extend into making a whole song or several songs with somebody when you're in different locations? How do you collaborate via the Internet?
Very simple. If the music works right away, I won't listen to the whole thing. I'll just put it onto my computer, on my Logic, and set it up, put the microphone up and just sing, like a spontaneous event. Very much like I used to do with Vangelis, where the music was pretty much spontaneous. It wasn't like we had to work on anything. It's a different way of making music. You don't have to sit down and work out chord sequences or anything. If it works, the melody will come.
Was there any point where you said to any of your collaborators, "I like this part, but I don't like this part - can we cut this, and maybe go here . . ." or did you just work with exactly what they sent you?
No, you're correct; I would edit some parts, and say, "This sounds like a better idea, can you repeat this section again, maybe add some hand drums, take out the rock drums?" You know, you talk to them very openly and just say, "This is how I feel about it."
Some of the music came in just perfect. I'd say seventy percent is right on the money, and thirty percent you've got to work on. I've been doing this now for about five years, so I've got enough music now for about five or six albums. But it's all different music in terms of some electric guitars, some acoustic guitars, some big production music very much like the Survival album. But then there are other pieces of music which are very indigenous music. I worked with a few people on Asian music, African music, and Native American music.
So this is something you intend to stretch into a series of albums, not just one?
Yeah, oh yeah, because it's like an adventure on many levels, and I'm in that time of my life where I'm just excited to be in creation, rather than . . . you know, I've done the band thing for a long time, and when you work with a band you're like a brotherhood, and you're working for them. You're working to try and make them move in different directions, and you're trying to work for them. Now I'm sort of working for . . . lots of people! (Laughs).
Is this a scenario where you're working with people that, some of these people I assume you've never met?
Yeah, most of them. Now and again I'll see people on Skype. But I'm working with some people on North African music, and now and again we'll talk on the phone, but we normally email each other. You work with people on so many different levels.
When you first started getting responses, when you called these people back initially, did any of them turn out to be huge Yes fans that just flipped out because you got in touch with them?
For sure they were all Yes fans. That's for sure. They went to my web site, so they must be interested in what I've done and what I do. I think that was the key, to find people who are interested in what I've done and know that I'm ready to push the envelope even further.
Yes music has a certain energy, you know? So on Survival there's a certain Yes energy here and there, obviously because of me. I'm the singer, and I'm the songwriter. It was easy to do, like the second song is just me and an acoustic guitar. [This project] is like being in the University of Music.
I want to talk to you about some of the specific tracks from this record. "New New World," why did you make that the lead track for the record, and do you regard it as a statement of purpose for the whole album?
I think it's a statement of purpose for my whole life. I nearly died three times in 2008, and when you go through those experiences, you realize that you're blessed every day that you wake up. My world changed, my life changed, and with the help of my wife Jane I was able to survive.
We were in Paris last year, and Jamie Dunlap sent me the music for "New New World," and I just went, "Oh gosh, is this music cool!" I sang it into my laptop, I have a studio in my laptop now. So I was able to do a vocal performance in this apartment in Paris and send it back to Jamie. And Jamie works with South Park, he does music for South Park. So I liked it, and he liked it, and we worked on it and finished it up. So that was the beginning of something, and I didn't know what.
In songs like "Understanding Truth" and "Big Buddha Song," I get the sense you're saying a similar thing in those, that all gods are ultimately one. Is that the idea you're trying to put across?
Yes. We all know that. (Laughs). I think everybody knows that, but we're surrounded by the dogma of religion instead of the purity of God being all that is. You know, God doesn't have a religion, He's just all. We are God, we are in the image and we have God within. So we don't have to look for God outside. He's within you. And I think our wisdom masters have tried to tell us that. As one would say, I don't think Jesus got his thing going to say, "Now I want you to build a church for me." No, no, no . . . he was just telling the truth. Love one another as I love you. And that applies to everybody, not just Christians. (Laughs).
We are all in Christ's energy. We are all in the divine plan. We are all on the sacred journey, if you want to put it into some very spiritual words. And I like to sing about it, so that's what I do.
"Love of the Life," was that inspired by the big oil spill?
Oh yeah, and the greed of the one percent of this world that controls the world financially. It's that one percent that has a stranglehold on the human experience. And it's kind of wrong.
Somebody asked me the other day about the line in "Big Buddha Song" about the sand. "Count the profits of the ones all out to get you/Passing out the words that force the first command." That's all about Afghanistan and Iraq. "See the balance of the earth is in the sand/See the balance of the earth is in your hand." That's oil.
So you're talking about the big war profiteers and the big oil profiteers.
Right. And the children of the world that are being blown up emotionally. Especially when you think about Baghdad, when we bombed there, think about these two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old kids. Now they're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old, and they were blown up emotionally. What kind of people are we, doing this to our children? And we have Buddha, Krishna, Jesus and Muhammad to say, "We are the way. We are the light." It's a hard metaphor, but I'm trying to say it doesn't work.
And that's why . . . people always say, "Oh, Jon Anderson, the lyrics are all light and dreamy." No, I go for the jugular all the time, but people don't quite get it sometimes. Because I feel strongly about the cruelty that we do to our children, the slavery of children, the sexual slavery that's going on in this world. What a disaster waiting to happen. So we're slowly, slowly changing that concept of the world, and we're slowly, slowly moving into a better understanding of our oneness of being.
Recent studies seem to indicate that climate change, as well as the wholesale extinction of many species, are taking place even faster than scientists had initially predicted. Do you believe there's time enough in front of the human race for us to turn it all around before we completely destroy ourselves?
Well, the earth is all-powerful. So Mother Earth can do anything, can change anything at a whim, as it just did in Japan. So we are not destroying anything. We are at the behest of Mother Earth, because we are Mother Earth. We are forgetting, we're dust to dust; we are physically from Mother Earth. So what we do to Mother Earth, we just do to ourselves. So in some ways we must move toward collectively thinking that we must move toward embracing the energies of Mother Earth and the animal life of Mother Earth, and understanding the indigenous teachings of Mother Earth as part of our growth away from materialism.
We must change. And it's not like I'm telling you anything new. Everybody knows it.
I think more and more people are realizing that we needlessly consume far, far too much. It's becoming more obvious that it's unsustainable.
Right. Well, to move back into the love of Mother Earth is to move back into the love of self. To move back into the love of the oneness of being.
Let me ask you about "Sharpening the Sword." I assume that's another lyric that's about your own life in some way?
When I was going through my difficult illnesses, I had this operation. And my teacher would say, "Jon, you're being sharpened. You have to go into the fire and be sharpened like a Samurai sword." To prepare me for the work that I'm gonna do.
This was a very painful experience, going through the trials and tribulations of being in hospital, and realizing there are so many people there in hospital, and they're still there, most of them. It's a very difficult life for a lot of people, and I was just in there for a short period of time. But it was like sharpening the sword.
Did your illness change your own perspective on your career?
Yeah. I'd been getting sick earlier, two or three years earlier on the last Yes tour I was coughing a lot because of this problem I had with my lower stomach. I was coughing and coughing, and then on stage I was fine because of the adrenaline. So I asked the guys, and Rick was the only one who understood, because he's had some illnesses in his life. But I said to the guys, "What I need is a break, and then can we do something more like a semi-acoustic album and a more relaxed touring schedule. This constant touring is actually doing me in." And they didn't like that.
You think people are with you, and then you realize they're not. Everything is more disjointed within a band situation. But you get on with your own life. You say, "Okay, I'll do some solo shows. I'll learn to be a solo artist."
So I started doing some shows with acoustic guitar, and actually started using MIDI guitar, because I still felt like I had to be surrounded by sound, and music and rhythms. But eventually I started doing just acoustic guitar, dulcimer, and piano, and I've found myself as a solo artist now. I can actually perform on a big stage or in a small club, or a little theater. I've done all of that now, so it's a really good experience. But getting really sick was that moment that made me think, 'I have to take care of myself. I can't just pretend I'm 40 years old or 50 years old.' Or 25 and going crazy out there, being a rock and roller. No. I have to be conscientious about my health.
It's funny, I do a two-hour show, and I'm talking and singing the whole time. I expend more energy than I probably ever did with Yes. But there's more to it . . .the band has agents, and managers. It's this big 20-ton, 25-person project.
It's an equation. They plan a tour and they say, "If we do this many shows, this close together, at this rate, we'll have this money in, with this much capital outlay, and the resulting profit will be this."
It's a big business. But I enjoy getting to work on this level. I'm more interested in the adventure of music. And why aren't we all thinking this way? But of course, times change.
Yes has a record coming out, I think it's next month, called Fly From Here. Have you seen any of the promotional clips, heard any of the music, and if so what do you think of it?
I just heard it a little bit the other day, and thought that, what's his name? The singer?
Benoit David.
He has a beautiful voice, he sings very well. But the music to me sounded very dated. It didn't really inspire me.
Does it bother you that they're out there playing and recording with a guy - not to knock him, but he is a guy from a tribute band, literally.
Right. A couple of bands have already done that, anyway. Journey, and somebody else. It's very simple. Initially they should have told the fans, "This is the lineup: Chris, Steve and Alan, plus other people." But they didn't do that, and that was my only frustration.
I understood that they had to make a living, they had to get on the road. That's what they do.
One more question. I've had a lot of fans write to me and ask me if I was aware of the Avatar/Roger Dean/Olias of Sunhillow conversation that's going on among the Yes fan base. Are you aware of what I'm talking about?
No.
A lot of Yes fans are saying that a lot of the visual elements of the film seem borrowed from Roger Dean, and maybe some of the underlying plot points are rooted in Olias of Sunhillow. In looking at the film, do you personally see any Yes or Roger Dean influence in it?
For sure Roger Dean. For sure. He should have gotten a name check on the movie. The movie is ginormous. The movie is glorious, I cried all the way through it twice. It relates to what we've talked about. It's a fantastic movie. The only thing that doesn't work through repetition is the war factor, the war against the indigenous people. We've seen all that before.
It's interesting in light of what we've talked about. We're all trying to get that adrenaline when we go to a movie, and that adrenaline, you can get it from other things, more visually. I'm looking forward to when we start letting go of that old story and start creating a new story that will create that same adrenaline that you get from watching horror movies or scary alien movies, and you're getting that same adrenaline from watching glorious visual experiences.
It's around the corner, I think that's where we're heading. It's the next stage of our conscious experience, because things like Avatar touch millions of people. And it's a great story, that the animals will come back and save the lives. And I believe that if you look at it as a metaphor, if we get back into nature, and understanding the pure beauty of nature that surrounds us without judgment, and that we are part of that experience - the Earth Mother - then we will elevate our mind and state of consciousness.
As you can tell, most of the news right now has to do with the Weiner. (Laughs).
Everybody loves a big scandal.
Right. And we're so into the scandal of people. The great thing that's happening right now, to me, is that we're finding out about the people that are corrupt. The real corruption is coming to the surface. There's so much corruption in America, there's so much corruption around the world. It's all coming to the surface thanks to the Internet, and thanks to the younger people who are saying, "We don't like corrupt people."
We want basically what everybody talked about in the Sixties. We want the golden age of the human experience. For everybody to be sharing the planet. It can be done. It just takes time.
Is there anything else you want to say about your record or anything you have coming up?
I think I've said everything now! (Laughs).
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