Fronting Yes he was one of the architects of prog rock, and now he fronts his own band. But that’s only part of his wondrous story
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.”
