Excerpted from the February/March 1980 issue Yes is one of the few bands who combine exploration of musical art forms with the vitality of rock music. Their arrange­ments are impeccable and their playing skills, superb. What’s more, those guys can cook! Alan White is the man who keeps the band from soaring into the outer reaches of the nebulae. He says of his playing, “I’m pretty much a basic beat. The angle that I always come from when I play is to cater for every instrument in the band individually and collectively, particularly bass. If you’ve got a bass player you can’t work with, you might as well stop it right there and then because the liaison between you and the bass player is most important. It can affect the whole sound of the group and the atmosphere of actually playing with people. “People have recently made drums much more […]

December 2021 Issue