Jon Anderson

TheCelebrityCafe.com: How’d your tour over in the UK go?

Jon Anderson: It was wonderful. Rick Wakeman was in fantastic form. The audiences were really, really respective. It was just me and Rick on stage. And we’d sing a few songs, tell some jokes, sing some more songs, and tell a few more jokes. Some YES classics, and some songs from the new album The Living Tree. And actually, they all sounded very new, the songs that I wrote for YES and the new songs I wrote with Rick. They all sounded very new, very fresh from the tree, The Living Tree. I just made that up.

TCC: Ha ha. That’s great, that’s great. You worked with Rick Wakeman on this new album, The Living Tree, and you obviously worked with him for most of your time with YES. Do you feel like working with someone for so long has helped your creativity?

JA: Oh of course. It was a joy, it’s a great feeling to work with someone that loves music, that loves me, you know, we’re friends. We’re experimental; we don’t just do the old stuff. There’s no point in doing that. We play the YES music like it was written yesterday. And that’s the way music should be. It should be written, and felt, and played exactly like it is in the moment. You know, it’s not dated; music that I write is what I write. You know I may have written it 30, 40 years ago but it doesn’t make it dated, it makes it timeless.

TCC: Do you enjoy your solo work or do you feel like working with others is better, in terms of freedom and creativity?

JA: Well I mean everything I do I think is great, no point in me saying that it’s rubbish. I love what I do. I have a project coming up on HDNET this weekend that I did some young teenagers. So there I am singing with 160 kids, and they are having the time of their life. So what am I going to do, I’m going to have the best time of my life. So it’s a very freeing experience to be doing work with, ah, I do my solo show next week in LA, then I have some more shows coming up on the east coast. It’s just me and a guitar, singing songs I wrote 30 years ago, I mean yesterday. So it’s as though my life is in a really good place. You get to a point in time where you’re life is working perfect.

TCC: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that HD concert. How did you first come to play with The Youth Orchestra of Cleveland back in 2004?

JA: Well, Lisa Grossman, who runs the orchestra, got in touch with me and asked me if I would sing with them, this is about five years ago. And I said yeah, I’d love to and we did a concert. 20 years ago I did an album called Change We Must, which was recorded with the London Chamber Orchestra. It’s a beautiful album and I own all the scores from that, so we went ahead and did a really good show with that, but we didn’t record it. It happens that this year she asked me again, and I said I’d love to. And we recorded it with HDNET and you got the professionals coming in, and they did a great job, you know.

TCC: What about the experience made you want to play with them again? Did you enjoy just playing with them, or did you enjoy teaching them?

JA: Well I think it works both ways. It’s a great sort of blessing to sing and perform with these teenagers, because they want to make music. They loved the music. A lot of them knew YES music already, but they just loved performing the orchestrations because they’re very, very good, and it comes over on the show, which people will be able to buy next year. But they’ll be able to see it on HDNET all the way through Christmas. So it was a really wonderful experience for them, but for me it’s like double that a hundred times.

TCC: You’ve been in the music business for quite some time now.

JA: Yeah, my first band was in 1963 with my brother. We actually got to see The Beatles right before they got famous. And they were incredible!

TCC: Oh wow. That’s really cool. I don’t know if you keep up with the trends in current music, but I wondered what’s your take on popular music of today?

JA: Yeah, I listen to everything. One of the best, is two guys from Australia called The Kin, they’re wonderful. And ah, you know, you see a band here and there, or you hear a record here or there that’s really good. Most of it’s still a pop music like you’d hear on the radio, but there are still young musicians out there creating their own genre of music. And then throwing it on the Internet, you know, that’s the new wave.

TCC: Are you happy with the marriage between music and technology that’s happening now?

JA: Totally! You know, I love technology. I’ve been working with people around the world for the last five years on the Internet. They send me MP3’s every week. I’ve got about two dozen people I work with from Australia, New Zealand, Italy, France, Holland, England, US, Canada, Romania, uh, you name it, I’m working with people all over the place. Just go to my Facebook. I’ve got tons of music on Facebook, so people can hear my new stuff that I’m working on for free.

TCC: In that same vein of music of today, are you happy with the way music is going? Do you feel like each generation should have their own sound?

JA: Yeah, it’s normal. It’s just normal to have musicians… I tour with the School of Rock , so I’ve worked with these kids and they're very, very talented. And they’re scared there isn’t a musical avenue for them. Just use the Internet. Create your own style and get it out there. So there is always going to be change in music. I mean pop music is the same as it was 20 or 30 years ago, same structure and all that. It's fun but you don’t need to bow down to it like it’s the temple of music, the end all, be all.

TCC: Just one last question. What’s your take on the evolution of your music? I listened to your album The Living Tree and it seemed, I guess maybe, tamer than the stuff you did with YES.

JA: It’s simpler. Tamer is a bad word, it’s just simpler.

TCC: Yeah, simpler is a much better word for it.

JA: Have you heard my work with Vangelis; you can go on Amazon and listen to a few tracks. Basically, I’ve been doing so many different types of music, for instance if you listen to my album Change We Must, you know cause it was with an orchestra. Tame isn’t right, it’s different. My music now is different than YES, which was different than my work with Vangelis. My album coming out next spring is very powerful, very soulful. It’s just a progression of music, you do different things every time.

TCC: Is that to keep yourself interested, or because you have so many different interests that you want to do?

JA: It’s more about what I’m going through at that time. When Rick sent me the music for The Living Tree, I would sing about the darkness of war, 23/24/11. I sing about the living tree, because without trees we wouldn’t be living. Because they give us oxygen, but they also give us more than oxygen but that’s supernature. Then there are songs about truth, because of the internet. Because with the internet we’re gaining truth, and we’re getting rid of corruption. But it’s gonna take time. That’s what I’m singing about in those songs. And when I was with YES I was singing the same exact songs, the same sort of perception.

Visit JonAnderson.com. You can also buy 'The Living Tree' at Amazon.com.

Image by Robin Kauffman